Thursday 26 November 2009

Foxy fever!



New! New! New!
We've now got a whole range of lovely fox and cubs products for sale in our Lush Designs shop in Greenwich. Very soon they'll be up on our website so all you faraway folk can buy them too.

Here's me drinking my tea from my fox mug.

Thursday 19 November 2009

Naomi Ryder,

What is this mysterious, gauzy thing of beauty? Why! Its the National Gallery, exquisitely rendered in stitch.
Introducing another of our talented friends...
Oh how we love the work of Naomi Ryder. Was ever there such a talented needlestress? The fluid confidence of her drawing! The accuracy of her human observation! No wonder she's so busy and important. www.naomiryder.co.uk

Sunday 25 October 2009

Behold! The work of Stewart Helm

Stewart Helm is a most extraordinarily prolific artist. He draws quite obsessively and his works are so numerous that in one exhibition his watercolour drawings were stacked up in piles in a glass case, each stack being a couple of feet high. Each of these drawings was a work of perfection in itself.
Stewart's work is exquisite in its intricacy and is like a journey through the body including the mind - both cheerful and sinister at the same time.
This genius happens to be one of our dearest friends. You have to look very carefully to drink in the detail of these tiny naked men, lying about like a tray of oven chips.

Monday 12 October 2009

Pivotal persons 2 : Ken and Ron (Adtec)

This Lush Designs lamp shade depicts Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and features Bill himself with legendary sharp-shooter Annie Oakley, and Chief Sitting Bull, all watched by Queen Victoria (they're round the other side)
Our lamp shades are screen printed by these two marvellous brothers, Ken and Ron Servant. They work on an industrial scale in this railway arch in Deptford, very near our studio - but don't seem to mind working with small-fry like us. They print our lampshade-panels and all our birch ply-wood products.

What did we do before we found them?! We wore ourselves to an inky frazzle and made a big mess in the studio, thats what.

If you ever need anything screen-printed onto wood, canvas, paper, card, metal, plastic call Ken and Ron at Adtec. Tel. 020 8691 4778 or email sales@adtecgraphics.co.uk


Stick em up


Another Jefferson Smith photograph. This time its the Monkey lampshade in front of a pale grey wall decorated with the Stalky Pods vinyl we have recently introduced to our range of products. You can but these in our Lush Designs shop in Greenwich or email us at info@lushlampshades.co.uk. They'll soon be available from our website along with the other wall graphics.

Birds


Below is a picture of one of our Lampshades - its the mermaid design which depicts the evolution of the mermaid in the primordial swamp. The dangling birds are one of Lush Designs' most successful products - with their elegant laser-cut (by the pivotal Les Grayson) wings. Cheerfully coloured yet inscrutably expressionless, made of screen printed birch ply. A fantastic gift for someone you don't want to spent TOO much money on. I you want to get one to dangle decoratively at Christmas you can order from www.lushlampshades.co.uk.

If you think this is a rather gorgeous photograph then its because it was taken by the brilliant Jefferson Smith www.jeffersonsmith.co.uk. he's so talented. Sigh.

Pivotal Persons: Les Grayson




The debonair man-with-a-clock in our shop above is Les Grayson - known to us as Laser Les - thats because he laser cuts the wings for our birds using only one of his multifarious skills.

He is also the horological talent behind our clocks - yes he can even cut wood IN CIRCLES.

He himself is a clock-maker and engraver, but he seems to be able to make anything with his many wonderful machines.

What would Lush Designs be without Les? NOWT, thats what.

He's based in SE London and you can contact him at lesgrayson@ukonline.co.uk

Sunday 4 October 2009

Becky Oldfield, Lost and Found


Believe it or not there are other people who make beautiful things for the home. The marvellous Becky Oldfield is one of them, like us at Lush Designs she has a studio at Cockpit Arts in Deptford.

She creates amazingly beautiful things with her own hands. Up all night, her fingers raw with a thousand needle-pricks, she takes old flags, buttons, military insignia and her own screen-printed textiles and as dawn's milky light leaks through the dusty windows of her tiny, gubbins-stuffed studio it reveals magical and mysterious objects such as these.

