But one month before I did that I flew to LA, where I saw part of the Pacific Standard Time series of exhibitions, made my annual pilgrimage to The Museum of Jurassic Technology and had my first fitting for my wedding dress (note the socks – classy). I’m using my mom’s wedding dress, which means we’re taking the whole thing apart and using it for material.

Then I drove up to central California, or, as my Ota calls it, God’s country, and saw all my grandparents. My Ota told me my fake blonde hair was no good. In fact, he used those words. “It’s no good, honey,” he said. “Your hair and face blend into one color.” Here are my lovely Oma and Ota with my mom at their house in God’s country.

A dutiful granddaughter (who realized after two months of being blonde that it was truly not my best decision), I sought to rectify my oversight. Here’s the before and after:

Much better as a brunette, methinks. And no maintenance!

Back in Pasadena, I letterpressed the time away. Tatiana flew out from Texas to work on our lecture and help make a little booklet of our favorite humor pieces called “Warning: This Book Contains Pictures of Assholes.” You can follow our lecture blog (it continues!), Are We Having Fun Yet?

Then I letterpressed the graduation programs for my class, Winter 2012.

My mother’s hand. She helped me set all the type.

Then it was time for Christmas. No live tree again this year – we prefer tree-shaped cut-outs from sustainable, recyclable cardboard, thank you very much. Mama and I made the most delicious seafood gumbo for her birthday, Christmas Eve (when I gave her the best birthday gift ever, a vintage OED, complete with magnifying glass and all!) and lobster fra diavolo for Christmas dinner with a buche de noel for dessert (yes, I strayed a bit from the raw food thing, but I made up for later at VCFA, where the food was so bad I had no choice but to hug the salad bar all week). Here’s my beautiful mother, looking gorgeous in a new dress, cooking her own birthday dinner (I helped prep, I promise).

Then I boarded a plane for Vermont, where I spent lots of time being all emotional and huggy with my fellow corrivals, but even more time alone, up in my room, practicing my lecture and rehearsing for my reading, which I waited anxiously for all week. I’ve commented to my friends that this was a much different residency – granted I was graduating – but I didn’t factor in that it would mean I’d spend less nights up all night carousing and more nights going to bed well before 3am so I could rise early and rested to soak in all the lectures and readings I possibly could. I wish I had done a little more carousing, but all the rehearsing paid off in the end. Besides, that just means I’ll have to go back this summer to visit and make up for said missed carousing.

New Year’s Eve lantern ceremony

Jessica, Fallon, Anna and I only had time to go to Kismet for breakfast once, on the last day of res.

And later that day we got all dolled up to graduate!

Proof.

]]> http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/how-i-spent-my-christmas-vacation/feed/ 0 http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/flying-sculpture-little-shining-man/ http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/flying-sculpture-little-shining-man/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:05:54 +0000 Perrin Drumm http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/?p=1785 Continue reading →]]>

The Little Shining Man is one of the most magical-looking things I’ve seen all year, and it’s an appropriately uplifting note on which to end 2011 and begin 2012. It’s literally uplifting, actually: it’s a kite. Crazy, right? It looks like a heavy, ginormous block, and with over 23,000 individual components you’d never think it could fly, but it’s made of carbon fiber rods and nylon connectors that secure “a hand-made composite fabric normally used for yacht sails.” [Read more...]

Even before the digital printing trend hit runways, Stéphanie Baechler has been transferring her collages to fabric for many years now. She’s made patterns for Reem Acra and Isaac Mizrahi, but more recently she’s been making these eye-catching tromp l’oeil fabrics. She pins colored scraps of fabric to a wall, takes some photos, cuts out the photos and makes a collage with the images. Then she transfers that collage to fabric – so it’s an image of fabric on a piece of fabric.

I dug through the rest of her website (she also weaves, embroiders, screenprints, makes wallpaper and theatre costumes) and came up a lovely little inspiration board of sorts.

]]> http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/texture-study-stephanie-baechlers-trompe-loeil-fabrics/feed/ 0 http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/texture-study-how-cork-is-made/ http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/texture-study-how-cork-is-made/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:00:06 +0000 Perrin Drumm http://perrindrumm.wordpress.com/?p=1743 Continue reading →]]> Click to view slideshow.

This incredible photograph by Daniel Michalik led me to a story Core77 ran a few months ago about how cork is made. Does everyone know how cork is made except me? I knew it came from a tree, but beyond that I had no idea.

Michalik is a Brooklyn-based designer who specializes in working with cork. “Obsessed with finding new ways to shape the material, he spent a week traveling around Portugal to document how cork is made from the independent harvesting farms in Alentejo, to the country’s largest cork manufacture, Amorim, where all the scrap material is used as biomass fuel to power the plants.”

“300,000 tons of cork is produced globally every year and 52.5% of this comes from Portugal. Harvesting a crop can only happen once every nine years. It’s critical to peel the bark off carefully as damaging the new layer underneath will destroy the trees value, highly skilled workers use a special axe called the Machada and can strip a tree in about 10 minutes.”

