ART & CULTURE: Tracey Keilly

Art Power Video: Sand Art by Ilana Yahav, SandFantasy, "Sometimes dreams do come true"

RELEASE: 20TH CENTURY DECORATIVE ART AND DESIGN VIENNESE SECESSIONISM COLLECTION LEADS CHRISTIE'S MARCH SALE

Seyie Design Provided Celebs with the Ultimate Sweet Escape at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards® Official Talent Gift Lounge

Rihanna, LL Cool J, Maroon 5, Chris Brown, The Band Perry, Jason Aldean and many more experienced “a sweet escape” between rehearsals at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards® Official Talent Gift Lounge. Music’s Biggest Night® was broadcast live on Feb. 12, 2012 on the CBS network at 8 p.m. ET/PT. From February 9-11, 2012, talent indulged in what the best of Hollywood has to offer at this candy concept Lounge. Candy colors and the experience of being in a sweet shop inspired the design. A whimsical yet wonderfully modern space with monumental pink architectural arches and a black & white checkerboard floor surely brought out the inner child in every rock star who walked through! Talent received a $10,000 gift certificate towards design services by Seyie Design. In addition, exciting sweepstake prizes from Seyie Design and contributing vendors were picked up by a few lucky winners. Rihanna won a gold “Kiss” sculpture by Jean Wells, Joy Williams of The Civil Wars won a limited edition “Copper Ganesha” screen print by artist CRYPTIK and Neil Patrick Harris got the “Stamen” pendant light by Niche Modern.

Seyie Putsure of Seyie Design was selected as the exclusive interior designer for the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards Official Talent Gift Lounge. “What do you give someone who has everything? I think it is by creating a special experience of how they receive these gifts. In designing this lounge, I wanted to create a fanciful place that stimulated child-like excitement in the talent, yet still sophisticated and edgy to appeal to their rock-star tastes,” said Seyie. Seyie has more than 10 years of experience in high fashion and interior design and began her career as an executive with Dolce & Gabbana and Chanel in New York City.

Seyie founded Seyie Design in 2007 to bring fashion and function into residential and retail environments. She works with residential and retail clients in California and India. Seyie was Fendi Casa's Designer of the Month, participated in DIFFA's Dining by Design, and has been featured in Vogue, Elle, and DDI Magazine, among others. She has designed lifestyle lounges for celebrity gifting, including one for the 2010 American Music Awards. Her exclusive presentation, Designing the Luxury Retail Brand: Secrets to Creating Successful In-Store Branding and Merchandising, was featured at Mobius LA @ Dwell by Design. Through her design and her blog, Life is Fashionable at http://www.seyiedesign.com, Seyie continues to merge the fashion and interior design worlds.

Art. Culture. Life. Art touches every aspect of life.  Creative imaginings give birth to innovation, moving us ever forward, dynamic, engaging and inspiring – art is the glorification of the human spirit. We invite you to experience LQAF’s diverse offerings of events, activities and programs providing cultural enrichment and opportunities for residents, visitors, and artists of the Coachella Valley & beyond.

The 30th Annual La Quinta Arts Festival returns to the visually stunning setting of La Quinta’s Civic Center Campus(78495 Calle Tampico La Quinta CA) in the greater Palm Springs area – Southern California’s preferred desert resort location. Produced by La Quinta Arts Foundation, in partnership with its Premier Sponsor the City of La Quinta, La Quinta Arts Festival raises funds for the Foundation’s non-profit mission of Promoting & Cultivating the Arts.

The 13 acre La Quinta Civic Center campus, surrounded by the rugged Santa Rosa Mountains, is located adjacent to the west side of City Hall at the corner of Washington Street and Calle Tampico.a Quinta Arts Festival is a true community effort which could not take place without the generous support from Sponsors, Community Partners and Donors. Please show them your appreciation by patronizing their service businesses, shops and restaurants throughout the year!  Link into their world at http://www.lqaf.com/

30th Annual La Quinta Arts Festival returns to the visually stunning setting of La Quinta’s Civic Center Campus

The Florida sun is shining its light on a smart new lodging option for travelers, with the opening of Element Miami International Airport. Element, the trailblazing eco-wise brand of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc., brings a fresh update to the Miami hotel scene with 209 guest rooms and suites built green from the ground up.

