Mini Mania

Hungry yet??

Too bad. Because these delectable offerings from French artisan, Stephanie, wouldn't be enough to fill you up even if they were real:

Yep, they're miniatures.  I can't imagine having the dexterity, not to mention the patience, to put something like this together - truly amazing.  If you feel the need to own some of these delicious minis, check out her Etsy store.  And don't worry, if you're past the playing with doll houses age, you can always wear your tasty treat.

Size Does Matter

This was pretty cool - art and the science combined.  Created by SumoScience and Aardman,

The animation was filed using a Nokia N8 smart phone equipped with a CellScope, a diagnostic-quality microscope that was invented by Daniel Fletcher at the University of California, Berkeley. The CellScope allows a doctor working anywhere there is a phone service to capture and transmit images of blood samples anywhere in the world. The technology could help diagnose disease in developing countries where medical doctors and labs are few and far between.
~ Discovery News

Be sure to watch the credits - they really bring the whole size issue into focus.

Thanks to Christopher for the link!

Rome Burns Part II

Rome is one of my all-time favorite cities. The art, the food, the people, the awesome sense of  history you get just from walking down the street...there is no place like the Eternal City.

And speaking of history, sometimes old is new: artists Thyra Hilden of Denmark and Pio Diaz of Argentina are planning to burn the coliseum next week...

The installation, titled “Coliseum on Fire,” is part of a wider project, City on Fire, to which the artists have devoted themselves to for some years, creating virtual fires in important institutions, monuments, museums, and churches throughout Europe.
~eternallycool

I think I hear fiddle music...

Read more about the project and see other monuments they would like to burn here.

Floaters

Thought these were interesting - A series of 15 images by French photographer Denis Darzacq called 'Hyper'.   If you've spent any time outside the major cities in France or Italy lately, you've likely run across the Hypermarts - think Tesco or Walmart on steroids.  

Darzacq decided to use these monstrosities that are slowly but inevitably doing what Walmarts do, as backdrops for his images.  His subjects, young street dancers, were told to jump or leap into the air, twisting  and twirling.  He used high shutter speed photography to capture the dancers in mid-air. Apparently there was no photo-shopping done to the images.

I really like these two - the one on top looks like the dancer was just hanging or floating around.  Imagine seeing that when you turned your cart at the end of the aisle...

I like the one below if only in admiration of the dancer's commitment to the project - unless she really can levitate, that is one painful landing on the way.

The exhibit was at Laurence Miller Gallery in New York earlier this year.

Woodn't you like one in your house??

File these in the 'wish I could find room in my home' file.

Beautiful cabinet from Elisa Strozyk - a little hard to see from this perspective, but the front of the cabinet is multi-dimensional. Really lovely.

Coffee table from Josh Finkle - bringing the forest to your living room.

The Molly desk and Wishbone Chair from Toby Howes. More art than furniture. Now that I think about it, I'm sure I can find room for the Molly desk somewhere...

For the Birds

The White House cats don't like birds much - all that twittering and flying about is so annoying. Not to mention sitting on the balcony railing like they own the place!

You better believe they wouldn't be so cocky if there wasn't a screen between them and the kids...

Maybe they wouldn't be hanging out on our balcony, taunting the cats if they had one of these fabulous bird houses to go home to.

By Luke Bartels and Jeff Canham for the Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco. Btw, if you've ever been to SF, you'll know that the Condor actually exists. And yes, it's a strip club.

via You Might Like This

Land of the Giants

By now I'm sure you've seen these electricity generating windmills - they seem to be all over the place these days. Popping up wherever there's a stretch of empty rural land, like majestic alien sentinels. I kind of like them. In addition to the 'alternative energy' perspective, I think they look cool.

Of course, I don't have to live next to them. Although I like they way they look, I can see how folks might feel that they spoil the scenery on the wide open range or the cosy family farm.

Imagine the response to these guys:

From Choi + Shine Architects, these one hundred fifty foot tall electricity pylons were designed for use in Iceland. The towers can be configured to respond to their environment, arms up for height, in a crouch to get low, side by side or in single file.

Regardless of configuration, these pylons would definitely add something to the scenery.

See more at Choi + Shine

via Dezeen

What's in your bookbag?

I like books, I usually read them.

The Slovakian artist Matej Kren does something different with his books...he stacks them. His latest project is Scanner, a tower of stacked books at MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, Italy.

The narrow inside space, multiplied and complicated by mirrors, evoke a sensation of sublime terror, an alteration referring to a puzzling infinity itself created to destabilize conventional spatial habits. Mirrors become an instrument to create illusion and, at the same time, to unmask it. Since the public can easily see themselves reflected in a false infinite – thus discovering the illusion – the problem becomes the latency of perception.
~MAMbo

I'm not sure if it's the translation or the really profound artsy description, but I have no idea what that means. I do, however, think it's pretty cool.

I'm also pretty sure I have enough books to build my own igloo, or maybe a teepee?

via Inhabitat

Wandering through dreamland

These acrylics by Katherine Lewis are absolutely beautiful. I saw them at the Mosswood Market Cafe in downtown Boonville CA where they made walking into this little coffee shop / lunch room feel like stepping into a dream.

