Bye!!!

We thought we had it rough! Check out South Park.

     I've been watching South Park recently. I can't help it. I know it's ridiculous and juvenile but it's such a guilty pleasure. I found out recently that every episode is made in one week and aired the next. They meet on Thursday and brainstorm all day then write and produce the episode in seven to four days. Sometimes it is sent in just hours before its 10pm time slot.
     HELLO! We thought we had it rough with Words and Images. These people are under tremendous stress to make each episode current and funny.
   They no longer use stop animation; that takes about 3 months to make. They use a soft ware the emulates the cut out paper look, very cleaver indeed.

   My boyfriend told me this, but I checked it out with wikipedia and got my facts right.

Want!

Now tell me you don't want these:

70s Style Design, Dominic Lutyens

Inspiration

I found this website from a post of Facebook from  a local photographer. The photos can be graphic but are also amazing.here

Break Dancing

One of my inspirations as of recently has been the movie Breakin'. It was made in the 80s and quickly followed with Breakin' 2. The trailer makes the movie seem far sexier and violent then it actually is.
   Just last night I watched the movie Freak Dance which can be found on netflix. It's a spoof on Breakin' made by The Upright Citizens Brigade in 2011.

Gimme Feedback! Shoe Obsessed

I still am waiting on a couple e-mail interview questions I've sent out to shoe museums. But here are the bare bones:

                               The New York Times Magazine: Collectors Edition, How shoes are hazardous.

     This is no new fad or hidden interest. Women love shoes. At least modern women love shoes. It was not till the years of the flapper, the 1920s, when women won the right to vote and shorten their hemlines did the shoe become a focal point. This does not mean shoes were ignored till then, but they weren’t admired in quite the same way. 

The Chopine was a shoe worn by Venetian nobel women and courtesans,  originally as a platformed over shoe to protect from mud and rain from 1400-1700. This shoe was never seen but it was also a status symbol. The height of the shoe related to the status of the woman wearing it. The tallest Chopine reached the height of 20 inches and women had to have an attendant to help them walk. So for hundreds of years women have associated shoe height with status and power. It is not clear if women actually enjoyed wearing the Chopine but they did go to great lengths, or heights, to keep them in style for 300 years.

   Modern women don’t go that far. Heel height has been on the incline over the past century to present day, starting in the 20s at 2 inches to 2.5 inches on the average and a 3 inch heel being more average to the modern day woman of 2012. The current fashion industry defines high heels any where from 3.5 inches to 5 inches anything above that can breach the definition of fashionable and the low brow term stripper heel becomes applicable. A more polite term might be “jewelry for the feet” but these super tall heels become more like fetishized objects then shoes worn to protect and enhance the foot.

     With the rise of the pin up in the 1940s the heel height went up with it. This  does not only relate to the need to look more like a pin up girl but women became more sexualized in general. They could wear pants, they could wear higher heels, they could do what they want. Shoes are meant to protect the foot of the wearer, once that goal is accomplished the discomfort of a high heeled, expensive shoe is forgotten. If it looks good it feels good.

     Collecting interesting shoe designs or historical shoes may seem like an odd collection but many notable people and museums do just so. Many women who can afford expensive shoes will buy them just because they can and in that way they are a status symbol. But in another way is it a sickness on the level of hoarding. Some women who can not necessarily afford limited edition shoes or a $2,000 pair of Manolo Bhalnik go into debt just to have them.

The drive to collect and conquer the shoe is not only limited to women. Many of these women who collect shoes own shoes designed by men. Men who design foot ware love women's shoes as well and they want what looks good, unique and desirable and don’t care for comfort. But men who collect shoes often collect sneakers. Known as Sneaker-heads or Sneaker-freaks these men seek out limited edition or expensive sneakers that they don’t necessarily ever wear. In the 1980s with the birth of the Air Jordan and the growth of hip-hop music, which made the sneaker a fashion statement, sneaker culture surged.  Various stores that show case sneakers in glass boxes, much like a museum would fine art, have popped up through out the country paying homage to great sneakers of the past and to limited edition sneakers offered by major brands like Nike, Adidas and Reebok.

    What makes these boarder line shoe fanatics different from hoarders is that they have extremely organized collections. Yes, sometimes they are out of hand and in storage at a location other then the persons home but the shoe obsession is a well organized one. Another trait hoarders have is to alienate themselves from others so that collecting things become more important then people around them. This might be a trait shared with the shoe obsessed. Shoe obsessed people will go to great lengths to find a specific shoe, they will also at times go into debt, not caring how much money is spent on shoes or the financial outcome of a shoe binge. Shoes make people feel good about themselves. Its like the act of eating ice cream after a hard day. When shoe love hits it hits hard. For some it even fills a void.

