FAREWELL: A MASTER PAINTER OF PHOTO-REALISTIC SUBURBIA AND CARS DIES
We just learned of the passing last week of artist Robert Bechtle. If you’ve visited enough art museums and galleries around the world, but especially in America, you’ve very likely encountered one of Bechtle’s hyper photo-realistic paintings. The subject matter of his paintings were often mundane scenes of American suburbiaContinue Reading
CHILLIN’! : PHOTOS OF LIFE IN REMOTE SIBERIAN HINTERLAND ARE STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL!
Photogapher Alexey Vasilyev’s images of the Sakha (a.k.a., Yakutia) area of Siberia are a fascinating look at the locales, people and culture of Russia’s largest region. It’s place of weather extremes and isolated living. Winters are brutally cold (temperatures remain below zero for more over half the year). Summers areContinue Reading
FONTASTICAL: HOW THE “GENTRIFICATION FONT” BECAME SO! SECRETS REVEALED!
You’ve seen it. You know it. It’s a typeface used across all types of media. But when deployed for street-address numbers, it’s visual shorthand. This typeface is a denotation of a certain type of taste and style. And it suggests something expensive. Though it’s not ostentatious or “fancy” or traditionalContinue Reading
LOVIN’ IT: TRAVIS SCOTT AND MCDONALDS JOIN FORCES IN LIMITED-TIME COLLABO!
. . . . . For the past two years the tune “Sicko Mode” by rapper Travis Scott has occupied a prominent spot on a few of my Spotify playlists. This has meant that I’ve listened to the song almost every day, if not multiple times a day, for theContinue Reading
APOCALYPSE NOW NOW! VIDEO OF SAN FRANCISCO SHROUDED IN SMOKEY ORANGEY LIGHT DUE TO CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES!
. . . . . . If you live in California, you might say it’s been “a little hot” lately. Between record-shattering heatwaves that saw 121-degree Fahrenheit (49.44 Celsius) temperatures in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills to the record-shattering wildfires ravaging the state from north to south, itContinue Reading
WHIPLASH: LOOKING BACK AT THE “COOL” CARS OF THE 1980s!
Did you live through the 1980s and now pine for the cars of yesteryear in some mid-life crisis-induced reverie of New Wave-era nostalgia? Yes? Ok, then the Car & Drive magazine list of the “30 Coolest Cars of the 1980s” is for YOU! It’s a visual trip down memory laneContinue Reading
VIRULENT: ARTIST AI WEI WEI RELEASES DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK IN WUHAN, CHINA
. . . . . Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei has produced a documentary film about the early days of the coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The film is called “Coronation” and can be viewed on demand on Vimeo, among other outlets. The film (see ominous trailer above) appears to documentContinue Reading
IN IT FOR THE MONEY: ARTIST PAINTS PORTRAITS OF CELEBS AND POLITICAL FIGURES ON U.S. DOLLAR BILLS!
Los Angeles artist Claire Salvo has a new series of portraits that she’s painted on United States dollar bills. The portraits are of celebrity women from the worlds of entertainment and politics. Pictured in this post are Grammy award-winning musician Billie Eilish and U.S. Vice-Presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris. SeeContinue Reading
RISE AND SHINE: ARTIST-DESIGNER PAINTS SUNRISE VIEWS FROM HIS APT. ON N.Y. TIMES COVERS, HONORS JACOB BLAKE!
The artwork is part of a series by New York City-based artist and designer Sho Shibuya, who paints sunrise view from his apartment on the front page of the New York Times. He recently painted one with seven holes in it in honor of Jacob Blake, who was recently killedContinue Reading
DESIGNED! SWEDISH FURNITURE AND MEATBALL JUGGERNAUT IKEA UPLOADS 72-YEARS WORTH OF PRODUCT CATALOGS!
