A couple of months ago, BJ and I visited our friend and nearby neighbor Bradley at his studio located at the University of Houston. It came at the tail end of his MFA thesis show, and we were so excited to see his sketches and other show going on upstairs. Stepping into his space, I was immediately flooded with memories of my undergrad studio and I hit with a little bit of envy. I miss having a small space, piles of books, scraps and little mementos that seemed to precious to throw away but their fate still undecided. I love his use of color and pattern, refreshing take on still-lifes, and the textures of his collage and paintings especially those made by scraping thin lines into the wet paint. The first piece is one our favorites, a sweet save the date Bradley created for his and Whitney’s upcoming wedding. Check out more of his work here. As I approach my two months of summer break, I feel motivated to carve out a space of my own and create.

All photos taken with my phone*

2nd photo by angel

Here’s a flyer I put together for them. I’m still brushing up doing layout and text, but the doodles were fun!

Josh Cochran for The Borrower

Christopher Silas Neal for May B

Captivated by these one of a kind Folki pieces by Fanny G.

So excited to see our friend Geoff‘s work featured in ND Magazine. They are even more beautiful in person. More here.

Photo by Matt Cashore

National Gallery of Art

And from their permanent collection, I’m always in awe with the Greek Myrtle Wreath c330-250 B.C and a few of the sculptures on the first floor.

1. For some, it’s Mt. Everest | American Disability  Association
2. What goes around comes around for | Global Coalition for Peace
3. Air pollution kills 60,000 people a year | Natural Resource Defense Council

On a slightly similar note, thank you, Jennifer for the smart reminder/tip about helping with Japan’s long term earthquake relief efforts, especially as we continue to learn more about the aftermath and where help is most needed.

Gregory Thielker shows us a world lighted less by the sun than by the red glare of brake lights and traffic lights. It’s an overcast, halted place. Here everything—which is to say, nothing—seems to occur under rain clouds or the cover of nightfall. If we’re not waiting on the road, we’re in parking lots. This inert realm outside the vehicle is refracted through patterns of rainwater: waxy droplets, lattices, and sheets of rippling liquid. Thielker’s lyrically fractured vision lends a sense of mystery and activity, a fugitive spark of life, to the quiet routine of a country locked in its own cars.

Alexandra Pacula gazes outward from a quintessentially New York point of view: a taxicab window. She presents a sunless setting, too, though in her images we find more headlights, neon signage, and peeks into brightly lit interiors. Lights, in other words, that approach us and invite us in. Little can be seen clearly because the passage of time blurs and bends the scenes like memories. Clarity doesn’t attract Pacula. She prefers the delights of the deceiving mind—and camera. Watching the glow of storefronts and passing cars and street lamps melt into twitchy trails of color, after all, one thinks of long-exposure photographs and their disloyalty to reality. Her paintings likewise rebel. They side against the frenzy and fluorescent vertigo of the city at night, rebuilding blandly busy moments as absolute visual spaces into which the beholder can escape.

—B

Available at Anthropologie and in silver and brass on their website.

Speaking of jewelry, I wish I could be in NYC this week for this Hannah Clark sale and Odette Open Studio.

hatip: design*sponge

Yelena Byksenkova‘s Private Lives Series.
Lots more beautiful work to see in her blog and shop. Check her out!