You can see more of her work at www.lostandfounddesign.co.uk.

Saturday 3 October 2009

Mandy Prowse

Here is some of the mysterious and beautiful work of Mandy Prowse. These works of hers are quietly visceral. More about her can be found on her own blog feltbug.blogspot.com .

In her own words...

"I studied painting and printmaking at Maidstone College of Art in the 80's. Since then I have worked with photography, papier-mache, wire and textiles. The themes I explore in my work are related to birth, mortality and metamorphosis. I am interested in forms found within the human body and also in nature and the interconnectedness of all things. The line of a drawing becomes a stitched line in a textile. Finding ways of combining domestic craft with a fine-art training. Work becomes playful, rediscovering knitting skills taught me by my grandmother and then subverting this craft to elicit some kind of deeper meaning. The material informs the structure of the work. My life dictates the content."


Friday 2 October 2009

In the shop today


We've recently added our own wall graphics to the range of products we sell in the shop. These will soon be available from www.lushlampshades.co.uk too. Here's a picture of them on the wall of the shop, as well as the usual tasteful and restrained display of lampshades, tea towels, bags etc.

Sunday 27 September 2009

Sapphira McBride, Artist



Our friend Sapphi showed us her beautiful drawings and she gave us permission to put them on our blog. She said they were inspired by Lush Designs. We were so flattered - in many ways we think her work is superior - check out the curly whirly whiskers on this creature. Guess what - she's only 9 years old!

Thursday 17 September 2009

Coming soon!

Hot off the drawing board this vulpine family is soon to become a print which will appear on a series of new fox related products by Lush Designs. Our dear customers will be able to celebrate our favourite feral friends on a fox cushion, a fox shopping bag, a bone china fox mug and a fox tea towel.
For those who want to be informed of new products available from Lush Designs there is a mailing list you can join on our website (www.lushlampshades.co.uk)

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Exquisite Body

We visited the Wellcome Collection in Euston on Sunday. We were captivated by "Exquisite Bodies", a wonderful and sometimes grotesque exhibition of anatomical models. This German ivory model of a pregnant woman is only a few inches long and perfect in every detail. The carved lace pillow is particularly wonderful. The artist couldn't resist including this detail, which is scientifically unnecessary yet lends a touching humanity to this depiction of the unfortunate cadaver.

Saturday 29 August 2009

Time to grow your hair

How long would it take to grow your hair to grow this long? You could lie in the water, watching time go by, the hands slowly turning round and round and ...
before you know it you're swirling around in a universe of hair and everything is pink.

To recreate this cosmic experience you could just purchase one of Lush Designs' delightful time pieces with the long haired gal depicted thereon, thus saving you years of tedious and impractical hair-growing.



Wednesday 26 August 2009

"St Paul's Pigeons" by Mark Hearld



This is one of Mark Hearld's beautiful works. It was used as the invitation for an exhibition of work from St. Jude's gallery in Norfolk (www.stjudesgallery.co.uk). Mark was kind enough to send it to us and we couldn't get there because it happened at the same time as all that snow on February 2nd. Hopefully we'll get another opportunity to meet and we can gush at him like schoolgirls - we LOVE his work.

May we introduce ourselves?

In case you wondered who the ladies behind Lush Designs were, here we are...

We're working on a new lampshade design. Its all about London, the Thames and flood danger. Our studio and shop are in the flood plain, so sorry if we occasionally bang on about climate change.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

All new Lush Designs Blog!


A big hello to all you wunnerful people who dig our super-fancy designs. We're going to tell you what's new at Lush Designs and show you some of the things that we get excited about - including the work of our talented friends - yes, even the ones we're terribly jealous of.

For people who don't know us you can see (and buy) Lush Designs products at www.lushlampshades.co.uk.

We've had a studio at Cockpit Arts in Deptford for so long I think we could be described as venerable elders.

We've only had our shop in beautiful, historic Greenwich for a year, but of course SE10 is our second favourite borough so we're quite settled in there. If you're down that way (you can get there by boat of course) pop in and say hello, we're next to The Admiral Hardy pub in Greenwich Market.