Craft Food

Boinggg! Ceramic Vessels Undergo a Playful Remix with Coiled, Undulating Handles

All images © Kuu Pottery, shared with permission

Miami-born Kassandra Guzman diverges from the sleek, straight lines of minimalism in favor of squiggles and waves. She’s the ceramicist behind the Seattle-based studio Kuu Pottery, where she creates wide-mouthed vessels and playful vases mimicking bananas and other fruits. Part of her Boinggg! collection, many of the amphora and mugs have classically shaped bases with atypical handles that coil in lengthy runs and create undulating bows.

Guzman has a few projects in the works, including an illustrated series and a new body of ceramics printed with decals. See a larger collection of the artist’s pieces and browse available vessels in the Kuu shop. (via design milk)

Illustration

Whimsy and Vintage Illustrations Merge in Colorful Stippled Tattoos by Joanna Swirska

All images © Joanna Swirska, shared with permission

Amidst delicate black lines and stippled shading, Polish tattoo artist Joanna Swirska (previously) inks splashes of bright pigments. Her works blend fanciful elements with elegant illustrations of flora and fauna, like her signature ferns and detailed monsteras colored with bright green gradients. Often covering an entire upper arm or calf, the tattoos are whimsical in both subject matter and style, depicting raccoons dressed in orange hooded capes, birds perching on berry-studded branches, and cheerful cats riding retro cruisers.

Swirska, who’s known as Dzo Lama, lives in the Karkonosze mountains and works between Jelenia Gora and Wroclaw, where she runs Nasza Tattoo Shop. Her books are closed until July, but keep an eye out for future openings on her Instagram. You can also pick up prints, mugs, and other goods adorned with her illustrated characters on Etsy.

Photography

Dense Fog Shrouds San Francisco's Streets in a Spectral Haze in Joshua Singh's Photos

All images © Joshua Singh, shared with permission

Photographer Joshua Singh wields the unrelenting fog that hangs over San Francisco to veil his shots with a dreamy, eerie quality. The Bay Area city is notorious for the dense weather condition that thwarts visibility and leaves pockets of reprieve among its hilly landscape—it’s so iconic that some residents have even named the weather event. Often working after sunset, Singh captures everyday activities like soccer practice and commutes that turn mysterious when illuminated by street lights or glowing store signage that peeks through the atmospheric haze.

Head to Instagram to see more of his street photography and to his portfolio to shop prints. (via Peta Pixel)

Art

Vibrant Curved Lines Flow Through Foster Sakyiamah's Dynamic Paintings

“Red Easter Sunday” (2022), 150 x 200 centimeters. All images courtesy of Noldor

A single color grounds the intricate, swirling paintings that compose Foster Sakyiamah’s body of work. Relying on reds, blues, and yellows, the Ghanaian artist renders dancers in choreographed synchronicity and demure women wearing thin lace gloves and wide-brimmed hats. Dressed in clothing that blends into the backdrop, the figures emerge through fields of pulsing, curled lines, which add texture and energy to the dynamic pieces.

Sakyiamah is currently a Noldor artist-in-residence, an Accra-based program designed to support emerging African artists that’s now in its second year. The residency is also an integral part of the newly founded Institute Museum of Ghana, which opens to the public next month. If you’re in Rome, you can see Sakyiamah’s paintings through March 3 at Andrea Festa. Otherwise, take a peek into his process on Instagram. (via Kottke)

“Synchronized Blue Motion” (2021), 200 x 200 centimeters

Right: “Abena Green Street” (2022), 80 x 95 centimeters

“Red Dressing Room” (2022), 216 x 216 centimeters

“Synchronized Sun Dance” (2021), 200 x 300 centimeters

“Bloom Sun Dance” (2021), 200 x 300 centimeters

“Elizabeth’s Yellow Sunday” (2022)

History Illustration Science

A 900-Page Book Catalogs Hundreds of Medicinal Plants through Colorful Renaissance-Era Woodcuts

Mandragora officinarum L., Mandrake. All images © Taschen, shared with permission

Memorialized in his namesake flower the Fuschia, Leonhart Fuchs was a German physician and groundbreaking botanical researcher. He published an immense catalog of his studies in 1543 titled The New Herbal, which paired colorful woodcut illustrations of approximately 500 plants with detailed writings about their physical features, medical uses, and origins. Fuch’s own hand-colored copy remains in pristine condition to this day and is the basis for a forthcoming edition published by Taschen. Weighing more than 10 pounds, the nearly 900-page volume is an ode to Fuch’s research and the field of Renaissance botany, detailing plants like the leafy garden balsam and root-covered mandrake. The New Herbal is available for pre-order from Taschen and Bookshop.

Impatiens balsamina L., Garden Balsam, Common Balsam, Jewelweed

Pulsatilla vulgaris MILL., Pasque Flower

Art

Vibrant Tiled Mosaics by Ememem Repair Gouged Pavement and Fractured Sidewalks

All images © Ememem, shared with permission

Lyon native Ememem, aka “the pavement surgeon,” examines the streets of European cities and checks for splintered pavement and sidewalks fractured in pieces. Using tiles and stones, he patches the gouged wounds with vibrant mosaics, which nestle into uniquely shaped outlines in walkways and walls. The street-based interventions brighten the otherwise gray asphalt and cement with radial patterns and color-coded stripes that the artist describes as a “free and spontaneous surgical act, which repairs as much as it beautifies.”

Since 2016, Ememem (previously) has restored hundreds of potholes and cracks in the streets across Norway, Scotland, Germany, and Spain, many of which he shares on Instagram. Some of his smaller works will be on view with ErbK Gallery from March 10 to 13 at Lille Art Up Fair, and this summer, he’ll travel to festivals in France, Italy, and Ireland and to Valparaiso and Santiago in September. Ememem is also launching a residency this fall for artists interested in learning his techniques.

Ememem’s collaboration with artist Jan Vormann, whose LEGO piece constructs part of the wall