The Swimming Cities of Serenissima is a fleet of three intricately hand crafted vessels that will navigate the Adriatic Sea from the Karst region of Slovenia to Venice, Italy in May of 2009.

The vessels are imagined as a hybrid between boats and bits of land broken off and headed out to sea. Watching them approach the shore is like seeing a floating city in the distance, as improbable as Venice itself. To the real life crew, the boats are a place of refuge – both a home and a way of moving through the world. To those who encounter the boats for the first time, they are a reminder that anything that can be imagined can be built.

The Swimming Cities are designed and organized by printmaker and installation artist SWOON. The boats’ crew is made up of 30 collaborating artists from the United States.

For more information on this project, or for donating to the cause, visit here.

During the month of July, Plazm pulled up its roots once again and moved offices from the Ford Building on Division and SE 11th to the City Signs Building on SE 3rd street between Pine and Oak. Since then we have been joined by several other creative types occupying other rooms and floors of City Signs. Here’s a few of our current neighbors.

Glass Candy – Ida No (vocals) and Johnny Jewel (producers) make music. Here’s the pitchfork review for their latest album B/E/A/T/B/O/X released under the Italians Do It Better Record Label.

Ben Stagl – an artist, seasoned metals artisan and patineur, aspiring to make subliminal dreamscapes combining sculpture and new media. His mediums of choice include cast iron, coal, fabric, baloons, performance, video, and installation.

Pow Wow Printing – a collective printing studio specializing in vintage printing techniques. They cut lo-fi vinyl records, draw, paint, design, silkscreen, letterpress, make little plastic sculptures and allow a small child access to a snare drum.

House Industries just released a new collection of typefaces and designed objects inspired by the work of mid-century designer Alexander Girard.

As a textile designer for Herman Miller from 1952 to 1973, Alexander Girard collaborated with Charles and Ray Eames and George Nelson to form what is widely known as the “Camelot” of design. In the mid-century era of Modernist sterility, Girard’s folk art sensibilities softened the hard edges of the prevailing style. His love for typography and use of illustrative lettering was evident in his personal work as well as high-profile pieces such as the renowned International Love Heart.

In creating its own interpretation of the Girard aesthetic, House Industries undertook an extensive research project, exploring four decades of the designer’s work archived at Vitra in Germany and Herman Miller in Zeeland, Michigan. A pilgrimage to New Mexico unearthed more reference materials, including Girard’s famous Unitarian Church mural in Albuquerque, his collections at the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe, and more treasures at the home of the Girard family.

For the Alexander Girard fonts, House Industries designers took inspiration from a variety of source materials and the variety shows, as does their obvious love for Girard’s work. Definitely worth a look!

Larytta – Souvenir de Chine – Video directed by Körner Union

Come check out my art up all the month of February at Stumptown Downtown. I made almost 70 paintings in 20 months on a variety of different themes, such as: passing, prop 8, the moon, yoko, the tarot etc etc etc.

You all know it’s true.

And what better a way to step up your e-cred than showing off your digitally diamond-encrusted anything? For all you internet gangsters out there with your USB flash-drives dangling from your gold chains, I recently stumbled upon an online photoshop tutorial on how to ice out anything you please. Go on. Pimp your ride. You know you want to.