Artist Spotlight: Miwa Yanagi
28 Jul 2009 8 Comments
in Art, Culture, Japan, Japanese Culture, photography Tags: Art, Artist Spotlight, Japan, japanese art, miwa yanagi, photography, venice art biennial
A new (to me) Japanese artist that I discovered on TV. She’s the spotlight artist for Japan at the the Venice Art Biennial this year. Her display is called “Windswept Women.”
Windswept Women1
At first I was put off by these images – they’re so violent and odd, almost like giantesses ready to eat someone’s children.
Windswept Women 2
When I looked harder, I saw their faces, their strength in the face of the wind, their wild enjoyment… it came to me that they are all faces of a woman’s experience through life….
Windswept Women 3
Denying an aging body with a youthful mind…
Windswept Women 4
…being joyful in their own skins…
Windswept Women 5
Miwa Yanagi’s homepage includes several other of her collections which are creepy and though provoking. Check it out here.
~MS the Younger
Hot off the press: Japan Eclipse
22 Jul 2009 2 Comments
in Japan, Life Tags: damn interesting, Japan, solar eclipse
Well ladies and gents, it’s 11:35AM here on Wednesday morning and the time has passed for the optimal viewing time of the solar eclipse. It’s been cloudy and stormy here for the last few days, and people were expecting to miss this unusual celestial event (the next of which won’t visit Japan for another hundred years) but luckily the clouds were moving fast enough that we could see it clearly! The Japan eclipse is actually the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century. There was an electricity in the air today, all the students are running around shouting and leaning out the windows. One of my English club girls brought her own “eclipse kit” with a mirror, punched card (for doing pin-hole viewing) and a tiny square of welder’s glass you could look through and not destroy your eyes. What a fun event! The last time I saw one was in elementary school, and we had a huge welder’s mask to wear while we peered into the sky from the playground. Funny how 16+ years later I’m halfway around the world but still at school ^^;;
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Total Solar Eclipse (AP Photo/Xinhua, Yang Lei). Via The Examiner.com.
The art of butter sculpture
21 Jul 2009 3 Comments
in Art, Food, Food art, Sculpture Tags: butter sculpture, Iowa State Fair, Michael Jackson
The Iowa State Fair has boasted a "Butter Cow" since the early 1900s.
As recently reported in The New York Times (The People Speak: No Michael Jackson Sculpture in Butter at the Iowa Fair), organizers of the Iowa State Fair will not include a butter sculpture of Michael Jackson in the August fair.
“The Iowa State Fair has boasted a “Butter Cow” since the early 1900s. The origins of butter sculpting, however, are far older than that. Nearly 20 years before Columbus discovered America, Tibetan monks used yak butter to create figurines of animals and deities for worship. Since then, this humble craft has evolved into high art.
In 1911 J.E. Wallace of Florida sculpted the Fair’s first butter cow and was succeeded by Earl Frank Dutt of Illinois. Norma “Duffy” Lyon of Toledo, Iowa, continued the legacy, becoming the third person and first woman to sculpt the Fair’s butter beauties.
In 2006, after 15 years of apprenticing with Duffy, Sarah Pratt of West Des Moines became the Fair’s fourth butter sculptor. In addition to her first Butter Cow, Pratt also crafted Superman of “Superman Returns” (Norwalk, Iowa, native Brandon Routh, who starred as the man of steel) and “Mr. State Fair” Bill Riley (in honor of his 60th Fair).
The Butter Cow starts with a wood, metal, wire and steel mesh frame and about 600 lbs. of low moisture, pure cream Iowa butter. Once inside the 40-degree cooler, layers of butter are applied until a life-size butter cow emerges – measuring about 5-1/2-ft high and 8-ft long. Each year features one of the six major dairy breeds – Jersey, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Holstein, Guernsey and Milking Shorthorn.
While a real dairy cow weighs more than 1,000 pounds, a 600-lb. butter cow would butter 19,200 slices of toast and take an average person two lifetimes to consume, according to sponsor Midwest Dairy Association. Much of the butter is recycled and reused for up to 10 years.
The Midwest Dairy Association has commissioned all the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow sculptures since 1960.”
According to Wikipedia:
Butter sculpture is an ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Yak butter and dye are used to create temporary symbols for the Tibetan New Year and other religious celebrations. In North America, the tradition of butter sculptures dates back to the 19th century at agricultural and state fairs in the United States. Shortly after the end of World War II, the Ontario Cream Producers Marketing Board and the Dairy Producers of Canada began a campaign to promote their products. Butter sculpting was initiated as part of this campaign along with the slogan “It’s better with butter”. This was intended to increase butter’s market share in competition to the high-powered advertising for margarine in the late 1940s.
To learn more of the history of butter sculpture, go here. This slideshow provides vintage images of butter sculptures from the early 20th century, including images of President Teddy Roosevelt.
