Protecting an injured paw or pesky stitches never looked so good. Winnie Au (previously) upends the humiliating nature of Elizabethan collars as she photographs hounds sporting stylish takes on the medical devices for her series Cone Of Shame.

Au began the project back in 2017 in collaboration with designer Marie-Yan Morvan as a way to showcase dogs’ unique personalities and turn otherwise torturous ruffs into spectacular accessories. Using materials like paper and tulle, and more unconventional finds like dissolvable insulation foam and candy buttons, the pair fashioned a wide array of designs much more glamorous and charming than their veterinarian-issued counterparts. “Each dog, cone, and backdrop has been conceived as a mash-up of abstract shapes, tones, and textures. No longer turning dogs into laughing stocks, these collars become works of art,” Au says.

A new book published by Union Square & Co. collects photos of 60 dogs donning the fashionable ruffs, 48 of which haven’t been shared before. While the core concept is the same as when the series began, the pair incorporated newer technologies into recent images, including the inflatable rings that have grown in popularity. They also worked with new breeds and materials in what Au describes as “my love letter to all the good dogs out there.”

Cone Of Shame will be released on July 9 and is available for pre-order in the Colossal Shop. Find more from Au on Instagram.

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Nature walks are Adele Renault’s main source of inspiration. Spending her time between Los Angeles and Brussels, the artist (previously) encounters varying landscapes that catalyze her practice. While the rugged urban terrain of southern California bolsters desert plants and palms, the Belgian countryside bears lush vegetation and thickets of trees. Renault likes to connect her subjects with the environments she thrives in, explaining, “the flora become a metaphor for the people, both native and nonnative, who inhabit a city, enrich its cultural assemblage, and share in a collective consciousness.”

Placing a magnifying glass over small details that are often overlooked, Renault depicts transient features such as the intricate texture of leafy specimens, the protruding prickles of flowering cacti, and the way the the sunlight hits dense tufts of grass in the forest. She’s passionate about plants and appreciative of these minutia. “It’s a very nourishing subject. You can live with plants, eat plants, talk to plants, learn from plants and paint plants all your life,” she shares. “And that way, I’m sure you’ll live a happy life.”

Nowadays, Renault spends more time in her studio, leaving the larger walls for the next generation of muralists. The artist has some exciting projects coming up with galleries in Los Angeles and Brussels, so follow her on Instagram and visit her website to keep tabs on those works.

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For Ted Lott, the distinction between a shelter and a home is endlessly fascinating. Using vintage furniture as the foundation, the Grand Rapids-based artist and designer (previously) outfits common domestic objects with bare-bones models of houses, apartments, and other living spaces. His architectural additions are often minimal and pared back to just the essentials, which contrasts the ornate trimmings and motifs of the found bases.

Recent works include “Carpenter Gothic 2,” which retrofits a dining chair with a cabinet that appears like a four-story building. Illuminated by four small bulbs, the structure emits a warm, welcoming glow that once opened, reveals a barren interior. “Sometimes people see the miniature first and sometimes the furniture,” Lott told Craft Council about this piece. “It’s fun to notice where people land before they go the other way. Then there’s that moment when they realize it’s this, but also that!”

The sculptures in his Migration series are especially timely as they transform suitcases into tiny dwellings. Given the ongoing refugee crises around the world, the works are poignant reminders that populations are on the move and in need of shelter, a basic human right.

For more of Lott’s work and to follow news about upcoming exhibitions, visit Instagram.

“Migration #24”

“Pharos Aquinnah”

“Migration #3”

“Migration #23”

“Habitation #3”

“Round House Chandelier”

“Migration #24”

“Habitation #4”

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Soaring above Noblessner Port in Tallinn, Estonia, three enormous eggs rest inside a woven nest. The project of design studio Velvet in collaboration with UN-LIKE, the glowing work perches atop a former mast and was inspired by a 5-year-old’s sketch.

