Over the summer, I had the pleasure of speaking with Naes Pierott, a local artist in Las Vegas and fellow UNLV College of Fine Arts alum, as she was putting the finishing touches on her solo exhibition LOVE at CouperRuss. I love talking to artists about their work, how they determine which materials to render ideas, and seeing their enthusiasm as they recount inspirations firsthand.

Many thanks to Naes, Jo, and Matthew for inviting me to write the piece below for LOVE.

It is impossible to hold onto a memory forever. The images that live in our minds fade, and details of events lose their clarity over time. In Naes Pierott’s current exhibition LOVE at CouperRuss, she embraces the ever-changing nature of memory by capturing her loved ones in life-sized cyanotypes that will transform as time passes. The individuals depicted in the suspended portraits and their corresponding personifications share a constant state of change, developing into new versions of themselves, yet their intrinsic spirit remains immortalized in these images.

The cool blue tones inherent of the cyanotypes are counterbalanced with the warmth radiating from the room of figures that are integral to the quilt of Pierott’s life. Her parents, husband, brother, and dear friends are introduced to visitors through her renderings of the way she sees them, wearing clothes that are fundamental to their personal style and posing how they live in Pierott’s mind.

Pierott’s artistic practice began with oil painting, and she began experimenting with the cyanotype process in 2022 during her Bachelor of Fine Arts studies. Through testing the way different fabrics hold images, she began researching the way other artists use textiles in art and found inspiration in the artfully assembled Gee’s Bend quilts. Each of the large-scale portraits are systematically pieced together in fabrics made from natural fibers, melding together Pierott’s personal history and the tradition of quiltmaking in the Black community.

The rich indigo dyes and symbols used in resist-dyeing techniques in textiles from Nigeria and Ghana also influenced Pierott throughout her image-making process. She incorporated a spiral motif that is printed on traditional fabrics in both of these countries, symbolizing the life cycle that is constantly in motion, moving us through life into realms individuals are destined to find.

Pierott meticulously embroidered spiral motifs in a complementary pale yellow thread in areas of each of the portraits, appearing as gilded hair accessories, jewelry, and dimensional details of outfits that the printing process couldn’t document. On the verso of each of the figures is a pattern akin to a unique fingerprint Pierrot ascribed to each of her loved ones. Swirls of rich brown, golden yellow, and an indigo blue nearly identical to the cyanotypes themselves course head to toe, a visual representation of their individual spirit.

About the artist:
Naes Pierott earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2023 and is currently pursuing a Master of Education with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in Instructional Design. Pierott’s practice is rooted in the Black community. Through quilting, oil painting, and photography, she explores the Black American experience while also making space for other marginalized communities. Her work draws from personal memory, cultural history, and collective storytelling. Pierott’s work has been exhibited primarily in Nevada including at the Donna Beam Gallery and Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art at UNLV, Nuwu Art Gallery, Clark County Rotunda Gallery, Left of Center Gallery, City of Las Vegas Chamber Gallery and Serva Pool Gallery, Holland Project, Reno.

My Digest:

• After finishing Television, my craving for stories focused on enduring male and female friendship dynamics persisted. When The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley was longlisted for the Booker Prize last week, I decided to finally pick it up. I haven’t read other works by Riley, but I am hopeful that this will be a good entry into her literary repertoire.

• Marie Antoinette (2006) is a keystone to millennial women’s nostalgic fondness for girlhood. I rewatched it this weekend and admit that it rewired my brain at the perfect age. Perfect soundtrack. I’m going to buy that catalogue from the Ruffles & Ribbons: Fashion Plates from the Time of Marie Antoinette that was on view at the Frick earlier this year and ruminate on the significance of Sofia’s pièce de résistance.

• Other films that have been on my mind: After watching I Want Your Sex (2026) a few weeks ago, I thought about “Wuthering Heights” (2026) for the first time since February. My train of thought was fueled by how both films sit at different points on the sexuality and desire spectrum, but at this moment in time, where genuine desire in reality seems mythical, uninhibited performances of female sexuality, humorous kink on screen, and unsexy, hilarious depictions of sex are stimulating. The joy of sex and its absurdities is refreshing to watch.

This time last year, I traveled back in time to Spring/Summer 1990 by watching Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) while I was working on the piece below for Audrey Barcio’s exhibition, Sharp Curves, which was on view here in Las Vegas last fall. Audrey was inspired by the geometric patterns present in the costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier. I wanted to see the Queen of Pop activate these garments, imbuing them with her unabashed stage presence that has lived on in the minds and moodboards of those of us seeking inspiration to harness the power of femininity.

Available Space Art Projects Las Vegas is pleased to present Sharp Curves, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Audrey Barcio. Continuing Barcio’s interest in abstraction and sacred geometry, this body of work is inspired by the equilibriums and tensions found at the intersection of the female form and fashion history.

Several works in the show are inspired by “bullet bras.” Emerging in the late 1940s and popular through the 1960s, these cone-shaped undergarments empowered women to control their form, adding structure to the body, uplifting the chest, and echoing the pride with which women were defending their rights. The body being an ever-present battleground is made more apparent when the undergarments supporting politicized body parts take the shape of warheads. Barcio’s painting Power Exchange (2025) sharply exemplifies the shape of this tension; high-gloss black paint collides with soft pink as strikes of gold illuminate the symbolic landscape, while triangles jutting across the canvas are dressed in metallic finery akin to lustrous satin.

Barcio’s painting Soft Core (2025) embodies the concept that the emotions we convey are circuited from the heart and projected from the chest; the sharpest edges emerge from the softest core. Its interplay between abstracted ripples — a dual sonic boom; a convergence of enrobed triads defying the oppositional noise — suggests the body parts closest to our center wait in shadow for recognition of the power they hold.

The pyramidal forms in Barcio’s new paintings also nod to the costumes Jean Paul Gaultier designed for Madonna’s Blond Ambition World Tour (1990). As depicted in the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare, the first layer of confident assertion arrives with the singer on stage in the form of a pinstripe pantsuit with strategically sliced slits allowing for the pale pink stain tips of her cone bra to peek out from under before their grand reveal. In works such as Visible Lines (2025) and Sharp Curves (2025), Barcio unleashes the seams of the costume, laying bare in transsectional appreciation the multidimensionality of the garments and singer. Arrangements of vertical diamonds pierced with pearlescent tips call back to Gaultier’s design, while spiral stitches shaping the cup revert to their state as a pattern. While clothed in these bold accouterments, Madonna belted from her chest to the crowd the importance of “expressing yourself,” a rallying cry to defy definitions of masculinity or femininity, a call to equilibrium echoed in Barcio’s compositions.

Throughout the exhibition, Barcio expands her exploration of descendant and ascendant triangles as symbols of power. Exploring the rich tapestry of geometrical forms found in the body, these new works confirm that the canonical contours of the chest are essential sources of vitality, whether armed with support or bare.

My Digest:

• In June, I had the pleasure of writing a short exhibition text for Naes Pierott: LOVE that was on view at CouperRuss, featuring her life-sized cyanotypes of her friends and family.

• Early last month, I also made my first visit to Los Angeles in about 8 years, during which I attended a dear friend from grad school’s wedding and took in as much art as I could see over a long weekend. Highlights included: Destiny Is a Rose: The Eileen Harris Norton Collection at Hauser & Wirth, Lotte Andersen: Parlour Games at Frankfurt Ordorica, Shannon Cartier Lucy: Bucket of Birds at Night Gallery, Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-85 at the Getty, and Obsessed: Fashion and Nostalgia in the ‘90s at the ASU FIDM Museum. Belated reviews of a few of these shows will come soon. Another California excursion that bookended June was a trip to San Fransico to meet up with another friend from my NYU days. I have been curious about the arts in SF for years and was impressed with the holdings in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Legion of Honor has highly underrated/underdiscussed portraits ripe with details for dress analysis. Below are a few of my favorites:

• The climate in Las Vegas operates similarly to a faucet: hot, slightly cooler heat, lukewarm chill, and dry cold. Fragrance has helped me create seasonal environments for my personal bubble. During summer, I need to be surrounded by all things coconut. I’ve been dosing myself in Phlur’s Island Swim. The bright notes of bergamot, ocean mist, and plumeria combined with creamy coconut remind me of summer scents from my youth I can’t place, but I am happy to be transported to.

• Spilled molasses dripping off the side of a counter moves faster than I do, especially when comparing its pace to my reading speed. My summer reading docket has been reshuffled a few times, so far, I’ve read Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. (the chapter Eve wrote about going to a Dodger’s game struck a deep, resonant nerve with me as I’ve finally aquiesced into caring about sports at 33 years old), I’m halfway through Television by Lauren Rothery, Dwelling by Emily Hunt Kivel and In the City by Joan Silber are queued up, as are Grand Rapids by Natasha Stagg in addition to a re-read of Sleeveless. I’m tempted to dip my fingers into working on short fiction. I picked up Forgotten Journey by Silvina Ocampo at City Lights while in SF. A spark of inspiration was ignited while paging through it…

• I saw Queen of Diamonds (1991) at Las Vegas’s equivalent of Metrograph, The Beverly Theatre downtown, as it was shown in during their Bleak Week programming. It was a perfectly dreary meditation on the lack of excitement that is the reality of living in Las Vegas. However, it did inspire me to contextualize within the genre of films about Watching Women Work, such as Variety (1983), Nightshift (1981), and Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975). Of all the Éric Rohmer summer set films, The Green Ray (1986) has been the most salient to me this year. Although my current residence couldn’t be more on the opposite end of the spectrum from coastal France, the notions of isolation, pulling at the threads for connections that don’t come together, and a spark of comforting clarity through nature’s brilliance have resonated with me. Also, my personal color story of 2026 has been pink and green-filled. Additionally, last weekend I watched Le Bonheur (1965) for the first time. It inspired me to think about Agnès Varda’s filmography and the ways she explores life, mortality, and specific nuances she narrates in her films that affect the lives of her women.
  

Anyways, with the advent of multiple exhibitions that have been opening with a focus on intersection of art and fashion (especially Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis at the Museum at FIT), I figured I’d share an excerpt of my master’s thesis. This was research and written in 2019-2020, a perfectly horrible time to sink my teeth into a juicy topic as the one I chose. I was working with limited resources because of the pandemic and wish this was stronger, but it’s an interesting piece for me to look back. My research interest have evolved, but this also helped clarify what areas of the subject matter researched here I’d like to spend more time with in the future. Looking back on old writing is embarrassing, but revisiting the past often helps clean the eyes to see a better path for the future.

The articles of clothing imagined by the Surrealists often materialize the concepts described in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical findings. For Freud, quotidian and utilitarian items can become expressions of underlying fears that linger deep within the subconscious mind. His gendered theory of the fetish inspired the works of both Meret Oppenheim and Elsa Schiaparelli. The veiled horrors of castration, the “double,” and blurred distinction between the familiar and the unfamiliar are present in the fashion objects they created throughout the late 1930s. The gloves, belts, and shoes designed by Oppenheim and Schiaparelli mimic the body parts they were intended to adorn. These accessories modify the body to actualize the uncanny by bringing unconscious fears to the surface of the skin. This paper will discuss the fashion object as a manifestation of the fetish and uncanny, as seen through the eyes of these two women.

The New Woman emerged from the ruins of World War I and caused a shift within a destabilized society. Dressed in unconventional styles and with her face painted with cosmetics, the New Women constructed an unabashedly garish caricature that highlighted “the construction of femininity.” The ostentatious presentation of self in combination with a sexual assertiveness that was previously only acceptable for men generated an unforeseen gender fluidity, with women taking on masculine traits while maintaining a hyperfeminine appearance. Caroline Evans notes that male power was confronted with this unfamiliar form of gender fluidity brought about by the newfound independence of women. The expression of this modern lifestyle allowed women to customize their self-presentation through clothing, performing more fluid gender identities, and their own fantasies. Schiaparelli became aware of Oppenheim’s fashion designs through one of her friends. Once Schiaparelli saw Oppenheim’s work, she promptly commissioned a piece of jewelry from the artist. Oppenheim constructed a fur-covered brass bracelet for the Italian fashion designer. The inspiration for the bracelet occurred during winter; fur soon became Oppenheim’s preferred material to incorporate into her designs. She created two bracelets from materials acquired from a hardware store: two pieces of light brown fur and a hollow brass tube. Schiaparelli ultimately purchased the version presented to her for the equivalent of 30 francs. With their appearance and function, accessories can subtly alter recognizable body parts into unnerving phenomena envisioned in dreams. The body parts Oppenheim and Schiaparelli emphasized through the accessories they designed highlighted a sensation of fear. They produced fetishistic objects such as belts that reinterpret the castration-complex as severed and displaced hands that wrap around the waist of the body, black gloves embellished with extraordinary nails, and shoes decorated with animal hair that allude to the plush “fur and velvet” that conceal a woman’s genitals. These accessories were intended to decorate parts of the body that have a strong sexual connotation. The hands, waist, and feet… These accessories draw the gaze, and with it the mind, to a place of fantasy and desire.

When asked about her interest in taking part in scandalous activities, Meret Oppenheim declared that scandals have been a source of liberation from the traditional course life takes. A “scandalous life” is not chosen to cause controversy: it is the result of veering from the pre-determined path set by a patriarchal society. Her proximity to Surrealism afforded her the ability to live her life outside of what Jacqueline Burkhardt has called “moral and aesthetic categories.” With a belief that women have consistently fueled the minds of men in the form of commodities for creative consumption, Oppenheim reclaimed her body by designing fashion objects. Both Oppenheim and Schiaparelli turned the gaze toward their own bodies, surfacing fetishes and fears projected onto them by their male peers. The fashions they designed turned bodies into harbingers of subversion, contesting the confines of gender imposed upon them through the desire-coated lens of the male gaze. They employed fashion to mold the body beyond the objectified, consumable figure. According to Jennifer Sweeney-Risko, “in the context of Surrealism, fashion fused the Surrealists’ fascination with the commodity form to their interest in the body, marking a potential unification of the two.”

It is unclear how close Oppenheim and Schiaparelli’s relationship was or how many pieces they collaborated on; however, the commission of a fur-covered bracelet changed the course of Surrealism and the history of modern art forever. This bizarre accessory launched the creation of Oppenheim’s masterpiece titled Object. In every account of Object’s inception, its life cycle started with the bespoke Schiaparelli bracelet. As the story goes, Oppenheim was out to lunch with Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso at the Café de Flore in Paris and the conversation turned toward the eye-catching item circling Oppenheim’s wrist. Drawn to the unique construction of the accessory, Picasso remarked that nearly anything could be covered in fur. Oppenheim famously stated that the cup and saucer sitting on the table in front of them could easily be adorned with fur, and soon afterward, the sculpture shook audiences and the Surrealists. Thereafter, in keeping with Surrealist aesthetics, Oppenheim began to alter and elevate quotidian items into uncanny or fetishlike objects. While the majority of her designs were never materialized, even in the form of drawings, they convey her ideas and can provoke an anxious state.

Sigmund Freud was a critical influence on André Breton and the Surrealists. Freud’s work was challenging to access, as translations into French did not become available until 1922. As Surrealist artists began to delve into the unconscious for inspiration, they looked to Freud for insight into formulating the unrealized visions and obsessions lingering within their unconscious minds. The themes in Freud’s essays “Fetishism” of 1927 and “The ‘Uncanny’” of 1919 emanate powerfully in Surrealist work when the human body is the focus. The body’s sexual interpretation permeates the imagery depicted in their works, especially the organs that bring life into the world. In “Fetishism,” Freud theorizes that the fear of castration haunts young boys who have witnessed their mother’s lack of a penis, as they presume they may face this violent act in the future. Freud argues that this information is difficult to comprehend since the belief that a penis still exists remains in their minds despite the proof that it is untrue. The reward for fighting against the fear of castration is a repressed and complicated relationship to the female genitalia. Objects resembling the phallus may serve as logical substitutions for the missing appendage; other bodily forms in proximity to the genital region build an intrinsic bond that allows the anxious individual to satisfy his needs. Freud describes how the fetish is directly connected to the foot: “Thus the foot or shoe owes its preference as a fetish – or part of it – to the circumstance that the inquisitive boy peered at the woman’s genitals from below, from her legs up, fur and velvet – has long been suspected – are a fixation of the sight of public hair, which should have been followed up by the longed-for sight of the female member…”The movement of the gaze upward toward imagined phallus is blocked by the presence of an undergarment, allowing for a final moment in which the boy preserves his belief in the existence of the female phallus. The uncanny possibility of a woman having a phallus is intensified by her clothing choices. The mystery lingering beneath the undergarments is as important as the shoes she chooses to captivate the attention of those around her, who speculate on her possible castration. The individual in contact with the undergarment is both protected from what lies, or does not lie, beneath the fabric and may also assume castration as the reason for the concealment. For Freud, the fetishism, in its development and realization, comes full circle in its ambivalent treatment of the fetish as both a sacred obsession and internalized repulsion. The application of the fetish to clothing develops from the familiarity of everyday items that awaken deep-rooted connotations imposed by fears associated with specific body parts.

In Freud’s essay titled “The ‘Uncanny’” of 1919, he describes the underlying sensation of repressed fear housed in the unconscious. He writes, “Our conclusion could then be stated thus: An uncanny experience occurs either when repressed infantile complexes have been revived by some impression, or when the primitive beliefs we have surmounted seem once more to be confirmed.” In both texts, “Fetishism” and “The ‘Uncanny,’” Freud expresses an interest in the “castration complex.” This purportedly unshakable fear awaiting in the dreams and anxieties of young men is reinforced by fictive stories from childhood. According to Freud, this immense fear saturates the boy’s mind as he projects dreams and fantasies onto reality. He notes that, “what is uncanny is frightening because it is not known and familiar. Naturally, not everything that is new is unfamiliar and frightening; the relation cannot be inverted.” The uncanny surfaces strangely familiar memories, bringing them to light. A semblance of rational judgment is necessary to define the uncanny, to rationalize the likelihood of these imagined scenarios coming to fruition. The connection the individual has to objects or memories generates the veiled anxieties that inhabit the unconscious.

The depiction of the female body through the male gaze often features a woman stripped of her clothing to reveal her “castrated” body to the world. One of the artists who presented the uncanny female body in his work is Man Ray. His portrait of Schiaparelli, taken in 1933, splices together a photograph of her head with a photograph of a mannequin with missing arms, so that her head hovers over the neck of the plaster torso. Her short hair is carefully coiffed around her face, its exact length obscured as it is wound into delicate swirls. Shadows soften the torso’s features, blurring the contours created by the mannequin’s chest and abdominal muscles. Man Ray captured Schiaparelli in a state of gender ambiguity with cropped hair and a faintly defined body. In addition to suppressing her feminine features, her cropped head and missing arms demonstrate the castration complex in practice. Man Ray was not portraying Schiaparelli herself: he captured her as his unconscious mind wanted to see her.

