Catherine's Animals: Ledner Combines Cool Wallpaper With Cute Animals.

Above: photographer Catherine Ledner and friend

I love animals and I love wallpaper, so it stands to reason that I'd be a fan of Catherine Ledner's photos and prints of animals in front of wallpaper. I first discovered her work on NOTCOT when they featured her book, Animal House and the NY Times slideshow that accompanied it. Now her fab photos are for sale as chromogenic prints.




With a keen eye for color and composition, she sells a limited series of the prints in various sizes (100 of 11"x14" at $250, 20 of 16"x20" at $500, 20 of 20"x24" at $750, and 10 of 32"x40" at $1700) that feature domestic and farm animals, birds and wildlife posed in front of fabulous contemporary wall coverings.

Here are a few of my favorites (she has many more!):



















The photographer's bio (from her site):

Catherine Ledner was born in New Orleans. After graduating from NYU with a degree in film, she worked in television for a year and a half. She then worked as a studio manager for a photographer in New York, which led to her eventual move to Pasadena to study photography at Art Center College of Design.

She graduated from Art Center in 1994 and since then has built a great base of clients who hire her for her innovative style and ability to work well with subjects. She loves photographing all types of people and revels in the experience of working in different environments.

Some of her clients include Visa, HP, Arco, Microsoft, IBM, Graco, Kodak, Nissan, Alliance, Adobe, CDW, McAfee, Hyatt, Sharp, Allsteel, Entertainment Weekly, Travel and Leisure, W, Bazaar, New York Times Magazine, The London Observer, Newsweek, Dwell, and Premiere.

She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband Kyle, her son Winston and their dogs, Dodger and Little Bear.

See them all and buy some of her fabulous Chromogenic Animal prints here.

Bottega Veneta Does Dishes: Introducing Intreccio Svenito Porcelain Dinnerware

Bottega Veneta, which is owned by the Gucci Group of French company PPR, has also teamed up with KPM (Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur KPM), the porcelain company famously acquired in the 18th century by Prussian King Frederick the Great, for a range of dishes featuring a hand-painted version of the intreccio motif -- starting prices at around 85 euros.

The collection incorporates their famous woven leather motif, only hand painted upon porcelain to give a very unusual look and style.

Introducing Intreccio Svanito:













And don't forget, they make stunning woven leather chargers, placemats, napkin rings and more to compliment their new dishes.



And if you really want to fork out some dough, buy their dining room furniture to compliment your new dishes!



Visit the Bottega Veneta website to learn where to purchase and to see all of their fabulous items.

Fu*k Me! Shoes: Chelsea Arts Club Artists Put Their Best Foot Forward

The Chelsea Arts Club of the UK had a combination auction burlesque show of artist decorated shoes (Terry de Havilland platform wedges) called Fu*k Me! Shoes in 2006. Although 2 years old, the feats (feets? lol) of art are still worth sharing.

The shoes were auctioned off on june 29th, 2006 in aid of the Chelsea Arts Club Trust, Trinity Hospice and Artists General Benevolent Institution.

The contributing artists were:
Allen Jones, Sir Peter Blake, Sandra Blow, Gus Cummins, Frank Phelan, Bruce Maclean, Peter Edwards, Christian Furr, Stella Vine, Sarah Lucas, Patrick Hughes, Ralph Steadman,David Shrigley, Olly & Suzi, Rupert Gatfield, Brendaon Neiland, Richard Evans, Don Smith, Stuart Luke Gatherer, Bill Jacklin, and Gray Jolliffe.

Cindy Sherman's Madame Pompadour Limoges Porcelain

In 1990, photographer/model/ artist Cindy Sherman created this Limoges porcelain 21 piece tea service in a limited edition after the original design commissioned by the MADAME DE POMPADOUR (nee Poisson) in 1756 at the Manufacture Royale de Sevres.




Sherman's image of herself as Madame de Pompadour was transferred onto porcelain through a complex process which requires up to 16 photo-silkscreens. Each tureen and platter is silkscreened and painted at Ancienne Manufacture Royale, fired on four different occasions, and then individually signed and numbered.







The edition, which was published by ARTES MAGNUS, is still available for purchase at various sites (see the end of this post) in the traditional 18th century colors of apple green, rose, royal blue or yellow and is limited to 75 in each color version.

Part of the present Rococo exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum the tureens and platters are also part of permanent collections at museums such as the MAD museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum, The Tate museum in Liverpool, the Schein Joseph Museum of Ceramic Art. The Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art and others.


Above: Madame de Pompadour (née Poisson), 1990
30-piece porcelain dinner service, including six each of presentation plates, dinner plates, salad plates, rimmed soup bowls and dessert plates
Dimensions vary
Edition of 75 in each of four available color options
$7,000
Available for purchase at Artware Editions here.
Or at Artes Magnus here.

A bit about Cindy Sherman:


above: Photograph of Cindy Sherman, by Mark Seliger, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York, NY, USA

Artist's Biography:
Cindy Sherman was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey in 1954 and graduated from State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976. In the late 1970s, Sherman began a series of black and white photographs, which she named Untitled Film Stills, (1977 to 1980), and were first exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, Texas in 1980. The series cemented her position in post-modern photography and since then Sherman has continually worked to challenge the boundaries of the medium. In almost all of her works, Sherman acts as model, photographer, and director, and alters her appearance beyond recognition through makeup, prosthetics and costumes.

Although she began her career using black and white photography, Sherman transitioned to color film in the early 1980s. Her use of costume and makeup challenged the way in which portraiture was considered. She further challenged conventional means of viewing the human form in 1992 with her Sex Pictures series, which involved life-sized prosthetics as models in contorted and gender-crossing positions. In her recent work, Sherman has reintroduced herself as the model. From fairytales and history portraits to horror films and the nostalgia of the 1950s and 1960s films, Sherman consistently examines a woman's role in society and questions the ways in which the viewer looks at and identifies with the woman portrayed.

Her work has been shown throughout the United States and Europe, and Metro Pictures in New York has shown her work since 1980. In 1997, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California held a retrospective of her work, Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, and in 1999, Sherman was the recipient of the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, which recognized her influence on photography from the late 1970s onward. She lives and works in New York.

the unofficial Cindy Sherman site.