We need some of these!

If you've visited Philly, or live here, you may already be familiar with the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, which is responsible for helping Philly be the city with the most murals in the USA - we have more than 2,700!
The festive trucks shown above are part of one of the Mural Arts Program's latest projects. Partnering with Philadelphia University's Design Center, together they wrapped 10 of the city's garbage & recycling trucks in these funky all-over prints! They've been doing the rounds with the rest of the trucks since Earth Day, and the other day I saw one on my street! It sounds silly but I was excited! I think next they should wrap all the rest of the trucks...

For a little more...

via...freepeople

How to be an explorer of the world

from the barstool romantic

via freepeople

Really cool public art

Their latest project, Oakland Fusion, is finished and available for all to see at Jack London Square in Oakland, Calif. It's an installation of lenticular murals consisting of more than 4,500 hand-painted tiles. Painting the tiles took about 8 months, and everyone they knew was invited to help. I like how this project mixes a "traditional" craft, tile work, with a simple animation process. Here are some more details about the project from their website:

Each mural functions like a two-cell animation; the image morphs as the viewer changes position. The eight images are based upon the textile patterns of Oakland's major ethnic demographics. Mounted to the exterior wall of a new parking garage immediately opposite Oakland's main train station, the murals are intended to viscerally orient new arrivals to Oakland's cultural geography.

Recently, their Oakland Fusion project has had lots of media interest, with NBC and the Oakland Tribune running stories about the project. Ene says she thinks this installation has struck a nerve because people really need this type of arts and crafts right now. "The timing's just really good for something like this," she adds.

As a team, they've also built treehouses, art studios, and set up miniature golf and audio tour installations in San Francisco. Besides these high impact projects, Scott also makes skateboards, chairs, tables, and writes thoughtful prose about the world we live in on their Deep Craft and WOWhaus websites. They have a large, thriving garden and orchard, write poetry, throw great parties, are raising a lovely daughter, and come up with clever inventions such as the bicycle composter ( I LOVE THIS IDEA--WORKOUT AND COMPOST!) and a mobile biodiesel processor.

Thank you for the lovely feature Brett! Everyone check out Brett's new site called The Brettorium Creativity Emporium. He travels the internet trying to find artists and designers whose work he love, love, loves but who may have not received a ton of recognition for their work. He also takes really wonderful photos.

lunule

check out this vinyl decal from lunule designed by the talented susan rowe harrison:

i think wall decals are a great way to decorate a child’s room. these are maroon and come in a set of 3. the elephant stands proudly at 5 1/2 inches wide by 6 inches high. put them on a wall, or to customize furniture, trash can, book jacket, or on mat board to frame. what a great idea. when you get a chance, make sure to travel through susan’s collection. isn’t she amazing?

So, thank you Brett.

Paul Auster on writing

via Flavorwire, from the latest Granta:

"You work hard to make it look easy...this is what I am striving for all of the time...'cuz clarity, finally, I think is the most unsettling thing possible and ummm it allows the reader in some sense, if you can do it well, ideally to forget that the medium of expression is language...that you are just somehow 'in' what the words are saying but you are not even thinking about the words anymore. This is what I have always aspired to."

This would be fun to win!

What about...

Another one...

What I am working on now...

Love, love, love this poem

From As Is by James Galvin. Copyright © 2009 by James Galvin. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.


I read this poem in my inbox courtesy of Poetry.org and it just hit me in the head. I just love it. It is from the book by poet rancher James Galvin, As Is (also love, love, love the title!) from Copper Canyon Press

Says Galvin to Rachel Lander in an interview in the Daily Iowan (when Galvin is not on his ranch he is teaching in the Iowa Writers Program) about As Is

“In a way I think the major anxiety that drives that particular book is the anxiety of trying to live fully and productively and gracefully during a catastrophe,” Galvin said.

About poetry and teaching poetry, Galvin says in the same article:

“I think that a lot of times the way poetry is taught in school is as if it were not art but philosophy in a can, and the teacher has the can opener — and that’s no fun for anyone,” he said. “The ideas in it are pleasure, and the sensations in it, the images and the sounds and the textures, are all there for pleasure. It’s not that it can’t be analyzed like painting or music, but one’s first experience of it should be some kind of conversation between the body and the mind that feels good.”