Stina Onemar was aboard a ferry to Hiiumaa Island with her aunt when they were discussing a competition to install a public work at the site. “There was this post where Aunt Helen wanted to do something. I had an idea that there would be eggs and stuff,” she said, before quickly drawing the nest atop the mast. The suggestion stuck, and her aunt shared her niece’s sketch with her coworkers at Velvet, who loved the proposal.

Commissioned by Merko Ehitus Eesti, “Nest” features a trio of polyethylene eggs that sit in a bed of salvaged roof trim harvested from construction sites. Designers chose the materials to withstand both seaside and freezing Arctic weather, and over time, the metal will rust and form a patina that matches the revitalized mast.

Find more from Velvet on its website and Instagram.

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Protruding in a meandering fashion like tree branches or the sprawling overgrowth of flowering vines, the flamboyant botanical sculptures that sprout from Megan Bogonovich’s Norwich studio capture the wondrous moments of when “bucolic tips over into batty.”

Her workspace is tucked in a wooded area, leaving Bogonovich constantly surrounded by lush landscapes. “When I look around my neighborhood this time of year,” she says, “nature seems so verdant and powerful. I think the fragility of the material and the quantity of sculptures have mirrored the natural world in the way that plants are abundant, but vulnerable and highly pluckable.”

Bogonovich’s sculptures (previously) embody the delicate relationship between humans and the environment. Fascinated by nature’s ability to adapt to human presence, she sculpts cylindrical structures that twist and turn in different directions, perhaps implying the irregularity of the landscapes that her superempirical organisms might thrive in. Spiky and bumpy textures cover vibrant surfaces, emphasizing the idiosyncrasies of repetition and pattern that are so prevalent in organic forms.

Though each sculpture exists “in the realm of exuberance and glee,” she adds, “I know people see a sinister undercurrent, and that is definitely true of the work.” In a world so apprehensive toward shifting climates, invasive species, and future existence altogether, the artist’s ceramic iterations offer a feeling of bountiful pleasure.

Bogonovich just finished a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and you can find more work on her Instagram and website.

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For Kirsty Elson, a sliver of driftwood or a scrap of metal is more than just a piece of detritus or trash. She sees a sleepy goat in some old nails and hunks of worn timber or a docile and curious donkey from rusty rods and brush bristles.

Elson has long been attracted to found objects, giving old elements new life. She previously focused on creating small cottages and seaside scenes, but recently she has shifted her attention to expressive, whimsical animals, which perch on pegs, roll on wheels, or warm themselves with little scarves. “I’m thoroughly enjoying this new path, as I can be even more playful and inject some humour into my work,” the artist says, “which I think is a nice distraction in these troubled times.”

Find more on Elson’s Etsy shop, and follow her on Instagram for updates.

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Capucine Korenberg, a scientist at The British Museum, is a big fan of ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, who lived during the Edo period in Japan. Hokusai is best known for a series of woodblock prints titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes his iconic “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”

Often referred to simply as “The Great Wave,” the work spawned thousands of editions—some estimates put the total output at more than 8,000—until the blocks wore out and could no longer be used. When the piece was made in 1831, people could purchase a print at a price point Korenberg compares to a “double helping of soba noodles.”

In a video, Korenberg describes how scientific analysis of the three editions in The British Museum’s collection drew her closer to the 19th-century masterpiece. She commenced a search for all existing copies to try to establish a chronology based on the specific characteristics of each impression. At the time of filming, there were 111 known versions, and a further two have been uncovered since.

How does one begin to sort through the chronology of a print? The blocks now long gone, Korenberg relied on tiny details in the images themselves, such as the quality or completeness of linear elements, plus the quality of color or alignment of different layers. She could begin to narrow down the states, which refers to impressions made when a key block—the first block to be carved that contains the outline of the composition—is added, removed, or altered.

