armfuls of show and tell

A. William Frederick

2012-02-15T12:32:00.003-05:00

More Jaakko Pallasvuo

2012-02-08T13:06:00.002-05:00

The Inuit Print/ L'estampe Inuit

2012-02-06T13:31:00.002-05:00

I just received my copy of The Inuit Print/L'estampe Inuit, the exhibition catalog from a 1977 exhibit at the National Museum of Man in Ottawa. It's one of the most exciting collections I've seen in a while.

Michel Francois

2012-01-27T11:25:00.003-05:00

Flirty and lush. VIA

Guy Laramee: Book Carvings

2012-01-10T15:26:00.002-05:00

VIA

The artist's webpage.

Henry Jamison: Bright and Future

2012-01-06T10:18:00.001-05:00

Henry Jamison - "Bright and Future" from Bryan Bruchman on Vimeo.

This kid is good. Keep an eye out.

Laura Geurten

2012-01-04T22:17:00.001-05:00

Untitled, Laura Geurten

Barbara Hepworth: Two Figures

2011-12-30T17:41:00.001-05:00

Got to see these beauties at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis last week.

Sharon Van Etten: One Day

2011-12-22T16:32:00.001-05:00

Richard Mosse

2011-12-18T20:37:00.001-05:00

In Richard Mosse’s Infraseries, he documents conflict in the Congo using a discontinued infrared filmcalled Kodak Aerochrome. As you can see, the film turns the leaves and grass in Mosse’s images fluorescentpink and otherworldly. The arresting neon color palate has a way of making melook more closely and lengthily at the images than I might otherwise, and of carrying some of the emotional undertones of the conflict that viewers may be inured to by having seen many more traditionally-made war photos. It is perhaps controversial because it is portrays the real through use of imaginative and almost impressionistic techniques. Writing for Aperture, Aaron Schuman notes, “Mosse…[has] a penchant for the staggering, the allusive, the historical, and theSublime...[and is] intent on challenging the orthodoxies of documentaryphotography,” Photographer Raul Gutierrez concurs, concluding: “ultimately Mosse doeswhat good photographers always do, he forces us to look closely and reexaminewhat we think we know.”

Picasso Light Paintings

2011-12-18T12:48:00.001-05:00

VIA Laughing Squid

VIA Retronaut

2011-12-03T17:35:00.001-05:00

The Gillian Welch show last weekend was lovely.

x a r i t o

2011-12-01T12:49:00.001-05:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by x a r i t o.

Papa Walsh: Old Love

2011-11-26T14:37:00.001-05:00

My dad just finished chemo and we're celebrating his graduation, happy for how well he's doing and looking to the future with hope. Here he is singing We've Got An Old Love, with my brother on guitar and my cousin on mandolin. Caution: may induce tears!

Langhorne Slim: Restless

2011-11-25T23:28:00.001-05:00

Philip Guston: Untitled, 1966

2011-11-17T20:11:00.001-05:00

Bloeme van Bon

2011-11-12T16:07:00.001-05:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Bloeme van Bon.

Animal Collective: Sweet Road

2011-11-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

Martha Scanlan: The West Was Burning

2011-11-07T11:52:00.001-05:00

The West Was Burning

Kaye Blegvad: Grooming

2011-11-07T11:02:00.001-05:00

grooming, originally uploaded by kaye blegvad.

I particularly like the little thread of hair on her neck.

Quentin Szuwarksi

2011-11-06T18:20:00.001-05:00

Pendleton Portland Collection: Yes, Please

2011-11-02T09:48:00.001-04:00

Come on, L.L. Bean Signature. Give us ladies something fun to look at, and maybe we can talk.

Pons

2011-10-31T15:45:00.002-04:00

I know this image is meant to educate (it's a chart of a section of the pons, which is part of the brain stem), but I think it's also just a really aesthetically pleasing illustration.

Loretta Pettway

2011-10-30T14:01:00.001-04:00

Devon Sproule

2011-10-25T19:37:00.001-04:00

Devon Sproule Live In London excerpt from Anti/Type on Vimeo.

SMM

2011-10-21T13:12:00.002-04:00

Greatness.

Elizabeth Hartsig

2011-10-21T10:07:00.002-04:00

Before I actually went to Sacred & Profane, the annual art gathering and general Whooping-it-Up Fest on Peaks Island, Maine, I was a little... hesitant about the whole thing. Actually, that's not the half of it: I kind of resembled the grumpy old Jim Hensen guys in my attitude: absurdly curmudgeonly and jaded about the whole idea of it. For no reason.

Anyway, this year I ended up going, and it was a blast. Everyone piles onto the afternoon ferry, all bright colors and scarfs and little satchels on our backs, everyone in incredibly high spirits. And the gathering continues from there, with great art, great people, music, food, and views. It was windy and cold, and everyone's hair was in a disarray and everyone had rosy cheeks and we drank whiskey and kombucha and raised a RUCKUS.

I had the pleasure of meeting Elizabeth Hartsig while out there. She's a fantastic photographer, and I've been following her work for a long time. Do check out her blog: it's a great place to get lost. Here is one of her pictures from the day; it totally captures what it feels like to wander through Battery Steele, looking at art, whispering to your friends, meeting strangers, feeling just the right amount of creepiness and awe and wide-eyed surprise.

Hombres grandes y peludos

2011-10-18T13:02:00.000-04:00

I met Christian Fernández Mirón (a.k.a. Sef) at a Merce Cunningham performance in Madrid. He and his friend had snuck into the performance, and we struck up a conversation after the show. I've mentioned him on this blog before, but thinking about art swaps reminded me of this great little zine Sef sent me in 2009.

Kate De Para

2011-10-17T12:13:00.001-04:00

This weekend I received the loveliest little package in the mail from the talented Kate De Para. Aren't her creations delightful? We decided to swap art: so fun! Let me know if you want to do an exchange too.

