Very soon, a project that I have been involved in will come to fruition, with the September 27 opening of the exhibition Art Without Artists at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at North Carolina State University. Almost a year of planning and curation has gone into this wide-ranging exhibit, with over 100 objects from my own collection on display and scores more from private collections across the country….
Eva Zeisel, a pioneer of 20th-century industrial design, celebrated her 105th birthday with family and friends last November 13, 2011, and passed away less than two months later on December 30. Like so many others who appreciated her influence in modernist design, I was sad to hear of her passing. Her life, at times, read like a Hollywood script….
Doug Rickard, the son of a retired preacher, grew up learning about America from a decidedly slanted point of view….
On the face of it, Halloween is a fun and innocent ritual that children look forward to — a chance to don masks and costumes with permission to walk the night and tell jokes for a reward of candy….
When the city of St. Louis learned yesterday that it had lost Bob Cassilly, it was a ripple felt throughout the arts community. For me personally, it was the loss of a friend who I knew for the past 25 years….
In the 1970’s film Paper Moon, young Tatum O’Neal as Addie Loggins was usually seen tightly clutching her “Cremo” cigar box, the perfect container for her collection of all she owned in the world — a twenty dollar bill, mementos, penny candy and dreams….
As I walked through the blockbuster Alexander McQueen exhibition “Savage Beauty” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art this past weekend, I quickly realized that I was in the midst of genius—the kind that comes once in a generation, rare and transformative to those lucky enough to be around it….
Some months ago, a friend of mine in Chicago gave me two large boxes of century old glass plate negatives for no other reason than she thought I would appreciate them….
In light of the recent and on-going BP Gulf of Mexico oil horror, an event that will be a benchmark regarding our use of fossil fuels, I ask you to turn a moment to something else — something paltry in comparison….
Like many premium product brands of today, cigar box labels of the late 19th century were designed to express something of the highest quality….