Etty Beke

Myths

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 11:31:00 -0400

In two days a fourteen year nightmare might come to an end. It will be hard to find any focus or catch any sleep in the next 48 hours. Draw shoes, prototype, edit, write are irrelevant tasks.

_______________________

How do myths come about?

A young skinny guy has been relentlessly touring Venezuela. In three months he has visited more than three hundred towns. The crowded streets await him everywhere. They catch his pace, the ladies reach for him and leave him written notes with needs and wishes. When he looses a shoe, the whole town is immediately on a mission to find him a new pair. His instagram photos are full of messages of euphoric blessings and euphoric love.

There are photos of him receiving blessings from Shamans and of his visits to the great Catholic sites around Venezuela, like El Cristo de la Grita. He told a story of a man who gave him a set of keys, the last thing he received from his kid before he died in the hands of violence. The man and his kid (in heaven) wanted Henrique to keep them. He represents hope, our future.

His journey could be compiled in a book of stories. Like the fishermen who took him on their humble boat to his destination when government protesters barricaded his way through the highway. Or the soldier that stopped his car and gave a short and cold 30 sec speech: “Listen carefully, you have to win these elections. We cannot keep living like this. The Armed Forces maintain their commitment to democracy. So keep going and win the elections.”

Henrique has become the representation of the kind of Venezuelan we want to be. Relentless, hardworking, honest, caring, selfless, healthy, humble and visionary. He has blessed our ears with pretty words that will hopefully leave behind all the hate and resentment that has been forced upon us for the past fourteen years.

_________________________

It has been a very hard “battle”. We have had many disappointments in the past few years, along with terrifying stories of violence. We have been given false promises, insulted, hated, robbed, forced out and have seen our country fall into ruins. We have impatiently waited for people to wake up and do what we consider is the right thing.

We now have two days left to wait and see. G-D WILLING, we will enter that lit path.

#HayUnCamino

Installation at Whitney. #inspiration Frosted plexiglass pieces...

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:57:37 -0400

Installation at Whitney. #inspiration

Frosted plexiglass pieces hung with nylon string and video projections on them. A dark room and floating videos with defined edges.

Rim/Lip prototypes - 2009 - Museum board.

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:24:00 -0400

Rim/Lip prototypes - 2009 - Museum board.

Stacking Plates Prototypes - 2009. Museum Board. Models inspired...

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:13:14 -0400

Stacking Plates Prototypes - 2009. Museum Board.

Models inspired by the archaeological dig I attended at Tel Dor - 2009. The excavation and reading of pottery shards would constantly bring up the questions of how and why the differences and changes in the style of pottery occurred? The pottery rims would play an essential role in identifying these objects, their time and creators. Elements like diameter, shape, thickness, color and decorative painting were taken into consideration.

Today’s typical milk carton is of worldwide use. I consider it to be the modern vessel and its lip, a new kind of rim.

Prada platform espadrille Oxfords. Love the eclectic mix of...

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 15:51:23 -0400

Prada platform espadrille Oxfords.

Love the eclectic mix of materials & colors.

#inspiration

The Knife - Heartbeats. I will always regret not having seen...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:40:29 -0400

The Knife - Heartbeats.

I will always regret not having seen this somewhat creepy but incredibly visionary Swedish duo live.

#inspiration

Installation by Yayoi Kusama. An illusion is a distortion of...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:23:00 -0400

Installation by Yayoi Kusama.

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people. Illusions may occur with more of the human senses than vision, but visual illusions, optical illusions, are the most well known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles, like Gestalt, an individual’s ability of depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside of the body within one’s physical environment.

The term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion, it describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation. For example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be a hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or other auditory source) would be an illusion.

(Loosely taken from wikipedia)

CRESCENDO a : a gradual...

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:06:00 -0400

CRESCENDO

a : a gradual increase; specifically : a gradual increase in volume of a musical passage

b : the peak of a gradual increase : climax crescendo — Down Beat>

: a crescendo musical passage

(It took me three days to remember this word)

"Creatives enrich this world by finding more interesting and more beautiful experiences. We will make..."

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:27:10 -0400

“Creatives enrich this world by finding more interesting and more beautiful experiences. We will make sacrifices because to us it is more important than just money.”

- ME EB.

Colombo - Spazio Elastico. Gianni Colombo’s art...

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:54:00 -0400

Colombo - Spazio Elastico.

Gianni Colombo’s art installation is up at the New Museum now. A dark room, a couple of UV bulbs and white elastic strings that shine and slowly move. The space is divided in equal segments that the spectator traverses. It’s like being inside a 3D software, and it’s so cool.

Budapest at night. Summer 2012 It takes a thousand words A...

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 18:48:00 -0400

Budapest at night. Summer 2012

It takes a thousand words

A photography professor once told us you could look at a photo and think the guy in it is raging and screaming, but he in fact was just sneezing. We can describe a photo in a thousand words, more or less, if you want, but what kind of words are they?

