:: ( CRIT ) :: DESIGN BLOG ::

Designing for a Marriage: The Ketubah

The business of weddings can be a confounding time for the high-minded designer. Amongst our peers, we can discuss our aesthetic aspirations for visual communication, but when it comes to picking out materials for a marriage, it’s hard to find decent, forward-thinking objects. I’ve encountered this many times over the past six months as I’ve been assembling my own marriage; sometimes you have to pick your battles. When the task of finding a Ketubah (a Jewish wedding contract) was presented to me, I dashed to see what I could find outside of the wedding factory.

Summer Class is in Session: A Studio Visit

I’m teaching an undergraduate design course at SVA this summer. To break up the monotony of holding class indoors every day of the week, we took a field trip this past Friday, to visit the artist James De la Vega.

We hit the east village early afternoon as his shop opened on St. Marks Place. Inside, the walls were filled with his work, even hanging from the ceiling. Myself and the students sat and listened to him tell his story. His background growing up in East Harlem, studying art at Cornell, his relationship with his mother (which you can see reflected in his ‘My mother as…’ series), and now, owning and running his own store.

I left his shop feeling inspired, as I do when I visit any gallery or museum. And I think the students took away this same feeling. If you live in New York City and haven’t been, I highly recommend visiting De La Vega’s shop.