In a stark reversal from the image of Oppenheim in masculine attire May Ray’s photo series titled Érotique Voilée (Veiled Erotic) depicts her as a femme-enfant as she retrospectively put it. These images are a projection of Man Ray’s fantasy, as Oppenheim adamantly declared that she was mature beyond her seventeen years at the time this series was taken. These photographs were featured in the May 1934 issue of Minotaure, as illustrations for Breton’s essay Erotique voilée.58 Breton noted that convulsive beauty would be “veiled erotic” in L’Amour fou; the veil in the context of these photographs can also be read as Oppenheim’s own performance of Man Ray’s vision of these images. In the original publication, the image was cropped to hide the erotic augmentation below her waist. In one of the photographs, Oppenheim stands nude with her right hand on the wheel of the printing press as the back of her left hand presses against her forehead to expose her ink-covered palm and forearm. The black ink on Oppenheim’s hand functions as an accessory on her naked body. In the place of a glove, her embellished hand appears laminated in patent leather. Upon first glance, her hand hides in plain sight as her naked body leans against the printing press that dominates the frame. Other accessories in this photo include the thin black necklace encircling her neck and the printing press’s handle, placed so that it becomes a substitute for Oppenheim’s (missing) penis. Oppenheim’s hand recedes as the handle of the printing press monopolizes the photograph. Her hand is erased by the smeared ink from the tips of her fingers down through her forearm, signifying the erasure of her own identity in the image. The effacement of her hand emphasizes that this work is not hers to identify with: it is Man Ray’s conception impressed upon her.

During this session, Man Ray took multiple photographs of Oppenheim in various poses. In another photograph from this series, titled Meret Oppenheim at the Printing Wheel (1933), her ink-slicked hand and forearm lies on a blank piece of white paper at the printing press. Her nude body appears at the top left corner of the frame, establishing a contrast with her inked appendage. The printing wheel itself bisects her arm at the wrist, displacing her hand from her body in visual space. The near obliteration of her hand, paired with the way the printing wheel frames its imagined demise, suggests castration. Unlike the image of Oppenheim and her false phallus, here her nether regions are completely out of frame. The position of her body suggests that Man Ray castrated her. While viewing the hand as a fetish object in this context, Christiane Meyer-Thoss notes that, “Her body is, in fact, clothed in shadow-like fabric that is the ink on her skin. One of her glove designs seems to be prefigured in the portrait: gloves that, when worn, turn hands into their own skeletons.”

In “The ‘Uncanny,’” Freud references a belief by Ernst Jentsch that a “particularly favorable condition for awakening uncanny sensations is created when there is intellectual uncertainty whether an object is alive or not, and when an inanimate object becomes too much like an animate one.” During childhood, the distinction between an animate and an inanimate object is blurred as objects resembling humans, like dolls, are nurtured as if they were alive. Although fear may not be aroused initially in items such as these, the softened distinction between the animate and inanimate creates confusion about how to perceive similar objects in reality. If an item has human features, there is a possibility that it is alive. Another concept that forms the sensation of the uncanny is the “double.” This is defined as a multiplication of what is known, particularly relating to the body, in order to preserve the object in question from obsolescence. The “double” also mirrors the repressed fear of death. Freud specifies that the manifestation of death is often figured by: “Dismembered limbs, a severed head, a hand cut off at the wrist, feet which dance by themselves - all these have something particularly uncanny about them, especially when, as in the last instance, they prove able to move of themselves in addition. As we know, this kind of uncanniness springs from its association with the castration–complex.” Oppenheim and Schiaparelli materialized this concept in their fashions that doubled the body parts their fashions were designed to adorn. The mirrored appendages create a sense of uncertainty regarding the life and death of both the animate body and the inanimate object. The fear of death as an uncanny sensation is fully actualized as human body parts appear lifeless while simultaneously activating the inanimate objects they wear.

Oppenheim’s manifestation of the uncanny in her fashion designs causes anxiety insofar as her investigation of the unconscious renders visible the body’s interior structures. In the illustration Sketch for Gloves with Veins (1942-5), the top of the glove is marked with veins, as if the skin protecting these vital branches has melted away. The veins branch out among the phalanges like trees, struggling to deliver blood to the comatose hands. The majority of Oppenheim’s fashion designs were never produced; however, this illustration came to fruition in the fourth volume of the German art magazine Parkett. For this collaboration, a numbered edition of 150 gloves was included in the deluxe issue of the publication. The gloves were crafted by hand out of goat suede with silk-screened details to trace out the veins. They were placed within the magazine framed by cut-outs in the shape of hands, accompanied by a few short lines of text in both German and English that read: “The red of the evening dissipates in the lead-grey mist of the nomad-camp” and “Honey from the hollows only that it is almost black.” Colored light-blue, the gloves/hands appear as if drained of life as the red veins strain to pump blood through the deadened hand. Oppenheim’s sinister accessories evoke the sky-blue gloves feared by Breton in Nadja. A hand that would appear full of life activates the lifelessness that perpetually waits.

The motifs of both death and the surfacing of the body’s interior also appear in Template for Gloves (1936), in which Oppenheim illustrated an X-rayed hand as a kind of glove. A white outline traces the shapes of the bones that reach inside the glove. Her fascination with the amalgam of the masculine and the feminine is not directly present in these objects, as they represent the human body in a genderless state. As she expressed in her interview with Robert J.Belton, “There is no difference between man and woman; there is only artist or poet.”68 Template for Gloves coincides with the imagery of Oppenheim’s own skeletal hand in Rötengenaufnahme des Schädels M.O. (X-Ray of M.O.’s Skull), her self-portrait from 1964. Beyond the creation of accessories, Oppenheim used jewelry to illustrate the significant imprint fashion transfers onto the body. As all humans have the same foundation, gender performance contributes to the spectrum of self-expression that is enhanced through clothing and accessories. Oppenheim’s x-ray strips away her external shell to reveal her bones and the jewelry that has fused with her inner foundation. The ossified outlines of her facial features, neck, and right hand decorated in baubles, reveal the importance of these objects to her structural core. Two round hoops hover in space so as to mark the location of her ear, while a delicate silhouette of a beaded necklace circles around her neck. Oppenheim’s faint hand is observable by the thick rectangular rings on her ring and pinky fingers. The contrast between the visceral tactility of her bones and joints and the faint shadow of her nose and lips that fades into the background accentuates the liminal space between existence and disappearance.

Jacqueline Burckhard and Bice Curiger state that this image “may be read as an ironic conversion of fashionable glitz into that which endures and survives,” moving fashion as a token of frivolous adornment to personal attachment. This photograph represents the many different versions of herself that she molded over the years, largely due to the power of accessories. It is unclear if the figure is male or female despite the presence of jewelry. Oppenheim applies her belief that both the male and female components exist within the self and are vital throughout life. Her self-exploration through the camera’s lens is intrinsic to understanding her oeuvre, but the affirmation of her philosophies is emphasized through her fashion choices. Oppenheim devises a balance between the masculine genius who created the image and the muse by obscuring the appearance of her gender through the x-ray, yet she suggests her femininity with the incorporation of jewelry. Without the title identifying this as Oppenheim, it would be impossible to recognize her. The jewelry shown in the x-ray illustrates a prominent feminized performance, indicated by the jewelry with which she enhanced herself. However, her physical features are rendered ambiguous. Oppenheim illustrated how accessories reveal markers of gender identity from the beginning of life until death.

Schiaparelli’s exploration of the uncanny fear of death in her creations goes beyond the hand. The Skeleton Dress, presented in her 1938 Haute Couture Summer collection titled Le Cirque (The Circus), was born out of a collaboration with Salvador Dalí. The inspiration was a near direct translation of a sketch of a woman with her arms outstretched sideways and her skeletal infrastructure exposed under a sheer veil of fabric. In addition to the drawing, Dalí included a note that read: “Dear Elsa, I like this idea of ‘bones on the outside’ enormously…” encouraging her to bring this notion to life. The morbid essence of this dress stood out amongst the rest of the pieces in the otherwise lighthearted collection filled with candy-hued garments fastened with whimsical buttons shaped like circus performers. The inclusion of this piece within this theme may have been influenced by a specific circus performance titled “The Skeleton Man.” Constructed out of silk crêpe, trapunto quilting, and cotton wadding, Schiaparelli sculpted her interpretation of a rib cage into the gown and stitched around the protrusions to highlight them. “An offense against good taste” and the sleek lines of popular evening wear of this era, The Skeleton Dress would fit the body like “a second skin” as her imagined corpse rose to the surface of the body. Sweeney-Risko notes that this dress is a pivotal object that illustrates Schiaparelli’s desire to use the female body as a blank slate with which to construct a version of a mask to strengthen and externalize the nuanced gender disparities faced by the New Woman.

Although the bracelet that Oppenheim created for Schiaparelli was the first piece they collaborated on, their aesthetics overlapped in other accessories they produced in the late 1930s. After their initial partnership, Oppenheim and Schiaparelli continued to work together on undisclosed projects. There are astonishing resemblances between the illustrations Oppenheim produced and the objects Schiaparelli fabricated. One of the most striking similarities appears in the belt designs by each artist. They both designed belts that depicted a pair of hands encircling the wearer’s waist. Oppenheim’s version never materialized, but the surviving sketch depicts a white band with two flesh colored hands with red fingernails overlapping one another to form the clasp. To bind the hands together and to ensure the belt’s closure, Oppenheim used either a small piece of rope or a bracelet appearing as a thick chain around the wrists. Schiaparelli’s version has an arrestingly similar composition, which raises the question of whether Oppenheim was aware of Schiaparelli’s designs prior to working with her. “Evening Belt” comprises a black silk band and two clasped white plastic hands functioning as the buckle. It was common in many of Schiaparelli’s designs to include whimsical decorations made from plaster or plastic. In her fall 1934 collection, Schiaparelli incorporated the hand motif in a handbag with closures echoing the shape of the bag, as well as in garments, including a jacket and cape.80 Like the red veins coursing through the gloves in Pair of Gloves, the red nail polish decorating the fingertips of both sets of hands emphasizes their uncanny resemblance to the human appendage they mirror.

These depictions of hands evoke a semblance of human-like features. The flesh tones and the red nail polish enliven these inanimate objects before they reach the body they would encircle. The history of the belt is permeated with connotations dependent on gender identity. For men, the belt is imbued with “strength, military prowess, and authority” since they have decorated the waists of heroic leaders in literature. Women’s relationship with belts largely centers on sexuality. According to Hannah Korn, “they can be deceitful instruments of seduction or signifiers of purity, modesty, and submissiveness.” The imagery of the belts designed by Oppenheim and Schiaparelli alters these correlations. As opposed to the emphasis on gender, they take on the fears of castration developed in the unconscious mind of men and cast upon women. The hands appear delicate, yet grasp the waist of the individual they encompass. The belts recall the hands of a lover enveloping the waist of their beloved in a protective and affectionate embrace, while the proximity to the groin implies a far less romantic fantasy. The hands take on a sinister presence as they call to mind the looming fear of castration. The hands are positioned downward, ready to make their way to geld the female phallus. As opposed to the dichotomy of the masculine and the feminine characteristics associated with the individual wearing the belt, the conflict represented in both belts oscillates between affection and horror.

The fixation on the hand through the production of gloves by both Oppenheim and Schiaparelli evolved as they elevated its form with materials that exude eroticism. Schiaparelli’s winter collection of 1936 – 1937 was one of the many she and Salvador Dalí coproduced, incorporating his imagination into her visualization of the body. Schiaparelli designed a pair of black suede gloves that include small, red snakeskin ovals placed in the position of nails. Another pair of Evening Gloves designed in 1936 is bedecked with gilded metal nails resembling claws against sumptuous calf velvet. The eye-catching “nails” contrast with the shadow-like hands that appear to have crept out of a nightmare and into reality. Oppenheim also used decorative nails in her version of an eroticized glove. Mammalian by design and in line with her fascination with fur, Fur Gloves with Wooden Fingers imagines hands covered in light-brown fur with wooden extensions placed at the tip of each finger. She painted the elongating appendages to resemble skin with red fingernails. If worn, these gloves would be unnaturally long, veering toward the grotesque rather than the sensual.

Oppenheim felt reassured by her capability as a designer of “high fantasy” objects with these accessories. She found the contrast between the support material and the animal skin. The layers of tactile surfaces decorating a ridged base is much like the body’s strata of muscles, veins, and skin encasing bones. As noted by Ghislaine Wood, the dichotomy between these materials surfaced in the creation of Object, which was later renamed Le déjeuner en fourrure by Breton as an amalgam of the fetishism described in Sacher Masoch’s play Venus in Furs and the depiction of overt sexuality in Edouard Manet’s Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. The sense of corporality she sought with Object inspired Oppenheim to decorate the teacup in fur as a second skin. She recognized her notoriety as “the artist who lines things” and began to revamp the mass-produced fashion objects through her perpetual desire to revise the standard of taste.”

Freud’s discussion of the boy’s anticipation while searching for the female phallus is exemplified by a shoe designed by Oppenheim. The materials with which she crafted her extraordinary shoe, which evokes pubic hair, entertain the fetishist’s fascination with the possibility of a female phallus. As Freud articulates in his essay, the foot lures the eyes to travel up the inner thighs to discover the absence of the appendage. The pubic hair that cloaks the genital region provides the last hope in the young boy’s quest for genital assurance. Oppenheim applied this motif to the feet in an illustration of shoes that could accompany her Fur Gloves with Wooden Fingers and Fur Bracelet in an ensemble. In her illustration for Project for sandals (1936), she envisioned a black pump with a thin ankle strap and a tuft of fur covering the top of the foot. The unnatural fur growing from the smooth surface of the porcelain pieces of the tea set and on the body the possibility that this fantasy of fur, could become a reality at any given moment. The combination of the fur glove and bracelet for Schiaparelli, if worn together, would cover the body in fur in a manner similar to Object. The spoon, saucer, and teacup are replaced with the wrist, hand, and foot, breaking their conventional functions are they become active representations of repulsion and arousal. Once bedecked in fur accessories, the human body takes on the characteristics of the mass-produced object that embodies projected fetishistic desires that are both real and imagined.

Meret Oppenheim and Elsa Schiaparelli were forerunners in creating avant-garde designs that showcase the body as a Surrealist vision. They reclaimed the body as a base for their analysis of the ideas and imagery that circulated throughout the Surrealist movement. The malleable nature of clothing allowed them to mask the body with the imaginings of the unconscious, surfacing the fears that lie deep within the unconscious. Oppenheim and Schiaparelli unveiled their perception of convulsive beauty by embracing the imagery provided by Freud’s explanations of both the fetish and the uncanny. They successfully meld the masculine vision with their feminine aesthetics in their revolutionary fashion designs.

Putting the whole bibliography here lengthens this too much, reach out if you’re interested in my sources.

• My review of Madeleine Ray Hines: As Is was published for Exhibits in New York. You can read it here. Alexandra and Sarah were incredible to work with on this. It also inspired me to dig deeper into the way the repetition of images changes the perceived value of items, art and fashion as signifiers of their owners, and the interpretation of a cultural symbol of luxury and its translation into another high-end asset (fashion to art), but I think these would be better tackled in an academic paper.

• I had the pleasure of writing the press release for Fiona Krugolets’s show that opens this weekend:

The ghosts are steaming their delicate, antique garments, the werewolves are at the salon getting blowouts, and the witches are covertly flying across the sky on cinnamon-scented brooms in preparation for their big holiday next week. You can’t convince me that icons of freight do not prepare for Halloween the way the rest of us mortals do for our celebrations. A rare treat that was delivered this spooky season was a handful of shows that enhance the bewitching spirit of All Hallows’ Eve. Below are 7 shows that will transport you into the haunting worlds of these artists’ imaginations.

Brandon Morris: Tissu Expansé at Europa

I first met Brandon Morris’s sculptural enigmas earlier this year in his exhibition titled Actress at Europa. When I entered the gallery, I was greeted by a group of dresses. One of them gently curtsied, another rested their wrists on the edge of their squared-off skirt, and a few more hunched their shoulders in either sadness, displeasure, or a combination of the two emotions—glowing green like radium in the dark. I could not grasp the true emotions that activated the frocks because they were all standing in the space sans body. These tactile apparitions are haunting reminders of the imprint of mortality on our existence.

Who were the people who once inhabited these garments? The ghastly material frozen in time found my mind drifting back to the late 19th and early 20th century during the boom of Spiritualism. The surface of each dress is slick, as if the former body that lived in these outfits secreted a fluid strong enough for the fabric to hold their shape without their presence. During this time period, ectoplasm was a substance believed to have materialized from the body of a spiritual medium, developing into a tangible representation of the spirit they contacted while under a trance-like state during a seance. It has been proven countless times that this matter, made from cheesecloth smoothed out with potato starch and egg whites, was made to enthrall naive audiences into believing their encounters with the paranormal were more legitimate than they were. However, the haunting gowns that were present in the gallery are akin to this phenomenon and arguably more chilling because they are ever-present.

The works on view in Tissu Expansé were completed during Morris’s residency in Paris, where he continued his exploration of the unsettling and elegant relationship between fashion and sculpture. This is also on view in the City of Lights.

About the artist: Brandon Morris (b. 2000, San Diego, CA), lives and works in New York, NY. He received his BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2023. His influences include the works of Takashi Miike, Bruce Bickford, Hans Bellmer, Sci-Fi, and Victorian design to create grotesque and elegant structures.

Cindy Ji Hye Kim: Saboteur: A Prehistoric Wish at Casey Kaplan

Do you ever wonder what goes on under the harvest moon? The activated skeletal figures in Kim’s paintings come to life as they prepare for both the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice.

The press release for this show is wonderfully written:

“In traditional medieval calendars, the pages illustrating the six months from August to January are adorned with scenes of harvesting and threshing wheat, sowing seeds, fattening livestock, slaughtering animals, and resting. Kim reinterprets these labors of the latter half of the year as allegories for a period of closure, when the fruits of the land must be extracted, livestock sacrificed, and the laboring body comes to an idle pause. Against this melancholic backdrop of nature’s transitional phase, Kim’s silhouetted, skeletal forms teeter on the edge of decomposition.”

About the artist: Cindy Ji Hye Kim (b. 1990, Incheon, Korea), lives and works in New York, NY. She received her B.F.A. from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 and her M.F.A. from the Yale University School of Art in 2016. Synthesizing influences as disparate as early animation, construction scaffolding, pests and flora, medieval torture devices, and Korean folk arts, Kim’s depictions of the contorted human form speak to the limits of both body and language.

