Solargraph

This is an incredible solargraph made by Justin Quinnell. Image is copyright Justin Quinnell. Click here to go to the NASA site with more info on the origin and making of the image (in a soda can pinhole camera!).

Birthday Card for My Sister.

Dang, Coroflot!

There is some seriously persuasive design on Coroflot right now. Coroflot is a portfolio, networking and resume site. The site connects creative professionals with design jobs worldwide. It's a rewarding, fleshy little (big) website.

My friend Blake Almstead, a student in the Cranbrook 2D department, has some of his work on Coroflot. I'm especially drawn to his projection piece on vellum, Binocular Dystopia. Remarkably appealing texture, hint of interrogation video, great scale and choice of materials. Well done Blake.

Coroflot allows you to sort by "most likeys," specialities, most popular this week, and new members. It's a great format and I'll be perusing it like an elitist aesthete stalker for weeks, no doubt.

Anna Sian

Anna Li Sian has just started a site for her photographic works and poetry. Here's a link. It's still under construction but you can get a sense of her skillful eye.

Anna's poetry is tremendous. She and I used to perform together a lot at Dartmouth with Soul Scribes and I miss her poetic presence as a nearby collaborator. Here's a link to some of her older work (from 2005). Here's a more recent posting of her poetry, that includes a bio. She currently lives and works in NYC.

Dave Chappelle's Television Debut

This Dave Chappelle standup has a delicate vintage flavor like a fine, fine comedic wine. Delicious.

Katt Williams is a Genius-Being

In Honor Of Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare

"To make people free is the aim of art. Therefore, art for me is the science of freedom."

-Joseph Beuys

German artist Joseph Beuys's performances, sculptures and drawings, remain contemporary and relevant to me. I feel deep appreciation for his art: his felt wrappings, "discussions with dead hares," his "actions" (happenings), use of fat, use of honey, and disquieting, though noble, performance with a live coyote in an enclosed space. I saw a drawing of his at MoMA once (the link takes you to a different one, can't find the one I saw) that reminded me of the quiet radicalism and simple beauty of his work. Beuys's line is both gentle and direct. It speaks to his own shamanic presence. Here's another piece from the MoMA collection that I feel affinity towards: Eurasia Siberian Symphony 1963. 

Too, Joseph Beuys's radical political fervency was grand, his teaching was devoted and his life an amalgam of intriguing chosen experiences. His time spent in the military created a mythic history of being rescued by Tartars in Crimea in a plane crash and rubbed in fat, then wrapped in felt to heal. That mythology was a loving assistant for his material choices. As I remember it, later in life he became a political activist and even assisted in the founding of the Green Party.

Beuys died in 1986 at the age of 65.

All this to say, wonderful artist. 

Now in honor, watch this video!: