October 23, 2009

October 22, 2009

Ben Reeves

“These works highlight formal structures while causing the figurative image to slip away within an apparently abstract field: the language of representation supersedes its subject. Reeves investigates the inevitable gap between ‘reality’ and representation: a space where the world is rationalized through visual conventions.”

October 21, 2009

Beautiful photographs by LANE CODER.  Found on ART RUBY

October 20, 2009

October 19, 2009

Chair made from recycled , reused fabric pieces /  discarded scraps. By Fernando and Humberto Campana from Brazil.

Vancouver and New York based artist Aurel Schmidt.

Island #2
Janaki Lennie
oil on canvas

Island
2008

My artwork is a response to my immediate surroundings and in a larger context to our complex relationship with the natural environment. My recent relocation from downtown Houston, Texas to St John’s, Newfoundland represented a dramatic shift in my point of view. I have been inspired by the wonderful coastline of this province and its unique social and political situation to explore the mystique that islands hold in our culture and history.
Islands fire the imagination, sometimes as places of entrapment or dread but more often as alluring utopias shimmering on the horizon, promising a serenity normally absent from modern life, an image often at odds with the reality of their isolation.
This series of paintings explores the island as an ephemeral vision, slightly beyond reach, embedded in an uncertain atmospheric space and separated, sometimes by distance, sometimes by the trappings of urban existence. The nostalgic pull of this island dream persists. - Janaki Lennie

Breathing Space
2006

For the last several years, I have explore the possibility of calm in the midst of chaotic contemporary experience, which is believe is often characterized by a profound disconnection between people and the natural world. They present the natural world as the experience of space itself; her images push man and nature to opposite sides.  The images are softened models of industrial sites and/or intensely lit tree limbs existing together or facing each other.  Her colors suggest distortion of light through pollution, another unseen sense of man’s presence. The final result is a strangely beautiful and surreal illumination of an imaginary window of space and stillness of time. -Janaki Lennie

October 18, 2009

Creek Tangle A/2, 2009
Gordon Smith
Acrylic on Canvas
60 x 67 in.

Creekside Grasses #1, 2009
Gordon Smith
Acrylic on Canvas
67 x 85 in.

Installation view, Fog, 2004
2 rollei medium format projectors,
medium format slides

Fog study, 2004
Lightjet photo
24” × 24”

Fog study, 2004
Lightjet photo
24” × 24”

Fog study, 2004
Lightjet photo
24” × 24”

Burning Bush, 2005
HD DVD
05:03:15

Burning Bush, 2005
HD DVD
05:03:15

Face Lake, 2006
KEVIN SCHMIDT
Lightjet photo
48” × 48 ½”

Little Blue Lake, 2006
KEVIN SCHMIDT
Lightjet photo
48” × 48 ½”

Johnson Lake, 2006
KEVIN SCHMIDT
Lightjet photo
48” × 48 ½”

Installation view,
Sad Wolf, 2006
DIY projector video installation
00:04:11 (looped)

Installation view,
Sad Wolf, 2006
DIY projector video installation
00:04:11 (looped)

Still, Sad Wolf, 2006
DIY projector video installation
00:04:11 (looped)

Still, Sad Wolf, 2006
DIY projector video installation
00:04:11 (looped)

Semi #2, 1999
Kevin O’Connell
Platinum palladium photograph
4.75 x 6.5 inch

Erosion #3, 2001
Kevin O’Connell
Platinum palladium photograph
4.75 x 6.5 inches

Jet Trail #4, #2/25, 2001
Kevin O’Connell
Platinum palladium photograph
4.75 x 6.5 inches

Prairie photographs by Kevin O’Connell

Red Chair Antiques.  Found on Wabi & Sabi blog.

October 12, 2009

The Lightcatcher building (opening- November 14, 2009) designed by Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects will feature multiple exhibit spaces in new climate controlled galleries. The Lightcatcher is designed to meet LEED (Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design) Silver standard and includes a “green” roof, providing a venue for the Museum to offer programs around sustainability and conservation.





“The basic concept for this new museum is that museum turned inside out—to make the building as active on the outside as it will be on the inside. An iconic 36-foot-tall, 180-foot-long translucent wall, “the lightcatcher,” is conceived as the focal point and backdrop to a central courtyard that will become a new gathering place for the city. The exterior of the museum will be an invitation to engage in art and will allow pedestrians walking by to view the art and activity within” - Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects

October 08, 2009

September 27, 2009

Mandra on Earth Day Network writes: When I was a child, the cornflower was a very common view in every grainfield in Sweden (we grow barley, wheat, rye and oat), as in many other countries. Then, because of the over-use of herbicides, they disappearded, I haven’t seen them in over 40 years!
When I last traveled from my country-house to Stockholm - they where suddenly there again! Not everywhere, of course, but i saw a huge field with this blue in it - it was a lovely scene! :—)
Centaurea cyanus (cornflower) in the past often grew as a weed in crop fields all over Europe, hence its name (fields growing grains such as wheat, barley, rye, or oats were formerly known as “corn fields” in England). It is now endangered in its native habitat by agricultural intensification, particularly over-use of herbicides, destroying its habitat.

September 17, 2009

September 13, 2009

Book’s Shelf. Bookshelf made from books by Bernardo Gaeiras, Rietveld Academie Sandberg Institute.

