Silence of the Leaves: Your kid looks like Hannibal Lechter.

One of the things I love most in this world are amateur photography contests. Just like a thrift store, these contests ask you to dig through some ugly crap to get to the good stuff. You find ugly cliches, some lovely images, and the occasional accidentally HILARIOUS picture. You can imagine my excitement this morning when I came across the gem above at weather.com's fall photo contest. I can understand how the photographer (who I'm guessing is a loving relative of this child) may have missed the obvious likeness between this adorable child and Hannibal Lechter, but what about the photo editors?

Check it: http://www.weather.com/outlook/photo/read/fallfoliage/B437C983-6EE6-4BA0-92FE-D979A1C38FBF?from=hp_dwp

"This Is Not a Pipe... or Painting"

Miz Briccetti's post on glare, gave me pause to reflect (anyone? anyone? I will be here all evening). It is so frustrating to see paintings under glass. A good painting will utilize the physical qualities of paint as a material and you end up with all this depth from different layers of glazing and whatnot. The glass on top always flattens out these layers as it doesn't let the light in properly and then there is the glare and reflections---although I would like to think that my face floating in the middle of the still life really makes the grapes pop.

Of course, photographing these glass covered pieces is near impossible. I think this is my biggest complaint. There are so many photographs of paintings covered by glass or other reflective surfaces, and I have no idea what I am looking at. Glaze or varnish on paintings are just as bad as glass and with the mandatory digitization of paintings for web viewing, I have doubts regarding the accuracy of what I am seeing. I am guilty of putting a thick, unctuous layer of varnish on everything I do (like a bird or 5 year old, I enjoy shiny things) and I gotta tell you, the photographs of these pieces are not entirely true. Between the flattened glazing and the presence of glare, photoshop makes a new image in an attempt to salvage the digitized painting. I hate that. I suppose the only consolation is that it is true of all paintings; if you can't see them in person, you aren't really seeing them. Take Marevich's White on White (pictured above). It is the proverbial polar bear eating marshmallows in a vat of shredded coconut. The photograph just reduces it to an image and as an image it is pretty boring. It is only interesting when you can get close to it and see all the nuances in the paint. The picture of the piece is only good for documentation (sorta) and if you put the protective glass over it, you may as well put it into storage.

Cute and Affordable on Etsy: Kari Herer

Ah, summer.  What a perfect time to talk about beautiful flowers and reasonably priced art! When recently featured on one of my other favorite blogs, Apartment Therapy, the photography of Kari Herer came blazing onto my radar and has just been begging to be blogged about.

At left you see one of her delicate floral prints, a photograph of a flower and a drawing where the object and the depiction of it seamlessly flow together. The best part? You can own it for $25!

Check her out! http://www.kariherer.com/

Donors Should Choose

Anyone go to Donorschoose.org? If not, you should (unless you are a student or starving artist in which case this guilt trip is not meant for you.... or me, for that matter). But I do look at Donors Choose to imagine all the good causes that I could be contributing to if I did not have loans and aspirations of further education and health insurance. Whilst perusing the art listings, where teachers post requests for materials and goods that will aid in the art education of their students, I received quite a shock. After post after post for markers, pencils, books, and paper for high poverty schools, I came upon a request for an LCD projector (an expensive one) for a moderate, socioeconomically situated elementary school... to assist the students in experiencing art.

Am I the only one who is just a little offended by that? I mean, yeah, a nice big picture would be great for looking at pictures, but when compared to the actual mundane deficiencies at other schools... it just seems horrifyingly superfluous and taking away resources that could have been better used. Not to mention that a LCD isn't going to help a little kid experience art much more than a poster on the wall or a pic on the computer. And if we start nit picking, you only could truly experience video art on that projector (somehow I doubt they will be viewing the Cremaster Cycle in Ms. Mcgillicutty's 2nd grade class).

Anyway, I am stepping back down off my soapbox.

Go spend your money here: http://www.donorschoose.org/homepage/main.html?zone=0

Why I LOVE Yahoo Answers.

You find things like this--weird artwork and a bunch of people giving their opinions about it.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApxlnqZBLai4GSp1JqUoMp6MxQt.;_ylv=3?qid=20090529120206AAxiYJz

Cute and Affordable on Etsy: Kelly Neidig

All of a sudden, every artist I come across whose work I like is from Portland, Orgeon. Case and point: Kelly Neidig, artist and president of the Portland Open Studios. Ms. Neidig makes adorable little abstracted landscape paintings which are available on Etsy for under $100. These colorful, graphic squares give you big oil-painted bang for your buck.