Interview: Martha Kearsley of Strong Arm Bindery

2011-10-15T10:05:00.000-04:00

MarthaKearsley is such a badass. She’s animated and articulate, a bookbinder whomakes playful and handsomely-crafted books, boxes, and stationery, as well as flower presses for drying flowers, Chump awards, and a huge variety of commissioned pieces. A long-time contractor at Harvard, Martha runs her own business—Strong Arm Bindery—from her studio in Portland, Maine, and also teaches at the NorthBennet Street School in Boston. Icaught up with her in her studio last month, and we talked about her latestprojects—which include camp logs whose plaid patterns are based on oldthermoses and “Dude Journals,” leather bound booksbased on a form that dates back to the 3^rd and 4^thcentury.

Left image via Swallowfield

How’d youget into bookbinding?

Well, I think I’d been out of school for about ten years. I wasn’t surewhat I was going to do, but I’d always liked books. And I went to the ChesterBeatty library in Dublin—that’s a collection that’s all based on the word—thewritten word and the printed word. They had a collection of the most beautifulversions of religious texts from all different religions. And I looked at them,and they were all different, they were all crazy structures, and I thought,somebody has to make them, and I want to do that.

AndI moved back to Boston, and it turns out the premier bookbinding programhappens to be there: North Bennet Street. And then I got hired to do conservation work at Harvard. And I did that for along time, even when I moved here and started my own business, I was travelingdown to Boston, and still working with as many people as I could, becausethat’s how you realize, ‘oh, I don’t have to always do this the same way…’

Are thereany new projects that you’re working on now?

Well,[the camp logs are one thing; they're based on oldthermoses from the 1950s]. And then this, this has nothing to do withCamp Logs anymore, we’ve moved on to Dude Journals. This is one variation on aleather travel journal, and this is from the 1700s, it belonged to this guy,this dude, who was a boot-maker. It’sis called an occasional diary, a cash account while he’s moving around, makingappointments…and it’s a form that I am crazy for… the way it wraps is a reallyold form—the earliest examples we have are from the third and fourth century .It’s a Coptic form—the copts were a Christian sect in North Africa, in Egypt,and they were famous for their monasteries. They would have a text block ofpapyrus and then wrap it with whatever leather they had around. Isn’t thatnuts? And it was the fourth century so there were no rules, they were justlike, ‘Well, we need something to protect it, so they just make this crazyband…’ and it works!

Andit just totally got me going, I was so excited about it, like, ‘okay, dudejournals, we’re gonna get into leather, we’re gonna do this.’

So awesome! Such a nice feel and weight. And you do commissionedwork too, right?

Yep,commissioned work and repair work. The last couple years have been really slow,but right now I’m getting slammed.

Bible repairwork?

No.That was what it was for two years… bibles, bibles, bibles. I have a couple ofbibles, but now… well, this woman had a water main break in her house, and awhole bunch of her family archives were damaged…. I think I have about twentybooks that I’m working on from her family’s history.

How dopeople find you?

Thattime, they found me from a paper conservator in town. She brought her books to her, and she's like, 'oh, well, I’m not really into structure, but I knowsomebody who can make the albums.' I’m working with her on a lot of it, which isfun.

Do youcollaborate often? Your website says something about “loose and fruitfulcollaboration.”

Thatwas in reference to when my brother was here, and [we had an intern], and wewere all working together. But, it kind of comes in waves. The most recentcollaboration was [a poster for a camping trip with a group of friends], andthat was me and a couple of friends who were just kind of goofing off.

Do youcollaborate with people across the nation? Or mostly with local people?

Icollaborated with a friend of mine who lives in Dublin, Ireland. We did that byemail and telephone. I had made him a notebook, just for a gift. And he filledit with all these drawings, these speculative drawings for potential galleryinstallations. And then he sent it back to me, and I scanned it, and printed itout on the Epson. He and his wife were making decisions about the layout andthe cloth and the feel of the whole thing and I was just cranking it out. Andthen he wound up using it—he’d send it to galleries and basically they would gothrough it and say, have you done this one yet? And he’d be like no, and he’dgo and do it. It was very cool, some shrewd marketing on his part. So that wasprobably my happiest collaboration… long distance.

It looksgorgeous! What are some of the strangest projects you’ve worked on? I waschecking out your three-ring binder project…

TheChop Shop one? Yeah, that was cool. Somebody brought in. It was this blown-outthree ring binder… they’d put too much stuff in it. So they wanted a bound bookwith, you know, they still wanted it on three rings. So we just found this hugepiece of hardware that was three ringed, and used epoxy I think, and the backof a big mailing tube to make the spine, and it worked.

Idid a box for a collection at Baker Library. Baker Library is the businesslibrary at Harvard, and they have a really cool collection on this history of,just, doing business, … they way that people make their way in the world. Andit goes over everything from, literally the banana republics down in SouthAmerica to the railroads across the country, to people back in the sixteenthcentury who were apprentices to tailors, and their notebooks, and it’s somereally cool stuff. And those would just be patterns; tailor apprentice booksare almost like cartoons, they’re just drawings of a guy’s outfit, but withoutthe guy in it. Really simple, really straightforward.

Anyway,I made a box for a collection of stuff that belonged to a guy who was involvedin the opium trade. He would go over and get opium and bring it back for peoplewho would make tinctures and tonics and whatever… and so, it was a box thatcontained his glasses, pipe (for regular tobacco), his passport, his wallet…and it was a series of drawers. I worked on it with my brother. You’d pull thedrawer out, and the object inside couldn’t move, so we had to make these dropdown pieces that were the exact dimensions of the object, so that the [objects]could rest inside. That was fun.

Have boxesand books always gone together historically?

