Shields and Yarnell

Mimes are creepy, and the mime duo of Shields and Yarnell are no exception.  Their silent comedy act was pretty big in the late 70s; big enough to get them their own CBS television comedy-variety program, The Shields and Yarnell Show.  

Creepy?  I think so.  Worse yet, their specialty was the robot, and they were so proud of their pop-and-lock abilities they called themselves “The Clinkers.”  This married mime couple would pretend to be robots eating breakfast and such.  Why robots would eat breakfast is unclear.  But not as unclear as why CBS aired a show WITH MIMES.  It’s not that the mime nonsense was a small part of a bigger show. No. The show was designed to showcase their incredibly creepy mime work.

Not surprisingly, the show only lasted for one season …

 

The Real Invisible Man: Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin is like the ultimate chameleon.  He is a real life incredible invisible man.  But he doesn’t have any super powers, and he isn’t a photoshop genius, or a master of the touch-up, he is just really good at painting himself into his surroundings (with the help of a few helping hands of course).

Liu works on a single photo for up to 10 hours at a time until he gets it just right.  But it definitely works.  He is often so still and perfectly camouflaged that passers-by don’t even notice him, until he moves of course.  His creations could make for some excellent pranks, but they certainly create some incredible images.

The artist says his work is a protest against the actions of the Chinese government, who shut down his art studio in 2005, and their persecution of other artists around the country. So he has managed to make the rest of the world into his studio…

 

 

Mummenschanz!

What a name, right?!  Mummenschanz is German for “mummery,” or a play involving mummers.  Now, I know mummers (yes that is a real word from Old English) are generally fairly creepy guys that annoyingly try to get out of an invisible box (think Shakes the Clown), but Mummenschanz are far more advanced than that.  They are a Swiss pantomime troupe founded in 1972 by Bernie Schürch, Andres Bossard (August 9, 1944 – March 25, 1992), and the Italian-American Floriana Frassetto.  Their performances feature no words, and little music, just the most amazing masks and shockingly wonderful interactions.

The Dangerous World of Extreme Sand Sculptures

Ok, let’s be honest.  There is no way that there is any danger or action involved in the world of artistic sand sculpture.  I was just trying to add a bit of energy into what seems like one of the more dull, lackluster pastimes ever.  It’s just the artist, sand, and their trusty chisel, but to be fair, they do manage to make some pretty amazing things out of the most basic and brittle of materials.  My one question, how do they decide on their subjects?!

 

For Your Inner Nerd: Between the Folds

I know I have done a few posts on origami before, but I am just kind of fascinated by it. What can I say.  It is as ephemeral as art gets – delicate paper, with no more than creases and physics to maintain its shape.  It is one of the most specific of art forms with its inevitable dependence on the laws of science and geometry.  You could argue that the origami medium is math, just as much as it’s paper.

Between the Folds, is an amazing documentary film by Vanessa Gould, about the origami obsessed around the world.  These experts are not your typical artists; they are more like mad scientists “working in the shadows between art and math.”  People like Eric Joisel, a French artist whose tiny elfin sculptures involve thousands of folds – he admits his dedication to the art form makes him “le masochist”.  Or Vincent Floderer, an “avant-garde” origami artist who uses “the crumpling technique;” he sees his form of paper-folding as “abandoning the imposition of order.”

On the other end of the spectrum are origami-ists like Chris Palmer.  He spent a good parts of his life living in a cave in Granada, and his creations are rigorous and complex geometric arrays.  And there is Erik Demain, MIT’s youngest professor ever, who was homeschooled in math, computer science, and origami.

This movie is beyond interesting, and nothing but fun.  So release your inner nerd, and get in the groove of the fold!

Finally Some Origami for Those Who Can’t Follow Directions

Originally titled “oreore-nai,” in Japanese (a playful way to say‚ “I cannot fold properly”), Origami: Strange Faces uses mixed images of faces to fold into some odd looking characters. While instructions are included, you can fold the paper in all sorts of different ways for some very unexpected results.  This easy origami kit comes with 15 square sheets of paper printed with photo images of cropped faces. When folded the sheets transform into bizarre kaleidoscopic versions of a face, as if a few people got together and went crazy with Apple’s Photobooth effects.

And on the Topic of Needlepoint …

Here are some incredible needlepoint/cross stitch creations!

Should you find yourself inspired (I certainly am!), there are a few ways for you to turn any picture you want into the perfect needlepoint pattern.  The first is photoandstitch.com.  You send them a photo, they create a pattern for it, and send you all of the different color yarns you will need.  It’s pretty excellent.  Otherwise, you can go to pic2point.com and create a pattern for free, but you’ll have to go track down the right color yarns on your own.  Either way, your creation will certainly make for an excellent summer project!

 

Julian Beever: Way Beyond Sidewalk Chalk

Julian Beever is an English artist that creates amazingly surreal chalk drawings on pavement surfaces around the world. He has been at it for more than twenty years now. The drawings like insanely real, so much so that people with actually walk around his “potholes,” and “spills.”  What do you think?

The Arctic

Underground Bank

Batman and Robin

Boat

Butterfly

Gold Rush

DHL Man

Dungeon

Frog

Holes

Lobster!

Watch Out!

Avoid the Hole

Rafting

Rescue Mission

Times Square

Transformers

Hose

Fountain

 

 

 

 

Bomb the Streets with Yarn

Crochet graffiti, or yarn bombing, is arguably the newest trend in grafitti.  But while traditional graffiti is highly illegal and causes all sorts of permanent damage,  this new trend is far less harmful and not as frowned upon.  Instead of paint and spray cans, they use yarn and needles to canvas the streets in their colorful creations.  Hydrants, lampposts, mailboxes, bicycles, cars — even objects as big as buses and bridges — have all been bombed in recent years, ever so softly and usually at night.  A Canadian knitter even declared June 11 International Yarn Bombing Day on Facebook!  You better watch out for these renegade knitters, and hope they bomb something near you!

The first piece I saw. Soho, NYC

By Olek

By Knitta Please

In London

in NYC

New School Blacklight: Ryan McGinness

Ryan McGinness is a NYC artist who makes a lot of very different art with very similar themes, all of which looks really cool!  He has created a huge collection of graphic drawings that use the visual language of signs, corporate logos, and iconography, to create paintings, sculptures, and environments.  Ryan has made a lot of paintings that feature bright, neon colors, and he recently made some really incredible blacklight paintings that he calls “black holes.”

The large round canvases are deceptive. On first glance they look like fairly simple images, but stand in front of them for any length of time, and you are immediately drawn in to a trance by the delicate, hypnotic shapes. Black holes, indeed!

Ryan is about to have a three big shows in los angeles, so be on the lookout for some of his amazing events!