Concert Tomorrow, Too!

Yep, the Mandela concert is on TV on Monday night,too, on VH1. At 9pm.

Concert Today

Head on over to Virgin Radio UK, at 1pm Eastern Standard Time (that's 7pm in South Africa), for the Nelson Mandela 46664 AIDS benefit concert. Celebrating Madiba's 90th birthday.

A New Find

I always enjoy finding something online that's new to me, and creative, fun and inspiring. I found just that in Kat's blog, anything goes.



She blogs about things that catch her eye, and those are interesting things, indeed. I love the magazines she features, the photography... we seem to have quite similar taste! I quite enjoy some of her work that she posted (if I've understood correctly)... South Africans will understand this one (yep, that's Steve Hofmeyer, and it says "Praat die Taal. Dit betaal".)



I then I noticed she had participated in American blogger Holly's decor8 competition. I remember seeing this!



Kat seems to be bursting with creativity... and it seems to run in the family. I love the pics from her brother and father on their site, Visual Safari.



Thanks for commenting on my blog, Kat, I was happy for the introduction!

Boots Made for Walking

I got this super little pamphlet in my inbox today...



I have seen Bokkie's work before and LOVE it (of course, its shwe shwe!). You can purchase her adorable shoes at her bokkieshoes.co.za...





and see more of her fabulous images on flickr.

Etsy Artist: Astrid

I really enjoy a website called Etsy. For those uninitiated, Etsy is a place to buy (or sell) hand made goods. You can find delicious stuff, from jewellery to original art, clothing, and more.



I recently learned that you can find artists by location. I did a little search and tons of South African artists! Yippeeee! I did a little emailing, and in the next while will be giving you some insight into these remarkable people and their lovely wares.

My first is Astrid. First, my apologies to Astrid for making her wait so long for this, but school kind of took over my life for a while. Rather late than never, I say!

Astrid is a beader, and she creates the most beautiful pieces. I recently had my first experience making jewellery, and picking out the beads was certainly the most difficult part. I can see how someone can get really into those little beads...



Tell us about yourself, and what you sell on Etsy
My name is Astrid Riedel and live in Pretoria, South Africa. I sell handmade glass beads on Etsy, for a couple of months now.

How did you come to creating what you sell?
How I discovered glass bead making, or originally known as Lampworking, by chance. I found a book on making beads and was so excited by it, I always had dreams of doing glass blowing. I got onto the internet and imported everything I needed from Germany, and ordered some books from USA. Ever since that time, now 5 years ago, I have been obsessed by making beads and it takes all my spare time.

What inspires you?
My inspiration comes from everything that God has created, flowers, shapes, colors, textures, everything can always be found in nature! My tastes are diverse and I don't think I have just one style, I like to experiment with new techniques all the time. This is what has kept me so fascinated with glass.



What is your bestselling piece? What makes it sell?
I think you can sell anything that is not common and everyday. On Etsy and on Ebay you reach so many people with different tastes that anything that is unique and well made will sell.

Do you have any advice for someone in South Africa who would like to sell on etsy?
The biggest challenge for S.A is to find a way to get paid, as we can not receive via Paypal. I have found 2 companies with whom I have registered www.moneybookers(for EU clients), and wwww.setcom.com(for USA clients). I believe I am the pioneer with this and have passed it on to one other S.A beader who now also sells on Etsy.

Is there anywhere else customers could go to buy your work (website or actual location)?
My other site is Ebay and you will find me by searching for "Astrid Riedel"

I truly hope that more S.Africans will be selling their handmade articles through Etsy.



Thank you, Astrid. I love your handiwork, and sometimes think they look good enough to eat!

You can see more of Astrid's work on Etsy, and Ebay.

Other Etsy artists soon!

Shwe Shwe Bowls, as Promised

I did promise I would show you Babazeka's shwe shwe bowl in action, didn't I? Here it is in South African Elle's latest edition, called Magnetic South (a really good issue!)...



The bowls are placed on a shwe shwe material. If you'd like to find out more, check out She Wears Shwe Shwe for its myriad forms and shapes!

Babazeka!

Here's a shop/blog combo I have been meaning to tell you about for a long time. Babazeka is a shop that was started by Sarah (that's the most I can gleen from her blog!). It means love, and is motivated by Sarah's desire to do something about the challenges of poverty and unemployment in South Africa. But not only are the wares she sells uplifting, they are also beautiful and fun.

Here's Sarah



And some goodies from the shop:






Some the items have been featured in the media lately: there's the shwe shwe bowls in Oprah's mag, and I spotted some of the same bowls in the latest SA Elle Deco (pics to come later), and also in an Australian magazine. And it's all deserved, I think Babezeka's stuff is lovely. And now I can buy my own from there (I originally was contemplating buying online and having it sent to my folks' house in Joburg) because Babazeka ships worldwide now. Yippee!