I have sent these questions to The Bata Shoe Museum curator, the owner of Ma Petite Shoe and the Temple University Shoe Museum curator. I am anxiously awaiting their replies.

1. How long have you worked with shoes?
2. What brought you to The Bata Shoe Museum?
3. What kind of background do you have in shoes?
4. What is your favorite shoe in the collection?
5. What in your opinion is the oddest shoe in the Bata collection?
6. Do you personally collect shoes?
7. Are you interested in women’s shoes only? 
8. Why do you think women have such a passion for collecting shoes?
9. Have you ever seen this passion become more of an obsession?
10. Who are some famous shoe collectors/obsessors?
11. Do you see shoes as status symbol, sex symbol or power symbol?
12. Do you think men have a place in shoe collecting?
13. What makes a man’s shoe obsession different from a woman’s?
14. What is the oldest shoe in the Bata collection?
15. Can you provide a timeline of historic shoes?

Show and Tell: Yarn Bombing

This was a scraped idea, but its still very visually stunning, Yarn Bombing. Covering an object in knit swatches. Sometimes this is done by the cover of night and shows up in the morning, sometimes it is a more public art form.

Bronies: Friendship is Magic

For this weeks show and tell I choose BRONIES! What is a bronie you may ask? Bronies are older, guy fans of the new My Little Ponys Tv show. I don't know any bronies but I was very intrigued by the idea of a "bronie" so I did watch about seven episodes of the new My Little Ponnies: Firendship is Magic cartoon. Yes, I did watch seven episodes but I wasn't sold on the bronie idea. Its a mesmerizing kids show, but I still don't fully understand the bronie phenomenon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Est3UNs-LIk

Shoe & Tell

I just found an on line museum that is attempting to document every sneaker ever made. This is quite a task. The Sneaker Freaker Museum

   As another part of my article would be an interview with a curator or docent of either the Philidelphia Shoe Museum or The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

Shoe & Tell: Shoe Obsession Movie

    I found out through some research that there is a movie called  God Save My Shoes made in 2011. I guess I'll have to watch this movie as part of my research. I also want to get into sneaker culture a little so my article isn't so women-centric.
   As well I am thinking of profiling women through history with massive shoe collections such as Imelda Marcos, Carey Bradshaw,from Sex and The City, and that woman who used all of her 9/11 aide money to buy shoes and boob jobs for her friends. If anyone can remember her name that would be wonderful.

Shoe Obsession

When hobby becomes obsession:
     I am interested in shoe collecting and obsessing and when the line can be drawn between a hobby and an obsession. Shoe obsession seems to primarily effect women, but men are closely following with sneaker obsessions. I found a number of articles describing this but I would also like to go over a list of famous ladies and their preferred shoes. Possibly adding  a list of notable designs through the ages and advances in shoe making.
http://jezebel.com/5574856/whats-so-special-about-shoes

KITTENS!

It's very hard to accomplish anything when you have a kitten, especially if the kitten was found outside your friends office building trying to get in. She was found on tuesday, election day, and we picked her up that evening. She's completely adorable. Her name is Weebles because she wobbles but she doesn't fall down. I took her to the vet today and found out her reasoning for wobbling is that she is under developed and has slight brain damage that happened while developing in her mom's womb. So she's a little wobbly. This makes her even cuter.

Beader

Another thing about me, I love beading, it is both a vice (I buy too many pretty, shiny beads) and a virtue (I sell em' and its relaxing). If you don't know already there is a very acclaimed Baltimore artist, Joyce Scott, whose work can be found locally at the BMA and Goya Contemporary or internationally.
Here are some images and links:
http://www.goyacontemporary.com/artists/scott_1.html#
http://mobilia-gallery.com/artists/jscott/
http://www.craftinamerica.org/artists_fiber/story_269.php

Shoe Museum!

    I don't know if any one knows this about me but I am shoe design fanatic. I wont go into debt over shoes  but I am nuts enough to want to go the Bata Shoe Museum in Ontario. It sounds amazing. One day I would like to learn how to make shoes myself. I might attend a shoe hand-making workshop in January in NYC.

