Mary Voorhees Meehan

BAZAZAS

  • BAZAZAS is a workshop in service of the human experience, founded by me and Scarlett Boulting.

    I wanted to create a place where we could test ideas about living through objects. Boulting, whose background was in fashion, became an enthusiastic partner. We made an online store so people could access things we find and make. And I developed a way of talking about those things through images I find on Google. Through a series of pop-up installations, we caught the attention of Areaware and Herman Miller, who hired us to create stories with the objects and furniture they pedal.

    Here's what we say about ourselves:

    BAZAZAS is a workshop in service of the human experience. We make and collect objects and create environments that describe our lives in new, funny, sad, fast, and upside-down ways. Improvisation is everywhere, even in the most established procedures. There is a makeshift aspect to all tools. It is in this awkward, taken-for-granted place that BAZAZAS is rooted.
  • Found images describing some socks that are tie-dyed and look remarkably in tune with NASA imaging.
  • Image created for an email reminding folks to visit our holiday pop-up.
  • Detail of a pop-up installation at The Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn. We grab mostly things we like the looks of at Home Depot and turn them into pedestals, tables, and odd little landscapes on and in which our everyday items might live.
  • Pop-up at the Wythe Hotel; Scroll down to see how this white ceramic basket was described on our website.
  • Eye of the Beholder Valentines pop-up promo image
  • MAY DAY MAY DAY 2-day pop-up in May in DUMBO
  • Promo image for our MAY DAY MAY DAY pop-up
  • Our first pop-up was in an odd flower stall behind a bodega. We did it at Christmas-time so we smelled, overwhelmingly of Christmas trees. The scent followed everyone who bought anything home.
  • Dusters make excellent tablescapes.
  • On BAZAZAS.com, I move through images in a sort of stream of consciousness. There is lots of visual rhyming. Here, we are talking about a white ceramic vessel that looks like a basket because it has two handles. I liked how the ceramicist made a diagram of a basket that is also a functional basket.
  • Here, I'm talking about "cloudware" made by haand, down in North Carolina. So I wanted to show the North Carolina sky alongside Wedgewood Jasperware, both of which they describe as references. I like comparing the people in each image.
  • Lindsey Oesterritter's wood-fired ceramics look like something that might have been discovered in an anthropological dig, so I thought why not tell that story.
  • The logo I drew for BAZAZAS harkens back to the origins of the name. We just rotated the "N"s in "BANANAS" and they became "Z"s. Wahlah!
  • Areaware commissioned BAZAZAS to create stories surrounding a few of their new products. We decided they probably lived in our neighborhood and ran around looking for them. We called the shoot "Inderstanding Unventory."
  • Another image from the "Inderstanding Unventory" shoot.
  • We made T-square Tea Towels because we thought it was funny to make towels on which you could chart (and perfect?) spills. I also was happy to discover that "blotting" and "plotting" were very close.
  • Stationery for an Extrovert: We thought it was funny to print the patterns that traditionally line #10 security envelopes to keep people from seeing their contents on the outside of cards. (It's like wearing your underwear on top of your pants.)