Zach McCormick Collins: I Want To Believe at Locker Room Gallery

No episode of television frightened me more than catching the scene of the baby with a tail on The X-Files. My memory cannot recall how fast I ran to my room after seeing that, but the show’s theme song manages to give me goose bumps whenever I hear it to this day. In Collins’s show I Want to Believe, he depicts imagery associated with the convergence of both UFO conspiracies and UK rave culture of the 1990s, “the self-obliterating euphoria of club culture and the ego-dissolving encounter with the alien other both promise escape from ordinary bodily consciousness into something more fluid.” His panels glow, as if the beam from the mothership spotlit his subjects as he translates digital ephemera from this moment in time into artistic truth.

About the artist: Zach McCormick Collins (b. 1992), lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His research-driven practice transforms hyper-specific moments from the internet and media culture into luminous airbrush paintings that reveal unexpected historical and psychological connections.

Elizabeth Glaessner: Running Water at PPOW

One of the greatest fears I’ve had since childhood is being pulled out into the middle of the ocean by rip currents. Every year, when my family would make our summer pilgrimage to Santa Barbara, my mom would tell me about fond memories she had at the beach when she was young (she was a California girl growing up in Simi Valley, then Oxnard), and warn me about the possible dangers of the invisible forces pulsing in the water. For a period of time, I had vivid nightmares of being in the car with family members, driving down the Pacific Coast Highway, and seeing a giant tidal wave gain momentum before descending onto land. I would wake up before it made contact because I did not want to witness the outcome of the disaster.

The images frozen in Glaessner’s paintings capture the mystery, fear, and reverence that I have for water. To capture the “incessant flood” her figures are submerged in, she used layers of enriched pigments and lush oil paint to simulate “the fluidity of water, to create permeable narratives in which figures continuously ebb between formal articulation and non-representational gesture.” This body of work was drawn from her childhood memories, growing up in East Texas, navigating the swamplands rich with biological benefits and hazards. The precarious waterways would be sites for play before turning treacherous, wreaking havoc on neighborhoods in the span of a downpour. The figures in her paintings are paralyzed in a semi-dreamlike state as their faces register the frightening reality that envelops them. However, another reading of these startled expressions could be the initial shock that occurs before navigating rough waters, leading to prolific clarity.

About the artist: Elizabeth Glaessner (b. 1984, Palo Alto, TX), lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Drawing from art history, mythology, memory, and pop culture, her dream-like paintings conjure a surreal universe uninhibited by conventional boundaries. In this imagined realm, fluid figures populate amorphous landscapes where both person and surroundings are in a seemingly constant state of metamorphosis.

Ambera Wellman: Darkling at Hauser & Wirth and One Thousand Emotions at Company Gallery

Ambera Wellmann currently has two exhibitions on view in New York that are delightfully frightening. Darkling at Hauser & Wirth features works that capture the dark, hellish aftermath of apocalyptic destruction as “death appears to be thrashing towards us, as opposed to us moving calmly and expectedly towards her, following in the footsteps of everything that’s ever been alive.” The topic of imminent extinction is also carried through in One Thousand Emotions at Company Gallery. Viewing Wellmann’s paintings make me feel as if I accidentally fell into someone’s unconscious, not necessarily hers, but someone who regularly ruminates on their actions in the corporeal world and how they will determine their existence in the afterlife.

About the artist: Ambera Wellmann (b. 1982, Lunenberg, Nova Scotia), lives and works in New York, NY. Many of the themes and methods she pursues in her paintings are constructed from numerous layers of intricately worked wet oils, often depicting nebulous human and animal forms, sometimes in extremis or entwined in states of ecstasy, figurative in only a tenuous sense. Her work captures the frontier where the known meets the uncanny.

Sarah Theresa Lee: What Big Eyes You Have at Ricco/Maresca

A formative moment in growing up was learning the gruesome origins of fairy tales. Cinderella’s stepsisters cut off pieces of their feet in an attempt to fit into her bespoke glass slipper, Little Red Riding Hood was not liberated from the Big Bad Wolf’s belly, and The Little Mermaid is in a perpetual state of suffering when she walks with her new legs all in exchange for love that never finds her, returning to the sea as foam. In What Big Eyes You Have, Sarah Theresa Lee depicts domestic spaces of comfort and intimacy, yet pulls the curtain back to reveal the horrors kept hidden from public view. Her paintings continue the lineage of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault; the whimsical tales illustrated on panels are more menacing than what we would like to believe.

I’m drawn to the unsettling images she captures because they grapple with the horrors commonly faced by women, yet there is a slight tinge of humor among the exaggerated, grotesque imagery. One figure is sitting at her vanity, popping an eyeball back in its socket in preparation for witnessing new terror for the day, another kneels on a dining room chair as she feeds her proverbial beast, and many others don masks to conceal themselves for self-preservation (are they keeping their percived goodness to themselves and repelling evil with a fear-inducing visage or hiding their sinister ways).

The topic of masks and voyeurism is covered very well in the press release for the show:

“Nowhere is this more apparent than in her treatment of heads and faces as masks: removed, swapped, assumed—they become sites of transformation. Shapeshifting, unstable selves; femininity as both performance and possession; the doubling, troubling gaze of the mirror…[What Big Eyes You Have] points to the act of looking and being looked at: seeing too much or being unable to look away. In Lee’s world, that gaze is never neutral; it becomes voyeurism, accusation, revelation. Power dynamics flicker: someone is watching, someone is pretending, someone is poised to strike. It is this meeting of surface charm and underlying mystery that gives Lee’s paintings their uncanny magnetism. Their lush color, formal rigor, and seductive strangeness invite repeated viewing—and promise new revelations with every return.”

About the artist: Sarah Theresa Lee (b. 1980, Ireland), lives and works in London. She works as a psychiatric nurse and devotes the rest of her time to painting. Her subjects appear as if conjured from the layered sediment of memory, ritual, and dream.

Cultural Digest:

• Films: I haven’t watched as many spooky movies as I intended to this month. Life has been scary enough. However, I did end up watching Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971), which didn’t do anything for me. I felt exhausted after watching the nuns exert themselves emotionally and physically under demonic duress. I felt this way after I saw Possession (1981) for the first time. I enjoyed Ms .45 (1981) greatly, so much that I want to write about it. Rohmer’s A Tale of Autumn (1998) also ignited a desire to craft an essay concerning the foibles of modern love.

• Articles and Essays:
  What I Wish I Had Known About Germany Earlier. A timely piece by Ai Weiwei. This passage was one of my favorites: “In the surrounding atmosphere, one sees not culture, but self-congratulation; not art, but insularity and collective reverence for power. What is missing is sincerity — honesty of emotion and of intention. In such an environment, art that grapples with true human feeling or moral reckoning is nearly impossible to produce.”

  The Avant-Garde Is Over. Should Artists Embrace Being Fashionably Late? “The story that culture workers tell about visual art’s prescience contributes to the field’s romance in order to justify our purpose beyond superficial pleasures. Today, when it’s harder than ever for art to function as a leading indicator, it’s worth examining how some art functions as a lagging indicator—showing audiences not where culture is headed but where it’s been.”

  On Jia’s Need. Incredible essay on the complications of writing in a competitive landscape.

• Events:
  If you are in New York this weekend, go see And I A Smiling Woman, curated by my friend Cath, featuring work by Sylvie Harris. Before you go, revisit my interview with Sylvie here.
  This is my dream panel. I wish I could teleport to be here:

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Samantha Pleet x Francesca DiMattio

Last fall, I wrote this piece for Architectural Digest, analyzing the relationship fashion designers have with interior design and how references to home decor infuse their collections. I had an enthralling conversation with Samantha Pleet and her husband, Patrick, about art, design, and architecture that could've gone on for hours. In this piece, Samatha told me about her grandmother’s Tudor-style home covered in floral-pattered wallpaper that serves as endless inspiration when she is developing patterns, “There’s a lot of personal storytelling in my clothes, which I feel is the most important element. There is a human touch and a history behind my patterns [beyond] their aesthetics that connect our lives to what we create.” This past week, she released a new collection in collaboration with the artist Francesca DiMattio, who blends architecture, art history, and design references into her paintings and scupltures. Garments fit for the most imaginative design lovers ( i.e., me, I am an imaginative design lover)! This collection was welcomed into the world with a celebration held at DiMattio’s porcelain-adorned Manhattan townhouse, which has been featured in The World of Interiors. As you can see, motifs found throughout her art and home make for equally eye-catching textile patterns: delicate cobalt blue flowers signature in porcelain art and joyful expressions of rosebuds enliven wardrobes and walls.

Tanner Fletcher SS26, “Re-Decorating”

Most runway spectacles performed at fashion weeks in the recent past have come across as flash-in-the-pan moments for virality. Thankfully, Tanner Flecther literally delivered a substantial presentation for their latest Spring Summer 2026 collection titled “Re-Decorating.” As soon as the moving truck doors swung open, it was time to get a peek into dressing and decorating when the weather begins to warm and the flowers start to bloom. And when the flowers bloom, you will certainly have a baby blue ceramic vase to display the spoils of May showers.

Each of the models was accessorized with objects that were co-designed by Tanner Flecther for Etsy or hand-picked selections from sellers on the ultimate website for treasure hunters. As models entered the living and dining room, they gingerly placed their wares in the room they were destined for, all dressed up to dress the home. The pairings of the home goods and looks are impeccable. So much so that I will consider wearing headkerchifs to coordinate with a polished napkin and ring (imagine this as a bangle concept, a substantial silver bracelet with a cotton napkin to dab off sweat), carrying a ruffled pillow in case of an emergy nap in a fabric that matches my dress, hell, why not walk around with an artwork, I don’t mind being a walking billboard for artists I love! What I love most about this collection is the enhanced attention to the way the shape of home goods resemble clothing structure, particularly with the exaggerated bow loops and ends, and the accompanying candelabra and the column dress with an extra flair, and the lampshade. Least we not mention the function of draping when Romilly Newman, Gen-Z’s Martha Stewart , according to Town & Country, closing the show, emerges from the truck effortlessly carrying a set of 1700’s reproduction curtains matching her gown.

The Semiotics of Dressing

Earlier this year, I visited the exhibition The Semiotics of Dressing at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery, a gallery specializing in decorative arts and design. My interest was immediately piqued because I studied semiotics throughout my undergrad; it is a valuable theoretical framework for my interdisciplinary studies in art history and communications. For those unfamiliar, semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and how they create meaning. The two principal founders are the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure and the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, each defining systems for analysing language through words, images, or more generally “signs.” Saussure is famously known for ascribing sign systems to language and defining the components of signs, which are the signifier (word, sound, image, visual component), signified (concept behind the visual/sonic component), and the sign (the combination of the signifier and signified, the whole meaning of the visual/sonic component). Pierced favored pragmatism in his work and defined signs into three main categories: “an icon, which resembles its referent (such as a road sign for falling rocks), an index, which is associated with its referent (as smoke is a sign of fire), and a symbol, which is related to its referent only by convention (as with words or traffic signal).”1

However, upon rereading the exhibition’s text, I was extremely disappointed in the lack of how this framework relates to the objects on view. Instead, it rambles on about “the concept of the dressing room as a private place of metamorphosis; it is a jewel box where delicate adornments become instruments in service of beauty. Furniture, lighting, art and decorative objects comprise the dressing room’s scenography, a deliberate and thoughtful – even possibly peculiar – arrangement.” Okay…Nothing irritates me more than when a body of text repeats itself with different words, as this one does. It points out that the title derives from Martha Rosler’s The Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), in which the artist parodies Julia Child by way of standing in a kitchen and assigning letters from the alphabet to the tools found in the domestic space, adding frustration to her voice as this video work goes on. For additional context, Rosler explains this work, “I was concerned with something like the notion of ‘language speaking the subject,’ and with the transformation of the woman herself into a sign in a system of signs that represent a system of food production, a system of harnessed subjectivity.”2 But how does this specifically relate to the objects in this exhibition? The text would’ve been stronger if they could connect this with anything in the gallery, especially since this work is a critique of domestic labor and not dress.

Sure, the meaning between an object and an individual is subjective. Still, there is no inciting idea for visitors to consider, especially if they are unfamiliar with semiotics. Why were these objects chosen in relation to the signifier and signified between the individual and their dressing room? What do the materials tell us about the act of dressing and its performance? Respectfully, if you want your audience to gain an understanding of your exhibition’s thesis, you’re gonna need to be more explicit about the purpose of the works in the show. But, if the goal was to draw people in because any mention of dressing is a light to the eclipse of moths that only want to look at beautiful objects, then this is a success.

Anyway, the pieces below sent me into an analytical spiral.

What did I think about when I first saw this piece? Well, I considered the reflective material and how it causes us to look at ourselves, how window blinds create a barrier between a private interior and the exterior world, and the consideration of self-presentation in both spaces. Does self-perception in either of these areas, physically or emotionally, correspond? Do they diverge, as extravagant clothes detract from an introverted disposition? Alignment between the public and private self is a rich topic for contempation with this piece.

My mind flipped through the images in my mental archive and landed on Louise Bourgeois’s Blue Days as soon as I saw Hermann Becker’s Gessler Clothing Rack. Initially, it resembled any modern sculpture, but the felt-covered curves are aching for clothing to cover them. That is the beauty of this work: it can function as both an objet d’art and a utilitarian clothing support. The conversation between these two works began to take shape in my mental gallery as Bourgeois fills the void present in Becker’s, 3-dimensional mannequin forms are extended into space to display an intensified version of “the human body and of life’s episodes (those as daughter, wife, mother, woman, artist).” When Bourgeois was 85, she began to explore her wardrobe for inspiration, using her collection of garments and textiles to fashion “fabric drawing” that expanded upon themes like family, memory, and desire that are present throughout her oeuvre. Bourgeois noted, “You can retell your life … by the shape, weight, colour and smell of those clothes in your closet. They are like the weather, the ocean, changing all the time.”3


Honorable Mentions:

London Fashion Week is currently underway, and I would be remiss not to mention these standout looks from Simone Rocha's Spring/Summer 2026 collection. The draping across select outerwear pieces and bottoms evoke unruly curtains swooping into a floral display on a nearby side table, making for well-scented tiebacks. Plastic coverings shield “dry clean only” finery that is reminiscent of the bespoke sheaths reserved for furniture covered in precious textiles. This is a collection so dreamy she included pillows as accessories:

The World of Interiors recently published the perfect editorial on the culmination of interior design and fashion. Taking inspiration from the book Jane Asher’s Fancy Dress, a gaggle of luminaries, including Zandra Rhodes and Jane Asher herself, are styled in over-the-top costumes resembling home goods to flaunt the latest and greatest fabrics this season.

Cultural Digest:

• Literature: I’m starting Sophie Kemp’s Paradise Logic. I’ve been noting in each of my books when I start and finish them, averaging about a month for each. I like to absorb each sentence on every page, slow and steady, to remember better.

• Articles: Everyone’s favorite fashion critic Rachel Tashjian on the banality of New York Fashion Week. I agree that Anna Sui (the nod to Southwest aesthetics caught my eye, as this style has been a topic on my mind to research, being back in the desert) and Eckhaus Latta were standouts, as was the fantastically tacky AREA. I loved this brilliant piece on yearning and style by Rachel Kushner in the New Yorker. Need to reread The Flamethrowers.

• TV: Last fall, I tried to watch Gilmore Girls for the first time while teaching myself how to crochet. I’m doing this earnestly this season.

• Film: In honor of both the Robert Altman collection on Criterion and fashion month, I pressed play on Prêt-à-Porter (1994). I enjoyed the tapestry of drama and collection presentations. Recent watches include: a double feature with the theme of “male internal conflict that ends with a club banger” that consisted of Trainspotting (1996) and Beau Travail (1999). A Trainspotting rewatch was inevitable after seeing it listed in the ‘90s Soundtrack Movies collection on Criterion and getting served Underworld’s Boiler Room set on TikTok repeatedly. If I had three words to describe Beau Travail they would be: militaristic Merce Cunningham. I also did a double feature with the theme “Girl, so confusing in the high desert,” which was comprised of 3 Women (1977) and Female Perversions (1996). Female Perversions is one of the few films I watched for the first time this year that I keep thinking about. I hope to turn this pairing into a newsletter post one of these days. Stay tuned.
  

1

This was pulled from Britannica’s quick primer on semiotics. It also notes the famous Film Forum banana bread lover and French philosopher Jacques Derrida as a semiotics user. Other men who have impacted my academic life are also included: Roland Barthes, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Jacques Lacan. If these names don’t ring bells, then I’m sad the academic system failed you, but please educate yourself offline. Print their work out / buy their books, and get to note-taking.

Lauren Vaccaro: Out of all the artistic mediums, what drew you to photography?

Sylvie Harris: I didn't immediately gravitate towards photography. When I was taking my first photo class as a freshman in college, it didn’t resonate with me until I saw the images I was capturing as translations of mental sketches. I never carried a sketchbook or regularly drew, but I like to keep notes of things. However, I always had a strong inclination towards art and knew that it was a path I would pursue.

I started loving photography while I was working in the darkroom because it was tactile. I like the concept of taking pictures as sketches for myself and making images with intention because you only have so many exposures on a roll of film. It’s a precious and physical process. When I began printing on textiles, that's when everything started to gel.

LV: When I dabbled in photography myself, it took time to adapt to the physical mechanics inherent in the process. It's a joy to get to the point when something clicks and you can translate what you have in your head into something physical. And if it works, why not stick with this to see how it develops, so to speak.

SH: That is the whole challenge of photography. You see something you want to capture, but then you have to use this machine to make it happen. I have a good understanding of the mechanics for taking pictures, but it can be a hurdle to jump over. Once I made the leap and I found confidence in working with this process, things took off from there.

I think that there's something visceral about processing images in the darkroom and printing on textiles. The procedure of making the image, developing the film, and printing it on the paper. All the mixing, all the chemicals, moving things from the trays. When I learned how to print on textiles, although it's different, it had a similar tactile nature to it. Whereas taking a picture, working on it digitally, and then printing it digitally, that's great and a huge skill. But something was missing in terms of me feeling like that was the final product.

LV: I know you work with both archival and your images on textiles, but how do you reframe these images on materials beyond paper? Do you have an idea of how your work will take shape as a garment to be worn or as a free-form, sculptural piece?

SH: I go through different phases of that. Right now, I have archival images and one that I've taken, but it's also about coordinating how I want certain projects to tell stories, which right now is the maternal lineage of garment making. Recently, I've been going through images that my mom took or exist in our family archive. I usually print them out on a small scale and place them on the wall to look at for a while. Once I commit to printing it on silk, I am committed to making the work. I spend a lot of time thinking, “How does this work with this concept?” Then I consider how they take shape in the form of a pattern.

