“Super/Natural” — an immersive, dome-shape work of art in stained glass by Judith Schaechter — is really best experienced from the inside. Step through its small portal, and in the right light you will be surrounded by the polychromatic glow of birds, stars, insects and fantastical plants and roots. Earlier this year, I was able to experience it myself in Schaechter’s home studio and felt a curious combination of serenity and awe.
Read MoreNisreen Abu Dail and Nermeen Abu Dail wanted to make something special for their young niece, Shams (“sun” in Arabic). As the founders of the 16-year-old design studio Naqsh Collective in Amman, Jordan, the sisters turned a retrospective eye to their own Palestinian heritage and translated the bold patterns of traditional embroidery into a marble bridal chest. Nisreen, an architect in Amman, said the chest was inspired by a Palestinian wedding custom in which women assemble trousseaus from an early age. On the wedding day, “There is a tradition that the bride will sit on top of a chest that is filled with her precious wares,” she said.
Read MoreChintz, khaki, calico, gingham and yes, pajamas: India’s role in the global textile trade has been so profound that its lexicon has shaped the way we describe fabrics, patterns and clothing. Similarly, Indian design motifs have remained durable worldwide symbols: If it’s eternally chic paisley you want, look no further than a silk scarf from Yves Saint Laurent. One word not typically associated with Indian aesthetics, however, is “modernism.” The world’s appetite for color and exuberant detail has kept the country’s tiger, peacock and teardrop motifs in circulation.
Read MoreIn “Domestic Bliss,” a tenderly realized portrait of American life in the 1990s at Alexander Berggruen gallery in New York, the artist Stephanie Shih draws us into a fraught family narrative. The ceramic objects on view play various roles in the interior drama: Cigarette butts and a crushed beer can signal temptations acquiesced to; the complete “Buns of Steel” workout series on VHS and Suzanne Somers’s ThighMaster offer proof of an investment in personal improvement. Viagra tablets point to lust, perhaps hope. Frozen dinners — one for each member of the titular “Nuclear Family” — sit atop a white Panasonic microwave oven, suggesting an uneasy coexistence.
Read MoreAt first glance, the shimmery green and deep orange surfaces of Anina Major’s sculptural works look as though they would clink audibly if you dared tap them with something metal.
“Beneath the Docks” takes the form of a basket with a handle, covered with an algae-colored glaze. The angled posture of “Hermit Armor” captures the stance of a cautious crab on the go. Their surfaces also bear the unmistakable pattern of woven fiber, material that’s soft and yielding, that twists and stretches, then inevitably frays and falls apart.
Read MoreWhen did athletic shoes turn into collectibles? True sneakerheads have been scouting rare treasures for decades, but in July 2019, when Sotheby’s sold a pair of 1972 Nikes for $437,500 at its first dedicated sneaker auction, the shoes became an asset class to reckon with.
Read MoreWalk up North American Street in Olde Kensington, Philadelphia, and a sharp figure will catch your eye: It’s Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter, the leader and founding member of The Roots, depicted majestically on the side of a decorated Sèvres vase. Artist Roberto Lugo’s mural—four stories high, saturated with joyous color, and full of references to Black creative excellence and historical ceramics—is the perfect introduction to the beehive of creative activity unfolding inside the building. Walk up to the front entrance and you might pass an artist throwing pots just behind a street-level window; then you’ll encounter a retail space full of handmade functional pottery for sale.
Read MoreScroll through Erick J. Espinoza’s Instagram feed, and you might think you’ve traveled back in time to the 1930s — not the Art Deco version, but the version filled with hooked rugs, weathervanes and candlesticks betokening the era’s American Colonial Revival, perhaps with the color saturation cranked way up. “There’s something so lighthearted about Americana. Even really serious and intense works of American folk art are still whimsical, graphic and humorous,” said Mr. Espinoza, who is the 32-year-old creative director at the Hamptons design studio founded by Anthony Baratta. Mr. Espinoza especially loves the geometric patterns of game boards and quilts.
Read MoreIn the middle decades of the 20th century, trained eyes were alert to something called the Liebes Look. Colorful, textured and shot through with shimmering, synthetic fibers like Lurex, the woven textiles of Dorothy Liebes were a signature feature of some of the most glamorous postwar interiors in America: Doris Duke’s Shangri La, the Delegates Dining Room at the United Nations, the cabin of the American Airlines flagship 747, the set of the 1949 Barbara Stanwyck film noir “Eastside, Westside” and the inside of the 1957 Chrysler Plymouth Fury, to name just a few.
Read MoreBetween Holy Week and the demands of farm life, it wasn’t easy to get Sister Lily Scullion on the phone in April. (“Sorry for the delay, have been very busy with lambing,” she wrote in an email.) But a packed schedule goes with the territory at St. Mary’s Abbey in Glencairn, where 29 sisters are busy each day with work and prayer; making handmade cards, candles and Eucharistic bread; and tending the abbey’s grounds, which occupy nearly 250 acres of County Waterford, near Ireland’s southeastern coast.
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