Friday Favorites 11/23/2012

Cheryl Katz, Contributing Editor
As I perused my friend Cat’s wonderfully esoteric bookshelves before dinner last week, I came across a book of drawings by Ernst Haeckel. The nineteenth-century biologist and artist’s drawings of radlolarians–one-celled, ocean-dwelling organisms with intricate mineral skeletons–reminded me, in light of the devastation that Hurricane Sandy wrought, what perfect beauty there is to be found in nature and what visual inspiration it offers.

Paula M. Bodah, Senior Editor
If you’re like me, you love the whole “shop local†movement. Honestly, who are all those people who enjoy joining the hordes at the mall the minute all that remains of Thanksgiving is a tight waistband? Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, Artefact Home/Garden is ratcheting the concept up a big notch by donating part of its sales to charity. I hardly need an extra enticement to get me into the Belmont, Massachusetts, shop with its artfully curated collection of wonderful and unique furniture, accessories and fun things for the house and garden, but it gives me a warm feeling to know that while I’m buying gifts for friends and family (and maybe a little something for myself), I’ll be doing a bit of good in the world.

Let’s say I buy this Montes Doggett bakeware. Artefact will donate 10 percent of the purchase price to the American Red Cross.

And if I buy this fabulous Royal Crown Planter from Pennoyer Newman, Artefact will give the American Red Cross 20 percent–yes, 20 percent–because the shop is donating that percentage on sales from their New York vendors.

Kyle Hoepner, Editor-in-Chief
To continue this week’s book theme a little closer to home, Keith Moskow and Robert Linn of Boston’s Moskow Linn Architects have just come out with Contemporary Follies, a survey of fifty arrestingly quirky small structures–not necessarily useless, unlike many of their Gothic-ruin ancestors–by architects in various parts of the world. Another potential gift idea for your design maven of choice.