LV: I love how the works took shape in your “Lineage of Labor” show. What was the spark for you to explore domesticity, especially in a medium historically connected to women's work across generations?

SH: I've been thinking about this for a long time because I was pretty close with my grandmother, who passed away when I was a teenager. She was a talented seamstress and made clothes for many people in my family. She stopped doing it so much for her younger kids because she had nine children, and she kind of stopped halfway through. She also cooked three meals a day for 11 people who lived in her house. She worked herself to the bone, but I had such a reverence and appreciation for her. I loved her. She was also incredibly artistic. And I think she understood me as an artist. She would like to send me drawings or sketchbooks with drawings of hers on the first few pages. But she also spent so much time sewing and had a special corner in the basement where she worked. My great-grandmother did the same thing. I've always been interested in this idea, of these beautiful projects that my grandmother made, but they never made their way outside the home. And that wasn't necessarily her goal.

I've thought about what my grandmother would have wanted, and I can't make assumptions that she wanted to do anything aside from making clothes or decorative things for the house. However, I do think there is an underappreciation of objects made for the home. They are usually relegated to this other world of craft, but there's a whole history in art of women making these beautiful items for the home that are considered just crafts. I think looking at what she created and appreciating the things that she did, these beautiful objects that were beautiful and made for daily use, and then also knowing that they just don't get seen in the same way as other art forms like paintings. I am always thinking about how these domestic objects operate and how domestic work is framed differently.

LV: This is also something I am so fascinated by and want to sink my teeth into more from the notions you brought of how certain objects are classified in art. I am always questioning why decorative objects designed for the home aren't as appreciated as a painting. Why can't an everyday item hold the same weight in value as an “art object,” when these handmade items are carefully created for a specific purpose? It's interesting how people perceive what is valuable and what isn't, when I'm always of the mind of thinking it's all valuable. It's all for a reason, especially when it's the desire to create something for themselves as a creative outlet or something for a family to enjoy and hopefully be passed down through generations to be appreciated throughout the familial lineage.

SH: I agree, it seems so blatantly obvious. Throughout history, those things have not been valued in the same way; however, the creation of domestic items was a way for people to express their creativity. If someone has a creative inclination, they're going to find a way to use it. There's no less artistic intention in these objects than there is in paintings hanging in museums. I wonder if this is shifting a little. I think there is a lot of textile art being made now. I think that there's maybe a reframing, but the way that the art world can be and is just inherently misogynistic, it will take a long time to change that.

LV: I do see hope with it, as there is a shift of people being so focused on interiors as well. From what I've seen, like within like the past year or so, even in fashion, newsletters are covering home objects. I'm endlessly interested in the way people present themselves and how they decorate their home, creating a world of their own in clothes and decor. Even in these discussions, female designers don't get the same coverage as men do. If anything, I'm glad that this discourse is going on regarding connecting that value and appreciation of what we bring into our home and how it relates to our lives, from a piece of clothing that we cherish or a piece of furniture that we hope to keep for a long time. Going back to textile works, which have historically been regarded as craft or outsider art, if it's a work made by a self-taught artist, who is to say what is and isn’t art? There are always these ridiculous stipulations that attempt to determine value based on how something was created, what it’s made from, and the skill level of the artist.

SH: Totally. I'm interested in that division. I was saying, as we're both talking about, like that division between the art object and the non-art object. But I think that this medium that I figured out is operating on this border that I really like because it's a printed photograph. Art is always going to keep evolving. Photography is a two-dimensional, precious medium. People create these beautiful prints that get framed and hung up on the wall. And to print them on textiles and kind of make them into this very fluid object and an object that references an apron, something that gets dirty, gets worn. It’s not a garment that you'd wear outside the house. It's not even a garment that you would treasure. So to operate in this gray area between all of those things, I think, is interesting. And I want to see how I can move to the point of somebody buying this work to wear. I think it would be interesting to experiment with why, when somebody's buying art, they can wear it and show it in their home. I'm not a trained seamstress, but improvement in this area is in the future. I think what I have created now is a great way to even track progress as an artist, to see how these objects evolve.

LV: Even if slight imperfections may appear, it’s important to cherish them. If we're looking at it as an art object or thinking about things made by hand or, you know, adding flourish to something, I still think there's such an important value in unexpected details.

SH: Yeah, that's a good point. And that's also what makes something made by hand special. The evidence of mark-making by the artist, which is something that we value a lot in other media. It would be interesting to include in textile work that has the potential to be born. I think it's better to reframe it than to just expect perfection.

LV: There's an expectation of perfectionism in nearly anything women do, including the various tasks we take on. I struggle with self-imposed perfectionism too. Something I cherish while looking at art, painting, for example, is when I get close to a canvas and the brush strokes are undetectable, but what I geek out on is looking at the sides and seeing the artist’s fingerprints that break the veneer of perfection. It’s refreshing to see an artist's hand. In an age where clothing or images are mediated by mechanical objects or systems, it's refreshing to see human touch.

SH: That's so true, especially digital photography. Perfection is kind of the goal. To see the imperfections, not to say there aren't imperfections in that process, but I'm much more of a perfectionist with photography because I'm trained as a photographer. It’s part of my job for images to be perfect for clients. Maybe I should embrace the slight glitches with textiles instead of thinking “I need to work on this.”

LV: When I went to your studio, I remember seeing the beautiful ball of collaged fabrics collected by your grandmother, and how she fused strips of mechanically made textiles into a sculptural collection.

SH: I love those balls of fabric. I use so much of her stuff. I inherited a lot of her sewing materials. All of the thread I have is from her. Obviously, she and I lived different lives. But in some ways, I'd like to think of it as kind of picking up where she left off artistically. She was able to sew, and she kind of passed that down in a way through her materials, which also makes me feel more connected to the work I’m making.

LV: Absolutely! The pieces that feature women working in textile factories is that a subject you plan on expanding upon in other ways in your work?

SH: I did a whole project with pieces of archival images and made this quilt from scraps of images of women working, and I think about this imagery a lot. However, I want to insert myself in the story and expand the imagery beyond my family's story. I'm wondering where I want to go and where I want to photograph. I love using archival images, but I don't think only archival images work for this. A contemporary experience, like mine, should be in the work too as well as the stories of other seamstresses. I think I need to just find more stories. Because I know my story, know my family story, but there's more. There's more out there.

LV: I think it'd be interesting to build an archive or create a visual tapestry of all the stories you come across from talking to people. The East Coast is rich with textile history.

SH: Oh, definitely. I feel that there's something in my neighborhood, too. I live in Greenpoint, which has a deep industrial history I want to learn more about. In some of my pieces, I used images from the photographer Lewis Heine. These specifically feature textile mills located in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts, where my great-grandmother worked. He traveled throughout the East Coast to these textile mills, many of which don’t exist today. But I know there are stories to uncover, especially in this part of Brooklyn.

I like the progression that my work has taken because I've experimented with many different things within both photo and textile. I still love working with both those mediums, and I feel grateful that I found a way to work with them together while I was in grad school. I initially started with quilting, and I liked that, but there wasn’t a connection to the quilting process in my family. I didn’t feel like I was expressing my story in this way with textiles. But then, when it came to garment-making, it felt more natural because I am fascinated by the construction of clothing and have been admiring clothes for as long as I can remember. I am not part of that world, but I just watch from the sidelines appreciating it. I've landed in this place now where I feel like I'm working in the way that's the most authentic to me.

I’ve noticed that there is a lot of experimentation in the art world today. I think the larger system of it is not working for a lot of people, but I think artists are making great work right now. I think artists are tired of the old structures and are trying new things. That's one of the benefits of things kind of falling apart.

LV: This is the reason why I advocate for keeping art programs, holding on to them for dear life in schools, because nothing will teach you problem-solving skills like being an artist or working on an art project. That is where practical problem-solving skills are developed.

SH: Absolutely. When I'm making a piece and I think it's going to turn out a certain way and it doesn't, then I have to figure out how to correct it. But there's also learning how to emotionally let go and not letting something get to your head. I've learned from every phase of my work, and I'm wondering what will come next. My main goal is to take more photos and try to get better at sewing.

Sylvie Harris’s work combines photographs and textiles into domestic garments that address the burden of the unachievable feminine ideal. Harris graduated in 2022 with an MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago where she was also a Curatorial Assistant at the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the recipient of the 2021 Stuart Abelson Graduate Research Fellowship in Krakow, Poland. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, Foreman Gallery at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York and All Street Gallery in New York, New York, among others. Harris’s recent solo exhibitions include "The Ancestry of Home" at Arcade Gallery in Chicago, Illinois, “Lineage of Labor” at Swartley Gallery at Dwight Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey and “Labor” at Korn Gallery at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Harris was born in 1993 in Chicago, Illinois, raised in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

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• wrote an incredible piece for her newsletter, Nobody’s Home, about the exhibition WORK/LIFE IMBALANCE on view at Kalei that celebrates the brilliant designer Gaetano Pesce’s colorful and expressive office interior, which he designed for TBWA Chait/Day. This is an office I would happily commute 40 minutes to in a heatwave and/or torrential downpour. I also can’t get it out of my mind how much the below mail chest reminds me of Jasper Johns’ work.
  

• The Venn Diagram of the girls who are excited about the Sofia Coppola-directed Marc Jacobs documentary and those upset at Kylie Jenner’s inclusion in Miu Miu’s Fall/Winter 2025 campaign is a circle. The worlds crafted by Marc Jacobs and Miuccia Prada are done so with precise intention, where the it girls of the moment inhabit. Those who have watched their brands develop over the years via fashion magazines and online runway images have the sharpest eye to spot when a shift happens for better or worse. ’s thoughts on the campaign casting hit my inbox at the perfect moment as I was wondering what Miuccia was thinking, and her piece mirrors many of the thoughts I had. After sitting with this throughout the week, I wondered if her inclusion reflected the symbolic little sister brand (Kylie/Miu Miu ) outshining in “coolness” to younger generations compared to her older siblings (the rest of the Kardashians/Prada). This is probably a stretch, and I don’t like to pair that family with these brands, but I also have two eyes and am online enough to see this unfolding. Their exact style may not be as prominent in the zeitgeist anymore, but the desire to make a living from “influencing” is Gen Z’s dream job. Depop and Poshmark are the proletariat’s Kardashian Kloset.

• Every summer is an Éric Rohmer summer, to me. I watched both The Green Ray and A Tale of Summer for the first time this week. The sequence of both films cover nearly the entire month of July, according to the cards that indicate the change of day and scene.

  

In my last post, I mentioned the exhibition Phantom Attractions at Astor Weeks and highlighted a few artists whose work resonated with me. There was one artist whom I wanted to research a little more, someone with a mysterious history, as there is very little information available about her life. Today, I would like to introduce you to Dorothy F. Foster.

Foster was born in Jersey City in 1903. Her mother, working as a dressmaker, eventually relocated the family to Manhattan for better career prospects. Following in her mother’s footsteps, she also chose a creative career path and went on to study art and interior design at the Cooper Union. After graduation, Foster began designing textiles and worked for A. Sulka & Company, a label recognized for their lush silk robes and custom shirts favored by royalty and film stars. Unfortunately, there is no record of what Foster worked on. We can only surmise how she laid out the patterns and paired colors together by viewing the archived advertisements and garments online and in museums.

She maintained her creative practice in other art forms, including writing poetry and painting throughout her life. In the 1970s, she moved to Port Jervis, New York to retire and spend time with her sister. Although she was away from the city, the creative energy never left her. Her ballpoint pens continually flowed as she produced hundreds of drawings of delicate figures outfitted in witchy, conical hats, facial silhouettes with their gazes into mystical atmospheres, dream worlds recorded with urgency on nearly any surface readily available to absorb her fantastic illustrations of the world that lived in her imagination. Envelopes, magazines, paper plates, and postcards were sufficient canvases, everyday items made otherworldly. For Foster’s presentation at Outsider Art Fair in 2023, writer Hannah Sheridan noted that the ballpoint pen-carved arches framing her work “adds a theatrical quality to each piece, as though the scene takes place on stage...Foster presents found images in a new context or erases the original image completely, leaving only the artist’s balanced compositions and rich color palette in their place.”

The only record that opens the portal into her world, where one may learn more about the cryptic catalog of artworks she created, is her 1973 autobiography titled The Noisesome Day, the Stilly Night. Foster recoded the quitodian goings on of her life, such as scenes of life in New York, birthdays, and personal reflections. In a quote that was pulled to explain her work for Phantom Attractions, she recorded that “daydreams seem to collide with facts…to come up breathless with something bright and lively, patchwork droll, and yet a whole new-patterned, conjured-into-being thing.”

Foster’s work was unearthed fairly recently from an antique shop in Port Jarvis, New York. Claire Iltis, an Associate Director at the Philadelphia-based gallery Fleisher / Ollman, uncovered faded photo albums containing the small, collage-like drawings and asked the shop’s owner, Robert Young, as many questions as she could about the origins of these artworks. Kismet struck twice for her that day, as he happened to be Foster’s grand-newphew. In a quote to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Iltis said, “It’s every dealer’s dream to be the one that finds the work. I can’t imagine how many caches like this have been lost to time.” Since 2022, Fleisher / Ollman has represented Foster and presented her pieces in various art fairs and exhibitions.

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of attending a screening of select films by Hollywood’s enfant terrible Kenneth Anger at Anthology Film Archives. An auteur of avant-garde cinema, Anger produced approximately 40 films throughout his life, from 1937 to 2013, that explored themes of pop culture, mythology, queer culture, and the occult through a unique, kaleidoscopic lens. While parsing through the digital archive of Foster’s works, a Morse code message began pinging in my mind, reminding me of the visuals that graced my eyes in Anger’s Rabbit’s Moon from 1971. Set at twilight in a blue-lit forest, we see Pierrot tiptoeing across a leaf-strewn ground, beckoning for the moon to radiate its affection onto him. As the short film goes on, cards of sunbursts are collaged within the video as fellow clowns, namely Harlequin and Columbine, and a rabbit entertain Pierrot during his quest. The mystical environment inhabited by costumed characters, the whimsical expressions animating their faces, and the soft moonlight drenching the scene could exist in the world of Foster’s illustrations.

Rabbit’s Moon belongs to Anger’s collection of films titled the "Magick Lantern Cycle,” which is comprised of nine of his most influential works, including Scorpio Rising (1963) and Inaguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954), where he solidified his mastery in visualizing the uncanny, erotic, and magical scenes that occupied in his mind.

I do think the strongest visual correlations between Foster and Anger are reprsneted in Inaguration of the Pleasure Dome. Collaged faces that fade into one another, the visual energy of carmine red, and pure magic frozen in each still. For Film Quarterly, Carel Rowe wrote, “All of [Anger’s] films have been evocations or invocations, attempting to conjure primal forces which, once visually released, are designed to have the effect of ‘casting a spell’ on the audience. […] Not a surrealist who puts blind faith in his own dream images and trusts his dreams to convey an ‘uncommon unconscious,’ Anger works predominantly in archetypal symbol. As the magus, he is the juggler of these symbols, just as in the Tarot, where the Magician is represented by the Juggler and is given the attribution of Mercury, the messenger.”

The message I received when exploring the oeuvres of both Foster and Anger is that there are no limitations on imagination. Create for the sake of creating, allow your mind to wander into a metaphorical wood growing in your mind, because magic might be in there.

Sources:

• Zoe Greenburg, “An art director stumbled upon a stack of drawings in an antique shop. Could she make them the next big thing?” The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 25, 2023.

• Hannah Sheridan, “Dorothy F. Foster,” Outsider Art Fair.

• Press Release for Phantom Attractions at Astor Weeks, New York.

• Press Release for The Stilly Night at March Gallery, New York.

• EC: KENNETH ANGER PROGRAM, Anthology Film Archives

Greetings,

I had the best intentions of writing this newsletter on a regular schedule, but life happened. I moved back to my hometown of Las Vegas a few weeks ago. The logistics of moving, working, making time to see my friends, and stopping at all my favorite haunts before my departure took precedence over writing. Be prepared for lessons, commentary, and the history of this kitschy city soon in forthcoming dispatches. When meeting people for the first time, I always dismissed where I’m from, even as their faces brightened in amazement. I noted my origins with a bit of an acidic tone, mostly due to the dissonance I felt between who I am and what I like and the connotations people have about Vegas. However, as my knowledge of design and architecture continues to grow, my appreciation for the unique buildings that have lined the Strip deepens. I love kitsch! I always have, and I felt a desire to reconnect with “bad taste” heightened after being away from and hopefully change the recipe of interpretation for others to develop an appreciation for odd nuances in tacky flavor. “Good taste” can also leave a sour aftertaste over time. Years ago, for a brief period, I worked at the Neon Museum while I was deep in my grad school application process. One of the projects I worked on was a master list of known motel signs that once decorated the city and documented their metadata. This was one of my favorite projects I have ever worked on. It reminded me of the rich architectural artistry I often overlooked, as I was always focused on leaving. Earlier this year, The New York Times published this story about the fight to save Googie architecture that primarily focused on the futuristic signs that remain in Los Angeles. I read this shortly after my return from the West after a five-year absence, and was emboldened to dive back into my mental reserves of knowledge because Googie was a huge style here. This city has been in constant evolution my entire life, and certainly, before I emerged into the arid landscape. It’s a shame how much history is lost because being out with the old and making way for the new is the norm and perceived mode of keeping the world’s attention to draw people to this oasis of LED screens and monetary chance. As a historian of art and design, the preservation of the past matters to me. And since I’m stationed here, I am excited to explore my hometown with refined eyes and share stories about this city that I’m sure you haven't heard before. 🎰✨

Introducing my Cultural Digest, my brief list of what I watched, read, and consumed each week.

• My dad and I watched the 30 for 30 documentary about Supreme titled “Empire of Skate.” I enjoyed it for the most part, but felt the ending was rushed. I wish there was a bit more elaboration at the end explaining the leap from being an if you know you know brand in New York to being coveted by people who don’t know anything about skateboarding. They briefly touched on the origins of their global resale market and limited product business model, but I would have liked to see the evolution of their marketing and how they reached those outside of the skate world. Maybe that would’ve taken too much time to explain and veered away from the sport element that drives the thesis of this documentary series. Still, the aesthetics of sports constantly influence areas of culture in ways that are sometimes unexpected. Maybe I’m upset because there was no mention of my favorite Supreme products: their accessories. The accessories embody the bratty, devil-may/care essence that one must possess to confidently grind the surfaces of municipal buildings. Having one of these charming and cheeky items digitally slip out of your shopping cart is just as painful as being ghosted by a four-wheeled wielding heart-throb (this never happened to me, I know better than to get involved with a skater). I educated my dad about some of the top-line objects they produced: the brick, Oreos, and of course, the Meissen porcelain sculptures wearing their own box logo t-shirts that I need for my archive. If you happen to see one for a good price, let me know. I would like to bequeath it to the Met one day; they need this in their permanent collection.

