Keith Pollock Named SVP, Creative of West Elm, and More News This Week

Shop the Frank Lloyd Wright Look

New products in the Frank Lloyd Wright Usonia™ Collection are officially available. Specifically, those interested can expect chair, ottoman, and stool options. Each of the pieces is inspired by designs in Wright’s famous interiors. A bright, and Prairie Style, idea. 

All About Arts

Salon Art + Design Plans Print Magazine

Salon Art + Design isn’t happening come November. In the fair’s stead, the organizers are taking an interesting approach by launching a print magazine. “Once we decided that we had to cancel Salon, we gave a lot of thought about the best platform in which to recast it,” executive director Jill Bokor says to AD PRO. “As a longtime magazine person, it seemed to me that people might welcome an elegant publication that replicates the sensibility of the fair. People are getting tired of the digital viewing rooms, and though we will have a digital component, it seemed worth a try to return to a more historic mode of creating content…. Hopefully, people will enjoy seeing the world’s most eclectic objects of art and collectible design on paper rather than pixels.”

Also of note: Being Seen, a new podcast focused on the black male experience, is organizing a series of episodes that focus on Black artists and creatives. Saeed Jones, Jerome LaMaar, Samira Nasr, Yashua Simmons, Ben Cory Jones, Kiese Laymon, and Lee Daniels are all expected as future guests, while Kara Walker, Thomas Evans, and Ronald Jackson are also slated to be involved. 

Awards

Center for Architecture and AIANY Announce Scholarships

The two organizations have announced that they’ve awarded $67,500 total via a grant and scholarship program designed “to make architecture education accessible to all and diversify research in architecture, while connecting students and emerging professionals to AIANY members and programs,” in a statement. Among the recipients are Leticia Bohrer Ávila, who received a $7,500 scholarship for use during her Master of Architecture program at the University at Buffalo; and Florence Methot, who was awarded $5,000 to support her Master of Architecture studies at the Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York. 

Real Estate

Paris Forino’s 300 West Debuts

Australian-born and New York–based interior designer Paris Forino has completed her first Harlem-set residential complex. “For the 300 West 122nd interior design, we applied our signature blend of classic touches with modern features, emphasizing style and form,” Forino tells AD PRO. “The sumptuous materials and lightly toned finishes convey beauty, spaciousness, and a refined calm.” Serenity now! 

Good Works

The Sustainability Furnishings Council to Host Environmental and Racial Justice Webinar

Next Thursday, August 20, at 12 p.m. ET, Thom Filicia, Libby Langdon, and Corey Damen Jenkins with moderator Erika Heet, Interiors magazine’s editor in chief, will participate in a panel that will address questions of social and environmental justice within the interiors industry, the current pandemic, and weather crises. As the organization notes in a statement: “Weather disasters related to climate change, and government policies informed by systemic racism, intersect particularly in communities of color, which are known to have higher exposure rates to air pollution, proximity to toxic landfills, and unsafe levels of lead-contaminated tap water.” The event is open to all. Register online. 

Efforts Continue to Aid Lebanon

The recent explosion in Beirut continues to impact the local design community. Luckily, some are trying to help. Design Stands Together is working to aid those affected by the recent Beirut explosion by organizing donations to Impact Lebanon. And elsewhere, the World Monuments Fund is attempting to work with the nation of Lebanon to assist in whatever ways possible. Hopefully, such efforts will only continue.