Gosh Darn Knit

Raina Hassan of Gosh Darn Knit creates sweet little multi-media paintings of women knitting! Cute!

http://www.raniahassan.com/

my 100th blog entry!

why not celebrate with cool stuff!?

1.

2. SFMOMA exhibit of Ann Hamiton’s indigo blue, an interesting commentary on class and economy. go to the link and click, “start program” and watch the three videos of installation inception and intention.

3. strange creatures found in antarctic waters.

4.  fm3 buddha machine.  asmall plastic machine producing ambient noises by toggle switching.  mine is orange!

5.  the journal of popular noise.  this is a journal of sound, of noise. each issue is a 45rpm record. and it looks like this:

i haven’t had a chance to listen to mine yet, because my 45 insert is too small (weird?) and i have to get new ones. but i am sure it will rock my noise loving world!

6.  installations at cca, specifically MINE! i did/am doing a nature simulation installation in the studio. right now it’s just a 3d sketch of something i hope to expand later…some how. pictures forth coming.  idea is cooler than product right now.

7.  my pals catherine, dene, joanna, and robert for taking me out in SF last night and for filling me with jack n gingers and intelligent, funny company! xo! pictures forthcoming?

more art that i like and that you should too.

1. emilie clark. i found this artist rather unconventionally. i was scanning book covers during my Thursday internship at small press distribution and came across a plain white book of poetry with red globs of pomegranate-like forms on the lower corner of the cover. i, of course, forget which book this was, but emilie’s work, mimicking sea life and floral fluidity, looks like this:

and my favorite:

click here to see more.

2. noah k. you may recognize this guy as the youtube superstar who took pictures of himself everyday for six years. here is the video as a refresher:

well, he has a flickr account too, where we can see 584 of his photographs. i have seen a couple dozen of them, and they are pretty interesting. maybe a little too contrived,

but none the less pleasing to the eye…at times.

see his pictures here.

3. patricia gillespie. i saw her work at first fridays art walk in oakland. her work was featured in the esteban sabar gallery. she hand stitches a fabric backgrounds and places painted wood figures over it. like this:

and this:

and my fav:

i just love her work. there is a lot of communication and story in her pieces. snapshots on quilts. she does larger scale pieces as well, like on brick walls! see more of her stuff at her website sharpstickstudio.com

steampunk

what is steampunk? it was initially a genre of literature fusing fantasy fiction and victorian era steam operated machinery. now, it’s a subculture of leather apron clad punk kids creating victorian inspired, yet modernly functional, appliances, accessories, and sculptures.there’s a lot of brass, goggles, and gears involved, and of course steam! i know i know it sounds kind of burning man , but though it may have similar aesthetic attributes, steam punk is less apocalyptic hippy drug induced bullshit and more concept. more production of workable objects. for instance:

cool watch, kind of old-timey, kind of avant garde right?

basic steampunk design of a turntable. completely functional.

bad ass electric guitar. shred!

i think this is just a sculptural mass….

“

to covet or not to covet? covet. how rad right?! victorian flat screen. the perfect combination of old and new. dreeeamy.check out steampunk magazine for some steampunk literature and check out the steampunk workshop for steam and brass blog!p.s. now if i can combine punk and western culture…what would i call it? spurs and skins? boots and bodies? wunkern?

ai wei wei rules

mr. wei wei is a chinese architect and artist i am currently obsessed with. you may know him from this:

the 2008 beijing olympics stadium, “bird’s nest”. he acted as an art consultant to Herzog and de Meuron on this building, so this design is not soley his own. These are however:

A Han dynasty urn painted with cococola insignia

my favorite!

A simple and cryptic artist, ai wei wei alludes the internet; i can hardly find any information on him. there is a smal interview with him in the nov/dec issue of the believer, however. he is super cool and worth looking into. plus, look how cute he is!

plastination and fashion.

mixed bodyworlds (see previous post) and 1920’s/30’s designer elsa schiaparelli and this is what you get:a feminized reminder of our own mortality.or a comment on anorexia? hm… 

2 things.

