i have never seen a better radioactive spider in my life.
—
“everything you can imagine is real”
-pablo picasso
May7
Category Archives: artist
Apr19
this time.
even though
it’s mid-april
and the skies
delivered snow today
i thought back to a few days ago
when just like today
i had my sandals on
and came upon
a mother and child
in the sun
taking time
to create art
with simple and happy words
‘have a nice day’
for anyone in the neighborhood
who may come by
needing this message.
—
“this time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
-ralph waldo emerson
Feb23
rainbow trout.
not my trout, but an artist who creates in my style
—
a few or five decades back
in my elementary school years
i undertook a project that i loved
an end-of-the-year
comprehensive non-fiction report
covering a wide swath of the animal kingdom
involving research, factual write-ups, and illustrations.
i worked on this tirelessly
gleaning material
from the only source i used for everything
our set of encyclopedias
(no google to be found)
all was going well
until i came to the rainbow trout
with no illustration provided
i used my imagination
creating my own vision
of what a rainbow trout might look like
a beautiful striped fish
with every color of the rainbow
spanning across its shiny and scaly skin
at last
the final piece in my big report complete
rechecked everything
put it all in my new yellow folder
decorated the cover
proudly turning it in
waiting for my teacher’s response
she perused our reports
while we had silent reading time
then called me up to her desk
with the hugest of smiles on her face
my report open to the rainbow trout page
telling me that she was going to give me an a+
she said she could see
i was truly a creative
even more than a scientist
that both were good things to be
and she was right.
“the fish was a twelve inch rainbow trout with a huge hump on its back – a hunchback trout.”
-richard brautigan
Feb16
yellow.
the kinder create with loose parts
dressed all in yellow.
clearly in their yellow period.
—
“yellow is the color which is closest to light.
we associate the rays of the sun and the stars with it.
it is the radiance of the spirit.”
– ueli seiler-hugova
Feb11
portrait.
one of the kinder drew this portrait of me in class
and
it is one of my favorite portraits of all time.
—
‘every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
-oscar wilde
Jan27
art beats.
the kinder drummed on paint while listening to music
creating vibrant, splashy, coloring-bursting art
—
“creativity is intelligence having fun.”
– albert einstein
Jan19
raining popcorn.
popcorn is art and one of my favorite snacks
(though it’s no flamin’ hot cheetos!),
something to consider on national popcorn day.
Raining Popcorn (2001) is a piece commissioned by the Faulconer Gallery of the Grinnell College in Iowa. The commission would take artist, Sandy Skoglund many months to complete. In Skoglund’s art practice, the conceptual subject matter works in conjunction with the physical materials she uses, drawing on historical references, and instilling them with psychologically complex meaning.
Produced in 2001, just before the September 11 attacks, Raining Popcorn references the complex roots of American contemporary culture and overconsumption. The unifying subject throughout the piece is popcorn, so pronounced and repetitive it replaces nature. The popcorn becomes an all-encompassing reality, lining the walls, the floors, the subjects, and alas growing from trees. This obsessive environment constructed by Skoglund derives from the artist’s desire to combine sculptures of animals, live humans, and nature into a space that involves thought and play, as part research and part recreation.
The abundance of Popcorn acts as a reflection of the cultural environment, being noisy, excessive, universal, and part of popular culture. Currently, Americans eat 13 billion quarts of Popcorn a year, produced mostly in the heartland of America, from Illinois to Ohio. The piece is a response to memories and experiences Skoglund felt as a graduate student in Iowa.
The painstakingly handcrafted quality of the endless popcorn creates a fantasy landscape, one that raises questions about climate issues and our surrounding environment, as well as fantasy and reality. In Raining Popcorn, Skoglund’s objects and composite staging have a base in truth; they are not a product of photoshop or digital manipulation. It is critical for the artist that the photographs evidence something genuine. The constructions are explicitly staged to be photographed from one unique viewpoint.
