WE'RE SUPPORTING

Not only is the scale of the things Italian street artist Blu is doing on the street, impressive — he does these huge pieces with just rollers with long extensions — even more amazing is how quickly he works. If you haven’t seen the stop motion animation he did, you should. It’s an animation on the walls of a street in which he’s painting, then buffing, then painting it again, with a succession of characters moving all around. It’s just insane how much work it takes to create these things. I don’t think anyone has ever done anything like it. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

New York-based Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa designed this small apartment block in 2005 in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka in conjunction with his poet partner, Madeline Gins. According to the SushiLog: ‘Painted in eye-catching blue, pink, red, yellow and other bright colors, the building resembles the indoor playgrounds that attract toddlers at fast-food restaurants. Inside, each apartment features a dining room with a grainy, surfaced floor that slopes erratically, a sunken kitchen and a study with a concave floor. Electric switches are located in unexpected places on the walls so you have to feel around for the right one. A glass door to the veranda is so small you have to bend to crawl out’. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

We love the range of ultra-stylish ties created by New York-based designers, Ryan Sovereign and William Beck. They’re both graduates of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, majoring in Industrial Design and Sculpture respectively, and have been long time collaborators both musically and visually. Read more

WE'RE THINKING

Most people think of the countryside and rural life as peaceful to the point of being profoundly boring. Kate Kirkwood’s photographs captures a less idyllic beauty where life and death intersect in a controlled chaos that is agriculture. Each of Kirkwood’s images have a mythic quality to them — cows and sheep blur past her lens like nymphs or lurk on the horizon like demons and gods. Read more

WE'RE READING

Ok, so maybe it’s the extra-strong Brooklyn coffee I’m drinking or perhaps its that the pine coated goodness of Christmas is well and truly in the air, but I’m kinda excited this morning as my wife has just launched her website, Feature Shoot, which is a resource for photo editors, art directors, industry professionals, and pretty much anyone who appreciates good photography. It’s a great way to discover new photographic talent and the website is already bursting with interviews with up-and-coming American photographers alongside that of established photographers who have completed a project or whose work has taken on a new direction.

Set in a remote Chinese village in the 1920s during a cholera outbreak and with a revolution bubbling in the background, The Painted Veil is a wonderfully tortured love story which excels on all levels. Based on the W Somerset Maugham novel, it was a labour of love for stars Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, who also produced the film. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

The hottest indie act around right now? Perhaps. Fullerton, California’s Cold War Kids not only have the slickest name going, but they have a batch of songs that are so good it’s frightening.