Blog Backlog: The Embellished Simplicity of Lawon Prada Textiles
John Ruddy and Kumi Masumoto (among our most favourite textile dealers), showcase an antique Sumatran prada cloth in their catalog page for the New York Arts of Pacific Asia Show 2010 (on page 85). We’ve been keen on these extremely rare textiles for over a decade, and are delighted whenever one appears in public, which is not often. Read more…
Blog Backlog: Roger W. Hollander, Irma Lake, and “Buffalo Bill” Gates
Last June I heard that Bill Gates bought Irma Lake Ranch (above), the property of a dear friend of mine, Roger W. Hollander. I was happy to hear the news. I loved the place, and will never forget the time I spent there. Knowing that it is staying in private hands is somehow heartening. (More info from Huffington Post here.)
Roger bought Irma Lake in the 90s to serve as his private home, and headquarters of his Empire of All Things Extraordinary. The ranch had belonged to Buffalo Bill Cody, and was used to entertain celebrities and heads of state on hunting and nature outings in the mountains and plains near what is now Yellowstone National Park. Cody even had the Burlington Northern Railway build a spur line out to the ranch. Many of the original structures from Cody’s time still survive intact on the 500 acre property. Thanks in part to Roger’s conscientious stewardship of the property during the years he called it home. (You can download a property brochure from it’s listing agent for the sale, here.)
Roger was involved in a terrible car accident a few years ago, while driving down the seven mile mountain drive from Irma Lake Lodge, his spectacularly beautiful, and intensely personal home. In the pre-dawn hours, heading for the Cody airport, he rolled his SUV, and was left in sub-freezing weather, unconscious and upside-down, held in place by his safety belt. Several hours later, he was found by ranchers and rushed to hospital. The head injuries and exposure were so severe, that even a hardy soul like Roger has been unable to recover. He remains in rehabilitative care in Wyoming to this day, and all of his friends are still saddened by Roger’s tragic story.
Blog Backlog: Contemporary Textiles in Kolkata
Contemporary textile arts don’t get any better than this. Check out Weavers Studio in Kolkata for kantha cloth, felt, applique, embroidery, hand prints, kalamkari, zardozi, chikanwork, pintucks, pleats, shibori, and more. This is much more than a production house, it’s a textile study and development centre, devoted to fine handwork and learning from the legacy of world textile traditions.
Blog Backlog: Huge Hoard of Anglo Saxon Gold Found in Staffordshire
Afficionados of ancient ornament, take note. In the middle of last year, a hobbyist who enjoys combing the countryside with a metal detector discovered the most important early medieval gold hoard ever.
Blog Backlog: Laharia Turbans of Rajasthan @ Asia Week NYC
Textilians take note. There’s a spiffy article on the Laharia Turbans of Rajasthan in the catalog for the Arts of Pacific Asia Show (part of Asia Week New York 2010).
Live Art @ KuDeTa Bali: The Writing is on the Wall (For Charity)
Be at KuDeTa on Friday 26 February for a no-jive, all-live, art attack. Two UK artists painting live before your eyes to the tune of globally-regrooved hip hop, morphed tropical urban house and deep subterranean sounds spun by six (count ‘em, six) DJs. This art extravaganza isn’t happening just for YOUR benefit. It’s a benefit for the I’m An Angel charity, which does good in great measure for local people, places and problems.
The Urbanization of Petitenget: More Apartments on the Way
Urban sprawl is eating up Seminyak, Kerobokan and beyond. Years ago, in Legian they said, “We’ll never be like Kuta! So crowded! Such a mess!” Then in Seminyak, they said, “We’ll never be like Legian!” And in Petitenget they said, “We’ll never be like Seminyak!” But the advance of urbanization in South Bali seems unstoppable now.
Living Modern: Embrace Time, Return to the Mountain
The recent mass mania for rigorous modernism has tended to vivisect what is most human in our homes, workplaces and public spaces. When the seminal modernist, Le Corbusier (above) declared, “a house is a machine for living in,” the operative word was living. The intention was to shape structures, spaces, and their contents intelligently, to support human life, human dreams, and human necessities – - and always with a weather eye to nature, its rhythms and its imperatives.
The Bali Post: All The News That’s Fit to Print . . . and Then Some!
Fish! Fowl! Pussycats! Rats! And murder most foul! Read on . . .
Last year I promised to give occasional reports on the contents of the local Indonesian language newspaper, the Bali Post, which I read every morning. I certainly don’t read it for its quality journalism. I read it to keep tabs on what local people are thinking about and how they are thinking about it, and to access information which is sometimes kept out of the English language press, for fear it would have a negative effect on tourism.
It’s time for one of those occasional reports. Here’s a rundown of the items I read today in the Bali Post, skipping over most national and international news, which I generally get elsewhere. This is a typical day, a randomly chosen day, one on which the Bali Post contains neither more nor less disturbing news than on any other day. Just another perfect day in paradise. Synopses of selected stories appear below. The headlines are mine.
Mondo at Biasa Artspace: This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Wonderland
Nice party. Beautiful people. Harrowing canvasses. Clearly, this ain’t no fooling around, even if it did take place in Bali, the ultimate island for fooling around, art-wise and otherwise. But a wonderland, Bali is not. A rabbit hole to wonderland, this exhibition is not. We are at Biasa Artspace, Bali’s pre-eminent, credibly independent, contemporary art gallery. November 21. It’s a vernissage for the disturbingly beautiful and beautifully disturbing recent oeuvre of Bali-based painter Edmondo Zanolini (AKA Mondo), entitled “Follow the Rabbit”.
Shades of Lewis Carrolls’s rabbit? Perhaps. But this is no recreational trip into a whimsically altered state, it is a harrowing one into a raw state of naked awareness, and certainly not a wonderland by any stretch of any addled imagination. It is more Helter-Skelter than Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Stop dreaming, says Mondo. Wonderland and the House of Horrors are one and the same. Drop the dreams and wake up. The antidote to dreams is down this rabbit hole, so follow the rabbit, if you dare. Reality is weirder than dreams ever could be.