Tags related to tag art
Friday, February 16. 2007
The Essence of Rabbit -- bunny mandala.
Wednesday, January 3. 2007
Phil Corbetts Disturbing Kitten Parasites
Mmmm. Kitty Food.
I also particularly enjoy it when an artist picks a theme, and runs with it. Variations on a theme can be a real creativity boost.
Friday, December 1. 2006
More Scary Insane Awesome Art: William Kurelek's "The Maze"
The subject, seen as a whole, is of a man (representing me) lying on a barren plain before a wheatfield, with his head split open. The point of view is from the top of his head. The subject is then roughly divided into the left hand side of the picture, [with] the thoughts made in his head represented as a maze; and the right hand side, the view of the rest of his body. The hands and feet are seen through the eyes, nose and mouth, tapering off into the distance and the outside world.
THE MAZE [left-hand side of painting] An exitless one, it occupies and divides the inside of the cranium into groups of thoughts, the passageways being calculated to do the grouping. The white rat curled up in the central cavity represents my Spirit (I suppose). He is curled up with frustration from having run the passages so long without hope of escaping out of this maze of unhappy thoughts. They [the groups of thoughts] proceed as follows:-
Group I [top and top right]
Home upbringing: a) I, as a small boy, rejected by my school mates; b) my fear of school bullies and the ridicule of the school girls; c) my fear of being rejected by my father and losing the companionship, food, shelter and warmth of a home; d) my father's philosophy, the survival of the craftiest, pointed out by the plight of the foolish fish.
Group II [top left]
Political: a) my one time attachment to Ukrainian nationalism, which is a cry of anguish at the Ukraine being raped by Russia; b) my subsequent association with members of the Peace Movement, a Communist front organisation; c) the end result of over-zealous political leaning, WAR (my physical fear of it).
Group III [middle left]
Sexual: a) the merry-go-round string of rag dolls and wallflowers represent my lack of feeling and direction for dancing; b) the bull, dragging along his impediment and galloping towards the cow in heat, represents my fear of the animal side of sex in me.
Group IV [bottom left]
My social relations: choice between a) the hospital, with its ordeal of the panel (I in the test tube), interpreted in turn in two ways:
1) [below] as a benevolent conspiracy, or 2) [above] as a malevolent persecution: or b) the outside world - I continuing to be the outcast, skirting the smooth level highway of life in the ditch behind the hedge, sensitive to being seen in the light.
Group V [middle and bottom right]
Life and death: a) [middle right] Museum of Hopelessness being life and b) [below] the conveyor belt bearing the victim (me) inexorably to be crushed by the roller Death, I being one third there by the clock; c) [bottom right] the last picture is of me trying to convince myself that I am really mortal, using second hand information (the drawing) rather than examining the skeleton or coffin.
OUTSIDE WORLD [right-hand side of painting] Grasshoppers and drought (sun before the clouds) represent the mercilessness of Nature, which bankrupted my father, a farmer, and brought out of him the cornered beast. The thorny, stony ground is a kind of T.S. Eliot Wasteland - spiritual and cultural barrenness: the pile of excrement with flies on it represents my view of the world and the people that live on it. The loosened red ribbon [linking the 2 halves of the skull] bound together the head of a T.S. Eliot Hollow Man, and was untied by psychotherapy (Dr Cormier), but since the outside world is still unappealing, the rat remains inert. Before the head was opened, burrs (bitter experiences) choked the throat and pricked the sensitive underside of the tongue, and when it was opened the sawdust and shavings (tasteless education) spilled out from on top the tongue: mixed with the sawdust are symbols of (to me) equally tasteless Art, painting, literature and music. The burrs also represent, in the eye socket, the successive evaluations of my character by any friend during the process of acquaintance, all repellent but hopeful till the last, when the heart is discovered to be a grub. On the tongue and in the throat, the Kurelek family (big burrs produce little burrs), representing my father as the hard domineering blue burr opening up the mushy yellow burr, my mother, to release a common lot of burrs, my brothers and sisters, and one unique orange one - myself. The last burr, spearing culture, is I at the university. The inverted one is I as a child, trapped painfully between two aspects of my father, the one I hated and the one I worshipped.