Website: http://www.kellyneidig.com/

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5005874

Cute and Affordable on Etsy: Rebecca Shelly

Looking at art on Esty is kind of like going to a thrift store: if you've got the energy to dig through all the junk, you'll find some really beautiful things.  Scrolling through seemingly endless mediocre (and worse) paintings of fruit still lifes, CUSTOM PORTRAITS OF YOUR PET!, and sunset and palm tree landscapes makes finding something really beautiful as exciting as finding a Prada skirt amidst racks of acid washed jeans and polyester suits.

Enter Rebecca Shelly, a young painter from Portland, Oregon creating beautiful, leafy abstractions which combine naturalistic description with biomorphic areas of flat color.  A number of her paintings are available for purchase on Etsy at wonderfully affordable prices. Currently featured on the Cover of the Portland Review Literary Journal,  Ms. Shelly is an artist on the rise!

Website: http://rebeccashelly.com/

Etsy Store: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5093283

Holy Craft, Look Out!!!! It's Extreme Craft.

If someone asked you to define art as opposed to craft, what would you say?

That is one of those questions which I tend to roll over in my mind while showering (isn't that where all the good ideas come from?). I really don't have an answer to this question; I think it really all boils down to context. Dada's 'Readymades' are certainly very functional and Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is made up of traditional craft elements, and at the same time Tiffany & Co. make vases, lamps, and other chotchkies fabulous enough to be considered art. Maybe the only difference is in the price tag (not that Tiffany's is cheap...). Sadly right now, I can only afford to buy craft, and the non-Tiffany kind at that (yes, I am still waiting for my Obama-bucks).

What with these muddled definitions of craft and art and their mutant, degenerate love children, we need to consider the Extreme Craft Blog brought to you by one, Garth Johnson. Here "craft" is defined as follows: art masquerading as craft, craft masquerading as art, and craft extending its middle finger. Frankly, I think that covers a good chunk of what you see in a gallery or museum. Tara Donovan or Tom Friedman could fit into those categories on quite a few occasions, not to mention countless community based, guerrilla works. Extreme Craft covers all of this. It is an excellent read... not to mention a fount of information if you need to find a groomer who can make your poodle look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (you can't handle the truth!!).

Take a gander: http://extremecraft.typepad.com/

Art We're Over: "Funny" Charts.

Yes, the "viral graph" had its moment in the sun.  The "Rick Rolled" graphs were kinda funny, as were the ones based on rap songs when they first appeared on Ebaums.  I'm not embarassed to say that I've spent my fair share of time on GraphJam.com, but now, artists and illustrators are taking these humorous charts and including them in their online portfolios.  Are we really supposed to believe that these one-note pie-charts and venn-diagrams are art?

I'm absolutely ready to call LOL Cats art because they take something that exists out in the world and breathe new meaning into it, often by turning it on its head (I can has Duchamp, anyone?).  But these charts and graphs I see all over town (aka the art+design blogosphere) are just too facile for me to really believe in.  There's no new meaning, no deeper read, nothing more than surface cleverness put down on paper (or pixels) in a few quick moments' time.

Your Mom Goes to Art School: Is deviantART the new BFA?

Do you suppose that there have always been so many artists out there making work and that the internet just allows us to see them? It seems to me that the last few years, particularly with the launch of websites like deviantART, that more people are making art without having studied it.  DeviantART in particular seems to be the place to be for young artists with little or no formal education. It's always a fun site to browse, full of teenage angst pictures and 'Twilight' paintings mixed in with more conventionally 'good' paintings. The piece above, "The Local" by Artistwilder, is a pretty "good" painting: nice colors, correct perspectives, successful composition, and good drawing--certainly the kind of painting that you'd see made by someone with some formal art education.

Spending time on deviantART always leaves me with mixed feelings. While it's a great option for young people to post their offerings to the art gods and get some feedback, it seems unfortunate that such sites may be replacing more formal and traditional art schooling. DeviantART is both democratizing and lowering standards; now everyone can display work in a global forum, but can one really get quality education, critique, and exposure online? Yeah, yeah, I get the irony here--I'm writing this on an art blog, blah blah blah. Regardless of where this whole internet-as-art-school thing takes us, I will be interested to see if in 20, 50, 100 years from now, artists of international fame will say that they got their education from sites like deviant.

For more art by Artistwilder scope this: http://artistwilder.deviantart.com/

Shear Genius: Extreme LED Sheep Art.