Free Music Archive

via Flavorpill...

For your listening and reading pleasure...something fun and something free

WEB:
Free Music Archive
Just like it sounds, only better
The Free Music Archive is an expertly curated virtual library of legal music downloads. The site is directed by WFMU, New Jersey's beloved, listener-supported, freeform radio station.

FMA picks up the copyright slack. Inspired by Creative Commons, the Archive strives to provide its users with royalty-free, pre-cleared tracks for noncommercial projects, including podcasts, soundtracks, radio, and remixes.

It's curated by the pros. Explore eclectic selections from legendary Seattle station KEXP, Los Angeles-based nonprofit upstart Dublab, and New York City's Issue Project Room, among many others.

The music is yours. Stream your favorite tracks from the Web, or download high-quality MP3s; if you love what you hear, the site makes it easy to give back by either buying the albums or donating directly to an artist's "tip jar."

Explore the Archive, check out WFMU's playlists, and read an interview with FMA managing director Jason Sigal.

– Eli Dvorkin

Are women writers undervalued because of what they write or how we read?

via bookforum...

Scribblers of America, Unite! Are women writers undervalued because of what they write or how we read?

By Katha Pollitt

Posted Monday, March 9, 2009, at 6:48 AM ET

A Jury of Her Peers.Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Bronte to Lessing (1977) changed the way we read fiction by women by showing female writers in historical, political, and literary relation to one another, and doing it in prose that was energetic, enjoyable, and blessedly free of academic jargon. At the time, this was a controversial project. The previous year, Ellen Moers' brilliant (and, sadly, out of print) Literary Women was attacked by Anne Tyler for arguing that great women writers like Dickinson, Collette, and Woolf shared something like a literary tradition with lesser writers like Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Fanny Fern. You can see why Tyler bridled: After all, it was the misogynists who usually grouped women writers together, the better to dismiss them all—Nathaniel Hawthorne's "damned mob of scribbling women," churning out their hypersensitive derivative poems, their narrow, pedestrian domestic fiction. Women writers, the good ones, anyway, tended not to want to be put on the bookshelf next to the other women writers. More...

Local color

Holi - the Festival of Colors - The Big Picture - Boston.com

This is an amazing series of images well worth a look at the Big Picture...

Also see the Story of Prahlada







Holi - the Festival of Colors - The Big Picture - Boston.com

Posted using ShareThis

Another cool one by Melanie Flood

The Current State of the Art Market Q&A with Melanie Flood of Melanie Flood Projects

1. Please explain to us about Melanie Flood Projects…How did it start it? Why in your house?

I began Melanie Flood Projects over the summer of 2008 because I felt that artists and photographers (like myself) needed a new style of venue to showcase their art. I was tired of it being utterly impossible for a young, talented artist to display their work, other than online or in crowded group shows that require a participation fee.

The Idea came to me when I was in the position of Managing Editor at Zingmagazine. We were involved in Art Chicago 2002 and while visiting I came across stay at home mothers that ran public galleries from their homes. These women were artists, curators, collectors, and they didn’t allow motherhood prevent them from being involved with what they loved. I was influenced most by a young woman who had Amy Sillman watercolors displayed on her fridge with magnets. Made me think differently about he way art should and could be displayed.

So based on the inspiration from these women, I decided to base the gallery from my home and I am fortunate enough to live in a lovely brownstone in a great part of Brooklyn. I am also drawn to the idea of the home as a social hub apart from public spaces such as bars, clubs, galleries, & cafes.

2. In my opinion you are pioneering the new concept of private dealing @ home…Is there a reason why?

I believe that in the environment of a gallery or museum the real importance of the artist is lost in the pressures of the “gallery” experience. By removing that factor I believe I am placing all the emphasis on the artist, using the comfortable and welcoming environment of a living space to ease viewers. I hope that in inviting people to view art in these circumstances, where art eventually ends up, will remove the formal pressures of the “art world” and will help people focus on art in it’s most natural state or form.

3. What is the advantage of it? Disadvantages? Please explain in detail.

I am not affected by the immense overhead of having a gallery space. Because I don’t have to worry about rent, making money is not at the forefront of my mind, this frees up the types of art I show. I also get to display art in my most favorite way-among domestic life, my own personal decorations. It’s like a revolving art collection! Another advantage is being able to have many styles of events other than showing art on walls. One example was a party in December where I invited 17 artists to come over for one evening and sell their wares; books, mags, zines, prints, etc…

More via Melanie Flood Projects...