For images of Tibetan butter sculptures, go here.
Play me I’m yours
14 Jul 2009 5 Comments
in Art, Culture, Life, Music Tags: London, Luke Jerram, Play Me I'm Yours, Street pianos
London 2009 - Leicester Square piano
Street pianos are appearing in cities across the world. Located in skate parks, industrial estates, laundromats, precincts, bus shelters and train stations, outside pubs and football grounds, the pianos are for any member of the public to enjoy and claim ownership of.
Street pianos have been placed all around London as part of ‘Play Me I’m Yours’ for the City of London Festival, an interactive art project meant to challenge people to come out of their urban insularity and also to provide some summertime music.
“They’re out there to get people talking to one another and to claim ownership and activate the public space,” said the creator of the project, Luke Jerram, an artist who lives in Bristol. He previously brought incarnations of it to Birmingham, England; São Paolo, Brazil; and Sydney, Australia. “It’s a blank canvas for everyone’s creativity.”
The pianos, which are secured to the ground with metal cables and have plastic covers in case of rain, have proved a huge hit. All of them are still there — outside the Natural History Museum, on Portobello Road, in Leicester Square and in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Cathedral, among other spots. None has been vandalized. People have tended to relinquish their places courteously after a while to allow others to perform.
A blog will be active during and after the Festival for people to record their encounters at www.streetpianos.co.uk.
“Play Me, I’m Yours” is the creation of artist Luke Jerram, whose artistic products include installations, sculptures, and live art such as Play Me.
Related link: All Around London, an Invitation to Make Music from The New York Times
~MadSilence
Rules to create by
12 Jul 2009 2 Comments
in Art, Life, Popular Culture, Thoughts Tags: Magical Elves, reality tv, Sarah Jessica Parker, Television, Untitled Art Project
Honestly, I’m not a fan of reality TV, although my family convinced me to watch American Idol a few times (What season is this? 202?).
What caught my eyes were reports of a new art-themed reality show. As reported in The New York Times:
Now top contemporary artists will get a chance to create their own reality. The cable channel Bravo said on Tuesday that it would conduct open casting calls in July for contestants on an art-related reality competition show to be produced by Sarah Jessica Parker and Magical Elves, the company behind “Top Chef,” and “Project Runway.” The contestants will compete for a gallery show, a cash prize and a sponsored national museum tour. The series, which has yet to be named, will feature 13 aspiring artists who will compete in sculpture, painting, photography, industrial design and other disciplines to create “unique pieces highlighting art’s role in everyday life.” The pieces will be judged “by a panel of top art world figures, including fellow artists, gallerists, collectors, curators and critics,” according to Bravo, which plans to broadcast the series sometime next year.
According to the application instructions for potential contestants, the show’s producers are looking for “emerging or mid-career” artists who work in any number of the following fields: painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography and mixed-media:
We want contemporary artists. We want voices that believe in their art and want the world to know.
Better say that the producers want to make money and lots of it. Although the show may prove to be a perfect vehicle for the contemporary art world with its market orientation.
The 23-page application asks for information concerning the artist’s background, career history, education & training, sale & exhibition history. Some of the questions are intriguing. It would be interesting to learn how the artists respond to such queries as:
–Does your family support your choice to be an artist?
–Describe your medium/media of choice and why you chose it.
–What inspires you?
–Discuss how you generate a piece of work: process, inspiration, etc.
–Do you have any rules you live by? Do you have any rules you create by?
–How do you define success as an artist?
–What are your aspirations as an artist?
–What is cliche in the art world right now?
–How do you feel about being judged competitively?
A Casting Call for The Untitled Art Project will be held in New York City on July 18th.
Click here for the UNTITLED ART PROJECT APPLICATION.
~MadSilence
Babushka bail out plan
08 Jul 2009 4 Comments
in Art, Culture, Life, Popular Culture, Thoughts Tags: Matryoshka, Russian wooden dolls
A designer paints matryoshka dolls in a Sergiyev Posad workshop. Via Time.com
In a previous post (Brighton Beach Babushka) we discussed the delights of the matryoshka, Babushka or nested doll. According to Time.com, the sale of these and other Russian handicrafts has declined to the point where the Russian government is buying “$28.4 million worth of nesting dolls (called matryoshka in Russian), lacquered dishes, crocheted shawls, felt caps and other quintessentially Russian knickknacks to bolster the industry and try to protect the livelihoods of some 30,000 workers at around 240 companies.”