  

  
  

• With my move, I felt that my brain had a hard reset. It was a computer with a decibel-breaking fan, relentlessly whirring due to the innumerable tabs I left open of exhibitions to see, projects to research, and books to read. Unfortunately, my mind did not have the capacity for more information via the written word. But because the power cord has been yanked from the NYC power grid, it can get reacquainted with literature offline. I’ve been oscillating between Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection and Eve Babitz’s Black Swans. This is my first Babitz. I’m really leaning into west coast-based art again

• Speaking of which, I rewatched Gregg Arkai’s Totally F***ed Up as it is featured in Metrograph’s curated selections titled “LA Stories.” I want to write an analysis of rooms in his Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy, as the environments featured in The Doom Generation and Nowhere are as striking as the events that occur in each film. I also did my seasonal rewatches of Paris is Burning and Grey Gardens (I watch this every July 4th). Pre-move, I was working through the Criterion Collection’s “In the Deep End: Swimming Pools On-Screen” collection. I watched The Graduate for the first time (I need to be in the right mood to watch a classic), The Swimmer, Water Lilies, and 3 Women (I think this would make for a great double feature with Female Perversions, which was recently added to their channel to screen online).

• I’m rewacthing Girls. It has only gotten better over time.

Name a more perfectly summer pastime than spending a day at an amusement park, I’ll wait. Currently on view in New York are two shows that focus on popcorn-scented, vibrantly built mini worlds of imagination.

Grab some cotton candy and head off to see Jane Dickson: Wonder Wheel at Karma and the group show Phantom Attractions at Astor Weeks.

I first encountered Jane Dickson’s work during her exhibition Promised Land at Karma in the fall of 2023. As I walked through the gallery, her depictions of New York City at night glowed against the white walls. It was as if each work was an aperture, exposing ordinary scenes outside the gallery’s confines, frozen in time. Dickson’s work investigates the psychogeography of American culture. She moved to New York in the late 1970s and began exploring the texture of text by photographing her visually loquacious neighborhood: Times Square. In easily shifting materials like oil paint and sticks, she reilluminates her images against a range of surfaces, such as astroturf, sandpaper, felt, and traditional supports like canvas and linen to examine the American landscape. She has noted that the imagery and language that surrounds us in signage reveal “what Americans are thinking, what we want and why we want it,” which results in works that appear like soft, looming memories. Scenes that diffuse as we pass them day-to-day and in our minds over time.

In Wonder Wheel, the scenes are focused on whimsical, classic carnival scenes and abstracted amusement park rides, primarily Coney Island and the Feast of San Gennaro. The artificial landscapes of imagination are softened, slightly out of focus, like when our eyes grow tired after an afternoon in the sun or are diffused by the steam of food booths hawking sausages and peppers.

Phantom Attractions at Astor Weeks brings together a group of artists who cull the archives of theme parks to create work with the aim to “draw on emotionally-charged cultural artifacts and sites, especially those whose capital is built on economies of hope and desire.”

I am utterly fascinated by Zoe Beloff’s illustrations of a psychoanalytical carnival. On view are pieces that represent her best-known body of work, titled The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society, in which she enviosned a collective of 1930s filmmakers whose desire was to play in the minds of the public to find meaning in their behaviors at play. Her alter ego, Albert Grass, designed a Freudian amusement park complete with a drive-thru for on-the-go psychoanalytical sessions. This Thursday, July 24th, at 7:00pm, she will be at the gallery for a lecture and screening of films by the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society.

Megan Mi-Ai Lee’s sculptures feel as though they are found objects from the entertainment spaces she finds inspiration in. A Los Angeles native now working in Queens, she spent her childhood traveling to Las Vegas, which served as a place for research via souvenirs, signage, and magic tricks that she would find here and during her travels. Her series Zig Zag Girls is inspired by the illusion magicians use to “slice’ their female assistants into pieces while they lay in wait in boxes. Lee transcribes the visual of the confined female body, frozen in a liminal space, with her Blonde in Bathtub works. Both the flat and petite, fuller bodied figures are designed to examine “ the ways in which abbreviations of gender and grandeur become stand-ins for value.”

What is a visit to an amusement park without winning a prize? Hanna Rochereau’s sculptures examine the aesthetically pleasing artificiality of consumerism. As noted in the exhibition’s press release: “If these sites normally rely on the illusory effects of cheap materials to elevate value and pique visual interest, Rochereau’s empty constructions emphasize the material futility of these housings.”

Syllabus:

• If you are in New York this summer and need to dip into the ocean, I am here to tell you that you do not need to waste your time trekking to the Hamptons or the Rockaways; go to Brighton Beach instead. Have lunch at Ocean View Cafe, drink Georgian lemonade, and admire Coney Island while you splash in the surf.

• Watch the 1980 documentary Brighton Beach, it’s streaming on Tubi here.
  

Vegas is a hotbed for transactions of all kinds. Retail is as important as gambling. I’ve never placed a bet or pulled down the handle of a slot machine, but I certainly have taken a financial risk on buying an article of clothing and seeing if it will make it into my wardrobe rotation. Emerging from the arid soil are shopping centers that keep the spark of a glamorous oasis alive in the imagination of Las Vegas visitors. Nearly every casino has a retail thoroughfare you can wander, losing time and possibly funds even without sitting at one of the card tables. The more I think about this, the more I realize that malls and casinos aren’t as different as they appear. You get lost in the excitement of trying to do something that could change your life or you leave with your head in your hands as the impact of the credit card swipe radiates from your wallet to your consciousness.

Recently, I went to a screening of the documentary Secret Mall Apartment. This film recounts the risk a handful of Rhode Island School of Design students took to create a private space for themselves within the Providence Place Mall, where they “resided” from 2003 to 2007. This was a spectacle conceived in secret for a private audience. A risk was taken to see if they could reclaim a slice of their lives from within the belly of consumerist Goliath.

Never underestimate the levels art students can get scrappy. Prior to the mall’s construction, our main protagonist Michael Townsend, and his collective of friends utilized abandoned mills that were nearby as spaces for living, art studios, and music performances. However, since there was essentially no rent and the location was about to be desirable due to the forthcoming retail behemoth, real estate investors started to sniff around and kicked out the artists. A tale as old as time.

When the mall was built, they began analyzing its grand construction and noticed a pocket of space was hidden away. They finally discovered it after climbing through the nooks and crannies other folks would never think to venture into. Their ingenuity was rewarded with room for them to make whatever they wanted. Throughout the film we see them haul couches, lamps, cabinets, and an array of home goods sourced from antique shops and the mall they resided in, up to their secret apartment, squeezing them in too-small hallways and precariously pulling them up a narrow flight of stairs. Thank god they had the foresight to document their “home” project with a small Pentax camera they conceal in an Altoids tin.

What struck me the most was how their apartment was an active art installation against gentrification and an idea incubator for public projects that did something for others. I say something because I can’t articulate the perceptions others felt when seeing Michael’s ephemeral murals made of tape for the local children’s hospital (and sometimes with the children as a collaborative project) or the silhouettes echoed in tape that dotted lower Manhattan in honor of those that lost their lives during 9/11. Risk is fuel for meaningful creation.

By 2007, the apartment was discovered and the collective was banned from the mall. That is, until the release of this film.

Syllabus:

Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange

I highly recommend this book and I’m due for a reread.

“Few places have been as nostalgized, or as maligned, as malls. Since their birth in the 1950s, they have loomed large as temples of commerce, the agora of the suburbs. In their prime, they proved a powerful draw for creative thinkers such as Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury, and George Romero, who understood the mall's appeal as both critics and consumers. Yet today, amid the aftershocks of financial crises and a global pandemic, as well as the rise of online retail, the dystopian husk of an abandoned shopping center has become one of our era's defining images. Conventional wisdom holds that the mall is dead. But what was the mall, really? And have rumors of its demise been greatly exaggerated?”

Corduroy by Don Freeman

I would be lying if I didn’t mention that this also lit up in my mind while watching this film. My dreams of staying overnight in the mall began after reading this countless times. I always wanted to take him home!

“Corduroy lives in the toy department of a big store. Day after day he waits with all the other animals and dolls for somebody to come along and take him home. Yet as soon as Lisa sees him, she knows that he’s the bear for her. Her mother, though, thinks he’s a little shopworn—he’s even missing a button! Still, Corduroy knows that with a bit of work he can tidy himself up and be just the bear for Lisa.”

Greetings and Buona Pasqua to those who celebrate. Like Christ, I have had my own resurrection in the form of rolling away the giant, metaphorical rock that was blocking me from developing my ideas, cracking open my computer, logging on to Substack, and typing away. Unlike Chirst, it took me about a month or so to do this instead of three days. I’m a mortal woman; life happens.

Things of note:

• I would like to have a more strict schedule of sends and I am *finally* holding myself to a schedule, expect me and my thoughts to grace your inbox on Sundays and Thurdays. Sundays will be short and sweet and Thursday posts will focus on deeper dives into things I’ve observed across the arts.

• Warmer weather is here. My mind has defrosted because of this.

• When in doubt of what to watch, sure enough Criterion will post something seasonally fitting on Instagram. I’m going to press play on this today:

Peep Art & Dioramas

Every major holiday has a devisive signature candy: Halloween and candy corn, Chirstmas and candy canes (who honestly enjoys eating these, they’re better hanging on a tree than chowing down on), and Easter and Peeps. In the history of their existance, Peeps have primarily maintained a signular flavor profile: sweet. Grainy pillows of pure sugar in the shapes of vernal critters like chicks and bunnies. In the past few years, they took a cue out of Oreo’s playbook by experimenting with different variations on sweet flavors that attempt to capture the taste of other saccharine foods in their signature forms. Some of these include Dr. Pepper, Party Cake, Fruit Punch, and S’mores (the only one I considered purchasing last week while running errands).

Peeps are for those who appriciate whimsy and spring apprioprate as their colors often coordinate to seasonal blossoms. Love them or hate them, its hard to frown when looking at these bite sized sweeties.

My personal favorite form of Peep is checking images from the annual Peep diorama competitions from across the country (their offical wesbite has a list of participants that include community centers, libaries, and museums.) In 2004, the St. Paul Pioneer Press started this tradition by asking readers to submit images of vinegttes of their imagined Peep worlds. Other publications began to hold their own contests, such as, the Chicago Tribune, the Seattle Times, and the Washington Post.

The full list of the 2025 Pioneer Press Peeps Dioramas can be found here.

These are a few of my favorites:

For the past 16 years, the Racine Art Museum in Wiscosin has put on Peeps art exhition. This year’s display includes 187 works from across the country. The concept for an exhibition like this fits precisely within RAM’s mission and aligns with their collection. They have the largest contemporary craft collection in North America, which is comprised of over 14,000 objects from national and international artists. On their wesbite, they note how exhibtion like this is far from typical for a traditional museum. However, they undertsand the importance of creative expression through unexpected materials. This is a fun way to enage their community and contextualize craft in a recognizable medium. On their website, they note “the concept of working with unusual materials is supported by RAM’s mission to exhibit, collect, preserve, and educate in the field of contemporary craft—a subset of art that focuses on handmade work created traditionally from ceramic, fiber, glass, metal, polymer, and wood. Artists consistently push material boundaries, so the idea that they sometimes utilize and experiment with materials produced for purposes other than art-making can be seen throughout RAM’s exhibitions and many works in the museum’s permanent collection.”

You can view the exhibition checklist and virual awards presentation here.

My Easter Basket 2025:

My interpretation of Easter treats have grown up with me. I have traded in faux woven buckets filled with sythetic grass and plastic eggs for baked goods inflused with seasonal flavors and films to embrace the holiday spirit.

If you live in New York or plan on visit, you must make Red Gate Bakery a stop on your East Village Bakery Crawl. Also, if you’re going to catch a movie a Film Forum you can find their cookies at the concessions. First of all, they open at 11:00AM so there is no need to queue at the crack of dawn for a chance to aquire one of their unique sweet treats. Second, every weekend they serve up special cake slices and sweet buns. Each week is a new flavor conversation between the two pasteries, for example: Strawberry Matcha Cheesecake Buns and Coconut Caramel Sudachi Sesame Cake, Pavlova Buns and Funky Lemon Cake, and for this weekend the offerings were Cadbury Creme Buns and Rhubarb Macaroon Cake. I picked up a slice of cake and a bun was greatly impressed with the flavor match of the beloved Cadbury creme egg in bun form, a semiotic flavor success. I tucked these away in my adult version of an Easter basket (my seasonless L. L. Bean tote) as I made my way to Gem Home to grab their kale and white bean sandwich for lunch (perfect sandwich, excellent bread) before heading down to Tribeca for gallery visits.

Last night, I watched Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime. The story was just fine. A philosophy teacher named Jeanne meets a pianist named Natacha at a party and tells her about her poorly thought out sublet situation she has with her cousin. Jeanne has no where to rest her head until her cousin leaves. Natacha offers Jeanne to stay at her family home, as her father, the Minister of Culture, is away on business. We learn that his work has caused a strain on their relationship, along with his younger girlfriend, Ève, who Natacha views as an enemy (understandable). And yet, Natacha attemps to play matchmaker between her father and Jeanne! Temperaments ebb and flow like the weather of the title’s season, constantly alternating between warmth and sudden brisk chills until it eventually stabilizes. The bits of art puntuating the scences were fun Easter eggs to catch.

If I were giving you directions on where to see art in this neighborhood, I would suggest you take a stroll along Walker Street. This is the aortic valve of the neighborhood, the main street pumping life into the downtown gallery scene dense with galleries providing visual enrichment with their artists rosters. Over the past few months 52 Walker has displayed immersive installations from artists I admire like Diamond Stingily and Sara Cwynar, Cheyenne Julien’s excellent exhibition 41 Floors recently closed at Chapter NY ( I wrote about it for 1202), and James Cohan utilizes both of their gallery spaces on this street to their fullest by exhibiting thoughtful group shows and artists whose work is technically mesmerizing. To name a few favorite shows I’ve seen here are Naudline Pierre’s The Mythic Age, The Superfluity of Things, and Jesse Mockrin’s The Venus Effect. I am looking forward to the weekend where I can spend time taking in Kelly Sinnapah Mary’s The Book of Violette , look at that wallpaper!

This past Saturday, I found myself in two different words within a few blocks of each other on Walker. I felt like Alice going down a 1980’s vivid and acid rabbit hole walking through Super House’s exhibition of Dan Friedman’s masterworks titled Why Shouldn’t I Have Fun All Day before finding creative enlightenment in the historic and contemporary objects on view in Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery’s The Loving Cup. My favorite weekends are when I can escape my world for an afternoon and fall into others.

Why Shouldn’t I Have Fun Day is a question I constantly ask myself and Dan Friedman’s work will certainly imbue your life with fun if you are lucky enough to own one of his eye-catch pieces. This exhibition commemorates the 30th anniversary of his passing from complications related to AIDS in 1995 and showcases a wide-ranging selection of objects that belonged to him and his loved ones. Born in 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio, Friedman was an artist, educator, and graphic designer known for his neon assemblages designed to evoke the fun he experienced in his life. He received his BFA from the Carnegie Institute of Technology and went on to teach at Yale’s Graduate School of Art and Architecture, The Cooper Union, and SUNY Purchase. While Friedman was teaching at Yale and worked as a corporate design executive at Pentagram (a major independent design firm) in the 1970’s, he started to redecorate his one-bedroom apartment above Washington Square Park into a Day-Glo wonderland that served has a 3D, tactile “sketchbook.” He lived, worked, and experimented with the definition of “good design” by playing with shapes and colors to challenge the aesthetics of taste in modern American interior design. Friedman eventually left his 9 to 5 to focus on developing his own visual language and design philosophies that allowed him to fold his day and night lives into playful objects that stir up some fun all day long. In his 1994 book titled Radical Modernism he wrote, “I have used my home to push modernist principles of structure and coherency to their wildest extreme. I create elegant mutations, radiating with intense color and complexity, in a world that has deconstructed into a goofy ritualistic playground for daily life."

Friendly faces greeted me as soon as the elevator doors opened to the gallery 6th floor space. Power Screen is not just any room divider, it is a companion. It is sticking out its tongue for service, to hold additional objects on display and be silly at the same time. I would love to see whose collection this belonged to and where it was placed in their home. There was a pair of objects on view that reminded me of an article the designer Sophie Collé wrote for Architectural Digest about all things round and name checks Friendman in the piece. She writes, “Perhaps it’s that as adults, we strive for balance and perfection—both visually and in life. Could our love of the ball be purely for aesthetics? Is it their versatility (cue Dan Friedman’s entire oeuvre) and incredible ability to be both completely functional and functionless? Their ability to both ground and achieve weightlessness depending on scale and materiality? Their inability to be pegged to one specific era? All of the above.” I completely agree. If you’re gonna add a pop of color to your space, what better shape than a ball?!

It’s one thing to see a chair that looks inviting to sit on, but the one on view in this slice of Friednman’s world urges you to see in big bold white letters spelling out PLEASE. A fun fact about this piece, it was originally designed for the fashion designer Willi Smith’s WilliWear offices in New York. Boldly stationed on the wall was Time Piece (Atomic Clock), the shape of an almost state, Friedman’s dream land where imagination runs wild. This made me question of this was designed to function as a wall clock or if it was just art, there are many such cases that wacky objects work with purpose. Regardless, It was a treat to take in the various elements that comprise this: the black painted wood fragments that look like ruptured pieces of willow charcoal, the comic book burst of yellow, and the unlit neon beam that harkened my mind to think about the work of Mary Weatherford, an artist known for affixing stretches of colorful light on top of her vibrant abstract canvases. The most formal piece of art hanging in the gallery is his multidimensional landscape titled A Fallen Sky in a Regal Landscape depicting neon detritus including a film real, an organic mass nearly in the shape of a guitar, and what I image is a destroyed set somewhere in the desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

After my senses were hit with the visual equivalent of a lemon ginger wellness shot, I found myself ascending the mountainous stairs up 52 Walker to see Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery’s latest exhibition titled The Loving Cup. What is a Loving Cup you ask? Worry not, as the gallery defines this for us:

The Loving Cup is a decorative vessel that historically commemorates a marriage union, representing the promise of love, honor and good fortune. Inscribed with the nuptial date and the names of the betrothed, it exists as a sober testament to enduring fondness and fidelity. The Loving Cup bears witness to the fragile complexity (and often, ephemerality) of human connection, and serves as a sacrament to the sincerity of care we feel for others, and the esteem we hold for ourselves.

