Lazy Jane's, Lazy Day ...

Went to lunch with a friend today at one of my favorite spots, Lazy Jane's. (I don't think this particular piece is there any more - it's a vintage metal kinetic toy). Afterwards we took a stroll down the street and popped in at Hatch Art House, where among lots of other cool things we were amused by the paper mache work of Steve Wirtz. They were mostly dogs, with a few cows thrown in, very ... personable. Usually with a sassy sentence or words collaged on their sides. It seems that one can sign up for classes to make your own sassy dogs ... that might be quite fun.

2011 Happened III

It appears that showing up at the end of the day on a Sunday is the 

  way to go. Imagine people winding up and down. They weren't there

                             when we were there! No pictures allowed in the exhibit, so what 

                             follows are the non-exhibit pictures.

I do like it when there is art everywhere. This is the entry booth.

And this is the Mississippi River Visitor Center, just inside the doors of

the museum. And that's Melanie, standing on a map of the Mississippi

                           River Basin, printed right on the floor. Love that.

                        We didn't see a lot of the rest of the museum, as we were there pretty close

to closing time. A lot of the museum is geared towards small-ish children.

                        But this exhibit was tailor-made for me. Little automatons . . . many, many

                        of them. This tiger has a fish swimming around and around in his head 

                        as he's typing.

Cat and cat puppet!

Right outside the museum, the other direction from the charming little square,

is the Mississippi River, complete with steam-powered showboats. 

                       This is the view to the right of the museum on the way out. 

Not picturesque in the same way as the charming square or the Mississippi

                       River, but after seeing this picture I love the lines and colors in it.

U-Ram Choe Kinetic Sculpture

The Day We Changed Our Lives Forever

Cut paper and hand sewn tunnel books by Andrea Dezsö with interactive LED lights.
" ... tiny red, green and blue LED lights that correspond to three sliding knobs on the wall. Shifting the balance of light from blue to green changes the energies and intentions of conversing devils, whispering rabbits, dancing pixies, perching grasshoppers; the creatures live in aÊtenuous balance between cute and sinister according to the behaviors of red, green and blue. Here, the narratives are open-ended; we create the story as we the turn the knob."
Chloe Hawkins: Zero to Superhero, NY Arts Magazine

Exploding the Codex: Theatre of the Book

EXPLODING THE CODEX from Douglas Sandberg on Vimeo.


Through Felt and Wire, a film and photographs by Douglas Sandberg Photography featuring artist's books from the collection of Mary Austin in a show entitled "Exploding the Codex: Theatre of the Book". I especially like "Inside Chance", a book using a form I've seen in several children's toys ... as it is a kinetic piece it's best to see it in the film, at about minute 3.

3D Printing

My favorite: Helvetica Cup (This link also has a very cool visual of the quick brown fox and the lazy dog!)

3D printing is just such science-fictional magic ... I think this must be the beginnings of the Star Trek Star Trek replicator. Cunicode (via BoingBoing) company designed 30 coffee cups in 30 days using 3D printing technology. Basically, if I'm understanding this right, layers of binder in a container of ceramic dust were built up one by one to form the object which is then dried, the excess ceramic dust removed, then fired and glazed. 

The first 3D printer work I saw was from an Etsy jeweler, nervous system.

nervous system vessel pendant - white nylon and sterling silver 

Their beautiful organically-inspired jewelry is made from different plastics and metals 

(and with some different processes as well, not just 3D printing.) 

Here's their blog: nervous system which has more details about the beginnings, the process, and the inspirations for their lovely art-to-wear.

New Yorker Cover - iPhone Brushes App

A couple of videos - the first one showing the cover drawing in progress by artist Jorge Colombo (from the New Yorker blog). I love that the artist extols the importance of the "undo" function! And the second video is an interview with the artist via ABC.

David Hockney's Fresh Flowers

via NPR

Catching up on NPR podcasts . . . I just listened to a show from December about an art show featuring tiny works by David Hockney composed and displayed on the screens of iPhones and iPads (In Paris, A Display From David Hockney's Pixelated Period : NPR).
A few things that I liked or wondered about:

1. When Mr. Hockney first began making these little works of art, he emailed them to about two dozen friends in the morning after they were finished. (Imagine being on the email shortlist of David Hockney? And what happens after you get one of these digital paintings . . . should you save it forever? Wouldn't you feel just awful if you accidentally or on purpose deleted it?)



via NPR



2. The paintings were made with various painting/drawing apps for the iPhone/iPad, including an app called Brushes. Here's a look at what other artists at the Brushes site and at a Brushes exhibit of art in Austin, Texas, which opened on March 10, are doing with the app.

