Eero Saarinen – Retrospective at the Museum of the City Of New York

Eero Saarinen – Shaping the Future, is now showing at the Museum of the City of New York through January 31, 2010.  Shaping the Future is the first retrospective of the architect’s career and has been organized by the Finnish Cultural Institute in New York, The Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, and the National Building Museum, Washington, D.C., with the support of the Yale University School of Architecture.

Finnish architect, Saarinen ( 1910-1961) was one of the most prolific designers of the 20th century with such American landmarks as the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport and the St. Louis Gateway Arch.  These iconic structures captured the aspirations and values of mid 20th century America. According to the museum, “Saarinen’s clients constituted a who’s who of the era’s most prominent industries and institutions. For them, he designed buildings that advanced the expansion of higher education and the promotion of automobile culture and air travel, popular forms of entertainment like television, and the newest information technologies.”

Public programs include:

Thu, November 12, 6:30 PM
Meet the Saarinens
Thu, November 19, 6:30 PM
The Legacy of Saarinen’s Office
Wed, December 02, 6:30 PM
Preserving 20th-Century Modernism
Wed, December 02, 6:30 PM
Preserving 20th-Century Modernism
Sun, December 06, 1:00 PM
Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future: Gallery Tour
Tue, December 08, 1:00 PM
Saarinen and the spirit of Innovation

Visit the Museum’s website for details and information.

Purchase the companion exhibition catalog by Donald Albrecht, Eero Saarinen- Shaping the Future.

REVIEW By Nicolai Ouroussoff: Making the Face of Moderism Familiar, New York Times

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Things are happening

You might have noticed that it’s been kind of quiet around here lately.  The last month has found me with a lot of client work and I’ve been on a mission of updating and redesigning my websites at lisamikulski.com and dragonflyblu.com.  You’ll also see that this blog has a whole new look.  In order to accomplish all this I put a curtail on blogging, twittering, socializing (online and off) and emails.  But… here we are.  Websites are nearly completed and I’m ready to move forward.

The WordPress theme you see here was developed by the fabulous Veerle Pieters for Woothemes.  I’ve been an admirer of Veerle’s work and her blog for a long time.  While I could have created a unique design for my blog it was never my intention to spend a month (or more) developing my own theme.  The purpose of my blog is to serve as a writing platform.  Writing is hard enough (I sweat blood) and I didn’t want to be fooling around with design or coding…at least not here. I looked at many WordPress themes, both free and paid.  There are many themes that are beautiful and the WP community is wonderful to work with. I could also have taken a rather generic theme and made it my own, but when I learned that Veerle’s design was created for Beast Cancer Awareness month… I was sold.

I also wanted a theme that worked the way I do.  While the design I had here in the past was indeed beautiful… it was dark and didn’t really fit my working style. It didn’t work as a cohesive design element with the branding of my other two sites either. I knew Veerle’s work would be quality and that the configuration would work in harmony with me. It’s my belief that a tool is only useful if it suits your working style…this goes for the majority of gadgets and applications out there.  If you have to structure your working style to meet the requirements of the tool, you are working in reverse. That’s never productive.

So please take a look around. I’ve included a small sample of work from my design portfolio, the navigation of the blog is easy and clean and I’ve recently included a few new posts I hope you will enjoy.  As always…

If you have a thought about this post or the new design, please comment and feel free to share.

Book Review: The Gospel According To Coco Chanel

I  recently had the pleasure of interviewing Chief Operating Officer, Jim Joseph, and Executive Director of Marketing, Publicity and Design, Ingar Forland, at Globe Pequot Press for an upcoming INK article.  GPP is the publisher for the imprint skirt! which recently released Karen Karbo’s The Gospel According to Coco Chanel – Life Lessons From the World’s Most Elegant Woman. There’s been plenty of brouhaha over Coco Chanel these days.  A recent revival of movies, books and buzz have paid homage to the great Chanel and so it was with a certain amount of glee that I obtained a copy of Karbo’s book.

Like the little black dress (invented by non-other than Chanel herself), Karbo’s little book is a pleasure to behold.  The diminutive book fits nicely into your bag for take along reading. The cover is smooth and luxurious.  Fashion illustrations by Chesley McLaren provide the eye candy.  But this book was not written as just another biography of the fashion designer.  This book provides a guide for the modern woman who wishes self sufficiency and empowerment the Chanel way.  With wit and humor, and even a bit of that same snarky Chanel attitude, Karbo’s text provides a series of checks and balances for women navigating life’s many turns.  I read it with greed.  I might even read it again.  Chapters listed as “On Style”, “On Surviving Passion”, “On Embracing the Moment”, “On Money”, and “On Living Life on Your Own Terms” while fun caused me periods of self reflection.  “How do I measure up?” I asked myself, “How can I be better?”  Karbo provided some answers.

Through the pages of The Gospel, we do learn snippets of Chanel’s life… her rags to riches background, the compulsive lying which created her mystique, and her success with and final rejection of love.  But the biography portion of Chanel’s life is not the focus here.  It’s the advice that makes it different and relevant. I especially recommend this book for my fellow ladies who are designers, artists, workaholics and creative entrepreneurs.  Those who enjoy humor and escapism reading with good dose of savoir faire will also not be disappointed.

The Gospel According to Coco Chanel – Life Lessons From the World’s Most Elegant Woman can be obtained from the Globe Pequot Press website and from Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

Karen Karbo is also the author of How to Hepburn, Lessons of Living From the Great Kate.  Her writings can also be found in Vogue, Elle, Esquire, and Redbook. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Pictorial Webster’s: Inspiration to Completion

From the discovery of the 1898 International Dictionary to linotyping the entries to printing the last print on the vandercook to cutting the fingertabs of the deluxe edition, this video gives a quick overview of the process of creating the Pictorial Webster’s fine press edition.  It’s pretty amazing to watch.  My thanks to Kevin Benisvy for sharing this.

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