Smeared Skies by Matt Molloy
What is art? New York photojournalist William Miller’s provocative series “Ruined Polaroids” challenges us to consider precisely that question. This series of stunning photographic art challenges the viewer to consider what constitutes a photograph and art in a larger sense. These images are the result of Miller’s faulty Polaroid camera that he has learned to manipulate enough to yield some truly gripping images that bear next to no resemblance to the originally photographed subject, but are still truly beautiful.
Blog of the Week: The Daily Doodles
It’s hard to stick to a pledge to do something every day. Remember your New Year’s resolution? Maybe you swore to go to the gym, write in your journal, or even just (gulp) floss your teeth every day. Every. Single. Day.
How’s that working out for you?
David Michael Chandler, on the other hand, makes good on his promise to post a doodle and a story accompanying the drawing every day on his Tumblr entitled, appropriately enough, The Daily Doodles.
Chandler is an aspiring screenwriter in Los Angeles who explains his reasons for starting this blog on his About page:
Thinking I was becoming a dullard and weakening my overall creative muscles because all I did was focus on my current script, I decided a good mental exercise would be to do a Daily Doodle with a neato story attached to it every ding dong day. I set a time limit because I couldn’t afford to spend TOO long on these dumb Doodles (and I know myself, and I know I would keep tweaking and refining if I don’t got a time limit), and it’s a good way to just make yourself think and work.
Can’t argue with that.
The Daily Doodles features creative gems, such as this post from 1/25/2013 (it’s exactly the kind of depressing short story I personally adore):
“A Different Life”
The whirring of the ceiling fan blends into a silent soothing hum, as Kyle feels himself get lost in the hypnotic blades circling endlessly above.
The cool gentle air brushes his arms and face, but it doesn’t feel real… as if he’s not meant to be here, right now, in this life. An empty sensation creeps over him, one he has felt in the quiet moments of night, and he senses what could only be his soul hovering above his shell of a body.
Could he have had a different life? One without a job, three kids, and an understanding wife? To think of his life now, it doesn’t feel like his own… like he’s just a passenger on a train following tracks laid down long before he got here. He can’t even quite articulate completely what is tingling in the back of his brain, but it’s there.
He can see himself on an airplane, flying somewhere, anywhere, alone… but that doesn’t quite feel real either. It’s just another “this”.
And maybe that version of him on that airplane feels the same. Nothing changes.
Reality sucks back into his consciousness, as he hears his wife and kids playing in the hallway, their existence reminding him that he forgot to go to the grocery store for eggs and cereal.
Brooklyn artist Lisa Hanawalt creates imaginative, humorous, and brightly colored worlds in her drawings, often depicting anthropomorphic animals.
Hanawalt’s work has been featured in The NY Times, Vanity Fair, and Glamour, among others, and her book “My Dirty Dumb Eyes” is being published by D+Q in Spring 2013.
These delightful and strange little drawings are by Yoyo the Ricecorpse, a.k.a 木匣子与圆脸兔. (I have no idea what that says, but Facebook calls her Yo Zhao.)
Yo is a female artist living in London, but otherwise all we know about her is that she has a unique and quirky vision. You can buy prints of her work at her Society 6 shop.
Ben Geiger dabbles in everything from design to photography to sculpture to create a world of his own imagination. In this series entitled Abstract Animals, the artist developed illustrations that blur the lines between realistic portrayals and his own inventive depictions of the creatures. The basic structure of each animal drawing is true-to-life, but then the artist uses his creativity to build complex textures with swirls of lines and color.
What do you use your iPhone for?
TEXTING? Wow, way to be original.
Photographer Brock Davis shows us the full artistic capacities of an iPhone with his series “2012 iPhone Photos,” which is pretty self-explanatory. Less obvious is how Davis manages to come up with his imaginative, whimsical subjects. Follow his Instagram on your own iPhone to see more of his work and feel a little embarrassed about those poorly lit selfies and photos of last night’s dinner on your own account.
Davis is award-winning multidisciplinary artist – photographer, illustrator, designer, and creative director in advertising who lives in Minneapolis.
Selected paintings
From Monogenis’ Artist Statement:
Through my work I explore situational relationships of otherwise incongruous elements. An example would be a high rise at the foot of a glorious mountain, or a “new construction” condo spawning out of an isolated field of vegetation. I paint these settings as utopias or fantasy environments. Noticeably, the more I scour the internet or document my travels for source material, the more I find that some of these imagined scenarios already exist. In such cases, my work becomes a commentary on globalization or expansion, which are inevitable. While this may be true, I am not making an indictment. Instead, I am more interested in exploring the awkward beauty inherent in development and decay.
(Source: designitecture)
Oh collages. How I adore thee.
My latest discovery in the realm of that surreal, befuddling, and intriguing art form is this series by Berlin artist Enrico Nagel titled “Secret Garden.” Although the description on Nagel’s website is in German, I gathered that the series is a study on the fashion world, as Nagel deconstructs photos of models, keeping only the clothing intact in his finished work. The resulting works are striking and provokative.