People are fascinated by creativity. I humbly think it is the easiest aspect of any design project. You dream and enjoy the work while solving the puzzle, you love doing it. Passing on the “creation” to your client and having them understand it, brave it and take it seriously is what’s truly hard.

Yes, we are pretty versed visually, but not being able to choose those thousand words correctly will make or break a project. Speech is the basic tool of communication and being able navigate between the right amounts of the rational and the subjective is very, very hard.

Cosmic Calendar is right up my alley.

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:03:44 -0400

Cosmic Calendar is right up my alley.

Barcelona - 2012. “I am finally in control of my...

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 22:10:10 -0400

Barcelona - 2012.

“I am finally in control of my geometries, so please don’t mess them up” - Things you would like contractors to understand.

Photo of sculpture at Cloisters, NYC. Summer, 2012. Visual...

Sun, 29 Jul 2012 21:38:00 -0400

Photo of sculpture at Cloisters, NYC. Summer, 2012.

Visual Tricks.

Like cantilevered structures, we expect masses where there aren’t any. We stop and wonder. Our mind forces us to stop and wonder. It’s a good exercise. Thank you.

Costa Brava - 2012 The connections to both freedom and...

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 23:08:00 -0400

Costa Brava - 2012

The connections to both freedom and creativity lie just beneath the surface of this commandment (e.i. keeping the Sabbath): leisure is appropriate to a free people, and this people so recently free find themselves quickly establishing this quiet weekly celebration of their freedom; leisure is the necessary ground to creativity, and a free people are free to imitate the creativity of God.

The Gifts of the Jews - Thomas Cahill.

Here is one of the apartment units at the 1845-1851 Adam Clayton...

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 15:16:00 -0400

Here is one of the apartment units at the 1845-1851 Adam Clayton Powell development (Harlem) I worked on while at Curated. I hadn’t gotten involved past the design phase and never saw it built. It was such a great surprise to find this photo online.

We were looking for design details to freshen up the space while paying respect to the age of the building. We added a herringbone tile backsplash, black hardware and cabinets in a subtle but serious off white.

The units in this building had such nice layouts. Two to three bedroom apartments with very decent size rooms, high ceilings, natural sunlight. You don’t find many like these in NYC.

I found this fresco on the vaulted ceiling of one of the many...

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:48:00 -0400

I found this fresco on the vaulted ceiling of one of the many covered walkways of Padova. For an instant I was shaken, a bit breathless and in awe. Shining stars in a warm and decaying palette, it spoke of space, time and magic.

As above, so below.

Space “design” is ethereal. Our canvas is imaginary and three-dimensional, our mind learns to envision compositions of light, color, texture and proportion. We think of them for months, we test little bits and adjust, until they come to life as we had somewhat imagined. Ordinary and overlooked, spaces become lively and enriching experiences.

That moment, when we finally see a space come together can shake you the way this fresco shook me. If we could only make these heart-felt experiences happen more often! Just like when we look at the stars, there is order but also plenty of magic.

Fresco at Oratory of St George. Padua, Italy. When primitive man...

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 14:31:00 -0400

Fresco at Oratory of St George. Padua, Italy.

When primitive man looked up at the heavens, he saw a vast cavalcade of divine figures regularly passing before his eyes - the cosmic drama, breathtaking in its internal order and predictability. Thomas Cahill - The gifts of the jews.

Italy, I look up to you! Walking down the streets of Treviso,...

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 14:07:00 -0400

Italy, I look up to you!

Walking down the streets of Treviso, Padova and Venice filled my heart with hope. Chain stores, uniformity and the reminder of grey and endless working hours is not the only way for industry or a country to thrive. We fought with hundreds of cargo trucks in the Autostrada, we ran into the Stefanel factory and walked through streets filled with small shops offering all kinds of high quality local products, all of them beautifully designed and displayed.

How graceful are those older ladies with their linen outfits, nice hairdos and big sunglasses, and how gorgeous those men in perfectly tailored suits and leather portfolios riding their bikes around? The traces of old painted plaster throughout the city of Treviso, each carrying a different pattern, are a reminder that all the “modern things” I was admiring didn’t just happen.

There was an older gentleman that showed us around a beautiful little church in Treviso. He had lived in Argentina for a while but moved back home, he missed Italy too much. He was a photographer and before we left he gave us a couple of postcards. He was a happy man, just like all the people we talked to. He put his heart in his daily tasks, just like everyone else did.

Italy spoke of joy.

La Dolce Vita, Joie de Vivre - How do we say things like these in english?

Thank you Giannina for showing me around Veneto, and I’m sorry we weren’t able to make it to the cemetery!

Magical Stellar Dress. #inspiration ico: FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE...

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 10:51:20 -0400

Magical Stellar Dress. #inspiration

ico:

FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE - ∞