Scottunder

Dances with Meteors

Tom Munnecke is a photographer (among other pursuits) who went to Joshua Tree National Monument to photograph the Lyrid meteor shower. He captured this great image with a woman who wandered by at 2:00 AM.

David Smith, again

I had earlier posted a video about the remarkable work of David Smith, an ornamental glass artist whose intricate creations are both aesthetic wonders and masterpieces of an obscure craft. Today, I noticed a lot of people visiting from a discussion website for the guitarist John Mayer: turns out, David Smith has designed Mayer's latest album cover, and a jaw-dropping accomplishment it is. I found the best copy on Mayer's Tumblr page:

 

 

 

Special Exits

Overnight I read, in two sittings, Joyce Farmer's Special Exits. This is a graphic novel (or memoir, though the names are changed) about Farmer's father and stepmother who grow old together, deteriorate, and die. 

Sounds good?

Okay, maybe it doesn't. But it really is, and not in a heartwarming, sage-elders-teach-philosophy manner. It's honest, and revealing, and unromantic. It's messy. And it is unrelentingly real: this is how it is, or, at least, this is how it was for Joyce Farmer and even if the specifics vary, there is much here to help prepare all of us for the inevitable.

Joyce Farmer was a pioneering feminist cartoonist, and her pen-and-ink work has an old-school quality. There's none of the modern techniques of comic-making here, no varying frame sizes, nothing but story conveyed in a straightforward manner. And all of Farmer's characters and spaces have depth -- the furniture has cat hair, the garages are filled with boxes, and the humans are complex and frustrating. Here's a sample:

 

A History of the Sky

I enjoy projects in which art emerges from a simple idea. In this case, Ken Murphy, a "musician, programmer, artist, and tinkerer living in San Francisco," created a system on the roof of the Exploratorium to capture the sky every day with a time-lapse camera. He then combines the result into a whole that reveals something new and mesmerizing.

Looking at the time stamp in the lower right corner of the video below, you can guess at the approximate time of year of each square -- I had expected January to begin in the upper left, but this doesn't seem to be true. As it is, the grid is 20x18, which means each month takes up about 1.5 horizontal lines. I've only seen the video, but some of the other examples of installations on his website look even more compelling.

 

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Richard Serra's "Sequence"

On Thursday, I visited the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University's excellent (and free!) museum. Among its many charms (a great African art collection, and the current "Rodin & America" exhibit is worth seeing), they have on loan a 67'-long, 42'-wide, 13'-high, 200-ton sculpture by Richard Serra called "Sequence." I really love Serra's massive steel works, which manage to have a grace and lightness despite their almost overwhelming scale.  (The sculpture will stay put until 2016, and then it will move to SFMOMA.)

I took a walk through the piece and have 1:47 of shaky-cam video to share from the experience. Some people seemed unnerved walking through the canted walls, but it didn't bother me at all -- it had a secret-world quality that I quite enjoyed. This video of course allows only a small window of what it's like.

The Wanna Be Oddie

Found on Dangerous Minds: Ben Lam's excellent MFA project at AAU, a digital short that echoes Steamboat Willie, Popeye, and Transformers.

(The Steamboat Willie link won't last long, I'll bet -- surely Disney's paying someone minimum wage to surf YouTube and issue takedowns for these egregious breaches.)

 

Palouse

These were shot with my smartphone through the windshield yesterday, driving south from Spokane to Moscow, Idaho. If I'd pulled out my good camera and pulled off the road to shoot, we might never have arrived.

This is the Palouse region, which comprises eastern Washington, the border of Idaho, and a bit of Oregon, and it's just gorgeous. You can find much better images than mine out there.

Dripped

Dripped is a terrific eight-minute animation by Léo Verrier that provides an unconventional take on the work of Jackson Pollack. Great soundtrack by Pablo Pico, as well. 

Dark Matters

Perhaps taking a cue from the excellent RSA Animate videos, Dark Matters from PHD Comics is a six-minute video of a couple guys (apparently recorded at the playground or something) talking about dark matter and what physicists know and don't know.

 

Alan Wolfson's miniature urban sculptures

Alerted by a post on the always marvelous BLDGBLOG, I visited the website of Alan Wolfson. In about 1978, he began making miniature interiors, starting with a subway car interior and a seedy hotel room.

This subject matter -- nighttime tableaux in decaying urban environments devoid of people -- dominates his work. They seem like three-dimensional versions of Hopper's "Nighthawks," with the customers gone and the workers in a back room. His pieces are often based on a real location, but mixed with memories of other places and fictional addenda that feel right.

His latest work is his most elaborate. Canal St. Cross-Section shows three levels of a Manhattan street, with two subway stations (a favorite scene of his) and street-level views of a pizza place, a foam rubber store, and more. Windows cut into either side allow views the reveal the detailed finery of his work.

Wolfson makes everything himself, using plastic, cardboard, metal, various lighting, and whatever else is needed. Though it's roughly two feet square, it took 18 months to complete (more than twice as long as most other pieces he's made). It's a remarkable accomplishment, and I'm sorry I won't be in New York to see it on display at Museum of Arts and Design, which has a whole show of miniatures and dioramas coming up.