This is a gorgeously grotesque study done by two french photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. I am frequently in Detroit (though mostly flying in and out) so I am particularly drawn to this architectural study. Furthermore, it looks strikingly similar to downtown Toledo (unfortunately). Here is there website: http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html And here is a sampling of my favorites:

House.

Grrrrreat House, love the interior lighting.

Beautiful door. I want this door. Look how it opens. Genius.

Gettin Dirty

Margaret Boozer. Currently working in Washington DC. Owns and operates Red Dirt Studios.

In Your Own Backyard, Mt. Rainer red earthenware, steel, mastic, 70" x 38" x 6"

Cross Eye Bird, 2003, wagon wheel, clay encrusted root, 40" diameter x 5"

Blue Rift, 2004, Stancill brown stoneware, porcelain, slip, 13" x 5" x 1"

Ravine, 2011, unfired grey Stancill clays, basalt dust, steel, 48" x 32" x 2"

Lavender and Gold Horizon, 2011, unfired clays, steel, 30" x 30" x 2"

Purple and Yellow Clay Drawing, 2006, Ft. Lincoln clays raw, 50" x 20"

Reinvented landscape, 2005, porcelain, plywood, pencil, mastic, steel

Good Fireplace, 2005, Maryland red earthenware, steel, slate. Collection Rob and Kim Good St. Louis, MO.

Simplicity of the circle, relation to environment. Thomas Sayer, Gyre, Earthcast concrete, 1999.

David Nash

"When traveling I regret the loss of a sense of change. I see diffrences not changes. Change is best expirienced by staying in one place." - Andy Goldworthy

Function

Here are some awesome pieces I found while perusing the website for Gallery of Functional Art in Santa Monica California, http://galleryoffunctionalart.net/flash/enter/enter.html.

Light sculptures by William Leslie.

Table by Henrey Royer

Chairs by David Delthony

Damn. Look at the grains on that hot piece of wood.

Bruce Mitchell, Nexus, Bay Laural Burl, 24"x22"x6" love, Love, LOVE this wood pattern. Love the hint of the natural element. Love the mass. Love it. Other than this piece I don't find him particularly talented but whatever.

Old School

John McAbry, Oracle, Bay Laurel Wood, 19"x7"x6" McAbry lives and works in his handmade cabin along the coast of California. His media are blocks of bay laurel wood that has naturally fallen, “I enjoy working with bay laurel. It is a fast growing native hardwood, both tough and flexible, with a tightly interlocking grain. The colors in the wood move independently of the grain, so I never know exactly how this will influence the finished piece.” He works with his hands, choosing to forgo the use of power tool for a more 'old school' approach. He creates beautiful shapes, sometimes abstractions of actual models and sometimes indistinguishable forms.

Brain Jungen, Habitat 04- Cats Radiant City, 2004, Montreal, Canada. Kitty Land Love Palace if I ever saw it. HOW FUN!

Multiple.

TARA DONOVAN, Untitled (Styrofoam Cups), 2008. Born 1969, Donovan lives and works in NY. Her work consists of everyday objects pieced together to take on a biomorphic nature. Pulsating energy.Transcends her material. Extremely Labor intensive. This piece in particular has the weightlessness I enjoy so much.

Silver Cupcake Cups, 2009. Her careful consideration for how the light will play off her medium. Activates light, incorporates it into the piece. Multiplicity- how an object changes meaning in relation to the physical number of said object. Very scientific. Each work seems to ungulate around itself.

Colony, 2002, Pencils, Los Angeles.

(Colony detail)

Solar Power

NANCY HOLT, Sun Tunnels, concrete; 18 ft. long x 9 ft. in diameter; Lucin, Utah. Completed 1976. Frames the sunset on the Summer and Winter solstices. Holes cut from the inside to interact with light and frame particular constellations, Draco, Perseus, Columba and Capricorn.

From the inside.

For scale.

Freeze

CHRISTIANE LÖHR- Born 1965 in Wiesbaden, Germany. Working since 1996.

She is working with stalks of grass, horse hair, seeds, thistle, ivy, tree blossoms. Exudes innocents and vulnerability. Her work reminds me of a dance, like she choreographed the piece instead of sculpting. Delicacy of material reflected in delicacy of composition. How she gets fragile material to maintain elegant shape is not always obvious- element of wonder.

Feels like you must physically hold your breath else the thing will float away. Frames such a short, ephemeral moment of time.

Horse Hair twisted into a mandala.

Michael Heizer's Levitated Mass, Los Angeles, CA. Not only am I drawn to the colaboration of nature and function, but also the illusion of weightlessness. The two seem to unite in this piece. Viusally seems like the objects are in balance, making my enviroenment and mind feel in balance. By levitating the rock it gives the mass a certain gravity or as if an energy is radiating out of the rock itself, resisting the pull of the earth.

Onion House

I pursue the synthesis of nature and function. If I were any good at math I would be an architect, seeking to harmonize the functionality of our constructed surroundings with the organic impulse of our natural environment. This is the Yellow Tree house Restaurant in New Zealand. As if the structure grew out of tree. Natural light during the day, illumination from within in the evening. A sense of warmth. Movement created via slits of wood. Success lies in its open form. if the walls had been a traditional solid it would have created a barrier between the diner and the environment.

Andy Goldsworthy- Arrangement of rocks by gradation of color.