According to Chiao, they treat natural and synthetic materials as equal sources of inspiration. “We might agree that the spectrum of natural versus artificial is continuous,” she says. “Nature is really a construction of the human mind in a way, maybe designed as a way to separate ourselves as humans from the natural world. But in reality, we are a part of it. So a lot of the things that we’re attracted to come from the ‘man-made’ or ‘utilitarian’ world versus the ‘natural’ world. So they’re two descriptors that we use but they often flow into each other.”

“If we ever copy nature we generally fail, but if we use it as a starting point it leads to something more unique in the end,” notes Frezza. Play and craft are also important elements in their work. “Play means giving ourselves permission to do whatever we want and craft means the editors in us coming out and mediating the making process,” explains Frezza. “But play and craft are in constant flux in our practice,” he adds.

Founded in 2011 and based in New York City, the two have exhibited their collaborative work in solo exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, in numerous group shows around the US, and in a variety of art and design venues internationally. And with more than 35k fans on Instagram, they’re making quite a splash both offline and online. See for yourself:

The post A Colorful Mess: Artist Duo Experiments with Different Materials appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“When I look back at my childhood I realize that my path in the craft and lifestyle world was pretty much set from the start,” she admitted in an interview with Mom Filter. “I loved making things and was always hoarding cardboard and other materials for crafts, planning parties and decorating for holidays. I pored over every women’s or lifestyle magazine that my mom bought and made a series of tiny, strange fashion and food magazines.”

This passion continued, and after graduating from RISD (where she studied painting) she found a perfect job in the Craft Department at Martha Stewart Living, where she worked for over 19 years.

Her job? Transforming everyday items into works of magic. Based in Brooklyn with her husband Fred and two sons, Sammy and Lionel, she has made an Elizabethan princess costume out of coffee filters, a parking garage for kids made entirely of toilet paper and paper towel tubes and cardboard boxes, and even her own wedding flowers made from crepe paper.

“I’m not sure that becoming a parent shaped my choice of work,” she says. “I always loved creating crafts for kids and pushed for doing the kids magazine at Martha Stewart way before I had kids. I do, however, think that the ideas that I came up with after becoming a parent, whether for kid’s crafts, birthday parties or recipes, were much much simpler!”

Follow her Instagram page for a pop of inspiration.

The post Jodi Levine Transforms Everyday Items Into Works of Magic appeared first on PlayJunkie.

According to Chiao, they treat natural and synthetic materials as equal sources of inspiration. “We might agree that the spectrum of natural versus artificial is continuous,” she says. “Nature is really a construction of the human mind in a way, maybe designed as a way to separate ourselves as humans from the natural world. But in reality, we are a part of it. So a lot of the things that we’re attracted to come from the ‘man-made’ or ‘utilitarian’ world versus the ‘natural’ world. So they’re two descriptors that we use but they often flow into each other.”

“If we ever copy nature we generally fail, but if we use it as a starting point it leads to something more unique in the end,” notes Frezza. Play and craft are also important elements in their work. “Play means giving ourselves permission to do whatever we want and craft means the editors in us coming out and mediating the making process,” explains Frezza. “But play and craft are in constant flux in our practice,” he adds.

Founded in 2011 and based in New York City, the two have exhibited their collaborative work in solo exhibitions in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, in numerous group shows around the US, and in a variety of art and design venues internationally. And with more than 35k fans on Instagram, they’re making quite a splash both offline and online. See for yourself:

The post A Colorful Mess: Artist Duo Experiments with Different Materials appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“When I look back at my childhood I realize that my path in the craft and lifestyle world was pretty much set from the start,” she admitted in an interview with Mom Filter. “I loved making things and was always hoarding cardboard and other materials for crafts, planning parties and decorating for holidays. I pored over every women’s or lifestyle magazine that my mom bought and made a series of tiny, strange fashion and food magazines.”

This passion continued, and after graduating from RISD (where she studied painting) she found a perfect job in the Craft Department at Martha Stewart Living, where she worked for over 19 years.

Her job? Transforming everyday items into works of magic. Based in Brooklyn with her husband Fred and two sons, Sammy and Lionel, she has made an Elizabethan princess costume out of coffee filters, a parking garage for kids made entirely of toilet paper and paper towel tubes and cardboard boxes, and even her own wedding flowers made from crepe paper.

“I’m not sure that becoming a parent shaped my choice of work,” she says. “I always loved creating crafts for kids and pushed for doing the kids magazine at Martha Stewart way before I had kids. I do, however, think that the ideas that I came up with after becoming a parent, whether for kid’s crafts, birthday parties or recipes, were much much simpler!”

Follow her Instagram page for a pop of inspiration.

The post Jodi Levine Transforms Everyday Items Into Works of Magic appeared first on PlayJunkie.