Our Man in Kennett, Charles Jolliff, shares pix from this year’s Delta Fair, including this landscape entry in the art competition. I know zip about painting but this looks pretty damned good to me. Like to see what got the blue ribbon.
The artist is Bernice Crow (Sheryl’s momma). Talent seems to run deep and wide in that family.
PS: I believe this is my favorite photo from Charles’ set.
I’ve done something rash. Another impulse purchase. No, not an Apple product this time. That comes next week (or whenever) when the new MacBooks arrive. I popped for a Herman Miller Aeron chair. Here’s the back-story.
Barb has been having some repetitive stress pain from a really shitty ergonomic combination of chair and desk. It got me to thinking about how much time we spend in an office chair in front of a computer. Six, eight hours a day? So I pulled the trigger. Stay tuned.
On the way to dinner on our final evening in Seattle, we discovered a team of artists finishing up what I would describe as a graffiti piece. They’d been spraying away all day and looked a little pooped. We chatted with what appeared to be the boss artist and learned he was a graphic artist and this was a paid gig.
We also learned they don’t use any old paint from the hardware store. It’s special spray paint created for this kind of art. Costs about nine bucks a can and comes from Germany. There were a lot of cans strewn about but the company apparently gives it to them for promotional purposes.
I mean no disrespect in using the word faux to describe their work. I’ve always liked the raw, bold look of graffiti art but suspect the owners of the building would like for passers-by to assume some talented street urchins and done this in the wee hours with back-packs full of Krylon.
UPDATE: Received email from one of the artists, asking me to pull the images from flickr. At least the ones that showed the artists faces. While this piece was commissioned by the owner of the building, sometimes these guys get creative without being asked. I was happy to yank the images. It never occurred to me that a tagger (?) might do a legit job by day while still answering the call of the wild. The artist offered to send me a photo of the finished wall. I’ll post it if and when.
UPDATE: Here are some more photos by one of the artists who did the wall we saw in Seattle. Sneke, Myth, Hews and Kel 1st who is one of the original NYC subway writers from the late 70’s – mid 80’s.
“A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.
The art work, titled “Complex S(expletive..)”, is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children’s home, said museum director Juri Steiner.” — Flying piece of art causes museum chaos in Switzerland
Planet Nelson points us to this insightful article on social networking from Managing Technology:
“…how we exchange information is changing, from sharing information actively (emailing photos to friends) to sharing it passively (uploading those photos to Facebook and emailing notification to friends). “What’s happening is that we’re separating access from notification,” said Kraus. This leads to more sharing because people don’t worry as much about interrupting others with emails, calling attention to themselves and appearing too self-important.
Third, and most important, Kraus sees the web eventually becoming entirely social. “Today, social computing is something you do at a specific site,” said Kraus. “But we’re realizing that being social is not a site. It’s a concept.”
If you don’t use Twitter, flickr, YouTube, Facebook, My Space, Digg or any of the countless other social networking tool, this idea seems ridiculus. Just as the Internets once seemed like a silly waste of time.
Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.
Michael (we knew him as Mike back then) and I were classmates 45 years ago in Kennett, MO. Michael and I ran in different crowds but Kennett was a small place and everybody knew everybody.
In a previous post I mentioned that Michael stumbled across smays.com a few days ago and pinged me. He included some old snapshots and his resume, to let me know what he’s been up to.
He got into animation as a Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. He spent some years at Disney where he worked on –just to name a few– Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. He also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks’ Shrek. And he Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. If you have kids or an appreciation for animation, check out his bio. He was also kind enough to share a dozen or so examples of his work.
I called Michael up this morning and asked him to share some of his adventures and we wound up talking for an hour. I’ve cut the interview into three segments about about 20 minutes each.
Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip.
Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.
The tagline on the Art Text website is: “Where text becomes art,” and that’s pretty much right on. I’ve been looking for an app that would compensate for my lack of graphic design skills and this comes close. If you have the Photoshop chops you can probably do everything that Art Text does but even then it’s going to take you longer. This graphic for the Coffee Zone took about 5 minutes to create.
Clarence Lee Shirrell is one of those lucky people who seem to really love his work. He has a “lawn ornament farm” on Interstate 55 just north of Cape Girardeau, MO. I stopped by this week because I happened to notice Miss C, Clarence’s camel (“You can pet her. She won’t spit at you.”)
I can’t explain my fascination with concrete art (if I may use that word). I think it has more to do with the subjects chosen than the process. Which I assume involves pouring concrete into a mold. I think Clarence Lee said he buys the pieces already cast, so is there a big lawn ornament outfit somewhere and how do they decide what pieces will sell? And who came up with the 8 foot polar bear throwing a snowball?
I had a dozen questions for Clarence Lee but didn’t have time to ask them. For example, which is the better seller: the life-size (whatever that might be) demon or the Virgin Mary. And where would you put the demon?
How did he find Crista Meyer, the lady who paints some of his pieces. And do painted pieces sell better than unpainted? And what prompted the loin cloth on the buff young (Greek?) man. Did someone complain about his tiny concrete pecker and balls (yes, I peeked)?
Perhaps the most interesting thing I found at Concrete Castings was the cryptic message on the back of Clarence Lee’s business card: “Finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of many years.”
I think that might be up there with “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”
With one of his custom designed fezzes sitting comfortably on my head, I got Jason Rodgers on the Skype horn today to find out the story behind the fezmonger and Fez-o-rama.
Some are born to the fez, others are called. I believe Jason falls into the latter group. I was surprised –don’t ask me why– to learn that Jason is trained in fashion design and might have written a text book or two.
I asked him about celebrity clients, his favorite designs, The Cult of the Eye, his fictional partner, “Joe,” and ukuleles.
AUDIO: Interview with Jason Rogers 11 min MP3
Jason is the newest member of The Royal and Exalted Order of the Fez.
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