Another take is by Salon Adelphi

salon adelphi v, originally uploaded by antlered.

text from the flickr invite:

salon adelphi v by antlered.
super secret special rad art salon dec. 6 shhhhh…..

salon adelphi v

saturday december 6, 2008 @ 8 p.m.

art / film / music / readings / installation

317 adelphi / brooklyn n.y.

Art Parties

This is such a cool idea. My first thought was "Rirkrit Tiravanija - Thai artist who cooks meals as installation art". Although I think that artists have always been interested in food. They have historically bartered food for artwork and often are keen gardeners and cooks. Cooking is creative and artists are usually on a budget. Frank Fedele has written about artists and food in The Artists' Palate: Cooking with the World's Great Artists. Here is an excerpt. Evidentally the YBA's are good cooks too...Ok, but back to the art parties. Locally there is Jamie's Area in Toronto's Kensington Market (more...) but I really like this one (via flavorwire) in the Bronx called the Bronx Blue Bedroom Project started by Blanka Amezkua especially because Blanka asks artists to offer a workshop in the local community or cook a dinner for guests...Another take is by Salon Adelphi also in NYC

More visualizations

Via flavorpill via bluprnt_van's flickr
These are so cool and so beautiful.




This is a visualization of the frequency of the words 'iran' and 'iraq' in New York Times articles since 1981.

This visualization reads like a clock. You can see the Iran Contra Affair at about 2:30. The first gulf war is at about 4pm. The second Iraq invasion is the biggest spike starting at about 9:30, continuing up until the current day (midnight).

Interestingy, Iran (in red) shows a large increase in activity in the months leading up to the end of 2008.

Built in Processing (http://www.processing.org)












This is a visualization of the frequency of the words 'hope' and 'crisis' in the New York Times, between 1981 and 2009.

The visualization reads like a clock, where 12pm is 1981 and 12 midnight is January 1, 2009.

Interestingly, the word 'crisis' has surpassed 'hope' on only a handful of occasions. Most cleary, in August of 1990 in April of 1999, and most clearly and substantially - right now.These visualizations show the top organizations and personalities for every year from 1985 to 2001. Connections between these people & organizations are indicated by lines.






These visualizations show the top organizations and personalities for every year from 1985 to 2001. Connections between these people & organizations are indicated by lines.Data is from the newly-released NYTimes Article Search API: developer.nytimes.com

For more information, and source code to access the NYTimes API, visit
Archival-quality giclée prints of individual years are available at link

Built with Processing v1.0 - www.processing.org

This is really beautiful

N.Y. / Region
URBAN HIEROGLYPHICS; Hinting at the Hint of a Story
By Dana Jennings
Published: February 24, 2002

They are like so many messages let out of the bottle. Crumbs of paper, accidental graffiti, escaped from purses, notepads and windshield wipers. They swirl in the wind, nip at our heels, curl into dark corners. Harried objects of the moment, printed and in script, evoking the licked tip of a yellow, No. 2 pencil, Bic-stained fingers. They become cryptic scraps, hinting at the hint of a story. Certainly not the opening lines of any tale, but a clause leaked from the middle: the visual equivalent of overheard whispers. And, finally, they feel human, fragile, cultural connective tissue. As the poet Charles Simic says, ''The ephemeral is eternal.''

Thinking about...

From Reading Toronto...

2005 05 29
Urban Hieroglyphics
The marks that decorate the Toronto landscape are at once intriguing and annoying. On the street, barely aware, we fail to notice their spontaneous energy. Are they telling us something or are they merely vestiges of delinquent nonchalance?

When I look closely at these markings, some of them vigorously beautiful in form, I see them as ancient expressions. They speak of the relationship of the self with the city, of the need to stake territory and claim ownership of a landscape that can be anonymous and remote. They tell a very personal story - of the mark maker and their impulse to claim that surface at that particular moment, in that particular way.

These marks contain the character of urban experience that is at once internal and external. An instance is captured and recorded for collective consumption to fascinate or enrage us. This expressive chronology ties us to the immediacy and history of the city and in doing so, broadens our perceptions of ourselves.