Ithink they’ve gone together. They’re based on the same measurements and thesame materials. They’re both about building houses for something.

Can you tellme more about your Harvard projects?

Iwas working out of the Weissman Preservation Center, a huge conservation lab.The system at Harvard… it’s going through changes but up to a certain point,every library has it’s own budget. Like, the Baker Library has it’s own conservator, and the Fine ArtsLibrary has it's own conservator. Iwas under contract as a book conservator to work on parts of just about everycollection. There would be a project that was small enough, and they’d hire me.I’d work on, like, the maps library had a bunch of old atlases, so I worked onthat for half a year, or I worked for the archives department, which is Harvard’sown archives, so there would be student notebooks from the 1700s, their noteson divinity or on the business school classes. So that was on site, and at thesame time I was doing box-making here for the Fine Arts Library. They haveoversized print collections. It’s beautiful printing but it’s on crappy paper,so there’s no way to bind it…the best way to do it is put the book into a box,so that’s what I was doing for a long time, about four years.

Itsounds like that work would give you such a cool window onto what peopleconsider important.

Yeah,that was really the fun part of it. You get to handle and treat reallyamazingly weird stuff. And in my case, none of it’s linear, because it might bea photo album of Central Park just after it was planted---that would be onething I was working on, and then the next week there’d be something else,something from the 1700s, or something more modern. And, yeah, that was thepart I really liked about it; it teaches me history in this weird eclecticway…. It’s better for my brain than doing it all in a line.

Imiss it, I miss the people, and I miss the camaraderie. But I still getto see some interesting things coming across my desk. Harvard lost a third oftheir endowment in 2008, so that was it. And they gave me fair warning, andthat’s when I started teaching.

How do youlike teaching?

Ilove it. I absolutely love it.

Image VIA

Thank you, Martha! It was a real delight talking with you!

Check out Martha's STORE and her BLOG.

Corn Pumping Iron: Bomb Diggity Arts Program

2011-10-14T10:15:00.003-04:00

This hat makes me incredibly happy. A perfectly suitable sentiment for a Friday morning.

2011-10-12T11:10:00.003-04:00

2011-10-12T09:04:00.003-04:00

VIA

Irina Alexandrovna Skornyakova

2011-10-10T10:34:00.000-04:00

IRINA SKORNYAKOVA

Golden Shoulders: Patience Darling Patience

2011-10-07T10:27:00.001-04:00

Osborn Desert Boots

2011-10-07T09:20:00.002-04:00

Gorgeous shoes. And good feeling. The shoes combine humanitarian efforts and fashion; the idea started when Aaron Osborn met an out-of-work cobbler while doing charitable work in Guatemala. Also they are gorgeous.

2011-10-06T10:57:00.001-04:00

I took this picture while looking out from a gompa (a Buddhist monastery) in Ladakh, India.

2011-10-04T13:09:00.001-04:00

2011-10-03T18:46:00.003-04:00

William Eggleston VIA

Ele Annand

2011-09-30T10:45:00.002-04:00

I met Ele Annand down at Penland School of Arts and Crafts, where she is on a fellowship. She's a real rad woman, and her art is quite fine. Love the subtlety and texture of this piece.

2011-09-25T23:51:00.001-04:00

<a href="http://eagledeer.bandcamp.com/track/liar">Liar by Eagle/Deer</a>

Banduk Marika

2011-09-23T11:01:00.001-04:00

Interview: Jessica Seamans of LandLand

2011-09-09T14:56:00.000-04:00

LandLand is a two-person design collective based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They make band posters, record sleeves, and art prints that are just gorgeous. Sometimes their work is diaphanous and loose--all watercolors and organic shapes, and sometimes more line-based and concrete, reflecting the different design styles of the two artists, Jessica Seamans and Dan Black. Always the posters contain richly interesting hand-drawn typography. I recently got the chance to shoot a few questions at LandLand's Jessica Seamans, and I'm so excited to share with you her answers:

Where areyou guys from originally?

I grew up in rural central Minnesota, and Dan wasborn in Texas and then lived in rural Utah and then Mankato, MN.

How did youeach get into drawing and making art? When/how did you meet each other?

We're both lifelong drawers,which I guess is pretty typical.. There was a lot of really visually excitingstuff around my house as a kid, for example, my dad had an amazing recordcollection and I spent so much time at a very young age kind of poring over thealbum art and fantasizing about the worlds being hinted at by the paintings onthe covers of his albums. He and I spent a lot of time analyzing them and Ithink as a result I kind of learned to use drawing as entry point into moreexciting imagined realms. That was kind of how I played- I would draw out myfantasies. Anything I've done since then is probably just an extension of that.

Dan's actuallyalways been really into letters and signage- it's really kind of funny to thinkabout how the things we get to do now are very much exactly the same things weliked doing as kids. It feels pretty dang lucky. He used to make little booksof drawings of road signs, for fun. His dad used to steal traffic signs for himas presents. He loved thinking about and drawing letters and lists anddiagrams.

We met when I tried out for a band that he had just started. It was pretty random. I was 18 and he was 23. We had actually been in contact before that- I was living in Seattle and had bought a poster at a show and then noticed it had been printed in Minneapolis. I was about to move back to Minneapolis and had avague idea that I wanted to be screenprinting and so I decided to take a shotin the dark and email this Dan Black person and ask if he needed help oranything. We emailed back and forth a few times but the ultimate answer to myquestion was no and we never had any plans to meet or anything when I got toMinneapolis. After we were in this band together for a few days we discoveredthat we had had this previous interaction and I think maybe because it thenfelt like some kind of weird fate, I was able to weasel my way into being partof his tiny 3rd-floor apartment living room print shop, which was at that pointcalled 2222 Screenprint Facility. This was late 2001.

What do you find yourself drawing most often? Where do you find yourself drawing mostoften, or most fruitfully?