Scholar Roger Keyes had researched the subject before 2007 and based his findings on the archival material available, often relying on low-resolution, black-and-white Polaroid photos. He initially devised a theory that “The Great Wave” included 21 states, characterized by breaks in the cartouche, signature, Mount Fuji, the boats, or the wave itself.

Through a painstaking compare-and-contrast process using the original pieces from the museum’s collection and additional high-resolution photos supplied by institutions around the world, Korenberg narrowed down the number of woodblock wear states to eight.  She also employed ultraviolet and infrared technologies to get a closer look at the coloration and how, over time, certain elements faded due to fugitive pigments. Her next challenge is to find out what the print looked like when it was newly pressed and pristine.

You can dig further into Korenberg’s research in her report, and you might also enjoy checking out Jason Kottke’s look at the evolution of “The Great Wave.”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article One Scientist Painstakingly Establishes a Chronology for More than 100 Surviving Prints of ‘The Great Wave’ by Hokusai appeared first on Colossal.

Whether seen from the craggy mountain landscapes of New Zealand or the vast, arid expanses of the Atacama Desert, the Milky Way is a brilliant band of light that glitters in the night sky above every spot on Earth. A photo contest devoted to our galaxy celebrates the diverse, dazzling appearances of the star-studded system from around the globe.

Now in its 7th year, the Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition by Capture the Atlas showcases 25 spectacular images chosen from more than 5,000 entries. Included are Lorenzo Ranieri’s shot of the galaxy shooting across the sky like a kaleidoscopic arch that frames a mass of rocks, along with a photo by Tom Rae taken in New Zealand’s Mount Cook National Park. As the Milky Way bursts upward like a celestial flare in the sky, twinkling stars are reflected in the lake below, connecting Earth and the cosmos.

Find more of the winning images on the contest website.

Maximilian Höfling, “The Tajinaste,” Mirador El Tabonal Negro, Tenerife, Spain

Stephanie Thi, “Starry Hoodoo Wonderland,” Kanab, Utah, USA

Kavan Chay, “Starlight Therapy,” Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, New Zealand

John Rutter, “Mungo Dreamtime,” Mungo National Park, NSW, Australia

Tom Rae, “Lightning Lake,” Aoraki, Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand

Yuri Beletsky, “Blue Lagoon Under the Stars,” Atacama Desert, Chile

Rositsa Dimitrova, “Blooming Bottle Tree,” Socotra Island, Yemen

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article The Milky Way Photographer of the Year Contest Celebrates the Dazzling Band of Light in Our Skies appeared first on Colossal.

In 18th- and 19th-century London, the term mudlark was coined to describe someone who scavenged river banks for valuable items. Today, metal detectors aid in the continuing pastime—which now requires a permit—and every once in a while, a modern-day mudlark dredges up a striking discovery. Ten years ago, for type enthusiast Robert Green, a once-in-a-lifetime find emerged from the Thames.

Rewinding to the early 2000s, Green was in art school and became fascinated by Doves Type. The more he studied it, the more entranced he became by its idiosyncratic characteristics and the creators’ devotion to “pure” design. He began to meticulously digitize the font family.

The origins of Doves can be traced to T.J. Cobden-Sanderson—who has been credited with coining the term “arts and crafts”—and Emery Walker, who founded Doves Press together in Hammersmith in 1900. “For a typeface, they returned to Renaissance Italian books, but with the intention, however, of producing a set of letters that looked lighter on the page than their sources,” says a statement from the Emery Walker Trust. “The aesthetic vision was largely Cobden–Sanderson’s, who believed in ‘The Book Beautiful.’ Exteriors were stark white vellum with gold spine lettering; inside there were no illustrations.”

The Bible printed with Doves Type. Photo by Lucinda MacPherson

By 1909, the pair’s business partnership formally dissolved, but Doves Press continued without Walker’s participation. In a short film produced by the BBC in 2015, Green describes the breakdown as a result of “pragmatism versus obsession.” Walker was a practical-minded printer and Cobden-Sanderson, a perfectionist.