You can read more about it all on the Babazeka blog.

Good Call, Sir!

I spotted SA chandelier Willowlamp in the June 2008 Esquire magazine.



It says, "We don't do chandeliers, but we'll make an exception for this piece..." It looks great as the centrepiece.

You can check out more on the Willowlamp on a previous post, or on their website.

I've Been Busy...

Because my new SA Elle Decor arrived! I've been reading... yippeeee! I hate that I have to wait 6 weeks, but its worth it in the end. My favourite feature? Hmm....



This lovely house belongs to Laureen Rossouw and her family, it's nestled on the foot of a mountain in the Cape, near Simon's Town. She calls it a house by the sea instead of a beach house, which I think is a good distinction to make. It's really my cup of tea, and I love the colors (and the stripes! Stripes!!). For pics that didn't end up in the mag, check out this post on the Elle Decor blog.

I also loved the sneak peek of Ms Rossouw's styling of South Africa House, which was the center display at Rooms on View (which has come and gone, while I waited for my magazine). I heard it was great, and have loved seeing the contributions of two of my favourite bloggers to it, via their website (that'll be Jezze and Skinny). But for now I'll show you one page from the sneak peek that I love, as I am a huge sucker for succulents (and who can resist the GIANT 6?).



More to come soon!

Inspiration

I love this pic because my husband has a gorgeous apron made from the same material... Pofadder, Durban, Diepsloot, Karoo... reminds me of that Johnny Cash song: "I've been everywhere"

(As seen in the House & Leisure Magazine, Nov 07).

Moving Notice

One of my favorite daily blog reads is Designer Jots because of Carolyn's lovely fun designs on recycled paper. She recently blogged about theses, which I must get my hands on (stripes! stripes!!)



Anyway, Carolyn has moved to a new blogger site, so make sure to check it out: designerjots. I enjoy her work, especially as she sometimes shares some of her process with her readers but also as she shares her inspiration, and that in turn inspires me. Thanks Carolyn!

And if you are interested in purchasing her work, you can find it at delight.com

You are Talking to the Converted

I just had the loveliest day... as you may know, I am studying graphic design at night and my latest project has to do with an exhibit of Anish Kapoor's work over at the ICA (for the non-Bostonians out there, that's the Institute of Contemporary Art)... which is fine, but I'm not the most ardent contemporary art fan. Last time I purposely sought it out was on a trip to the Tate Modern, about, oh, 8 years ago.

Anyway, so I went along to the exhibit, not expecting much. But I ended up really enjoying it and then also wandering around some of the other exhibits, and really finding some interesting stuff.

This was my favourite piece from Kapoor's exhibit, My Body, Your Body. I really like how Kapoor has used paint pigment, such a basic element of art, to create the light-grabbing space.



I think, for me, a lot of contemporary art deals with things that as a younger person I couldn't relate to, but now that I have a little living under my belt I kinda get it. There was a video in one of the exhibits of an artist playing voice recordings from voicemail, and she mouthed the words, imitating imagined facial expressions... and this included one of those computer-voice type recorded messages. It was really interesting and kind of funny. I don't remember exactly what the point of it was but I suddenly realized that the thing I like about art is that it's a window into another world. Before I appreciated the world into times passed, but today I appreciated the world into today's world and other people's ideas on it. Gosh, maybe I'm growing up :)

The great thing about the Anish Kapoor exhibit was how he appeals to each individual's experience of life in a really abstract way. You don't identify with a person in a painting, or a place but the feeling you get from the thing he's created, the thing creating iteself, like the giant red thing in Past, Present, Future: that big arm is constantly carving it out (see more of that here, at the ICA website)



But that's really just the tip of the iceberg. If you ever get the opportunity to experience his work, I highly recommend it.

So, after checking out Kapoor's work, and enjoying the harbour view from the ICA's great location in Boston Harbor, I went into another door in order to leave, and came across the Street Level exhibit. I thought I'd wander through on my way out and just see what caught my eye... like that video recoding I described. Then I saw this really cool story-board type piece, of a guy playing with a yo-yo.



I'm one of those really gullible people who take things at face-value, so I was reading it through thinking, wow, how did they catch that action? until I saw the last frame.I had been taken, hook, line and sinker. I then read the plaque, and saw it is a work by a South African, Robin Rhode. I found another piece by him, this one less about contemporary youth culture, more about the way we live now.



It's called Dream Houses, and its a guy trying to juggle his material aspirations.

I did some reading up on Robin Rhode, and he is originally from Cape Town, SA, but lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Love his stuff. You can see more of his work on the ICA flickr photostream here.

So, the moral of the story is, never be afraid to try something twice, you might be surprised.