I used to draw a lot moreanimals or natural-world type stuff, now I guess I make more things thatinvolve people or structures or patterns. We both draw a lot of buildings andpatterns, actually, but we have pretty different approaches. Dan tends towardsmore technical-looking imagery. He does a lot of lettering and objects thatinvolve lettering, like billboards and building facades and postage stamps. Mystuff tends to be a lot looser-looking, to put it gently.

Weboth try to do a lot of our Landland-related drawing in the studio. I get reallyeasily distracted, especially when I'm in my comfortable home, so kind oftrapping myself in a dungeon like basement actually helps me to stay focusedand get more drawing done. For me, more important than the physical space isactually just being able to get into a totally focused mental zone. Which canbe hard anywhere but can also happen anywhere, if you make it.

Sourcesof inspiration? Do you keep things around that inspire you?

I have really been strugglingwith this lately... visually cluttered/inspiring space vs. neat and tidy andvisually spare space. I used to always have tons of beautiful stuff completelycovering the walls and shelves etc around where I worked, and I do really liketo be constantly stimulated by great-looking stuff, but, I tend to getdistracted really easily and I'm starting to learn how to save my tendencytoward overdecorating and hoarding for spaces where I don't need to think aboutcoming up with my own imagery. Having a separate studio REALLY helps, but ittook me forever to figure that out.

We both do look at a lot of older examples ofbeautifully designed everyday junk... stamps and matchboxes and book covers andmovie posters and hand-lettered signage and luggage tags and oldadvertisements. I think we both have this little bias towards the way thingslooked before computers were an option; I definitely love looking at thingslike soap wrappers from the 1920s or greeting cards from the 1890s and it'sreally hard to imagine getting excited about contemporary versions of thosesame things.

Older book jacket design is one of my very favorite things to lookat, i can spend hours in book stores just looking at spines and covers. I loveportraiture from all eras, and the natural world and also nature photographyand scenery in motion. Seeing how other people organize their living and workspaces is actually a huge source of inspiration to me- I love rooms. I lovearchitecture. I love sidewalks and brick and different types of roofing. I likeaccidental color combinations. I am really inspired by human bodies and theshapes made by various body parts coming together. I like rap videos. I likepoetry. I like communication. I like voices. I like silent films and all kindsof animation. I like candy aisles in grocery stores. I like the windows ofbakeries of other countries. I like multiples and repetition.

Though LandLand seems mostly about posters, you’ve both worked ona huge range of projects: planners, postcards, little books. What projects doyou have going on now?

Right now we are both workingon books for Little Otsu as part of their Living Things series. I've always gotongoing/neverending/back-burner art book things going.. I've been trying towork on a book of portraits called "the Benefactors" for years now,maybe that'll manifest sometime in the next 12 months, hopefully. I have anidea for a series of motivational posters that should exist before the end ofthis year.

The Little Otsu Annual Weekly Planner Volume Four. Illustration/Design by Dan Black

Of course we have a million posters on our plate right now- Ted Leo,Mt. Eerie, a Why? tour poster. And so many fantasy projects. Maybe we shouldmake an all-text art print of Jes and Dan's never ending fantasy project list..haha. There's a lot of records we want to release and book projects we want totalk people into letting us do. We have a plan for doing a series of art printswith different artists we love. We're also in the middle of beautifying our newstudio space. I have decided I want to start making video art. I think aboutcomedy routines.

Are you based in Philadelphianow? I saw that you were moving there.

We are actually still inMinneapolis! The big Philly move fell through last year, which is actually areally good thing. We've expanded our studio and really we can't imagine a moreideal building to be renting space from.

Tell me about Minneapolis. What do you loveabout it? Frustrations?

Minneapolis is great. For real.I think because it's such a little island, people here really know how to maketheir own fun. It's also really practical. Most of our families are in MN, andwhile it's kind of far away from anything it's also central to everything.Anywhere else in the US you could want to drive to is pretty much equidistant,so we can give the rest of the country kind of equal love when making travelplans. That sounds ridiculous but I think it's true, we both love to take roadtrips and anywhere you could want to go within the US is equally do-able. TheMississippi is a great thing to live near, and we both like winter, so that'snot a problem. Winter is a great time to hide out in a basement making things.Or, rather, it helps to justify the inclination to do so anyway. Of course Ifantasize about living elsewhere, and I might at some point, but really I can'tcomplain about Minneapolis much at all. If I were to move, it would either beto Milwaukee (which I think might be a slightly superior city) or somewhere wayrural. Oh, I guess I do wish produce was cheaper in Minneapolis. That's aboutit.

Can you tell me about your friend Matt, whohelped found LandLand? What was he like and what was his design style like?

Matt Zaun was incrediblyimportant in the birth of Landland. I don'tthink it would have happened without him. He named it, he and Dan built ourstudio, he and Dan were the ones with the gumption to think that this wassomething we could do full time and for real. I think they both had a fantasyof this kind of lifestyle and were able to encourage and feed off of the otherscrazy enthusiasm and energy for it, and really that's the only reason itexists. At that point, I was pretty non-committal, I was doing other stuff, andI only stepped up after Matt died and Dan needed someone to help. It's prettycrazy to think of how different things would be were he still alive. He'd bereally stoked, for sure. He was a great designer- I like to think of thedifference between the three of us, design-wise, as a spectrum. I'm on the wayloose, rough, flowy and organic end, heavy on illustration, and Matt would beextreme opposite, a focus on typography, clean, modern, solid, Swiss. And Danfalls right in the middle. Matt was self-taught and had a real amazing nerdyenthusiasm for design and typography- he and Dan are really similar in thatway. We miss him all the time. It's nice to get to work in a space that hebuilt.

Are you still in bandsyourselves?

