Re-invention

Hoda Baroudi and Maria Hibri are the founders and designers of Bokja Furniture, based out of Beirut. Named after the Turkish word for an embellished velvet wrapping of treasures, they carry vibrant upholstered found furniture and I wish I owned it all. They use vintage Middle Eastern fabric to create some of the most unique pieces I have ever seen.





You can find these amazing pieces at ABC Carpet, 888 Broadway New York City

Space Project

The absolutely beautiful ‘Space Project’ photo series by Vincent Fournier makes us reconeect to our sense of exploration.These photos document a lone space man's journey through vast and magnificent landscapes.




Fournier photographed observatories and astronaut training stations in some of the most desolate places in the world, including the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center of the Russian Federation, the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, and the Atacama Desert Observatories in Chile.

check out more of his work here

Surrealist Wonder

Andrea Galvani was born in Italy in 1973 and currently lives in Brooklyn and Milan. Through his work, Galvani tries to provoke new feelings, and he does this using different mediums. Using a single subject, or a group of similar subjects, his work is a clever combination of surrealist wonder with a juxtaposition of the natural and the artificial.

MusicVoices

I thought this was interesting so I have to share it. I like the way it was put together, and more importantly, I like what they had to say. This is a visual breakdown from an interview that the awesome band Phoenix did. If you want to spend some time listening (reading) to members of a great band with fantastic taste, than this is for you too :

Sublime Design

These erotic wooden furniture pieces are by sculptural designer Peter Rolfe. You cant really tell at first glance, but all of the following forms open up in various places, becoming a functional dresser. Whether or not his striking furniture shocks or pleases you, the craftsmanship is undeniable. The layers, carved and polished plywood are extremely complex and its delicacy is something to admire. If nothing else, they are fun conversation starters and question people's sensibility. I would love to have one in my home.

Mirror Image.

Francisco Infante-Arana & Nonna Gorunova use mirrors to cause an interruption in nature. Husband and wife, this pair created this inspiring work in the 70's and 80's. They used such a simple concept to force people to take a second look at the world around them. Ive seen work like this before, but none that were anywhere as successful.

Oh Paolo!

Lately, I have been non-stop listening to Paolo Nutini, who is a remarkable talent. I don't know how I discovered him, but man....there's nothing like driving in hot, sunny weather with music blasting and dancing in your car. What is so special about his style is that it is completely different than what is out there today. It reminds me of old school Harry Belefonte, Louis Prima from the 50's and some Richie Havens folk songs which I love dearly, except it's new and fresh and absolutely wonderful. His smooth, Scottish voice isn't too bad either. Check him out.

Paolo Nutini - Pencil Full Of Lead (Live from Summersonic) on MUZU

Vintage Fashion

You know those classic images you see that remind you of vintage Vogue or Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Well chances are that some of those images were taken by well known photographer Tom Palumbo.


Palumbo is highly recognized for his photography shot for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar in the 50's and 60's. You can help but appreciate his timeless style. His images remind me to love the simple things in life.

You can find more of his work on his flickr page HERE

For Real??

Searching around for new destinations, I came across some VERY eccentric and beautiful places that I hope to check out in my lifetime. I love how big our world is sometimes.

Looking like flora straight from Pandora, I was amazed to find out that there are 71 glowing mushroom species here on Earth. This one, found in the forests of Japan and Brazil, is called the Mycena chlorophos. They emerge during the rainy season, causing the floor to glow with spores. The light show generally happens in the late summer months, although the mushrooms only do really well where, not surprisingly, there are no people to disturb them.

Glow in the dark water? Thanks to the fortuitous trio of luminescent waters called La Parguera, Mosquito Bay and Fajardo, the undoubtedly surreal experience of wading in up to 160,000 microscopic dinoflagellates per liter can be yours in beautiful Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Again focusing my thoughts on Avatar for a moment, Venezuela is apparently harboring special lands unlike dreamscapes only seen on film. This towering, flat-topped mountain punctuated with hundreds of free-flowing water falls and seemingly cotton-candy like flowing clouds is known as Mount Roraima. Those who favor mythical tales involving spiritually enlightened natives living in harmony with magical plants and flying dragons might prefer the alternative name given to this two billion year old geological formation – The Lost World, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel. Due to its remote location far from the prying eyes and hands of the developed world, a diverse range of animal and plant species – completely unique to that area – have been able to flourish, including exotic-looking “carrot” formations as well as bell and pitcher-shaped flowers. Wow.....

In certain part of New Zealand and Australia, travel underground and suddenly it appears as if the night sky has followed you. Thanks to common "glow worms", cave ceilings are turned into stunning bioluminescent points of light. Actually, they're not actually worms, but larvae of the gnat fly. They spin a nest of silk on the cave ceiling and then hang down as many as 70 threads with drops of mucus (delicious) attached to snare prey. The larva all glow (even more brightly if they haven't eaten in a bit) to lure victims to the threads. Incredibly, nearly 100% of the energy input is turned into light. Incredible.

Magical Mystery Tour!

These gorgeous images are by Barry Underwood who stages light sculptures at night and then photographs them to get these incredible results. His landscapes, while staged, incorporate man-made light with an almost eerie naturalness. These glowing elements should capture our eyes and take away from the nature around them, but instead they give us a new view of nature, one that we have left our footprints on.
If you don’t feel a little sense of wonder while viewing his work, your sense of wonder may be broken.






for more information visit www.barryunderwood.com

Lillian Bassman

Lillian Bassman's amazing photography definitely stands out among others because of her unique point of view.

Her photos elude romance, elegance and secrecy.

She is more of an artist than a technician.

Bassman worked as a photographer and art director at Harpers Bazaar for more than 20 years. Her fashion photography often pushed the boundaries from representation to abstraction through dramatic lighting, often diagonal composition, and then darkroom manipulation.

In the 70's, Bassman abandoned fashion photography and tossed out 40 years of negatives and prints - her life's work. Over 20 years later, a forgotten bag filled with hundreds of images was discovered. At the age of 92, Ms. Bassman is currently reinterpreting and re-printing her fashion photos with the use of darkroom, manual manipulation and photoshop. So it's most likely that the images shown here are not as they were originally printed, but as Ms. Bassman herself interprets them decades after they were created.
They still remain beautiful, original and iconic.