In March 1917, Cobden-Sanderson declared publicly that Doves Press was closed, and its type had been “dedicated & consecrated” to the River Thames. “Nobody actually quite got it,” Green says. “And Cobden-Sanderson writes a letter to the solicitor saying, ‘No, I wasn’t talking figuratively. The type is gone.’” He didn’t want Walker to have access—or anyone else, for that matter.

Remarkably, Cobden-Sanderson recorded in his journals the exact date and location that he dumped the type into the water, which took him 170 trips to discard in its entirety. With each load weighing around 15 to 20 pounds, that’s a lot of metal. For 98 years, the type remained on the riverbed, much of it washed away over the decades or sunken into the silt as the tidal flow continually rose and fell.

Photo by Lucinda MacPherson

In 2014, Green traced Cobden-Sanderson’s steps and began to poke around beneath the bridge to see if, by chance, any pieces remained. Miraculously, within a few minutes, a single letter “v” appeared among the pebbles. Then, a couple more. He knew he was on to something, so he contacted the Port of London Authority to enlist scuba divers and some buckets and sieves.

Among the search team was Jason Sandy, an architect and member of the Society of Thames Mudlarks, who found 12 pieces and donated them to Emery Walker’s House, a beautiful example of Arts and Crafts architecture maintained by the trust as a private museum. He also co-curated the current exhibition, Mudlarking: Unearthing London’s Past, a highlight of which is a complete alphabet of Doves Type, shown for the first time as a whole.

When the search concluded, Green and the team recovered a total of 151 sorts, or individual pieces of type, out of a possible 500,000. Green has a hunch that, deep down, Cobden-Sanderson didn’t want the type to disappear into ultimate obscurity, or he wouldn’t have detailed exactly where he had thrown it. And while the group recovered only a tiny fraction of the overall set, the find connected enthusiasts to a precise moment in history and allowed Green to further fine-tune his digitized version.

Mudlarking: Unearthing London’s Past continues through May 30.

Photo by Matthew Williams Ellis 

Photos by Sam Armstrong

A mudlark on the Thames riverbank. Photo by Lucinda MacPherson

Photo by Jason Sandy

Jason Sandy putting finishing touches to Doves Type display at Emery Walker’s House. Photo by Lucinda MacPherson

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In the late aughts, Richard Haining began salvaging leftover wood. While working for a set design company, he realized that the sizable waste generated was also an untapped opportunity for his personal projects. “What I did not have in the way of disposable income, I did have in the way of access to tons of scrap materials,” he says. “I couldn’t afford purchasing new materials to create the ideas I had in my head, but I could take smaller scraps and use those as building blocks.”

Armed with quarter-inch hunks of plywood pulled from the dumpster, Haining realized the first vessel in his ongoing STACKED series. The Brooklyn-based artist shapes each curvy form by gluing together each rung piece by piece, which lets him adjust the wall thickness and final profile as he works. “Imagine coil pottery…or an analog version of 3-D printing,” he adds, likening the process to ceramics. Once the shape is complete, he uses an angle grinder and various hand tools—but not a lathe—to smooth the surface and allow the individual grains to shine through.

Whether a tall amphora with a skinny neck and handles or a squat, bulbous vase, the works highlight the wood’s unique textures and colors arranged in intuitively laid patterns. And, using scraps also means that Haining’s sculptures bear the marks of past wear. “Water and mineral stains, contrasting heartwood and sapwood, knots, century-old nail and beetle holes, these ‘defects’ are part of that lumber’s history, a fingerprint of time since passed,” he says.

In addition to the vessels, the STACKED series extends to furniture, lamps, chandeliers, mirrors, and other functional designs. Haining often has several projects in the works, and you can follow the latest on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Salvaged Scraps of Wood Nest Together in Richard Haining’s Elegant Curved Vessels appeared first on Colossal.