Inspired by the incred­i­ble exhibit Sav­age Beauty at the Met today.…

…I was in Stock­holm attend­ing an open­ing with one of my neigh­bors. We were there to see a piece of my work on exhi­bi­tion, one which earned me an award that night. The evening was freez­ing and strangely solemn but there was cham­pagne and a few laughs –not too shabby, really. Time flies…

Whether you received any red envelopes this year or not, it’s offi­cially the year of the rab­bit now–yay! Which gives me a per­fect excuse to share another piece by ROA:

A dis­carded draft of a recent sub­mis­sion for an online art exhi­bi­tion:

This one reminds me a lit­tle of Swedish artist Alexan­dra Hed­berg’s recent Snow White draw­ings and explo­rations…

Next week holds the promise of the US release of the first film by Banksy. Last week, an extended teaser for the film was released which begins to out­line Thierry Guetta’s (aka Mr. Brain­wash) pur­suit of the mys­te­ri­ous artist. Check it out:

A list of venues and show­times across the US is avail­able on the film Web site.

A brief video of the cur­rent instal­la­tion at the Bar­bi­can in Lon­don by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot which explores the unex­pected rhythms of daily life.

This week­end the Bal­ti­more Museum of Art (BMA) will play host to the Con­tem­po­rary Print Fair. Vis­i­tors to the event can enjoy and pur­chase prints from four­teen major con­tem­po­rary art deal­ers, gal­leries and presses. The two day event will also fea­ture guided tours, artist lec­tures and a panel discussion.

Con­sult the event Web site for a full list of sched­uled events and participants

The Bal­ti­more Fair for Con­tem­po­rary Prints & New Edi­tions
Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, 27–28 March 2010 11 a.m.- 6 p.m.
at The Bal­ti­more Museum of Art 10 Art Museum Drive Bal­ti­more, MD 21218

Look­ing for some­thing to do this sunny week­end, Charm City and D.C. metro read­ers? Then why not check out the High­land­town Spring Art­fest this Sat­ur­day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Held at Mag­no­lia Designs Gallery in the Skylofts, the Art­fest promises to be a fun way to wel­come the new sea­son and sup­port local artists and craftspeople.

Artists at Saturday’s event will include: Adorn­ments by Ate­lier Beads, Elisa Shere Jew­elry, Joe Den­ni­son, Lana Bella, Robert Funk, Tigerlilyshop and many others.

Sat­ur­day 20 March 2010, 10 a.m. — 3 p.m. at Skylofts 3701 Bank Street, Bal­ti­more, MD 21224, check it out

I tweeted about this months ago but some­how over­looked shar­ing this won­der­fully fun art­work here.

On dis­play at the British Library in Lon­don is a paint­ing by British artist, Patrick Hughes:

Beau­ti­ful!

As a jump-start to the week, here is a gor­geous piece to get your cre­ative juices flow­ing, dear readers:

Today finds Charm City buried once again, in a blan­ket of sparkling white. The effect is beau­ti­ful, bewil­der­ing and even a lit­tle inspir­ing though at some point after hours of shov­el­ing, the snow will become less than charm­ing. In the mean­time, here is a piece of visu­ally stun­ning eye/brain candy straight from Japan for you, dear read­ers, snow­bound or otherwise:

Doesn’t this just make your eyes smile and the snow a lit­tle more fun?

Ever won­der what the process of giv­ing form to some­thing looks like?

BMW has an idea and shares it with the rest of us through the kinetic sculp­ture installed at the BMW Museum in Munich. Employ­ing the use of over 700 indi­vid­ual metal spheres and step­per motors, the mechan­i­cal won­der cov­ers six square meters. Over the course of seven min­utes, it dances out a hyp­notic, mecha­tronic nar­ra­tive that visu­al­izes the process of form-finding. Here is a brief sam­ple of the sculpture’s performance:

A trip to Munich may be in order…

I’m not one to make new year’s res­o­lu­tions, gen­er­ally, but this year it just seemed right. This year, I aim to:

Draw More
I’d really like to try and make more of a habit of sketch­ing dur­ing my trav­els and off time.

Be Happy
I’ve learned a lot dur­ing the last few years, I’ve done some pretty excit­ing things and I’ve done some work of which I can be proud. But hap­pi­ness and joy have not been at the core of my daily life, at least not as much as I would like.. so in 2010, I want to work on that.

