Morbid Anatomy’s Contemporary Artist Blogroll
November 14, 2008
If you enjoy antique medical models, specimen collections, and anatomical diagrams from various cultures and eras, please treat yourself to the Morbid Anatomy blog. It’s not (too) icky, I promise.
The author is kind enough to include several thorough blogrolls, including museums, online exhibitions, a bibliography, and other like-minded websites. They also have compiled a list of contemporary(ish) artists whose work recalls anatomical study, whether morbid or not. The list goes from Gorey to Bourgeois to Ryden to Hirst and back. Check ‘em out.
Anatomy of the skeleton, attributed to Avicenna, 980-1037. From this article on the history of anatomical maps in Asia, via Morbid Anatomy.
Related: Sarah’s del.icio.us bookmarks tagged “anatomy”. And everyone else’s.
Stephen Harper Portrait Contest
November 12, 2008
From Art Threat, via Drawn!
Framing Harper: A National Portrait Contest
Since Stephen Harper cancelled the National Portrait Gallery, we decided to create our own in his honour. We’re inviting artists to submit their portrait of Canada’s Prime Minister for inclusion in the Stephen Harper Portrait Gallery, and their chance to win (minor) fame and riches!
The Conservative Party has made many, many cuts to the arts, so our jury will be looking for portraits that best embody Stephen Harper’s “commitment” to the arts and culture in Canada.
The contest is open to Canadians and non-Canadians alike. Let’s help our northern neighbors out. (Heck, we know what it’s like to be underappreciated by our government, don’t we?)
I upped and joined Facebook
November 8, 2008
…so you’re welcome to find me there!
Paho Mann and Dylan Bradway, My Famous Friends
October 9, 2008
Untitled (Re-inhabited Circle-K Store, Albuquerque), photograph by Paho Mann. Click image to visit the artist’s website.
Two things happened on the internet this week. (That’s right, just two. This blog post makes three.) Two of my artist friends, Dylan Bradway and Paho Mann, have been recognized on blogs with startlingly high readerships.
Dylan Bradway is an up-and-comer here in Oklahoma City. In addition to quality graphic design (such as the catalog for Art 365), he creates evocative paintings incorporating stylized characters and street-influenced calligraphic line. He and his partner-in-life Amanda Weathers-Bradway recently set up shop in OKC’s Plaza District.
This morning I got a text from Dylan instructing me to “check out Juxtapoz.com.” Sure enough, the Juxtapoz blog is featuring a group show of train car designs that includes a piece by Dylan. (That guy in the green hoodie on the red car? That’s Dylan’s.) The Train Car Project will be on display at Papa B Studios in Brooklyn, October 10-22.
Paho Mann is an old friend and colleague from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. A precise formalist photographer, Paho has long been interested in typologies — objects that are of a category and also have unique characteristics. My favorite series of his is the re-inhabited Circle K stores, a staple of Albuquerque’s accidental non-architecture.
This week Paho’s Junk Drawer series was discovered by a New York Times blog called The Moment, a kind of digital-state-of-the-union roundup, followed by Kottke.org. Here is a transcript of the email I sent him upon learning this news:
YOU HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED BY THE NYTIMES BLOG AND [redacted] JASON
KOTTKE DUUUUUUUDE THE ENTIRE INTERNET KNOWS YOU NOW OMFG YOU ARE
FAMOUS
Splendid job, guys. Keep it up.
National Endowment for the Arts Announces New Artists In The Workforce Study
September 30, 2008
Sarah Atlee working in the studio, 2007. Photo by David L. Gray. (Click image to see full size.)
The National Endowment for the Arts has just released a comprehensive new study examining the role of artists in the American economy. In a nutshell: We’re more important than we thought. From the NEA’s website:
“Artists now play a huge but mostly unrecognized role in the new American economy of the 21st century,” said NEA Chairman Dana Gioia. “This report shows how important American artists are to both our nation’s cultural vitality and economic prosperity of our communities.”
Numbering almost two million, artists are one of the largest classes of workers in the nation, only slightly smaller than the U.S. military’s active-duty and reserve personnel (2.2 million). Artists now represent 1.4 percent of the U.S. labor force.
Here are some other factoids (that I kinda already knew, and that the NEA has kindly confirmed):
* Artists are entrepreneurial – 3.5 times more likely to be self-employed.
* Artists are underemployed – one-third of artists work for only part of the year.
* Artists generally earn less than workers with similar education levels. The median income from all sources in 2005 was $34,800 for artists, higher than the $30,100 median for the total labor force, and lower than the $43,200 for all professionals.
You can download the entire study in PDF format from the NEA website.
This came to me via the OVAC Blog, a great resource for Oklahoma artists.
Synechdoche, NY (and its cousins)
September 20, 2008
The trailer is out for Charlie Kaufman’s new film, Synechdoche, NY. (If that sounds familiar, it’s a play on the real-life location Schenechtady, NY.)
After watching the trailer, I had to go remind myself just what a synechdoche is. It’s a grammatical term for a metaphorical phrase in which a part stands for a whole, such as “wheels” for a car or “all hands” for the crew of a ship.
The real treat (as if reading about nuances of the English language wasn’t scintillating enough) came at the end of the Wikipedia article, under the See Also section. Here’s what I found:
* Conceptual metaphor
* Figure of speech
* Metonymy
* Pars pro toto
* Totum pro parte
* Hendiadys
If that was the guest list of a dinner party, I would totally bring the chips.
Related: Sarah’s words on Wordie.
Ryan: Animated Short by Chris Landreth
July 18, 2008
(Thank you, Drawn!) Friends, I’ve just seen something, and you should see it too. Do you know the feeling that rises, when you’re reading or watching or hearing something, and your sense of time slows, your muscles fill with cooling gel, and you think, “Oh my God, this is important“? I watched this film and sort of felt my world turn a corner.
Still from Ryan, an animated film by Chris Landreth.
Not only does Landreth use his medium for purposeful and poetic storytelling, but he portrays strikingly accurate visual representations of love and addiction. Watch the film online at the YouTube Screening Room.
Read more about the film here.
Read more about Ryan Larkin here.
Abstract Earth: Stunning Satellite Imagery
July 12, 2008
Satellite Image of Aleutian Clouds, North America. Click image to view its source.
Are you looking for ideas for your next thirty abstract paintings? Because NASA beat you to it. But you can go visit them at the Environmental Graffiti blog.
Survey: Do you use Creative Commons and Flickr?
July 11, 2008
Untitled photograph from Flickr user Sevenshades. This photo is one of many images on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. Click image to view its source.
From the creativecommons.org blog:
Our good friend and new media sociologist Alek Tarkowski from CC Poland has been working hard to compile data for a new report on Flickr user patterns and content licensing. This’ll be a great boost for deepening our developing case study, and will go a long way to supporting our ongoing efforts to develop an understanding of how creators release their works.
But he needs your help to gather data! You can get a link to his short survey here. Definitely worth the few minutes.
For more on CC Poland’s work check out their site.
I, for one, use Flickr both to showcase my cc-licensed work and to search for other cc-licensed images. Help spread the word!
Boys Who Love The Subway
July 11, 2008
Speaking of maps…
Christoph Niemann’s sons give helpful directions to a stranger.
Here is a delightfully illustrated story in the New York Times about two little boys and their love for the MTA. An excellent example of using symbols as visual language, the perfect mix between pictures and words. You can see more of Niemann’s work at his website, www.christophniemann.com. (Ooh! Ooh! Turns out he did one of my favorite New Yorker covers, which you can see here. Scroll down to the lady with the pikachu kimono.)