Ortolan

Ortolan is a local, vegan, organic maker of pillows, towels, and napkins.  They don’t have a lot on their site right now (http://www.ortolanorganic.com/Ortolan_Home.html)
but what they do have, I adore. I am especially interested in their reuseable table napkins:

Something to look forward to once Emm and I get our own place! Hopefully they will be sitting on a new, chip-free table!

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

i can’t function normally anymore

last night, february 13th, tay and i drove over the bay bridge to san francisco, down geary street, stopped in at panda express for a bite, and then walked two blocks to the fillmore where we saw siouxsie motherfucking sioux’s mantaray tour.

i don’t even think i can do anything normal after seeing such an amazing show.

siouxsie and the banshees formed in 1976-quickly becoming a vital part of the british punk scene. they put out album after brilliant album (all of which i own!) and 20 years later they split. since (and during) then, siouxsie (frontwoman) and her now ex husband (budgie- drummer) released music as the creatures.

2007 saw siouxsie’s first solo album, mantaray. i bought it as soon as it hit the U.S. (september?) and have been listening to it everyday since. i can say she is the most influential musician to me, so seeing her perform last night left me entranced and speechless.

the crowd was a great mix of old and new goths, punk kids, and cardigan wearers.  (i realized being there, i have become too normal looking- tho i do have a rocking haircut right now!)  she played the entire mantaray album and then some classic banshees which made me freeeak out and sing at the top of my lungs! when she busted out spellbound, she came over to my side of the stage (i was right up there) and sang to me! i swear- it lasted like 7 seconds!

ha. clad in a silver and black lycra suit and leather utility belt, she commanded the stage and fucking rocked out. i can’t even believe she’s 51. she is super hot and energetic! my life is now complete and i can die happily.  although, i do feel the need to actually meet her. how will i finagle that? read a great article about her album here.

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… 

plastination and turkey day: what they have in common

so on wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, my pals (robert, jordan, candra) and i drove to san jose (stopped at in-n-out for milkshakes and burgers), and went to the tech to see the bodyworlds exhibit. if you have not heard of bodyworlds, it is an exhibit of (dead) human bodies preserved through a process called plastination. it looks just like it sounds- plastic.

  

the exhibit had people posed, individual body parts in glass cases, and breakdown of the nerve systems, etc.  it was pretty cool to see these things, and not too gross. my favorite was the slices of human pressed between fiberglass: 

but i did have some MAJOR problems with the exhibit.  firstly, there were 5 or 6 rooms and we did not see a female body until the third room, and she was, or course, pregnant.besides this being offensive or disturbing to some people, she is in a sexualized position.fucked up right? also, the other women (about 5 outta 24ish bodies) were in yoga, ballet, or ice skating positions. FUCKED UP. we saw plenty of male bodies (with their stringy skinless testes) with explanations of their makeup. how can we hypersexualize the female body so ruthlessly?also, there was a huge picture of reagan in the alzheimer’s section. and non smoking, and anti-”obesity” campaigns both in and-outside of the exhibit, with quit now pamplets and body mass index scales.bodyworlds is an overly priced republican commentary on human health. i felt used and pissed off.and i still do. obviously.so what does this have to do with turkey day? because i cooked my very first turkey- and it was 20 lbs. of raw nasty flesh. i am never doing it again.  we did have a great day though. about 9 of us just ate, drank, watched football, and chilled. it was really great to have my best pals together and happily stuffed! no pun intended- really.

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

Love #3

Big A little a

I had a pretty great end to my weekend. Emm, Tay, and I went to 21 grand to see a noise band i really love- Aa . They are Brooklyn based and finally made a trip out to the West coast. besides the fact that they have gut-melting drumming and fucking trance-like vocals, they are just some dudes doing what they love. They set up in the middle of the room (no stage power-structure bullshit)  and everyone surrounds them as if they were part of the beats.

there are 3 drummers, a rather energetic keyboard/vocals dude, and another vocal dude. I just love them. Support these guys and buy their music. Most of all- go see them live because there is nothing else like Aa.

Pictures and a video from the show are soon to come…

Taxidermy

For as long as i can remember, I have been intrigued by taxidermy. I wondered- how does the figure stay so realistically intact? Why use glass eyes? Are real eyes non-preservable? Why is it called TAXidermy?

Lately- since our cross-country trip last summer- I have been obsessed with all things drained, stuffed, and mounted.

During a pit stop at Prarie Dog Town in Kansas

(where we would hope to see the 80lb prairie dog advertised along route 70), Emily and I stretched our legs, sought shelter from an acsending storm, and met a very very strange woman in love with the shellacked poop they sold (along with fossilized bolo ties and “fuck PETA” bumper stickers). We paid our $5 in hopes to meet our 80lb friend and ended up getting much, much more.

After the woman strapped plastic bags over our feet (so we wouldnt get our “nice shoes” muddy), we headed for the outdoor freak show.

First we passed a cage of hissing rattle snakes. We gasped and giggled and then i saw it. A taxidermied, two-headed calf. I was in silent awe. Here it is behind Larry the owner:

Just a beauty right? Well anyways, we never saw the 80lb prairie dog, but we did see some jacked-up badgers, a six legged steer, and got chased by rabid turkeys.

SO, this leads me to this:

Possibly the most beautiful taxidermied cobra i have ever seen. My dream is to have this cobra, and make it into a ashtray/lighter to place on my desk forever and always. how you ask? Well in the coil would be an ashtray, and by a slight pull of the tail- a flame spits from the ferocious mouth. Brilliant right?

The problem is- taxidermy is expensive. This beauty is $159.00 on eBay. So help me live happily by sending me some dough to fund this project. Or send me a taxidermied cobra. Your choice.

A Pirate’s Keyboard

So funny.

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.

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….
” alt=”" />

*artsy photo by taylor

mystery box (and my cat is chasing his tail)

occasionally my father (male, 54. says i look so much like him that i couldve been “shot outta his ass.”) will send me a small brown papered box pocked with kitten stickers and drawings of mushrooms and other flora. this time, the package had quite a large return label with his address embraced by a large cut out of a tabby kitten. i knew that what was awaiting inside would be nothing short of miraculous. after peeling away 2 layers of Weis grocery bags (avoiding the emitting heavenly light), i find:

. one “a hug from you to me” card complete with decorated envelope, and poem.

. one watch wrapped in plastic. faux alligator band. not ticking.

. about 13 mini “french-milled” soaps wrapped in tissue paper

. 3 unpackaged tooth brushes- yellow, green, and red

. crest whitening toothpaste and floss (mint AND cinnamon)

. seven piece mystery box (two pens, a travel hairbrush/mirror, mini flashlight, scissors, calculator/magnet/clip, and manicure kit)

. a Jehovah’s Witness coming of age book (what i thought would be the gem of the set)
” alt=”" />
” alt=”" />

. AND……….

a Franklin Mint……Collector’s…….Lord of the Rings…..SWITCHBLADE

no joke. it’s amazing. Gandolf slays the golden dragon accents with a heavily detailed sword. there is also a purple jewel nestled into the turret topped grip. this is an amazing addition to my dragon lady pocket watch also given to me by my father.
” alt=”" />
” alt=”" />

a religious puberty book and a knife. brilliant.