I’m not a fan of graffiti so I’m pretty pleased that street art is starting to take its place, especially in Silverlake (of course, lol). I especially enjoy reactive street art, anything that interacts with its environment to give it meaning in addition to being weird and fun.
psh-OW!!
I cannot express how pleased I am that this is a thing. I love that people suddenly care about art restoration enough to poke fun at a botched up job to the extent that it becomes an internet meme, and a fantastic Halloween costume. Go on, humanity 🙂
Oh hey Judith, whatcha got there? A loyal dog? A warm winter coat? Why no, it’s the head of Holofernes, that belligerent dick who threatened to invade and massacre your village. Nice violence, Judith.
widow, murderer, heroine, in that order
Seriously, this is why art is awesome. This could just be another portrait of a lady, but that subtle whisper of hair behind her, and just a smidgen of face underneath it suggests death at the hand of a beautiful woman, which is always a little fascinating. It makes you want to stare at this picture and try to figure out what else you may have missed.
Also, don’t mess with Turkish women. If you rape them, they will channel Judith and chop of your head and show it off to the locals (like this one Turkish woman did just a few days ago).
It’s easy to see why the art of painting on gold leaf fascinates people. The arresting juxtaposition of matte color on a warm, reflective surface, the opulence, the sheer size of the Japanese folding screens painted in this fashion… it’s worth while to pause and enjoy, to let your eyes rest on something beautiful for a while.
Suzuki Kiitsu “Morning Glories”
by Kono Bairei
The art of the Japanese woodblock print is a fantastic demonstration of how, with very limited means, humans make spectacularly beautiful art. Woodblock prints are some of the most delicate, intricate works produced from Japan. They’re just gorgeous. Hokusai’s Great Wave of Kanagawa is probably the most famous, and it’s not hard to see why. [Then there’s the erotic woodblock print genre, which is pretty hilarious, and occasionally horrifying, but I digress]
I found today a series of classic video game characters (Samus, Megaman, Link) illustrated in the style of traditional Japanese woodblock prints. They’re so silly and cool. Nerds are the best. Japan is the best. I love you, Japan.
I remember playing through the first few hours of Metroid Prime (which I need to replay, what a great game) before Diminutive Roommate told me that Samus was female. I’ve played so many male characters, I was super excited to play a lady. I became attached to the game, fond of it even. It’s an old friend who made me die a lot, and freaked me out with space pirates. Good times.
I just discovered the art of Jeremy Hush, though I feel like I’ve seen his art before…
This is a classy version of the fantasy crap you see up at a Rennaissance Faire. I loves it. Wish I could go to the gallery show he’s doing in San Francisco soon. Wish he had a book out…
It’s time for the age-old question: Is it art, or a huge waste of time?
Some spiders can make silk. Beautiful, naturally golden-yellow silk, which can be harvested, then woven into clothing that will never be worn, due to their rarity. Eighty people worked for seven years to collect enough raw silk material from these amazing (and totally spooky-looking) spiders to create this beautiful/pointless scarf.
wow
I love art. I love that as soon as humans mastered their own survival and realized they had free time on their hands, they started to create for the sake of creating. Creativity, the search for beauty, is what distinguishes us from most of the animal kingdom, the ultimate display of social maturity within a species. And yet… what if every artist was working on finding alternate sources energy instead? What a productive, drab little world we would live in. I have to conclude that (most) art is worthwhile.
by Maxfield Parrish
If you’ve never taken an art history class, here’s your chance to see what it’s like.
Turn off the lights, and watch this short narrative about how trees affect this curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
My mind tends to enter a mode of hyper-interaction when I’m online, so I have to remind myself of the key phrase that re-focused me whenever my mind started to wander in my own art history classes during collage: “Shhh. Look closely.”
It’s tough looking at pictures of art for hours at a time, in the dark, while a soothing voice drones on about this emperor or that goddesses, why this type of marble was used and how paints are made. A silent, sharp mind is necessary, and mine was not always either one. But art history is the best! It’s a picture book of human history. Super cool!
i'm diabetic! hooray!
Recently at the Salon du Chocolat in Paris, models trotted along the runway in dresses made of chocolate.
I saw these photos and laughed, but then the old woman part of me yells, “People are starving in the world! France! BAH!” But fashion is nothing if not somewhat absurd. The day fashion becomes nothing but functional is the day we all join NASA (yes plz!) and give up our aesthetics (no thx!). I’m torn on whether I like high fashion. It’s such a huge waste of energy and money, but I love the pure freedom of artistic expression, even if it often slips into the ridiculous and ugly. But I love the concept of art: a semi-useless exercise of creativity for creativity’s sake.
If you’re not the type to worry about third-worlders, this must have been a seriously entertaining event. Edible high fashion: What a great idea, in part because it’s so potentially disastrous, but also because it’s so temporary that it basically becomes performance art. Each dress can only be worn once before it starts to go bad. One of the dresses literally fell apart on the runway (see below). What more do you want? Ridiculous shenanigans are the best! Too bad there are people starving in the world, France.
onoes! my delectably edible gown!
WANT
People like me are the reason why a place like Giant Robot exists. They do art exhibits there often, and I’ve bought a few prints and one small painting. Deth P. Sun is my current favorite artist on display over there. This piece is for sale right now, and if I could justify spending $250 on a painting right now, I would snatch it up. His stuff has such a great sense of adventure, exploration, and the unknown.
Be Random, Be Clear 
