"I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)"

[via Flickr]
Greeting Card
Halema & Chet Baker
California, 1955
Photo: William Claxton

This is such a lovely, blue song, written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1939, with lyrics from a poem by Jane Brown Thompson. Chet Baker has such a rich, beautiful voice. I'm pretty sure this was recorded in 1954, from the album Chet Baker Sings.

Louis Vuitton "Trash Bag", designed by Marc Jacobs

Hooo, baby! Street chic is so in? Perhaps it's only meant for rainy days and going incognito... James Bond can finally feel safe that when he has to go under cover, at least there will be Vuitton!

But where is the bag for recyclables?

I can't wait to see the knock-offs for this one.

[As seen on Designboom].

Artist Spotlight: Jason Logan - NYT Op-Art Illustrator

A very charming Valentine's Day-related op-art piece from illustrator Jason Logan, for the New York Times. See the full page, in better detail, here.

His work for the New York Times has a lot to do with mapping the city in interesting ways. Here is an August 29th, 2009 interactive op-art piece, called Scents and the City, complete with a tiny nose for clicking on neighborhoods.


Jason also did a graphic for a March 29th, 2009 NYT op-art experimental project about people moving around on public transit, and normal people who are affected by public transit service cuts, called The Last Bus Home, with Miranda Purves.

Jason Logan is the author and illustrator of If We Ever Break Up, This Is My Book (2005), published by Simon Spotlight Entertainment, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. You can see excerpts from the book via Google Books here.

Aspara-geese Greetings on a Friday night

Julia V. Hendrickson, Hello. GREETINGS! from the Aspara-geese, pen and ink on light green paper (2010)

Here's new pen and ink drawing I've been playing around with.

Off for a real Chicago-kind of Friday night. Opening at Ebersmoore in the West Loop for artists Ryan Travis Christian and Jonathan Runcio. Indian food at Jaipur, and a long Halsted bus ride home. Details forthcoming.
----
Update:
A more in-depth review is forthcoming, but here's a tidbit...

Ebersmoore turns out to be a very cool little gallery in the West Loop. Oddly enough, I couldn't get over the wooden floors, which were a delicious, deep dark brown. I was extremely impressed with Ryan Travis Christian's work, and surprisingly so, because seeing images of his drawings online left me not expecting very much. The intricacy and detail of his drawings, and the way he plays with time and space, is fascinating.

Ryan Travis Christian, (title unknown), graphite on paper

Jonathan Runcio's paintings and sculpture were much as I expected from looking at his website-- no new realizations appeared after seeing his work in person. I am still quite drawn to his vibrant colors and color field layering over the linen, however.

Jonathan Runcio, Capital Zero: Works on Linen, Untitled (2009)
spraypaint on linen

Didgeridoo's and don'ts

I've been full of didgeridoo's and don'ts lately. Could turn into a pretty silly series.

News from the wild: due to certain unforseen events, I am now left with a large amount of time on my hands. Job searching has descended upon me once again. Good things lurk on the horizion, and I have filled my notebooks with an awful lot of doodling. The text and image combinations are prevalent and striking, more so than they've ever been. Nothing is polished-looking or finished, but perhaps I'll post a few knick-knacks here soon.

Also: going to start writing occasional art reviews for NewCity. I am excited about this. I like projects and deadlines; they keep the wheels turning, the butter churning. I am happy to be a part of awesome things like this (oh, Jason!):

(Tangent: I was peeling carrots this weekend and all I could think about was Laura Ingalls Wilder adding carrots to the churned cream to make the color of the butter more attractive).

First order of business (glee!): visit Laura Shaeffer at Home Gallery in Hyde Park to see Nathaniel Russell's work in the NOWS exhibit. I have so many questions for him! Goody.

Among many other things, I'm curious about what's inside this book of his, part of a series published through Little Paper Planes.

It's really weird to me how many random connections are happening lately between me/ things I have/ other artists. Case in point-- a few months ago I finally ordered a couple of beautiful state "Birds & Blooms" letterpress prints from Dutch Door Press, via Little Paper Planes. In that package was a postcard for a show called "Buddy System" at Rare Device in San Francisco. I liked the card, very simple and Gerhard Richter-esque, and have it sitting on the windowsill in my kitchen. Unbeknownst to me, for I chanced upon his work via other means, Mr. Russell had work in that show...

Also strange/ wonderful/ small: through the Chicago Printer's Guild I met Chicago artist Jessica Taylor, and just yesterday realized that I have a lovely minimalist embossed screenprint of hers hanging in my hallway. And I got it via that Spudnik Press "Tender Twenties" portfolio exchange last year. Small, small world.

Finchies on ze electric guitar!

A dear friend, C.E. sent this my way. Those finches are too darn cool.

The Barbican art gallery's The Curve, in the heart of London, commissions contemporary artists to install site-specific pieces in the space, which looks like this:

From the Barbican Curve website:

French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways. Boursier-Mougenot’s installation for The Curve, his first solo exhibition in the UK, takes the form of a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a random and captivating soundscape.

Also included in the installation is a series of videos that feature close ups of hands playing electric guitars. However, the sounds that accompany the footage do not emanate from the guitars. Instead we hear an insect-like drone produced by the amplification of the video signal.

Read more about Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's past video-drone and music-making-finch pieces in this interesting review in Frieze Magazine.