September 12, 2009

Wolfgang Laib ar Work



Wolfgang Laib was born on 25 March 1950 in Metzingen, Germany. Laib studied medicine in the 1970s in Tübingen. From early on he had been interested in art, foreign cultures, Zen Buddhism and Taoism as well as in the mystics of the European middle ages.
Wolfgang Laib employs natural materials, such as beeswax, rice and large quantities of intense, yellow pollen that he collects by hand near where he lives in a small village in southern Germany.  He has spent time in the Far East and in New York.




Wolfgang Laib
Rice House, 1990
marble and rice
7 3/8 x 25 3/8 x 4 7/8 inches



Wolfgang Laib
Ziggurat, 1999
Beeswax, wood



Wolfgang Laib
Ricehouse, 1988/89
White marble, rice, pollen from hazelnut



Wolfgang Laib
The Five Mountains Not to Climb On (Die fünf unbesteigbaren Berge), 1984.
Hazelnut pollen, height: approximately 2 3/4 inches.



Wolfgang Laib
Milkstone, 2001
Marble and milk
2 3/8 x 23 7/16 x 28 3/4 inches

Milkstone sculpture is a block of marble into which very shallow depressions are sanded and then filled with milk.

September 08, 2009

Untitled
Ink on paper, 33 x 60 inches
2002


These works of ink and watercolor on Chinese paper are influenced by Terri Zupanc’s continued interest in Japanese and Chinese painting and Zen Buddhism. Zupanc’s forms record a moment in time. Terri: “my interest in simplifying form has continued into an interest in simplifying process, with many of the pieces being done in one breath.”



Terri Zupanc
Untitled, 2002
Watercolor on paper
30 x 30 inches



Terri Zupanc
Untitled, 2002
Ink on paper, 55 x 70 inches



Terri Zupanc
Untitled, 2002
Ink on paper, 30 x 30 inches



Terri Zupanc
Untitled(Creek) 1997
etching, Edition of 35
24 x 22 inches




Terri Zupanc
Untitled(Brown Creek) 1997
etching, Edition of 35
24 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches

September 07, 2009

Biodegradable moss planter(organic carpet consisting of assortment of mosses) by Japan-based flower artist Makoto Azuma  

September 06, 2009

Hummingbird




Humming bird, detail



Crimson necked bullfinch

Brunonia Serica
Ferdinand Bauer
1760-1826
from Floral Illustrations of New Holland

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)
15th or 16th century
Gouache on vellum

From Vienna Dioscorides



From Vienna Dioscorides



Botanical Illustration from Codex Anicia Juliana, AD 512

From Vienna Dioscorides



Banksia coccinea (Scarlet Banksia)
Ferdinand Bauer
Illustrationes Florae Novae Hollandiae
Early 19th century



Adele Morosini Rossetti (for Botanic Garden)
Rosa Abraham Darby
Watercolor , color pencil, tempera on paper




California flowering plant





California snow flower

Peruvian flowering cactus

September 05, 2009

September 04, 2009

From http://www.redesign.co.il/

August 21, 2009

Nissan’s electric automobile (EV) is set to go on sale in Japan, the U.S. and Europe next year. The blue hatchback had a sporty design and a recharging opening in the front. Nissan has promised that the Leaf, which goes into mass-production as a global model in 2012, will be about the same price as a gas-engine car such as the 1.5 million yen ($15,000) Tiida, which sells abroad as the Versa, starting at about $10,000.

August 03, 2009

An Earthship is a type of home made of natural and recycled materials.  Earthships designed by Earthship Biotecture  and are built from 45% recycled materials - tires, bottles, cans.  Earth-filled tires utilize thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. Earthships also usually incorporate their own special natural ventilation system.



Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources - energy from the sun, rain. For example, windows on the sunny side admit light and heat, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. Likewise, the thick, dense outer walls provide effective insulation against summer heat.
Internal, non-load-bearing walls are often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete and are referred to as tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered with stucco.

The Earthship costs next to nothing to operate annually and is independent of all municipal utilities.  Earthship Biotecture has a building prototype that harvests its own electricity and water; contains and treats its own sewage;  and heats and cools itself without fuel and produces a significant amount of food.

August 02, 2009

Glass house made from recycled glass windows in Freetown Christiania, neighborhood/commune in Copenhagen, Denmark created during the hippie movement. Christiania has its own flag and its own set of rules independent from the Danish government. Within Christiania itself no cars are allowed, stealing is forbidden as well as violence, guns, knives, bulletproof vests, hard drugs and bikers’ colors.

July 19, 2009

Emergency Response Studio, by Paul Villinski, is a solar-powered, mobile artist’s studio, rebuilt from an old trailer. An artist needs to be mobile and free just in case of the ocean water rising because Greenland is melting, and other devastating natural disasters, such as Katrina in New Orleans. 

Ceramic rubber duckie by Futility l.t.d Really cool.



Ceramic milk carton bt Hanna Risgaard.

I ♥  Mineo Mizuno sculptures. Mineo Mizuno was born in Japan and currently resides in Los angeles, CA.  Water-drop/pebble like large ceramic forms are covered in small holes in which mosses are planted.

July 18, 2009