Todd Klein has written a 5-part series on the evolution of the Batman logo: one two three four five. [via kottke]
Category: art
I like these etymology drawings—personal, visual explorations of where the words came from. I think idiom is my favorite.
Layer Tennis is coming: “Two artists (or two small teams of artists) will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a “volley” and then we post that to the site. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. The matches last for ten volleys and when it’s complete, everyone visiting the site votes for a winner.”
Galileo’s sunspot illustrations
Back in the summer of 1612, Galileo did a series of daily observations of the sun. His illustrations were reproduced in his Letters on Sunspots of 1613. The work, part of an ongoing scientific battle with Christoph Scheiner, settled a lot of the contemporary debate on sunspots, killing the idea that the sun had minor satellites and proving our universe just a bit more imperfect.
My weekend project: I took those 35 drawings and put them into a big mosaic of sunspots.1 Sort of a comic strip approach. Not as dynamic as a movie, but then again I can’t frame a movie and mount it on my wall. If you’re so inclined, I also have a giant sunspot mosaic PDF to share with you—20 inches on a side. I had a ton of fun with this thing.
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1. The original scans came from the rare book collection of Owen Gingerich via The Galileo Project. Dr. Gingerich was also kind enough to spare a few minutes on the telephone. Great guy.
How to Be Creative, Gaping Void‘s long philosophical article on life, money, art, etc.
I love writing letters
That’s a scribble I did over an hour or so late last night. In my letters I usually play in some way with the grid, or collage with stuff that I cut out form old magazines or textiles or whatever else I have in my files. This time, it was stick figures.
I really wish I’d kept track of my letters better. I know I’ve done some cool things, but they’re with the owners now (as they should be). But I’d love to be able to look back at them later.
So, I’m in the market for a new scanner. Color. Big-ish. Recommendations?
I would very much like to own a Monome 256. It looks like just the kind of wonderful toy I need* these days. They mentioned the beautiful woodwork was from Atlanta—I wonder if that’s Matt Soorikian‘s craftmanship?
*i.e., want
In the Year 2000 is a photo collection about “past visions of the future,” like picnicking with your hover station wagon.
The greatest classical cd album covers ever. Here’s part two. [via alex ross]
I like the watercolors of Stina Persson and the way she works in cut papers, papel picado. (And who knew there was a Guild of American Papercutters?)
ATL Creatives is all about what creative people are up to in Atlanta. It’s the brainchild of Eric Shoemaker and Rick Hill.
An interview with expert calligrapher Bernard Maisner, who does the usual wedding invitations, window signs, but has also had cameos in major films:
I did writing on-camera for a documentary film about the Oswald/Kennedy assassination by famed German filmmaker Willi Huismann. I had to write like Lee Harvey Oswald live on camera. Writing samples of Oswald were provided to me from the U.S. National Archive and Records Administration. I studied the writing, analyzed and made U&LC alphabet charts from OswaldÄôs writing, traced and memorized every letter, as well as his combinations of letters, and studied other characteristics of his writing so that I could write the way Oswald didÄîimmediately and without thinking.
Something to listen to this weekend: This American Life, “Blame It on Art”. “The darker side of the art world: petty jealousies, competitiveness, failure.”
Listen also: every other episode. I’m not sure how they keep the show so consistently good.
These cool American propaganda posters from World War II are at once hilarious and frightening. I kept telling myself I was going to liberate them from from the Northwestern University database and put them on Flickr, but I just haven’t gotten it done (yet). You’re on your own (for now).
The 2007 Portable Film Festival is in progress. “Everything in our programme is curated, free and portable thanks to our loyal community of film and mediamakers who submit their work to us from around the world.” That’s what I like to hear.
A very cool bit of wisdom from Hugh MacLeod.
I remember Robert Hughes, the great art critic saying in his wonderful book, “The Shock Of The New” that the Conceptual Art scene that emerged in the 1960s-1970s was actually good for “Painting”.
Why? Because with everybody else scattering bits of string around gallery floors and calling it ÄúArtÄù, or covering themselves with butter, rolling themselves in the grass and calling it “Art”, the only people left painting were those, as Hughes put it, “who still actually wanted to paint”.
And paint they did. Hence the big painting revival in the early 1980s. Artists like Julian Schnabel, Francisco Clemente, Basquiat, Keith Haring etc.
I feel similarly about blogs. With new tools like Facebook and Twitter springing up, there’s no need to have a blog unless you really want to, unless you really want to devote that kind of time and effort to it.
[via blankenship]
Lots of good stuff for sale at Coudal’s Swap Meat. I’m partial to the Ghost Prints.
TMN has a great photo gallery up: Still Life by Martin Klimas. They’re wonderful photos of statues in the midst of shattering. The martial arts figurines are particularly enjoyable.
The Rasterbator creates huge, rasterized images from any picture. Man, I’d love to make some gigantic wallpaper. Where to begin… [via not martha]
Dorothy Gambrell has done some excellent illustrations based on the Schedule C table of Principal Business or Professional Activity Codes [p. 8-10, pdf].
Mark Larson 