-- Kurelek's Interpretation of "The Maze"
Here are a batch of links to some closeups of the overall picture:
Top of the Sull | Kicked Out | Beaten Up |
Crows Attacking the Lizard |
Conveyer Belt | Spikes | Test Tube |
Coffin and Death
Saturday, November 25. 2006
The Line Between Artist and Schizophrenic...
A cat painted by schizophrenic artist Louis Wain
As an aside, check out the Art of Louis Wain, an Artist who started out "normal", but developed schizophrenia as he aged. Pictured to the right is a 'stage 2' drawing of a cat. Check the link for even crazier kitties.
Thursday, October 26. 2006
Vormator: Creativity through reduction.
Effectively the design equivalent of a Haiku, Vormator...
...is the ultimate challenge of your creativity: the aim of the book is to give each artist the chance to show his abilities to create a stunning piece with limited means. The contributing artists each get the exact same set of 8 shapes, the Elements. With these shapes they are challenged to create their own unique page for the book, within the limitations provided in the Rulebook. Designers are thus challenged to create a unique piece within a strict set of rules. It all comes down to pure skills and creativity in this competition.What a very cool idea. Here are the 8 basic shapes:
Tuesday, September 19. 2006
Burning Man 06 - The Art
This year the Burning Man Arts Foundation did things a little differently. They cut back on the grants to the large rave camps and gave more to the art. You could totally tell a difference. I have never been so amazed as I was this year by the art. Don't get me wrong, the art at Burningman is always amazing, but my jaw was dropping several times throughout the week.
The first thing I heard about was the Belgian Waffle. Zac told me it was going to be the biggest fire on the playa ever. Bigger than the man, bigger than the temple. The thing about the waffle, was that it wasn't called the waffle. It was actually called Uchronia. It got the nickname and it stuck. I was walking back from the man one night by myself and was joined by a guy that started talking to me. We were discussing the name of the waffle and how no one seems to know it's real name. While we were discussing it, we were stopped by a couple. They asked us to help them. "He thinks the waffle looks like a bear, I think it looks like a snake, what do you think?" My new found friend and I started laughing because they confirmed what we were just discussing. I told them I thought it looked like a big green fan.
I saw it during the day and wasn't really awestruck by it. It was big. It was cool. But just not that amazing. This has happened a couple of times in the past. I come home then read about something online that I had seen there and think, damn, why didn't I pay more attention to that! The waffle is just like that. It wasn't actually funded by the organization. The two artists funded the project themselves. Turns out, they are actually from Belgian. They brought together a well rounded group of people from Belgian to build it. From factory workers to artists where everyone was empowered to be creative with it and build it together. All from low-quality Canadian wood destined for recycling.
When the waffle was burning we were at our camp ready to leave and go home. We were probably around 3km from the fire and we couldn't believe the size of the fire and the size of the dust devils coming out of it.
I found the man to be a little odd this year. He seemed really small. Maybe it was because he went up and down and always seemed to be down. The inside of the base of the man is usually quite a bit of fun. This year most of the rooms were really empty. The whole base was done in an art deco theme. The entrance at the back of the man had several pieces of art by Alex Grey. Pieces that I spent ALOT of time staring at. He was at Burning Man this year camped at Entheon Village that I will touch on soon. There was another room that was a game. I wasn't so much interested in the game as I was with the art. It was large scale art with smaller scale art drawn on top. Beautiful.
I wasn't all that happy with the temple as I have been every other year. Every other year I am awestruck by it's beauty. David Best used to make the temple from left over pieces of dinosaur puzzles. He would make the temple one foot shorter than the man and they were intricate pieces of art. Last year Mark Grieves took over for David and made a beautiful pagoda style temple that wasn't as tall as the temple usually is, but it was moving and beautiful. This year, it lacked. It was small to scale and just not...pretty. Dull really. But, it didn't stop from helping people to express what they needed to express. I wrote my thoughts to who I needed to and cried. There was a flute player there that added to the whole experience. I had a moment with the person next to me at the temple while I was chilling. Things that Burning Man is built on, to bond with a stranger for a fleeting moment, but to remember it forever.