The Loving Cup exhibition explores how these traditional vessels become a means of archival stewardship, honoring relationships of all kinds. Contemporary artists and designers responded to this historical tradition both in concept and practice, through a diverse range of materials such as ceramic, fiber, metal, and found objects both natural and human-made.

I will always love and appreciate this gallery for juxtaposing historic and contemporary objects in their World of Interiors-esque space. After examining Sophie Stone’s delicately embellished doilies, the equivalent of fascinators for cups, I couldn’t stop thinking about the act of dressing up our small home goods. It is easy to understand why some New Yorkers take self presentation as seriously as they do, everyone’s life is so public, even in the home since our neighbors lives are in constant eyesight due to the close proximity of windows. Our living spaces are small, but our lives are full of places to go, meals to eat, friends to see. In our small spaces, objects that make up our world are also on display, why not dress them up as well? I gather ideas for future creative projects during my visit, Stone’s Tuffet, an antique flower shaped pouf the artist covered with a collection of personal trinkets they collected over the years. A document of personal history as a sculpture. I first thought this was a box when I saw it because the grey and brown seam appears as if that is where the edge of the lid met the body of the box, but it is a pouf. However, I would love to make my own trinket covered trinket box.

A few months ago I wrote about how shells kept washing into the culture I was seeing around me and I’ve seen their motif come in like a tidal wave since then. I am declaring 2025 the Shell Year, I hope to flesh out this pearl of an idea more later. Naturally, I was pulled into the works by Ficus Interfaith, a collaboration between artists Ryan Bush and Raphael Martinez Cohen, who imbue their practice with research concerning historical symbolism that is “ubiquitous to the point of being overlooked or misunderstood” through craft. The terrazzo filled oyster shells that adorn their interpretation of a Loving Cup delighted me.

Below are a few images of what a dream apartment looks like to me:

Thank you for reading,
Lauren <3

I love art that is humorous. There are few feelings greater than when I feel the corners of my mouth start to curl into a smile when I pace around an exhibition. This doesn’t happen often, which is why I’m noting this sensation. The subject matter that makes me smile often taps a nerve of nostalgia, the artists have reimagined symbols or scenes I can recall from my childhood or wink at moments in pop culture. A smile is also brought to my face when I encounter work that has an unsettling undercurrent running through it. A knowing smirk. I was plagued with the ailment of smiling at the wrong moments when I was a child, emotional intensity often shook my nervous system into laughter. Raise your hand if you also unintentionally burst into a fit of giggles when your parents were upset. Nothing was more difficult for me than trying to stifle my uncontrolled amusement, especially when the source of their emotional detonation was an inanimate object or an event that was out of their hands. I have never wanted my outward amusement to be perceived as careless, but as I get older I find it hard to not laugh in the face of daily absurdities delivered to me. And as a resident of the United States, do we ever have countless delivery options.

American culture and the function of our lives is fueled by commodities. We love things. We love food that is packaged in perfectly designed boxes that fit a sandwich we can roll up to a drive-thru window to pick up, meals that are curated for happiness, buns made of out steel, and manuals for navigating the emotional detritus of a broken marriage. We love cars and fast ways to fix them, illustrated instructions on how to improve our property, and things that serve as many uses to make our overscheduled lives easier. We love things so much that they get in the way of engaging with reality. Our daily objects simultaneously buffer and complicate the worlds we construct in our homes.

Two recent exhibitions that I was able to catch on the same Saturday were Stephanie H. Shih’s Domestic Bliss at Alexander Berggruen and Pippa Garner’s Misc. Pippa at Matthew Brown. In their unique visual languages, the artists explain the complexities, absurdities, and memories attached to commodities that fuel American life.

What brands filled your childhood pantry? For me, I can conjure the taste of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup in all it’s watery glory with a side of Ritz crackers, the various Kellogg’s family of cereals that would be on rotation, and the flock of McCormick spices that were waiting to descend on our kitchen counter as my mom prepared our special Sunday dinner. In Domestic Bliss, Stephanie H. Shih crafted ceramic sculptures of common products found in the modern American home in the 1990s, artifacts of consumer culture that shaped domestic life as at the edge of the millennium. She searched eBay for listings of products of the era to bring them back to life in materials ranging from ceramic, glass, resin, and steel and to their exact dimensions. Heading into the shiny new century, our consumables were engineered to be sans fat and pre-portioned to accommodate a newly optimized life.

One of my favorite works that wowed my perception of what ceramics can do is the functioning microwave titled Nuclear Family. A faux Hungry Man salisbury steak meal rotates within the lit-up quick heating appliance as the Kid Cuisine Chicken nuggets and modest Stouffer’s cheese manicotti rest on top of the device, waiting to take a spin in the modern cooking machine and situated as a portrait of the family hierarchy. The Momicotti is served last.

Lining a shelf on one of the gallery walls is a curated selection of books. One of the objects that Shih came across and ended up inspiring this show was a 1998 copy of the book Divorce for Dummies. The cartoon expert in nearly every field also has a few words of wisdom on how to terminate your marriage in a tone that is clear for anyone to understand. Who knows, maybe their advice will work and you can read their musings on gardening, investing in the stock market, or dating. Shih saw a dark humor in looking at a manual commonly associated with navigating computer programs also providing advice to real, interpersonal issues. I don’t want to predict this, but I wouldn’t be surprised seeing Robot Relationships for Dummies on the Barnes and Noble bookshelves as the reliance on AI therapists and chatbots continue to lend their nonexistent shoulders for humans to cry on (would this be the ledge of a desk? I don’t want to know). Other titles included for those attempting to help themselves pre/during/ post divorce include Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Although these objects are intended to conjure a specific time period, it’s hard for me to detect their age. In another tableau titled Chores, a romance novel is splayed open on top of an ironing board expressing the desire and reality of escaping the mundane tasks of reality. As I’m writing this, it has hit me like a stack of VHS tapes that the majority of the objects on view were originally designed for not only convenience but escapism. They slash time spent on chores, calories, and a lousy spouse in order to increase our free time for enjoyment outside of our self imposed regimens. Well into the 21st century, we still constantly looking at ways to optimize our relationships and diets to find a better way of living. These are not just relics of the past, they are markers in the quest for the next best thing.

I often feel that visual artists are only a group of creators where consumers, err collectors, do not expect a refurbished construction of their output. I imagine collectors want whoever visits their home to recognize the signature style that is unique to the paint dipper, master of light and shadow, and bold minimalist. The pressure to innovate is often self imposed.

Pippa Garner, who recently passed away right before the new year at 82, made innovation her medium. Inventing and recontextualizing with the grandest send of humor was served both smiles and social commentary on the absurdity of American life.

Is tongue texting impossible? Not no! Is it is the next frontier in multitasking while operating a vehicle? Only time will tell.

I was immediately drawn to Brat Rod as every iteration of Charli xcx’s Brat soundtracked the majority of 2024 for me. It reminded me of my own Barbie Jeep I drove around my condominium complex as a toddler and the exhilarating freedom of control, moderate reckless driving since it barely managed to hit 1 mph. Vroom vroom! Let’s note the Toys R Us font “B,” Sandy Liang send a logo t-shirt in this nostalgic typeface (paired with an excellent planner skirt no less) during her Fall 2025 ready-to-wear show, I would like to see more of this…

“Life of the Party” Lamp is perfect for your business school grad or CEO who would pull this antic at his Ivy League. Isn’t it interesting how often this stunt is show in film and television, but no one does this anymore? Did people do this? Are contemporary lampshades too boring to achieve comedic effect?

Suctionaire Chair, if you need to sit and focus on your work, get sucked into it, might I suggest this?

Anyways, thank you for reading. I’m going to crack open my copy of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror and reread the chapter “Always Be Optimizing” in addition to researching this topic more. Brb.

I distinctly remember the first magazine column that I looked forward to reading. Nylon’s Private Icon, specifically in the years between 2006 - 2011. The aughts were the golden era of this magazine, as it reflected the colors, graphic design and document the fashion and music style that was once simply referred to as “hipster” and has been rebranded (by people who weren’t alive or sentient to appreciate the obscure melodies of Bat for Lashes and Klaxons) as “indie sleaze.” Everything appeared a little haphazard, but worked. An eclectic mix of 1950’s and 60’s silhouettes were introduced to 80’s colors, spandex and deeply side parted hair. Fashion and beauty were visually grating, for the most part.

A reprieve from the time capsule cocktails of outfits being styled and captured via flash street photography was the focus of Private Icon. In each issue, a single character from a film had beauty products ascribed to them. The unseens elements of the character that are left for the audience to imagine were now sensorial if you were to go to a shop to try them for yourself. This was major to me as I always had a predilection for cosmetics and fragrance. I never express just how into beauty products I am in this letter. When I was younger, my mom would teasingly call me a “product tester” because I devoured fashion magazines more than candy and needed to try the latest mascara or MAC product to understand what the writer was describing. I wanted to know if I could detect the tiny grains of glitter in a lip gloss or see how much a cleaner could “erase” my blackheads. To this day I allot extra time in Sephora when I’m running errands to spray fragrances, smear foundation on the back of my hand, and swipe swatches of blush in rows along my forearm because I find the way that these products can alter our sense of self through eliving aliments and enhancing features utterly fascinating. They’re personal. They’re helpful and damaging at times. But thinking about products in relation to cinema was inventive to my young, consumerist addled eyes.

This style of visual analysis was formative to me, so I am trying my hand at reading a film or character through what I imagine makes up their beauty routine in my film reviews. I hope you enjoy!

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, dir. Chantal Akerman, 1975

I’ve had this film on my “to watch” list for a few years now, but there was no way that my attention span could withstand watching this over 3 and a half hour magnum opus from the queen of durational cinema, Chantal Akerman. Lucky for me, I had time to hunker down at Metrograph a few Saturdays ago for a screening. Starring Delphine Seyrig as Jeanne, we watch as she goes to the market, makes dinner for her son visiting from school, and ventures to the bedroom for meetings with men who leave after an unknowable amount of time over the course of three days. She is a widow with a defined schedule. We see the pattern of her life unfold slowly, carefully, until there is a subtle shift in her mood that creates a domino effect of disturbances. A metaphorical string is tugged and her life unravels, yet she maintains her calm regardless of the circumstances. I did not anticipate to be as attentive as I was to watching someone perform such mundane tasks, but her movements were hypnotically soothing.

L'Oréal Paris Elnett Satin Hairspray

I spied with my little eye a can of this iconic gold can sitting on Ms. Deilman’s vanity and let me say, this film is the perfect advertisement for it. Each strand of her hair stays in place throughout the three days we see her go about life, although, after a meeting with a client it is slightly rough and tumbled, but not awfully. This spray has been used for decades by hairstylists for their A list clients to hold hair in place while leaving a stainy sheen. Launched in 1960, it was marketed as the first brushable hairspray to allow for more flexibility and while sculpting a style.

Chanel Rouge Allure Velvet in Rouge Feu

Chanel cosmetics packaging is unmistakable. One compliment that I can give this brand and as I sit and think about it, is their cohesive packaging from their shopping bags to their cosmetic cases. Few brands have this strong of an identity because many switch up their style too often to become recognizable beyond their clientele (which I think makes it harder to be seen as aspirational if the greater public can’t recognize you, Hermès cosmetics are not sheathed in their signature orange, would you recognize any of these products as theirs if they caught the corner of your eye? Beautiful packaging nonetheless.) I wondered what shade of Chanel lippie she reached for and my guess is this one. It’s an unfussy shade of red that you can dab on your lips to control the amount of pigment. She is a woman with a full day and simply wants to brighten her face with a soft pop of color. Lipstick is her luxury.

Eggwhite Facial Soap

Let us take a moment to appreciate her beautiful bathroom, perfect color palette. We see our utilitarian protagonist lather up without ruining their hair (another great sell on coping a can of Elnett), scrubbing the day away huddled near the bathtub’s faucet. This scene made me wonder about the average construction of Belgian bathrooms in the 1970’s because a shower head is nowhere to be seen, very curious to know how common this was and how it influenced bathing culture and products, if at all. Anyways, the description of this soap reads: “The oil's soothing and hydrating properties combined with the protein-rich power of fresh eggwhites and the readily absorbed soybean extract, lecithin, will help you maintain a clear, glowing complexion every day.” And her skin is glowing while she precisely peels potatoes, finds the right formula to make a cup of coffee, and not watch a baby that a friend drops off at her home.

Yves Durif Vented Hairbrush

Jeanne is a uniform dresser, but I know she invests in objects she uses daily. The volume of her hair is envy inducing, which I would expect a $95 hairbrush to do.

LA holds a special place in my heart. It was where I would escape to in my early twenties for long weekends or weeks to spend time with friends, go to music festivals, and visit museums to see artworks I read about in person. With each visit I caught a glimpse of what my life could be like through the lens of my friends who made it their home, but it also assured me that I was built for a different metropolitan life. It’s where I would visit family members as a child. The way the wavy roads that clung to the Santa Monica mountains thrilled me, in fright and delight, as I sat in the car traversing the canyons with my grandparents. When we reached the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, my eyes were always transfixed on the homes that lived squarely between the road and the sea, each with a personality designed to fit the lucky owner. The highway facing facades could not be more structurally different than the cookie cutter homes that made up Las Vegas. Each new planned community in Vegas in the late 1990’s to 2000’s had about 5 styles of homes to choose from and would be built in alternated lots to create an architectural pattern that had a consistent rhythm. My young eyes were entranced by the different garages, motifs affixed to the facades of some homes (I faintly remember seeing a shell in bas-relief affixed to one of them), colors, and cars that lived the California dream. Now, a week after the multiple fires broke out across the city, those homes are a memory.

My heart aches for the destruction of this city and the livelihoods of those living there. All week long I’ve seen dispatches posted on social media from friends and acquaintances of the status of their homes, their safety, and what those of us far away can do to help. Below are a few sources to help those who have been affected by the fires:

• A friend of mines family home was lost, to support her and her family you can find their GoFund Me here

• Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory

• California Fire Foundation

• Red Cross, Los Angeles

• 47 L.A. County restaurants offering food and relief to fire evacuees and first responders

• Rachel Davies has also created a Master List of GoFund Mes that is continuously being updated

As many times as I’ve visited LA, I never knew The Bunny Museum existed. Located in Altadena, it housed about 60,000 bunny objects. I am devastated to know that this treasure of a special collection was destroyed in the Eaton Canyon Fire. You can donate to help the co-founders Steve Lubanski and Candace Frazee rebuild their wide-ranging rabbit collection at their GoFund Me here.

Opened in 1998, The Bunny Museum originated in Steve and Candace’s home in Pasadena, where their collection grew as they gifted each other rabbit themed presents over the years. They relocated to Altadena in 2017 to display their seemingly countless objects in a larger space. Their collection was inaugurated with a plush bunny that was a Valentine's Day present from 31 years ago and was one of the 20 objects saved from the fire along with their two-real life bunnies and three cats. Rightly earning the title as “The Hoppiest Place in the World,” they have received awards for their expansive assortment of bunny plushies, antiques, and any objects featuring a bunny emblazoned on it, including multiple awards by the Guinness World Records.

On their website they have this wonderful list of questions you might have asked yourself and would have been answered if you were to venture into their rabbit hole:

“Bunnies aren’t just special for Easter.

Bunnies are a part of our everyday lives

from literature to film to advertising to slang.

Got dust bunnies in your home?

Remember rabbit ear antennas?

Do you know what a rabbet plane is?

Have you ever eaten a Welsh Rabbit?

Do you know what a dewlap is?

What’s a cecal?

Do you know that bunnies purr?

Can you see the bunny on the moon?

Were you born in the Year of the Bunny?

Why does a bunny keep on going and going?

Hop around and find out.

The Bunny Museum will inspire and instruct.

Collections like The Bunny Museum’s delight me in ways I cannot put into words. Some may regard it as kitsch, but kitsch items often leave a longer lasting impression than the esoteric “high” art that need context. Kitsch is for everyone. Just like dreaming of intangible places, we have all encountered unique objects in our family or friends homes that are as special as their owner. More memories are held in mundane objects that sit on our shelves than we give them credit for. I look forward to the day that my dream of visiting The Bunny Museum is realized.

Dear readers,

Thank you for taking the time to read my rambles this year, I promise to post more consistently in 2025. It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions. I have a few musings that I’m researching and polishing up to send out in the next few weeks. For the past month I’ve been mentally gearing myself up to push myself creatively, I’m excited to see where the path I forge will lead me now that I’m making a real effort.

I’ve been in my hometown of Las Vegas for the past week. It’s been grounding to be back here and take in this landscape with fresh eyes again. I haven’t returned home in 5 years and I feel like I lived at least two extra lives since my last return. The city has changed and hasn’t in many ways, but I’m also on a big research kick of looking at Googie Architecture. Vegas is very underappreciated in being recognized as a mid-century architecture gold silver mine, but I’m sure that’s because everything old gets imploded to make way for sterile garishness consistently.

Before the year ends, I’d be remiss to not share some insightful conversations I’ve had with a few of my favorite artists. For 1202 Magazine, I had the honor of asking Ingrid Donat a few questions about her current exhibition titled Ancestral at Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

During my pre-holiday gallery visits, a standout presentation was the joint exhibition by Morgane Richer La Flèche and Janie Korn titled The Cat Wife at Salon 21. The 17th century French fable of the same name was the impetus that inspired the for the tactile, energetic, and fasnataical paintings and sculptures on view by both artists. All of which embody the complex fantasy and reality of the transformations of the female body that are pressed upon by outside forces and self imposed as we break through the cracks of broken systems to live our truths.

The beauty of living in the social media age is being able to connect with artists I admire with a quick direct message. Morgane graciously answered some questions I had about this exhibition, which you can read below.

✨Happy New Year Everyone ✨

Lauren Vaccaro: The Cat Wife was one of my favorite shows I've seen this year. Your paintings and Janie's candles and stands made it feels as if I stumbled into a book of fairytales, but with an edge. Can you tell me a little more about how this show came together and what was the inspiration behind it?

Morgane Richer La Flèche: Thank you! I was looking for a way back into my world after a slew of surgeries for endometriosis took me out of the studio. I was rereading Jean de La Fontaine’s fables—which are familiar to any francophone kid—and came across a story I’d never heard of before, about a man who falls in love with his cat and transforms her into his bride. I pictured this feline woman hunting mice on all-fours and loved her at once. And then I met Mariah and it felt like fate. I knew she was the Cat Wife as soon as I saw her. When Alex from Salon 21 came for a studio visit, she saw a collaborative piece I’d done with Janie and suggested a joint show. Janie’s work is a perfect fit for a show that interrupts an old fable, and broadened the show beyond my own obsessions.

