My first piece of furniture

I really enjoyed planning and making this piece. Welding was a new experience for me and it was so fun. I'd like to do more furniture in the future and I'd love to see this piece on a really large scale outside a building or something...but that's just a dream. Maybe some day!

"Organize Bookmarks"

I have over 100 websites in my bookmarks and desperately need to clean it out. I'm going to do that over the next few days and blog probably most of what I find.

Graffiti

The further you delve into the world of graffiti/street art, the more apparent it is that specific styles begin to emerge out of different cities over time. For whatever reason, "Western" graffiti seems to have taken less of an artistic approach over the years. Granted, occasionally you can discover some incredibly imaginative street art in Canada and America but, for the most part, seriously artistic work is left for Europeans.
Case in point...Ukraine:





via Hemmy

London is home to the infamous Banksy, who has managed to shoot street art into a realm never before seen. I mean, who knew Angelina Jolie would be buying up seriously pricey collections from a man who began by stenciling all over London in the dead of night? I might be slightly "over it" now but I can't make a post about street art without a few Banksy works. And, just to keep with the theme of things, these are all found in London, although he did some incredibly socially-conscious (as his work always is) pieces in New Orleans after the hurricane.




via Art of the State

Going back a few years...
Picasso's light graffiti from 1949. This kind of light art is super popular right now but anytime I see a time-lapse photo of bubbles, robots or words created with any kind of bulb or fire, I think of this. Gorgeous in its simplicity and originality at the time, Picasso's light art is overlooked in most surveys of his work. I find it fascinating that even though this is a hard thing to control, his style permeates.





via Wooster Collective


And finally...
I think I've blogged this before but it's still in my bookmarks and fits this post.
The Reverse Graffiti Project

The Reverse Graffiti Project
by BriKO

via Daily Motion


That's all for now. 4 down...many more to go.

xo

New Steadman!

Lacrosse Ballet

Local Spotlight

My friend Anna and I went to Market Collective 5 here in Calgary a couple weekends ago and had the pleasure of seeing local artist Markus Michel.
His work is absolutely amazing and I came across this video of one of his books. The video doesn't do it justice but these books are huge, hundreds and hundreds of pages, and this particular one took 22 months to complete. The majority of the pages are delicately cut so that each page interacts and relates with the next. The colours he uses are so bright and vivid and his subjects range from octopuses to buildings to his own cat. Some of it is funny and all of it is totally breathtaking.
The video is 6 minutes long and worth every second.
Beautiful, beautiful work.
Enjoy! And go to the next Market Collective and see it for yourself!

Movie Madness, Take Two!

Get it? I made a joke...referencing film making?
Anyway, here again are some wonderful trailers of upcoming movies that look simply wonderful. I hope you enjoy them. (NOTE: For some unknown reason, these damn trailers are showing up with a quarter cut off on my computer. If the same goes for yours...take the time to go to youtube and watch them because they really do look great.)

Paper Heart starring Charlyne Li and Michael Cera. I can pretty much say this will be one of my favourite movies of the entire year. Makes me feel all warm even though there's snow on the ground.

Lymelife. Three words: Culkin. Culkin. Baldwin.

Cheri. The kind of period piece I could get into.

Here is the link to a film I couldn't find the trailer for. It's called In A Dream and is a documentary about an artist, his family and the demise of his marriage. It looks beautiful.

Aaand...

CUT!

Factory Party 5

Well, Calgary, it's that time of the month again!
Factory Party is back this Friday at the Uptown Stage and Screen! If you haven't been yet, you really should, and if you have, then you're probably already planning on coming again. It's a great night for music, art, film, dancing, socializing and drinking...all in one place for one low, low price!
I'm even lucky enough to have a couple things up this time 'round and I would love to see some familiar faces and shoot some celebratory tequila. Maybe, just maybe I'll see you there!
Come down early if you don't have tickets...they're expecting 1200 people so there'll probably be more than that and door tickets will sell out.
See some bands, watch some films, check out some art (mine, too, please!) mingle, shake ya tail feather and party!

Vladimir Kush

This phenomenal Russian artist dubs his work "metaphorical realism."

More paintings.
Homepage.

The one thing I wish the U of C had...

GLASS BLOWING!

This glass artist, David Chihuly, is incredible. All of these pieces are on display until May 31st at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona but the link at the bottom is to Chihuly's homepage which has oodles more.
Chiostro di Sant'Apollonia Chandelier, 1995.

Mexican Hat and Horn Tower, 2008 (detail on right)

Saffron Tower, 2008. 27 feet high!

