butterfly top

I love this top which I got from Smart Set yesterday. The beading is all wood.

mirrors

Us in sculpture by Tyler Rock, Harbourfront Centre

Dan's Late News

I saw Dan Perjovschi's "Late News" drawing installation at the ROM yesterday (it was a performance in February when people could watch him create the piece). Perjovschi has drawn on the walls of galleries in New York, London, Paris, and now Toronto (we are so honoured). He immerses himself in the city's local news and then draws his response in a simple black line drawing, like a cartoon. Apparently he was trained to paint in a more traditional style of art in communist Romania but decided to strip away all the frills in order to communicate a message and engage with society*.

I can relate to that, because my high school art teachers just taught me how to draw, and they did it well but my art had no meaning back then. At U of T, they did the opposite. No one bothered to teach me the technical stuff (the how), they would only teach me the concepts (the why). In the end, I stopped making pretty pictures and started making stuff that meant something to me. When I went back to my old high school and showed my art teacher my new art, he didn't get the style change. He thought it was a regression. I was hurt and embarrassed when he had to remind me of the basics. It would be nice to have the skill or probably just the patience to make technically awesome work, but I guess I just don't care enough to spend an entire weekend (or two, or three) just making art that only a few people will see anyways. In a fast paced society, our concept of beauty might be changing, and we value quickly communicated information.

Anyways, I liked "Late News", but not being immersed in the media myself, I didn't get all of his references. I'm not even sure which countries he is referring to here.


Maybe he should have left the newspapers he used so I could do a little research of my own. Also, I don't know why there was so much about the Olympics in his drawings - who cares about the Olympics anymore. Oh right, "late" news.

*National Post

if wood could melt

I wanted to find out about the relationship between wood and melting so I typed in those words and ended up with this. (By the way, wood doesn't melt.)

By Kino Guerin

two worlds

There might be other worlds we're not aware of. One of those people should be a scientist sticking something in the ground.

gravity

Have you noticed anything strange about gravity lately?

cyborg rose: semi-fail

It's been a month since cyborg rose was spray-painted and it still hasn't dried. Hence, no picture. It is still in its protective spray box. I guess this is a semi-fail.

and lastly...

me in mirror art by Amanda McLean-Doman. She showed it at the OCAD grad show along with the actual wig she used.

OCAD grad show

Bryan and I went to the OCAD grad show yesterday. Here are some highlights.

3 giant heads that you can put your own head into. Two sideways facing heads facing the forward facing head in the middle. Inside each one is a different textural experience.

By Madelaine Elliot (me in the head)

Someone took a series of everyday objects and "transformed" them all into wooden rectangles.

By Misha Michael

A realistically constructed miniature hallway.

 by Masahito Toguchi (Bryanzilla in the hallway)

From a series about twins called Entwined (get it? enTWINed), earrings to wear with your sister.

By Sachiko Burgin

Favourite painting. 

 By Janie Reed

Turkish circle art

Eric Emin brought me back this concentric circle art from his trip to Turkey, from an artist drawing/selling on the street. It looks like it was done with different coloured pens. I don't know much about Turkish art, but maybe we can think of this as an update of more traditional Turkish designs.