I’ve had images of Jessica Wohl’s “Mountaire Hotel” floating around my desktop for two months now. I’ve been unable to shake the visceral response the hair-covered staircase elicits. I keep imagining my whole body sliding down step after step of slippery, synthetic hair. Yeah, it’s a gross feeling, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It reminds me of the first time I saw Meret Oppenheim’s “Object” at MoMA. I love that damn cup. When I saw it in the museum, sitting there all nonchalant on its glassed-in pedestal, I was transfixed. I bought the post card in the museum gift shop and have kept it on my desk ever since.

The folks over at the incredible blog It’s Nice That, recently interviewed Wohl.

[From It's Nice That. Interview by Rob Alderson]

Sometimes you come across images that provoke a visceral response – and so it is with Jessica Wohl’s Moutainaire Hotel. The Tennessee-based artist – who originally trained as an illustrator – created this fascinating hairy staircase in an abandoned hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, using (thank goodness) fake follicles. The power of the piece is almost overwhelming – I am compelled to look and then repulsed by what I see in a never-ending loop of response and reaction. We caught up with her to find out more.

Hi Jessica, tell us how did this project come about…

The Mountainaire Hotel is a striking example of Art Moderne architecture in Hot Springs, and truly is a structure that people are always curious about. Being abandoned for 20 years, Low Key Arts – a non profit arts organisation – initiated a two-day exhibition of installations in the empty hotel. I was fortunate enough to be one of the artists invited to participate.

What was the effect you wanted to achieve? Where did you get all the fake hair from? 

I’m interested in the secret lives of people and structures, and in this case, wanted my work to exemplify the life that was temporarily being brought into these abandoned buildings. My installation implies growth in this dead space, and if growth is implied, so too is life.

This life can be interpreted as some kind of spirit, and spirits in houses are always unsettling. So that’s the effect I was shooting for – something unsettling and beautiful that would make viewers consider the new energy being brought into the space.

I got the hair from the African American beauty supply. It’s filled with wigs and hair extensions – divine. I suppose the sadness I feel over not being able to pull off wearing any of this hair myself was finally put to rest.

What were the responses to it like?

Most people thought it was creepy. Many asked if it the hair was real, and they were curious about how I made it. Overall, I think they were surprised by it; as you came down the hall, you only see a small grouping of tendrils peeking out around the corner. Out of curiosity, they would approach it for a deeper investigation, and then seemed shocked that the hair cascaded down the entire staircase.

When did you realise you wanted to do more than just illustration?

I knew immediately after graduation from college that I wasn’t cut out for commercial work. I just wanted to make what I wanted, and didn’t want to be told what to do. When I found a way to use art as a form of expression, rather than as a way to illustrate someone else’s ideas, I was sold.

You’re based in the American South which obviously comes with strong cultural connotations – how, if at all, do these inform your work?

I’m going on my fifth year in the South, and in many ways am still processing what it means to live here. The part of this culture I am most fascinated by is the degree to which people manicure, compose and present themselves and their immediate environments.

I’m always trying to figure out what’s within, underneath and behind these facades, and this culture is prime real estate for my curiosities.

What’s next for you?

Blonde hair coming out of my fireplace, spilling out into my living room. And a large scale portrait project where I’m painting the invisible people (custodial staff) who maintain the university that I teach at.

I’ve had images of Jessica Wohl’s “Mountaire Hotel” floating around my desktop for two months now. I’ve been unable to shake the visceral response the hair-covered staircase elicits. I keep imagining my whole body sliding down step after step of slippery, synthetic hair. Yeah, it’s a gross feeling, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It reminds me of the first time I saw Meret Oppenheim’s “Object” at MoMA. I love that damn cup. When I saw it in the museum, sitting there all nonchalant on its glassed-in pedestal, I was transfixed. I bought the post card in the museum gift shop and have kept it on my desk ever since.

The folks over at the incredible blog It’s Nice That, recently interviewed Wohl.

[From It's Nice That. Interview by Rob Alderson]

Sometimes you come across images that provoke a visceral response – and so it is with Jessica Wohl’s Moutainaire Hotel. The Tennessee-based artist – who originally trained as an illustrator – created this fascinating hairy staircase in an abandoned hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas, using (thank goodness) fake follicles. The power of the piece is almost overwhelming – I am compelled to look and then repulsed by what I see in a never-ending loop of response and reaction. We caught up with her to find out more.

Hi Jessica, tell us how did this project come about…

The Mountainaire Hotel is a striking example of Art Moderne architecture in Hot Springs, and truly is a structure that people are always curious about. Being abandoned for 20 years, Low Key Arts – a non profit arts organisation – initiated a two-day exhibition of installations in the empty hotel. I was fortunate enough to be one of the artists invited to participate.

What was the effect you wanted to achieve? Where did you get all the fake hair from? 

I’m interested in the secret lives of people and structures, and in this case, wanted my work to exemplify the life that was temporarily being brought into these abandoned buildings. My installation implies growth in this dead space, and if growth is implied, so too is life.

