Friday, March 28, 2014

Visit : Parachute Market - Let There Be Light


The Spring Equinox was celebrated this past weekend with the third Parachute Market, themed "Let There Be Light." The seasonally inspired design fair and marketplace is conceptualized by Coryander Friend, a production designer living in Laurel Canyon. With her high priestess-like ability to orchestrate just-about-anything combined with a keen interior design eye, she brings together over fifty designers, makers and artists for a 2-day weekend in Downtown Los Angeles. This edition featured site-specific light installations, edibles, collectible books, furniture, one-of-a-kind objects, music curation by FYF Fest's Phil Hoelting and Parachute's continuing partner of vintage fashions, A Current Affair.

There is definitely a kinetic creative energy happening in LA that runs a thread through everyone here. Inspired by all the incredible folks who do the making, I turned my camera on the artists rather than just their product. 


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Stylist extraordinaire, Agnes Baddoo creates a multitude of magic from her numerology-inspired, Everyw'air Sprays to her exquisite leather goods that wear beautifully with age.


Wendy Polish and Lara May Meyerratken. Like Agnes and almost everyone at Parachute, these lovely ladies are multi-disciplinary talents.



Wendy is a freelance designer with clients that include rad LA shops Chay and Moon Juice, maker of limited edition silk-screened home goods such as her Heart Pillow collaboration with Beth Katz of Mt. Washington Pottery and co-creator of Le Feu de L'eau (above) – a gorgeous line of delicately scented candles. 


Lara is musician El May with the gift of creating insanely beautiful paintings. She concocts a mixture of minerals specific to each gem that she illustrates, thus giving it's glorious dimension and depth while remaining airy and dreamy. 


clockwise from top left: Sophia and Walker Watts | Brook & Lyn | Future Eyes worn by Sabine, daughter of Sheryl Cancellieri of Eastside Handmade - coming up April 19th (photo courtesy of Future Eyes)


Melanie Abrantes holding her wares | Melanie's cork planters and vases with beautiful paper flowers by Blooms in the Air (photos courtesy of Melanie) | a peek at the Rolling Shoppe of Half Hitch Goods | BKB Ceramics based in Joshua Tree


Wofum's Annabel Inganni with her daughter | The colorful array of prints created by Annabel are incorporated into home and office goods in collaboration with her husband, Brendan Sowersby of 100xbtr, a furniture and product design company


The ladies of Ermie represent! | Morgan Peck Pottery whose work is greatly inspired by architecture. | Unearthen is Gia Bahm, a stylist and jewelry designer based in New York City creates mostly with crystals, but I was very drawn to these sweet bronze cast Palo Santo incense holders



The always awesome Linde of Just Say Native | Insanely ethereal textiles of Anton Nazarko who works with Raquel Allegra | Bari Zipperstein's radical pottery line, BZippy and Company


Melissa Tolar of A Question of Eagles | Their work encompasses ceramics, jewelry and unique handmade quilts by Melissa's mom, Marcia | delicate enamel ring bowls by Melissa


The ceramic and wooden kitchen good and home goods by Knotwork is a collaboration between Linda Hsiao, an industrial and eyewear designer and Kagan Taylor, woodworker and co-founder of KnowhowShop, a design / build firm


Specialty Dry Goods is Edie Kahula Pereira. She treads lightly on this earth with her creations: bags, wallets and the sweetest potholders you've ever seen (!) with a focus on utilizing discarded surplus materials, linen & alpaca yarns, natural vegetal tanned hide and 100% USA grown organic wool


The magnificent crew that showed their vintage collections under A Current Affair's light inspired set-up: Rhianna of Mixed Business, Erin of Tavin, Richard Wainwright of New/Found and co-creator of A Current Affair, a vintage pop-up with it's next market April 5th | Linde of Just Say Native

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And the food, oh the deliciousness that was there!

Sí Paletas serves up ice pops in delectable combinations as avocado/chocolate and cucumber/melon/mint | the gentlemen of Horse Thief BBQ | almost too beautiful to eat, fresh from the ocean creations by The Ceviche Project (original photo here)

Lauda (right) of Sno Con Amor creates an updated twist on Raspados - Mexican Snow Cones

I wasn't able to capture all the edibles that were curated by Chef Nina Clemente and Gardener Tricia Mazure. Also included were Zen Bunni Chocolates, Flying Zepoli, Moon Juice and Handsome Coffee Roasters.


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And ever-present was the space-specific light art installations by:

Environmental artist and industrial designer, Doron Gazit of Air Dimensional Design and Frozen Flow

Sculptor Jason Meadows whose work has been exhibited at the Tate Modern and the UCLA Hammer Museum

Designer and architect Johanna Grawunder is based in Milan, Italy and San Francisco, CA with work that spans from large-scale public installations to limited edition furniture

Tahiti Perhson who creates large scale, intricate hand-cut paper installation




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Like always, I wish I was able to capture all of the goodness there:
Heather Levine, Place 8 Healing (Azalea Lee makes beautiful leather pouch necklaces. She also does crystal healing and flower essence therapy), Vacation Days (as I'm now more of an Angelo, I think I should complete it with the Griffith Park Trails Scarf!), Victoria Morris Pottery, Wrk-Shp's concrete pendant lighting, Barbara C. Rourke's beautiful weavings (which is only her side hobby that she whips up when she's not flexing her supreme interior design muscles at Bells + Whistles) and many more - see vendor list here

.... Too much chatting, not enough picture-taking!

Big hugs, congratulations and thank you to Coryander and all the amazing folks who create the radness that fills the Parachute Market. 


Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Studio Visit: Jen Garrido / Jenny Pennywood


Last month while in San Francisco, I visited Jen Garrido's studio. Jen is an amazing and talented painter who works in oil, acrylic, watercolor and gouache on wood panels and paper. Her color, process and results are stunning. Under the moniker, Jenny Pennywood, she creates napkins, tea towels and textiles which can be found at www.shopjennypennywood.bigcartel.com and select shops throughout the U.S.






Jen has custom work at Anthropologie and as Jenny Pennywood creates custom designs for events and weddings – including stationery, paper goods and textiles for the occasion. Having both Jen Garrido and Jenny Pennywood as outlets, she's able to balance both by having it all in the same studio – enabling her to paint and work digitally seamlessly. She also juggles life as an artist, designer, wife and mother (!) to Jemma who is 3. 











Currently inspired by the color blue, Jen also admires the work of fellow painters Amy Sillman, Philip Guston, Vera Neumann and more recently Keltie Ferris.

Up and coming are many exciting projects: a collaboration in the works, a new pattern for her textile collection and a new body of paintings. Can't wait!




Thank you so much Jen for opening your studio up! To quote her, it's a total "color bomb!" I loved just soaking it all in and had fun photographing the brightly lit studio filled with endless inspiration: textiles, paints, paints, even more paints, Jenny Pennywood designs, books and bins of goodies. We followed it up with a relaxing lunch at Serpentine. Just another reason to love San Francisco and all the rad people in the Bay Area.



The Radder photos getting love

Many thanks to both The Los Angeles Times and Space 15 Twenty for sharing photos from our post on the opening reception for Fibershed LA's pop up with such lovely accompanying write-ups.