Its nearly time for the 3rd annual Open Design Festival in Cape Town. The official opening is on the 12th August, and closing on the 23rd of August, with many events surrounding it.
For full details go to their site here.
Renewable Energy Festival 2015
Free entertainment included.
(Feel free to quiz my friend Frank Spencer… Even give him a hard time )
Vintage Fashion Expo 2015 – This weekend
(See bellow for a competition the win tickets.)
The Vintage Fashion Expo 2015 – Event Details:
Where: The German Club, 6 Roodhek Terrace, 105B Hope St, Gardens, Cape Town (South Africa)
When: 28 & 29 March 2015. 10am-5pm.
Tickets: available through Webtickets.co.za for R55 or at the door for R65. Tickets are limited and early booking is recommended.
For inquiries, contact The Vintage Experience at info@thevintageexperience.co.za or on 073 863 5232
http://capemarkets.co.za/market-buzz/win-tickets-to-the-vintage-fashion-expo-2015/
Potters Market in Rondebosch this weekend
Saturday 21st March 2015.
Entrance is free… Open all day, but arrive early to see the full variety before stalls sell out.
Where: corner of Campground and Sanddown, 7708 Cape Town, Western Cape
There is a playground in the corner to keep te kids busy, and food stalls if you want to make an outing of it.
Please feel free to reply with your thoughts about it, specially your favourites.
Enjoy!
CatT’s Pick of the Design Indaba Expo 2015
I once again had the priveledge of attending the Design Indaba Expo. As a former product designer, I was pleasently surprised. The product and innovative design seemed more varied and interesting than in the past. Here follow my favourites, and a few chosen by my kids.
watt scooter’s story continued…
eLabs Watt Scooter has a new chapter to add to what I wrote last year.
They have just won the Design Indaba innovation award for their practical & sustainable commuter solution.
For more information directly from Design Indaba, click here.
For my interview with the creators, click here.
Well done gentlemen!
Creative Eating Challenge with Irene Grasser…
Me, mine & Irene
Cherry Nichols – in memory of…
Last week I attended the funeral of Cherry Nichols, the first artist I ever interviewed, and a lady who challenged my idealistic notions of the arts from within them. It is with sadness and respect that I here record her last exhibition of watercolours.
I loved seeing the breadth of subject matter in the work she was preparing for her last exhibition. It showed hints of her relationships with her young grandchildren. The teddy bears, the fairies, even the sheet music amongst the flowers imply something of her human relationships, while she lived with her daughter and son in-law. This is comforting because I knew her primarily because of her family, and there was a time when she implied that her place in the South African art world did not afford her much room for the personal because she had mouths to feed. I remember crying over that, and I am glad she found more space to be herself later on.
I had my children with me at the exhibition, so here are each of our favourites:
Ruth (5 1/2 yrs) loved the painting of the delicate sweat-peas contrasted against the cold, hard metal tea pot, and the intricately embroidered white cloth. For me, the ability to paint this contrast with water colour in a way that is clearly recognisable and appreciated by one so young, is a clear indication of her skill. Her choice surprised me, because it used neither Ruth’s favorite colours, nor her favourite subjects (which were present elsewhere in the exhibit), so it was the actual painting itself that spoke to her.
Amy (nearly 4) chose a beautiful little painting of a rose. This also surprised me because she is more of a tom-boy than a roses girl. But upon closer inspection, I realised what Amy liked about it. The rose stands alone with no apparent back ground, except that it breaks out of the confines of its mounting, sprouting leaves beyond the borders of convention. Like my little ‘rose’, it is an individual that refuses to be boxed in, and in that, its beauty is transformed and enhanced.
For me, the most touching piece was the unfinished work displayed upon its board, the way I remember her always working. She once gave me one of those ‘incomplete’ works for a school project I was doing for Art theory, the first time I interviewed an Artist… Back when I was learning to think about the world behind what I saw, a world I have been unable to forget.
Looking at those unfinished daisies, I am saddened that it is so long since I last watched her paint, but at least she did not give up! I’m sure she made the best choice in the end. And all those of us who enjoy her work get to benefit from her struggles.
Creating beauty is an act of love, because it soothes the soul of those who enjoy it. Thank you Cherry! And thank you to her family for understanding.
You can visit the following sites for more info on Cherry Nichols & her art:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cherry-Nichols/686324244760681
http://www.sasa-artists.co.za/content/monthly-meeting-29-april-2010
http://sasartists.blogspot.com/2010/05/cherry-nichols.html
Nada Spencer: Cape Town Ceramicist
Nada Spencer is a Cape Town ceramicist who works in a variety of clays. She creates a lot of porcelain slab work, stone ware, loves the beautiful warm tones of earthenware, and also does some slip casting which gets hand etched.
Setting up for the potters market
Each piece is subtly unique, but fitting within a family of design, acknowledging both her design training, and her personality. Bowls, platters, beads, pendants, sculptures; the forms are more varied than the clays and techniques she uses. Etching, carving, drawing, painting, dipping etc; the decorating techniques as varied again.
