This special issue dedicated to “Interior Spaces” is the result of a joint effort with Leesa Hubbell, SDA Digital Publications Editor. Leesa’s extensive background in fashion and applied design makes her the ideal collaborator. Our combined perspectives on contemporary art and design have resulted in an energizing assortment of stories to explore this theme. —Marci Rae McDade, Journal Editor

Find related links to this issue’s profiles and features below:

Quiet Spaces:
Anne Kyyrö Quinn

by Jessica Hemmings

“Anne Kyyrö Quinn describes her current work as “bespoke acoustic wall panels.” The surface area available to absorb noise is increased by the use of three-dimensional patterning. These properties make her portfolio ideal for noisy settings such as restaurants and meeting rooms. Visually, the outcome is something akin to Op Art.”

Tex-Chair:
Textiles Take a Seat

by Leesa Hubbell

“Textiles are talking to us,” trend visionary Lidewij Edelkoort proclaims. “Very loudly and clearly. They are talking to us about narrative, about sustainability, about warmth, about embracing [us], about lifting [our] spirits with color.”

Lidewij “Li” Edelkoort 
www.edelkoort.com; www.trendtablet.com
Marcel Wanders 
www.marcelwanders.com
Cappellini www.cappellini.it
Moroso www.moroso.com
Tord Boontje www.tordboontje.com
Sophie De Vocht www.sophiedevocht
CasaMania www.casamania.it
Kenneth Cobonpue www.kennethcobonpue.com
Tokujin Yoshioka www.tokujin.com
Philippe Bestenheider www.philippebestenheider.com
BRC Designs www.brcdesigns.com
KMP Furniture www.kmpfurniture.com

Amanda McCavour: Stand-Ins for Home

by Joetta Maue

“Memories and homes, like Amanda McCavour’s work, are vulnerable to shifting emotions, new experiences, and evolving ideas of self. The fragile nature of such thin and delicate work, hung without a sense of ground, is what makes it so powerful. Viewers can relate to the lurking anxiety that any home, so carefully built up, can easily be torn down or abandoned.”

Amanda McCavour is represented by Lonsdale Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Against the Wall in a New Millennium

by Vic De La Rosa

“Wallpaper has a centuries-long history that descends from tapestries as a method of adorning castle walls. Through time and innovation, every person’s castle can now display the offspring of tapestries: wallpaper.”

Tracy Kendall www.tracykendall.com
Flavor Paper www.flavorpaper.com
Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers www.bradbury.com

The Floating World of Jason Hackenwerth

by Dan Bischoff

“The colors are brilliant, the forms fascinating—and the medium is balloons.”

“Yeah, I get Chihuly a lot,” says Jason Hackenwerth, referring to the blown-glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. Hackenwerth’s wearable sculptures (often donned for performances) and large-scale installations are made of dozens, sometimes even thousands, of colorful latex balloons. Suspended in air or strutting down the sidewalk, these otherworldly creations have enlivened contemporary art fairs and galleries all over the world, from the 2005 Venice Biennale to New York’s Museum of Arts and Design in 2008 to Webster University in St. Louis (Hackenwerth’s alma mater) earlier this spring.”

Collecting Trends Today

by J. Susan Isaacs

“If one word can describe or explain changes in the collecting world over the past 25 years, it is “Internet.” The globalization of commerce via online marketing and the use of the Internet for research have produced a vastly different world for artists, collectors, curators, and dealers.”

Friends of Fiber Art International
SOFA Chicago
Snyderman-Works Galleries, Philadelphia
James Renwick Alliance
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C
Joshua DeMonte
Stephanie Liner
browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT
FiberPhiladelphia
International Quilt Study Center and Museum, Lincoln, NE

Beili Liu: Poetry in Space

by  Susan Taber Avila

Beili Liu’s work often captures the moment of tension between opposing forces, the hesitation between fragility and strength, hard and soft, or good and evil. In her 2011 installation and performance, The Mending Project, Liu sat quietly sewing under a cloud of imported scissors. The sharp blades hung by threads and pointed toward her head as a poignant visual metaphor for the vague uncertainty and fear often felt by the artist, but also relevant to anyone who has experienced moments of vulnerability.

Weaving Hope

by Sara Goodman

To address the problem of child labor in the carpet industry, The GoodWeave Foundation was founded in 1994 by Nobel nominee and human rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. GoodWeave® (formerly RugMark) certification is the best assurance that a handmade rug was made without child labor. Today, there are about 90 North American companies certifying their carpets with GoodWeave.

GoodWeave Foundation
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Galaincha rug design software
Stephanie Odegard
Carini Lang
Bennett Bean Studio
Tania Johnson
InnerAsia