Write more let­ters
When I was ten, I had a teacher who gave us an assign­ment to write a let­ter to some­one every week for a year. It was an excel­lent habit and one I’ve not main­tained duti­fully over the last twenty years or so as I’d like to say. Want a let­ter or to be added to my post­card list for when I’m on the road? Send me an e-mail and I’ll add you to the snail mail list

Be more active
Over the last few months, I’ve spent too much time in my work­space (or com­mut­ing to it). As a result though, I’ve got­ten less active and miss the pace I tend to main­tain when liv­ing in a more urban envi­ron­ment. This year, I want to be bet­ter about mak­ing a habit of being phys­i­cally active since it feels so good.

Make more art and per­haps sell some too.
If I don’t make things, I don’t feel good; it’s as sim­ple as that. When I don’t make things, my skills get rusty. This year, it’s time to make time for art no mat­ter what. And to start lis­ten­ing to the peo­ple who have been ask­ing and telling me to sell my work for years.

What are your res­o­lu­tions this year, dear read­ers? Need help with yours? Here’s a handy res­o­lu­tion generator.

A lot hap­pened this year… much of which you, dear read­ers, and my loved ones missed out on.. so here’s what every­one missed:

Jan­u­ary

Feb­ru­ary

March

April

May

William Kentridge’s Five Themes at SFMoMA

June

Liv­ing in the Balto/D.C. metro area and look­ing for some­thing to do this week­end? Well then head down to D.C. this Sat­ur­day (19 Dec) for the fourth annual Hol­i­day Booty Mar­ket! Fea­tur­ing the work of twenty regional artists and crafters, the mar­ket is a great chance to find last-minute hol­i­day trea­sures for your loved ones all while brows­ing among the beau­ti­ful fur­ni­ture avail­able at Design Within Reach. A few of the ven­dors fea­tured Sat­ur­day include:

The event will be held in Wash­ing­ton D.C. from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Adams Mor­gan Design Within Reach show­room. Check­out the event Web site for more details.

Images: 60 bugs, De*Nada Design, Mary Ellen Doran, Gosh­darnknit, Red Prairie Press, Jaime Zol­lars

Recently, I’ve been spend­ing a lot of time on the road hop­ping from one major city to another. When trav­el­ing, I tend to pack light and it has oft been observed by friends, that my man­ner of dress some­what brands me as a designer or artist in my ten­dency to favor mostly black. It is not my voca­tion, though that informs my choice in cloth­ing, but a desire to remain crisp, tidy and sim­ple while high­light­ing favored details– a col­or­ful scarf, play­ful shoes, a vibrant jacket. Repack­ing my bag this evening, I am reminded of Sheena Matheiken’s Uni­form Project:

What do you think of the Uni­form Project, read­ers? Do you have a uni­form of sorts? Do you think, dear read­ers, that you could under­take a sim­i­lar project as Ms. Matheiken?

While I’m on the sub­ject of artists whose work gets my cre­ative tail wag­ging this week, these videos of Lucy McLauch­lan work­ing just blow my mind. It makes me want to lock myself in an empty room with a gal­lon of paint or ink and have at it; though some­how I doubt the results would be com­pa­ra­ble. Check it out:

WOW, I love this woman! The den­sity of the illus­tra­tions she gen­er­ates are incred­i­ble, and the inten­sity with which she works is so inspir­ing. There is so much work to be done…

Lately, I’ve been gen­er­at­ing increas­ingly more work after hav­ing lapsed into a brief cre­ative coma of sort ear­lier this year. As I shake off the cre­ative cob­webs and jit­ters, I feel more com­pelled to work and tend to have more ideas than I can make good on or even record or realize.

Typ­i­cally, when I get into this state of mind, I tend to pay even more atten­tion to art, and find myself seek­ing out new ideas, inspi­ra­tion, artists, etc. Recently, a friend turned me on to She One and not sur­pris­ingly, the cogs in my brain are turn­ing and crank­ing out of control:

I’ve been dream­ing of let­ter­forms and just haven’t made good on the pic­tures in my head. Per­haps it’s time to roll up my sleeves and dig in… Where have you found inspi­ra­tion lately, dear read­ers? Has it been from new stars in your own field, or seem­ingly more abstract sources? Talk to me people.

A few months ago, I blogged about the William Ken­tridge show, Five Themes, at SFMoMA. In that post, I described my intro­duc­tion to Kentridge’s work ten years ago at the Carnegie Inter­na­tional Show. Since that first encounter with his work, I have been a fan. This evening, I thought I’d post a copy of the orig­i­nal film that caught my attention:

The film has a sound­track, but I was unable to find a full-length copy of it with the sound. Here is an abridged sam­ple fea­tur­ing the sound:

I love the raw qual­ity of line and ges­ture; this piece still cap­ti­vates me. What do you think, dear read­ers? Seen any great ani­ma­tions or art exhibits lately that you just can’t get out of your mind?