Johannes Itten

  • subtitle: Bauhaus' Master of Color

By Sophie Zifcak | 30 May 10 | Artists, Books, Designers | 3 Comments

It is taken for granted today that the design of everyday objects is an art form, but in 1919 this was a radical notion. The Bauhaus succeeded in breaking down hierarchal notions of art disciplines, and believed that there was no difference between the artist and the craftsmen.

Textbook by Johannes Itten "Die Farbe", 1944

Johannes Itten, Die Farbe (The Color), 1944

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Champagne Stemware

  • subtitle: Keeping the Bubbles in the Bubbly

By Drew Huffine | 24 May 10 | Glass, Kitchen, Smoking & Drinking | 2 Comments

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” — Mark Twain

At 16, a late bloomer by some standards, two friends and I admitted we’d never really been drunk. Wanting a quick remedy, my friend said was just the fix in his mother’s garage, “Her last boss gave her a case of some French Champagne when she left last year, I think it’s getting pretty old now anyway.” Drinking premier cru champagne from coffee mugs, we spent several hours perusing our favorite periodicals and commenting on the finer aspects of this new favorite beverage. The next morning, the pile of Playboys and empty ’85 Mumm Grand Cordon bottles attested to one simple truth: people should drink more Champagne.

Marilyn Monroe drinking a glass of champagne

Marilyn Monroe holding a Coupe Glass

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Home Canning

  • subtitle: Jarring Fun

By Aurora Almendral | 20 May 10 | Cooking, Food, Glass, Kitchen | 1 Comment

In the days before ripe Chilean tomatoes in the snowiest of winters, year-round beets, and the never-ending zucchini season, if you had a hankering for a summer vegetable in the middle of January, you had to wait six months. That is until 1810, when canning was invented and along with it, the possibility of anticipating your winter desires two seasons ahead.

Young family arranging jars of canned fruit and vegetables on cellar shelves

Image by Nina Lee, 1952, Courtesy of LIFE Magazine

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Reclaimed Wood, Part I

  • subtitle: Logging of the American Frontier

By David Vega | 16 May 10 | Materials, Wood | 2 Comments

When early American colonists begun penetrating the thick interior of the North American frontier, they discovered that the vast, untouched forests extended much deeper than previously imagined. About 1 billion acres of heavily wooded land stretched from the Atlantic to well past the Mississippi River and promised settlers a wealth of useful raw timber.

Forest worker standing in front of redwood

Lumber Worker in White Pines, Circa 1958, Courtesy of Sierra Nevada Logging Museum

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Other Voices & Readings

  • subtitle: Interesting Finds II

By Sebastian Kaufmann | 13 May 10 | Other Voices & Readings | Comment
Hood of a white Alfa Romeo

Alfa Romeo, Courtesy of A Time To Get

A Healthier World – Bar by Bar by Kelly Corrigan, National Geographic Blog
“Soap for Hope”

Alfa Bravo, A Time To Get
“(…) a serious medical condition which prohibits his ability to let an Alfa Romeo go up for sale” (Pictured)

BP Oil Spill, by the Numbers by Jessica Ramirez, Newsweek
“25 million – Number of birds that crisscross the Gulf Coast each day”

World governments fail to deliver on 2010 biodiversity target, UNEP
“(…) biodiversity is still being lost as fast as ever”

COUNTERINFORMATION
The European Council of Vinyl Manufacturers informs about PVC
“(…) science indicates that it is not very different from other materials and indeed posseses some interesting natural advantages.”

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Drinking Water

  • subtitle: Tap, Bottled, Filtration

By Kelly Baumann | 10 May 10 | Food, Packaging, Plastic | 3 Comments

“Everything comes from water! And everything is kept alive by water!” – J.W. von Goethe, Faust II, 1833

Water is an everyday part of our lives that we often take for granted, we wash and cook with it without a second thought. Yet, potable water – water that is safe to drink – is a source of regional conflict as several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, are plagued by water shortages and drought – the UN estimates that 35 – 50 percent of urban dwellers in Africa and Asia struggle to access potable water.

Mineral Water Advertising

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Urban Gardening

  • subtitle: Return to the 'Victory Garden'

By Susan Morrell | 30 Apr 10 | Food, Garden, Outdoors | 5 Comments

Tending a backyard vegetable patch or growing herbs on your windowsill are by no means new ideas, but it’s impossible to ignore the recent explosion in popularity of urban gardening. Transcending mere trend, gardening is once again in the mainstream of modern living, even – or perhaps especially – for city dwellers. As during World War II, when Victory Gardeners were digging their way to produce during wartime, home gardening has once again taken on a feeling of urgency, as well as providing a frugal avenue toward self-sufficiency.