Hmm. Tricky question. I justwent on tour with my band Best Friends Forever but now i think we are on asemi-permanent hiatus. Bri (my BFF bandmate) and I will probably have some kindof music project again at some point in the future, maybe more BFF or maybesomething new and racier. I am hopefully about to start playing music with afew other bands here in Mpls soon, and maybe one in Milwaukee, but nothing supersolid yet. I want to play music, it is a thing I do love to do...

What music is getting you goingthese days?

We played withthis really great Belgian band called Alek et les Japonaises that really got mestoked about life and shows and touring. Also, the band we toured with, theMiddle Ones, were great to get to play with and see every night and I'm excitedto be home and get to listen to their recording. There are a lot of awesomebands to see in Mpls- Brute Heart, Dreamland Faces, Mother of Fire, SkoalKodiak, a million I'm forgetting. I listen to a lot of older music and I likedrawing to really mellow stuff, Sibylle Baire, Neil Young, Jana Hunter, HarryBelafonte, Georges Brassens, Will Oldham, D'Angelo, music with lyrics inlanguages I don't understand. My roommate is a dedicated and supertalented flamenco guitarist and so my home life has like a constant liveflamenco guitar soundtrack running always, and I LOVE that. It makes life verydreamy. My best friend is in town for an extended stay right now and she and Ispend a lot of time thinking about, listening to and singing R. Kelly. Princeand the Blow and Old Time Religion are all constants. I love the stuffMississippi Records puts out, almost always.

What do you do if/when you have ablock? When the art just isn’t happening?

I am trying toget better at just pushing through.. I think for a long time i had this ideathat ideas sprung fully formed from the ether and without any effort on mypart.. Now I'm starting to think about it like, maybe ideas are out there fullyformed, but you still have to work to find them; ˆ have to work to keepyourself open and receptive and agile if I intend to be some kind of conduit.And I will have to execute some bad ideas to get to the good ones, but the realtrick is to just keep going, to not be too hard on myself when I make somethingugly, to not dwell on things, to remember that nothing is really precious. Lookfor a Landlandmotivational poster about it sometime soon!

Also,there's so much to do at Landland all the time,unglamorous stuff totally unrelated to making drawings, that when I can't drawany more I can always pack up mailorders or rack some paper or coat some screens or clean the ink blobs out of the sink. Or, I'll eat some food and makea list and fret and eat some more food.

Karin Ruggaber

2011-09-08T20:28:00.001-04:00

via I'm Revolting

Basil Hadley: Landscape from a Green Tent

2011-08-28T10:17:00.002-04:00

Tropical Gothic POWERPAOLA

2011-08-28T10:06:00.000-04:00

Elephant Raincoats

2011-08-21T15:53:00.000-04:00

VIA

More Geran Knol

2011-08-17T17:08:00.002-04:00

Nootka Wolf Mask.

2011-08-12T14:44:00.000-04:00

The Nootka--now more often referred to as Westcoast People--are an American Indian group on Vancouver Island. They were, traditionally, master wood carvers and used wood in many aspects of their lives: their houses, furniture, canoes, containers, masks, and headdresses. Wood was also used for clothing: they crafted robes out of shredded cedar bark, and made ceremonial garments by weaving cedar bark with mountain-goat wool. The mask above would likely have been used by a dancer during a performance.

Pulled!

2011-08-09T16:56:00.004-04:00

Mike Perry's show PULLED just got installed at SPACE! It's a fantastic catalogue of screenprints. Come check it out: Space members get to have a sneak peek tomorrow night, and there's an opening for the general public on Thursday. Get there.

Here's one of my favorite prints in the show. It's made by Sonnenzimmer.

Jacqueline Ford: Eyes in the Dark

2011-08-08T18:32:00.002-04:00

I'm really in love with this limited edition, glow in the dark print from UK artist Jacqueline Ford. Check out more of her work HERE. Among other things, I'm really enjoying her letterpress experiments.

Aidan Koch

2011-08-08T17:59:00.004-04:00

Check out more of Aidan's work HERE and HERE.

Allyson Mellberg

2011-08-03T09:28:00.000-04:00

via

River Swimming

2011-07-16T18:28:00.002-04:00

photographer: Will Plumley

Just got back from a full day of garage sales, hiking, and a birthday river swim. Slam dunk.

2011-07-11T17:09:00.004-04:00

Priscilla, Joseph Szabo

Fruntimmer tar ingen hänsyn

2011-07-10T16:25:00.001-04:00

Fruntimmer tar ingen hänsyn, originally uploaded by mortenpostrup.

LAND LAND

2011-07-10T16:23:00.002-04:00

Gorgeous diaphanous thing. From LAND LAND, out of Minneapolis. Portland, Maine, come see more work by Land Land and other printmakers next month at Space Gallery, as part of Mike Perry's exhibit Pulled.

Jillian Tamaki More: Merging

2011-06-25T17:59:00.003-04:00

More Ward Zwart: Veloz Show Poster

2011-06-23T20:11:00.001-04:00

veloz-web, originally uploaded by ward_zwart.

Lizzy Stewart-Find Some Place

2011-06-14T10:37:00.000-04:00

available HERE

Fever! Album Art

2011-06-14T10:31:00.002-04:00

2011-06-12T16:04:00.000-04:00

at Old Faithful

Red-Tin Ceilings

2011-06-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

<a href="http://burstandbloom.bandcamp.com/track/red">Red by burst & bloom records</a>

Bas Alberts, House of Leaves (winning entry for the 50 Watts' Polish Book Cover Contest)

2011-06-09T17:07:00.001-04:00

Bas Alberts, House of Leaves (winning entry for the 50 Watts' Polish Book Cover Contest), originally uploaded by 50 Watts (formerly A Journey Round My Skull).

