I don’t know how I stumbled across Cul de Sac but I really enjoy the comic. Multiple folks have pointed out the mix of light and dark humor (the main character is a young näive and imaginative girl who has an older morose and morbid brother) that makes Cul de Sac comparable to Calvin & Hobbes. I really dig the amazing artistic talent mixed in with some honestly funny comics. Thompson’s “pitch” comics are really good too (available in the first published volume “Cul de Sac: This Exit”, particularly page 17 amazes me!) “Richard’s Poor Almanac” is great fun, too. Particularly if you’re familiar with life in DC. http://richardspooralmanac.blogspot.com/
Represent, San Jose. Michael Foley is one of the local graffiti/lowbrow artists I really enjoy; I had the pleasure of bidding (and the pain of not winning) some auctions of his works at Works SJ last night. Great style, amazing colors. Hope to see more and buy some. http://www.onibatsu.com/
Another in the fine stable of Double Fine artists, Nathan uses a more painterly technique in his works and his comic ranges from sublime to non-sequitor awesome. Just brought the below painting home from that Amicvs Monstrvm show. I think I owe Scott a redux, too. Best of buds, them. http://www.nathanstapley.com/
Lovely comic stylings, a touch of Gorey’s pen-and-ink (I loves me some pen and ink.) I may have to get me some. http://www.tomgauld.com/
Been spending too much time playing with my newish camera, an Olympus E-PL1. I love it so much I’m considering buying a E-P2 body so’s I have more dialz and knobz to make fast changes to settings like f-stop. I’m almost always in aperture mode on this baby, and much of the time using manual focus or using the awesomely-cool AF-MF mode (push shutter release button halfway to auto-focus, then twiddle focus wheel to adjust to where you’d really like it.) The zoom-less pancake lens is my favorite; forces me to be creative with where I take the shot, and leaves me with more time to consider other aspects of photography. But tweaking exposure (ISO equivalence), shutter speed, f-stop, and focus is still a bit too much for me to handle with most being in menus. And I’m learning. As with all things, practice practice practice.
Oh, and had a blast on Saturday night going to the opening of Amicvs Monstrvm. Meeting Scott C. (and Nathan Stapley) in person was great fun, and their boss-man Tim is totally totally a cool guy. Oh and picked out one of Nathan’s space-themed paintings. I love his style (as I obviously love Scott’s.)
Anyways, back to my photos. Hosting of this blog from home over DSL means loading large photos on the blog is a bad idea, and will suck much of my uplink speed (which is supposed to be like .7Mbps but we all know how that is.) I’ve uploaded a bunch to facebook (or as I term it, photodump. I am not fond of facebook but their unlimited photo hosting + iPhoto plugin makes it easy to share. Maybe I’ll bite the bullet and do Mobile Me so’s I can host full-rez photos.)
Here’s a crop of one of my photos from yesterday morning’s excursion. I caught wind of the NYTimes “A Moment in Time” call, wherein photographers around the world are to take a photo as close to 13:00GMT on May 2 and upload their photo to their blog. This is not the photo I uploaded; but I like it as much and it’s more artsy.
Some ingenious temporary sculpture work at a home improvement store in Paris. (Galleries are to be found by clicking on “Résidences“.)
Such fun, and genius work. Thanks to we-make-money-not-art, which has been slower lately, don’t know if the contemporary art + tech world has been slow or just the bloggers there…
Tear down blocks of houses and convert into a park. Use eminent domain, and/or upgrade everyone to a nicer house nearby that is also empty on a nearby block. Hire the folks out of work in the neighborhood to do the demolition.
Credit where credit is due, they’re already thinking about doing this in Detroit. (Yeah, NYTimes, register.)
WPA for the arts – public art has, in many cities, been relegated to crappy sculptures forced into existance by the planning commission. many cities have a “must set aside space for a public art piece”, much of which ends up being relegated to a mediocre sculpture for folks to laugh at. Instead of painting over tags (bad graffiti) and leaving the wall blank (inviting more tagging on the wonderfully blank canvas) strongly encourage folks to invite artists to create murals. Split the cost for the murals (city, county, state, fed) so everyone has a stake.
Glad to hear that the White House is thinking outside the box with regards to public and graffiti art. (And grats to Wooster Collective for being invited to the WH to chat.)
Oh, and if you think graffiti art is a nuisance or not art, you might find it interesting to know that Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat (and I’m sure many other contemporary artists) started out as graffiti artists. The stories of Haring being known by the police on a first-name basis, many of whom arrested him just for a chance to have coffee and chat are amazing. (Where I heard this, I don’t know…some NPR interview talking about the life of Haring.) Too bad I don’t find Haring or Basquiat to my personal liking, but given the amount of money their gallery pieces go for, I’m sure the art world finds their contributions important.
Nice piece on Spark, gettin’ some respect. Local graffiti artist, collaborator with Boyles.
Yeah I should have probably posted this much earlier. I’ve loved his and his friends’ work on his Double Fine site (the comics are great, sublime, funny, and nice art.) Well, “Scott C.” has a one-man show in LA and I just couldn’t pass up buying an original of his work (plus the painting of the exterior, what a great diptych!) Whee! Art collecting is fun! Watch out, or I’ll start rolling some commissioned works…Yikes.
Now I’m thinking, “I can show this in my office.” But then I’m thinking maybe the visitor center might be a good place to show NASA-related artwork. Wonder if they’ll bite.
Two great urban art examples…
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If these don’t make you laugh and smile, you are dead. See your local taxidermist to preserve your appearance of alive-ness.