A magical video. You have to take the dive. {via Royal Quiet Deluxe}
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Art
This reminds me of the super-talents &some ideas (past and present!). Leading the way in Kinect hacking, they were doing some incredible stuff. This installation for New Zealand Post – Noise Ink – was one of my favourites.
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When I first visited Brick Lane in 2009, and drunkenly chowed down on a cream cheese beigel, I never could have imagined that 2 years later I’d live within walking distance. Now the Beigel Shop is a familiar landmark, a fluorescent neighbourhood beacon glowing at all hours of the day.
This Beigel Bake print by Jo Peel really captures the spirit of the place; a bit unruly, a bit unloved, but certainly part of the East London fabric – for now and forever.
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I’m working on a new all singing, all dancing, online home for the The Book Club For Drunks. As part of this, I commissioned the marvelous Erin Forsyth to make an illustration encapsulating all club’s activities… drinking & reading, ahem. Here’s a tiny preview:
I LOVE IT. From the big brash party skull, right down to the lipstick smeared martini glass and the blank book spines waiting to be filled in. Can’t wait to have the website up and running. Stay tuned!
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‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth’
I am very much in awe of Paul X. Johnson’s illustration portfolio. His work is dark, moody and peppered with sublime pop culture references (oh how I adore that picture of Bladerunner’s Rachael). Definitely check out his site for more visual goodies.
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- Artist Daniel Kornrumpf is giving needlework a contemporary twist with his detailed portraits. [Above: Focal length, 2009.]
- My Daguerreotype Boyfriend – where early photography meets extreme hotness.
- A yummy little recipe for iced macchiato pops. Can someone come over and make them for me?
- Tono (a “pseudo intellectual folk pop singer for the streets” and regular performer around Auckland) has written an interesting piece on perseverance within an artist’s practice: [a] busload of faith to get by.
- The Guardian has listed their top 100 greatest non-fiction books.
- A DIY project for all you Northern Hemisphere folk this weekend: a stunning tripod camping stool.
- New Zealand has a new Department of Advertising Standards and Regulations. Upholding morals and naming names.
- Is this the best recipe for broccoli ever? Roasted with parmesan and tossed with lemon, sounds tempting.
- More beautiful embroidery, this time from design team Maricor/Maricar. As well as a smashing portfolio, their blog (filled with works in progress & London fun) is delightful too!
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Artist Agustina Woodgate’s contribution to the O’Miami poetry festival (April 2011) was a Poetry Bomb. This entails creeping around thrift stores, a needle and thread in hand, sewing tiny poems onto tags and seams. It’s a lovely idea – just imagine the delight of purchasing a cool jacket, then discovering a little something extra to make you smile. Agustina is the fortune cookie of vintage!
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These are not Roma, rather, a tribe of English vagabonds, known as ‘horse-drawns’ that traverse the country living an anarchistic life. English photographer Iain McKell spent a decade, on and off, photographing a group of vagabonds that have thrown off the shackles of ‘normal’ society. His book, The New Gypsies, is the the fruit of his labour.
McKell’s images are stunning, in particular the caravan shots. I have to say though, while my tendency is to wildly over romanticize nomadic lifestyles, this lifestyle looks like a hard graft. And cold… so very cold.
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I love Peter Stitchbury’s hyper-real portraits. I wish I had bought one of his vintage bowling ball portraits when I had the chance… his paintings are now selling for upwards of 50 grand a pop. If any of you are heir(esse)s, I urge you to get commission a Stitchbury painting of yourself. Swish.
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”
- Francis Bacon, 1625.
And if you have a moment, read this lovely story by Zach Klein, who had his portait painted by Stitchbury. It’s a small world.
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Amethyst, pyrite, rhodochrosite, barite and bornite. I am simply smitten with Carly Waito’s oil paintings of minerals. Her blog is delightful too.
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I feel like the key to feeling settled in a place is not only cramming my belongings into every corner, but putting pictures up on the walls. The latest addition:
A dreamy castle collage by Jonas Besson called Glam Rot Glow. I already have another piece of work by him hanging in my apartment; it’s called Haircut.
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Bee-eater. Kowhai Squadron Letterpress Print by Walter Hansen. Inspired by ‘the love of making model jets as a kid and tui’s’. It comes in a fancier edition – a 3 colourscreenprint on plywood – but the embossing on the 600 gsm art board has me weak at the knees.
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Creative rut? Lacking ‘inspiration’? A change in approach could help. Here’s an exercise in redesigning the way you work:
- Ask yourself how would you do your job/project if the Internet didn’t exist?
- Go about it in that way.
I’ve had nothing but magical results thus far. Sure, it might take a bit longer to call someone with a question, walk to the library, or experience it for yourself, but there’s nothing wrong with slowing down.
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Sally Mann is an American photographer best known for her Immediate Family series. Spanning 1984–94, Immediate Family captured her children as they grew up and explored the countryside surrounding their Virginia home. In later years she turned her focus towards the land itself, with a series that investigated the deep south and key locations in the American Civil War.
More recently What Remains (2000-04), has brought people and the land together in the frame, albeit in an unconventional way. Mann has photographed decomposing bodies at a Tennessee research facility. At first glance the works appear to be simple abstracted textures, but look closer and you’ll recognise traces of the human form. Death and decay, rendered palatable.
Mann’s beautiful images are given an extra ghostly quality from the dust and scratches that arise through the use of antique cameras and the wet-plate collodion process.
A photographic negative is made by coating a glass plate with collodion to form an emulsion. Then the plate is sensitised in a silver nitrate solution and exposed to light while still wet. This gives the photographer only about five minutes to make the exposure. All aspects of the preparation and developing process for the wet-plate collodion print are complicated, delicate and tactile.
Sally Mann often uses the back of her truck as a temporary darkroom when making work outside, which creates its own problems as dust and dirt is constantly attracted to the wet and sticky surfaces of the negative.
Mann’s first solo UK exhibition - The Family and the Land: Sally Mann - is now showing at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. It’s on till 19 September 2010. Highly reccomended if you’re in the neighbourhood.
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