Captaincat: Tapir Mask

2011-05-28T13:49:00.002-04:00

Captaincat mask, $350 on etsy

From the Real to the Unreal, Spirit Wrestler Gallery

2011-05-28T11:59:00.000-04:00

Walrus Hunting (1963), Parr

Detail, Owl and Sea Spirit (1963) by Kenojuak

Bear Attacking Walrus (1963), Iyola Kingwatsiak

Untitled #64 (1962), Kenojuak Ashevak

Profile: Olive Pierce

2011-05-26T16:59:00.005-04:00

"It requires constant vigilance to see people as they are."
-Olive Pierce

I first came across Olive Pierce's photo series Up River a year and a half ago. The series is of a Maine fishing community, taken in gritty black and white, and I remember being struck by how intimate and revealing the images were; they were able to convey so much about who the people were and how they lived, making me feel as though I had a solid handle on what the community was like. And the photos are simply beautiful. When I found out that Olive lives in Rockland, only a few hours from Portland, I decided I needed to ask her for an interview. My recording device failed me, so I can't give you all the back and forths, but I wrote up what I learned from talking with this incredible woman.

When I show up at Olive's home, she is making her way up her icy walk, wearing a down jacket and using a ski pole as a cane. At 86, her body is slight, her movements delicate, but when I catch up with her just before she ducks into the house, she turns around and grins, slinging me a hearty, "HEY!"

We enter the kitchen, simple and spacious. There's a New Yorker on the counter, soup bubbling on the stove, and an airy breakfast nook set out for lunch with china in various shades of blue. And I'd thought I was going to have to skip lunch. I nestle my recorder between the serving platters, and we sit across from each other, eating our meal--"soup from a can doctored with tahini and rice vinegar," salad, cheese, crackers, focaccia, and, for dessert, orange slices and "German Christmas cake." She seems to watch my face for a reaction to this out of season dish, delighting to think I might really believe she is serving me two-month old cake.

Olive Pierce is a documentary photographer best known for her photographs of two families in a tiny Maine fishing community, which were gathered over the course of ten years living in the community and have been collected in the book Up River: The Story of a Maine Fishing Community. She chose grainy high contrast film for this series, and the resultant photographs are incredibly gritty and human, providing a rare and intimate glimpse into a community known for its insularity.

Let me emphasize the time-line: for ten years, Olive went out fishing with the Harveys and the Carters, attended their weddings and their funerals, and joined in their Christmas celebrations. She even slept over at their houses from time to time. This type of extended immersion is not unheard of in journalism--one thinks of Gay Talese and Leon Dash, of Ted Conover spending a year as a prison guard to report on corruption amongst prison employees. And yet this immersion is incredibly impressive: I heartily cheer on anyone who can dive completely into a project and then emerge from its gaping maw, years later, eyes shiny with adventure and a finished work in hand.

Even given the serious commitment of time, how did Olive navigate through the complexities of her subject to create something so candid? In her images, Olive manages to create a portrait that is neither saccharine nor patronizing, that sidesteps the romanticism typical to images of coastal Maine as well as the contempt and distrust that some show toward this poverty-stricken community. I figure it must have taken a pretty unique person to become welcomed into a community that has reason to distrust outsiders, and then to take intimate photographs of that community that are neither critical nor idealized, but simply straightforward.

Olive Pierce was born in 1925. She grew up in Lake Forest, an affluent suburb of Chicago, and went on to study English at Vassar. Afterward she traveled to Poland as secretary for a United Nations medical team. She saw firsthand the "rubbled ruins of Warsaw" and "stared dumbfounded at the piles of children's shoes at the death camp at Auschwitz. "[1] And she started taking photographs to document what she saw.

Olive got married and started a family, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When her children were young, she picked up a camera again to take portraits of them. The process was nothing like it is today; few people had cameras and darkroom access was rare. Under the tutelage of Berenice Abbott, a photographer famous for her photographs of New York architecture, Olive learned how to develop film. Her first darkroom printing was done with a technique she calls, "Dark of the Moon printing;" with no studio at home, she would do part of her printing off site and then bring the prints home to finish. The transport could only be done on the few days out of the month when there was no moon out. Eventually she learned to develop negatives at home, and her bathroom became regularly festooned with negatives, freshly developed and dripping dry.

Olive's early photos were, as I mentioned, mainly portraits of children. Using smooth film, she took spare, quiet portraits of her children, lingering in the doorway of the family's summer home in Vinalhaven, Maine, walking on the beach, standing together in a field. The portraits don't tell as much of a story as her later work, but they certainly have their own elegance and beauty. Neighbors and friends soon began commissioning Olive to take portraits of their children, and Olive's photography business was born.

In addition to studying with Bernice Abbott, Olive studied with Paul Caponigro, and also spent a year studying photography at Harvard. Olive credits her time at Harvard for nudging her toward the type of documentary photographs that typify her later work. For example, one of her first assignments was to pick a specific block in Boston and just hang out there, taking pictures--clearly a task bent toward the making of candid, everyday images rather than posed portraiture. The Harvard course also compelled Olive to branch out from taking pictures of children; asked what prompted this shift, Olive replies, somewhat tongue-in-cheek: "the professor forbade photos of children, and I didn't want to flunk."

In person, Olive has intelligent eyes and a dry wit. She takes time to think about what you say, and gives straight responses, occasionally tempered with a mischievous twinkle. After studying at Harvard, she was a high school photography teacher. Her first book, No Easy Roses, is a series of portraits of students from the inner city high school where she taught. One of her former students captures Olive's uniquely thoughtful approach, recalling his first day in her class: he asked where he should sit, and she paused, thought about the question, and replied, "sit wherever you think you might learn the most."

