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Designwire

Annie Block, Mark McMenamin, and Meghan Edwards -- Interior Design, 5/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has extended its reach to Governors Island, ½ mile away across New York Harbor, by bringing in Davis Brody Bond Aedas to retrofit a 14,000-square-foot 1870's military building as studio, exhibition, and rehearsal space for visual and performing artists. Since March, approximately 30 of them—chosen by a committee that includes Storefront for Art and Architecture director Joseph Grima—have been working there. Free public ferries start running for the season on June 5.

A bowl isn't just a bowl when it's the work of cabinetmaker and furniture restorer Merete Larsen, aka the "alchemist of the forest." She turns vessels by carving woods to a nearly translucent thinness, then stains them with water-based acrylics. Two dozen pieces, including this one in sycamore, come to the Patina Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from June 18 to July 11.

Street art, paintings on canvas, sculpture, clothing, and limited-edition toys will all appear in "Kaws," the solo museum debut of a creative dynamo whose real name is Brian Donnelly. When the show opens June 27 at Connecticut's Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, aficionados of his design brand, Original Fake, are sure to flock to his 4-foot-tall Companion, all six versions.

Five is the magic number at the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. The 500-acre site is marking its 50th anniversary with "5+5: New Perspectives." The exhibition highlights five artists new to Storm King—John Bisbee, Maria Elena González, Darrell Petit, Alyson Shotz, Stephen Talasnik—and five who are already present but contributing new works. In the latter group is Ursula von Rydingsvard, whose 17-foot-tall Luba is cedar, cast bronze, and graphite. Fittingly, the show opens June 5.

Interior Design Hall of Fame members Orlando Diaz-Azcuy, Eva Maddox, and Gary Wheeler are among the experts revealing the tricks of the trade to the trade in Interior Design Practice, published by this magazine with the Allworth Press and edited by our contributing editor Cindy Coleman. The 251 pages address such pertinent issues as managing finances, expanding your business, and communicating floor plans and elevations to clients. Soft-covered and notebook-size, the book is tidy enough to tote from site to site.