Blue and Purple Boat, 2008.

Blue Fiddleheads, 2008.

David Chihuly.

Chris Zajko

Local artist. Singer for Sharp Ends. Genius.

Jean Dubuffet

French painter and sculptor. July 31 1901 - May 12 1985

Manoir d Essor - Lousiana Museum of Modern Art - Denmark.

Monument à la Bête Debout - 1984 - Chicago

Jardin d'email - Kroller Muller Sculpture garden - Otterlo, Netherlands

Grand Jazz Band (New Orleans) - 1941

Galeries Lafayette - 1961

I like...

Monet, National Holiday, June 30, 1878, Rue St. Denis

Monet, National Holiday, June 30, 1878, Rue Montorgueil

Manet, The Viennese Woman (Portrait of Irma Brunner in a Black Hat)

Electroland...

I stumbled upon (literally. great add-on) this website a number of months ago and I go back and look through it probably once a week.
Cameron McNall and Damon Seeley create huge public art all over the globe incorporating light, sound, images, architecture, motion and interactivity into each piece. Their work creates a sense of play and, as said before, interactivity missing in day to day life. These projects are a way to catch people off guard and wake them from the drone of monotony.
They proposed a project last year for Calgary, which I couldn't get a photo for so you'll have to go to their website (link at bottom) to see it. "Eleven differently coloured glass interactive sculptures mark each one of the main train stops along 7th Ave. When viewed as a group they lend a cohesive identity to the transit corridor; individually, each displays unique interactive patterns when people approach them. The sculptures will be installed over a three year period during phased corridor construction."

"Enteractive" in Los Angeles. The lights on the side of the building correspond with lights on the sidewalk below and as people move and interact on the sidewalk, the wall of the building lights up.

City National Plaza, L.A. This one didn't get completed as the client decided not to continue with it. Too bad.

Urban Nomad Shelter, L.A. This was the first I saw of Electroland and was immediately intrigued. The shelters are inflatable which McNall and Seeley see as both a "social and humanitarian act." The wide distribution of the bright cocoons was hoped to foster a "dialog about the invisibility and marginalization of the homeless." On the humanitarian side, the shelters provide portable and inexpensive ways to protect against weather and other hardships the homeless face.

These are the only images I was able to get due to a savvy website design...check out Electroland's website for more projects.

Today in 3D...

Started the first project which is making a clay mold of a design using three letters of our name and then casting that in plaster. HAY! It's a happy design and I think I will really enjoy it. No pictures...work in progress?

Sidenote...Obama!
Considering it's inauguration day, I feel it's only right to do something about Barack Obama.
Thinking about the man who rose to mass media superstar over the past number of months, I realize how far the influence of his campaign has reached. Music, art, literature, history. The Obama Machine pushed campaigning to a level not often seen in the political realm.
Mtv News had a short story on Obama Art and after interneting a bit, these are my picks...much more at The Obama Report.

The one that started it all...
Shepard Fairey. Los Angeles based street artist. He got together with publicist Yosi Sergant, who suggested he pitch something to Obama and, after a few calls, got the go-ahead Fairey was waiting for. He had two weeks before Super Sunday and set out pulling his piece together...starting with a googled news photo. Progress was the word on Fairey's first posters but hope and change are among many variations. It's become a pop culture icon...and it's politics! Could the American people be getting smarter...or, counterpoint...is this some form of carefully chosen, glamourized propaganda? Either way, it's a great time to be alive and it's been said a thousand times but...This is History.

Another Shepard Fairey piece for his Duality of Humanism exhibit in San Francisco.

Another take by Mac

Morning Breath. A lot of Obama art took on this really 'retro' kind of feel, resembling feel-good advertising in the 50's.

Up in Canada we didn't see this poster for Upper Playground by The Date Farmers but it played a big part in the success of The Obama Machine. A conversation about how "silly it was that Obama wasn't getting the Latino vote"...ergo...Cambio.

Street art in New York City.

Street Art - Atlanta.

Acrylic. Phil Fung.

"Just Words" Gene Mackles

"Hussein (Handsome One)" Ian Simmons. I love this because in the mixed media class I had one of my "texture studies" was made by getting everyone in the bar one Wednesday night to sign an 8" by 8" piece of paper. Since then I've been using words as 'mark-making'.

Hope (You Complete the Picture) Trey Speegle

Josh Holland. and Shannon Bonatakis.

A version of the Abe-Obama image. San Francisco

Coup.

Cut acrylic paint, Zane Lewis..

...but I digress!

h