3. Hockney would get so into the "painting" process on the iPad that he would sometimes wipe his fingers on his clothing, as if cleaning the paint off. He prefers using his fingers to using a stylus for different effects, and sometimes will use the fingers from his non-dominant hand.

4. The 20 iPods and 20 iPads in the exhibit were on 24 hours a day, and occasionally Hockney would email a new painting to one of the devices, swapping out images.

5. . A quote from this article on the BBC site (which includes a video of Hockney talking about the show) -
"Drawing is rather like playing chess:
your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make."

6. There's a companion app that creates a video as you're using the Brushes app, and that's how these videos of drawings from start to finish were created. Portrait videos by artist Olechka are here, and a New Yorker magazine cover here. This cover was drawn in May of 2009 by Jorge Colombo while standing outside Madam Toussaud's Wax Museum in Times Square. (I'm sure we passed by this very spot, or close to it, when we were in NYC in the summer of 2009. We could see the Madame Toussaud golden hand from our hotel room!)

Christian Tagliavini

Amazed wonderment about these 1503 Series photographs by Christian Tagliavini (studiojudith). At first, I thought they were computer-manipulated photographs, but they are carefully crafted portraits of live models wearing die-cuts of what seems to be a combination of fabric and/or paper-backed or stiffened fabric (Correction here: I thought the very long necks on some of the models were post-photo computer manipulation, but Christian explains in the comment below that while Photoshop was utilized for certain atmospheric effects, the long necks are a result of an illusion).

More wonderment at these photographs, a 2008 series called Dame di Cartone (Cardboard Ladies). Kind of like real people paper dolls, yes?

There is a Casting Call on his site, where you can apply to be one of his models. FYI, he's looking for "great character" and perhaps an "element of surprise". I wonder if you might get a flight to Switzerland if you are chosen?

Christian Tagliavini:
"I start with the idea, then I search someone to impersonate it. I build up stories and dramatize them using photography and creativity as a skillful artifice being at the same time author, stage designer, costume designer, casting manager, director and photographer."

Napkins

This work is part of a room-sized installation of 565 drawings of pen-and-ink flowers on paper napkins by artist Jim Hodges. Hodges explores universal themes, and in this piece, "A Diary of Flowers - Above the Clouds" a correlation is made between the ephemeral nature of the flowers and the material they are drawn on. The 100 napkins in this piece are pinned onto the wall. "A Diary of Flowers", completed in 1995, is now part of the collection of
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.



More drawing on napkins from "The Napkin Dad Daily" blog. He started drawing on napkins for his daughters' lunch bags and did these daily until his last daughter graduated from high school in 2005. That first year, he thought all the drawings were thrown out at the end of the lunch period, but for Father's Day his daughter presented him with all the napkins he had drawn for her as a gift. What a sweet story! And how dedicated is that?

I am more prone to obsessively twisting and folding napkins than drawing on them.
When I was younger and holiday meals were hosted by my mother and grandmother, I was the one in charge of setting the table. I often took great pleasure in lining up the plates and silverware, placing the goblets and stemware, selecting candles and making centerpieces, and rolling the napkins into holders or folding them in different configurations. My mother has a buffet with stacks of cloth napkins in different colors and fabrics to choose from, and a wide selection of tablecloths, all ironed and folded and organized just so. Nowadays I am either a guest at a gathering that uses paper plates and napkins, or I am elbow deep in meal preparation and the table gets a last minute frenzied setting as the potatoes are getting mashed or the turkey sliced. I'm thinking about napkins today, though.
I think I once had a tiny little paperback book with diagrams of napkin folds, but haven't seen it for years. There are, though, plenty of sites that have instructions for fancy napkin folds ... like the Water Lily/Rosebud, Bird of Paradise, and Bishop's Hat instructions at The Butler's Guild. (Really?) Martha's site has some simple and elegant napkin folds featured. Happy Thanksgiving!

