Bananas, Guns, and Jungle Cats

“There are 3 reactions to a piece of design.  Yes, no and wow.  Wow is the one you want to shoot for.” 

Milton Glaser

Let’s put it this way – if Studio 54 had a Department of Interiors, I’d be the boss of that shit.  When I dish up a design, it is usually one cup Breakfast at Tiffany's, 4 tablespoons of The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2/3 cup Moulin Rouge, and 6 pounds of Paris Is Burning.  Occasionally, a pinch of Ab Fab if I'm really going for it.  But not too much - a little goes a long way darling.  Do as Milton says.  Wow somebody.  Dazzle.  Illuminate.  Make a bold choice.  I don't want to hang out in a minimalist space where the bare minimum is lauded as an achievement.  I wanna hang out at Liza Minelli's place!  Liberace's Manse!  

 

 

Hell yes, Liberace.  Look at the joy that can only be created by getting to wear all that jewelry in your bubble bath while gold swans fill the tub like a scene from an Esther Williams movie.  

I think good design should make you feel. . .well. . .good.  It should be a celebration.  A party for your lifestyle.  I try to avoid spaces that oppress the soul with a soviet-era tone of darkness and gravitas, because let’s get real – it’s not preserving Stonehenge, or providing spiritual healing to death row inmates.  It’s decorating for fuck's sake.  Unless you’re building a war memorial, or a holy site, decorate the fun way – with whatever sparks joy. 

The right decorative accessories have the power to bring a little drama, and can turn any space around, even if the furniture and lighting is blah.  I am of the opinion that at least five things in your home should be shocking, salacious, or controversial.  Memorable and unexpected results are achieved when we can indulge the theatrical with objects that cause a little ruckus.  Call it the riot girl approach to design.  To elaborate, the decorative accessories in my place have three repeating categories - Bananas, Guns, or Jungle Cats.  This wasn't an intentional choice.  I just realized on a recent afternoon that I had multiple pieces of these objects.  And I think they speak volumes about what kind of gal I am and the kind of humor I embrace.  I go for the weird and sculptural, because at the end of the day, it’s much, much better than having a bowl of pinecones on the coffee table.  

While I was working at what was definitely the job I have loved the most before beginning Studio Kendrick, there was a very. . .underwhelming change of management.  I found myself toiling daily under a sour, joyless, hall-monitor of a woman, completely devoid of humor, but entirely filled with pretension from her career in the art world.  When I suggested to her that a very fun, sequin-sparkled, hand-stitched wall hanging from Jonathan Adler might be a good addition to her boho-70’s-glam (and admittedly very cool) home, she scoffed and said “No.  I have real art in my home.” 

Oh, I thought to myself, perhaps I've somehow missed her collection of Picasso paintings in the fog of misery cast over her house.  But no.  There were of course, no masters of any kind hanging from the walls.  The art in her home was well curated and thoughtfully incorporated into her aesthetic but there were no artists “of note”.  What she meant to say, I think, is that her choice of art was serious and respected, and a sequin LSD wall hanging from Jonathan Adler was trash because it isn’t the kind of art one finds in a gallery or museum. 

Well, friends, I’m here to tell you – don’t let a bowl of pinecones make you feel ashamed of the framed vintage needlepoint Cheetah embellishing your entry.  To be clear, I’m not trying to elevate the wire wall sculpture of the Eiffel Tower you purchased at Hobby Lobby to decorate your college dorm room.  That truly is trash.  But if it brings you joy, has visual interest, and wasn’t mass-produced by robots, GO AHEAD SISTER.  Most people can’t afford “serious” art anyway.  A fabulous woman once told me "Art is the soul of the home."  So take inspiration where you can get it.  And if it comes with sequins, so much the better!  

Here are some of the objects that inspired this post. . .

