The Murano Monologues

These Murano glass bowls, or ones like these, can be found on eBay.

Laying Needles to Rest

Broken and worn sewing needles will be lovingly and respectfully laid to rest in soft blocks of tofu throughout Japan today. Though hardly as popular as it once was, the annual ceremony known as Hari-kuyo (needle memorial service), dates back some 400 years. No sewing is done on this day, as all needle-workers (kimono-makers in particular), honor the soul and spirit of these important implements that served so well during their useful lives.

Photo by Michele Walker

Desktop Diaries, Digital Collages

BUTTERFLY & RAIN
Antique endpapers, 'Existentialism and Human Emotions', 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law', vintage butterfly-wing pendant, vintage camera, blue sign reflected in the rain.


In the summer of 2009, I started posting digital collages on a blog that I kept just for myself as a journal, called Desktop Diaries. They basically consisted of images that piled up on my computer’s desktop.

Description on the site:
As a graphic designer, artist, and collagist, my screen, at any given moment is a mélange of personal photos, assorted reference, spreadsheets, infographics, news sites and whatever essential item I might be watching on eBay. All sense of scale is lost as details can be huge, and sweeping vistas can be reduced to thumbnails. The collagist in me does not see the individual images, but rather the patchwork as a whole. And then I just have to grab that image. After all, these particular juxtapositions may never occur again. It’s not about Photoshop effects for me. I see the elements as I would pieces of found paper or ephemera--the edge of a window is just the digital equivalent of a torn edge of paper. The blurriness of an enlarged image is “found” texture. My desktop background with its floating folders often becomes an element as well. That is the origin

There haven’t been any new ones in a while--All My Eyes takes enough time. Here’s a selection of the over 50 posted.

IS MY TURBAN DISTURBIN’?
Ethnic woven textile, vintage quilt, K.O. Munson “sketch pad” pin-up calendar page, chemistry set, graffitied priority mail sticker


PYRITE EYES
Eye studies by Carrache, pyrite, vintage drawer liner in an antique dresser.


MOTH ON WHITE SHOULDERS
Vintage box of White Shoulders, moth on the screen at night, fresh-picked wild roses, vintage vase.


PIECE FULL & AMETHYST
Antique color chart, marbled endpaper of an old book, mod fabric, vintage textile swatch book, black and red scarf, combs, "Piece Full," book about japanese Boro textiles, mushroom textile, detail of a mod print slip, antique swatch book, print of an amethyst crystal.


MAX HUBER & BOOTS
Book cover, Max Huber Progetti Grafici 1936-1981; riding boots; Lichtenberg figure.


DARLING & BABIES
Pages from a German art calendar; package of plastic toy babies; title sequence from Darling, the 1965 John Schlesinger film with Julie Christie, Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Harvey; incredible ring with a flower of gemstones including turquoise, pearl, amethyst, and onyx.


HAMMERED & HAIRNET
Vestry seal of the Parish of St. Pancras, hairnet envelope, hammered silver modernist ashtray.


TAKE FIVE
Fragments of antique book bindings, TITA candy wrapper from Argentina, match book from Cafe Loup, card from Jenny Holtzer retrospective at the Whitney "GOOD DEEDS EVENTUALLY ARE REWARDED", diploma seal, ethnic textile, found handwritten type, Japanese cookbook, postcard of Gaudi staircase, vintage fabric, 3-d puzzle pieces illustration, wrought iron gate, Agam silk screen.


VENUS & DANSK
As soon as I scanned a page from an old collage journal (lower left quadrant: red foil, Venus de Milo), I just had to start combining it with other images--like the graphic candelabra by Dansk, and the rust cover of an old Russian book with a lovely little silhouette. The vertical stripes on the upper left is a photo of old painted paper.

Everyday Richness

This extraordinary “252” on the otherwise completely ordinary building caught my eye. I figured that while I had my camera out, I’d snap my way down the rest of the block.



















And this is just one side of the street.

'The World of Interiors' Covers

“I am not a library, I am not an archive.” That is the mantra I repeat as I struggle to let go of a stack of magazines or any other piece of paper I don’t have room for, or that I don’t “need.”

In the mid 1990s, I subscribed to UK-based The World of Interiors. I loved being surprised each month by the inventive design and quirky subject-matter, and I still cannot part with them. When I contemplate tossing them, from time to time, I flip “once more” only to find a piece of crucial information/inspiration. That’s all I need to call off the purge. Recently, when I thought, for a few minutes, that I could actually chuck them, these first two issues were the ones I thought I would keep just for the covers.

The bejeweled feet, above, gracing the March 2000 cover, are embroidered Moroccan slippers. How perfect they are on the staircase in the Tangier home belonging to antiques dealer and collector Christopher Gibbs.


The bold wool fabric, on the cover of the March 1998 issue, is not related to the longest, nor the most significant story in the issue. It is linked to a two-page story wedged into the listings section at the end of the book. Upcoming at a Sotheby’s auction, would be an archive of swatch books from the Calico Printers Association, a society of the many textile weavers and printers located during the 19th Century in Lanceshire’s Rossendale Valley. These amazing designs, which could easily be 1920s art deco, were actually produced in 1845.




I’m throwing in a few more of the covers from the late 1990s. These issues ran without cover lines, and in those days, the issues came wrapped, so there was no bar-code disturbance either.

June 1997

July 1998

October 1996

May 1997

December 1998