Heard about this cool site that creates visuals based on websites... Websites as Graphs. Just type in the full url of a website and it generates a geometric, but very organic graphic. Some sites are crazy complicated and others are super minimal. I could spend hours comparing sites. Make sure to scroll down and check out what each colored circle represents (links, images, tables, etc.)...

Jen Stark is a sculpture artist who uses paper as her medium. It is one of those cases where a simple material, in this case paper, visually becomes something else entirely. I've never seen paper look so aesthetically attractive before. Stark's sculptures range from simple to highly complex and are always very colourful. I quite enjoy her drawings too, which are felt pen on paper and entitled "Linear Masses". Enjoy the rainbows! Thanks to Everyone Forever for sharing.

Not that this is directly connected to the art scene, but I find is such an interesting story, and one of those surreal moments. If you didn't click on the link- it's about a town where, in 1962, a small fire ignited coal underground that eventually devastated the entire town and is still burning today.

Labels: ideas

Book was a project exchange between four artist: two in Brooklyn, two in Belfast. Basically, each week the book was mailed across the big wide ocean to each artist, who would then have several days to complete a spread in the book in response to the previous entry. No other communication between the artists involved took place besides the art produced in the book. Upon its completion, Book was on display at exhibitions. The process is basically a much more involved postcard exchange, but what I like about this project is that it there is a sense of more dialogue taking place because each person's art is in reaction to the previous person's art. Thought I would share.

If anyone in AT-Arts is a solid drawer or painter, my company is going to need some concept art done in the near future. If you are interested, please go to the Verse Studios website and apply for the contract concept artist job. Just think, getting paid to draw! JOY!

A mail art call was recently posted for 4" x 6" postcards with three possible themes: chairs, stairs, and clocks. Works received will be in Paper and Postage, an exhibition running from April 16-29, 2008 at the Moat Gallery at the Library Square in downtown Vancouver. Works will also be posted on the exhibition blog. Postcards based on the one of the three themes mentioned above can be mailed to:

Lorraine Kwan
#202, 3580 West 41st. Ave.
Vancouver, BC V6N 3E6

If you would like to receive documentation of the exhibition, please ensure to include either your snail-mail address or email address on the postcard. Thanks to mailart.org for spreading the word.

I found this Belgian fashion designer and artist Martin Margiel (Maison Martin Margiel) that is pretty neat. Every wanted a jacket made of luggage or a vest made of leather gloves or a winter jacket made of ski gloves? Well, now you know where to go. His work is all about deconstruction, whether through the use of new materials in his runway shows or through re-cycled garments in his one-of-a-kind pieces. Very neat indeed!

The newest exhibition at MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) is entitled Comic Abstraction. It runs from now until June 11th. It focuses on the work of thirteen contemporary artists who use comic, cartoon, slapstick, and animation as a foundation to create abstract works that deal with complex cultural issues (war, racism, politics). So basically you get an exhibition of highly abstract work, that makes many viewers suspect of the presence of "complex cultural issues". Oh, I get some of the pieces, but I'm a little befuddled by others. I'd still like to see the show in person, but the gallery site does offer a nice experience of the exhibition for those who can't get to New York. Oh, there's also a Jeff Wall exhibition on right now too.

Hamilton artist Jessica Vellenga is looking for "emotional baggage" as part of an upcoming collaborative exhibition with Douglas Drake for the Suitcase Art Galleries project (a series of mobile suitcases filled with art). Vellenga would like to decorate a suitcase with lists of people's emotional baggage (whatever that happens to be). Keep your list completely anonymous (that is, don't name names). You can submit your emotional baggage list to: jessicavellenga@gmail.com

Jean Baudrillard died yesterday at the age of 77. Many of you will remember him as the centre of discussion from our deep lectures given by Prof. Woodrow at the U of C. Baudrillard was a French philosopher and theorist and what I, personally, most attribute to him were his ideas on hyperreality and simulacra and simulation, although there was much more to his career. Goodbye, Mr. Baudrillard.

Found some interesting sculpture work by Jennifer Maestre. She makes pencil sculptures from collections of thousands of tiny sharpened, coloured pencil tops. Maestre says, "The texture created by a mass of pointed ends is alluring, drawing the touch, but is intimidating because it’s sharp and hard. A tension thus arises between desire and repulsion." She drills holes into the pencil tops to make them into beads which are then wired together to create three dimensional forms that are fairly organic in shape. Of pencils, Maestre says, "Pencils represent to me creativity, inspiration, striving, work, potential, and fun. Each sculpture is a manifestation of one or more of these qualities." Thanks to Everyone Forever for sharing.

(all quotes by Jennifer Maestre through Salem State College interview, 2007)

I just wanted to point out to everyone (who hasn't yet noticed) the new and wonderful work of Mr. Peter Curtis Morgan. His seems to be having a creativity explosion the past couple of weeks. Check out his newest gallery of works entitled A Private Mirror featuring a whole series of self-portraits. If I keyworded his photographs I would say: dramatic, intriguing, reflections, self-criticism, entertaining. It's a great use of the mirror image as the door to our other self. The series seems to be getting even more intriguing as it progresses into an entire narrative. Keep it up, P.C.M! I think that you should do an artist talk at the April crit night. That gives you over a month to develop the series further and figure out something cohesive to say about it. I'm cheering you on from the sidelines (with pom poms and everything!).