Jo Mora was a California (by way of Uruguay and Boston) painter, sculptor, author, photographer and, most notably, map-maker. He sculpted the many
figures on the Monterey County Courthouse and designed the chapel in the
Carmel mission. He spent three years living with and
photographing the Navajo and Hopi in Arizona. He authored and illustrated a number of
children's books. Of all his many talents, Mora was probably best known for his
unique maps ("cartes" as he called them) of the West. He created incredibly detailed maps, interesting, funny and maybe anachronistically racial, of
California,
Yosemite and
Yellowstone. Music fans will recognize Mora's work from the Byrds' 1968 album
Sweetheart of the Rodeo (full carte
here).
posted by one_bean
on Jan 26, 2012 -
4 comments
"I had no desire to copy Pollock. I didn’t want to take a stick and dip it in a can of enamel. I needed something more liquid, watery, thinner. All my life, I have been drawn to water and translucency. I love the water; I love to swim, to watch changing seascapes. One of my favorite childhood games was to fill a sink with water and punt nail polish into to see what happened when the colors burst up the surface, merging into each other as floating, changing shapes." - Helen Frankenthaler
Her
paintings looked like
watercolors, but were created with oils. To achieve the effect, she heavily diluted her oil paints with turpentine, then dripped them onto an unprimed canvas on the floor, in a brushless technique reminiscent of Jackson Pollock's, called a "soak stain." But where Pollock's paint was often thick and sat on top of the canvas, hers
drenched it in
color, creating a unique, softer work.
Ms. Frankenthaler passed away today, at the age of 83, after a long illness. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Dec 27, 2011 -
35 comments
Note Worthy: [guardian.co.uk] Global economic meltdown, the euro crisis and Occupy protests – this year has been dominated by financial issues. But what is money anyway? We invited writers and artists including Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood and Naomi Klein to invent new currencies and banknotes for a changed world.
posted by Fizz
on Dec 17, 2011 -
13 comments
Autistic and Seeking a Place in the World. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Amy Harmon spent a year observing a young man with autism named Justin Canha, who took part in a new kind of “transition to adulthood” program for special education students at Montclair High School in NJ. The experimental program was intended to ready him for an independent life as an adult and integrate him into the community.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Sep 18, 2011 -
26 comments
I like urban art fun with a sense of humor:
OakOak is a french artist who likes to play with urban elements.
posted by Waslijn
on Apr 2, 2011 -
9 comments
"These paintings became a way to explore how driving in weather shifts and changes the views outside the car as well how the driving experience informs our basic interpretation of environment." The work of artist Gregory Thielker.
posted by fantodstic
on Oct 16, 2010 -
8 comments
Aaron-Carl Ragland, known simply as "Aaron-Carl" to most, was a songwriter, remixer, producer, radio show host, record label founder and all-around character. The news of Ragland's death was first posted on his friend and fellow
Detroit musician Piranha Head's Facebook page in a status update, saying simply:
Just lost one of his best friends, Aaron-Carl, and my arms are far too short to box with GOD. One of the best Human beings in the WORLD is gone. I have no words. Music is Silence.
Aaron-Carl himself posted
this video just five days ago on his blog discussing his diagnosis and upcoming surgery after
canceling his upcoming European tour.
Factmag reports that Aaron-Carl is believed to have died shortly after or during essential lymph node surgery; it appears that he died overnight after beginning his first chemotherapy session.
[more inside]
posted by Unicorn on the cob
on Sep 30, 2010 -
15 comments
When "Proto-Pop" artist
Larry Rivers' died in
2002, he left behind extensive archives of his letters, paperwork, photographs and film documenting the New York artistic and literary scene from the 1940s through the 1980s. They chronicle his friendships and relationships with dozens of artists, musicians and writers, from Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol to Frank O’Hara. Also included: films and videos of his two adolescent daughters, naked or topless, being interviewed by their father about their developing breasts. Now, one daughter, who says she was pressured to participate beginning when she was 11, is
demanding that material be removed from the archive and returned to her and her sister. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Jul 8, 2010 -
74 comments
The Life of Shelton Doyle Blalock, Everyday American. Doyle Blalock was a son, submariner, husband, mailman, father, gardener, rockhound, artisan, grandfather, and friend: a regular guy with a remarkable life. What makes him particularly remarkable, though, is that his grandson,
Lance Dean, created such a thorough record of his life to share with the internet, from
Doyle's childhood in Golden Grove, Mississippi, his service as
a sailor during World War II, his return to Mississippi and marriage to
the lovely Lodena Alexander, to his post-retirement vocation as an artisan,
creating "sand paintings" and
demonstrating his art.
(Links are to images out of context. See the first link for descriptions.) [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Jul 2, 2010 -
4 comments
Cardon Copy takes the vernacular of self-distributed flyers and tear-offs... redesigning them, overpowering their message with a new visual language. [
via]
posted by Fiasco da Gama
on Jul 1, 2010 -
50 comments
Toon Hertz: digital creations or mixed illustrations of children and films of monsters, dark culture and surrealism. Toon Hertz was born in 1967 in Liege in Belgium. These remind me of
The Corpse Bride and a little of
Edward Scissorhands.
posted by bwg
on Jun 21, 2010 -
3 comments
