while i am a fan of pop-up street art
so unique and free-spirited
i took a pass on this item
might be a perfect match for someone else.
(i almost glanced over my shoulder to see if it was following me.)
—
‘where there is no imagination, there is no horror.’
-arthur conan doyle
i’ve recently seen not one, but two, outstanding cobbler shops
one in portugal
a combo cobbler shop and bar
and this one in my town
bursting with creativity
a good cobbler is a treasure
both an artist and a craftsman.
—
“i think most of us are raised with preconceived notions of the choices we’re supposed to make. we waste so much time making decisions based on someone else’s idea of our happiness – what will make you a good citizen or a good wife or daughter or actress. nobody says, ‘just be happy – go be a cobbler or go live with goats.’”
-sandra bullock
Almost Evening by Japanese artist, Kaoru Yamada
—
while the early morning hours are my favorite time of day
the change to evening holds its own special magic
as the day folds into itself once again.
—
‘the evening had turned sweet and blue.’
-alice hoffman
totally kid carousel
A Carousel Of Visions;Artist Brings the Fantasies Of Children to Magical Life
Artistic acclaim came early to Milo Mottola. When he was 8, his drawing of menacing tooth film with the slogan “Plaque is mean, so keep teeth clean” was such a hit it won him a $50 savings bond from a dental group and was made into a poster. Nearly 25 years later, Mr. Mottola, an artist who lives in Long Island City, Queens, NY, decided to try to find a way to give other children that same dizzy excitement and spark of confidence, without all those dentists.
What could be better, he thought, than asking children to draw the animals they would like to ride on a carousel — and then to make that carousel, carving the animals exactly as the children drew them? I wanted it to be as magical as the children who ride it,” said Mr. Mottola, who, in an echo of his own past, gave each child whose animal was chosen a $50 savings bond, and a lifetime of free rides on the carousel.
Above each animal, Mr. Mottola displayed the child’s original drawing, and on the floor beneath each animal, he carved the child’s signature. “I wanted the winners to have something that will last forever, where they can someday take their husbands and wives and say ‘I did this.’ “
The carousel is on permanent display in Riverbank State Park, the 28-acre park built three years ago atop a sewage treatment plant between West 137th and West 145th Streets in Harlem.
“improvisation, writing, painting, invention—all creative acts—are forms of play,
the starting place of creativity in the human growth cycle, one of the great primal life functions.”
— stephen nachmanovitch, Free Play
—
Source Credits: Pam Belluck, Milo Mottola, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Percent for Art Program
Material: steel (alloy), wood, fiberglass
Address:679 Riverside Dr, New York, 10031, USA
setup began yesterday
streets closing
unloading, building, signage, displays
artists on task
townies abuzz
beautiful skies
everything in full swing
high excitement in the air
can’t wait to visit.
‘an artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.’
-charles horton cooley
Vik Muniz. Action Photo, after Hans Namuth from Pictures of Chocolate. 1997. Chromogenic color print. The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Patricia Phelps de Cisneros in honor of Adriana Cisneros de Griffin through the Latin American and Caribbean Fund. © The Estate of Hans Namuth and Vik Muniz/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
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‘As part of the Artist’s Choice exhibition series at the Museum of Modern Art, Muniz curated a show drawn from the Museum’s collection, and MoMA has recently added to the collection a key picture by Muniz, Action Photo, after Hans Namuth from Pictures of Chocolate, and we hope to continue our exploration and appreciation of this leading artist’s work.’ -MoMa
To make his work, Muniz renders familiar images drawn from pop culture and art history in a variety of materials, and then photographs them. He has fashioned the Mona Lisa from peanut butter and jelly, Elizabeth Taylor from diamonds, Caravaggio’s Narcissus from junk, iconic news images from wet ink, and his self-portrait from dice. Muniz has referred to himself as an “illusionist,” and, with characteristic humor and ingenuity, explores the nature of representation in an image-saturated world.
One of Muniz’s most well-known bodies of work is a series of pictures rendered in chocolate sauce. Action Photo, after Hans Namuth (1997) is made after a 1950 photograph taken by Hans Namuth of Jackson Pollock frozen in mid-dance as he was making one of his paintings, Autumn Rhythm. Muniz’s subsequent appropriation and translation of this image into chocolate is a perfect marriage of subject and material. The viscous chocolate syrup (incidentally, he used the brand Bosco) is a perfect stand-in for Pollock’s wet, shiny paint drips. This new acquisition not only strengthens the Museum’s Muniz holdings, but is a welcome complement to MoMA’s rich Pollock collection .
Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist and photographer. His work has been met with both commercial success and critical acclaim, and has been exhibited worldwide. In 1998, he participated in the 24th International Biennale in São Paulo, and in 2001, he represented Brazil at the 49th Biennale in Venice, Italy. He currently works in New York City and Rio de Janerio.
while this is not me,
this is my exact style of painting with chocolate
while not quite as celebrated as vic’s
they are not as in demand
and have not yet been exhibited in public.
—
on world chocolate day
—
‘i’las cosas claras y el chocolate espeso.’
(ideas should be clear and chocolate thick.)
-spanish proverb
—
source credits:MoMa, Inside/Out
The first candid photograph of a person was taken in 1838.
Before the 19th century, photography did not exist, so people who wanted a lasting image of their home, their family, or themselves had to have one painted, sculpted, or drawn. In the early 1800s, inventors in France and England were at the center of the effort to create photographic representations of objects and people. In France, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce stunned the world in 1827 when he released what is believed to be the first photograph ever taken, titled “View from the Window at Le Gras.” Niépce rendered the image using a camera obscura combined with a light-sensitive metal plate, a process he called heliography. Despite its success, the heliograph required several days of exposure to capture the scene, eliminating the opportunity to photograph any people who may have been on the street
In 1829, Niépce met artist and printmaker Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Each man was familiar with the other’s work. Niépce admired Daguerre’s rotating diorama that had captivated Parisian audiences in 1822. Daguerre, like Niépce, saw the potential of improving upon the camera obscura to create clear and permanent images. They entered into a business partnership that resulted in the creation of the daguerreotype, an innovative photographic process that required only four to five minutes of exposure. The quicker shutter speed allowed Daguerre’s camera to capture an image never seen before: a photo of a human being. In 1838, he debuted a daguerreotype of a street scene on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. In the lower left corner of the photo we can see a man having his shoes shined; remaining stationary allowed him to be included in the photo, something that would have been impossible using the multiple-day exposure that heliographs required. This anonymous stranger on Boulevard du Temple was not simply the subject of the world’s first candid photograph— he’s also believed to be the first human being ever photographed.
—
“photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.”
– dorothea lange
—
source credit: historyfacts
“man needs spiritual expression and nourishing….
even in the prehistoric era, people would scrawl pictures of bison on the walls of caves.”
*-fernando botero
Paul Klee, Forest Architecture, 1925, pen and watercolour on paper mounted on card
swiss painter, draftsman, and printmaker 1879-1940
—
“art should be like a holiday;
something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently,
and to change his point of view.”
-paul klee
the dandelions have returned, and i couldn’t be happier.
—
“Every year,” said Grandfather. “They run amuck; I let them.
Pride of lions in the yard. Stare, and they burn a hole in your retina.
A common flower, a weed that no one sees, yes.
But for us, a noble thing, the dandelion.”
-Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine
—
art credit: garth williams, (the rabbit’s wedding) – rabbit basking in the moonlight
I didn't have my glasses on.... 