LEAVING LAS VEGAS

Something about this particular version of 1960's / 70's travel mania really fascinates me, especially the totally superfluous use of neon in a time when it was still considered a novelty.

Not to mention typographically, this period is such a dream.

I'm particularly fond of the font in the old Stardust logo:

images via flickr

SEAN MORRIS

Sean Morris is one of my favorite artists at the moment, he just KILLS it. White trash gymnastics and pregnant Satanists? Yes, please!

Check his website and his flickr for more.

GO FORTH AND THRASH

LUCAS SOI

Teenage ennui gone awry. Godforsaken youth, doomsday in suburbia-- all meticulously rendered through clean lines and stippling. Gnarly.

Do yourself a favor and click the images to view larger. And check out his interview on Fecal Face.

REMEMBER ED EMBERLEY?

I'd half-forgotten Ed Emberley until coming across this interview on My Love For You about a show paying homage to him that took place over the summer. My grandmother was a librarian and gave me a ton of Emberley's books when I was young. I truly do see the lasting influence it's held on me, it seems I've been infatuated with 1960's illustration style ever since. So thanks Grandma, and thanks Ed.

DARIO ROBLETO

"Who am I? If this once I were to rely on a proverb, then perhaps everything would amount to knowing who I 'haunt.'

(...)

Such a word means much more than it says, makes me, still alive, play a ghostly part, evidently referring to what I must have ceased to be in order to be who I am."

André Breton, Nadja

Hippies and a Ouija Board (Everyone Needs to Cling to Something), 2003

Suitcase: cast and carved dehydrated bone calcium and dust from every bone in the body, microcrystalline cellulose, cold cast iron and brass, rust, antique syringe, crushed velvet, leather, thread, water extendable resin and typeset.

Ouija board, bottles and medicines: cast and carved dehydrated bone calcium and bone dust from every bone in the body, typeset, home-brewed moonshine (potato derived alcohol), wine health tonics (water, sugar, fermented black cherries, yeast, gelatin tartaric acid, pectinase, sulfur dioxide, oak flavoring fortified with 100 year old: hemlock oil, Devil's claw, witch hazel bark, swamp root, powdered rhubarb, pleurisy root, belladonna root, white pine tar, coal tar, dandelion, sarsaparilla, mandrake, mullein, skullcap, cramp bark, elder, ginseng, horny goat weed, tansy, sugar of lead, mercury with chalk and tin-oxide; calcum potassium, creatine, zinc, iron, nickel, copper, boron, vitamin k, crushed amino acids, home-cultured antibiotics, chromium, magnesium, colostrum, ironized yeast, ground pituitary gland, ground wisdom teeth, ground sea horse, shark cartilage, coral calcium iodine and castor oil)

Records: various 1960's 45 rpm records cast in prehistoric whale bone dust, typeset

Living With Death As Something Intimate and Natural, 2005-2006

Oak tree twig carved from dissolved audio tape recording of the heartbeat of an unborn child and the last heartbeats of a loved one, dried flowers picked on foreign battlefields sent home by foot soldiers from various wars, thread and fabric from military uniforms from various wars, veteran's old mason jar, mourning handkerchief, mourning dress fabric and thread, pigments, water extendible resin, willow, glass.

Time Measures Nothing But This Love, 2008

Hand-blown hourglasses, stretched and pulled audio tape recordings of the voices of the world's oldest married couple (80 years), stretched and pulled audio tape of the earliest audio recording of time (experimental clock, 1878), ground resurrection plant, ground rosebuds and rosehips, fir, satin, brass, iron, leather, typeset.

A Homeopathic Treatment for Human Longing, 2008

Glass vials, vintage glass electrode wands, nineteenth-century bloodletting cupping glass, various homemade homeopathic remedies (sound of glaciers melting, voice of oldest ever to live, last heartbeats of loved one, million-year-old blossom, million-year-old raindrop, deceased lovers' heartbeats, extinct animal sounds, extinct languages), various custom-ordered remedies by professional homeopath (black amber, willow, tears, mammoth hair, glacial runoff, voice of oldest widow, black swan bone dust, Sylvia Plath's voice), velvet, silk, leather, ribbon, brass, iron, cork, pine, typeset.

A Homeopathic Treatment for Human Longing, 2008 (detail)

A Homeopathic Treatment for Human Longing, 2008 (detail)

Love Has Value Because It's Not Eternal, 2008

Hand blown glass beakers, stretched audio tape of field recordings of the sound of glaciers melting (2005-06) intertwined with audio tape of various lovers recording their partners' heartbeats as they reflected on each other, ground passion flower, amber, eternal flower, resurrection plant, silk, satin, leather, ribbon, brass, iron, cork, pine, typeset.

SUMMER PROJECTS

Over the summer I made two pieces which I posted on tumblr but failed to post here.

The first is gouache on magazine paper, I call it "Kitten Cult":

Because what is better than a creepy Satanic kitten? Well, probably a lot of things, but I liked this one well enough to hang it near our front door. We installed a candelabra into the wall right above it, I'll share a picture of that at a later time.

The second is a collage I made:

I used clippings from an old illustrated encyclopedia, as well as from an old anatomy handbook I found at a yard sale (over a hundred years old if you can believe it, and it cost me a dollar).

UPDATE

Changed the layout, may change the blog name, more changes and more updates to come.

WEEZY

OK YOU'RE A GOON, BUT WHAT'S A GOON TO A GOBLIN?

I drew this in my sketchbook today as an ode to the almighty Lil Wayne. It's not my typical style (i.e. precious, dainty, feminine..) but I had a lot of fun drawing it. This definitely doesn't signal a shift in styles since I'm pretty satisfied making cutesy girly tripe but Bryan suggested I make a series illustrating rap lyrics so who knows.

NEW ALEXIS MCKENZIE

Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes.

(via flickr)

DEATH RATTLES

I've been thinking a lot about artists who use taxidermied animals in their work. Say what you will about how ubiquitous taxidermy's become within the hipster vernacular (and even within the art world -- ahem, Damien Hirst), but there's loads of interesting work being done with preserved animal remains (COOL).

PETAH COYNE

Coyne uses taxidermied animals, wax, silk flowers, tree branches, chicken wire, ribbon, rubber, tar, and a ton of other stuff to construct her sculptures. I think this museum characterizes Coyne's work well by calling her pieces "three-dimensional vanitas images". She specializes in these incredible atrophying chandeliers that look like they've been frozen in that moment of decay, and her use of taxidermy is especially useful in extending that metaphor of a degeneration that's been suspended in time.

ALEXANDRE JOLY

I'm not as crazy about Joly's work, or all of his use of taxidermy, but when he nails it he really nails it (How much does that furry... thing look like a Hayao Miyazaki character?). The chick piece is maybe a little too reminiscent of Cai Guo Qiang (see below) but the cotton ball trails more than make up for it.

CAI GUO QIANG

So. fucking. cool.

BORRE SAETHRE

Not sure if I'm totally convinced by this guy's work, the titles are totally self-indulgent (ex: Double fantasy, masturbating with the gods) so it's hard to take him seriously. There are some really impressive elements at work here in terms of visuals and installation, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one.