POSTWAR CZECH GLASS
When Czechoslovakia struggled under Communist rule in the wake of WWII, most artists—painters, sculptors, and graphic artists—were pressed to serve the political regime. The contemporary international art scene was dismissed as “decadent Western culture” and abstract art was held in contempt. But apparently, the only medium that escaped state scrutiny was glass. Turns out designers like Vladimír Kopecky and René Roubícek were inventing new ways of painting and
creating wildly original sculptural forms in glass amid all the state-mandated artistic conformity. The Corning Museum of Glass located in its namesake town of Corning, N.Y., is presenting the largest
gathering of postwar Czech glass (also called Bohemian
glass) ever seen in the United States. “Czech Glass, 1945–
1980: Design in an Age of Adversity” will be on view June 15
through Nov. 27. www.cmog.org
SNIFF DESIGN
Monica Cevallas is
barking up the right
tree. After graduating
from art school
and working a number
of odd office jobs,
she decided to take a
chance and open her
own niche marketing
design studio. Cevallas, under the appropriate moniker
Sniff Design, caters to the booming pet industry. She
found her first and fastest-growing client, Annabelle’s
Doggie Treats, on the all-powerful Craigslist website.
Annabelle’s owner Nicole Cottini, who started baking
the line of gourmet dog biscuits in her San Francisco
kitchen, was in need of a logo to stamp on her brown
paper doggie bags for local pet shops. Now, in less than
two years, Sniff is helping to relaunch the entire line of
treats for national distribution at retail stores like Pet
Food Express. www.sniffdesign.com
THE FILTH
Her husband suggested the name of her new studio, The Filth, to capture
the essence of her illustrations: dirty. Fette, the one-name-only,
French femme illustrator who recently left Paris for Los Angeles to
marry her American, motion designer husband, is apparently making
a good first impression with
her dirty designs. Thrill-seeking
magazines like Trace, the highly
stylized bible of urban cool, and
Verbalisms, the Chicago hip-hop
fashion magazine for women, are
seeking her artistic, dirty, pretty
things for print. Her next project
is a book featuring illustrations of
disembodied penises. She is on the
prowl for a permissive publisher. www.the-filth.com
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