The reason for all this variety is simple. Nada gets bored with repetition and needs to have variety to continue being creative. She said this potential for variety and the ability to “form my own canvas” were what attracted her to ceramics in the first place.
eLabs: WATT Scooter
Interview with Louw Roets & Mik Wertheim Aymes
Other Share holders: Daryn Molenaar & Johann van Niekerk
(Watt Scooter from Design Indaba)
Louw & Mik are 3rd year students @ Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Daryn Molenaar & Johann van Niekerk are both staff there. The electric push scooter has flowed out of an alternative transport project in their 2nd year, into a collaborative project and now into a small start-up called eLabs that is focused on city transport.
Mik describes the scooter as “a piece of Africa”, emphasising the importance of community involvement and sourcing local materials. Louw pointed out how thrilling it is to show off the high technological standards achieved when South Africa was forced to be self-sufficient, but applied to a sustainable project with benefits for the communities who suffered back then. Unfortunately some of the components do currently need to be sourced overseas, but will probably be replaced with local ones if equivalents become available. They stressed the importance of considering the long-term socio-economic benefits of choosing local wherever possible.
Simone Bigs: EDU Chair
Simone Biggs, a 23 year old Interior Designer was chosen for the Emerging Creatives program as part of the Design Indaba this year, where she introduced her educational children’s chair.
Design Indaba Expo 2014 Highlights
It was great to see old friends, colleagues & past students; and good to see what was on offer this year. Here are my super quick thoughts on the 2014 Design Indaba Expo.
Bumping into Mugendi (no stranger to design circles).
My favorite of from the Africa Design exhibit.
Edu chair with great potential by interior designer Simone Biggs.
e labs charging ahead scooter design
And finally the DID stand by Absa
Particularly the soccer ball, or rather socket ball… and the slow cooker that was a modern upgrade on what my granny used on the farm when I was a little girl.
Lots of the usual stuff too, some nicely improved upon over the years.
More detail to follow! The exhibit is open for 1 more day Sunday 2nd March 2014, till 8pm at the CTICC so go have a look if you are in Cape Town.
You can also see their website.
Intuitive & tacit versus cognitive design
I have to admit being a bit of an idiot when it came to understanding intuition & the tacit in design for not only all my student years, but even my early years in industry & lecturing.
It can be a little hard to get your teeth into & it doesn’t help when people talk about the x-factor and vague terms like that. But the eventually I had to admit that it not only exists, but is the difference between adequate and great design, and in some fields (like those for people considered ‘disadvantaged’) it can be the difference between success and faliure. So its worth understanding & getting a grip on, whether you are in a highly competitive market where every drop of greatness counts, or just trying to make the world a better place (an extremely common motivation for studying design). So here is a little informal discussion. Please feel free to add or ask questions at the end.
Crosses at Christmas
My children immediately asked me why we don’t have crosses as decorations at Christmas when I was explaining the wonder & meaning of Christmas; Christ’s birth!
We have many iconic images at Christmas, many with both pagan & Christian meaning, but whose meaning is greatly forgotten by the masses.
Stars, angels (& fairies), presents, trees, sanitized nativity scenes (& some made from pork products…), tinsel, lights, bells, wreaths, bows, red & green, silver & gold…
They have a point too. If Christ had been born without dying to pay for our sins, then there would be no grace & forgiveness for us before a just God, & his birth would be pointless.
I challenge you to design some Christmas crosses. Feel free to send me pics to share (I’ll acknowledge you unless you specify not to).
Lets remember the greatest gift this. Christmas!
Found this on Face book on Christmas day. Love it, but couldn’t trace its origin.
Are all CROWNS created equal?
These are the most practical children’s crowns I’ve seen. They help keep their hair out of their eyes, while allowing them to be ‘princesses’ all day. After all, my little girls are princesses because Jesus is the high king.
But not all childrens crowns can stay in all day, and some even cause more trouble than having their hair in their eyes. We have tried many styles!
The typical crown that digs in above their ears, the alice band with the swivel crown decor, the crown combs, I have even made them beaded crowns from alice bands. This alice band’s crown is light enough not to affect its normal function while the pink glitter raises its status, making it perfect for my girly pre-schooler, but it is still too easy to break for her more mischievous & sporty sister. The elasticated hairband is perfect for her. She wears it as a hair band, a sweat band & even hippy style around loose hair. It can still be worn to look girly, but not as obviously so as the pink glitter one. I especially love the idea of sewing netting over the sequence, it makes it look more unified & makes it more toddler/pre-schooler proof.
I got these for around R10 each at PEP while on holiday & am much more impressed with them than the more expensive ones I have found in town. Practical, beautiful (to the age group), affordable & durable = I count this as a bit of good design. Well done PEP! You may be aimed at the masses, but you still have some better designs than elite stores & boutiques.
May these crowns cintinue to free up our princesses to climb, colour, paint & run to their hearts delight!
(Now just for a super practical range of princess dresses… Irene? (See previous blog by that name)
CatT's Design Thoughts 
