Old Time Felting

Last night - err, last week - okay, fine - Last month, I dropped by a cozy little gallery by the name of Hanahou for a show with the rather weighty name Four-Ring Needle Felting Extravaganza.

The show featured the work of four artists who focus on the intense but seemingly therapeutic art of felting. Specifically, the work of Hine Mizushima who I 'collaborated' (and I use that term loosely) with on a TMBGs' music video. Basically, she made the music video for the re-booted version of "Why Does the Sun Shine?" and I dropped scenes from it in to the music video Dave Cowles and I made for the updated "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?".

Despite 'working with' Hine and being Facebook 'friends', we've never actually met before so I knew I needed to walk the block from work to check it out, give her a hug and snap some pictures.

Hine with squid!

Close-up of creatures over her shoulder -

Her Ectoplasm series -

And some fancy jellyfish! And while I'm slightly biased in my estimate of Hine's Unnatural History work being the best, the other artists, particularly Yoko Nomura's Fractured Fairy Tales -

And Moxie's Icons & Totems & Pieces of the Past were equally charming and photogenic (this is the company camera, which I might need to borrow more often)!

I particularly love needle-felting as a technique and would LOVE to employ it making puppets for a stop-motion video some day. In fact, I've toyed with the idea of a re-telling of the Owl & the Pussycat set to Jim Stafford's Spiders & Snakes using just that...

Cinetropic

Haven't posted in a while but couldn't help but throw this up here, even as a 'quickie':

The Bellows March (2009) from Eric Dyer on Vimeo.

One of my favorites from the Ottawa Animation Festival from TWO YEARS AGO - that's how much I liked it - has finally been posted online (or at least, I just found it online).

It's a film of technical genius and yet wonderfully simple. Here's a 'how-he-done-it' video to boot:

The Bellows March production/cinetrope slideshow from Eric Dyer on Vimeo.

Enjoy and I promise to post more in the future!

Treguna, Makoidees, Trecorum, Sadis Dee

When I was little, my brothers and I use to drag our parents to the armor room.



Now, apart from some hints of nostalgia and fond memories of Bed-knobs and Broomsticks, it's petty dull.


The same goes for Bed-knobs and Broomsticks if you were wondering.

Actually, one of my favorite areas recently got re-done.



I liked it better before - plus some foliage, minus a 'cafe' - but I will admit this lady looks much nicer in the sun.



I suppose two years living abroad ruined the awe of the Japanese 'garden' for me. Now I'm more interested how the ancients were also taking lessons from 'How to Draw' books.




I seem to have also become an admirer of fashion in the classics.




The expressions in this one are almost as extravagant as the costumes.



While he is looking rather chic in his crimson robes and lace gown, this fellow caught me eye as the inspiration for one of my favorite Bacon paintings.





And in case you were curious, the cats here are far superior to the ones found at the MoMA.



And now you know where Walt Disney got the idea...

Men in (Stripey) Tights

Last week, my brother David was passing through town on his way to a reading with Sam Shepard and Patti Smith. We took the opportunity to check out Tim Burton's exhibition at the MOMA, an event I was actually slightly dreading.

Let me explain.


Like almost every outcast 'art girl' in High School, I went through the black stripes and eyeliner Tim Burton phase. Hell, I even declared a Tim Burton week one year (don't ask - if you don't already know the details, well, you're just not meant to).

Over the years, my outlook expanded and I began to realize how narrow Burton's niche was. Not to mention the fact that his films just, for lack of a better phrase, 'got bad'. I remember deriving some amusement out of Sleepy Hollow, mostly due to the 'Walken Factor'. But Planet of the Apes, Willy Wonka, Sweeney Todd? Ugh.


Beetlejuice was a blast. Scissorhands, wonderful. Ed Wood, interesting. And of course, Batman.

Tim Burton's first Batman works because it has just the right balance of dumb action and macabre humor. Also, Keaton is kinda 'off-his-rocker' as both Batman and Bruce Wayne ("You wanna get nuts?") Burton's second Batman becomes a little too much about Burton.

But I've gotten off-track...


I was slightly dreading the exhibit. All I could think of was Depp's performance as Willy Wonka.



Then I was reminded of Burton's excellent drawings and design sense, what drew me to his work all those years ago. And really, that's what's worth braving the stripey-tight wearing crowds - the hundreds of doodles and drawings of random dog-walkers and kissing couples he's brought into his own demented little world.




And of course, all the movie props from the films I loved in grade school (special thanks goes to my brother for blocking the guard's view while I snapped these photos).

MOMA

Took my second tour ever of the MOMA yesterday (last time was for a Chuck Close exhibit). My brother David was in town and invited me out to see the Tim Burton exhibition. I'll save my thoughts on that for a future post. For now, let's just enjoy some art.



Rauschenberg, a personal favorite. It's in the textures and the way the frame transforms everyday objects and vice-versa.


View of a blonde bombshell from Rauschenberg's bed.


More mix of the dimensions. Not as interesting as ol' Robert's, but fun to photograph.


These boys seemed particularly taken with Lichenstein. For some reason, I was amused enough to take a picture of it.


One of my favorite Picasso pieces. I guess I'm a sculptor at heart. One of the other six reproductions is in Philadelphia, where I first saw it.


Stern looking gentleman.


Last time I was here (for a film screening, not a tour) they were setting this fellow up. View from above remains the most impressive.

Next time, my musings on Tim Burton, Batman and Elliot Cowan.

We are the...

Today's post may seem somewhat random, but indulge me.


I came across these photos on Facebook. An English friend of mine had been tagged in one of the photos (the squid if I remember correctly) and it looked intriguing enough that I clicked over.


In Senior year of High School, I took a class called Portfolio which focused on getting a portfolio together (duh) for the students who planned on studying some form of art in their upcoming college years.

We also had to write a few variations of an 'artist statement'. At the time, I planned on studying animation but mostly because I had no idea where to go to study the things I really wanted to do (puppeteering, animatronics, matte painting, makeup effects, etc.). I even went to far as to make my final project for the Portfolio class a (rather crude) animatronic bat-like creature.


Unfortunately, it looked nothing like this. I can tell you it was similar in color, about a foot and a half long as oppose to eight and could manage to 'walk' along at a sloth-like clip.

Fortunately, I threw out all the slides that had images of the beast. Instead, you'll have to settle for this awesome robotic menagerie.



Too bad this exhibit is somewhere in London; I'd love to see it. Maybe the AMNH will surprise me this winter...

Been searching for the dolphins...

Somewhere in between sorting out click tags and trying to figure out how to script three different sets of time-sensitive 'Premiere' messaging (I didn't understand any of that and I don't expect any of you to), I decided to do a random Google Image search for 'Amazon River Dolphins'.


Well, not all that random; we're in the middle of designing a particular web ad that calls for a collection of exotic animals.



Aside from finding some really beautiful images (especially considering the murky waters of the Amazon)...


... I came across this website. Immediately imagining my apartment covered with a menagerie of these delicate paper sculptures, I frantically started downloading PDFs. I was almost afraid someone would suddenly realize they could make money off of these things and stop the 'FREE DOWNLOADS'.


Unfortunately, I always loose in the end. Each image seems to be password protected and with no mention of said encryption on the website, I can only hope it's my home computer's copy of Photoshop and that I'll be able to open it tomorrow at work.