So I haven’t really been posting much and have gotten on a bit of a working spree and I really want to join the blogosphere again. To start, if you’re in New York at all, you should go to one of Bard College’s Senior Screenings. Okay, okay, maybe only if you’re in the area. But regardless, I’ve been playing (working?) a lot with Illustrator recently, and it’s been great.

I’m also in a Drawing class and I think I should post some work here – I’ve been debating on whether to open a separate sketch blog but why not just everyone share their stuff here, right?

So I’ll be posting some work I’ve done in that class VERY SOON.

(I’m also partially writing this so I’ll have incentive to FINISH some of said work… oy…)

“Distractivity is what you’re doing when
you get distracted from what you should be
doing. It’s generally what you want to do,
often what you need to do, and arguably,
what you’ll do best.”

MEG HUNT : ILLUSTRATION

She’s wonderful. Reminds me of the wood cut quality of Ghost Shrimp / Dan Smith. Beautiful and colorful and alive and modern. via Swiss Miss.

DO YOU EAT CRAP?

via Shape + Colour.

ART HISTORY

via Swiss Miss.

LIQUORIOUS

Beautiful delicious drinks, all the time.

SPIKE JONZE : I’M HERE

Spike Jonze came to Bard last Wednesday for a Q&A. They also screened his new short.

DIRTY PROJECTORS : STILLNESS IS THE MOVE

A great little pop ditty and handmaid’s tale execution. And llamas. via Shape + Colour.

1 — Flights seem a lot shorter when your seat can turn into a bed.

2 — Airplane blankets really cannot warm you enough when
        you’re sleeping on the floor of the airport.

3 — When you’re in business class, suddenly everyone wants
        to serve you mojitos and extra desserts.

So you’ve probably already guessed that I like the rest of New York was stranded last week at the mercy of a Grinch blizzard.

After sitting on the tarmac for 4 hours my apologetic British Airways captain canceled our JFK – Heathrow flight at 3:30 am.

Because by the time they’d scraped off the ice, sprayed anti-freeze on the wings, cleared the path with tractors, and slowly inched out to the runway, the surface of the plane had already frozen over making it dangerous (forget illegal) to fly.

Filing back out into Terminal 7 with hundreds of other disgruntled & crusty-eyed passengers we were further informed that – because British Airways holds no apparent powers over weather – they would not be providing us hotel accommodations for the night – or any guarantee that we would be able to rebook a flight by Christmas.

Also, there are no vehicles going in or out of JFK.

Essentially it was like a middle school lock-in except no one had sleeping bags, Cheetos, glow-in-the-dark paint, or any hope of getting home by Christmas.

Yet there was much middle school aged angst spat at the gate attendants.

There was nothing then to be done but to find a patch of floor that satisfied a mathematical equation involving the variables of carpeting, relative seclusion, and proximity from snorers / pervasive smooth Christmas intercom music.

Here we slept from 4 am to 6:45 am, waiting for the 1-800 number everyone stranded would call when the lines opened at 7 am in hopes of vocally elbowing their way onto a not-already-packed Christmas plane. Somehow, magically, after less than 10 minutes of Brazillian Christmas blues hold music, a sympathetic British woman answered my call and booked us two seats to Shanghai on the 22nd – landing on the morning of the 24th, just in time for Christmas.

There was one problem, she said.

“You’re going to fly Business Class.”

What a bummer.

En lieu of our bags still being trapped at the airport, I spent the next few days bumming around Union Square. My sister spent them on battling her suffocating tonsils, doses of steroids, and blood tests that confirmed her case of mononucleosis and explained her debilitating narcolepsy.

Too bad that in rationing orange juice at JFK I’d already shared a bottle with her.

The flight to London a few days later cheered us up though, especially after a jaunt on a Queens subway. In fact, we even had enough time to stuff ourselves full of Sun Chips and Oreos at the British Airways Galleries Lounge.

I quickly took advantage of the open bar.

Our plane itself was ridiculous. We were scared at the gate because no one was there.

We checked our tickets – surely this was the right place?

The lady let us in and when we saw the plane we understood.

There were no people because the plane only seated 8 rows.

