Wednesday, September 23, 2009

drawing me up the wall

the milk bar on the corner has a new lick of graffiti on its walls. it's not that great but at least it's colourful.

i like graffiti.











i want the train companies to hire graffiti artists to tart up the exteriors so we have street art snaking through our suburbs
interesting things happen on walls

illustrating street walls and special commission garden walls
( i like the feeling of this especially, secret garden-ish)
miso's wall-papering - again, interviewed on designfiles
some of her pieces remind me of klimt, stylised repetition

recently we had to get a present for a turning 11 girl. i confess i wanted to show her images like these and encourage some graphic urbanscaping because works like these, or practice like this makes me feel alive, and make me laugh and think (my favourite things ... almost)
an article in the age on wednesday got me thinking about street art. it was called if these scrawls could talks - nice one.

another image or so from a recent exhibition in a half-torn down building

Thursday, September 17, 2009

nose to tail

nose to tail talk has been moving in slow fooding circles a long time
respecting all the animal's bits as a way of respecting the animal
there was a nice article on the topic in the age a little while ago, bringing the boutique to the farm (though i think the print article was called soul food or something)
pork farmer, elizabeth behrendt refuses to sell to people who don't know what they're doing. she says "I am never going to see their flesh abused in my market stall or in the kitchen when someone cooks the crap out of it. I can do everything right on my farm but it only takes a few minutes from a crap cook to ruin the meat from my pigs."
well, artists nose to tail it too,
or sheep stomach and bladder it, at least
julia lohmann
ruminant - lighting made from cow's stomachs
and flock - A ceiling made from 50 preserved sheep stomachs, 180cm x 180 cm x 30 cm, made in 2004, exhibited at the Royal College of Art Summer Show and at Design Mart in the Design Museum.
not sure what i think of this, but her gallery includes a "before" shot...

this last image of julia plus sheep tummies reminds me of some of louise bourgeois's work.
like, fillette (1968) latex over plaster, 59.5 x 26.5 19.5 cm
mapplethorpe's portrait of louise bourgeois with fillette tucked under her arm like a baguette
an article in the tate magazine, with the wonderful, playful title lumps, bumps, bulbs, bubbles, bulges, slits, turds, coils, craters, wrinkles and holes, which pretty well covers the field ...
another bourgeois piece, the destruction of the father, which looks like lohmann's flocked ceiling

according to trendhunter
The paper-thin substrate Mary-Anne Wensley uses for her sculptures could easily be mistaken for parchment, but no, Wensley uses a material that she finds both captivating and disgusting: dried pig intestines,
in fact, the works look incredibly sanitised

a final piece by louise bourgeois, janus fleuri, which is just ... well offal-esque really
no-one made me blog about this, so if i make myself queasy ... i've no-one to blame but me!
given that it's footy finals time, it's apt to be thinking about pigs' bladders ...
or possum balls (marn grook balls)

Monday, September 14, 2009

horses horses

first motion picture horse
In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge photographed a horse named "Occident" in fast motion using a series of 12 stereoscopic cameras. The first experience successfully took place on June 11 at the Palo Alto farm in California. The cameras were arranged along a track parallel to the horse's, and each of the camera shutters was controlled by a trip wire which was triggered by the horse's hooves


a very guernica-like horse in spain

Thursday, September 10, 2009

hole in the wall

oh the fascinating formations of cappadocia houses built out of caves

less sculptural, but more cave dwellings in turkey near göre





which look a lot like these modern condiminiums built for bats and birds

falcons nest in or near the building where i work
i see them gliding past my window on the 43rd floor, swooping to hunt or hanging on thermals - i wonder whether they'd like modern apartments like these?
other cave dwellings,

the anasazi indians lived in and near caves, mesa verde, colorado
french cave dwellings, near st siffret - people in the area were troglodytes (cave dwellers) in pre-historic times, some comfier caves are still occupied





dank places to live, but they look beautiful...


the stacked rocks remind me of rock cairns











which remind me of termite mounds

which remind me of mud houses around the world (great collection of images here) including beehive houses in harran, turkey

which in turn take me right back to the caves of cappadocia

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

springing into life

life is appearing all over the place as spring unfolds

a phone book flower

Friday, September 4, 2009

soon turned out ...

years and years ago i dreamt of having a birthday party with a disco ball light, and me, wearing a dress similar to debbie harry's off the shoulder number in heart of glass










lisa ho maxi in platinum that is a very pale and far less sexy substitute for the "heart of glass" original
perhaps i could just have the bubbles, and the smoke and wind machines?
ooo-ooh, boy


Thursday, September 3, 2009

colour me happy

why are colours so good?
why does an array of colour make me so giddy and happy?










i love paint swatches, and fabric swatches
what to do with colour swatches, source

i  and pantone colour fans (color guide - paper) (you can also get them to match web colours using a color bridge)

select and specify solid PANTONE Colors on coated stockdetermine how a PANTONE Color will appear when reproduced in CMYKcreate optimal display of PANTONE Colors on monitors and Web pages
mmm, so exciting!
and i just found a whole world of colour pencils! you subscribe, and every month they deliver 25 pencils. this goes on for 20 months (imagine!) and finally you have all 500. a whole world of colour.























vietnamese h'mong people wear vivid colours, so do highland people of many regions, nations, cultures

harsh life, colour is used to inject life and joy


new happy colour edition: