CH Gift Guide Giveaway: Sigur Rós Deluxe Edition

by Karen Day

Icelandic band Sigur Rós celebrates their fifth and latest album, Meó suó í eyrum vió spilum endalaust, with a deluxe edition cloth-bound hardback book which includes 200 pages of fine art photos, a CD of the album and a DVD shot in Super 8 chronicling the band on the road at shows in England, Mexico and America, including their stop at this year's Bonnaroo Festival and their intimate show at New York City's Museum of Modern Art.

The deluxe edition is available through Beggars Group or Amazon, but we're giving one away to a lucky CH reader. Pick out your favorite item from our 2008 Gift Guide and let us know in the drop-down menu at the bottom of this page. We'll pick at random from entries received before 11:59 pm EST on 10 December 2008.

Laura Lobdell Boutique

by Wendy Dembo

Good things come in small packages, so great things must come from what has to be the smallest store in NYC, Laura Lobdell's jewelry store in the West Village, which opened last week. I'm a longtime fan of her found object-based designs and with the store's large assortment of playful and quotidian jewelry makes it easy to find the right gift for anyone.

Perfect for bon vivants to wear on New Year’s Eve, the Champagne Ring is sculpted from a genuine champagne cage (available in silver or special order gold). Depending on what the man in your life is like, you can either get him a cast silver guitar pick or a smashed silver beer cap. And ladies love the "Get Lucky Collection," made from antique Cracker Jack prizes. There’s the Lucky Horseshoe, Lucky Seven and, instead of just an unlucky rabbit's foot, a whole Lucky Bunny conceived as necklaces, bangles and earrings.

For dads there are Nut and Bolt Cufflinks and grandmothers will proudly wear the Macaroni necklace—just like the one you gave her in gradeschool, but cast in solid silver or gold from a real noodle and a fine chain replaces the yarn. A popcorn necklace works for the movie or snack fanatic and a silver match stick honors your last smoking friend or pyromaniac.

Craft Hackers Panel Discussion

by Jacob Resneck

Riffing on the juxtaposition of the traditional with the digital, the inspiration for the upcoming panel discussion in NYC, Craft Hackers, is the kind of work that melds needlework and computing. Members of the panel include a cadre of accomplished artists engaging the tech-meets-handmade aesthetic.

Cat Mazza has captured moving images into stills knit from yarn; Christy Matson uses an early loom (one of the earliest forms of computer) to recreate digital landscapes found in video games while Ben Fino-Radin translates HTML into needlepoint and plastic sculpture. That's just a sampling of the minds being brought together in collaboration with Rhizome.

Craft Hackers
12 December 2008, 7:30pm
New Museum of Contemporary Art
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002 map
tel. +1 212 219 1222

Buy tickets ($8 or $6 for members) on the New Museum site.

Andre Balazs Limited Edition T-Shirts

by Karen Day

Like The Standard Hotel itself, the three designers chosen to highlight the hotel's three locations with limited edition shirts are anything but ordinary. Contemporary artists Jose Parla, Eric Haze and Natas Kaupas took to the challenge by creating graphic tees that represent their personal street style and handwriting in each of the cities reflected on the front, which include Miami, New York, and L.A. respectively.

Parla, a Brooklyn based artist with graffiti roots, shows off his distinct technique of exaggerated script he mastered while rushing to tag various outdoor locations in his native Miami. If possible you should stop by his first NYC solo exhibition at Cristina Grajales Gallery, which features Parla's densely-layered paintings he calls "psychological maps" or watch him in action in the Cool Hunting video.

Representing New York is Eric Haze, legendary graffiti artist and graphic designer. Renowned as one of the earliest creators of streetwear clothing, Haze also boasts a resume that includes the iconic early hip-hop logos for Public Enemy and MTV, as well as album covers for the Beastie Boys, most notably his handwritten text for the cover of the Beastie Boys Check Your Head album, one of the most imitated handwriting styles to this day. His customized Lotus Exige created to help celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Sony/Playstation game "Gran Turismo" is currently being auctioned on eBay to benefit Studio in a School, a New York non-profit that pairs professional artists with children.

Rounding out the collection is accomplished graphic artist and 'Dogtown' skateboarding legend, Natas Kaupas. Besides being Quicksilver's global creative director and an original street skater, Kaupas is the perfect person to design the L.A. font for the limited edition series with his long line of art direction and graphic design for such companies as Santa Monica Airlines, Element, Vita, Etnies and his own board company, Designarium, in addition to being featured in one of the most famous skateboarding films of all time "Streets on Fire".

The shirts can be found on The Standard's online shop for $55 each.