Art House Co-op

Inspiration in Ingredients

The studio isn’t the only place to create artwork. What about the kitchen, the table, the market or the farm? In our excitement for the new FREE Art House project - The Meal - we wanted to share with you a smattering of cool food-related works. From the conceptual to the performative, the documentary-inspired to the sketchbook-encompassed, we think you’ll find these projects just delicious. 

ABOVE: Have you had your daily dose of color? Artist Tattfoo Tan creates projects that enhance our awareness of the food we eat. Through a food color-cataloguing system, he creates murals and other public artworks that display all the colors in a healthy human diet. In this instance, good nutrition truly does = beautiful. 

BELOW: “Incubation” —- an interactive food-based performance by artist Jennifer Rubell. 

Two performers dressed as nurses make yogurt inside a sterile room, while onlookers watch & wait…

The viewers eventually receive freshly made yogurt from inside the sterile yogurt-making room. They can add honey from a public honey drip nearby. Rubell notes that this interactive performance is intended to create an experience for onlookers in which they get to explore “a rarely depicted side of the creative act, the process of waiting, receiving, passivity.”

BELOW: For the food documentarian in all of us….

Do you Tweet your treats? Post your roasts? There are apps like Forkly and YumYum that can help you share your meals, snacks, and drinks more efficiently.

And of course, our favorites. We always love to share from our own archives. Here are a few food-themed spreads from some recently received 2012 Sketchbook Project sketchbooks! Thanks for all your amazing work!

From top to bottom: 

Valerie Gresham, Sandwich

Eleonora Antonioni, Forks and Spoons

Fausto Montanari, Sandwich

Marta Kallstrom, Encyclopedia of

Sharon Mann, Forks and Spoons

And of course, don’t forget to sign up for our newest free & food-inspired project: 

Keep creating (and eating),

As always,

The Art House Staff

Vintage Fridays: Airline Training Books

Having a piece of history like these vintage airline training books in our possession can be intimidating. When we have a whole stack of something old, sometimes I wonder: “Should we really split all of these things up?”

These little slices of history are so charming, from the vintage attire of the pilot and stewardess to the fonts used throughout the books. Our collection currently includes twenty-one of these books with titles ranging from “Sales Tools” to “Telephone and Ticket Counter Manners” and “Telephone Sales Techniques.” I can just imagine being a stewardess in those days, slipping on my girdle and pencil skirt and reading up on “International Route Structures” before I catch my next flight to Rio de Janeiro. 

As with all ‘lots’ of vintage goods, selling these books individually means that they will most likely go to many different homes. But we do get the opportunity to keep these resources alive by supplying them to many different people who will be inspired by these ephemeral artifacts. Maybe one will go to someone whose mother or grandmother was a stewardess in the 1950s and one will go to someone who adores airline history and will add it to her collection. Maybe one book will go to a designer who is inspired by the woodcut design on the cover or the use of a vintage typeface.

Whatever the reason, I am constantly inspired by vintage design and artifacts — and that’s what we hope to do for others at the Brooklyn Art Library.

For more information on these books, please visit our online shop here. 

-Sara

Mapping Your Stories

If you’re stuck on a project, Sketchbook or otherwise, maps are a great place to start. Check out these cool maps - from the archival to the satirical - as inspiration for mapping your own stories & experiences.

The ‘cartographic land octopus’ as depicted in this satirical ‘Humoristische-oorlogskaart’ (Humorous War Map); published in Haarlem by J.J. van Brederode in 1870.

New York City’s five boroughs represented by their closest match in population to another state.

A map drawn by a school boy, from a collection of 19th century children’s maps.

Map of a ‘Holiday in Hell’ by Tom Gauld.

Oh, how we adore the packaging!

Every day in January is like Christmas here at the Brooklyn Art Library! With the 2012 Sketchbook Project deadline quickly approaching, we receive bundles of packages and envelopes daily, some of them decorated especially for us! Here is a lovely box we opened today from Romania:

Thank you Liliana Bolbol!

<3 Rachel