If there's one thing that should be clear by now about F***ART, it's that we love animals in art.  So it comes as no surprise that today's post features the internet favorite "Extreme LED Sheep Art." If you have yet to see it, you're probably not spending enough time on the internet. 

Feeling sheepish? Go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw

Matthew Tischler's Rigourous SCREENing Process

In the spirit of my last post, I'm going to use this forum to promote work by an artist whose art in is my collection, thus increasing its value and making me FUCKING RICHER.

So check it: this past Thursday's 20x200 from blog-o-sphere fave Jen Beckman featured a return by New York photographer Matthew Tischler. Tischler is known for shooting images through screens and other fabrics, focusing in close creating a gridded out image of blurry figures and landscapes. They're awesome, and you should check him out (and try to snatch up a $20 print from Beckman before they're sold out!).

http://www.matthewtischler.com/

i can has found art? LOL cats, motivational posters, and fail videos.

Marcel Duchamp, eat your heart out: you may have started the movement of found art, but it has been perfected by generation y techies. Instead of signing a pseudonym on a urinal, it's become all the rage in this day and age to write a funny caption on a picture someone else took.  When it comes to found art, the internet has provided a never-ending stream of creativity and hilarity.  It seems like almost every week I find a new blog that's just so funny, I add it to my daily blog-check. (Current favorites include failblog.org, www.passiveaggressivenotes.com, and www.unnecessaryquotes.com.)  And those are only the still images--video art on the internet has experienced a similar boom/democratization.  The line between YouTube video and video art becomes less and less clear everyday because of videos from "LonelyGirl15" and that guy who took a picture of himself everyday for 40 years, and my number one favorite "Benny Lava."

So the question here is this: if Joseph Kosuth can stick a chair, a picture of a chair, and the definition of "chair" on a gallery wall, then shouldn't the captioning of cat pictures by a fat, lonely star-wars fans be considered art?

Webcomics That Rule: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Series Title: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Available: http://www.smbc-comics.com/

Author/Artist: Zach Weiner
Representational: Yes
Narrative: No
Sequential: No
Safe For Work: No
Output: Several times a week
Summary in three words: one-shot, spastic, crass

I mean, there isn't much else to say. Most of Weiner's comics are either just one or two poorly drawn panels, with an obtuse and delightful humor. They mostly provide commentary on science, the arts, and pop culture. SMBC will fulfill your every time-wasting need... quickly and easily digested, really funny, and contained in a big fat archive.

Webcomics That Rule: Pictures For Sad Children

Series Title: Pictures For Sad Children

Available: http://picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php

Author/Artist: John Campbell
Representational: Yes
Narrative: On occasion (some recurring characters)
Sequential: On occasion
Safe For Work: No
Output: Several times a week
Summary in three words: simple, depressing, genius

This may be my very favorite webcomic. It takes only a few strips before you understand John Campbell's "unrendered" technique, which is perhaps more of a code of drawing than a style. How a comic could be so utterly simple in aesthetics and so economical in dialogue and still manage to be funny is nothing short of amazing. It has everything to do with timing, and Campbell can "write" timing like nobody's business. This is one of a handful of webcomics which will actually produce an involuntary lol, and then you'll be like, "god I'm on the internet and I really lolled, I have to text somebody."

Webcomics That Rule: Garfield Minus Garfield

Series Title: Garfield Minus Garfield

Available: http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Author/Artist: Dan Walsh, appropriated from artwork by Jim Davis

Representational: Yes

Narrative: No

Sequential: No

Safe For Work: Yes

Output: About four times a week

Summary in three words: Existential, Depressing, Fuckinghilarious

Dan Walsh takes original three-paneled Garfield strips, and removes Garfield and Odie. What is left behind is Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's owner/foil. This, however, is not the same Jon Arbuckle you remember from your childhood, which we can assume was robbed from you every Saturday morning by the evils of television. This Mr. Arbuckle is an agoraphobe, a schizo, and very much a loser, alone in a world that he populates with his own echoing musings. Who knew that this amazing material was lurking in the pages behind the infamous Mr. "I can haz lasagna?"

Moooove over horses: More Livestock in Wigs

Since livestock and other unusual bodies in wigs appears to have become the new theme of this blog, I give you cowabduction.com. At left, you see a lovely photo of a cow in disguise (a saucy little blonde wig) underneath what appears to be a flying saucer--just one of many gems to be found at the site dedicated to eliminating alien abductions of cows.

I would love to see some sort of exhibition or documentary be the culmination of this site's research. It's got all the right ingredients to one day become a cult favorite: internet exposure, conspiracy-theory espousing rednecks, and animals in costumes.