Sandwiches

ROADRUNNER AT THE DAM

Yes, there's more to this show at the Denver Art Museum than just our beloved Roadrunner in oiled MDF—truckloads more—but we hope you'll forgive us for calling out one of our own. We sent him to the museum last year and he already found his way onto the floor—not bad considering that the last show of design objects in this space in the Ponti building was there for what seemed like a lifetime. So long in fact that we put together a half-baked plan to smuggle a chair in there and install it on the sly. Happily that turned out to be unnecessary: this one's legit. It's there as part of curator Darrin Alfred's show What is Modern? and we'll devote the next few days of Sandwiches to other pieces in the show. But for today, to make our moms proud, just a shot of our handsome friend.

WISHING YOU A VERY TILLMAN CHRISTMAS

Not sure if we're supposed to play this straight or what but this e-card came in on Christmas eve from Clovis and Darnell Tillman with a note asking that we throw it up on the blog with their "best wishes to all seven of [our] readers." Classic.

IT'S A HOLLY, JOLLY CITY AND COUNTY BUILDING

Perhaps it's a bit too holly or maybe a bit too jolly, but you gotta hand it to Denver: we really go for it with the Christmas lights on the City and County building. No one's even pretending that the lights are generic "holiday" lights. It's Christmas, man, and don't you forget it.

SHINE A LIGHT

A balance to the darkness and the paganism of yesterday's post, this handsome and hopeful Christmas card from our friend Steve Kosmicki. Steve helpfully translated the text as "brighten my heart, Jesus!"—a most reasonable request for the long nights of early winter.

DARKNESS ON THE DARKEST NIGHT

Seriously? The longest night of the year and the heavens conspire to turn out the nightlight right in the middle of it? A hell of a show, we must say, but perhaps a little too much salt-in-the-wound humor for those of us who prefer our nights short and summery. But for the Tillmans, last night—a total lunar eclipse on the winter solstice—was like a high holiday. They've got a pagan streak, or at least a thumb-in-the-eye-of-organized-religion streak, and they whooped it up at the shop compound in celebration. Alas, when the time came to snap a few photos of the coppery totality they were less than focused and most of their pictures were downright blurry. This fine shot by Darnell works well enough though. For a proper time lapse out of Gainesville click here, and for an explanation of the copper color click here.

ART BY ARTISTS WE KNOW: KYLE LARABEE

That's right, 37 is a prime number by Kyle Larabee. What's more, it was made by Kyle for Mike Larabee—and since Dave Larabee is typing this blather that makes for a Larabee trifecta, which for our mom is just about perfecto. But enough of that nonsense. The piece is lovely, that's obvious. What may be less obvious is the nod to Sol Lewitt implicit both in the clear instructions for the production of the image and in the subtle lines and satisfying graphic of the piece as a whole. Made for Mike on the occasion of his 37th birthday (ages ago that was!), with a wink at my brothers' shared fascination with prime numbers. It's pleasing too (at least to me) in the way it's reminiscent of both a musical score and DNA prints from the lab. A lovely representation of a lovely life. For more of Kyle's work, click on this text.

DB DOES LEWITT (JUST A COINCIDENCE)

Yes, we've shown a version of these photos before, maybe even twice. But this stitched-together view is new and it reminds us of that Sol Lewitt Wall Drawing 51: All architectural points connected by straight lines piece below, except here, of course, are the profiles of our Grasshopper lounge, our Crane side chair (never made it beyond the prototype stage) and our Crane barstool, from our show at the 400 on Bannock a few years back. We extended the lines of the bar profiles out and down to highlight the graphic elements in the designs—in pencil, though the Lewitt snap chalk lines at MASS MoCA are better—thinking it was clever and original and made for a fresh look. Well, just because Lewitt had a similar idea doesn't mean it wasn't original (and we still think it was clever and fresh). The Grasshopper piece is now the highlight of the east wall of our shop, the other two pieces are tucked safely in storage, awaiting an appropriate wall.

DB DIE CUTTING

Step two of the global marketing blitz prep: die cutting the fancy-pants folders. Again on a Heidelberg windmill press, though a later vintage than the one we showed yesterday, this one capable of letterpress printing too. The windmill grabs a sheet of paper after it's been lifted off the stack with a row of vacuum suckers and spins it onto the plate that rises to meet the die. The whole machine works with a satisfying set of whirs and pops, all the while affably and stresslessly manned by Ed, the genial former owner and now contented employee with Fridays off. Next up: miniature business cards, letterhead and oh-so-pretty envelopes. Watch out furniture consumers: we're coming for you.