J.T. Yost: Peculiar Pet Portraits

Brooklyn-based J.T. Yost has a unique, cartoonish painterly style that is best captured in his Peculiar Pet Portraits. He started in Georgia but eventually made his way to NYC. These paintings are watercolor, but he also works in oil and silkscreen.

He also has created a children's character, Edward the Friendly Beast, who stars in a short series about a young boy with a hearing impediment.

Another favorite is one of his logos/advertisements: Direct from Hollywood Cemetery. It is reminiscent of Tim Burton's eerie stripes and characters.

Joshua Allen Harris

Joshua Allen Harris saw potential in the NYC subway-induced gust of wind that skirt-wearers and newspaper-readers see as mere annoyance. (Has everyone met Mr. W?) Buzz on the internet suggests that he uses only trash bags and tape to create his street monsters. He's made his way through a number of blogs, including Kanye's. Who knew?

I couldn't upload the video of his work, but here's the YouTube Link.

And you spent all those years recycling them

Junior Fritz Jacquet creates art out of toilet paper rolls. As an artist he is infatuated with paper as a medium. You can find his website here. It's in French, but at least you can see his paper sculptures.

Book Autopsies

Brian Dettmer creates art in books by cutting away layers of pages to reveal an image inside or to create an image out of text. Dettmer's early work focused on coded languages, like Braille or Morse. He has since focused on a Victorian interpretation of the relationship between his three dimensional art and surgery. Surgery during the Victorian era was crude at best (see Victorian-age surgery tools for proof). Many if not all of the books he works with contain plate illustrations, typically in black and white. The use of plate illustrations creates an old-time sense, an unexpected discovery. Dettmer does not move any existing illustrations; his work involves solely cutting away of pages. He first introduced his book autopsies in 2000, and has quickly earned popularity on the web.

Picasso Light Art

Who knew Picasso experimented making images with photographs and light?

Find them here

http://graffart.eu/blog/2009/06/picasso-light-graffiti/

Dr. Seuss

I like nonsense,
it wakes up the brain cells.
Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living,
It’s a way of looking at life
through the wrong end of a telescope.
Which is what I do,
And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.
Dr. Seuss

Manhattan Timeformations

This is one of the coolest websites/art projects I've seen in a while:

http://skyscraper.org/timeformations/intro.html


The idea is that people think computer animation will allow them to experience the city in a new way and understand it deeper than they could in real life. The creator depicts civic layers of geologic formation, settlement patterns, communications infrastructure, and transportation among other things. On the very last page you can travel through a digital rendition of New York City. Beware though: it might make you a little dizzy.

Porta Portese

Porta Portese is a HUGE weekly street market in Rome. I took a couple good pictures that really capture the sheer absurdity of what people sell.

Jason de Caires

A 1998 Camberwell College of Arts graduate, de Caires has created the world's first underwater sculpture park in Grenada, West Indies. Through these underwater sculptures he utilizes the environment to sustain his art, and his art to sustain the environment. He hopes that his work will draw attention to environmental issues, including but not limited to the coral reefs he assists with his sculptures.

There are many unique elements about his work due to its placement under water. First, because the sculptures attract the growth of reefs and marine life, the art changes every day. Also, the entire experience of the art is changed by having the perspective of being underwater; the way people interact with art in an ocean environment is obviously different from experiencing art on land.

The image above is of his work, Vicissitudes. The sculptures are of ethnically diverse children all holding hands and staying upright even again strong currents. The interconnected change that occurs on the sculptures because of the environment and on the environment because of the sculptures mimics the process of growing up. According to www.underwatersculpture.com, "the sculpture proposes growth, chance, and natural transformation. It shows how time and environment impact on and shape the physical body".

Six Word Memoirs

Kind of a new Post Secret, people are asked to describe their life in six words. There's a cool NPR segment on it.

Never really finished anything. Except cake. -- Carletta Perkins

Changing mind postponed demise by decades. -- Scott O'Neil

He wore dresses. This caused messes. -- Josh Kilmer-Purcell

I still make coffee for two. -- Zak Nelson

Topless dancer, circus clown. Spy. Writer. -- Susan DiRende

Yes, you can edit my biography. -- Jimmy Wales

Wasn't noticed so I painted trains. -- Mare 139

From Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure in Smith Magazine edited by Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith, 2008

Tattoos

Tattoos are seen as a pretty modern thing. Well, either modern or related to small, indigenous villages in African and South America. The oldest tattoo was found on a 5300-year-old mummy, Oetzi, who was frozen in the Alps between Italy and Austria. He has tons of tattoos of horizontal and vertical lines all over his body. Nobody knows exactly why they are there.

The first permanent tattoo shop in New York City was established in 1846. Most tattoos were adorned on military men who served in the civil war. From there, tattoos gained popularity within circuses. Circus-goers loved to see the freaks covered in tattoos.

According to the 2006 Pew Research Center's phone survey, 36% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 were tattooed, as were 40% of peopled aged 26-40 and 10% of people aged 41-64. In 2008, Harris Interactive estimated that 14% of all adults in the US are tattooed.

Textsfromlastnight.com

(417): He has such a weird drunk-voice.
(1-417): dude, he's deaf.

(810): So would u like to explain why you ate all my pickels and took my 1800?
(1-810): About that, i have your 1800 on my desk with intentions of returning it but theres nothing i can do about the pickels

Basquiat

Basquiat is my favorite artist. He was a young, homeless, reckless artist in the New York City 80s. His work expresses his tensions with his personal identity as reflected through his understanding of NYC. It is somewhere between fine art and graffiti. Even more interesting than his art is his life story. He dated Madonna, struck up a close friendship with Andy Warhol, and became swept up in the chaos of being The New Cool Thing in the city's art scene. His life and art truly encompasses a specific era of New York City, and fits into the history of modern art.

For Fellow New York Lovers

This is probably one of my favorite blogs:

http://www.scoutingny.com/

It's written by a guy who works as a film location scout in NYC. He gets paid to find interesting and eccentric spots in the city. His latest two posts were not very exciting, but his archives involve often over-looked buildings, sculptures, and oddities. Check it out.

Craig Needs a Friend

Craig, I will be your friend. For the whole list of fantastically awkward signs, go here
http://www.funnyordie.com/blog/posts/14305

Superhero Store

It's in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
"This concept store is the brainchild of literary Dave Eggers and like all of our favourite comic book heroes - it has a dual identity. In reality, the store is a clever front for the non-profit (youth orientated) creative writing and tutoring centre, 826NYC. To enter 826NYC, you actually have to go through a swinging bookcase in the BBS store. Proceeds from the BBS store fund 826NYC directly to help young people with their creative writing skills. Amazing. Marc Jacobs and Kenneth Cole have both designed crime-fighting outfits for fundraising events here."

Goncalo Mabunda

Goncalo Mabunda is an African artist from Maputo, Mozambique who uses discarded weapons to create art. After the Civil War in Mozambique, seven million weapons were disabled and hidden in the countryside. In an effort to recover them, the government offers farming tools in exchange for all found weapons. These guns are then handed over to artists who create artwork with them. Mabunda uses on the symbol of the chair to comment on the Western World's obsession with "authentic African art" and the chief's throne.
Find more information here:
http://www.goncalomabunda.net/