Vidal Sassoon Dies But His Cuts Live On. A Look At The Hair Master's Muses And Styles.

above: Vidal Sassoon with some of his models donning his famous cuts

"My idea was to cut shape into the hair, to use it like fabric and take away everything that was superfluous." - Vidal Sassoon

Legendary Hair Stylist Vidal Sassoon has passed away at the age of 84 at his Mullholland Estate in Los Angeles, after a rumored battle with Leukemia.



He changed the lives and looks of women everywhere with his 1960's geometric cuts that allowed women to spend less time on their appearance and still look fabulous.


above: Sassoon cuts Mia Farrow's Hair for her role in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby

He shocked the world when he chopped off actress Mia Farrow's hair in 1967 for the movie Rosemary's Baby and gave her the pixie still worn by many actresses today such as Natalie Portman, Emma Watson, Carey Mulligan, Gennifer Goodwin, Alyssa Milano and Victoria Beckham:



With muses like Vogue editor Grace Coddington, Fashion designer Mary Quant, 60's Model Twiggy, Actresses Mia Farrow, Nancy Kwan, Carol Channing, and more, his status grew to legendary proportions.

With Carol Channing:

With Mia Farrow:

With Mary Quant:

With Grace Coddington:


And a few famous women sporting his cuts:

Peggy Moffitt:

Twiggy:

Mia Farrow:

Grace Coddington:


The Pixie Cut, the Five Point Bob, The Box Bob, The Inverted Bob, the Long Bob, The Asymmetrical Bob, The Quiff Bob, The Acute Angle cut are just a few of the styles he made famous and are still popular today.

The Quiff Bob:

The Five Point Bob:


The Acute Angle Cut:

The Inverted Bob:

The Asymmetrical Bob:


The Box Bob:

The Long Inverted Bob:

The Long Bob:


Vidal Sassoon continues to have a profound influence on hairstyles and hair dressers and his work will live on forever. His legacy includes, in addition to the haircuts, a full line of Vidal Sassoon products, an autobiography and a book.

Rest In Peace Maurice Sendak

Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, best known for his Caldecott Medal winning book, Where the Wild Things Are, has passed away. We are blessed he has left us with such a heart-warming legacy and that his wonderful work lives on.

Amazon's complete selection of Maurice Sendak Books, Audio books and DVDs

Ready, Aim... Frame. Bullet Casing Portraits of Lennon, Lincoln, Kennedy and Others.

above: Abraham Lincoln (detail), made with real used bullet casings

Another artist who has found a way to use ammunition in his work, David S. Palmer, joins the ranks of these talented folks about whom I've written; Al Farrow uses bullets in his amazing reliquaries, Unearthen makes stunning jewelry of bullet casings and gems, Jason Clay Lewis has a series of engraved bullets and artist Walt Creel uses bullet holes to create his artwork.

So what does David do with bullets? He uses spent bullet casings to create portraits of heroes, all of whom were actually felled by bullets, with the exception one: John Wayne.


above: David uses a torch to place the finishing touches on the Tupac portrait.

A contemporary artist, David S. Palmer was born in Knox, Indiana in 1953 and studied fine art at Ball State University. In 1976 moved to Laguna Beach, California where he is now represented by Lu Martin Galleries.

John Lennon:



above: John Lennon, "Peacemaker" 4ft x 4ft., mixed media/bullet casings

John F. Kennedy:

above: John F. Kennedy, "The Proud American" 41" x 31", mixed media/bullet casings

Abraham Lincoln:


above: Lincoln, "Dark Days, Dark Times", 38" x 38", mixed media/bullet casings

Tupac Shakur:



above: Tupac Shakur, "Angels With Broken Wings", 29" x 39", mixed media/bullet casings

John Wayne:

above: John Wayne, "The Duke" 36" x 36", mixed media/bullet casings

Images are all from the artist's site. Mr. Palmer, as talented as he is, could use some new photographs of his work and a much needed website redesign.