Had I known that they wouldn't be gracing the walls the next time I was there, I would have bought one (the horses below) and left clothing behind in order to get it back on the plane with me.

The two pieces above are acrylic on canvas but she also does them on wood. I like how the wood grain and the breaks in the planks show through on these two, primitive while still feeling light and airy.

See more at her site: Katherine Lewis Art

Wild Wild West

Loved this stop-motion animation piece by Eleanor Stewart set to 'Hoedown' from the Rodeo Suite by Aaron Copland.

Be sure to have your sound on - yee haw!

A Better Travel Poster

Remember my disappointment over the lack of imagination and style in the travel posters you see today vs. those of yesteryear?

My concern may have been premature, it seems that the folks at Knack Weekend, a Belgian on-line lifestyle magazine has brought in graphic design studio KHUAN + KTRON to design a series of covers for it's travel section.

Now these are travel posters I would frame and hang alongside those in the Los Angeles Public Library collection.

See more at SUT KUTUSU

Not so simple

When I first saw the image above from Joan Salo, I thought it was a sculpture, perhaps made with string or some other fiber.  It's actually a drawing - pen on canvas.  How amazing!

I also thought the evolution of this technique was pretty interesting as Salo goes from a fairly flat image in 2007 to something that looks 3D by 2009:

2007

2008

2009

via Booooooom

Sculpture Gardens

I love outdoor museums and sculpture gardens - I always try to walk through the Hirshhorn and the National Gallery of Art sculpture gardens when I'm in DC and the Rodin sculpture garden in Paris is not to be missed.

Something about gardens and scultpure together really appeals to me. I now have a good reason to go to Japan: the Hakone Open Air Museum.  This place looks incredible - amazing art that is both interesting to look at and meant to be interactive - either with the viewer or the environment.

Man and Pegasus

Wikimedia

Deep Maze

Wikimedia

Flickr user PSD

Giant Head

PSD on Flickr

See more amazing photos at Kuriositas

Aquascapes

I've never been a big fan of home aquariums.  The big ones like the Shedd in Chicago or Monterey Bay are pretty cool but unless you have room for a large tank at home, they just seemed to be smelly glass containers with sad little fish.

Of course, I never saw home aquariums like these

2008 IAPLC Grand Prize Work - Cheng Sui Wai

World Ranking #12 - Yee Kin Cheong, Living Art

These are award winning "aquascapes" from the 2009 International Aquatic Plant Layout Contest. The event, which has been held annually since 2001 now receives over 1,300 entries from underwater gardeners in more than 50 countries.

The competition has specific judging criteria based on artistic and technical points such as "do the color, size, swimming method and ecology of the fish match the layout?"
Swimming method??

A photo to give you some perspective on the size of both the tank and the plants used.

World Ranking #27 - Jamie Lin, Underwater Forest

See more photos at Twisted Sifter

Paper Artist

Nick Georgiou has fun with paper...


The Queens born artist uses newspaper, old books, magazines...whatever happens to be lying around, to fashion interesting creatures that he then positions around the city. Photos of his work are then posted to his blog, My Human Computer.

Cool, but I've lived in NY. How does he have room for all these pieces in his apartment?

via Flavorwire

A Universe of Photos

I'm sure you've been on Flickr before, if not to upload your own photos, then maybe to take a look at what others have posted.

Tag Galaxy is a unique way to look at Flickr photos using the tags assigned by the posters.  It's easy - enter a starting tag (I went with flowers) and the program brings up a 'sun' with various planets circling it.  Each planet has it's own tag - you can select as many as you want, each planet / tag acts as a filter on the photos that will be displayed.  I selected gardens and then macro.  I have no idea what macro means.

When you're ready to view photos, click on the sun.  The image above is what I got back.  You can  then click on any of the photos to get a larger view, use your cursor to spin the globe or click on the arrow at the top of the screen to bring a fresh set of photos.  It's like making your own kalaidescope of photos - much cooler than the image looks above.  Check it out - Tag Galaxy

via Webphemera

Nashville Hurts

I’m sure everyone is aware of the muddy mess down in Nashville – if you've ever been there, it's hard to imagine a city that size with water 4 feet deep in the streets.

Mr. Blogger was born there and still has family in the area. In fact, his parents were there visiting when the storm hit and although their travel plans were disrupted, they were able to get home fairly easily.

Nashville wasn't so lucky, there's a lot of work to do before the Music City is back in the swing of things.

Nashville Artist Kyle Jones has designed and is selling a $20 poster to help with that cleanup. $15 of the price goes directly to United Way of Nashville for flood relief, the remainder goes to cover cost of printing and shipping. Stop by and pick one up – you’ll be doing something to help plus you’ll have yourself a very nice poster.

Alex Andreyev's World

Alex Andreyev is a Russian painter living in St Petersburg. He's been painting for more than 20 years - I'm a little worried about his home life.

But I still like them.

via BestBookmarks
See more here