More Camouflage

Urban Camouflage deals with the question how to camouflage
oneself and one’s identity in the urban space. Our costumes are
inspired by the «ghillie suits», the military camouflage suit. It was
an adventure to wear the suit in the stores because of the conflicts
with the employees, the reaction of the customers and also to see
the pretty well camouflage effect in a real situation.

Sketch-a-move

This is a really interesting little video made by Anab Jain about community building...I am inspired and would like to bring its sentiment to an outdoor installation. Have to figure out what form that the project would take. I like the way the the bright yellow chair and signage engage passerbys to interact with the project and that at its root is really ordinary human kindness. We are generally asked by our everyday interactions to give something--money, our brainspace to consider or want a product--to sign a petition--but, in Anab's project, she is offering a recipe, a song, a chair, a cup of tea--and participants are touched by this offer and curious enough to engage with the project.

Disappearing Artists...

via apartment therapy...





























Emma Hack's work reminds me a lot of my friend Anne Polashenski's work...

The first two images are Emma's and the last two are Anne's. What is so interesting about Emma's work is that she is using body paint to camouflage her models where as Anne used the computer.

The idea is kind of beautiful in a scary way...the idea of disappearing--social wallflowers--and yet camouflage has a protective function in nature and war.

Reminds me of the scene in Le Pèrè Noël est une Ordure by Jean-Marie Poiré where the neurotic main character (I cannot remember his name...) is wearing a suit which matches the sofa that he is sitting on--although the pattern is no where near as dramatic as Anne and Emma's...Will have to rent that movie again since I haven't seen it since the 1980's...though still interesting that it is a male character who "disappears"...

The votes are in...

via Interior Design Show Toronto 2009 Blog...
Material Inspires Winning Window:

It's been a couple of weeks since the show and believe it or not, the IDS team is already busy working on IDS 2010! We would like to thank everyone who attended the show, and say a special thank you to those who shared their photos on Flickr or our Facebook Fan Page, tweeted about what they saw, or participated in our various contests...

One of our favourite IDS 09 contests was our 2nd annual Window Contest, where we challenged retailers to create a window display based on the theme of our show. Since INSPIRATION was this year's theme participating stores designed their windows to creatively convey an inspirational design. We were pleasantly surprised to see how these stores rose to the task at hand and also how many of you took the time to vote online!

We're excited to announce that this year's Window Contest winner is Relative Space/Floorworks, who was also an exhibitor in the Luxe Home feature area at this year's show. Located in the Upper Annex on Dupont Street, Relative Space/Floorworks' showroom used to be an old car garage space that has been transformed into a bright, open concept store. They carry a broad range of products for the home; from modern contemporary furnishings such as Porro, Living Divani, high end flooring, accessories and recently added to the repertoire, Schiffini kitchens.

What is particularly unique about Relative Space/Floorworks' approach to their window displays is that they are designed by artists, either emerging design students (from various design schools such as OCAD) or by established artists. The changing of the windows on the last weekend of every third month is a highly anticipated event by the neighbourhood and art enthusiasts alike.

Relative Space/Floorworks' winning window was created by Susan Rowe Harrison who called this particular installation Inflorescence. When asked about her inspiration behind the work, Ms. Harrison told us, "I wanted to engage the physical properties of space and architecture with works that explore form and content (or, form versus content) in a personal way using a mundane, commercial material—sign vinyl. At Floorworks, I started with a natural form—a group of flower heads—taken to an abstract extreme. I wanted the work to transcend its material to provide the instant impact of a huge abstract painting, which at the same time subverts the slow and labor-intensive process of hand-cutting large rolls of vinyl and applying it to the wall."

Congratulations to Relative Space/Floorworks and Susan! You can find photos of the other participating store windows in our Flickr album.

Visualizing the Bible

by way of flavorwire...


This is a really amazing set of projects by Chris Harrison on visualization (of data sets). It is amazing how information can be so beautiful...and in a way it helps us "see" the magnitude of a topic or issue.

"Do it until you do it right"-Gil Scott-Heron

Biomimicry, butterflies, and solar panels

Inspiration Jarmusch-style

via apartment therapy Image by Mark Malzarte