OTHER: FACEBOOK FAILS

I Stumbled on these today... They're dumb, but they're pretty funny.

I love a good Fail.

I found them on ODDEE, a pretty fun time-wasting site.



And my personal favorite:
Happy Sunday.

ART?

I was looking at some art on Etsy, and found this when I searched for "Encaustic Paintings," and sorted them high-priced to low. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it...

I'm 90% sure this is a joke, like those terrible singers who pop up on American Idol. I know art is subjective and bladdy-blah, but I think that we can all agree that this is terrible. If you look closely you'll see that there's some hair glued to the piece near the top, and I think there are pipe cleaners in the bottom left hand corner, sticking out like tentacles. Ugly, ugly tentacles.

Here's the description that accompanies the painting:

"The painting is a collaborative piece of mind and matter, emphasizing the power of direction in the focus of surrealism. Bright glitter specs to muted beeswax melted into many recycled trinkets depicted the chakras, reality, violence & rebirth. The art is completely eco-designed, painted on salvages (sic) wood, local bought beeswax, and a year's worth collected junk that became part of the art."

I'm not sure if this is some kind of Kaufman-esque prank, and I'm less sure if it would be worse for this to be real, or to accept that my faith in art is so beaten up that I see something like this and believe that it might be real.

If only that write-up -that fucked up, garbled, say-nothing write-up- didn't sound so much like so many actual, real-life Artist's Statements...

There's a lack of respect for the artist these days, and most of that comes from so-called artistes, who think that throwing paint at canvasses -not in that Jackson Pollock kind of way- makes you real. Art is hard. Art takes skill, talent and practice. There is bad art, contrary to popular belief. I can judge someone else's art, and so can you; and you should, if for no other reason than art is hard.

And by the by: This painting is listed at $24,000. It's got to be a joke.

DESIGN: LASER CUT FABRIC

From a company called Little Factory, out of Hong Kong... Laser-cut scarves and placemats, and coasters, and they also have lots of pretty great printed items, too.

Here are my favorite typography-based designs:

Laser-cut Uppercase scarf.

Laser-cut Numbered Placemats.

I love the way they've used just a detail
of the Serif font for this bag.

Click HERE to see more.

ART: BROCK DAVIS

I Stumbled upon this art project by designer Brock Davis, who works out of Minneapolis. It's called Make Something Cool Every Day, and essentially involved Davis making something... What's the word? Cool? Pretty frequently, actually. In fact, every day of 2009. The works are consistently interesting and sometimes even brilliant. (There are very few duds.) But it's not just the quality of the execution that's fascinating; the sheer breadth of styles is mind-blowing. There are pencil sketches, conceptual pieces, photography, and even videos. There are drawings in human hair and expressionistic paintings. Here are a few of my favorites, but it would be worth your while to check out the remainder of the project, which can be found HERE.

Day One... January 1st. "Build."

January 3rd: "Rules-blank paper+thread+tape+exacto."

January 24th: "Shattered Coffee Cup."

February 20th: "Decowpitation."

March 13th: "That Was True."

June 5th: "Change of Heart."

June 25th: "56 Likes."

July 15th: "Elephat."

August 21st: "Foot."

September 21st: "Stairwell."

October 18th: "Nice Day."

October 21st: "I Only Play Sad Songs."

That's twelve of them there... Three hundred, and fifty... Some odd works left to see. So go see them.

http://www.homeqn.com/entry/amazing-tree-trunk-garden-house/

ART: eL gAto nEgro

Holy crap, take a look at these amazing illustrations posted over at eL gAto nEgro... I absolutely adore Akira Kurosawa, and these do the man and his films very proud.

I once went to a screening of Throne of Blood after having gone a day or two without sleeping, and -try as I might- could not stay awake for the film. I would drift in and out of consciousness, weaving together some form of plot from the bits I was seeing. Suffice it to say, when I finally sat and watched the movie well-rested it was a drastically different experience.

Yojimbo! The great master's finest work? Possibly. Then again, there's also Seven Samurai... And High and Low. Also, Throne of Blood. Or maybe it's Rashomon. (I tend to think that whichever of his movies I'm watching is the best.)

(Of course, the images belong to the artist.)

ART: BRIAN HUNTER'S OLD MATTRESSES

I was playing around with Stumble at work today (thanks, Katelyn, he says sarcastically) and I Stumbled upon the page of an artist named Brian Hunter, who works out of Montreal, I believe. He basically reconstitutes old matresses as canvases, turning them into something really pretty incredible and beautiful. (He also has a series of sleeping bags, which you can and should check out HERE.)



All images belong to the artist.

DESIGN: LASER-CUT WOOD

We got an amazing laser-cut alphabet for the baby, and then quickly put it up in our living room instead, because it's super cool.



It's from a designer named DALE NIGEL GOBLE, whose website is well worth checking out.



Alternatively, BOOKHOU makes -among many, many other things- a very cool laser-cut alphabet.



Lastly, I stumbled upon this piece on Etsy... It's not an alphabet, but a great laser-cut wood piece that would certainly appeal to any typography geek. It's by PEPPERSPROUTS, out of Brooklyn.

ART: MAGDA TRZASKI

Becca and I occasionally take a trip down to C1 ARTSPACE on Ossington in Toronto and one time when we did we saw a shadowbox by a Toronto-based artist named Magda Trzaski. They're pretty incredible; macabre, sad, funny, hopeful, lovely... We hope to own one in the near future.

Here are a couple of examples...

"Dream World"

"Smug With Knowledge"

Not sure of the title of this one...

To see more, visit her BLOG.

DESIGN: THE LO-RES CHAIR, BY OOOMS

This amazing chair out of the Netherlands is made from steel and polyurethane, and features a cut out of the famous Eames lounger when viewed from the side. There have baan a lot of re-wrokings (homages?) to the Eames designs over the years, but I think this might be my favorite...

Visit the OOOMS website to see more.