LV: The figure in these paintings expresses seductively ferocious and visceral emotions that I would like to summon in myself. How did you paint her expressions from life? How did you meet your muse and how did you decide on the outfit for the Cat Wife?

MRLF: I had never worked with anyone like this before. I usually make up my characters, or use myself as a model, or take reference pictures of friends and then distort them into cartoons. My work reckons with solipsism. But one day I was having coffee with my friends, and spontaneously decided to go with them to observe the Elena Velez casting call (in late summer 2023). Mariah was there because she had been cast as a model in the show. I invited her to my studio with her black cat Sebastian, whom she had just adopted. I grabbed a white burlesque dress from my closet that felt like the right mix of erotic and bridal: the Cat Wife is literally the embodiment of a male fantasy, who is ultimately revealed to be untamable. It all fell into place so perfectly, we joked that I had conjured Mariah (and the dress is hers now).

LV: One of my favorite sections of the show was the series of small paintings capturing the Cat Wife in different poses, its as if we're on the precipice of seeing a full transformation like a butterfly in the chrysalis stage. What inspired you to work in this intimate scale?

MRLF: I wanted to play with the idea of women’s desirability being bound in smallness. The series is titled Pocket Brides because it's a collection of portraits you could carry with you, but also because the man in the fable equates a pet and a wife, imagining a woman who is in his pocket. The scale references pornographic playing cards, 18th-century miniature paintings kept in boudoir cabinets, and pre-photography engagement portraits: erotic objects for personal consumption. Collecting images of women as a libidinal act.

That’s why it was so important for these little romantic objects to depict her caught in a grotesque forced transformation, experiencing the horror of metamorphosis in real-time. They are sequential but they’re also an exploration of who the character is, testing out different versions, like designing your character at the beginning of a video game.

LV: I know that you also put on a puppet show on the occasion of this exhibition. That is certainly something I don't see many artists do, I wish they did because it's such a fun way to activate the work! What was the process like in bringing your inspiration to life in this format?

MRLF: I’m so grateful to my friends for lending their time and talent to my puppet show. We were planning to host a more conventional gallery talk, and decided to pivot at the last minute. I reached out to friends in puppeteering, performance, and music…I will be floating on their love for a long time.

I had been making doll-like sculptures as part of my world-building process, so it was a short leap to puppets. Puppets are sinister and magical, and I like the challenge of bringing childlike storytelling to an adult audience. The Cat Wife was steeped in so much historical, literary and personal context, so I wanted to give people a chance to engage more deeply with the ideas in the show. Using puppets reflects the comedy that’s always in my work too.

LV: The visual cohesion of color and whimsy through the show reminded me of the spaces you paint for clients. What is the process like of bringing a client's visions to life through your artistic style? Do you have a particular favorite project you've worked on?

MRLF: I never expected to paint walls in other people’s homes. I painted my own walls during lockdown in a fit of inspiration, and people started reaching out over the years. It’s a welcome break from the intense intellectual and emotional involvement I bring to my work in the studio. Working in someone’s personal space, creating something with their input that they will live with daily, feels like a gift of trust and intimacy. Sometimes it’s about connecting the home to a sense of place, other times it’s closer to illustrating someone’s life, and sometimes it’s about weaving their favorite things into an immersive painting. A client once showed me her box of fungi and stones, which led me to look at Victorian fairy paintings for the project.

LV: Lastly, because the relationship between one's home and creative output has been on my mind lately, do you decorate your home in a way that reflects your art or inspirations?

MRLF: I do, but I share my home with my husband, so I try not to swallow the whole space. I think it’s good to live in a way that integrates my sprawling fantasy world and someone else’s reality. I live with a lot of furniture and clothing passed down from my French grandmother, who was a defining presence in my early life. Being surrounded by her things keeps me in constant dialogue with the energy behind a lot of my work.

Artist Bio:

Morgane Richer La Flèche is a Canadian-born, New York-based multidisciplinary artist. A self-taught artist, she works primarily in oil paint, pastels, soft sculpture, and video. She is inspired by the world-building of Florine Stettheimer and Lewis Carroll, the theatrical arts, lyric poetry, French literature, her Catholic upbringing, body horror,and the Rococo period. Her work is visceral, as in pink for flesh and red for blood, as in decadence of excess but also of decay and decomposition. Whether in paint, pastel or wool felt, her textures are simultaneously viscous and diaphanous. While her paintings are steeped in narrative, she plays with abstraction to create sinister landscapes that are always swirling, deteriorating and melding—a nod to hyperspace, virtual realities, and the architecture of cathedrals arching towards heaven.

Chelsea Hotel Spa

I am a spa connoisseur, a spanoisseur if you will. For the last few years I’ve ventured around the city to various spas to see which will put me most as ease as progress through life. I’ve been to SoJo Spa Club in New Jersey, which is Disneyland for treatment enthusiasts. QC on Governors Island has an incredible view of lower Manhattan from their heated pool (I must say the worst massage I’ve ever had was here, but they had a lot of free little snacks that kind of made up for it). When I am desperate to get my knots worked out of my shoulders I go to my neighborhood spot, Eastside Massage, humble interior but oh my god do they fix me!

This year my birthday fell on a Thursday and I decided to start my new year off at the Chelsea Hotel Spa. The interior reminded me of a cozy, bohemian home that fits this haven for artists but could be dropped in Ojai, California and work. I was able to have the locker room mostly to myself, it's very intimate compared to the previous places I spent my birthday. I prefer this. I booked the Respira massage because it was best suited for people who say to themselves, “I want to throw my phone into the ocean,” which is something I tell myself every day and never do because I am reasonable. I would love to indulge in erratic behavior, but I am too old for that. This massage was an indulgent treat in every way. Unbeknownst to me, a cupping treatment was also included and I enjoyed it immensely, the perfect spot treatment for my tense muscles. Of course I spent time in both hot and dry saunas because I love to sweat in a calm environment.

Little Cupcake Bakeshop

A birthday is not a birthday without a slice of cake
- William Shakespeare

Let Lauren Marie Vaccaro eat whatever cake she wants for her birthday!
- Marie Antoinette

You heard them, cake is mandatory for my birthday! Therefore, I stopped into the preeminent cake shop on Prince Street for a slice of Strawberry Shortcake and yellow cake with chocolate frosting, two of my top cake flavors. One thing about me is I will eat up all things all things strawberry because no matter the vehicle the flavor is being driven in, its inherent vibrant, juicy, and most importantly pink hue puts a smile on my face. Plus, the crumb of the Little Cupcake Bakeshop’s slices are delicate, slightly denser than an angel food with a soft as a cloud texture.

Gee’s Bend: My Way Today at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery

If you’re going to be in New York over the holidays, I HIGHLY recommend heading over to Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in Tribeca to see their current exhibition My Way: Gee’s Bend Today.

Formerly known as Boykin, Gee’s Bend is situated along the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama. Since the mid-19th century, the folks living in Gee’s Bend have produced artful quilts,recognized for their unique geometric patterns and material ingenuity. Quilting has become a significant form of textile art that has been passed down through countless generations within Black communities in the American South. Not only does the process of quiltmaking stitch new relationships between fabrics, but it also forms bonds within the community as groups of women gather to share stories and discuss current events while crafting utilitarian and kaleidoscopic textiles.

The press release explains that, “this exhibition, which takes its title from a specific style of quilt, focuses on 14 living and working, contemporary members of the Gee’s Bend Quiltmaking community. ‘My Way,’ refers to a quilt that embodies a quilter’s individual artistic vision and relationship to the fabrics at hand, rather than adhering to a guide or template. The intuitive piecing of materials—such as denim, corduroy, and cotton—results in deeply personal abstractions.” I’ve seen quite a few exhibitions featuring Gee’s Bend quilts, but this is the first time I’ve seen quilts crafted from pants! I was mesmerized by the pocket shadows that resembled little shirts, full length pants legs turned horizontally that allowed me to notice the warp and weft of the denim, and the soft murmur of pockets that quietly made themselves known in the landscape of their new composition. I feel that pants are one of the most personal items of clothing because, speaking from my own experience, it takes time to find ones that are just right. Between the cuts, fabrics, and construction it sometimes feels impossible to find a pair that fits my body and spirit. Seeing them repurposed in this context emphasised just how significant they are as personal sartorial documents.

Lunch at The Odeon

I do not take advantage of the abundant culinary offerings in this city as much as others do for a few reasons. I find cooking relaxing, it works a practical and enriching creative muscle. I also like to save money where I can. I'd much rather spend my saved pennies on a ticket to the ballet or an exhibition catalogue to reference for future research. However, when I do go out to eat, I stick to bonafide New York Classics. The Odeon’s history is richer than their croque monsieur, meaty and oozing with anecdotes about nearly every notable individual from the city’s ever-evolving creative circle since the 1980s. The menu is a simple, straightforward French-leaning American dominant with bistro hits. I managed to set my TikTok algorithm to show me content about the openings and current “can’t miss spots” to eat in the city, but I eschew all of this in favor of dining at old reliables. On a Thursday afternoon the room was filled with the same energy of a late night in its early days, yet more tame I’m sure. I always have a coffee with lunch (cappuccino) and love gazing at the art deco-esque orb that houses their sweetener. What I love even more as a single diner is their offering of proper bar tables. A one seater for those of us who want a classic meal served promptly, so I can be on my way as soon as my plate is cleared. I got their burger and fries. Was it the best burger and fries I’ve had? I can’t say I’ve ever had a world shifting meat and potato combo in this format, ever. But I was happy and satiated with my choice. I also need to report that their pens are a sacred memento of yesteryear (RIP because they were so smooth), I had to pay my bill electronically at my table.

OH, MARY!

Mary Todd Lincoln was destined to be a cabaret star. Her husband, the 16th President of the United States, Abraham foiled her stardom because he was busy trying to salvage a broken nation. A Shame! Bless Cole Escola for throwing history out of the window in the name of art and unadulterated adult entertainment! The script is sharp, smart, and hilarious. One of the elements I loved the most was how each scene was punctuated with a snappy quip before the lights went completely dark for quick set change. The lighting design deserves awards, it was artful and campy to heighten the drama at the right moments. Cole also took the liberty to decorate the Lyceum Theater with artwork featuring their image and likeness. Pay close attention to the photographs in the stairwell as they Cindy Shermaned themselves into various iconic productions.

Serendipity

It was nearly 10 o’clock exiting the theatre, but a reservation needed to be fulfilled. And what do you do when you’re in the heart of Times Square? Well you go to the most touristy dessert destination of course! My dear friend Sarah made this reservation about a month out as something fun to do while in the neighborhood post show. It should come as no surprise that even at this hour it took a hot minute for us to be seated, everyone needed a sweet treat to pick them up after a day filled with sightseeing and show going. Little did we know that there is a minimum $19 PER PERSON REQUIREMENT when you order! Insane when they are overcharging for a low quality sugar rush as it is. The only other time I went to Serendipity was with my mom at the location in Vegas that opened outside of the Caesars Palace Forum Shops. I know we went to see what all the hype was about. The food landscape in Vegas during the 2000s and 2010s was once dominated by New York and Los Angeles transplants and sometimes they found greater success there (seePriya Krishna’s review of every Carbone the country to learn that Vegas is the rightful home for spicy rigatoni vodka and veal chop parm, excessive, expensive, and the rightful menu for the nouveau riche). Serendipity must’ve been the sweetest of them all. I can’t recall what we ordered, but I know the night of my birthday was the first time I tried their signature Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. It was exactly what I expected it to be: ice blended, milky, powdered hot chocolate mixture that was not too rich or sweet. A flavor balanced for any and all pallets to enjoy. The Matterhorn of dense, creamy, ultra rich whipped cream that topped the milkshake adjacent beverage was the most cloying element of the treat. I’m glad to say I’ve tried it, but it may just be the first and last time for this order.

Have you ever emerged from an elevator and confronted your worst nightmare? Or at least vignettes of nightmares that were fueled by cinematic horrors? I have, but instead of being the final girl, I was only left with an imprint of fascination instead of a scar from a near slashing.

I have been admiring Robin F. Williams’ work for many years. Her recent show at P.P.O.W. titled Good Mourning included images of subjects she has explored throughout her career, such as gender and its permutations in media and folklore, but this new body of work captured “ ‘the paintings’ in horror films and psychological thrillers…[blending filmic] references with art historical and cultural events to develop a type of fan fiction that creates space for alternative endings.” Needless to say, seeing a few scenes from my favorite films rendered in her soft style sent chills of excitement down my spine.

The salon style hang of gouaches on paper made my mind flicker like a television set as the stills she captured animated in my memory. The bloody, final scream of a dancer in Susperia, Jamie Lee Curtis in a tense pause in the midst of running for her life in Halloween, my girls from House pre-fight for their lives, and a last glimpse of the Lisbon girls in The Virgin Suicides (this film was more vicerally frighting to me out of all the others referenced in this show).  As I walked into the final gallery space and turned to my right, a comedic relief, Meg Ryan screaming pleasure in the pastrami institution that is Katz’s Deli in When Harry Met Sally. 

Although the women captured in William’s lens via paint are culled from a genre that is hard to stomach, in the context of these paintings the viewer can escape with them down an undermined path for a new narrative. A choose your own adventure of savior, villain or victim outside the confines of a script or screen. 

When I went to see Alexa Hawksworth’s exhibition titled Prolixity at Theta, I felt like I stepped into Balthazaar at 7:30 PM on a weekend night. A contact buzz of energy brightened my eyes and spirit after braving the gloom making mist blanketing Tribeca. There is an urgency that radiates softly in each brushstroke, reminding me of the dizzying effect employed in the music videos of yesteryear where the camera is slowed down while moving quickly to capture the action in front of it. Or, when I scroll through my social media feed, videos and images of people I know and parasocially know digitally fold into each other. Faces and bodies are faded apparitions to this singular moment in time. Much like the beat of New York, pulsing with excitement at every turn from the hurried pace of a server or a famous face lighting up a room. In Midnight Candy, Mock Orange, Cameron Diaz’s unmistakable smile beams amidst the presumed flashes of paparazzi cameras. Meryl Streep’s A-list face emerges against the sea of who’s whos and who are theys (Tom Cruise's notable mug is a face in the crowd). This event appears to have been dreamt up in the artist’s imagination, but I would also believe you if you told me this was a still from a Vanity Fair Oscars party, Hollywood is a dream after all, right? My personal favorite is the almost portrait of a close lipped grinning Kristen Dunst as Marie Antoinette. The exuberantly lavish details of her birthday party scene have been flattened to focus on the life of the party and last Queen of France.

Swaths of cobalt blue, macaroni and cheese crayon orange, cherry red, magenta, and soft chartreuse harmonize as a symphony of late 90’s early millennium color palette goodness in emphasizing Hawskworth’s investigation of lush, postmodern excess in two of my favorite paintings in the show. Apex, mentally brought me to Balthazaar on a busy night. A server is viewed from above, ready to work the room wherever everyone feels like a star and their award is a seafood tower. “Martini,” “Marlboro,”and “Honda,” appear as rushing ads, like those that sit on top of a cab, but are the perfect order of objects to reach for  post-fill up on steak frites. 

In Directrix, a figure encumbered by bunches of fabric, possibly shopping bags, and her two red boots running in front of her evoke the mean sidewalks of Soho. Shopping while nearly dropping from exhaustion from dodging people, car, and bike traffic. An aside: the red cowboy boots are such a dominant clothing item for millennials. I had a pair when I was little, as did many other girls I know. Ganni made an adult version that were quite popular for those that wanted to tap into the mind of their younger sartorially inclined selves; they're hard to find now but here’s a pair on Vestiaire’s site if you’re a size 37. 

As an Italian American, I’m afraid to admit that I haven’t sunk my teeth into the lasagna of layers that comprise the cinematic canon of films related to or adjacent to our culture. In my memories of growing up, whenever any of the Godfather films were on TV, my father would pause his incessant channel flipping between commercials to watch a familiar scene depicting the life and crimes of the Corleone family. One night during my undergraduate days and studying Italian, I remember him calling me up asking me for a translation, to which I replied, “You've seen how many times? Shouldn’t you know this by now?” Have I watched this trilogy in full? No, but will one day in the name of research, that’s for sure (A dream of mine is writing a book focused on the relationship between depictions of Italian American culture in media and its relationship to American culture as a whole). I also haven't watched Michael Mann’s Heat, granted, this may not fall into my cultural canon but it stars my two kings: Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Quite frankly, I’m shocked that I haven’t watched this solely for the fact that this is the first film they linked up in. After seeing One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Five on view at the gallery, I made a mental note to bump Heat up to a high position on my “need to watch” list. Both Pacino and De Niro have been central figures in countless films I’ve enjoyed over the years while playing characters that I would consider the exact archetype of men I actively avoid, but they act so bad so good! I shouldn’t have let myself go googly-eyed over Pacino’s emotionally manipulative portrayal of Bobby when I saw The Panic in Needle Park, but his wayward heroism in Dog Day Afternoon was redemptive for my attraction to his passionate crimes and face that could make angels weep tears of joy. There has been a recent trend in gatherings of men to resemble famous attractive actors and all I want to know is Young Al Pacino Look Alike Contest When?! As for De Niro, my god he plays a horrible man so well. A textbook male manipulator that I hate to encounter in real life, but I can’t resist a film where Martin Scorsese makes his muse go bad.  

I was intrigued with their assortment for October where witches dabble in the dark arts to alter their lives and the lives of those around them. In the description for this block of movies, they note that these characters are “embodying cultural fears and fantasies around powerful women and the shadowy, forbidden flip side of the everyday patriarchal order, witches have captivated audiences almost since the beginning of filmmaking…[these films] have made women who dabble in the dark arts symbols of pop empowerment, occupying their own space between the earthly and supernatural and connecting ancient traditions to modern rituals.” Growing up Catholic, media centering the occult or witchcraft fascinated me since it was forbidden. I’ll never forget my second grade teacher, who was a nun, threw a fit when the Harry Potter books found their way into my classmates’ hands. I never understood what the big deal was and quite frankly, going to Catholic school (and going to church a minimum of twice a week depending on the season) piqued my curiosity for these topics even more. The two movies I ended up watching in this collection do not fit within this framework, my deep rooted nature to go against the grain asserts itself subconsciously sometimes, like a weed. Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is classic for many, myself included. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve watched this. Whenever I find myself near The Dakota, I always turn this on as soon as I come home. I also can’t watch it without hearing Tyra Banks’s sing-songy voice explain to a contestant on America’s Next Top Model (season 5) how she wanted her hair to look post-makeover, “I specifically said Mia Farrow from Rosemary’s Baby.” But what puzzles me with the collection description and what happens in this film is that Farrow’s Rosemary is not the witch. She is the victim of the witches. Unbeknownst to her, the people closest in and next door to her home made moves to elevate their lot in life at her expense. Same goes for our protagonist Alison in the Australian cousin film to Rosemary’s Baby titled Alison’s Birthday. Two joyous, celebratory life events are soured with tannis root and tranquilizer. 