Olive first met Fern Carter, the central subject of her Maine photographs, in 1977. Olive's family owns property on Vinalhaven, an island off the coast of Maine, and summered there for many years. One summer night, while steering her boat home from a trip to town, Olive called out to a passing lobster boat, hoping to buy lobster for dinner. The lobsterman whom she'd hailed was Fern, and he invited her to a lobster haul. Olive returned this invite with an invitation for Fern to bring his family camping on her island. She recalls, now, that it was a "risk" to invite him; locals had been leaving litter on her island for a while, and she was taking a chance that the Carters might not treat her land with respect. But they maintained it very well. Fern started dropping buy for coffee and their friendship blossomed. Trying to get a sense of their friendship, I asked Olive what Fern might tell me about her, and she replies with a smile, "He'd say I handle a boat pretty well for a woman."[2]

When Fern asked her to photograph his son Daniel's wedding, Olive met the whole Carter clan and also the Harveys, the Carters' cousins. She began hanging around the "Neck," the little stretch of coast where both families live, looking for pictures and learning things about the community. She writes that she was drawn to the "ruggedness of the land, the richness of the life, [and] the intermingling of people of all ages." She also liked the clutter: the yards filled with small flowers, toys, bicycles, unfinished lobster boats, discarded stoves and laundry lines "appeal[ed] to [her] photographer's eye."[3] Olive tells me that some of her friends found her project "depressing," but she eventually left Cambridge to live permanently on the Neck and complete her photo series.

Through Olive's images and writing we come to know her friend Fern, a solidly built man with kind eyes and big glasses, who is self-sufficient and industrious and a clearly loves his family. We learn about Irene, the sole female fisherman in the community, who built her boat herself and named it after her son. We get a sense of how the people on the Neck rely on each other to help lay foundation, install septic systems, care for each others' children, or join in on community efforts to make money (like the women's wreath-making around Christmas time); how they help each other out during catastrophe--for example, dropping everything to help Raymond put together a new boat when his is destroyed in a fire. We learn about their self-reliance, how the family fought their way into lobstering, a hugely territorial business (they also catch scallop, shrimp, and pogeys, and dig for clams), and how the "Harvey skiff" drops them off at their boats every morning like a "seagoing taxi." And we get a sense for physical layout of a community filled with "cousins and cats and dogs and horses."

For much of her adult life, Olive has been politically active, and has integrated this with her photography. She has documented political protests and rallies. And in the late nineties, she traveled to Iraq to take pictures of everyday life, adding a human side to extant media representations of Iraqi people (forbidden by the U.S. government from taking pictures, she took discreet shots with her camera low down by her hip). Olive has, it seems, strongly populist political leanings coupled with a natural contrarian bent, and this seems to have informed her Up River project. Carolyn Chute wrote text for the Up River book, and Ralph Nader wrote a blurb on the back.

Olive's goal with Up River was to give her audience a clear picture of the Harveys and the Carters. She expresses frustration with the limited views outsiders have of this struggling, poverty-stricken community, and writes, "I sometimes feel an overwhelming anger at the failure of society to make it possible for the people on the Neck to carry on their lives with dignity." Sitting across from Olive now, I get to hear her recount a story about her friend Fern; an outsider passing by Fern's place told him that his house was an eyesore, its roof all patched and ugly. He just looked her in the eye, Olive tells me, and said, "well, buy me the shingles!" Though at times her writing veers a bit too far toward idealizing her subjects---they are, in fact, people she considers friends--her project is largely very successful; she moves us toward a more intimate and complex understanding of who the Harveys and the Carters "really are;" with patience, "constant vigilance," a keenly observant eye and an ear for a good story, Olive is able to convey her subjects' wit, generosity, independence, ingenuity, loyalty, tenderness, and struggles--to wit, their humanity. And that in itself is illuminating, perhaps even revolutionary.

Olive's photos are archived in the Special Collections at Duke University. She is currently working on a memoir of her childhood.

[1] Pierce, Olive. Up River: The Story of a Maine Fishing Community. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH: 1996. p.vii

[2] Ibid, p.2

[3] Ibid, p.4

Angry Beekeeper

2011-05-26T16:14:00.000-04:00

Antonio Frasconi, Angry Beekeeper

Flame

2011-05-21T10:21:00.001-04:00

West Stockbridge, Ormond Gigli

via Piedmont Fossil

ART SNO (ART SHOW)

2011-05-17T08:16:00.002-04:00

ART SNO (ART SHOW), originally uploaded by Breathe Owl Breathe.

I'm really into this poster. Really artfully drawn.

Sweet Wanomi

2011-05-13T17:52:00.000-04:00

This song's playing on repeat for me right now. Love it love it love it.

Find more songs like Sweet Wanomi at Myspace Music

Gerhard Richter: Frau mit Hund

2011-04-26T13:23:00.004-04:00

Frau Mit Hund by Gerhard Richter. I dog-sat for my favorite dog, Mayhem, all weekend, and it was great! Our apartment is kind-of ridiculously furry at this point, and May decided to bury some food in my bedding at one point (?!), but overall I had an incredibly great time with her.

How You Should Make Cement for Mending Stones

2011-04-26T09:51:00.002-04:00

I just received my copy of Jaakko Pallasvuo's How You Should Make Cement for Mending Stones. Such a great collection of zines and drawings! Through Napa in Finland.

Tim Wilson

2011-04-23T21:06:00.001-04:00

This kid has serious talent. More HERE

My Heart is An Idiot

2011-04-23T13:55:00.002-04:00

In My Heart is an Idiot, filmmaker David Meiklejohn --of Portland, Maine!--follows FOUND magazine's Davy Rothbart on a North American promotional tour. Along the way, Rothbart seeks advice on his love life from various celebrities (including Zooey Deschanel and Ira Glass). I definitely recommend that you check it out!