I then proceeded to consume a champagne cocktail, swab some complimentary lavender night cream under my eyes, and listen to the dulcet tones of the purser describe in what was barely a whisper that tonight’s Sleeper Service Club World flight would be serving a night cap and one of the crew would be meeting with us individually to scribe our menu decisions for this and for our breakfast options.

The tomato mozzarella panini with wild berry trifle was almost sexual.

I didn’t bother with breakfast. My seat-turned-flying-bed was too comfortable.

Too bad we had to dash out of London City Airport before we could take advantage of our complimentary facials and finagle our way through the early morning London Underground maze to Heathrow on the other side.

Now that we were pros at Business Class, our next flight seemed unremarkable and passed just as quickly.

 
And how good it is to be home.
 
      *       *       *       *       *
 
Except the next day we flew out to Phuket, Thailand,
and I’m currently enjoying a penthouse villa with a
pool on the roof, and that’s pretty good too.

WITH A SWEET ASS CAKE, OF COURSE.

Studying for my History of Decorative Arts final I remembered this slide from one of the lectures. The caption according to LIFE’s Terribly Beauty : Atomic Bomb Test slide show -

U.S. Navy Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy, his wife, and Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry cut a cake made in the shape of a mushroom cloud at a reception for Operation Crossroads, November 6, 1946.

More from LIFE’s online slide show:

a haunting house lit up from atomic glare

test dummies dressed in 50′s housewife garb waiting for the blast.

I was ambivalent about Fantastic Mr. Fox – Wes Anderson, a star cast, a classic children’s book, beautiful stop-motion (remember Corpse Bride?)

After squeezing into a Black Friday theater on Cape Cod this last week among a horde of moviegoers including tweenage Twilight fans, Fantastic Mr. Fox was a delightful surprise. It was like chocolate éclair after chocolate éclair of off-beat visual fantasy and dry wit.

Let’s count on our fingers:

1) FANTASTICALLY ANIMATED The movie was a visual feast. I just downloaded the HD trailer and pausing at any part is like stopping to look at a beautiful illustration. Most of all I think their palette was just spot on: rabid oranges, deep navies, glittering silver. In one shot a giant yellow moon looms two-dimensionally in the corner of a deep night sky like a hunk of cheese. The paper grass sways in the wind. The foxes’ furs bristle when they talk. A chemistry experiment gone awry exudes a mushroom cloud of cotton balls. The feel of this world is crafty and home-spun, made of cloth instead of the clay and wax of Tim Burton’s animated “epics”. In fact, the same crew that made the blip of the Corpse Bride also animated Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here’s some behind the scenes mystery magic.

2) FANTASTICALLY WITTY There is so much cussing in this film. Really. Perhaps the most cunning way they made this film adult is to shoot the adult humor right over the kiddies’ heads. Every curse word you could name is replaced with “cuss” so you get wonderful tid bits of furry woodland creatures uttering, “what the cuss?”, “cuss you,” “holy cuss!”, and “this place is a complete cluster cuss.” A rarity, the joke only gets better with repetition. Of course, our dearest foxes also drink and smoke copiously (many of their missions are based solely around acquiring hard cider), weapons are wielded, and there’s even a beatnik sewer rat on an acid trip (voiced by Willem Dafoe, who else?)

3) FANTASTICALLY “DIFFERENT” Ash, the angsty, preteen, approval-seeking son of Mr. Fox voiced by Jason Schwartzman wears a towel as a cape and a gym sock as a bandit mask. The badger lawyer dresses like a snappy Mad Men exec. They wear corduroy jackets and ride around on a vintage motorbike complete with sidecar. After civilly reading the morning paper (in which Mr. Fox tends a column), they snarl and ravage the French toast into their mouths, chunks flying left and right.

INTERESTING FACTLETTES:

Wes Anderson directed the animation crew by acting out the scenes and sending videos of them via iPhone.

The recording of the actors was done outside instead of in a studio: in a forest, a stable, an attic, even underground.

The soundtrack is awesome.

What a goldmine I stumbled on to.

It was one of those days when you recall something you used to love viciously and return to it instantly. I remembered the French Symbolist artist Odilon Redon and his works – pastel butterflies, jewel-colored boats, primary pegasi, ghostly saints and flowery Ophelias. The stuff of swooning.