One night while we were wandering the esplanade and the desert we saw fire in the distance. We had seen it all night and our eyes were drawn to it. It was alot of fire. Fire! So off we went. What I experienced there was amazing and kind of scary. Too much stimulation. It was a big party. A big party being held in the midst of a 168 foot long serpent coiled around a burning egg. Oh, but it was much more than that. Each vertebrae of the spine was on fire and would shoot flames. Oh, but even more than that, the head of the serpent was moving up and down and around, the fangs were on fire. We were standing below the head as I was mesmerized by it. There was a heavy bass beat to the left of me and a heavy bass beat to the right. I was squeezed between so many people dancing. The flames shooting into the sky all around. The only thing that kept me sane was Rad's hand hanging onto mine. Unbelievable.
Another favorite piece was in front of center cafe. There were 3 women all made of metal rings. Each was in a different form of prayer. One woman was on her knees with her hands together in prayer. At night, she had a fire burning in her heart. The middle one was standing with her hand raised to the heavens. At night, her hands were on fire. The last one was on her hands and knees. At night she cried tears of fire. This one was my favorite. I loved the tears. You could be guaranteed to see someone standing behind her doing all sorts of dirty things to her. They were truly amazing.
The operation table was back this year. I hadn't seen it in the past but it was on our street this year. It was a life size operation game table. You use metal tongs to get the bits out of the table and you got zapped if you missed. They added a new element to it though. You could try to get the man out of the mind. If you missed though, you got buzzed and spanked with a paddle. If you got it, you got to spank them with the paddle. Good fun.
I'm not sure if I should even be mentioning this in the Art writeup, but it was beautiful. There are always big lasers. I could usually care less about them. This year though, I forget who thought to do it, but one of our crew grabbed a handful of playa and threw it up at the laser that was just above his head. The playa hit it and it looked like it exploded in green diamonds. It was sooooo beautiful. We stayed there for a long time, everyone throwing playa up in the air. The cool thing was that others saw it and stopped to do it as well. Then while they were doing it, others stopped while we were walking away. I wonder how long that went on for.
Like I mentioned earlier Alex Grey was camped at Entheon Village. This was an amazing place. They had a couple of galleries that had the most amazing art. Not even the art, but the tent that it was displayed in. I was blown away by the detail they put into it. They had a meditation tent that I almost fell asleep in. It was a round tent with bedding on a raised section all around the edge. Great minimal music and warmth. The big tent again had amazing art and lighting. They had talks and showed movies.
There was a brightly colored balloon that looked like a venus flytrap. I loved the colors and the way it waved in the wind so gently. I had heard about it before I went down there and was looking forward to it. When I went to see it I was rewarded with a great site. There was a little girl sitting on part of the piece. I loved how she was awed by it. Made me miss my little girl. Harmony would have loved it.
Out in the middle of the playa, in the dark was a box. The box was about 6 feet tall and 2 or 3 feet wide. The depth was about half a foot. When you looked into it at the front though, it was lit up around the edges and looked like it was a really long tunnel that you couldn't see the end of. It was an endless mirror. I was blown away by it in the state that I was in. It took forever for Rad to explain it to me before I got it. I thought it was freakin magic!
This one is kind of hard to explain. But from a distance it looked like a wall of lights that changes colors and designs. This kind of piece is not uncommon there so I really didn't think much of it. That is, until we went right up to it. This is where it differs. It was a circle of lights. There was a center pole with lights strung from the center to the outer ring of the circle around that pole. There was about 20 strings from the ground up. The lights would change from the center to the outside. Really hard to explain. But it was amazing the effect they made from it.
Even around home art was to be found. The street signs themselves were art this year. Every other year they are just white rectangles with black writing. This year they put alot more thought into them. They were really pretty. I begged Rad to go find me a sign Saturday afternoon. I wanted the one that said Hope. He had to go 6 blocks before he could find one that wasn't taken yet. Thanks Rad!
