I’ve long been a fan of Michael Salter‘s work, although I didn’t know who he was until somewhat recently. I first encountered his art on the side of a dumpster a few years ago, and was immediately enamored by it. Seeing such simple yet beautiful iconography over a unusual medium was moving and thought provoking.

A few weeks ago when my sister was in town for a visit we decided to stop by Holly Aiken‘s store. Like so many others that see Holly’s stuff for the first time, she was absolutely enthralled. In wandering around, I noticed some of the bags carried the icons that I had come to know on the dumpster near where I live. It was part of CAHOOTS, a collaboration involving artists Michael Salter and Paul Friedrich.

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Mushroom - Kendal Draper modeling for Alyssa McNamara

In case you missed it, there was a fashion last night. The Art to Wear show, hosted by both the College of Design and the College of Textiles, features student designers from both of the colleges. This is probably the sixth or seventh one that I’ve seen and it was easily one of the best – although it would be hard to top last year’s event in the Court of North Carolina in terms of venue. I will say that the lighting in Reynolds Coliseum was much, much better, though. As were my seats. The only downside was that it wasn’t outside – although I could see the benefits of moving it indoors. Nevertheless, I managed to get some great tickets from a friend of mine and we headed down to check out the show. There were 15 designers, from Sophomore to Senior, to Graduate level showing off a myriad of themes, inspiration coming from the White Witch in the Chronicles of Narnia, to the American Dream, French Desserts, and Nesting. Rumor has it that over 5000 people showed up. That rivals the Krispy Kreme Challenge in terms of student-run events! Enough talk, though. Let’s get to the pictures!

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As I sit here reflecting on this past weekend, listening to The Picard Song and eating some chips and salsa, I can’t help but think what an amazing few days it has been. The weather has been perfect, I played a lot of disc golf, and most importantly, Friday had perhaps the best First Friday experience I’ve ever encountered.

My evening started at 5:00 PM when I rode my bike down to the College of Design to check out the student work, as well as the things posted by Alumni of the College as part of their 60th Anniversary celebration. Studio Collective was Friday, and as part of the celebration, they had a competition to see who had the best looking bikes in the following categories: Scraper, Fixed Gear, and Open Category (anything goes). All this explanation is really just setup for describing the bike ride – due to a ‘perfect storm’ of conditions (bike competition at studio crawl, beautiful weather, great shows, First Friday, a scavenger hunt), First Friday was hopping like I’ve never seen it!

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