I’d seen his works in Paris and the MET and ever since I’d been hankering for a copy of Beyond the Visible… but thankfully after a while of scouring the internet I found this veritable bank of high-quality, relatively high-resolution images of Odilon Redon’s art. Hoo-ray!

Finally a site where full-text Japanese does not hinder my agenda.

Stumbled upon these succinct witticisms of Monsieur Cabinet, a collection called Words & Type. Monsieur Cabinet himself is David Thompson, a graduate of Kingston University in London who currently teaches Graphic Design at Leeds College of Art – and I have to say I’m on my toes wanting to take his class. Also, the fact that his About Me page lists farcical reviews from his friends is excellent and worth a glance.

These text based works have a great humor about them, something I can relate to seeing as about 50% of my own jokes involve butchering the English language.

I blame it on the ESL.

His other works are equally adoration-worthy, and there really isn’t enough room here to post all the awesome that he’s made – recommendations include his series: 1000 Awesome Things, Celluloid Satire, and Beautiful Drains.

I’ve a strong feeling I’ll post more of him in the future.

I’d call myself actively creative. Even reactively so.

Whether it’s escapism or fulfillment or boredom or any of a number of reasons, I intrinsically gravitate toward creation. And this is true for so many people – probably even most people.

Creativity shows itself in different ways. Some people manifest this creativity through their ‘knack’ for coming up with unique ideas for parties or events, some see unused spaces and transform them into places filled with purpose and people, and others – like my roommate – find the same fulfillment in cooking and baking.

Simply put creativity is domestic.

It’s a phenomenon that strikes everyone once in a while. The urge to make something. To learn and twist a thing into something new. It’s the golden thread of great essays, banjo solos, making a night out of nothing, choosing the right song to DJ in the car. It happens capriciously.

The difference between artists and everyone else is that artists give it a name. Artists point out their creativity. Their relationship with creativity is that of recognizing their own authorship. In other words, artists take credit for creative expressions and often revel in them as fulfillment, purpose in life.

At least it seems to be true for me sometimes.

The problem with this is that the nature of creativity is fickle – and often times we as artists forget that. We put ourselves in a position of responsibility for what we create and it’s subsequent success or failure. When we make something we don’t like, we don’t publish it, publicize it, or let it see any light of day other than that filtering into the trash can.

Our creative failures are our personal defeats.

It’s why art seems to mean so much to those who practice it. When you create a thing and send it out into the world, that thing is a direct embodiment of you. A forging of your own identitiy.

Yes, people recognize that failure is necessary, they forgive the artist for a few bad apples. However, while artists should take credit for their own successes, I think we tend to forget that successes are partly about rolling dice.

We take so much blame upon ourselves, so much pressure to produce consistently ‘good’ works of art. It wears on us. It’s why artists are so depressed.

The thought of failing ‘by chance’ may sound like an easy excuse. But it is so healthy to remember the element of creative inspiration and epiphany is that of chance and rarity. It’s what some language poets called the voices of aliens whispering to them and the Greeks called Muses. Creativity descends, sometimes or seldom, but never on a schedule.

I’m entering my major of Studio Arts this semester. This consists of showing a body of work, writing essays proving your plans and achievements. Many people question whether I’m ready, and there’s really no way of knowing. But I feel confident, partly because I know art is so fickle. I’ve tried.

TEDtalks is wonderful – and this talk is one that no one should miss and embodies exactly what I’ve tried to express here.

Okay, awesome. Right when I was needing my weekly dose of really great quality art from an assortment of eclectic artists, wonderfully huge preview images, and general color play, I went back to check out Tiny Showcase – and remembered how great it is.

Tiny Showcase is a great online gallery that releases a new print every week by various artists. Their trick is that each of the prints is ‘tiny’, about 4″x6″, costs a little more than your average CD or book, and is printed on special archival ink.

Think of it like age-proof postcards with really kick ass, witty, playful art.

On top of all that they donate a percentage of the profit of each print run to the charity of the artist’s choice. One tip: they sell out fast.

I especially love these space ships by Esther Watson. For more of them go, go, go to her website.

The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company seems to have all the fixins for any double agent, cyborg, or aspiring wonder woman. Somehow this site seems to be exactly what I want from the internet right now – serious humorous creativity wrapped in a neat graphic design wrapper.

As if websites can be modern storybooks.