Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.
I just love this amazing toddler dress.
Aunt Bucky provides a unique collection of modern Baby Bedding | Apparel | Pillows. The Aunt Bucky line is ever evolving and truly unique. Our collections will always include the same style selections and design sensibility, but the individual fabric prints may vary. This process is therefore somewhat improvisational and produces near one-of-a-kind pieces.
Have you ever seen a more lovely toy boat than these boats by Willowbaus? Items in this shop are all earth friendly and childsafe. Boats are finished with beeswax and orange oil.
These toy vessels seem to invite imaginary journeys to far off lands. They are just begging for an afternoon of fall sunshine and puddles to sail away to. Load them up with acorns and fairies and set them free.
I love the selection of prints and patterns available. These would make an incredibly thoughtful birthday present. They make for beautiful room decor as well.
I am constantly intrigued by what cut paper artists can accomplish with scissors, papers, and glue. Each artist below has embraced a unique style on this art form which is sure to captivate your interest.
Jayme McGowan from Roadside Projects is setting a new standard for cut paper art. Her pieces are intricately concocted and expertly executed. Her subject matter spans generational interest and can be displayed in any room of your house. Prints and originals are available in her shop and don’t forget to visit her project blog.
I found the cut paper art at Rural Pearl to be modern and refreshing. The artist, Angie Pickman, has made this art form her own. I am drawn to the strong black and white pieces and appreciate her use of color. You will find prints and even some pendants made from her originals.
Matthew Parker is a photographer with a distinctive point of view, and an incredibly unusual technique for sharing that point of view. He makes photographic collages, but don’t let the word “collage” let you think of chopped up, scattered, and randomly pasted-together images. Matthew’s photographic collages take the same time, planning, and critical decision making that any master painting would take.
Each collage starts out as a sketch. As a trained architect, Matthew is drawn to objects in the built environment, and how structures interact with their space. After sketching out how he would like his subject to appear, the camera comes out. Instead of chopping up photographs to create the individual collage elements, each piece is actually a single, complete, unaltered photograph, which was deliberately framed and angled to follow the lines of Matthew’s original sketch.
In addition to viewing his subjects through multiple angles, Matthew’s collages also add an element of time. The collages are made up of multiple photographs – more than thirty, sometimes approaching one hundred separate images – but they also span multiple time periods. Sometimes the photographs are taken over the course of a single day, or a time span of several hours. Some of the collages include images from several different months or years – all taken from the same spot, and all of the same subject.
Adding the element of time allows Matthew to portray how moods and atmosphere change over the time of day, or seasons of the year. The variations in the images allow the viewer to experience the subject in a way that a single photograph (or even a real-life visit) never could. Matthew’s collages are a totally unique way to understand and experience a subject.
Because of his background in architecture, Matthew is very drawn to the abundance of beautiful buildings in Washington DC. But one of his favorite subjects is the cherry blossoms, because the look of the blossoms change so dramatically in different light. Additionally, images of crowds are another favorite subject. People are never static, and multiple images layered on top of each other really help the viewer to feel like they are actually part of the crowd.
Matthew’s customers also love images of the cherry blossoms, probably for the same reasons he does, but also because they are such an iconic symbol of Washington, DC. If you see one you like, you need to act fast, because all the prints are limited edition, and won’t be available forever. New collages are always being planned, but there is no set schedule on when new ones will be introduced. After all, it could take years to capture all the necessary images!
Matthew is currently working on a collage of the tidal basin that has already been three years in the making. It’s not hard to imagine the difficulty of capturing the cherry blossoms during their notoriously short lifespan, and finding and maintaining the exact spot in the tidal basin days, months or years apart!
There are plenty of amazing collages in his current collection, depicting beautiful scenes of Washington DC as well as other cities. He’s even open to suggestions for new collages. If you have an idea, drop him a line and let him know!
You can see all of Matthew’s work at his online gallery, as well as purchase prints in various sizes from his online store, or from the National Building Museum shop. Also, you can visit Matthew’s web site to find him at fine art and craft shows in the DC area.
Gorgeous photos and a kick-ass philosophy. What a combo.
Gajillionaire bio: I’m an independent artist located in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I’ve been working as an artist fulltime for the last 15 years and have just recently decided to start selling some of my work direct to the shiny public one-on-one in addition to the shops and galleries that carry my work.
I work very hard to make sure that my work is affordable, environmentally friendly, disturbingly gorgeous, and original. I think everyone should have access to original art…no more posters, prints, or Monet/Escher reproductions, bring on the REAL stuff!