With the holiday season in mind, it’s important to remember the community aspect of creative culture, and pay attention to the networks across all cultures and social classes that we need to build and maintain in order for good art to thrive and proliferate. In Chicago, the Neighborhood Writing Alliance does exactly this. Under the idea that “every person is a philosopher,” the Alliance connects low-income adults from across the city to share and collect their personal experiences, tell their stories, and share ideas about their communities through writing and discussion. The results are then published in the Journal of Thought.
The drive behind the journal is local, but the idea is universal. We are all kept alive by the stories we build and share together. Our communities are defined HGH by how we interpret the world around us, and pass words on to each other. No story is too insignificant or unimportant to keep locked up inside a person, and we all benefit from hearing and understanding the words of others. With the proliferation of programs around the country that encourage so-called non-writers to write and non-artists to create, here’s hoping that we can bring art into more people’s lives in order to bring more people’s lives into our collective creative culture. I encourage you to seek out similar programs in your city and support them in any way you can, and if you find your area is lacking this resource, take it as a call to start one, because the stories are out there waiting to be shared.
Dec 26, 2012 | Categories: Creative Culture | Comments Off on Every Person Is A Philosopher
Upon first look, this might look like a Christmas tree surrounded by a sea of white snow. Â But look again:Â it’s actually the work of Japanese artist Sachiko Kodama. The black, spiky conifers are created by taking iron-laced oil and forcing it through channels through the use of magnets. The effect is dark, mesmerizing and strangely beautiful. Read more about the piece here.
With its dim lighting, birch trees, dark theaters and grey walls, the retrospective of the Quay Brothers certainly feels like a quiet walk through their minds than a gallery show. Which is to say, it is one of the most engaging experiences you can have at the Museum of Modern Art at the moment. And since the exhibition is set to end on January 7, 2013, it should certainly be at the top of any list of shows to see before the strange creatures, creepy dolls, and gothic dioramas are packed back into the boxes. In fact, as you are allowed to look into the strange worlds of the Quays’ invention, you get the feeling that the live and work within these worlds, and surely their studio must bear some resemblance to the hodgepodge of mechanisms and handcrafted gothic stylings of the rooms and spaces in their work.
As with most animators, illustrators, and creators in general, the work serves as a microcosm for the artist’s mind, and the exhibition certainly gets this across in more ways than one. In the second room, you find yourself actually standing in the middle of a real-life optical illusion, the very same technique used in many of their illustrations and animations. The show is split up into two sections, spilling over into the basement where the movie theaters reside, a fitting ending for their maze-like work.
The exhibition closes January 7, 2013. Let this be a reminder to put the Quay Brothers at the top of your list of shows to catch before time runs out.
During an interview, famed cold water swimmer Lynne Cox once said that there are two types of people in the world: water people and land people. Water people, she argued, drew inspiration and energy from interactions with (what else) water. Land people just didn’t get it. As a water person myself, I’m always excited when I learn that vigrx pills other people I’ve admired over the years share my enthusiasm. It turns out that former Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland is one of those who fits neatly into the “water person” column. Even more intruiging, she counts surfers among her inspirations. See below video clip from the documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel (currently playing in theaters) to hear her thoughts.
This teaser for Taylor Steele’s Here & Now: A Day in the Life of Surfing, makes this wannabe surfer want to surf even more. It was shot in one day by more than 25 filmmakers and surfers who worked in unison to document the world of surfing in a single 24 hour period, May 2nd 2012. From world champs like Stephanie Gilmore and Kelly Slater to free spirits like Dave Rastovich, Ozzy Wright and Alex Knost, this movie brings together shapers, photographers, legends, beginners, third world, first world and surf world. Some scored big. Others couldn’t find a ripple. From contests to camping, hanging at home or hitting the road, veteran surf filmmaker Taylor Steele pulls together an epic, international cast to prove the best place to be is here and now. Now available on DVD.
Dec 19, 2012 | Categories: Creative Culture, Surfing | Comments Off on Here & Now: A Day in the Life of Surfing
Eva Radke, founder of Film Biz Recycling, in her prop shop.
Ever wonder what happens to a set after shooting wraps?
Non-Profit organization even let us rent props if it costs to much to buy them.) By fostering relationships with individuals operating in film, theater, commercial and television, FBR offers crews a responsible recycling program once their project wraps. In addition to managing donations, Film Biz also offers sustainable production manager classes and hosts REWORK workshops where artists teach skills to community residents so that materials may be repurposed.
This retrospective is the definitive exhibition to date of the work of Jay DeFeo (1929-89), one of the most important and innovative artists of her generation, but one who has still not been given her due. At the outset of her career in the 1950s, DeFeo was at the epicenter of the vibrant Beat community of San Francisco Bay Area artists, poets, and musicians. Although best known for The Rose (1958-66), an almost two-thousand-pound Pokies visionary masterpiece that languished behind a wall for twenty years, DeFeo created an astoundingly diverse range of works. Her unconventional approach to materials and intensive, physical process make DeFeo a unique figure in postwar American art. With close to 150 works, including collages, drawings, paintings, photographs, small sculptures, and jewelry, the exhibition, organized by Whitney Museum of American Art curator Dana Miller, provides the first in-depth assessment of her work for a national audience, tracing DeFeo’s visual concerns and motifs across more than four decades of art-making.
On view at SFMOMA until Feburary 3, 2013. The show travels to the Whitney Museum from February 28–June 2, 2013. Don’t miss.
Dec 17, 2012 | Categories: Creative Culture | Comments Off on Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective
Earlier this week, while many of us were dreaming of Nosara’s water temperature, some crazy surfers participated in Surf City Winter Jam 2012, a freezing-ass cold competition in Sweden. Despite the icy waters, Tico Derek Gutierrez won. Drift Surfing‘s report:
This years was held on the 9th of December in Sweden’s surf city near Varberg. Local surfers joined national team surfers, Central Americans and stoked Swedes for a day to remember. It wasn’t a big day, but considering the wind and time of year it was very glassy conditions by Swedish standards.
It was -14 degrees C in the morning, however during the competition it got about 10 degrees warmer, up to a balmy -4 to -5 degrees C. The weather forecasts had warned people not to go out unless they really needed to because of a massive snowstorm. But that didnt stop the surfers or the stoke of the day. It began snowing as we were in the water.
Costa Rican Derek Gutierrez took the overall title. Second place and best wave of the day went to Swede Pontus Hallin. Johan Otterdahl managed third place.
Dec 14, 2012 | Categories: Surfing | Comments Off on BrrrrrrrSurf City Winter Jam 2012
