Campana’s brothers -Sustainable design

This week I’m in a Brazilian mood… and you are going to see why…

Last week I saw a documentary about this two Brazilian brothers , Fernando and Humberto Campana, one of them is a lawyer and the other en architect and both present us great designs with non-traditional and recycled materials. They design mainly sofas and chairs, all of them very smart made.

As they said in the interview, living in Brazil let them play with lot of colors and materials and techniques they saw with local artisans.

Here I’m going to show you some models, but don’t miss their site an example of quality.

Lately I’ve found myself very worried about all the trash we are making… and I have decided to keep all the boxes, bottles and pots..; so I realized that sometimes we can re use them to keep safe our crafty staff, but then.. the rest… is simply a lot!  That’s why I’m thinking about starting a new project just with recycled materials… I don’t have a clear idea of what to do yet, but I feel I need to do it.

So, here we go…

Sushi

This is one of my favorites… full of colors and texture… made with lots of materials and I don’t know why I imagine must be really comfortable sitting down in one of them…

Favela

This is another of my favorites… it is made of rest of wood and they say is like people of the favelas in Sao Paulo use to make their houses…

Vermelha

It looks very sumptuous but is just rope!! I think this chair might fit in every space… a hotel, a bar, a house, I found it very versatile and fashion..

Banquete

The most extravagant… well, I was impressed by the imagination of the authors… but I cannot be sitting over these little creatures…

What do you think?

Interviewing Alejandra Arteaga

Today I want to introduce you Alejandra Arteaga a textil artist from Chile. I discover her through Flickr, and I liked a lot the natural style of her accesories. Once I was in contact with her and I had the chance of knowing a little bit more about her I realized her work reflects very well what she thinks. 

*Remember if you want to be featured in my blogs you can contact me trhough my flickr sending me your blog or flickr user to see your works. You can also fill the form in my spanish blog (unfortunately wordpress is not as user friendly as I would like for this purpose).

Personal Information

My name is Maria Alejandra Arteaga Vega aka Ale

I’m 26 years old

I’m from Chile, I was born in Santiago but nowadays I live in Valparaiso

I studied arts and industrial design.

In my free time I make everything you can see in my Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tacto

I made more things but I’m waiting to make a photography session.

When did you started?

Since I was a child I have been taking classes of paint, pottery, 

sculpture, drawing  and I went to the “Escuela de Bellas Artes de 

Viña del Mar” Vina del Mar Art School , I still have some works I made at that age.

In the University of Valparaiso I studied industrial design and I took the option of specialize my work in textiles, fashion, photography and the ecological area. In 2008 the University began an investigation in textile area about natural dying applied to wool. 

We were a group of pupils whom participate and expose our work. We also made some seminars about reutilization in fashion.

What are you inspired by?

I consider myself a very urban person. I love living downtown and being in contact with architecture, art, design and his constant movement and assist to cultural events. The urban movement inspires me for my designs but with an ecological point

of view. I’m concerned about living in a clean city, without garbage… more ecologic.

What do you enjoy the most?

The thing I enjoy the most in my activity is the opportunity of experimenting and exploring constantly…searching for new results and of course, doing beautiful things.The photography is other of my interests and I do it all the time. I always travel around with my camera. This is a work I use as a complement of my designs. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28839450@N04/

What are your future plans?

In the short term my expectations are: starting a line of textile jewelry in which I’m working on and in the long term I would like to have my 

own store in downtown promoting ecological design.

Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/tacto/

 

Some sites that you cannot miss

Between yesterday and today I have discovered this sites I wanted to share with you… I bet if you are into fibers you are going to love them

It seems that 2009 is the year of natural fibers, which makes me very happy to work with this type of textile support in many aspects … First, sustainable development that gives work to many people in lots of developing countries. On the other hand it is also biodegradable and ecologic so we care for the environment and it is also important to use natural materials because  our skin does not suffer the degradation to which is exposed with polyester and acrylic ….

 This site shows each fiber, as explained, indicates from where they are and also the different uses that can be given to each …

http://www.naturalfibres2009.org/en/index.html 

This is another site that always makes me thrill with his notes and his movement. Craft Australia is the organization, which works much uniting people: artisans, artists, indigenous and crafters. They have made a meeting “Selling Yarns, innovation for sustainability” I recommend you to watch this video because it’s worth and full of hope for anyone.

http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/ 

Video: http://www.craftaustralia.org.au/library/presentation.php?id=selling_yarns_2_video

And finally for those  who are fan of felt, this site is an unmissable…

Fashioning Felt has an impressive range of designs, so that we realize that reinventing our lives with natural materials is possible!

http://exhibitions.cooperhewitt.org/Fashioning-Felt/