Eugene Andolsek

Eugene Andolsek (1921-2008) was an outsider artist who had a secret life creating complex drawings (American Primitive Gallery) ... using graph paper, a compass and a straight edge, and colored inks to create these pieces which never saw the light of day ... he made thousands of them, and they were hidden away and never displayed or shown to anyone until they were discovered by a caregiver when his health was failing. The drawings - highly patterned, kaleidoscopic creations - were a coping mechanism, and he never considered them to be art. An excerpt of an article by Tom Patterson at Raw Vision notes that the patterns his mother stitched into quilts and crocheted piecework were influences on the drawings he later made. They are rather like mandalas, and I can see how creating them would have been a meditative and calming process. And some of them make me want to play the most beautiful game of parcheesi ever.

Rag and Bone

One of my favorite blogs for seeing a vast variety of art and artists in paper and book arts is Rag and Bone. Some things that caught my eye on this visit:
Folded "word" books by Veronica Salazar

The classic British red phone booth recycled into darling little libraries

"Corrugations" folded by Dutch artist Noud van den Boer

The 2009 Smithsonian Craft Show

Just a very few of the very amazing wearable art pieces shown at the Smithsonian Craft Show in 2009. From the fact sheet: "The Smithsonian Craft Show features 120 superb craft artists, each one reflecting the story of contemporary American craft in one of 12 categories: basketry, ceramics, decorative fiber, furniture, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media, jewelry, wearable art and wood. The individual artists or partnerships, including 44 first-time participants, are selected by a panel of 3 jurors, a new set each year, from over 1,300 applicants."




Turquoise Jacket/Scarf (handwoven complex twill in silk, merino wool, and rayon jacket, and handwoven and felted scarf in merino wool) and Blue Cool Squares (handwoven and felted merino wool jacket, handwoven silk and wool collapse weave scarf) -
by Patricia Palson, Contoocook, New Hampshire.


Detail: Firefall Euro Jacket - needlefelted merino wool
by Candiss Cole, Sedona Arizona.







These whimsical, organic, handfelted hats are by
Lauri Chambers, Nordland, Washington.

April in Chicago

An overnight trip to the Chicago Art Institute and the Field Museum. We spent most of our time in the African and Asian wings.

We missed seeing the Pirates exhibit at the Field Musuem, but we plan to return in the fall.

Crazy Quilts and the Contemporary Crafter

I saved this article by Gayle Worland from the Sunday paper on March 1, because there were a few things that really resonated with me in the interview with Beverly Gordon (professor of textiles and apparel design at UW-Madison and the curator of this exhibit, "A Fairyland of Fabrics: The Victorian Crazy Quilt" )

She compares the craft of these women to present day scrapbooking (and that segues into other paper and fabric crafts), citing an emphasis on creativity, invention, and play, and the importance of "abundance" and "collecting" of material as part of what fuels the craft(s). There's also the intriguing aspect of collective motifs - themes or subjects that appeal to many of us who do the same kind of art and craft that are reflective of our time and cultures and interests.

I quite like this quote the article ends with:

"There's a sense that there's infinite possibilities with materials and making beautiful things ... It's about making something with little bits, the fascination of combinations, because essentially they are a collage."

Paper Sculture and the Craft Robo

Yet another crisis when trying to use the Craft Robo, this time the culprit appears to be too much pressure and not enough test cuts (i.e. none). Ruined a blade and the cutting strip this time. However, now I know how to do multiple test cuts and will do so religiously from now on.

In my search for answers online, I clicked a link on the Graphtec America Craft Robo Store titled "See What Others Are Roboing".

That led to the flickr photos of Polyscene and EnWhySee, along with a side trip to the paper engineering site of Ingrid Siliakus.

These examples of paper engineering aided by the Craft Robo are from Polyscene's photos.














































This is an example of some of the very complex work from Ingrid Siliakus' gallery. Do look there if you like this kind of work... amazing! I'm not really sure, as the site is in Dutch, but I think the cutting and scoring is all done by hand, with many test models before the final piece is completed.



















Figuring out how to simplify the completion of paper engineering projects was one of the main reasons I bought this machine, but I'm still struggling with the basics. Inspired now to keep trying, though ... (but now I have to wait for new blades to arrive.)
Both of the artists linked from the Craft Robo site are using sheets of a lightweight plastic called polypropylene, but so far no luck locating any.