Snail Graffiti by Slinkachu

I came across these "Inner City Snails" online, which are painted by a London artist by the name of Slinkachu. I must say, I think this series of work is amazing in an endless number of ways (as long as the paint isn't toxic to the poor guys).

I'm particularly fond of the fact that these snails function as living 'found objects' or 'found art objects' for random passer-byers in the street. These are special because being classified as found objects means that there's no telling who will or will not find these little guys. There aren't many people who do art for the sake of, let alone artists who literally put their art out into the world in this almost ethereal way.

Also, I don't do drugs, but let's be honest, could you imagine being on psychedelics and stumbling upon this?

Do you think there's anything particularly intriguing about this series, or is it just me?

If you didn't spot the link above, Slinkachu's website can be found here.

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Anamorphic Sculptures

I absolutely adore these sculptures by Jonty Hurwitz. He sculpted them so that they only look proper when posed next to a reflective cylinder. I've glanced past them before without caring too much, but that changed once I took the moment to wonder how someone could possibly figure out how to sculpt those distorted images. They are absolutely wonderful.

This piece looks like an abstract sculpture.

 

The sagging features on this face look completely surreal.

Lastly, I love how this sculpture looks nothing like a hand (at least not from this view).

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Gallery Opening!

Tonight was my very first gallery opening outside of the school's gallery! To be honest it was just the opening for the graduating students, so it's still school related, but also still super fun!

There was tons of food, alcohol, and way too many people! It was noisy, hot and crowded, but I stayed for all three hours - and a note to anyone who has never attended a gallery opening, when you do, do not wear heels or a sweater.

The gallery is short short short, but if you happen to be in Toronto between April 18th and April 23rd, 2013, come stop by! A really cool thing that I think other graduating classes and mini-collectives should do, is host websites to go along with their gallery openings, it's kinda neat!

http://thiscouldwork.ca/

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How To Do What You Love by Paul Graham

It's been so busy with the end of the semester that I doubt I'll be able to post on time for the rest of April. Days just fly by, I feel like every night when I look at the clock it's midnight and I don't know where the past five hours went.

"You have to like what you do enough that the concept of "spare time" seems mistaken."

Today's post is a link to a great article about figuring out how to do what you love in a world where anything synonymous with 'work' is supposed to be grueling and horrific. It is a really long article that took me three days to read (because I kept trying to read it at one in the morning). I can't summarize the whole thing, but I can share my favourite paragraph:

"...you have to like your work more than any unproductive pleasure. You have to like what you do enough that the concept of "spare time" seems mistaken. Which is not to say you have to spend all your time working. You can only work so much before you get tired and start to screw up. Then you want to do something else—even something mindless. But you don't regard this time as the prize and the time you spend working as the pain you endure to earn it." 
 
This is kind of how I feel right now, though I am 100% sure I'm not the most dedicated crafter / artist / worker / entrepreneur out there. Just because I don't know how to be efficient though, does not mean I'm not trying my hardest.

How about you? Do you resonate with that favorite quote of mine from the article? Do you have your own favorite art-related quote?

( http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html )

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Can Creative Activities Keep Us Young?

Another wonderful BBC video has popped up regarding art! Funnily enough, this relates to the last video we shared that was questioning whether there's any health merits to art at all.

The oldest artist in this short video is 93, and her work looked like it was referencing popular culture and plastic surgery. I hope I'm that in the loop when I'm 93.. and I hope I'm alive.. and still doing art.

Gosh, I can only imagine how lovely it would be to spend your time doing art journalism, wouldn't that just be grand?

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Advertising with Postcards and E-vites

This is part shameless advertising, part good advice.

At Sheridan our annual glass show in the gallery is coming up, and the third years always have to design an image to go on the postcard/e-vite. I think this year we did spectacularly well compared to past years, but to be honest I have only seen a couple of old postcards.

Rather than an image of somebody's work (or slices of everybody's work so there's no fighting) we all agreed to do an edited picture of our digitry.

Personally I think this is more eye-catching than a picture of art because it's out of the ordinary, especially in a wing that's filled with nothing but art!

Do you have any interesting ideas for business cards or postcards for yourself? Do you think it's okay to represent a diverse show (40 students and faculty), with one piece of art?

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Art Therapy

Here's a handy 4 minute BBC video about the perceived power of art therapy, as well as the issues these programs face.

I believe fully in Art Therapy. Even if it can't cure cancer it has created many wonderful artists, especially through army based programs. You may not have known that last tidbit, but the army's art therapy programs really helped to revitalize the North American art scene (or at least the glass art scene haha) after the second world war. I'll offer some more information about that impact after I get in touch with one of my teacher's about the subject.

I know what I think, but what do you think? Is art therapy helpful to people on all walks of life, or is it just the equivalent of the 'miracle pill' that never makes you better?

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Marc Petrovic's Birds

Since we have been talking lately about different ways to educate the public about your working process, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to show off the crazy thing that Marc Petrovic does.

That is an amazingly realistic bird, sitting on top of the sheet of glass it was made from.

You can trust me when I say that creating that fused sheet of glass would be a lot of work. Too much work for me.

I still can't fathom how those wings become wings.

And for those who are interested, here's a 23 minute video of him making the bird (you can skim through it of course):

So, now that  you know what I'm talking about - I think displaying the fused sheet with the bird makes it that much more amazing, because you can start trying to imagine how he made it into a bird. If you have absolutely no idea how he did it you can just brush it off and walk away, but he's given you hints to get your mind going - ingenious!

Are there any other working processes that could maximize the finished piece by being politely displayed with it?

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