Her are a few links to other shoe museums:

http://www.virtualshoemuseum.com

http://podiatry.temple.edu/pages/about/shoe_museum/shoe_museum.html

http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/Ferragamo_museum.html

Show & Tell: Story Time

I have to do it. I know Meredith posted about "This American Life" but its amazing. Not only is it a great radio show to listen to but the website has all the pod casts/ web streams/ downloads/ apps you could dream of.
  I also couldn't help but think of "Go The Fuck to Sleep" by Adam Mansbach. After much success it was made into an audio book. Appropriately it was narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

Patterns of Pa.

Recently I've been interested in the designs of the Pennsylvania  Dutch. Here are some pictures of my interest and some websites:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~aferm/pennsylvania/hex.htm
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/iadpenn/iadpenn-main1.html

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School

Right after class today I went to Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School at the Wind-Up. If you have never heard of it it is a open drawing session costing $8 AND YOU GET TO DRAW BURLESQUE MODELS in fancy costumes. There is nothing ant-art about it. Here are some of my funny ink drawings:

New cool art

http://www.sightunseen.com/2012/01/skin-rugs-by-agustina-woodgate-artist/

http://www.treehugger.com/green-home/artist-decapitates-recycled-stuffed-toys-stunning-psychedelic-rugs.html

Another

Yet another art and design blog:http://www.imrevolting.net/?paged=16

The Art of the Potato

The potato, the long forgot art lost to children and forgotten by adults. Here are some images I found of potato prints. They aren't linked to any site in particular.

The Barnes Museum App

I was just visiting The Barnes Museum in Philly.. It opened this summer and is still open only to those with advance tickets. The museum houses an amazing collection of American post-Impressionism, Picasso's, Matisse's, Native American Pottery, etc. etc.
   This museum  is the new home to the collection of Albert Barnes. One thing that makes it special is that in his will he stated that the collection should never be moved from its original placement when being viewed, so all the rooms were built to the same dimensions of his home and hung in the same place.
  What made it even better was that the audio tour was on an iPhone! It was an app. You could type in a number next to a piece of art and receive information via head phone about it or they offered a guided tour by Fidele, Albert Barnses' French dog, yes the dog spoke with a French accent. This version was more family oriented and also offered "Zee riddle of zee room" where the dog, Fidele would offer you clues found in the paintings to solve a riddle. What an app!

Links to Like

Here are 3 links to great design/art/graphic design websites and artists:
http://www.booooooom.com/blog/design/

http://www.thisiscolossal.com

http://eof737.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/choi-jeong-hwa-do-ho-suh-installation-artists-extraordinaire/

Show and Tell : Cause & Effect

I'm a very "it says what it does, it does what it says" advertisement person. I want the literal most of the time. I like cleaver as well but largely I like literal. Above is an example of an ad for the Libertarian Party showing the cause of more government and the effect of that government on a protester. The protester is being maced in effect, by the government.

   Below is a Canadian ad showing an equation that shows that if you stay healthy so do your children. I guess its a campaign to promote healthy lives and involvement in your children's life as well. Actually this one is less direct then the one above. I understand what it implies but there is little information about how and what to do for sick children. Maybe if I was Canadian I would understand the reference.

Hand writing fonts

I thought this might help some of us who have to work on hand writing fonts this week. The website is inspiring and FREE! But I used it as a resource for ideas, not for the actual font.  I also thought that if some one is having trouble with their own hand writing stencils are great as well. You can buy them at art supply stores, that is if you thing they go with your concept and aesthetic.
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/40-free-high-quality-hand-drawn-fonts/

Awareness Campaigns

Here are two links to sites that provide images of awareness campaigns. I felt they were largely cleaver, funny and sometimes bleak. I'm trying to wrestle with this project and find it fun.

http://www.topdesignmag.com/30-modern-products-illustrated-in-vintage-poster-ads/

http://www.topdesignmag.com/18-impressive-clever-advertisements/


I've never heard or seen of the magazine Top Design but I think I'm going to check this site more regularly. Below are my two favorite.

Positively Paper

This is art by Peter Callesen. Behold the power of paper:

Times a-waistin' and other cool tattoos

Through doing many random internet searches I have found  many funny tattoos. Fake or not these are fun,

Words I LIKE

Rain, pizza, static, tintinnabulation, monosyllabic, brook, cadence, cynical, radial, radiate, Googly Moogly, Gobbly Gok

Inspiration for Project 3

I've started looking at older tattoo flash for my holiday cards series. I'm trying to pay a lot of attention to the font and style of drawing/design.