A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an exhibition that delves into grotto life, tapestries that depict architectural deterioration, and a woven rug collection photographed at a folk-influenced farmhouse in Sweden.

Discoveries

There’s a cartoonish, whimsical quality to these table lamps by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, as if they’ve been plucked straight out of Alice in Wonderland. The bulbous blown glass forms come in bold, playful color combinations that can be mixed and matched between the cloche-shaped shade and the spool-like base that gives the collection its name, Bobine. Helgerson plans to introduce options with wood bases and ceramic shades, as well as hand-painted artist editions in the near future. Oh, and each lamp comes with a pair of adorable tiny glass snails. Photos © Aaron Leitz

When photographing new rug collections, the more rustic and unusual the location, the better IMHO. Swedish design brand Layered chose to shoot in a rural farmhouse with folk-influenced artworks all over the walls – a perfect setting for the Röllakan Collection, which is based on traditional woven Röllakan rugs. These typically featured animal and plant-inspired geometric and stylized patterns, and were crafted at home by women and often passed down as family heirlooms. Layered has updated the concept with rich colors and white and black details, celebrating Swedish female craftsmanship while using sustainably sourced wool.

Cracked eggshells spring to mind (in a good way!) upon seeing these pieces. They’re part of a collaborative project between designer Kelsie Rudolph and artist Chase Travaille — aptly named Chelsie’s — which marries her furniture designs with his porcelain shards. Lamp bases and tables are covered in the irregular fragments that create patterns and mis-shape their typical  forms. The lights are paired with similarly pieced-together shades, with embossed ridges along the joins to highlight their assembled nature.

Two new mirrors in Archive for Space’s Steel 00 series for Béton Brut extend the design studio’s investigations with stainless steel, and both are striking in different ways. Mirror 001 treats the material “with fabric-like fluidity,” featuring rolled hems that allow it to be hung on two slim wires. It comes in four sizes, and can be hung from a wall or ceiling. Mirror 002, meanwhile, has a kidney-shaped form and a raised frame that’s brushed to contrast the polished central surface. This style is available in two sizes, and has multiple hooks to facilitate hanging in four different positions.

Exhibitions

Remember we talked about a return to romanticism in design? These coil-built ceramic vessels by Kansas City-based artist Maura Wright are another great example. On display at the Zak+Fox showroom in New York, in collaboration with AGO Projects, the series titled A Taste of Something Special includes a variety of jars, vases and amphora decorated with floral accoutrements and other whimsical ornaments (one has a tiny hand atop its lid). Wright’s influences “range from French Rococo porcelain to Italian fresco painting to American folk art” and all are visible in these pieces, which are glazed in buttery yellow, mirrored silver, and drippy blue-green to give each a distinct character. Until September 30.

At Blunk Space, the California gallery and research center dedicated to the legacy of artist JB Blunk, Oakland-based artist Lucy Stark and Guadalajara-based designer Fabien Cappello are presenting a new series of works influenced by Blunk’s process and his Inverness house. Titled Tabletop, the exhibition includes Stark’s paintings that she completed during a 10-day residency, when the large main dining table became her workstation, still-life backdrop, and dinner spot. Her scenes of tablescapes, picnics and meals are accompanied by a set of ceramic wall-mounted candleholders, and a tablecloth printed with utensils and other dinnerware. Meanwhile, Cappello’s utilitarian tin watering cans, candlesticks and vases – which could be lifted straight out of Stark’s imagery – are presented along with four limited-edition light fixtures he created based on a visit to Blunk House earlier in the year. 

Los Angeles gallery Marta and guest curator Krista Mileva-Frank have put together a group exhibition that explores the materiality and mythos of the grotto. These wet, rocky, cave-like spaces – with their stalactites, moss and microorganisms – were a source of inspiration for Renaissance artists, and for Objects for a Heavenly Cave, 13 artists and collectives were asked to respond to some of the historical works that explore this theme. The result is 24 “dripping, glimmering” objects, among which highlights include Emma Witter’s Mermaid’s Goblets that balance electroformed copper oyster shells on tapered stands, James Naish’s cast bronze coral-like candelabra, and Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi’s delicate glassware with eroded forms and organic growths. On view at Marta’s space until October 12.

Tapestries are really having a moment, and this series by Massachusetts-based fiber artist Maris Van Vlack offers a fun, alternative take on traditional weaving. Her colorful works abstractly depict the deterioration of architectural structures, built up as solid panels and then transformed by painting over, cutting into, and pulling apart the surfaces. This process is akin to construction and life of a building, the artist says, with the effects of weathering, renovation, and destruction adding to its story over time. The series, titled Time Warp, is on view at Superhouse gallery in New York until October 19.

Artist Brian Rochefort packs a whole lot of personality into each of his ceramic sculptures. All approximately the same dimensions, these mound-like pieces feature bubbling, cracked and dripping surfaces created by firing different glazes and glass fragments in layers. Some have a primordial, volcanic quality, while others appear to be growing lichen, mold, or coral. And each has a name that relates to its character in some way, like Wraith, The Whale, or Staring at the Moon – which is also the title for the exhibition of these works at Sean Kelly in Los Angeles, until November 2.

Interiors

I need a glass-block wall in my apartment, and I need one now! At Casa Luce in Santa Severa, Italy, the rippling sea and verdant garden out the window informed a material palette that architect Daniele Marcotulli and designer Adriana Suriano applied to create a holiday home for all seasons. The glass blocks are used on all three floors to partition spaces and manipulate light, and have a slightly different tone on each level: transparent on the lowest, amber above, and turquoise across the upper story. The walls juxtapose brightly colored floor tiles, again unique to each level, while corrugated metal wraps a central bathroom block on the middle level.