Element Miami International Airport typifies the “balance” that Starwood’s Element brand offers to business and leisure travelers. The hotel’s strategic location puts it at the doorstep of one of the world’s busiest air-travel hubs - Miami International Airport - and just two blocks from the long anticipated Miami Central Station, a world-class transportation hub that will transform options for travelers in several phases starting in spring 2012. The new facility includes Airport Link Metrorail service, providing a direct rail connection to Downtown Miami. For those needing a car during their travels, the transportation hub includes a brand new rental car facility that unites 16 rental car companies in a stunning new 6,500 vehicle facility.

“With its own combination of beautiful natural elements and singular style, Miami is a perfect fit for the Element brand,” said Brian McGuinness, Senior Vice President of Specialty Select Brands for Starwood. “Element offers guests a bright, energizing environment that’s conducive to both work and play, all while affording easy access to the city and to the airport.”

The Element brand made history with its 2008 launch. It is the first major hotel brand to mandate that all properties pursue the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification for high-performance buildings. The Element Miami International Airport features all the brand’s signatures, including:

Rise, Element’s hearty and healthy complimentary breakfast

Motion, a state-of-the-art, 24-hour fitness center

Relax, complimentary evening receptions

Restore, a gourmet food pantry

A 791-square-foot meeting room with modular furnishings, flexible layout and state-of-the-art technology that can be customized to meet and business or social needs

ChargePoint electric vehicle charging station

Dynamic gathering spaces, from a lobby flooded with natural light to a multi-storied window wall and from an outdoor fire pit, to water features and a barbecue

Light filled guest rooms with a fluid design of modular furniture, swiveling flat-screen televisions, large desks with open shelving, and custom-designed closets

The signature Heavenly® Bed

Spa-inspired bathrooms with an invigorating rain-shower and dual-flush toilet

Fully equipped kitchens featuring filtered water, ENERGY STAR-rated appliances and utensils to prepare a gourmet meal

“We’re very excited to bring Element’s fusion of style, personal wellbeing and sustainability to Miami, and we think guests will appreciate having a fresh option so close to MIA,” said Lew Wiens, President of True North Hotel Group, the hotel’s management company. “Our location adjacent to such a key transportation hub makes Element Miami unbeatable for business and leisure travelers alike.”

Spotlight on Hotel Art & Landscape: Something New under the Sun: Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ Element Brand Makes South Florida Debut

The experience of direct contact with sand enthralled me already as a child.” Ilana recalls: “It was a happy childhood along the shores of the Mediterranean, which I would visit every day on my way to school. I would draw a personal story, a kind of living diary in the sand. I would draw quickly, trying to finish it all before the wave would come and wipe everything out. I was totally spellbound. I would stand and watch until the drawing disappeared, realizing that everything is transient and temporary…”

Christie’s sale of 20th Century Decorative Art & Design on March 8 will be highlighted by a collection of Viennese Secessionism from the Hollywood home of Ron Bernstein, and will include approximately 40 works by Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser and Eugene Gaillard, among others. Other sale highlights include French Art Nouveau Glass including pieces from the Pinhas Collection, lamps by Tiffany Studios, and decorative works from the Art Deco, Mid-Century and Contemporary movements. With approximately 180 lots, the sale is expected to generate in excess of $1.3 million.

The Collection of Ron Bernstein

Ron Bernstein caught a passion for Viennese Secessionism after a pivotal trip to Vienna in the mid-1990s. Once a seasoned and accomplished collector of Arts and Crafts, in a startling turnabout, he set aside his exemplary collection and reinvented his Hollywood bungalow as a wondrous enclave of fin-de-siècle Vienna. With the help of a newly acquired collection of books on the Vienna Secession, Bernstein poured over pictures and studied texts in order to master the period and subsequently launched a meticulous and determined search for exactly the right furnishings to fulfill his new vision. Co-founded in 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Josef Maria Olbrich, the Vienna Secession comprised a group of progressive Austrian artists who were dissatisfied with the traditional academy and its strict embrace of the past. Bernstein’s particular interest was the handicraft of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshop), a direct offshoot of the Secession established in 1902 by Josef Hoffmann and Klimt.

Bernstein’s collection incorporates a wide range of the period’s work, such as carpets, furniture, metalwork, glass, ceramics and graphic design.  Examples of the work of the earlier years of the Werkstätte and the Secessionist period, between the turn of the century to around 1915, with its telltale flattened and structured geometric motifs include a pair of upholstered brass and stained bentwood armchairs, designed in 1901 by Koloman Moser (1868-1918) (pictured left, estimate: $8,000-12,000) and a pair of leather and stained bentwood side chairs, designed for the Kabaret Fledermaus, Vienna, circa 1907, by Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) (pictured above, estimate: $2,000-3,000).