—
“americans love popcorn, and their love doesn’t quit.”
-rosecrans baldwin
—
Credits: Sandy Skoglund, Raining Popcorn – Holden Luntz Gallery
Nov20
land art.
Every fall in Osijek, Croatia – Nikola Faller, academic sculptor and Osijek land artist, creates this magic.
Her drawings are made by raking leaves.
—
“every photographed object is merely the trace left behind by the disappearance of all the rest.
it is an almost perfect crime,
and almost total resolution of the world,
which merely leave the illusion of a particular object shining forth,
the image of which then becomes an impenetrable enigma.”
-jean baudrillard
—
image credits: plava planeta, suzana vida-suz
Nov13
colors.
our latest mural created thanks to a community initiative
Ann Arbor Art Center’s Art in Public Places murals project – a fresh initiative designed to infuse art into our community. To make this dream a reality, they crowdfunded to raise $50,000 for the last two years to pay the artists a living wage and covered other mural expenses like equipment rentals, paint, permits, etc.
Ann Arbor has innumerable large- and small-scale murals already, but they have new company as the result of a crowdfunded project to bring art to walls and alleys around town.
In July, the Ann Arbor Art Center (A2AC) raised more than $50,000 to commission 10 murals around the city. The fundraiser was through Patronicity, and once the goal was met, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) matched the donations to double the money available to the mural artists. At the onset of the project, 10 artists paired with local business owners on the sites of their future murals. In October, two additional murals were announced, raising the total to 12. This initiative is part of the ongoing A2AC Art in Public program that aims to make art “accessible and equitable to everyone,” relying on community-based donations.
Since the Art Center helped crowdfund two other public murals in the recent past, those have been added to the A2AC Murals Map, which features a walking tour of all the works. Currently, 13 murals are finished, with the 14th debuting sometime in 2021.
—
“one can speak poetry just by arranging colors well.”
-vincent van gogh
—
link: https://www.annarborartcenter.org › art-in-public › murals
Oct26
mutual tuning-in.
pat metheny, side-eye tour, orchestra hall, detroit, michigan
detroit symphony orchestra paradise jazz series
october 2021
amazing experience
—
We’re all familiar with the sense of wonder and joy we experience when we hear a song or piece of music we love, but there’s something even more magical about hearing that song performed live. Although many artists offered streamed performances online during the pandemic, these didn’t quite leave us with the same enchanted feelings as concerts. So what makes live music different? Columbia associate music professor Mariusz Kozak explains why live music is so powerful.
Live music allows us to experience what philosopher Alfred Schütz called a “mutual tuning-in.” This term refers to the phenomenon where we experience the passage of time and emotions with others. This is part of the reason humans need social interaction to thrive. When we attend a concert, we’re experiencing the tone of the music—fast, slow, happy, sad—with others around us. This creates a sense of intimacy with the crowd around us. This is also why research shows that babies who are bounced in time to music with an adult display more altruism towards that person.
This pleasurable effect gained from synchronizing with those around us is what makes live music and dance so powerful. Although most people probably relate to this feeling when remembering their favorite concert, this feeling is not limited to conventional music. It can also be experienced through collective visual synchronization. In the deaf community, facial gestures and movements are to convey emotions in music performance. The collective interpretation of the emotions behind these facial gestures also promotes a sense of unity.
The Blackfeet in North America use the same word to refer to music, dance, and ceremony, indicating the essential role of gathering to fully appreciate the benefits of music. Close friends can even experience this synchronization when walking or talking together.
Experiencing music in the presence of others cultivates a feeling of unity and empathy within us which exceeds anything we could experience by ourselves. As we head back to in-person concerts and relish this feeling once again, know that the true power of the music you’re hearing might not come from the artist, but in fact your fellow concert goers.
– Mariusz Kozak, Associate Professor of Music and Music Theory, Columbia University
I didn't have my glasses on.... 