This life can be interpreted as some kind of spirit, and spirits in houses are always unsettling. So that’s the effect I was shooting for – something unsettling and beautiful that would make viewers consider the new energy being brought into the space.

I got the hair from the African American beauty supply. It’s filled with wigs and hair extensions – divine. I suppose the sadness I feel over not being able to pull off wearing any of this hair myself was finally put to rest.

What were the responses to it like?

Most people thought it was creepy. Many asked if it the hair was real, and they were curious about how I made it. Overall, I think they were surprised by it; as you came down the hall, you only see a small grouping of tendrils peeking out around the corner. Out of curiosity, they would approach it for a deeper investigation, and then seemed shocked that the hair cascaded down the entire staircase.

When did you realise you wanted to do more than just illustration?

I knew immediately after graduation from college that I wasn’t cut out for commercial work. I just wanted to make what I wanted, and didn’t want to be told what to do. When I found a way to use art as a form of expression, rather than as a way to illustrate someone else’s ideas, I was sold.

You’re based in the American South which obviously comes with strong cultural connotations – how, if at all, do these inform your work?

I’m going on my fifth year in the South, and in many ways am still processing what it means to live here. The part of this culture I am most fascinated by is the degree to which people manicure, compose and present themselves and their immediate environments.

I’m always trying to figure out what’s within, underneath and behind these facades, and this culture is prime real estate for my curiosities.

What’s next for you?

Blonde hair coming out of my fireplace, spilling out into my living room. And a large scale portrait project where I’m painting the invisible people (custodial staff) who maintain the university that I teach at.

When I flew out of NY last week, the encroaching winter chill was evident in a city overrun with people bundled up in those loathed Michelin Man parkas and fleece earmuffs. Today I’m in Pasadena, where the high is a brisk 65° and the low a chilly 44°. I don’t think four years in NY makes me an official New Yorker yet, but I still think it’s weird to see people walking around here in California in only long sleeve t-shirts (and maybe a scarf) in mid December. I’m actually having a really hard time ‘getting into the spirit’ of the season, as they say. Maybe it’s as I feared and I’m becoming a Scrooge more quickly than I thought, but really I just think it’s the weather.

So maybe it’s my effort to psyche myself into feeling warm and cozy when it’s not cold outside that led me to unwittingly compile images of richly textured knits on my reader. Whatever the reason, these are some real beauts.

The other day I wrote about “Unspun,” the latest collection by textile designer Dana Barnes on Design Applause. I’ve long been a fan of her creative use of fabric and traditional techniques. Some of her pieces are made with crochet needles the size of rolling pins, and all her pieces are made of natural, unspun fibers bonded together by specially developed felting processes. Her work is big and breathtaking (as is her NY apartment).

Holly Berry’s textiles are decidedly brighter and more practical, but it’s her grey and neon color palette that I love most. In fact, all of her designs are based off morse code for the word ‘love.’ Yeah, it’s a little hippie-dippy, but I don’t care what it spells out in telegraph language, these are some gorgeous blankies.

When I flew out of NY last week, the encroaching winter chill was evident in a city overrun with people bundled up in those loathed Michelin Man parkas and fleece earmuffs. Today I’m in Pasadena, where the high is a brisk 65° and the low a chilly 44°. I don’t think four years in NY makes me an official New Yorker yet, but I still think it’s weird to see people walking around here in California in only long sleeve t-shirts (and maybe a scarf) in mid December. I’m actually having a really hard time ‘getting into the spirit’ of the season, as they say. Maybe it’s as I feared and I’m becoming a Scrooge more quickly than I thought, but really I just think it’s the weather.

So maybe it’s my effort to psyche myself into feeling warm and cozy when it’s not cold outside that led me to unwittingly compile images of richly textured knits on my reader. Whatever the reason, these are some real beauts.

The other day I wrote about “Unspun,” the latest collection by textile designer Dana Barnes on Design Applause. I’ve long been a fan of her creative use of fabric and traditional techniques. Some of her pieces are made with crochet needles the size of rolling pins, and all her pieces are made of natural, unspun fibers bonded together by specially developed felting processes. Her work is big and breathtaking (as is her NY apartment).

Holly Berry’s textiles are decidedly brighter and more practical, but it’s her grey and neon color palette that I love most. In fact, all of her designs are based off morse code for the word ‘love.’ Yeah, it’s a little hippie-dippy, but I don’t care what it spells out in telegraph language, these are some gorgeous blankies.

Even if you’re not a fellow VCFA student, please chime in on topics like your favorite Woody Allen movie, my favorite joke, Bridesmaids, poop, gross-out humor (yeah, there’s a theme going there) and so much more!

Allandale House, a so-called “Cabin of Curiosities,” is an A-frame vacation home for “an idiosyncratic conoisseur and her family,” one that collects “wine, rare books, stuffed birds and an elk mount.” Yes, it’s the best copy from an architect’s website we’ve read in a long time, too.

It doesn’t surprise me, however, coming from William O’Brien Jr., a young assistant architecture professor atMIT and principal of an independent design practice in…[read more]