We even did a little bit of art ourselves. I had a great idea to do a bus stop this year. My plan was to build a bus shelter that people could use to get out of the elements and perhaps art cars would stop at. It was a project that we eneded up downsizing. I asked Troy and Tania if they could take care of it. So they brought a bench and I grabbed some fun fur in our camp colors. I took Sean's bus stop design and tweaked it and Troy and Tania got it printed on metal. They even bought an extra sign for it. It got used quite a bit, art cars even stopped. It was fun.
I'm not much of an art car kind of girl. I've tried every year to jump on an art car but I just don't have fun on them. There are some cool ones that I have seen in the past. Now though, someone has raised the bar. A 3 story victorian mansion on wheels. This mansion was being pulled by a real steam engine. Again, I had heard of this ahead of time, but reading about and seeing it was something entirely different. I saw it at night when it crossed my path. The steam engine was a fully functional 1920's steam engine that was lit up with flames at night. The mansion was a beautiful replica. When I saw it, they had people in the mansion that made it seem that much more real. There was a soldier in the back that stared straight ahead and never moved. One window there was a woman in victorian garb hanging out the window shouting. From the top window was people dressed amazingly like ghosts waving in the wind. Excuse my language, but it was fucking incredible.
This is all I can think of at the moment, but it is not uncommon for the memories to keep flooding back in for long afterwards. There might just be another "Art" blog.
Thanks to my campmates for some of the photos and to the people of flickr!
The first thing I heard about was the Belgian Waffle. Zac told me it was going to be the biggest fire on the playa ever. Bigger than the man, bigger than the temple. The thing about the waffle, was that it wasn't called the waffle. It was actually called Uchronia. It got the nickname and it stuck. I was walking back from the man one night by myself and was joined by a guy that started talking to me. We were discussing the name of the waffle and how no one seems to know it's real name. While we were discussing it, we were stopped by a couple. They asked us to help them. "He thinks the waffle looks like a bear, I think it looks like a snake, what do you think?" My new found friend and I started laughing because they confirmed what we were just discussing. I told them I thought it looked like a big green fan.
I saw it during the day and wasn't really awestruck by it. It was big. It was cool. But just not that amazing. This has happened a couple of times in the past. I come home then read about something online that I had seen there and think, damn, why didn't I pay more attention to that! The waffle is just like that. It wasn't actually funded by the organization. The two artists funded the project themselves. Turns out, they are actually from Belgian. They brought together a well rounded group of people from Belgian to build it. From factory workers to artists where everyone was empowered to be creative with it and build it together. All from low-quality Canadian wood destined for recycling.
When the waffle was burning we were at our camp ready to leave and go home. We were probably around 3km from the fire and we couldn't believe the size of the fire and the size of the dust devils coming out of it.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
I found the man to be a little odd this year. He seemed really small. Maybe it was because he went up and down and always seemed to be down. The inside of the base of the man is usually quite a bit of fun. This year most of the rooms were really empty. The whole base was done in an art deco theme. The entrance at the back of the man had several pieces of art by Alex Grey. Pieces that I spent ALOT of time staring at. He was at Burning Man this year camped at Entheon Village that I will touch on soon. There was another room that was a game. I wasn't so much interested in the game as I was with the art. It was large scale art with smaller scale art drawn on top. Beautiful.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
I wasn't all that happy with the temple as I have been every other year. Every other year I am awestruck by it's beauty. David Best used to make the temple from left over pieces of dinosaur puzzles. He would make the temple one foot shorter than the man and they were intricate pieces of art. Last year Mark Grieves took over for David and made a beautiful pagoda style temple that wasn't as tall as the temple usually is, but it was moving and beautiful. This year, it lacked. It was small to scale and just not...pretty. Dull really. But, it didn't stop from helping people to express what they needed to express. I wrote my thoughts to who I needed to and cried. There was a flute player there that added to the whole experience. I had a moment with the person next to me at the temple while I was chilling. Things that Burning Man is built on, to bond with a stranger for a fleeting moment, but to remember it forever.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
One night while we were wandering the esplanade and the desert we saw fire in the distance. We had seen it all night and our eyes were drawn to it. It was alot of fire. Fire! So off we went. What I experienced there was amazing and kind of scary. Too much stimulation. It was a big party. A big party being held in the midst of a 168 foot long serpent coiled around a burning egg. Oh, but it was much more than that. Each vertebrae of the spine was on fire and would shoot flames. Oh, but even more than that, the head of the serpent was moving up and down and around, the fangs were on fire. We were standing below the head as I was mesmerized by it. There was a heavy bass beat to the left of me and a heavy bass beat to the right. I was squeezed between so many people dancing. The flames shooting into the sky all around. The only thing that kept me sane was Rad's hand hanging onto mine. Unbelievable.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
Another favorite piece was in front of center cafe. There were 3 women all made of metal rings. Each was in a different form of prayer. One woman was on her knees with her hands together in prayer. At night, she had a fire burning in her heart. The middle one was standing with her hand raised to the heavens. At night, her hands were on fire. The last one was on her hands and knees. At night she cried tears of fire. This one was my favorite. I loved the tears. You could be guaranteed to see someone standing behind her doing all sorts of dirty things to her. They were truly amazing.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
Click for larger view
The operation table was back this year. I hadn't seen it in the past but it was on our street this year. It was a life size operation game table. You use metal tongs to get the bits out of the table and you got zapped if you missed. They added a new element to it though. You could try to get the man out of the mind. If you missed though, you got buzzed and spanked with a paddle. If you got it, you got to spank them with the paddle. Good fun.