David is represented by Lu Martin Galleries, 372 North Coast Hwy, Laguna Beach, CA 92651

Remembering Eva Zeisel 1906-2012. Her Life and Her Work.

The world lost a legend on December 30th when Eva Zeisel died at the age of 105. In honor of her passing, I am reprinting a post I wrote on her amazing life and work in April of 2010.


above: Eva Zeisel, 2009, photos courtesy of Talisman Photo

103 year old Eva Zeisel continues to amaze. The Hungarian born designer just doesn't stop. In addition to being an enormous talent, she has a life story as interesting as her work.

She was born Eva Amalia Stricker on November 13th to Alexander and Laura Polanyi Stricker. At the age of 17 she enrolled in the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, intent on becoming a painter, but was convinced by her mother to try a trade at which she could earn money. She then began apprenticing as a potter. In 1925, she started her own pottery on her family estate. In 1927 she moved to Hamburg Germany, where she worked at Hansa Kunstkeramic for 6 months.

In 1932, she visited Russia for the first time. She worked at the Lomonosov Manufactory designing dinnerware and at the Artistic Laboratory of the Lomonosov State Porcelain Factory (the former Imperial Porcelain Factory) in Leningrad.



By 1935 she was the artistic director of the Glass and China Industries in Moscow, Russia. It was soon after, in 1936, that the talented Stricker was falsely accused of being part of a conspiracy to kill Josef Stalin and imprisoned in Russia for 16 months, 12 of which were spent in solitary confinement.

Upon her 1937 release from prison (without explanation), she was put on a train to Vienna where she was met by relatives. In 1938 she married her second husband, Hans Zeisel in England (her first marriage was to physicist Alexander Weissberg and was dissolved). Soon after marrying Zeisel, they both moved to new York.

In 1939, she created the first department of ceramic arts industrial design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where she taught until 1952.


above: Eva Zeisel in 1940 with student work at Pratt. Image courtesy of Pratt.
above image courtesy of Eva Zeisel Archives

She then went on to design iconic pieces for Chantal, Sears, Red Wing Pottery, Hall China Company, Watt Pottery, H. Heisey and more. You can still find many of her vintage pieces at the Orange Chicken Gallery.

At the impressive age of 103, she is still actively designing. She has current collections of ceramics and silk-screened prints for Klein Reid, Classic Century ceramics and One O One earthenware for Royal Stafford, the re-issued Granit collection for Design Within Reach, pens, pen holder and card holder designs for Acme, hand blown glassware collections for Gumps , glassware, aluminum and more for Nambé, exclusive China pieces for various galleries, and a furniture line, and most recently a collection of three Tibetan wool rugs for The Rug Company.



above photos courtesy of Talisman photo and the Brooklyn Museum

Eve Zeisel Glassware for Gumps:


Exclusives for the Neue gallerie:
Fine bone china Baby feeder:

Porcelain painted Icebox pitchers:


Eva Zeisel for Royal Stafford


A coffee set she designed in 1940:

One O One:


Eva Zeisel for Klein Reid:



Eva Zeisel for Nambé:




Eva Zeisel Glassware for Bombay Sapphire:


Designed in early 2001, the Centennial Set consists of six impressively scaled celebratory goblets inspired by Eva's martini glass designed exclusively for the Bombay Sapphire's promotional campaign. Individually hand-blown by master craftsmen, these elegant works of art are made of the highest quality glass.

Eva Zeisel Originals (furniture and more):





Eva Zeisel for Design Within Reach:

Granit tableware:


Eve Zeisel For The Rug Company:

Fish and Lacy X:



Her work is included in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including MoMA, the Met and the V&A. In 2005, she was awarded the National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement by the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.

The Wall Street Journal has a nice little interview with Eva Zeisel here.

Special thanks to the Eva Zeisel forum for additional information and links.

Eva Zeisel Books, Dinnerware and More