Linky

More inspirations, eye candy, and practical advice:

Blu makes amazing murals and animations, using outside-the-box urban environments as his canvas (Oh, how sexist of me! I'm assuming Blu is male? Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Stephen Gill's photo collections are more than worth a look.

Nutritious food for thought for the graphic designer is readily available at Design Observer: Thoughts on Design and Culture.

Looking for inspirational ways to recycle plastic bottles into art? Check out Miwa and Mark's PET project.

Money concerns getting in the way of your art making? Sellout is for you.

Overlooked, Underlooked

I made these small paintings/collages a while back and, not sure if I liked them, tacked them to the wall of my studio to contemplate. Funny how you can stare at something everyday and not really notice it at all. Today I took them down, scanned them, and really saw them for the first time. Thought I'd share...

Also, here's another link for ya, the collagist Mark Wagner, who works almost exclusively with the American dollar bill and makes some remarkable things...




9" x 8" mixed media on canvas




10" x 9" mixed media on canvas
SOLD





9" x 7" mixed media on canvas

A Couple More

Two more paintings, small ones, and two more inspirations.

First the paintings:



Subcutaneous
5.5" x 5.5" gouache and X-acto knife scratching
SOLD

Volcanic
5.5" x 5.5" gouache
SOLD

And now the inspirations:

Watch Blu's Wall-Painted Animation (it's incredible) and then check out his blog.

Take a look at the BioMotion Lab's walker - and play with the sliders. It's fun, and funny too, and amazing to note how much can be communicated with a few points of light and a little bit of motion.

And finally, I know I've posted this link before but it's always worth perusing the latest from SpaceCollective.

Rules to Live By

In preparing for the design course I'm about to teach at RISD, I came across this list by the experimental music composer, writer, artist, and all-around smarty-pants, John Cage, which I think applies outside the classroom just as well as in. Let me know what you think:


Some Rules for Students and Teachers

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student - pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher - pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined - this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: "We're breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities."

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything - it might come in handy later.

Wishing

gouache and ink on heavyweight bristol paper, 14" x 11"
SOLD



I believe in the power of wishing. Active, creative wish-making (rather than passive longing, whiny "if only"s in moments of emptiness and desperation). I don't think it helps to cling to a wish, to squeeze it, worry it, focusing exclusively on the void in your life that your unfulfilled desire occupies.

I believe, instead, in creating a detailed visualization of whatever you want to bring into being. Blow your wish into a big pink balloon. As the old New Age Creative Visualization guru, Shakti Gawain advised, let it float away into the sky. You must trust that your wish will be heard by the powers that be, and that, if a path can be forged to its realization, the way will open up before you.

Release your wishes. Allow for the present moment, where you have acknowledged an unfulfilled desire. Allow for the perhaps difficult possibility that your wish will not come true. Allow for whatever emotion comes up in its wake. And most of all, allow for mystery, subconscious process, and invisible magic behind the scenes.

Dance

Sometimes there really is nothing better than putting on some music and turning off the brain.



Dance
Mixed Media on 100% cotton paper, 11" x 8.5"

Compare and Contrast

I thought this was interesting:

Two very different yet very similar pieces made fourteen years apart.

Mandala



montage on cardboard, 14" x 11", 1990


Yoni


gouache on bristol paper, 9" x 12", 2004