Snip20170715_8.png

Vintage Black Panther with Rhinestone Eyes

 

 
 
Snip20170715_10.png
 
 

Totally Creepy Rubber Acupuncture Ear (that I use as a candy dish)

 
 
 
Jonathan Adler LSD Wall Hanging
 

The Ice Cube Method

"Ain't nobody giving up no ass."  

Ice Cube

This is the quote I often relay to anyone who wants a board seat at the table of awesome.  Listen up.  There are no short cuts in life.  Ask any career stripper in her late 30's.  Nobody's getting a whole lot of something for a whole lot of nothing.  

Ice Cube's Comptonian wisdom about the failure of free booty to appear in exchange for one's total lack of effort is the very foundation of what this blog is about.  Sourcing awesome requires you to be a resourcing ninja.  And that means obsessively cataloging everything you see that speaks to you and getting gold stars in note taking.  More on my method for the Studio Kendrick School for Design Ninjas at a later post.  

For now, here is my top five list for gangsta product designers that get gold medals for waging war on boring.  These designers make things I am obsessed with, am jealous of, and are the fantasy players of what is out there in the world of design today.  Cue the N.W.A.

 

1.  Nika Zupanc

She's about to bitch slap everybody in the design world and they will thank her for it.  It's art-deco-boudoir-badass.  And yes, those cherries are pendant lights (they also come in black!).  We better do what she says if we know what's good for us.  In the US you can only find her pieces at the Moooi Shop in NYC and at Garde in LA.  She designs pieces for Moroso as well, and she's a total babe.  Her home town is Ljubljana in Slovenia, but finders keepers my friends, you can't have her back.   

 

2.  Lee Broom

The lighting is the real crown jewel of this British design star, although he makes furniture as well.  And a line of vases for Wedgwood that is so beautiful, it made all my Jonathan Adler pieces fling themselves out the window in despair.  The first piece to garner him accolades was his crystal bulb pendant, inspired from cut-crystal glassware.  He used to work for Vivienne Westwood, he is my number one designer crush, and has one of the best interviews on my favorite design podcast, Clever (produced by Jaime Derringer, founder of Design Milk and HBIC design pro Amy Devers).  He's available through a few online retailers, but currently the only Lee Broom showroom stateside opened in 2016 in NYC.

 

3.  Hayon Studio

The best way to describe Spanish designer Jaime Hayon's work is that it looks like what someone would create if they rolled up Philippe Starck in a joint, laced it with a dusting of magic mushroom powder and PCP, and smoked it while listening to the soundtrack from Amelie.  

In other words, FANTASTIC.  

He's also unstoppable and master of a multitude of crafts.  This guy makes ceramics, he makes watches, he makes furniture, he makes lighting.  Time magazine named him one of the top 100 visionaries of our time.  He's a hopeless weirdo and he has a circus fetish.  I've seen him wear a full face of clown makeup for the cover of the Financial Times.  And in that same photo shoot, rocked a fuzzy pink onesie with little dog ears on the hood and hold a finch on his finger.  I'm pretty sure that was NOT the direction THE FINANCIAL TIMES takes with any of it's featured content.  He definitely brought that stuff all on his own.  This is the stuff of legends!       

 

4.  Anna Karlin

I first spotted her colorful stools and textiles at Ten Over Six, the gift shop inside the Joule Hotel in Dallas when I went to see the Kaws exhibit at the Ft Worth Modern.  If you are in NYC, you can experience the real deal  at one of my favorite shops, Les Atelier Courbier.  

 

5.  Sebastian Herkner

The first work I saw from this German designer were his Bell Tables, and I was intrigued by how he managed to seamlessly fuse the glass base with the brass top.  For me, the signature of a lot of his products are two broad geometric shapes made from two contrasting materials.  Marble and metal.  Velvet and brass.  He likes shapes that look like they were pinched to create the silhouette, and he favors jewel tones.  Expanding and collapsing are important motifs.  For other designers of important expanding and collapsing motifs:  See God, Universe.