Here’s a bit of Swedish you can bust out at cocktail parties (remember those?) when the global COVID-19 pandemic ends and social gatherings become a thing again: The word is ” överväldigad!”* Roughly translated it means “mind blown!” And that’s what we uttered, dare we say “exclaimed,” when we heardContinue Reading
“UP!” IN REAL LIFE!: DAVID BLAINE FLOATS TO 25,000 FT. WITH BUNCH OF HELIUM BALLOONS LIKE IN THE PIXAR FILM!
. . . . . Illusionist and extreme endurance performer, dare we say performance artist, David Blaine has just done another one of his stunt-spectacles this week. On Wednesday he floated into the sky strapped to dozens of helium balloons like the character Carl Fredrickson and his house in theContinue Reading
YACHT ROCK: U.K. STREET ARTIST BANKSY FINANCES AND DECORATES REFUGEE RESCUE BOAT IN THE MED!
Mysterious and infamous U.K. artist Banksy has bankrolled a small refugee rescue ship sailing the Mediterranean Sea. The boat is named the M.V. Louise Michel. It’s run by a non-profit organization whose mission is to “uphold maritime law and rescue anyone in peril without prejudice.” The vessel is decorated withContinue Reading
LIFE IMITATING ART: WHEN JAPANESE ANIME DICTATES YOUR STYLE, AMAZING THINGS CAN HAPPEN!
Life imitating art imitating life. You’ve got to love it when this happens. Such is the case of some make-up artists (MUAs) like Mi-Anne Chan who are taking their face-styling to the next level by finding inspiration in the looks of anime characters like those in classic Japanese “Sailor Moon”Continue Reading
GUCCI-FICATION: THE SHOCKING HORROR OF TIK TOK TEENS AND LUXURY FASHION REVEALED!
Fashion yourself a runway model, do ya? Yes, we know you do. We do, too! What’s not to love about stepping down the catwalks of Milan, New York, Paris, London, and Tokyo? Rushing from one Fashion Week to another around the world for one of the greatest luxury clothing brandsContinue Reading
BEATS: HOW 9TH WONDER MAKES BEATS FOR KENDRICK LAMAR!
. . . . . We like to think we’ve got a dab hand at music production, and have recorded and produced hundreds of tunes over the years for friends, videos and even our own music, including the Aloha Death band project. But we can’t even begin to hold aContinue Reading
DATA VIZ GONE WILD: ARTIST TURNS VISUALLY BORING-ASS STOCK CHARTS INTO AWESOME LANDSCAPE ART!
You’ve seen financial charts. Maybe they mean nothing to you. Or they mean everything. Maybe you’re a day trader with a phalanx of screens in your home office where you follow the minute-by-minute ups and downs of markets. Maybe you’re in finance have your very own Bloomberg terminal! Or yourContinue Reading
AND NOW YOU KNOW THIS: THE VISUAL LOOP HAS A NAME
You’ve seen it. You know what it is. But did you know there’s a name for this? It’s called the “the Droste Effect.” Or to put it another way, it’s an image within an image of the same image. The cover photo to classic British rock band Pink Floyd’s “Ummagumma”Continue Reading
ARCHI-TORTURE: SOMEBODY’S BUILDING A MEMORIAL TO THE GLOBAL PANDEMIC
An architecture firm in Montevideo, Uruguay is building the worlds first memorial to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The firm is GomezPlatero. Their vision is for a memorial located on the waterfront of a major urban area that serves as both a monument and a large pubic space. Rendering of theContinue Reading
USER EXPERIENCE: THE DESIGN OF LEGO CONTROL PANELS AS GOOD UX DESIGN!
Yes, even the tiny user-interface details of LEGO bricks are given a lot of thought and consideration by the Danish toy maker. The result is good user-experience (UX) design of the control panels and screens painted on 52 of their bricks. This article by George Cave is an excellent andContinue Reading
STUNNER: VANITY FAIR PUTS BREONNA TAYLOR ON COVER OF SEPTEMBER ISSUE!
The cover of Vanity Fair magazine’s September 2020 issue is a triumph. It’s a beautiful, bittersweet portrait of Breonna Taylor by the artist Amy Sherald. The issue is guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates and includes a feature article edited by him in conversation with Taylor’s mother. Taylor was in the newsContinue Reading