DEAR FRONTIER

2011-04-19T09:24:00.004-04:00

Fabulous husband and wife duo Jacob Perkins and Hana Miller are taking their band DEAR FRONTIER on the road. These people are incredibly energetic, inspired, and alive, and their music is awesome. If you live in Paris, Stockholm, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Venice, Porto, or Jakarta, go check them out live!
<p>&amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://dearfrontier.bandcamp.com/track/space-age-ending-demo"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Space Age Ending (demo) by Dear Frontier&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;gt;</p>

Jacob previously performed as Jacob Perkins and the Nobody, and made this rad music video for his song Last Transmission:

"Last Transmission" from jacob perkins and the nobody on Vimeo.

Dmitry Sayenko

2011-04-13T10:25:00.001-04:00

Dmitry Sayenko, Illustration from Daniel Kharms' Kharmsli Vslukh (Thinking Aloud), 9x12 1/4 in Woodcut

James Castle

2011-04-12T10:33:00.007-04:00

A friend recently introduced me to the work of James Castle (1899-1977), a self-taught artist from Idaho. Castle was born deaf and did not learn to speak, sign, lip-read, or write, instead using art as his main form of communication.*

He created his work with found materials: "papers salvaged from common packaging and mail, in addition to food containers of all types."* And he made his own inks and "colorants" using methods that he invented for himself.* One such method involved mixing "soot from the woodstove" with saliva and sometimes water;* to create colored ink, he would use "laundry bluing, face powder, or color leached out of crepe paper by soaking."* Castle then applied the ink with sharpened sticks and homemade cotton swabs.*

Castle's finished work comes in a range of forms---drawings and "colored wash pieces"* to assemblages and handmade books. His work is intimate--the interiors of buildings, farm scenes, animals, people, giving us a sense of what life was like for this man from rural Idaho. The work is also remarkably fine.

Jaakko Pallasvuo

2011-04-07T22:53:00.006-04:00

hiihtaja, by jaakko_ghostbuster

Frank and Gertrude

2011-04-04T10:13:00.000-04:00

Foldover Weekender Bag, made to order by Megan Hoffman of FrankandGertrude

Untitled

2011-04-02T16:39:00.001-04:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by Old Chum.

Kiakshuk

2011-04-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

Just perfect drawing by Inuit artist Kiakshuk. via William Edmunds.

Joe Walsh: Sweet Loam

2011-04-01T16:43:00.008-04:00

photo by Amanda Kowalski

My very talented older brother just put out his second album, Sweet Loam. My favorite song on the album is also dedicated to me: pretty rad! Buy the album HERE, and if you are in or about Portland, Maine on May 15th, come to Joe's CD release show.

Also, check out this profile of Joe.

Want List: Canada Goose

2011-03-30T08:17:00.001-04:00

Canada Goose Trillium Parka

Petit Plat

2011-03-29T12:08:00.001-04:00

via vineet kaur
lovely little dish with barnacle-like markings

Yes, Please

2011-03-26T19:49:00.005-04:00

Montagne by Quentin SZUWARSKI (Z.US)

by Stairwell Gallery

I've found myself seeking out black and white drawings and designs lately. These are some of my favorite recent flickr finds. More HERE.

Maidens in a Mare

2011-03-26T19:48:00.009-04:00

Untitled, originally uploaded by caro gaedechens.

Loving this piece by Caro Gaedechen, an illustrator and artist in Hamburg, Germany. Check more of her work here \\\\\\\\\\\\ and here //////////////.

Phillip Guston

2011-03-26T15:05:00.001-04:00

Philip Guston, Untitled (book, ball and shoe), 1971 Oil on paper, 50.2 x 70.5 cm

And welcome welcome spring

2011-03-19T21:26:00.001-04:00

, originally uploaded by gears.

Last Chance to Celebrate Winter

2011-03-19T21:22:00.002-04:00

originally uploaded by Irina Troitskaya.

Jeff Tweedy

2011-03-18T16:47:00.001-04:00

One week from tomorrow Jeff Tweedy plays in Portland! Woot woot woot!

Disaster Relief

2011-03-16T12:17:00.004-04:00

Donate money HERE for Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief.

Patrick Leger

2011-03-15T10:03:00.000-04:00

Title: One of the Flock

I really enjoy Patrick Leger's editorial and book illustrations. This one is a bit of a departure from his usual style (which involves retro colors and motifs reminiscent of pulp fiction series from the 50s). I like it, though, maybe because of the enigmatic, piercing black eye, and the ambivalent expression on that sharp beak.

Project Thirty Three

2011-03-12T11:10:00.001-05:00

The owner of Jive Time Records, in Seattle, has been posting simple (and incredible) vintage record covers on Project Thirty-Three. Some of them are just perfect.

Found Portrait

2011-03-06T10:08:00.003-05:00

I found this at work. I think it's a gem.

Ilija Basicevic-Bosilj

2011-03-05T17:37:00.003-05:00

via 88

While foraging for information about Ilija Bašičević Bosilj, I came upon this remarkable biography:

Ilija Bašičević Bosilwas born in 1895. in Šid. Vojvodina. He worked as a farmer until he was 62. He produced his first gouaches and drawings in 1957. and from 1958. started working in oil paint. He died in Šid in 1972.

Who is Sleeping on My Pillow

2011-03-05T17:01:00.003-05:00

Jockum Nordstrom

My copy of Who is Sleeping on My Pillo w, a collection of artworks by Swedish artists Jockum Nordstrom and Mamma Andersson, arrived today. So good so good!

Mamma Andersson

Anna Hepler

2011-02-28T11:53:00.000-05:00

Plexigravure 001 by Anna Hepler

Just gorgeous.

Winged Figurehead

2011-02-26T19:31:00.006-05:00

Tlingit canoe with winged figurehead, Alaska, ca. 1903. Taken by F. H. Nowell

Ward Zwart

2011-02-26T18:20:00.000-05:00