When I saw this t shirt by Raymond Pettibon sold at the New Museum at the time of his marvelous, dense, overwhelmingly engaging retrospective there, I knew I had to own one. Something about it seemed for the ages. I AM ALARMED, it says under a fireball. And I guess you could say I am alarmed. I am alarmed about the most obvious thing: our current administration. But I am also alarmed about California, the leader on so many environmental initiatives, now again under assault from the largest wildfires the state has yet seen. I could go on and on about the list of things I am alarmed about, but Pettibon's t-shirt covers the gamut. (Pettibon is a text genius. Reading his art on the wall took me an entire day and I still didn't get through it all. He's one of our best American writers and pundits) I think you can still get the tshirt online at the Museum's website or when they reopen which will be soon.
Ludmilla Kavalla
This image by Ludmilla Kavalla, an Austrian illustrator and designer, known as Mila, is a bit mysterious. It comes from the Letterform Archive, a wonderful resource for vintage type and imagery. Not much seems to be known about her work. She worked in the fashion and travel industries. I tried to find out more about her, and about her client, Steiner Seide as this image of a chic black woman backgrounded by the Eiffel Tower is certainly an anomaly for its time, the 1950s. Mila was well known enough to have done a maquette for the Venice Biennale of 1948, and Letterform has many other images of her work available. I am setting my Austrian sleuths on the quest for more data. Please help if you know more.
Dansk: On the passing of Helen Nierenberg
I read yesterday that Helen Nierenberg, the founder of Dansk--along with her husband Ted--the company that helped bring Scandinavian mid century design to the US (along with most prominently, Marimekko) had died. Danish designer Jens Quistgaard was the driving force behind the now iconic glazed ovenware and wood tableware and flatware that put them on the table of most up-to-the-minute American consumers. My mother was one of them. I have a 20 piece set of Dansk, it is the pride of my kitchen closets. As someone who loves to cook, I often still reach for the Dansk, not so much to do the actual cooking (I'm always afraid I'll ruin something) but for display punch, there's nothing like it. When I finally got to Denmark to report a story for Huffpost I was overwhelmed by the Danish design ethic, but most importantly, the wonderful people, and artists who continue to thrive in this remarkable county. Last week's series on the Fantastic Women at the Louisiana Museum was just one of many original and important contributions of this very independent, dynamic cradle of art and design.
The importance of Kem Weber, Walt Disney's design guru
Dave Bossert, a 32 year veteran effects animator of the Walt Disney studio who worked on The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin ,et al, was gifted the original Kem Weber-designed desk that had been his steady support and companion on his departure. His affection for this desk grew into a wonderful new monograph on Weber’s important design contributions to the Walt Disney studios in Burbank.
After the cozy mish mash of the Hyperion studios, Burbank was a streamlined factory. Workers complained that some of the spirit was gone, but in exchange they had the most efficient and beautiful machine from which to make their innovative and highly technical animated films.
Bossert tracked down Weber’s original drawings and renderings for both the exterior physical plant and the custom furnishings at UC Santa Barbara. Each type of artist had a different desk: the flat, expansive kind for directors who had to lay out entire scenes or sequences, the tilt topped, back-lit kind for animators and assistants, the file cabinets, the shelving, the meticulously thought through workstation. Artist input was solicited for the preferred angle of light, the chair style, the comfort, the ease with which they could accomplish the maximum quantity of high-value, technical work.
Bossert was not there during the time period of my Vanity Fair story research on the Ink and Paint department which was the earlier Golden Age, but I know that the workers I interviewed very much appreciated this attention to their comfort and productivity and Bossert says in his era too, they all felt enduring capability and inspiration from their custom-designed surroundings.
Weber was German-born and had worked under a master of the Wiener Werkstatte as well as for the Barker Bros., but there is also much Bauhaus and International style as well as mid century modern in his influences. He found in Walt Disney a true patron who worked with him on almost every aspect of the studio design and who allowed him creativity as well.
Interestingly, Walt admired this kind of industrial design but not the worker collectivity theory behind it for almost as soon as they got to the new studio, the famous Disney strike began for which there was much retribution.
Weber desks have gone at auction for very high prices especially when they were attached to famous animators. I admire Weber’s work, even the smaller occasional pieces, and especially wish the commissary and the coffee shop still existed. Walt’s Weber-designed office is extant in the pink Animation Building, a testament to how innovative his thinking was on every aspect of the dynamic company he created.
Bossert’s beautiful book is for sale here.
Images courtesy of Dave Bossert, copyright UCSB.