Creative Mind Salon

In the quest to bridge botanicals and design I was reintroduced to the work of Alexis Bittar, which I shared as inspiration in this post from spring.

Fitting how things re-connect as I listened to Bittar speak at Creative Mind Salon debates 21st century design.

We are constantly bombarded with the new and demand for the 'cool' which can be a struggle if we choose to keep up with, ultimately it has to come from within ourselves. Alexis Bittar got his enteprenurial start selling flowers from a handpainted cart in Brooklyn at the age of 10. By the age of 22 Bittar focused on jewlery and found his greatest design inspiration from the period of 1903 the Wiener Werkstätte movement in Vienna, vintage lucite and the Deco/ Art Noveu jewlery designer Theodor Fahrner. Elated beyond belief to share these periods as my design obsessions, especially as I chip away at the Age of Insight by Eric R. Kandel. 

That which was the biggest take away from the evenings discussion was the geniuneness with which Alexis presented himself. "A hatred for style" a lover of fantasy and abstractions towards the future; for a designer that produces over 400 pieces 3 times a year, he explained that art and commerce is a balancing act and slowing down is equally important to the speeding up.