Under the white walls and blue-and-gold cupolas of the Sergiyev Posad monastery, the row of vendors selling nesting dolls and other traditional Russian handicrafts is noticeably shorter this summer. Usually the cheap folding tables, set up in a double row outside the spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church, are surrounded by tourists snapping up the iconic egg-shaped souvenirs, made of smaller and smaller wooden dolls hidden one within the other. But on a recent Thursday afternoon, there were only about a dozen people looking to buy. At one table, Olga Isakova waited on her first customers of the day, a man and his son who examined a bright blue-and-white nesting doll with curly blond hair and a heart-shaped mouth before putting it down and walking away. “My sales have fallen 10% to 20% since the fall,” says Isakova. “I’m only selling the cheap stuff these days.”
As the financial crisis continues to take its toll and travelers decide to stay closer to home this summer, Russia’s small local industries suddenly find themselves struggling. Now the government is stepping in to try to keep Russia’s artisanal traditions alive. Earlier this year the Russian government announced that it would buy $28.4 million worth of nesting dolls (called matryoshka in Russian), lacquered dishes, crocheted shawls, felt caps and other quintessentially Russian knickknacks to bolster the industry and try to protect the livelihoods of some 30,000 workers at around 240 companies.
Source: Trying Times for Russia’s Nesting Dolls via Time.com
Undoubtedly the international fine & decorative arts market is suffering during this global recession, effecting even the demand for wooden nesting dolls. Thankfully U.S. President Barack Obama is using his influence to support the Russian craft industry:
Even ABC News.com has recognized the significance of this trend in their article: Traditional Russian Dolls Seek Bailout. Check it out, especially their Dollars for Russian Dolls? video.
Go here to learn more of the History of Russian Dolls.
~MadSilence
The art of the birdhouse
04 Jul 2009 6 Comments
in Art, Craft, Creativity, Life, Thoughts Tags: bird house, birdhouse, birding, birds
Summer has arrived, bringing with it those feathered friends who regularly visit the bird feeders in the MadSilence backyard. Grackles, blue jays, cardinals, gold finches, house finches, sparrows, woodpeckers, orioles, black-capped chickadees, cow birds, cat birds, mockingbirds and more. Even a red-tailed hawk that swooped down on an unsuspecting mourning dove. Perhaps we should plan on installing some bird houses?
Chuck Grodski of St. James, NY, master birdhouse builder, handcrafts birdhouses, including copies of the Taj Mahal, the Episcopal church in St. James, the Smithtown Presbyterian Church, the St. James railroad station, a Georgian colonial, a Parthenon model and an Adirondack stone house, each studded with portholes and perches. Grodski is coauthor of the “Birdhouse Builder’s Manual.”
And while we may not possess Grodski’s skills, there are accessible options for constructing bird houses. Go to wikiHow to learn how to make a bird house pop up card (Robert Sabuda method):
Looking for avian inspiration? Try Chris Eckersley’s beautifully designed “byrdhouses”:
Chris Eckersley is an artist and designer who makes drawings, prints, and sculptures, and designs three-dimensional objects and furniture.
Image via Wee Birdy
Or this fabulous Hanging Bird Townhouse from Sweden:
Via Wee Birdy
The GreenBird House is a fun and easy project to assemble for a basic birdhouse, plus a great way to promote green birding. Made from recycled materials. No cutting, glue, staples or tape required.
Monkey Onsen, Nagano
01 Jul 2009 7 Comments
in Japan, Japanese Culture, Travel Tags: Japan, monkey onsen, monkeys, Travel, wildlife
Monkey park hooooooooo! The first evidence there were monkeys in the mountains...
The monkey park itself is part of Joshin-etsu Kogen National Park, very close to where the snowboarding events were held. The valley is called “Jigokudano,” literally translated as “hell valley” because of the amount of hot springs filling the air with hot vapor and the smell of rotten eggs. It’s rather hard to get there even in the summer! We had to drive up a tiny road, barely wide enough for 1 1/2 cars at an uncomfortable 40 degree angle with the road steeply dropping off the side of the mountain. Luckily my friend who was driving live a long time in Denver and was used to mountain driving! After we got there we parked and had a 10 minute walk along the steaming, multi-colored river to the valley. Then, as we came around the entrance pavilion, there they were – at least 40 monkeys playing, sunning, swimming, fighting, and generally being very relaxed and at home with the scores of tourists who had come to see them that day!
I was amazed how affectionate the monkey mothers were.... check out that little face!
We were really surprised at how accepting the monkeys were of our presence. I guess they get so many visitors with cameras that they don’t even notice anymore! The mothers didn’t even mind us peering at their very small babies, who were extremely cute. I know monkeys and humans are related, but I didn’t realize just how human theses little guys were. Sleeping under bushes, nursing their babies, it was just like a scene from a human bath house!
Me? I'm not doing anything, just hanging out... ^^;;;
You can watch the monkeys year-round on their Webcam.
The first pitcher plant I've ever seen growing wild! It was a beautiful purple color.
Mom's tired too! Nap time!
Can anyone identify that interesting plant? I have not idea how to check on it in Japanese…
~MS the Younger
Oh, and PS: More interesting info on the valley here.
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