I'm not sure if I should even be mentioning this in the Art writeup, but it was beautiful. There are always big lasers. I could usually care less about them. This year though, I forget who thought to do it, but one of our crew grabbed a handful of playa and threw it up at the laser that was just above his head. The playa hit it and it looked like it exploded in green diamonds. It was sooooo beautiful. We stayed there for a long time, everyone throwing playa up in the air. The cool thing was that others saw it and stopped to do it as well. Then while they were doing it, others stopped while we were walking away. I wonder how long that went on for.
Like I mentioned earlier Alex Grey was camped at Entheon Village. This was an amazing place. They had a couple of galleries that had the most amazing art. Not even the art, but the tent that it was displayed in. I was blown away by the detail they put into it. They had a meditation tent that I almost fell asleep in. It was a round tent with bedding on a raised section all around the edge. Great minimal music and warmth. The big tent again had amazing art and lighting. They had talks and showed movies.
 |  |  |
Click to view larger images | ||
There was a brightly colored balloon that looked like a venus flytrap. I loved the colors and the way it waved in the wind so gently. I had heard about it before I went down there and was looking forward to it. When I went to see it I was rewarded with a great site. There was a little girl sitting on part of the piece. I loved how she was awed by it. Made me miss my little girl. Harmony would have loved it.
 |  | |
Click to view larger images | ||
Out in the middle of the playa, in the dark was a box. The box was about 6 feet tall and 2 or 3 feet wide. The depth was about half a foot. When you looked into it at the front though, it was lit up around the edges and looked like it was a really long tunnel that you couldn't see the end of. It was an endless mirror. I was blown away by it in the state that I was in. It took forever for Rad to explain it to me before I got it. I thought it was freakin magic!
Click for larger view
Click for larger view
Click for larger view
I'm not much of an art car kind of girl. I've tried every year to jump on an art car but I just don't have fun on them. There are some cool ones that I have seen in the past. Now though, someone has raised the bar. A 3 story victorian mansion on wheels. This mansion was being pulled by a real steam engine. Again, I had heard of this ahead of time, but reading about and seeing it was something entirely different. I saw it at night when it crossed my path. The steam engine was a fully functional 1920's steam engine that was lit up with flames at night. The mansion was a beautiful replica. When I saw it, they had people in the mansion that made it seem that much more real. There was a soldier in the back that stared straight ahead and never moved. One window there was a woman in victorian garb hanging out the window shouting. From the top window was people dressed amazingly like ghosts waving in the wind. Excuse my language, but it was fucking incredible.
 |  |  |  |
Click to view larger images | |||
This is all I can think of at the moment, but it is not uncommon for the memories to keep flooding back in for long afterwards. There might just be another "Art" blog.
Thanks to my campmates for some of the photos and to the people of flickr!
Monday, September 18. 2006
Super (Mario) Cake
This has GOT to be one of the coolest wedding cakes I have ever seen. Awesome.