Design for a Living World - Before It's Gone. . .

My family's new New Year's Eve tradition is to go to the museum. If you are similarly inclined, try to stop by Cooper Hewitt to catch the Design for a Living World exhibit before it ends on January 4th. In this exhibition ten designers tell their stories of using sustainably grown and harvested materials to create items that tell stories about the life-cycle of materials, conservation, and design.


Christien Meindertsma was my favorite member of this group of ten. She focuses on the connection between the producer of the raw material, in this case farmers and their sheep, and the final consumer. For Design for a Living World, Christien worked with the Lava Lake Ranch in Idaho where she gathered and felted wool into yarn tagging each lot with the particular sheep that produced it. Using giant knitting needles, she knits individual hexagons that loosely emulate the shape of a sheep. Each hexagon uses all the wool produced by one sheep. The individual shapes can be linked together to produce a larger rug made of a flock of sheep.

Here is a video of her experience:



Other designers participating in this exhibition and the geographic areas they worked in include: Yves Behar/Costa Rica; Stephen Burks/Australia; Hella Jongerius/Mexico; Maya Lin/Maine; Isaac Mizrahi/Alaska; Abbott Miller/Bolivia; Ted Muehling/Micronesia; Kate Spade/Bolivia; and Ezri Tarazi/China.

Simone
groundsel.etsy.com

Artistic Process: What inspires you?

"Inspiration....
Everyday objects.
Typography & letterforms.
Shadows & outlines that appear when I close my eyes.
Motivation.....
I just want to make simple things but make them in my own way. Great
design at a fair price.
I can't sit still... I'm always designing something even if its not
feasible to make at the moment. (I have my heart set of large felt
rugs i just need to find a way to cut them)."

-Jen
Peppersrouts

Artistic Process: How did you learn the discipline you work in now?

"I learned the bulk of my skills between the ages of 8 and 18 from the women in my family. My mother taught me how to sew from Simplicity patterns. My Chinese grandmother taught me how to crochet (there's a way to break a language barrier). And my mother, girlfriend, and I struggled through many a knitting patterns to figure out fair isle and cables. Embroidery is something I picked up in middle school. I have a wall at home covered with my samplers; one dates back to 1978. I love the idea of traditional skills passing down from one generation to the next. Although the next generation in our household is more concerned with conquering another level of the latest Pokemon game. Is there a Sewing Mama game for the DS?"

-Simone
Groundsel

Artistic Process: What are some influences on your work?

"Fashion and interior design, I look for color of the season to create some of my masterpieces and of course style. In terms of people, places and music. I create to jazz I love a lot of things about Kates Paperie, William Arthur and most style magazines."

-Alton

Alton Weekes