Thursday, May 6, 2010

Lots of (K)nots! - Electric Scooter Gets Cozy

Lots of (K)nots! - Knited Electric Scooter by Cory Nelson
Lots of (K)nots! - Knited Electric Scooter by Cory Nelson is the warmest, coziest most snugly electric scooter I have ever seen. It will in this years Houston Art Car parade and it will be entry #258, so be sure to wave.

Worlds Fastest Couch Video - So Awesome!!!

Worlds Fastest Couch Video - So Awesome!!!

This has got to be the fastest couch I have ever seen at 90mph down the race track on a rainy day.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Snow Art Car from Russia

Snow Art Car from Russia
via
I know its totally random, but that's what you get surfing the Internet late at night, snow art car from Russia.

Extremo the Clown Rides the Extremobile

Extremmobile by Extremo the Clown







Extremobile is brought to you but none other than Extremo the Clown creator of the world famous Mirabilis Statuarius Vehiculum. This is the van he drives around Portland for his window painting business, nice van Extremo, what is that sign say anyways???

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Auburn, CA, Poppies

Oil on canvas, 24" x 30"

Electric Surfer Camper Pod and more by Jay Nelson

Artist Jay Nelson is the creator of this small electric camper pod encased in a fiberglass shell, complete with a water tank, stove, cabinets, fold-down table and convertible bed. His love for surfing goes further with this modified Honda Spree that serves as a tiny expedition vehicle. Outfitted with surfboard rack, roll-out canopy, and plenty of storage, Jay imagines filling it with gourmet provisions and heading to a remote beach for some exploration and relaxation.
Electric Camper Pod by Jay Nelson
Inside Electric Camper Pod by Jay NelsonExpedition Scooter by Jay Nelson
Wooden Car Camper by Jay Nelson
Triple Base Gallery images

Monday, May 3, 2010

STEINBERG'S CLOUDS



The great Saul Steinberg never learned to paint clouds.

Compare Steinberg to English landscape painter John Constable, who became famous for painting clouds using techniques he developed through careful research. Constable's approach was based on his philosophy, "you only see something truly when you understand it."

Perhaps Steinberg smiled in doubt at Constable's notion that we can ever "truly" understand clouds. An artist with boundless curiosity, Steinberg worked in a state of perpetual inquiry and never found a formula for clouds that satisfied him for long:


All images © The Saul Steinberg Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY









Most artists refine their techniques over their careers, eventually settling on an approach that satisfies them. For example, Rubens gradually developed his distinctive treatment of human flesh until he settled on his mature style. Winslow Homer slowly mastered his famous approach to painting water. Georgia O'Keefe improved her method of painting flowers, each stage building on the last, until she arrived at the approach for which she is known today. But Steinberg's mind was too restless to linger over polishing his technique. Concepts interested him more than implementation, and he refined his technique just far enough to diagram those concepts.

Look at his wild, anarchistic variety of clouds.  Each picture views clouds with new eyes:

















At an age when other artists worked hard to discipline their perceptions of the physical world, Steinberg's perceptions snuck out the back door to elope with his conceptions. You see the fruits of their marriage all over these pictures.
 


How can we take Steinberg seriously when his pictures all look so playful?

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz imagined the wild fun at the beginning of the universe when the gods began creating something from nothing. Milosz asks us to envision the hilarity when the celestial "Board of Projects" invented such things as hedgehogs:
Celestials at the Board of Projects burst into laughter,
For one of them has designed a hedgehog,
Another, not to be left behind, a soprano....

It is superb fun in the ocean of seething energy...
Buckets of protocolors gurgle, protobrushes labor,
A mighty whirl of almost galaxies beyond nearly windows
And pure radiance that has never experienced clouds.

They blow conchs, somersault in protospace....
The earth is practically ready...and every single creature
Waits for its name....

To invent length, width, height,
Two times two and force of gravity
Would be quite enough, but on top of it panties
With lace, a hippopotamus, the beak of a toucan,
A chastity belt with its terrible teeth,
A hammerhead shark, a visored helmet,
Plus time, that is, a division into was and will be.

Gloria, gloria sing objects called to being.
Hearing them, Mozart sits down at the pianoforte
And composes music that has been ready
Before he himself was born in Salzburg.
I tell you friends, when Steinberg calls clouds into being it's a goddamn exhilarating thing.