Delft Now & Overused: two styles from museum archives

I built two custom Recraft V4 Styles from public-domain objects in museum collections, then used each one to imagine things their makers never could: our offices, our clothes, our phones and our daily habits.

1. DELFT NOW

What if the 17th-century painters of Delft decorated the way we work and dress today?

References: a Delftware vase from De Grieksche A factory (c. 1690–1700) and a Delft plate (1695–1705), both at the Art Institute of Chicago.

From the vase I took the cobalt garlands and lattice painted on white tin glaze; from the plate, the flowers, fences and small birds. Both were cropped to their painted surfaces so the style learns the brushwork and the blue-and-white palette, not the shape of the pottery.

The style is shown in three chapters: office and studio interiors, a product collection of bags, shoes, hats and accessories, and a studio lookbook.

2. OVERUSED

What if the things we use most aged 2,000 years overnight, and we kept using them anyway?

References: the Celestial Horse from China's Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE) at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and a bronze belt hook inlaid with gold and silver from the Warring States to Western Han period at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From the horse I took the green verdigris patina and the worn surface of old bronze; from the belt hook, the thin lines of gold and silver inlay. Phones, earbuds, watches, remotes and keyboards take on the patina of a Han dynasty bronze, while the hands, the light and the moment stay photographic.

The style is shown as museum-like posters and everyday photography.

Two archives, two very different materials, one idea: the past can still dress the present.