A Sky Full of Kindness

"We're all the same people we were when we were children, we're just bigger and pretend that we're not." -Rob Ryan

Handmade Portraits: Rob Ryan from Etsy on Vimeo.

What could be a greater way to celebrate the world than acknowledging the beauty in the everyday?
Read the full Etsy blog post here: http://etsy.me/handmadeportraitsrobryan

 I just adore his work and if you have a chance to check out his site, you can find it by clicking here: Rob Ryan

Handmade Gift Exchange - Sunflower Brooch from Haley!

My last post before this included a photo of a sunflower in my garden and then I received this lovely sunflower brooch from Haley at The Zen of Making blog! Thank you Haley for somehow reading my mind and making me such a perfect and beautiful gift. How much fun is this? I can pin it to my bag or a cardigan. Rarely, do I spend time to make things for myself. Haley's site is quickly becoming one of those where there is always something refreshing and fun waiting to enchant you. 

A special "thank you" to Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous for organizing the entire Handmade Gift Exchange and making it so fun and inspiring! Not only do I have a super creative new friend, but I'm looking forward to next year's exchange too.

Solar Sewing

I found this video via etsy and thought it was pretty cool. I've recently purchased the Doodle-Stitching book and envy the technique. Artist P.Nosa is behind this video and there are many videos on his site. Have a look and tell me what you think.

Alexa Meade

Alexa Meade uses acrylic paint applied directly onto her subjects. Sometimes, she also paints an entire vignette around them, making your perception of the real and painted blurry. She is a 24-year-old artist from Washington, D.C. who compresses a 3D concept into a 2D plane. I am in awe and amazed by her work. It's bright and bold!

 (via)

Inside Out

"I wish for you to stand up for what you care about by participating in a global art project, and together we'll turn the world...INSIDE OUT." -JR

Can art change the world? Yes! Have a look at the 2011 TED Prize winner's wish here: 

from TED.com:

Working anonymously, pasting his giant images on buildings, trains, bridges, the often-guerrilla artist JR forces us to see each other. Traveling to distant, often dangerous places -- the slums of Kenya, the favelas of Brazil -- he infiltrates communities, befriending inhabitants and recruiting them as models and collaborators. He gets in his subjects’ faces with a 28mm wide-angle lens, resulting in portraits that are unguarded, funny, soulful, real, that capture the spirits of individuals who normally go unseen. The blown-up images pasted on urban surfaces – the sides of buildings, bridges, trains, buses, on rooftops -- confront and engage audiences where they least expect it. Images of Parisian thugs are pasted up in bourgeois neighborhoods; photos of Israelis and Palestinians are posted together on both sides of the walls that separate them.

JR's most recent project, "Women Are Heroes," depicts women "dealing with the effects of war, poverty, violence, and oppression” from Rio de Janeiro, Phnom Penh, Delhi and several African cities. And his TED Prize wish opens an even wider lens on the world -- asking us all to turn the world inside out. Visit insideoutproject.net ...

"I would like to bring art to improbable places, create projects so huge with the community that they are forced to ask themselves questions."

JR, Beaux Arts Magazine

Matthew Cusick

Matthew Cusick was born in New York City in 1970 and graduated from The Cooper Union with a BFA in 1993. His work has been exhibited internationally since 1996.

Cusick lets his work be guided by his various materials: maps, atlases, encyclopedias and school textbooks. “I like to catalog, archive, and arrange information and then dismantle, manipulate, and reconfigure it. I use maps as a surrogate for paint and as a way to expand the limits of representational painting. Through a process of cutting up and reassembling fragments of maps from different places and times, I am attempting a more complete representation of an existence, one that incorporates the geographical and historical timelines of that existence within the matrix of its image.”

lil fish studios

Look what the mail brought today! 2lb of unsorted vintage buttons from lil fish studios. She's had give-aways and listed these bags before, but they were always sold out by the time I got to them. This time, when I saw her post on twitter, I jumped at the chance and I'm not disappointed in the least. There are some real beauties here. I am full of ideas and excited to create things just for certain buttons. If you have a moment to check out her etsy shop, please do.. She does fine work and ships quickly too.

Esther Hörchner

Esther Hörchner is an illustrator who has created a tea set with a sense of humor titled Naked Girls Tea Set. I love that the lady in the cup has left her underwear and shoes on the spoon and saucer. Wonderful stuff by Esther Hörchner who by the way is a fabulous illustrator, more of that on her website here. Imagine the conversations this set would start!

Mehmet Ali Uysal

This installation created by Mehmet Ali Uysal is displayed at the Chaudfontaine Park in Belgium. Thanks to my brother Sam for sharing this installation with me.

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?

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.

No Hole In My Head

Anastassia Eilas

Anastassia Eilas is making art in the least likely of places, inside of toilet paper rolls. Using paper that is similar to the roll itself, she gives the illusion that the scenes taking place inside of the rolls are actually part of the roll themselves. The detail and depth of each little piece is pretty amazing, especially considering the scale. She claims it only takes her an hour to complete one, which is also pretty impressive.

Sebastiaan Bremer

Sebastiaan Bremer is a Dutch Artist who lives and works in New York. He turns found and snapped photographs of himself, friends and family into a dusty poetic braille made up of text, personal symbols and ghostly shapes that, when integrated with their complex grounds, disappear again, buried in a sea of suspended dots. By slowly and laboriously painting on top of quickly taken snapshots, Bremer slows down time to render a hauntingly beautiful interior landscape.

Mila's Daydreams

Adele has the most fascinating maternity leave hobby. While her baby daughter Mila is taking her nap, she creates scene around her and takes quick snap photos.

(Thanks to Joanna Goddard.)

No Longer Empty

With so many yellow wood frame houses that were used as military housing, churches, a fort and even a castle from a time so long ago,  Governor's island is currently home to installations by over a dozen artists inside the houses of Colonel Row. No Longer Empty is participating in the Governor's Island Summer Festival and is open Fridays thru Sunday's until October 10th.

Visitors feel this sense of dislocation from the moment they step off of the ferry after just a few minutes ride. The selection of artists and artistic interventions in all media, are intended to address this sense of displacement while exploring notions of memory, residual entities of the past and transitions between worlds.

Porter Hovey

Port Hovey's Polaroid Blog is full of exciting and interesting Polaroids from all over the world. You should really take a look here.

Rivane Neuenschwander

There is currently an exhibition at the New Museum by Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander titled A Day Like Any Other. The concept amazes me. Visitors are invited to select ribbons printed with a wish to tie around their wrists. When the ribbon falls off, tradition has it that one's wish will be fulfilled. Visitors may write another wish and place it in the empty hole. Your wish may be added here.