Altered images, subway edition
Subway posters aren’t designed to be interactive, but sometimes they get hijacked—graffitied, blackened, torn and rearranged. Generally, I enjoy the results. The posters are ads to consume or deflect, not frescoes to revere. The altered versions tend to conform to just a few common themes. It isn’t exactly original to draw a moustache on someone—Duchamp … Continue reading
Viewing motherhood
I am a daughter, but not a mother. Dorothea Lange’s famously photographed migrant mother had seven children at the age I have none. What I guess is this: once you become a mother, you cannot be impartial, observing life without participating. You are vested, primal. Writer Sarah Black describes a mother’s transformed gloss on reality … Continue reading
Follow the thread: interesting textile links
From dachshunds on parade to the state of California, these novelty handkerchiefs are miniature works of art (Daisy Fairbanks Vintage) Gaze at a Stars and Diamonds silk patchwork quilt—The Charleston Museum’s new tumblr posts a piece from their collection every “Textile Tuesday” Before there was vintage—“Second Lives: The Age-Old Art of Recycling Textiles” shows off … Continue reading
Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s erotic valentine
I recently rediscovered The Rocky Horror Picture Show after watching Glee’s Jayma Mays sing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me.” Trust Dr. Frank-N-Furter to end my blogging dry spell, and make me realize I have something to celebrate on Valentine’s Day—polymorphous perversity! Truly, I have been a devotee of Decadence for years. In that spirit, I … Continue reading
Steal this composition
These days I go to museums not to bathe in vague inspiration but to collect visual ideas and absorb technique. I still enjoy myself, but I notice I am picking out specific parts of a work that interest me, and that I could duplicate in my own images or design work. August, 2009. My feet … Continue reading
Christmas craziness in NYC
Venture out shopping or otherwise in New York City this time of year and you might encounter ad hoc bicycle art, drunk and disorderlies, crazy marketing ploys and extreme sugar highs. The city that never sleeps ratchets its energy up just a little more than usual. It makes me sorry I’ll be away over Christmas, … Continue reading
Kitsch design
Kitsch is a theory of the kind of bad taste that emerged in an era of reproduction—where the Venus de Milo can be reproduced as a garden statuette, or imagined using a speakerphone. Like pornography, it follows an “I know it when I see it” standard. Kitsch is a watered-down, false, or inappropriately used reference … Continue reading
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