Come out to a gallery in Soho, New York, on Saturday afternoon and purchase art for your home for a good cause. The one evening event Dear Japan has been organized by a group of Japanese artists who live in New York. It features 170 illustrators and fine artists, and all the works are $200 or under. It’s a small portion of what most of the participating artists would normally sell their work for. Of course, I am donating for this good cause, too.

Dear Japan
June 4th, 2011, Saturday 4-8 PM
Purchase by cash or cheque.

Art Connect New York Gallery Space
491 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, New York 10012

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Three illustrators from vastly different backgrounds — Sam Weber (Canada), Yuko Shimizu (Japan), and Tomer Hanuka (Israel) — are meeting at the crossroads of a distinct American aesthetic to examine their new-found artistic voices through personal mythologies, broken narratives and remixed identities. Each of the illustrators featured as part of BLOW UP (running at New York’s Society of Illustrators until October 16) created new works to be shown for the first time in this exhibition.

How could you not like these crazy hair prints by Shoplifter, the artistic genius behind Bjork’s Medulla cover art hair sculpture.

London-based design studio PostlerFerguson has been creating super realistic and accurate looking paper guns and other arms. Three of them will be released by German design publisher Gestalten. So now you can make your own!

I have been in search of a cool and functional laptop bag for years. This will totally be on my wish list. Designed by Hard Graft, it’s the coolest Macbook case I have seen so far. I guarantee everyone will ask: ‘where did you get this from?’

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I look at so much art, it’s rare that I see something that ‘wows’ me. But I love bumping into that rare moment. I was doing photo research (nothing related to meat) and bumped into Victoria Reynolds’ work. WOW. Gross-ugly-beautiful. I especially love the ones in matching meaty looking frames.

It’s a recession and I don’t need to buy any more handbags. But these? Umm, too awesome to pass. The ad photos are as fantastic as the products. My favorite is Pursuader. But don’t go to the airport with one!

On August 27, a fundraising traveling group show opens at Maxalot Gallery in Amsterdam. Eleven artists from around the world were asked to create a piece that would help to enlighten the public to the every day life of the children of Mozambique, in the hope of inspiring awareness and positive action in some capacity. Some beautiful works will be on display from Marcos Chin [above], Catalina Estrada and Para, among others.

My studio mate and awesome comic and children’s book artist Sara Varon has teamed up with pottery artist Ayumi Horie to create a one-of-a-kind series for Red Lodge Clay Center in Montana. Get them before they’re all gone!

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Want a fantabulous room decoration and good speakers at the same time? This is it. Dutch designer Sander Mulder’s Woofers will make your room a thousand times cooler. Immediately!

I was never a big fan of Barbie, but I would travel to Shanghai just to visit this mind-blowing castle for Barbie dolls.

I’m in love with interior decoration designer Jonathan Adler’s Druggist Pottery collection. It is so old school, but new school, yet edgy. They’re on sale at the moment, so I just purchased a white Anger Jar. I live in New York, so I tend to have a lot of … errr … emotion to store in there.

My friend Tony and his partner Mauricio are the guys behind DFCasa, a new type of home decoration studio from Mexico City. They are working with artisans from all over the country to marry traditional craft with the latest in cool design. The outcomes are fresh, fun and edgy. If you happen to be in Mexico City this week, you can see their work at the Zona Maco contemporary art fair.

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Russian illustrator Vania Zouravliov’s drawings has a turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century dark gothic feel to them, mixed with the colors and styles of communist Eastern Europe and pop Asia. The result is extremely cool without being too hip.

I am really into Hong Kong action flicks from the 1980s and 90s. When I first moved to New York, there were a handful of curious friends who were also interested in watching movies such as City on Fire by Ringo Lam, which Reservoir Dogs was based on. How did they find videos like thus? At the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. These days, City on Fire can be find online, and Kim’s is history. But all the videos that entertained the film geeks of this city for more than twenty years have found a new home in, wait for it, Salemi, Sicily. Yes, the southern island of Italy. Kim has recently relocated there, as this sad but heartwarming story about him in yesterday’s New York Times reveals.

Berlin-based conceptual illustrator Christoph Niemann’s recent LEGO post on the New York Times blog is fantastic. He recently moved back to Germany after eleven years in New York, and apparently, he misses the city a lot.

Japan’s graphic design master Shigeo Fukuda passed away last month. Fukuda created thousands of optical illusion posters — and some installations — that are so simple, clever and memorable and kept wowing the world for nearly fifty years. Rest in peace.

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After I posted those awesome Turkish knitted accessories, my illustrator friend Sarajo Frieden sent me a link to a mind-blowing show of knitted coral reefs at Gallery Track 16 in Santa Monica. I wish I could be there to see this in person!

My friend, illustrator Ai Tatebayashi, is known for her lovely color schemes and she forwarded me the link to this beautiful handknit accessory store from Istanbul. With Etsy, we can now purchase talented designer’s work from all over the world. And I couldn’t resist, I bought a necklace-scarf and cannot wait until it comes to my door!

I woke up early yesterday to go see the fantastic Gilbert and George show at the Brooklyn Museum before its closing on Sunday. You may have seen their work in art history books. Sure the prints look good, but you really have to experience their monumentally sized photo collages in person while you still can.