Here at Gluekit, we’ve really been enjoying the opportunity to spin our daily life and summer jaunts and ramblings through the Gluekit illustrator bonanza machine, which spits out neat little capsules of our experience, sometimes with hand type, sometimes with interesting new drawn elements, sometimes with twists we didn’t anticipate.
Here’s a little thing we did to commemorate one of the best shows we went to this summer: a super secret Lifetime show in a New Brunswick basement (all per Lifetime lyrics). There’s something awesome about house shows during the summer; about dirty-fashionable-smiling kids all dredged up on someone’s lawn, awaiting that moment when the music starts and everyone dances. The pictures express the energy of the show well. It was just swell!
Gluekit likes sweet summer memories, singing songs loudly off-key, and pictures of shoes.
Last week Gluekit attended a very nice AIGA evening event at the New School in New York. After a quick jaunt uptown to take in the Kara Walker retrospective at the Whitney, and a narrow avoidance with some dodgy character blocking up the subway lines, Gluekit settled into cozy seats at the Tishman Auditorium and took in a conversation with two pioneers of modernism, Wim Crouwel and Massimo Vignelli, moderated by Alice Twemlow. There’s a nicely detailed announcement of the talk here, and as usual AIGA did a fabulous job of organizing the event. It’s always sweet to attend a well-handled lecture, that starts on time, is handled deftly, and that does what it’s supposed to do. In this case, Twemlow scurried hither and thither across the careers of both men, teasing out commonalities and differences, and showing the wide swathe of each man’s design legacy. It was a great session, and for us, Wim totally rocked our sox. There’s something appealing about the application of a system of production that’s reliable, extensible and modular.
Favorite moment? When, after a review of Crouwell’s New Alphabet, Twemlow threw up the album cover for Joy Division’s Substance and noted, to gasps of realization from the audience, that the cover actually reads “Substamce.” It was a beautiful moment of collective realization.
Glukit likes grids, modernism, and mistakes.
Last April, Gluekit was strolling around Manhattan, fresh from seeing the Family Pictures exhibition at the Guggenheim. We were drinking in the air and people-watching when we spotted an intriguing poster on what appeared to be some kind of embassy on Fifth Avenue. [We really weren't paying the best attention to where we were.] We daringly pushed the dark grated doors, stepped inside the building (we weren’t exactly sure we were in a public space at first) and found ourselves inside the Cultural Services of the French Embassy– elaborate and rich surroundings — taking in some amazing Jean-Michel Basquiat works. Gluekit’s a– ‘ow do you say?– big fan of Basquiat? We were hopping up and down on the bottom level… and then discovered a staircase and another level of rooms filled with even more Basquiat. It was Basquiat heaven! A completely unexpected encounter, the show was the highlight of our day. And the juxtaposition of Basquiat’s work– which smacks of childish delight, street culture and graffiti– amidst the grandeur and pomp of the Embassy’s spaces was wildy exhilarating. Inspiring, too. It’s the unexpected that makes life memorable.
The good folks at Artivi have put up a neat little video that captures the exhibition.
Gluekit loves unexpected treasures, happening upon art and beauty, and great art hung on white brick walls.
Laying down some hard type in Jersey during vacation by the sea.
We like hand-drawn dollar signs.
Even in Philly on vacation, we find ourselves hunting around for sketchbooks, tracing paper, some sharp pencils, and good ink flow. Luckily we spotted a Utrecht around the corner from our hotel and made a beeline to the cash register.
We like drawing on the run.
Two hundred miles to see one of our favorite bands of the moment, Matt and Kim, play a rockin’ set on the first night of their tour. (We tried to figure out how to type out the yah-yahs right, but the hyphens kept getting in the way!)
We like waving hands.
Okkervil River played a date right before their national tour started, and before their awesome record, The Stage Names, dropped at the end of this summer. We caught them in one of the tiniest venues imaginable and felt that surge of luckiness that comes from seeing a talented band in a room packed with admiring fans.
We like Will Sheff’s hand-drawn shirts.
