Artwork of the Week: Fleur de Sel

Fleur de Sel, 2002-2004 

by Anu Tuominen

I bought this postcard on a visit to the Pompidou with my dad in 2007. It has hung framed in my kitchen since 2009 where I look at it everyday and it never fails to make me smile. The idea is so simple and so perfect; salt crystals, each one hand-crocheted and unique like a snowflake. There is something about art with a domestic edge that often draws me in.   

Finnish artist Anu Tuominen is the woman responsible—and gasp!—while looking up more information about the artist for the first time I discovered that she also made this other piece that I've always loved. Huh! It's so satisfying to make those connections and see how consistent your tastes really are. To know thyself! Hip hip! 

- Cathleen  

Artwork of the Week: The Lost Socks

I don't know where I found this image, or who is responsible for it's creation, but I've had it saved among my files for some time now and my mind often returns to it. I responded to the colors initially—the stripes of bright green and shocks of turquoise, with that one pop of pale pink nestled among them, hung next to a white cloud with all of its subtle differences in color, both set against the somber gray of the sky reflected in the water. But what I really appreciate about it is the manipulation of the material, a conglomeration of everyday objects juxtaposed in such a placid natural setting; almost surreal, yet still familiar. A support group for lost socks in a veritable no man's land. If anyone knows who it was that made this piece, please tell me!

UPDATE: It's artist Anu Tuominen! And it's called For Winter Nights! 

- Cathleen