Vegetable attacking Swastika. Advertising for a Victory Garden

All Americans Urged to Grow Victory Gardens

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Now Haus

  • subtitle: The Legacy of Bauhaus Design

By Matt Poitras | 25 Apr 10 | Designers | 3 Comments

In the late nineties, one of modernism’s great works of architecture was discovered abandoned and in wild disrepair. Known as the “E-1027 House“, Irish architect and furniture designer Eileen Gray had built the stark, rectilinear, Bauhaus-inspired home overlooking the rich Mediterranean azure in Southern France in 1926. Jutting from the craggy cliffside like an eighties drug-den from Miami Vice, the house gave many powerful impressions. Warmth was not one of them. That was until French newspapers began publishing pictures of the house after it had been vandalized and lived in by local street punks.

Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, Laslo Moholy Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stozl et Oskar Schlemmer on the roof of the Bauhaus in Weimar c. 1920

Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stozl and Oskar Schlemmer on the Roof of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Circa 1920

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Isabel Antonia Giampietro

  • subtitle: 1917 - 2010

By Sophie Zifcak | 19 Apr 10 | Artists, Designers, Glass | 8 Comments

Glassware designer and sculptor Isabel Antonia Giampietro died on March 30 in New York at the age of 92. She was a fascinating artist who was prolific in glassware design in the 1950s, a time when very few women worked in design. Her pieces were unique; the New York Times called her works in glass “as graceful as they are innovative”. She developed a technique to make the stem one piece with the drinking glass, creating extremely strong glassware that was more efficient to produce, and she also designed “double” goblets, where the stem is in fact another glass.

Glasses by designer Isabel Antonia Giampetro

Narcisso Glasses, 1958, by Isabel Antonia Giampietro

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History of the Umbrella

  • subtitle: The Unfolding of an Accessory

By David Vega | 16 Apr 10 | Accessories, Fabrics, Metal | 1 Comment

During the late 18th century, London was full of strange characters who attracted attention to themselves for one reason or another, but perhaps none so much as Jonas Hanway. A former merchant who spent several years working in Persia and Russia, Hanway was known for his eccentricities as well as his near mythic travel stories. He was wholeheartedly dedicated to various philanthropic activities, including governing an asylum for women and the poor and writing tracts about problems within the British prison system.

The beatles holding Umbrellas

The Beatles, 1965

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Cured Meat

  • subtitle: Jamón Serrano, Fuet, Salame and other Charcuterie

By Aurora Almendral | 12 Apr 10 | Cooking, Food | 6 Comments

Like any good American kid, I grew up eating floppy baloney on white bread. And like any uninspired Manhattan office worker, I ambled down to the nearest deli and got slices of salami — hot pink and encased in branded, shrink-wrap plastic that the sandwich guy would peel back to measure out my portion. It was salty and tasted fine between sliced bread with a handful of shredded iceberg lettuce, or at least it seemed that way from inside my cubicle. Then I moved to Europe.

Butcher Shop in Paris. Sausages and Cured Meat is hanging from Ceiling.

Charcuterie in Les Halles, Paris, 1962, Image by Tom Palumbo (Click on Image to Enlarge)

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Kaufmann Mercantile Store

  • subtitle: Opening Soon

By Sebastian Kaufmann | 9 Apr 10 | KM Announcements | 7 Comments

We’re excited to tell you our store is opening soon and we’ll let you know once we have an exact date.

We hope you enjoy the wide variety of subjects we cover on our blog. With our store we will try to do the same. The store will start out with a small selection of items, but we’ll be adding more over time. For more information about Kaufmann Mercantile click here.

Thanks for reading.

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Letterpress Printing

  • subtitle: Big Small Press

By Brion Paul | 5 Apr 10 | Entrepreneurs, Paper, Stationary | 8 Comments

It’s all been said before. It’s all been seen before. Nothing is new. Or at least this would be one way of looking at recent cultural output, which has amounted to a retrograde immersion in the past. ’80s remakes clog the movie process from pitch to multiplex, fashion revisits deceased designs, the clamor for the posthumous tomes of exhumed esoteric authors — all roads lead backwards.

Image of a letter printing press "Chandler Boxcarpress 1500"

13x18 Chander & Price Craftsman Press, Courtesy of Boxcar Press, Syracuse

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