A brass table lamp, designed 1919 by Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) (estimate: $25,000-35,000)  a hammered brass and opalescent glass hanging chandelier, circa 1902 attributed to Koloman Moser (1868-1918) (estimate: $30,000-50,000) are exemplary of the avant-garde and iconoclastic spirit of Vienna at this time.  Functional clarity and simplified shapes and surfaces are apparent in a hand-knotted wool carpet, circa 1910 from the school of Josef Hoffmann (estimate: $5,000-8,000) and a set of five walnut and stained wood nesting tables, circa 1913 by Eugene Gaillard (1862-1932) (estimate: $15,000-20,000). Items are pictured on page one.

French Art Nouveau Glass and Tiffany

The sale includes a selection of more than 30 works of French Art Nouveau Glass, including pieces from the Pinhas Collection, Los Angeles, and a private collection from the Midwest. Highlights from the Midwest Collection include two works by Daum – a wheel-carved, vitrified and etched glass vase, circa 1910 (pictured above, estimate: $15,000-20,000), and an acid-etched and wheel-carved glass vase, circa 1893 (estimate: $3,000-5,000).  Tiffany Studios has a strong representation in the sale with a ‘Daffodil’ leaded glass and bronze table lamp, circa 1910 (pictured left, estimate: $60,000-90,000) and a ‘Peony’ leaded glass and bronze table lamp, circa 1910 (estimate: $80,000-120,000).

The Word into Art exhibition at the Dubai International Finance Centre celebrates the creativity of Middle Eastern artists, focusing on the way writing has been used in modern art. From traditional Arabic scripts to present day graffiti, artists across the region have found innovative ways of using script. They write verses from the Qur'an, lines of poetry, use texts to highlight their preoccupation with politics, or simply show their delight in the shape of the Arabic letter. It is this rich diversity of approaches that this exhibition seeks to examine.

Mohammad Al Gergawi, Executive Chairman of Dubai Holding said, "I'm glad that Dubai Holding has taken this opportunity to partner with The British Museum to host such an excellent exhibition. In the Middle East, Dubai Holding is committed to encouraging innovation in all aspects of our society and developing the talents of the artistic community in the region is a very important part of this goal. This exhibition demonstrates just how impressive these talents are."

The majority of works in the exhibition are from the British Museum, which uniquely amongst British institutions has been acquiring works by artists from the Middle East and North Africa since the mid-1980s. The exhibition is divided into four sections. Sacred Script, explains the relationship between Arabic script and the religion of Islam, showing the enduring vitality of the Islamic calligraphic tradition today.

The innovative work of Ahmad Moustafa, Kamal Boullata, Khaled al-Saai, Fou'ad Honda, Siah Armajani and Erol Akyavas are included in this section. The powerful literary tradition of the Middle East, the enduring appeal of ancient and modern Arabic and Persian poetry, and the work of Sufi writers is evoked in Literature and Art.

In Deconstructing the Word, works by Dia Azzawi, Hassan Massoudy, Etel Adnan, Abdallah Benanteur, Shirin Neshat, Farhad Moshiri, Ebrahim Bousaad, Jamal Abd al-Rahim and others reveal how artists seek to find ever more inventive ways of writing or illustrating these famous texts.

Letters and words are sometimes legible but more often they are not, having been turned into beautiful abstract patterns by artists as diverse as Rachid Koraichi , Michal Rovner, Faisal Samra, Parviz Tanavoli, Yussef Ahmed and Ali Hassan. Finally, Identity, History and Politics looks at the ways in which the words embedded in these works can provide society with real snapshots of history as well as revealing reactions to the region's devastating conflicts during the past few decades. Included here is the work of Kareem Risan, Walid Raad, Laila Shawa, Sabah Naim and Khusrau Hasanzade.

Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum commented, "This will be the first time that the British Museum has sent an exhibition to the Middle East. Dubai is the perfect choice as it is a thriving centre for contemporary art. It is wonderful that Dubai Holding have given us the opportunity to stage this important exhibition in such an important city".

Middle Eastern Art: British Museum and Dubai Holding have align exhibition Word into Art