Woah. I look at a lot of art by nature of my own creative diversions, but rarely am I so utterly stricken as I was when I stumbled across the work of London/Berlin-based photographer Marie Zucker.
First of all, the talented visionary was born in 1991, and I get doubly impressed by anyone who has accomplished so much at a young age - she’s been featured in “Elle,” “Vogue,” “NYLON,” and on a Florence + The Machine album of cover. Actually, no, that pretty much covers it.
You can follow Marie on her blog as well as her Facebook page.
These stunning surreal photographs are by artist Angela Bacon-Kidwell, a true visionary in capturing haunting dreamlike emotions.
From Bacon-Kidwell’s artist’s statement:
My photography comes from a life long obsession of exploring how my subconscious generates my dreams. As I move through my day, I am keenly aware of my encounters with people, places and things. I mentally record the details of these situations, and the physical or emotional responses that they evoke. These fleeting associations replay themselves in my dreams. The random moments combine to form sleep stories that are rich narratives, ripe with symbolism. With that as my model, I construct sets, use props and invite myself and models to perform in a natural, intuitive way. In essence, I attempt to create a waking dream.
Brooke Shaden is a 24 year old Los Angeles photographer, and she combines my two absolute favorite styles of photography: surrealism and female subjects. She took up photography only four years ago and has already developed a distinct personal style and innovative creative expanse in her work. She also posts advice for other photographers on her personal blog.
From her artist bio:
She began creating self-portraits for ease and to have full control over the images, and has since grown into a self-portrait artist. Self portraiture for her is not autobiographical in nature. Instead, she attempts to place herself within worlds she wishes we could live in, where secrets float out in the open, where the impossible becomes possible.
Brooke works to create new worlds within her photographic frame. By using painterly techniques as well as the square format, traditional photographic properties are replaced by otherworldly elements. Brooke’s photography questions the definition of what it means to be alive.
Kyle Thompson is a 21-year-old photographer in Chicago who, according to his Tumblr, likes “taking photos in abandoned houses and forests” - but, if you ask me, he could take a picture of some trash outside of McDonald’s and the result would still be breathtaking.
The brilliant young talent is quickly picking up steam in his career and was recently featured by Tumblr itself. Dianna Agron from “Glee” is one of his more high-profile fans, posting his work on her own blogs.
Superhero Noir Posters
Amazing dark interpretations of our beloved comic book heroes by the talented Skopje, Macedonia artist Marko Manev. Manev is a 27-year-old mixed media artist, comic artist/writer, freelance iIllustrator and graphic designer - in other words, all he does all day is eat toast.
Manev’s works are available for purchase on his Redbubble page.
What I Call Myself.
Image Source: Doctor Hugo (Anton Giulio & Arturo Bragaglia, “Typist,“ 1911)
I used to have this boyfriend who would taunt me for calling myself a writer.
“How,” he asked, “can you call yourself a writer, when you never write?” He then proceeded to extoll the locutionary virtues of one of his best friends, a shady fellow who also aspired to be a writer and who was, in my humble opinion, not very good.
This guy was, to put it bluntly, a pretty shitty boyfriend.
But his criticism haunted me and actually pushed me down further into the Land of Idleness, because every time I thought of sitting down to write, his words would boom through my brain over a loudspeaker, so that all my formerly motivated little neurons stopped, looked up to the sky in dispair, then crumpled to the ground in rows, rocking back and forth in fetal positions, rendered absolutely useless to me creatively.
That was foolish of me, to let one voice of criticism so dramatically dampen my ferver for my art, for my heart’s one passion. I wish I could say that this was the only time I let someone else’s opinion of what or who I am alter my course, but unfortunately for the majority of my life, up until now, I have allowed other people’s opinions and judgements of me to dictate precisely who I am, regardless of my own burning desires or rational deductions.
What is it, to not care what other people think of you? I will never know what that is like, and I envy all those self-assured individuals who rock out neon printed leggings and who go on solo treks through the mountain ranges of Indonesia and who form their own start-up companies beginning with nothing at all. Who are you people, and how did you get to be so fantastic? More importantly, how can I be so wildly unhinged and confident and alive?
I hail from a very critical and condemning background (how a person with so fragile a sense of self-esteem survived film school is truly an as-yet-unsolved mystery), and I admit I still take a few minutes to cry in my car (and slam my fists into the steering wheel) whenever someone stands in judgement of the woman I am or the work that I put forth (or fail to put forth, as in the case with Mr. Oh-So-Wrong). But I’ve learned something valuable, which I will share with you:
The secret to defying the critics is simple. You just don’t stop.
In my case, that meant that I could not, cannot cease writing… Even if I kept receiving pleasantly-worded rejection letter after rejection letter to all of the blogs I submitted pieces to and the fellowships I applied for and the magazine internships I once dreamed of landing, I won just by continuing to obey the cells in my body that vibrated in anticipation of typing one word after another.
If I were to meet that ex now, I would be able to look him in the eye and say:
I write. I am a writer. I have written, I am writing, I will continue to write. I will bleed words from my veins until I am dry, and they may be disastrous, they may be laughable, they may be offensive - but they are, and they could be no other way, just as I can be no other me than the me I am.
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