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.

3D Architecture Dutch Stamps

Postage stamps for philatelically and technology inclined architecture lovers.

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.

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

Unexpected Landing

Sometimes in the summer we are graced with the appearance of hot air balloons. This one appeared amongst the neighborhood houses on a rapid and must have been untimely descent.

It came down in a cornfield behind our neighborhood. We walked up, and others in the neighborhood drove to the nearest dead end street out of curiousity. The corn was too high to see more than the balloon, but nothing seemed to be happening.. just an unexpected landing. Within a few minutes a pickup truck with the company's logo drove up. We didn't stay to see what would happen, as the mosquitos were out in droves.