WE'RE SUPPORTING

Norman Saunders was one of the most celebrated pulp artists of the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, with his images adorning the covers of thousands of comic books, dimestore paperbacks, and trashy men’s magazines. The Illustrated Press has just published a retrospective of Saunders’ work. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Italian architect Antonio Cardillo is of the opinion that architecture is only still in pictures, as in its real life it is in a state of transition with man and light moving through it. Read more

WE'RE WEARING

It’s official, I’m back into jewellery after detoxing from the 2001 chandelier earring craze. Aurélie Bidermann used to work at Sotheby’s New York in their Impressionist and Contemporary Art department but has been slowly raising though the ranks as one of the most innovative jewellery designers around today. Her website doesn’t showcase her fantastic Spring 09 pieces. Check out the accessory report on style.com for a good look at some of her new work.

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

I’ve been a big fan of Michelle Vandermeer’s work since I came across her Mini Majellen zines at this year’s Sydney Writers Festival. Describing herself as a doer — as in one of those people who are always doing or making something — Michelle’s work, which includes book binding, illustration, jewelery making and her zines, stems from an internal creative springboard and a double degree in architecture and graphic design. Her work is smart and succinct. Read more

I spent the formative first six years of my life in Wellington, New Zealand, a beautiful windswept city framed by a magnificent harbour in one direction and a stunning collection of green, rolling hills in the other. It was here, on a return visit many years later and deep amongst the clipped accents and ruddy faces of the weather-beaten locals, that I stumbled upon the vast catalogue of the then Dunedin based record label Flying Nun. And what a roster of acts they housed — The Chills, The Bats, The Clean, Tall Dwarfs, The Verlaines, and my favourite guitar-pop band, Straitjacket Fits. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

I had the pleasure of seeing Duran Duran play a few weeks back in the balmy drizzle of New York’s Central Park. I always thought the guys had more cheek than they were ever given credit for. But don’t be fooled! For a band so rooted in the immediacy of disposable pop, they wrote some timeless songs, none more so than The Chauffeur.