Los Angeles based Urban Air reached it's Kickstarter Goal of $100,000 today. What's the goal? "Imagine floating, globally connected urban forests growing where billboards stand." Urban Air is transforming "existing urban billboards to living, suspended bamboo gardens. Embedded with intelligent technology, UrbanAir becomes a global node - an open space in the urban skyline… An art work, symbol, and instrument for a green future."
art
Evelyn Ackerman, famed California artist dies
Evelyn Ackerman and her husband Jeromes art encapsulated a time and feeling in California that I am lucky to remember. My mother use to create these mosaic art pieces on the top of tables. I think we had one in our patio, and I hadn't thought about it until reading of Evelyns death last Friday. Mom must have gotten the idea from one of her many art classes she took when we lived in Southern California, perhaps even from The Ackermans. You can read more about Evelyn here at California Home and Design. According to the post , "Evelyn and Jerome specialized in making affordable home accessories, and worked with a number of mediums from woodcarving and textiles to mosaics and ceramics. The couple’s work was inspired by the German Bauhaus art movement, which placed equal importance on fine arts and craftsmanship. They are known to have inspired California midcentury modern style, which remains popular and stylish today."
Most of all I love their outlook towards art. At Ackermanmodern.com she is quoted, “We strove to make things we could be proud of in terms of our design and art backgrounds, but that were viable commercially, that people could afford and get pleasure from putting on their walls or their tables.”
To see more of The Ackermans work, go here. I might suggest listening to Dave Brubeck while viewing their work. Dave just passed away the other day, and also hails from that "certain time and place" that was mid-20th century California. The smell of jasmine wafting through the patio doors would complete the scene.