The Eames are everywhere. Design blogs spill over with images of their iconic furniture. They’re stars in LACMA’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition, California Design, 1930-1965: “Living in a Modern Way (as well as others).  Ice Cube professed his admiration for them. But as a new documentary shows, though they may have started with a chair, their real impact lies in the multi-faceted nature of their work and the unfettered creativity they brought to their four decade long career. Like Ice Cube said, “They were doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed.”

A few months ago, Richard McCoy – the IMA’s Conservator of Objects and Variable Art – and Tricia Gilson conducted a two part interview on Art21′s blog with Daniel Ostroff, a consultant for Herman Miller and producer/editor of EamesDesigns.com, a website rich with information about the Eames and their work. If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s a must-read (part one here, part two here).

The IMA will continue the celebration of this dynamic duo tomorrow with a screening of Eames: The Architect and the Painter in the Toby at 7pm. Come and see if it sparks any ideas of your own. As Charles Eames said, “Ideas are cheap. Always be passionate about ideas and communicating those ideas and discoveries to others in the things you make.”

Filed under: Design, Film, Public Programs, The Toby

Phil’s Pharmacy prescribes the following links to combat Monday online anemia.

Henry Wessel: Anything that Catches my Eye – A short ArtBabble video of photographer Henry Wessel talking about his philosophy on photographing and luck. Example excerpt,  “you can do things to prepare yourself to receive the good luck.” Note: In a couple weeks I’m taking a vacation and heading West with a car, guitar, and camera. If you’re feeling lucky, prepare yourself.

Wataru Ito: Castle on the Ocean – Tedium is the message. Learn a few folds for yourself on ArtBabble. Swallow. Duck. Sparrow.

Charles + Ray Eames on TED – Good work to the Internet for making this TED video show up on Digg.com. TED is definitely a cool site, but c’mon, this talk is over two years old. There’s way fresher Digg-able design content on ArtBabble : )

Monday Music – “I Wonder Who We Are” by The Clientele.

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Filed under: Art, Current Events, New Media

I received an email the other day from a good friend with whom I attended the Cleveland Institute of Art in the mid 1990’s. He had been back to Cleveland for a visit, and had met up with another CIA painting alum to walk the galleries at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He wrote about revisiting paintings that had been important to him during school, like Rubens’ Portrait of Isabella Brant and about other paintings that stood out now, at this different moment in his life, including an Inness landscape. I haven’t been back to Cleveland since 1999, and I’m curious about which paintings might stop me now, and how different the list might be for me today than it would have been 10 years ago. To tell the truth, it isn’t necessary to travel to a museum that I haven’t been to for many years to have a similar experience. I’ve been working at the IMA for a little over five years, and I am amazed by how often a work of art that I haven’t paid much attention to suddenly asserts itself.

Isabel Bishop’s Tidying Up

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Filed under: Art, Exhibitions, Musings

For those of you who may not have heard, the IMA is opening a Design Center later this year that will showcase and sell furniture, home accessories, textiles, and gift items. The common denominator among the Center’s offerings is that each item will have a design story associated with its inception.

I couldn’t be happier to be part of the team working on the Design Center, because I have been obsessed with style, fashion, and design for as long as I can remember.

I think it must have started in second grade when I got my white bean bag chair. Some of my friends and family members had them too- – but nobody had one in white. I remember feeling so lucky to have one in what was surely the coolest color for this staple of 70’s interior.

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Filed under: Design