Everyone I know has been processing the results of last week’s presidential election with their  head in their hands, wondering what will happen to our country over the course of the next four years. When I sat down to get into the Halloween spirit by watching these films pre-election, I couldn’t stop thinking about how little power both of these main women hold in their situations and each time they are about to get a taste of freedom, it is swiftly taken away. Paired with the precarious state of rights over bodily autonomy in this country, Rosemary’s Baby and Alison’s Birthday transcended their initial horror to become metaphors for the real terrors in contemporary America. 

Rosemary’s Baby, dir. Roman Polanski, 1968

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la…a soft voice sings over the slow camera pan of upper Manhattan, from the East Side to the West Side before landing on the central location, The Dakota. Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse are newlyweds on the hunt for a place to raise their future family. Unfortunately, Guy is a failed actor despite his many attempts at making a name for himself in Hollywood. Surely these two, like many young couples in the city, are borrowing family funds to build their nest. They tour a unit in the Dakota Bramford that was once inhabited by an elderly woman with a penchant for cultivating houseplants and boarding up a perfectly good linen closet. 

After the happy couple moves in, Rosemary takes on the role of interior designer, brightening up the previously dark interiors with fresh paint and wallpaper. During a trip to the building’s laundry room she meets her neighbor’s, Minne and Roman Castevets, young helper/helpie Terry who shows off her stinky “good luck charm” of a filigree pendant filled with tannis root. The next time Rosemary sees Terry is in a puddle of her own blood outside their building. The Castevets stumble through the crowd to identify the women they once helped in the most deadpan of line deliveries and soon set their sights on their newlywed neighbors. They want active, living blood. 

I am always telling everyone that the main lesson from this film is to avoid your annoying, nosey neighbors. Soon after this tragedy Minnie is banging on the Woodhouse’s door at any given time of day. As soon as she finds out they are trying to conceive, her attempts at involvement are incessant. She gifts Rosemary Terry’s “good luck charm” and hand delivers chocolate mousse to the Woodhouses on their date night at home. The hairs on Rosemary’s neck start to stand up each time Minnie comes to her door, she knows something is up but can’t quite put her finger on it. Guy has grown warmer to the older couple, but maybe that is due to his recent role he scored after the original actor goes blind unexpectedly. He’s in a good mood with them, but turns against Rosemary when she complains about their meddling. After having a few bites of the mousse with a “chalky undertaste,” she falls asleep, dreaming of her friends on a boat. In the meantime a demon is ravishing her as a group of nude onlookers, including her husband and the Castevets, chant the monster on. 

Once Rosemary finally becomes pregnant, her dream of having a child turns into a nightmare. Subsisting on merely a blended up creamy concoction of “medicinal” herbs and who knows what else, she develops her own lust for flesh via nearly raw meat. Two scenes I found the most chilling was when Rosemary catches herself feasting on raw gizzards in the reflection of a toaster and when she quickly flash fries an unseasoned and undercooked steak. Honestly, she is probably just nutrient deficient from following the oddly specific advice of her obstetrician and friend of the Castevets, Dr. Sapirstein. As her pregnancy continues, she uncovers more details about her sinister neighbors, information left to her from her dear friend Hutch. The more she learns about their Satanic ties, the more she wants to leave her current life to start anew with her baby. However, as soon as she believes she finds solace in the doctor she wanted to see from the start, Dr. Hill, he turns her in to her original OB and husband. 

In quick succession after waking up after having her child extracted from her abdomen without her consent, she learns who his real father is. The coven is his family. Her intuition was always right. 

Alison’s Birthday, dir. Ian Coughlan, 1981

I have never heard of this film before, but it deserved to be mentioned in the same conversations with Rosemary’s Baby. When Alison is sixteen, her and her friends do what any teenage girls do during a slumber party: summon spirits with an ouija board. However, instead of just calling whoever is around to make themselves known, an entity possesses her friend and warns Alison of future danger on her 19th birthday. 

Fast forward three years, Alison and her boyfriend Pete are on their way to drop her off at her Aunt Jenny and Uncle Dean’s home for a visit. As she gets acclimated to their home, she stumbles upon a Stonehenge-like structure in their backyard after being warned to not bother venturing around the property. Soon Alison is having nightmares of rituals taking place in this modern ancient structure. She also meets her 103 year old grandmother she never knew she had in the middle of the night. 

Pete’s suspicions of Alison’s relatives grows as they force a distance between the young couple. Soon, they strike sedation into Alison, explaining she is sick and can’t see him anymore. Now, Pete is the opposite of Guy. He knows something is not right about this situation and does his research to save his girl! He goes to the library put information together that this aunt and uncle of hers kidnapped her from the hospital when she was young and, with information supplied by his astrologer friend Sally, discovers that when Alison turns nineteen she would be the ultimate sacrifice for their Celtic cult demon named Mirna (who is currently the grandmother living in an all blue room). 

To try to stop the transfer of Alison’s spirit into the grandmother, making her Mirna, he fights off the cult members with a gun and a crucifix (which he randomly stopped at a church to get, ripping it off a wall LOL). Both Alison’s and Pete’s lives are forever changes after this night. Being a teen is rough, but being a teen unknowingly trapped in a cult is the worst. 

When I originally did my double feature watch of these films, I was taken with the fascination of pendant necklaces and covens. I mentioned the silver filigree orb in Rosemary’s Baby, but both Alison and Mirna wear the same oval pendant with rectangles at the 12 and 6 clock points and unfurling scrolls filling the majority of the space between them. A nod to the ceremony at the backyard stone perhaps? Alison’s get upgraded to the supersize version after her and her grandmother do their freaky birthday spirit exchange. I tried to research the correlations between covens and their predilection for a bold necklace, but my search results turned up shoppable options. I can’t in good conscience recommend any, your fate is in your hands, at least for now. 

The other week, I treated myself to an afternoon matinee to take in New York City Ballet’s production of Coppélia. In 1974, George Balenchine added this tale of an unrequited love between a man and a doll on display in a toymaker's shop to the NYCB’s repertory with additional solos and a third act that I felt wrapped up the story perfectly (I will also add that this also included some of my favorite costumes I’ve seen in any performance, highly recommend). The story enacted on stage was based on E. T. A Hoffann’s Der Sandman, yet reworked into a love triangle into a tale about a man, woman, and doll. Noted as “one of the greatest comic ballets of the 19th Century,” and I can confirm this, many laughs were had by me and my fellow ballet connoisseurs as we witnessed Swanilda see her beloved Frantz fawn after Coppélia in Coppélius’ (the toy maker, yes the doll’s name is a feminized version of his), shop, transform into the doll herself to shake up the evil craftsman and rescue her beloved after being drugged, and finally join the the town festivities after they marry (Swanilda and Frantz, Coppélia remains an unwed doll to this day). 

This tale has some spooky elements to it (getting slipped an unknown potion for falling in love with a doll is unsettling on all accounts, what a conundrum, all of it), but I was still craving to watch something with a bit more chill. A scene that I am still thinking about is the moment Swanilda pulls back a curtain in Coppélius’ workshop to reveal Coppélia sitting in silence, few things are scarier than stumbling upon a lifeless body! To express their fright, Swanlida and her friends all covered their eyes and shook their legs, knocking their knees, chilled at sight of the doll.

Two films that I’ve recently watched that focus on a group of girls stuck in precarious locations that reveal frightening thrills at every turn are House and Susperia. As I’ve recently grown to appreciate the horror genre, it’s difficult for me to describe either of these cinematic masterpieces (to me) as horrific. Yes, nightmarish events occur in both, but they are so outrageous that I ended up laughing while watching them more than I covered my eyes! They are the perfect double feature to watch this season if you’re in the mood for whimsical spookiness with scenes enveloped in vibrant fluorescent colors. Watching these films back to back makes me hope and wish they used the old chocolate-syrup-as-blood effect from yesteryear as a bonus secret ingredient to the girlish absurdity.

House, Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977

House (Hausu) is a collage of hallucinatory visions that materialize for a group of six schoolgirls who want to fill their break from school with fun and enrichment. 

Gorgeous, the leader of the pack, wants to get away from home. Her name is given to her on purpose as her beauty is radiant, a trait she carries from her deceased mother. Her widowed film composer father has just returned from a job in Italy and revealed that he remarried a woman named Ryoko Ema , who is very quick to take on the title of mother. Understandably, Gorgeous wants nothing to do with this abrupt change in her family. She runs off to her room to write to her aunt, asking to spend the summer at her home instead of with her father and his new bride. Since plans for another group holiday fell through, Gorgeous invites her friends to come along for the excursion to her aunt’s house. And yes, their names are similar to Gorgeous’ in that they indicator their prominent traits: Prof is a scholastic problem solver, Melody is a musician, Kung Fu is expertly trained in this physical art, Mac loves to snack, Sweet as a gentle disposition, and Fantasy lives in a world of her own design. 

Upon arrival, the girls present Gorgeous’ aunt with a beautifully ripe watermelon as big juicy thank you for allowing them to stay at her sprawling home. After they make their way around the property, they decide it would be best to chill said watermelon in the well outside. Mac, who cannot wait to slice open the melon, goes outside to retrieve it, yet does not come back? Did she fall into the well? 

No exactly, as Fantasy soon finds out when she goes outside to find her. Instead of being reunited with her friend, Mac’s head flies out of the well and bites her bum. As the other girls  find this hard to believe, they will all quickly meet their own specific supernatural opponents as the film goes on.

Where did the aunt go? No one knows, until…

Gorgeous nearly takes on the exact ominous energy her aunt possesses after spending too much time in her mirror,  Sweet has a battle with a mattress, Melody can’t stop playing the piano as her hands turn on her to make her play, and Kung Fu finds an enemy in a portrait of a cat named Blanche. The cartoonish flourishes that Obayashi employs to lighten these sinister circumstances are what shift the surreal gore into grotesque comedy. 

Suspiria, Directed by Dario Argento, 1977

First off, I would like to note that both House and Suspiria were released the same year, which I find significant and is telling regarding their stylistic alignment. Second, I will never watch the 2018 remake. I refuse because I staunchly believe that remakes tarnish the legacy and uniqueness of the original content. I also find it extremely lazy on behalf of the filmmaker to rehash existing content. Luca Guadagnino is stacking up a strong list of reasons for me to hate him! He is responsible for breaking down Argento’s masterpiece for parts and he is rumored to do it again with American Psycho, I will not stand for this! Luca, go spend time in your beautiful home (the color scheme is so delicious, also peep the organically scalloped edge coffee table) and get to writing something original! 

Anyway! Back to the haunted ballet academy that is the main character of the film. After a series of unsettling events, namely, two student deaths and a maggot infestation that is one of the most nauseating things I’ve witnessed (and honestly plausible depending on how on top of it your landlord is with maintenance), we learn that the ballet school was established in 1895 by Helena Markos, a witch with twinkle toes. And much like the maggots, the coven of witches are tucked away in unseen corners of the academy, but not for long.

Suzy Bannion is a young American ballet student who has been accepted into the Tanz Academy, an elite dance school in West Germany. Upon her arrival, she sees a girl running out into the pouring rain, shrieking in terror. Suzy is then denied entry despite the inclement weather and the time of day being the middle of the night. When Suzy returns the next day, she meets  her instructor Miss Tanner and the headmistress Madam Blanc along with her classmates who then complicate her living situation at the school. The vibes have never been more off in a place or within a group of people than they are here. Unfortunately for Suzy, her curiosity overcomes her and she finds out first hand where the underlying issues originate. 

One of the reasons I will always return to this film are for the interiors. The M. C. Escher-esque archways to nowhere in the wall mural, the pepto bismol pink apartment with graphic geometric details that my eye wants to believe are modernist frescos, and the blue velvet wallpaper in the foyer of the school juxtaposed with the sleek silver gothic entryway. The vivid unnatural colors are difficult to consume paired with the content they illuminate. 

One of the chapters in my career where I learned the most was when I was a research assistant in the Design department at Christie's. I’ve always been fond of furniture and design, but never had the time to sit down to take a look at the handiwork of Louis Comfort Tiffany that made his lamps (and MANY other objects) so special, the names of Scandinavian designers that I relegated under the umbrella of mid century modern as if they were signatureless like works by the Shakers (I’m a big Shaker girl, going to the Shaker Museum upstate is on my “need to to list” this year. Their instagram is one of my favorite accounts I follow), and influenced me to do my own research on the many female designers that are often overshadowed by their male collaborators and surprisingly don’t hit the auction block very often. If we’re talking Tiffany, Clara Driscoll needs to be mentioned whenever his name comes up and I hope the lucky owners of a, let’s say a Élisabeth Garouste Mondrian inspired chair, don’t sell their possessions often because they can’t live without them. This experience was a crash course in learning about the auction market, but more than that, I deepened my knowledge about 20th and 21st century design more than I ever had the chance to. Much like how I feel elated when I guess the correct artist reference whenever I see a related Sonia Delunay costume design, I love being able to spot an elegant yet approachable Finn Juhl chair humbly waiting for an interaction. 

Listed below are a few of my favorite galleries that are more than furniture showrooms, they’re curated spaces that encourage visitors to think beyond Ikea toward artful, well-crafted homewares. 

Emma Scully Gallery

When looking at the work of Simone Bodmer-Turner, I did a double take. I’ve seen them before. Rather, I immediately recognized who she was looking to as a muse: Diego Giacometti. To be fair, both Brothers Giacometti (you know, Alberto, the bigger formaggio of the two) made furniture in very similar styles, to the point that it does take an expert’s eye and great knowledge of their works to differentiate between who made what. 

Naturalistic flourishes, patination, objects with personality. They exist in their own world, but are happy to share space with you. Bodmer-Turner’s pieces share these same sentiments. In her recent exhibition titled A Year Without a Kiln, Bodmer-Turner returned to materials she experimented with earlier in her practice and explored with for the first time, like bronze, wood, and lacquer, as she was in the process of moving her studio from Brooklyn to an orchard in Massachusetts. Each of these creations marks this year-long process where she had to forgo crafting ceramics since, and as the title of the exhibition states, she did not have access to a kiln during this year. It’s difficult to switch gears from the smooth comfort of what we automatically gravitate to, but sometimes we need to feel the jerky complications of a manual transmission to help shift us to another gear where we can flourish. And she certainly flourished. Not only did she look at Giacometti for inspiration, but she also reinterpreted the American Shaker Chippendale candle stand with a touch of Japanese flair when she was crafting her side tables. She worked with both woodworker Laura Pepper and urushi lacquer artist Yuko Gunji, forming each table in a combination of both pine and  cherry woods with a duo coating of lacquer, glossy for the interior and stain outside to enhance their tender contours. “These tables unite my early spark for craft traditions in Japan, and my current environment of the New England countryside. Each material and motif has a personal history for me… They are intended to act as talismans of memory, creativity, and pleasure throughout this living space,” says Bodmer-Turner. Looking back on the images from this show, I can see her work living well with items by Jean-Michel Frank. The dream of the roaring 2020’s are alive in these objects.

Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery

For years I have been on a journey to read more poetry. Understanding the shapes strings of words can take, the stop and go soft narration of specific and vague scenarios, measured restraint. Going to Jacquline Sullivan is an education on visual poetry meditated by design. The title of their current show, A Room is an Archive of Touch takes inspiration from the writer  Lisa Robertson's essay "Atget's Interiors" where she notes that "a room situates a cadence of habit” and is expanded upon in the combination of historical furniture and work by Grace Atkinson, Jennefer Hoffmann and Natalie Weinberger. The way we configure a room and the imprint of memories on the objects we live with, that become passive and active observers of our lives, develop our memory archive and, at times, forces us to confront the spectrum of emotions that range from joy to pain. 

TIWA Select

During my first visit to TIWA Gallery, I felt that I stumbled into the most interesting and well traveled person’s apartment. Earthy incense wafted through the space, enhancing the environment and calming my general annoyance of the heatwave, as I made my way around their unique exhibition titled Coetir. The objects on view were curated by founder Alex Tieghi-Walker with the intention of evoking the magic of the Welsh woodlands and cultural folklore he’s cherished throughout his life. Bringing the outdoors in is far from a novel concept when it comes to home decoration, but the combination of contemporary stained glass and patinated brass sconces, an 18th century Japanese hanging lantern, with a carved wooden side stable from the 1920 was an bewitching combination. The historical and extremely contemporary works, many of the pieces in this exhibition were produced this year, call to mind the lineage of folklore itself. The forms that it takes shape and the way that it is transferred from generation to generation may change, yet the significance and message they deliver will linger within the vessels they adopt. All of the items on view have unique, magical properties, this is the one I would bring in to add some enchantment to my abode: 

A thought I have been mulling over in my mind for some time is the relationship between the way fashion and interior design help create a signature world for us in our homes. I am deeply interested in folks who have an all-encompassing aesthetic in public and private. This vase and these necklaces by Emily Frances Barnett support my thesis I’d say. 

Superhouse

Each visit to Superhouse I’ve had is walking into a world of pure imagination. Tim Burton and Willy Wonka wish they could curate their visions in real life the way Stephen Markos has in his pocket sized Tribeca space. Their current exhibit, The Odd Couple, juxtaposes about 18 US based artists with a focus on both the functional art movement of the 1980s that seamlessly blurs all distinction between art and furniture with pieces that carried in this lineage to present day. Glenn Adamson wrote a great essay for this show, a perfect primer for anyone ignorant on the history of art furniture explaining just how long it has persisted and changed shape with the styles that have marked the decades from the 1860s globally and here in the States. I learned many new names in design at this show as my education has been primarily focused on the designers based in Europe aside from Isamu Noguchi, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mr. Tiffany. I also HIGHLY suggest everyone in, around, and visiting NY to check out the Crafting Modernity: Design in Latin America, 1940–1980 on view at MoMA. If you’re going to talk about mid-century modern, don’t forget to discuss how this style took shape everywhere! I’ve thought about  José Zanine Caldas’ Namoradeira (tête-à-tête) nearly every day since I saw it (I LOVE a tête-à-tête).

I now only wish for a bigger apartment to accommodate my own Heart of Thorns vanity by Elizabeth Browning Jackson and a home out east where I can watch the tranquil waves move in and away from the coast while sitting at James Hong’s Tropic of Cancer table.