CONCRETE EDITIONS

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Concrete Collaborations: The Nose Bag

The Nose Bag

The Nose Bag, designed by Concrete Editions and produced by Maiko Dawson, is a voluminous bag that moves away from a generic tote, to create an elegant but highly versatile and functional unisex bag.

Maiko who studied in Tokyo and at Cordwainers, London, has brought her knowledge and expertise of cutting and finish to produce a luxurious and beautifully crafted leather bag.

The Nose Bag is made from a single piece of full grain, butter soft calf leather sourced from Veneto, Italy. The handle is vegetable tanned shoulder leather, also from Italy. The tablet pouch, which comes with The Nose Bag, is made from the same leather and a durable YKK VISLON® zip.

In this collaboration the symbiosis of aesthetic and design impulses combined with Maiko’s skill as a maker have produced a durable, high quality, timeless piece.

Price on application, made to order

info@maikodawson.com

Thanks to the De La Warr Pavilion for the location shoot

Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Concrete Collaborations: The Love Monolith

The Love Monolith © Concrete Editions, Gary Breeze, letter cutter, sculptor, De La Warr Pavilion,West Dean College, Beehive Yard,Caen limestone

The Love Monolith

The Love Monolith collaboration with Gary Breeze originates from a desire to create a stone carving on a domestic scale. It is inspired by the idea of entwining two names as a love token – highly personal and individual.

Gary studied at Norwich School of Art followed by an apprenticeship with letter carver and sculptor David Holgate and then as an assistant to Richard Kindersley, before setting up his own workshop in 1993. Gary has completed numerous major public works and commissions, including lettering at the New Scottish Parliament and the Bali Bombing Memorial, London.

The Love Monolith has been carved from Caen limestone, quarried in northwestern France - the same material that the Norman’s brought over to build Norwich Cathedral in the eleventh century.

Gary modestly describes the material as easy to work – he has cut the entwined letters with a handsaw, mallet and chisels. Using these traditional techniques he has produced a beautifully eloquent and poignant work with a contemporary resonance.

Price on application, made to order
info@garybreeze.co.uk

Thanks to the De La Warr Pavilion for the location shoot

Concrete Collaborations: The Diamond Bench

Resolve An intimate survey of work, Sean O'Callaghan, Joiner © Concrete Editions 2013, artisan, bespoke furniture, English Elm, Benches, Bedford,

The Diamond Bench

The design for the Diamond Bench has been developed from a rustic prototype produced in Sicily by Concrete Editions and now fully realised as an heirloom piece, made by master joiner Sean O'Callaghan.

Sean served a five year apprenticeship with the long established Bedford firm, Watling & Darlow before setting up The Joinery in 1995. He specialises in bespoke joinery, for domestic and ecclesiastical clients, as well as making one-off pieces to commission.

The Diamond Bench has been made from English Elm - three 50mm thick planks - cut, glued and jointed to produce a highly resolved and elegant object, demonstrating Sean's attention to detail and skills as a master craftsman.

Price on application, made to order

the.joinery@ntlworld.com

Thanks to De La Warr Pavilion for the location shoot

Concrete Collaborations: The Dolly

The Dolly © Concrete Collaborations, Concrete Editions, Sally Dyer, De La Warr Pavilion, avant garde dolls, artisan, handmade, national costume, Dutch national costume, clogs, bricolage,

Resolve An intimate survey of work, Sally Dyer, Costume Designer © Concrete Editions 2013.

The Dolly

The Dolly is a collaboration that started from the idea of avant-garde artists at play. Concrete Editions challenged Sally Dyer to produce a doll that would counter the whimsical perception of the artistic value of toys and dolls. The result is a maquette in sculptural terms.

Sally studied at Maidstone School of Art and has lived and worked as a costume designer in the Netherlands for the past 30 years. She has produced a highly personal, autobiographical piece. Sally’s inspiration lies in her own eclectic collection of trimmings, textiles and ephemera.

The result is a nuanced bricolage, a haberdashery hotchpotch and a collector’s curiosities embodied in a doll.

Thanks to the De La Warr Pavilion for the location shoot

Saturday, 14 February 2015

Resolve: An intimate survey of work

RESOLVE: An intimate survey of work

A photo book by Edward Barber & Danielle Inga

Resolve: An intimate survey of work is a photographic study of a wider, burgeoning, social movement, acknowledging and celebrating a highly significant yet almost invisible workforce - the small businesses, freelancers, contractors, consultants, artists and artisans. Individuals are linked through their own personal sense of resolve to persist and remain tenacious in their chosen field.

This is not a set of famous faces or media personalities, nor a freak show collection of socially marginalised people. It is not an exhaustive survey, but an opportunity to start a dialogue about the nature of work in the twenty first century.

Resolve sends a clear message, an intent beyond words captured through a highly engaged and focused gaze. Forty intimate portraits, taken in carefully selected locations with staging, performance and styling interventions kept to an absolute minimum. A low-impact and respectful approach, using colour film and available light. Sitters have dressed to suit themselves, dressed for work – presenting themselves as they want to be seen.

Softcover with dust jacket

96pp 210mm x 270mm

40 colour plates plus two essays

Edition of 500

Friday, 11 January 2013

LA CARRETTA - FOLK ART OR DESIGN ICON?

Fiat 500, Carretta style, Selenunte, Sicily, folk art

Fiat 500 Selenunte, Sicily © Visual Athletics Club 2009

Carretta, sicilian cart, folk art, sicily

La Carretta © Visual Athletics Club 2011

La carretta, oven gloves, Sicily, photographer Edward Barber

La Carretta pan holders © Visual Athletics Club 2011

La Carretta section © Visual Athletics Club 2010

A selection of images from Visual Athletics Club illustrating a variety of designed representations of the Sicilian Carretta. Folk art at its finest. Minimalism banished in favour of colour, a raucous celebration of historicism through the embellishment of every available surface. Geometric forms perhaps adopted from previous colonisers of the island - Islamic motifs reinterpreted or a heady mix of psychedelic ornamentation. Chivalric tales - St George and his dragon or an attempt to perpetuate the notion of male supremacy and valour in a deeply matriarchal society?

Gio Ponti in a 1964 interview in Domus relates his design inspiration for the floors (pictured below) of the Parco dei Principi Hotel in Sorrento.

"I wanted each of the 100 rooms to have a different floor...The one reproduced here is one of those that I got a lot of pleasure out of inventing. (And I always think of these infinite possibilities of art: given a 20 x 20 cm square, even though everyone throughout the centuries has run riot with infinite designs, there is always a place for a new one, for your design. A facetious friend asked me what would happen after the last designer had made the last design, after all the designs had been made. Well, nothing will happen because there never will be the last design, and there never will be the last designer)."*

The artist in a reflective mode and making a claim for the continual reinvention of design. Design tropes from the Carretta have found their way into other artists work - adopted and adapted into new forms, a decorative minimalism possibly but nonetheless a nod to the splendour of this ebullient style.