Dale Chihuly: Glass Artist Extraordinaire!

Lately I've been very interested in glass artists and their process. The delicacy that must be given to such a medium is intimidating and inspiring.  The artist must be patient and confident. It is such intricate and potentially harmful work, I cannot help but have profound respect for someone that can create this beautiful stuff from those conditions.

Dale Chihuly is one of these artists. He has work in museums all over the world. His sculptures reflect colorful scenes in nature. They interact with their surroundings by bringing life to any room they're in and and harmony to any natural setting. I would love to see one of these works in person.

The following is one installment at the Victoria and Albert Museum:

You can also check out a video about his work HERE (sorry, I can't embed this one)

Are there any SuperForester glass artists out there?  We'd love to be linked to your work!

Willard Wigan - Micro Sculptor

"You have to control the whole nervous system,
you have to work between the heartbeat -
the pulse of your finger can destroy the work."

Here is Mr. Wigan's site.

Kim Graham's Giant Paper Eco-Troll.

Seattle sculptress Kim Graham and her team made this amazing troll sculpture out of reclaimed lumber, discarded cardboard, and papier mache.

Sayeth the Kim:

"The most important aspect of this sculpture is that it is truly interactive. The most common way that people interact with public art is by having their pictures taken in front of them. It is shocking how little of public art is intended for this basic purpose.

I wanted to create a sculpture whose composition was completed when someone was nearby. It should look at it’s best with the public involved."

Look how ingeniously they made it:

Packing tubes and lettuce boxes! Can you believe it?
It begs the question: If a group can make a sculpture so cool out of such simple and accessible materials... What else could one make?

Let's make a big giant thing and cruise around town in it.

I'll get sketching...

Here is Miss Grahams site.

Kim Graham, you and your team are an inspiration. For such a thorough display of such a useful technology, using readily accessible and often recycled materials, you definitely deserve the good person award.

Kim Graham, we salute you!
Bravo!

The Underwater Sculptor - Jason de Caires Presents: Vissicitudes

"The materials and construction of the work are designed to encourage and promote marine life. The texture, chemical composition and design actively encourage the settlement of embryonic corals. Areas of shelter and void space provide a habitat for creatures to breed and take refuge.

As time passes and the settlement increases and series of natural events begins to enfold. Besides the development of hard and soft corals, numerous fish graze on algae that collects on the surfaces and I have documented octopus, shrimp and moray eels living under or within the structures."

Here's a longer interview with Jason from don'tpaniconline.

Here is Jason de Caires site.

And here are the Beatles singing Octopus's Garden.

Huzzah!

(via notcot, via don'tpanic, via via, viva via!)

Kristoff Kintera

Kristoff Kintera is a Czech artist. His drawing are incredible, and if one goes to his site, his sculptures and videos are incredible too.

Thank to SuperForester Tina for the heads up!

Plaf!

If you'd consult your Spanish or French dictionary and look up the word plaf you'd probably find out that it means splash (it's a bit of a slang word so you may not find it in a dictionary). But anyway, in the comming context it means splash.

Plaf is the result of a collaboration between MOMO and Eltono. Both being two really great art blogs/instances who do street art and related stuff.
Plaf can be seen as an outdoor exhibition through the entire metropolis of New York. The exhibited objects are so called "autonomous mechanisms", mechanisms that function on their own. In this art perspective it are just sculptures that move due to natural influences. For example the wind, the tides and the sun. In fact the objects in Plaf are a bit like Theo Jansens Strandbeest. Take a look.




This is in fact the first object in the outdoor exhibition and it was placed in the East River at Hallets Cove (an area in Queens). As you see the installation requires some wind and a bit of streaming water to start moving.

The coming time Plaf will be placing their autonomous mechanisms throughout the city. They'll even be giving out maps showing where you can find their work

via:wooster collective

-jdh

Inspiring Artist: Stephanie Metz

Stephanie Metz is a California sculptor whose medium is wool. Felted wool to be specific.

I saw her work online and was completely enraptured, but I must admit my total ignorance of felt and felt-making, which led to a few very pleasurable hours learning about felt. I digress...

Take a look at her art!








Her stuff is so quality!

Check out her site: Stephanie Metz

2-D to 3-D

Good Morning All!

We were thinking yesterday about a very interesting development for humankind.
Namely, for the entirety of human history ideas have been communicated in 2-D.

With the exception of human to human teaching, (i.e. "Bend over like this, put this seed in the ground like so, cover and water, and now we're farming...") all knowledge, from the Lascaux cave paintings, to the Gutenberg Bible, to Junkyard Wars on our TV's, ideas have all been as flat as pancakes.*


Flat.

Flat.

Flat.

Until now.

Now, with the advent of the computer, virtual reality, and the refinement of 3-D technology, ideas are beginning to be transmitted in their entirety, in real space, completely unflattened. Super-round, even.

It's like the difference between looking at a picture of an origami crane and holding one in your hand, able to examine it from any angle, unfold it, play with it.

An enormous paradigm shift in human comprehension is upon us, and it will only get shiftier as more information is added to the web, and the technology for representing it in real space gets cheaper and more accessible.

Here's the old way:

"Urrmmm, compressed animal skeletons on a flat chunk of rock."

And, here's the new way:

"Wheee! I'm flying through ideas!"

Now, that helmet is bulky and ridiculous. But that's just Version 1.
Version 10 will be either a laser spraying images directly onto the surface of your eye, or a little wire in your brain. Either way, the idea is seamless and elegant transmission of intelligence from one human to the next.

The children being born now will have access to an mountain of information so high and wide, it makes us seems like 13th Century peasants.

Very exciting times.

We are at the very beginning.


Love to all,

Team SF

*(With the exception of sculpture, but sculptures are singular things, unsuited for mass distribution, ((there's only one Venus De Milo,)) so sculpture don't really count.)

(chalkboard image via aspirecommunity.co.uk)
(VR helmet image via techliberation.com)

Calder's Circus

This is darn near perfection.

To think of getting bundled up and trudging with your amour through the chill of a Parisian Winter, to Sandy Calder's flat, and there to sit on his floor, sip a cognac, and watch as the man himself took you on a delightful, handmade trip to the circus, while Mrs. Calder sat on a chair, playing accompanying music.

Oh, for a time machine, and a star to sail her by...

Enjoy.

-Niki

(Yay! My second post!)

"Non-Violence"

This wonderful sculpture stands in front of the UN building on 45th St.

It is called "Non-Violence." It was created by Swedish sculptor Carl Fredrik Reutersward in 1980, and gifted from Luxembourg to the United Nations in 1988.