Happy it's Fall

Charlotte Mann

Charlotte Mann's trompe l'oeil style walls and floors are an inspiration.

Charlotte is a British artist known for her wall drawings and drawn room installations. These densely detailed 1:1 scale drawings of rooms in rooms are invariably made with thick black marker pen on a white ground. The images above are from work she did in Milan, Italy at the Fontana shop. Her perspective is amazing.

How fantastic would this idea be for a backdrop pin a portrait?

A Look at Smithville

 

This dollhouse opens in the front and was owned by the grandchildren of Hezekiah Smith. He had more than 40 patents for many different inventions and improvements. He also invented the Star Bicycle, seen below.

He was quite eccentric and provocative for his time and his life story is one of betrayal, love and fury. He trained his pet moose (above) to pull a cart and also had a small zoo on the property. His mansion is a lovely place to visit and the grounds surrounding the estate are breathtakingly beautiful. More information on Hezekiah Smith may be found here and here. I also have many other photos of the property in my flickr.

See Dot Run

I'm not a fan of CGI and special effects that require them, but usually catch myself fascinated by old-school animation and good ol' camera trickery instead. Maybe that is why I love this little (literally) stop-motion animation and should also mention "Dot" broke the Guinness World Record for Smallest stop-motion animation character in a film.

Dot wakes up in a world that seems to be unraveling. Fleeing an encroaching wave of loose threads, Dot, a girl who is just 9 millimeters tall, runs across coins, pins, nuts and bolts and jumps on a bumblebee to fly away. Finally she saves herself by knitting the threads into a sleeping bag.

Mountain Man

I fell instantly in love with Mountain Man's Song "How'm I Doin'" a few days ago while listening to this mix. Today, I found their site and the video above. I hope you fall too.

Damien Jurado

 

There is a site aptly named The Canal Sessions and it is a project by producer Maarten Besseling and music journalist Matthijs van der Ven who both live in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Their most recent offering includes of one of my favorite musicians, Damien Jurado.

Damien was an artist before he was ever a musician and didn't learn to play guitar until he was 20 when he began by making homemade tapes using found sound and field recording techniques. His music is both heartbreakingly beautiful, captivating and has a quality unlike any music, making it feel as tho it's always been there. The stories they tell are personal and vivid.

The Canal Sessions features three videos in all and includes many photographs of the session. Please have a look at the entire performance here.

Cooper: Photographer Cat

The photo above was taken by a cat named Cooper. That's right. One day per week, his people fasten a lightweight digital camera to Cooper's collar, which snaps a new photo every 2 minutes. He had his own exhibition and is easily the most talented cat photographer I've seen. Cooper himself is quite a handsome fella too. The site features a gallery of photos, a cat cam feed, videos and news.

Escif

My cousin Jasmine sent me a link for the artist Escif who apparently does some really eye-catching street paintings. It's pretty difficult to find too much information, but more can be found on Escif's Flickr and here too.