1. has anyone every heard of/seen sutapa biswas’ film birdsong? or does anyoen know how i can find it? i am obssessed and all i can find is this still:

2. my new favorite artist: Simon Patterson

http://www.simonpattersonart.com/works_k1.html

OUTLANDISH!

i have come across possibly the coolest website I have ever seen! It is called Outlandish and showcases a few very different and very interesting photographers and their portfolios. Outlandish houses new Belgium talent to provide them with a space to continue their vision. It’s like an artist retreat.

The site itself is pretty cool too. The opening page has this pixleated sphere in the center. But if you poke around on it (mouse over areas), all the little sections fly about. its real fun!

One of my favorite collections is by is Sarah Van Marcke. She provides a rural/urban juxtapositioning which is always interesting to me. She is a little rough, like maybe her ideas should be thought out and expanded a little more, but she has a great concept of color. Green on green monochromatic heaven is the rest of what i need to say.

mayonnaise

Vivienne Westwood at de Young

this weekend is the last that Vivienne Westwood’s “36 years in fashion” collection will be on exhibit at the de young museum in san francisco’s golden gate park. vivienne westwood

popularized the iconic “punk” fashion of the late 70’s and early 80’s. she incorporated the DIY look into her chicken bone t-shirts,

in her rubber bondage suits and in the incorporation of the scottish tartan:

my favorite (of course) had to be the “siouxsie shoe”
(sorry i couldn’t find a picture, but i swear they fuckin rocked! buckles and rubber. hot).
Vivienne created architecture for the body; with dips and peaks of fabric consistent through her pirate, scottish, corset, and ballgown collections. westwood takes a traditional style and totally fucks it up….but not completely. for instance, she makes a mockery of turn-of-the-century british fashion, by recreating the styles with original tweeds and wools, but she makes the jackets bright and over-sized, and adds crinoline to shorter and shorter skirts, and uses rubber penis buttons to close her shrugs. also, in her ballgown collection she twists tradition just enough- the gowns are gorgeous in their superfluity and not exactly typical- a border westwood enjoys teetering on

while clinging to her ideals of androgyny.

i couldn’t help but think desperately of the music popular during each of her creative explosions, which also lead me to seeing some of my favorite literature characters in some of her outfits . for instance dominique francon from ayn rand’s “the fountainhead” is (hard to describe) a demure woman with an unavoidable attractive casing and passive aggressive sexuality who enjoys emotionally torturing the man she obsesses over and loves. ok, that was the best description i could do for now. but she would wear this:

note the huge darts over each breast. i suddenly found myself in love with dominique, and then with vivienne westwood after walking and reading throughout her exhibit- it’s only stop in the US. i really enjoyed the show because it was different. it was kooky. it was beautifully executed and effortless. i like an experience that evokes thought and brow crinkles.

Alyce Santoro

alyce santoro developed a textile called “sonic fabric” a few years ago. She basically combines a coarse fabric with old cassette tape film to create a fabric that is functional and musical! it actually still plays music if you run a tape deck head over it! anyways, she’s creates really cool things (for proof click here) such as this video:

how i love thee dear oakland

i saw a toilet on the side of the road last evening. just sitting there, waiting to be sat on. or teetered on its side. like an ode to marcel duchamp.

umbrellas

i have never been able to understand umbrellas because i don’t care if i get wet. umbrellas have always been a mystery to me because i can’t understand why they appear just before it starts to rain. the rest of the time they are vacant from the landscape as if they had never existed. maybe the umbrellas live by themselves in little apartments under tokyo.

do the umbrellas know that it is going to rain? because i know that people don’t know. the weatherman says that it will rain tomorrow but it doesnt and you dont see a god-damn umbrella. then the weatherman says that it will be a sun-shiny day and suddenly there are umbrellas everywhere you look, and a few moments later, it starts raining like hell.

who are these umbrellas?

-richard brautigan

all i know is- that my greeen gingham umbrella is rather photogenic….
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*artsy photo by taylor