• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Nikki DeSautelle

Detroit illustrator Nikki DeSautelle employs exactly the kind of dark humor that I love the mostest.

A page from “The Worst Ghost”

Nikki is a CCS grad, working as a freelance illustrator and teaching at the DIA. Much more of her work can be seen at nikkidesautelle.com.

Weekends in Detroit #2

This weekend was a good balance of fun and work for Dennis and I. On Friday, we stopped for dinner at Traffic Jam & Snug. (Thanks to Becks Davis of Detroit Moxie for the excellent suggestion.) We have a strange newfound obsession with fried pickles. I took a picture of them, but I don’t know, I just think food pictures are gross unless you’re a really good photographer. Do you agree, or is that just me?

On to the grand opening of City Bird. That place blew us away. And it was packed! We want to go back there when it’s not so crowded. Not only did they have a ton of cute things, but their displays were genius.

Click the cut to see what I bought, plus pics from our Saturday spent working in the studio.

Read more…

Krysta, Jane, and Ben at 555 Arts

For the past three months 555 Gallery was home to three New York artists as part of an artist residency. I had stumbled across their blog that chronicles their stay in Detroit, and it gives some interesting insight into how others view the city. It was wonderful to see these artists thoroughly immerse themselves in the city and it’s culture.

Part of the artists’ residency included constructing cement cakes that were then installed in abandoned pastry shop on Chene street (which since then has sadly burned down). I really like how they incorporated found objects in an abandoned pastry shop to use within the cakes.

Much more after the break.

Read more…

Weekends in Detroit #1

Dennis and I try our best to be productive newlyweds on the weekends. We always plan to do design work and spiff up our little home together, but you see, we get distracted. This weekend was no exception. Saturday started off with good intentions as we bought some photo emulsion for screen printing. But it went downhill from there after we (…ok, I) really wanted nutella and banana crepes for breakfast. And the gorgeous weather made it hard to get back on track after that.

At some point, we decided to document our diversions for the blog. We’re planning to make Weekends in Detroit a reoccuring column…but hopefully we can get some work done in between!

Our search for nutella crepes led us to the new indoor location of Good Girls Go To Paris. Right next door is a new independent bookstore called Leopold’s, which I’d read about recently on The Night Train. (If you’re into Detroit history or just appreciate good writing, it’s definitely a good local blog to check out.) It was a pleasant surprise to find it there. This place has a ton of art and design books and a pretty good selection of handmade zines.

I wavered between buying a Quimby the Mouse book; Arboretum, which is a compendium of various penciled diagrams; and a zine from Grass Hut gallery in Portland. Since Carson Ellis had done an interview and the cover art, I ended up with the zine.

While inside Leopold’s, my camera died, postponing our visit to the Dequindre Cut until Sunday. But make it there we did! Click below to read about the rest of our adventure…

Read more…

Compound Gallery, Keegan Onefoot and the Em Space Book Arts Center

This is a long story about part of our trip to Portland.

We paid a visit to Compound Gallery, who had a great show up called “Textbook History”. You can see all of the artwork still for sale here. My favorites:

 

Click below to read the rest of the story…

Read more…

Copyright © 2008-2012 Perfect Laughter