The Artful Home: Jim Datz Brooklyn Poster

I'm flipping for this brand-new Brooklyn Poster from graphic designer and illustrator Jim Datz. (Our daughter was born at home in Cobble Hill during our two-year sojourn in NYC, and will forever be a Brooklyn girl.)

Combining typography, color, '50s-style illustration, and urban signage, the signed, limited-edition screenprint measures 16 by 24 inches and is printed on 100-percent recycled paper.

It's $48 exclusively at Three Potato Four, and makes a nice companion piece to Datz's Manhattan Poster, above. Check out more of Datz's work right here.

Wanderlust: The Ace Hotel New York

I've been fantasizing endlessly about an adults-only trip to New York this spring. (Unless a couple thousand bucks magically fall out of the sky, it ain't gonna happen. But still.)

We'd do grown-up things the entire time: Shopping from one end of the island (and Brooklyn) to the other, visiting museums and galleries, enjoying meals at trendy eateries, and meeting old friends for drinks. And we'd crash at the brand new, industrial chic Ace Hotel New York. With rooms there starting at just $99 a night -- cheap by Manhattan standards -- that's just about the only part of this scenario that's not straight out of Fantasyland.

Anyway, take a look:

Photo: Monocle

Photo: Michael Williams/Selectism

Photo: Katie Sokoler/Gothamist

Photo: Hint Magazine

Photo: men.style.com

More info on the Ace's new Manhattan outpost here.

(P.S. My visit to the Portland, Oregon Ace is detailed here.)

Cool Stuff: Brooklyn Tableware from Fishs Eddy

My husband and I are both California natives, and have spent most of our lives here. But although Oakland is home now, Brooklyn will always hold a special place in our hearts. Our daughter born there, for one -- that's her below on the stoop of the apartment building where she entered the world. (Yes, she was born at home -- by accident. It's a long story.) And building snowmen in the schoolyard across the street and climbing onto the bus for the ride to playgroup in Park Slope are some of our son's very first memories. We also made several amazing and, I hope, lifelong friends during our stint in the brownstone-filled borough.

So when a pal reminded me yesterday of Fishs Eddy, the incredible New York dishware outlet that we used to frequent in our NYC days, I popped over to the company's website to see what was on offer, and was delighted to discover this line of whimsical Brooklyn-themed items.

Clockwise from top left: Glass, Square Plate, Tote, Mug, Small Tray, Cereal Bowl. Prices range from just $4 to about $14 per piece. Check out the entire collection right here.

P.S. If you find yourself in New York, don't pass up a chance to visit the flagship Fishs Eddy on Broadway at 19th. In addition to the company's own signature wares, you'll find a mindblowing collection of unique table- and servingware salvaged from hotels and restaurants across the country.

Mark Your Calendar: Evan B. Harris at Charmingwall

Normally, I try to keep these Mark Your Calendar listings Bay Area-based -- but we all know that I'm semi-stalking poor, unsuspecting Evan B. Harris, so I'm making an exception in this case.

Harris' new solo show, Butterfly Kisses, opens at the Charmingwall Gallery in Manhattan this Saturday, June 7, and runs through July 2. The pieces that this rising Portland art star created for the show feature his typically detailed, fanciful, and surreal backgrounds combined with tongue-in-cheek portraiture of cultural icons like Woody Allen, David Bowie, Frida Kahlo, and others. Love it! Each is $175.

If you're in NYC this month, be sure to check it out. Everyone else, take a look at Harris' collection of Charmingwall prints, like "Whale & Innards," below -- just $20 a pop! -- and see more of his work here.

The Artful Home: Jen Ferguson

The last time we visited New York, we made a date to visit Jen Ferguson's art studio in Brooklyn's Dumbo. Jen is our friend Ted's sister, and we'd long coveted the original pieces that we'd seen hanging in Ted and his wife Ellen's home.

The color saturation and detail work in Jen's paintings is incredible, and we admired her wickedly comic, Goreyesque renderings of people and other assorted beasts. But it was her architectural work that we really fell for. After we moved back to the Bay Area from Brooklyn, we decided that we simply must have some of the Pratt Institute graduate's dark depictions of New York landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chrysler Building to remind us of our time in that great city.

Original art is pretty much out of our budget at this point in our lives, but that day in Dumbo we picked out a bunch of prints that we treasure. And visiting Jen's studio made a huge impression on our artistic daughter, who was only 7 at the time: As soon as we got home, she started begging us for a big art table on which to set up her many creative projects, and a smooth glass paint palette just like Jen's. She received both, and now her room is more art studio than bedroom.

Whether Laurel eventually becomes a working artist like Jen remains to be seen, but I think the idea of a space of one's own in which to create -- as well as the notion that you can grow up and actually continue making art -- are ideas that will stick with Laurel forever.

Anyway, after visiting Jen's website recently, I was delighted to discover that she's now selling archival prints as well as originals online.

A sampling of Jen's available work:

Brooklyn Bridge Footpath, $15 for an 8-by-11-inch print or $125 for a 13-by-19-inch print

Manhattan Bridge print, $15

Brooklyn Bound print, $125

The Brooklyn Side print, $125

Elephant & Castle print, $65

Dejuner sur L'herbe print, $15

Fiesta print, $12

The Pool watercolor on paper, $425 framed

The Long Bridge watercolor on paper, $425 framed

To see more, visit Jen Ferguson's site and online store. (And if you live in the New York area, stay tuned for details on Jen's next exhibition in November.)

The Artful Home: Ann Sophie Staerk

I was catching up on (i.e., mostly fast-forwarding through) my Tivoed design shows this weekend when I came across the diminutive New York City loft below on HGTV's Small Space, Big Style. Designed by architect Leonardo Annecca, the loft functions as both an apartment for Annecca and his family and a work-and-exhibit space.

The thing that grabbed my attention, though, wasn't so much the spare, neon-lit space itself -- but the vibrant artwork on the walls, done by Annecca's wife, Ann Sophie Staerk.

Hailing from Denmark and trained at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen and the Chelsea School of Art in London, Staerk creates images that have been described as having a "sand art innocence." Other pieces (like Flowerblow, top) feature a kaliedescopic pop sensibility, and still others have an organic dreaminess that bridges abstract and figural work (such as Aquatic Interior, below).

Many of Staerk's paintings start as digital snapshots of city interiors and exteriors, which she projects onto large canvases. Boiling the images down to their essential forms by tracing the outlines of her original subjects, she then fills them in with bold blocks of color, transforming recognizable urban spaces such as shops and houses into almost-abstract landscapes.

A look at a few of Staerk's pieces:

Am I a Freedom Junkie?

Glam Rock

Deardeer

By the River

Waves of My Denmark

Lollipop

Crane II

Hair Blow II

Staerk exhibits in Copenhagen (where she has a group show starting September 7) and New York, and prices for her paintings seem to start at about $1,200.

That's a bit rich for my blood, but I'd love to get my hands on some prints of Staerk's work. I'll be sure to keep you posted if I find any.