Wednesday Work: Andrew Kozlowski

Triumph! screenprint 12 x 12, 2010

Pile screenprint 12 x 12, 2010

Standard Disaster screenprint 20 x 30, 2010

Crash screenprint 12 x 12, 2010

Bag screenprint 12 x 12, 2010

Down On The Ships intaglio 8 x 8, 2010

Them intaglio 18 x 18, 2010

Moon Viewing Point screenprint 20 x 15, 2010

Go see Kozlowski's solo exhibition, Dear Tree Hugger, at The Print Center in Philadelphia until November 20th.

Blogger Alert!: Crochet Bloke

(http://crochetbloke.blogspot.com/)

Newly enamored with Crochet Bloke's blog - this is a red skull crocheted from butcher twine. Combine this post with others detailing how to cook fried flowers and lots of beautiful pictures - you've got my attention. Visit Crochet Bloke's blog, here and check out his Mr. Boo and Pumpkin Head patterns just in time for the holiday!

Defy Monday: Go Apple Picking

Mary Kate McDevitt says do it...

Buy it here.

Do it here.

A few weeks ago, this Tennesseean and this New Yorker went on a spur of the moment, outta the city trip to the apple orchard. (The Sea's first to a North Eastern orchard yet!)

And it was every bit as magical as they're depicted.

Now, I know the truth about apples... none will ever taste the same as the ones you pick yourself at the ripest pickin' time of the year.

Get some pumpkins, grab your apples, and sip some cider, most importantly: get out there in the fall sun while it still lasts. You'll have all winter to experiment with the pumpkin puree you stuff into the freezer.

Every once in a while.....:Vincent Colvin

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Every once in a while - you have the good fortune to meet someone inspired, and therefore - inspiring. Vincent Colvin is one of the most sincere, enthusiastic, un-ashamed-ly full of wonder and curiosity, person/artist (artist=person=artist (?) (different conversation all together)) I have had the pleasure of getting to know in a long time.

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Recently relocating from Philadelphia to Austin, TX (noooooooooooooooo!), Vince has been keeping us updated of his doings over at his blog, The Benthos. Earlier this week it was a post about an Ammonoid Fossil he found in the Colorado River. Then just the other day, an investigative post on the common wasp and why it might be going rapid attack on a moth in Vince's garden (complete with 5 minutes of live footage)!

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We talk about art, the art scene, the art market, trends in art, contemporary art, art history, our individual art practices, politics, popular culture, top 40, underground, indie, folk art, DIY, crust punks, intellects, sculptors, curators, professors, meter maids, and lunch truck ladies - - - but we mustn't forget the origin of all of this : WONDER.

Why do we make the things that we do? What compels us to enter those secret and special places inside of ourselves? Why are you infatuated with old globes and snake skins? Why does the sight of a whole section of different color duct tape in the hardware store make us giddy?

Wonder: wond-der. -verb: to think or speculate curiously; to be filled with admiration, amazement or awe; -noun: something strange and surprising: a cause of surprise; the emotion excited by what is strange; miraculous deed or event; remarkable phenomenon.

You get the picture. Now go pick some up !- figure out what turns you on and hold onto it! Wonder - it's what we can do.

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Check out some of Vince's new experiments with woodcuts on his blog, here, you can also see more of his work on his website, here. Get jealous of Austin, here. Buy your ticket to visit and show up on Vince's doorstep, here.

Today the Sea was born!

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Today the Sea was born! And she doesn't know it yet, but we have planned a fun filled weekend staycation. Thats right, we are going to vacation - at home. Not the toughest thing to do when you live somewhere as fabulous and full as Philadelphia ...

Don't want to give anything away - - - but for those inquiring minds, (Sea stay away) check out this link here and here, here and here, yum here, and the grand finale here.

Wednesday Work: Anslem Kiefer

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A mixed media artist, painter, sculptor, installation artist - a mixed media artist who works with things like 700 lbs. of lead, making it into a book. A painter working with tar and emulsion, earth and concrete, and an eerie application of text. Anselm Kiefer.

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Keeping with our October theme, macabre and gray. Have you heard the term "vernacular architecture"? Its a term referring to regional architecture of the home-grown sort. The row home picture windows full in complete decoration for every major, and all forgotten, holiday home to home, and street to street in South Philly - that is an example of vernacular architecture. The style specific to fishing huts built in the backwoods of Maine - things like that.

I can't help but think Kiefer's work looks German and that I would like to visit.

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DEFY MONDAY: Speak Up!

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...c'mon...do it.

Wednesday Work: Alex Clauss

Pissed Off Kids, 2009

Series of 3-color screenprints 6.5 X 12.5"

Testimony, 2009 

Single-channel video

(I really wish this had been called "Dinkin' Around" or "Hinkey Dinkey")

Crudus Memoria, 2009

5 color screenprint 13X9"

September is over, (was it ever really here?) and creative-costume-figuring-out has ensued. I truly love this time of year. It's the richest, most brilliant, macabre, and strange; Halloween is that time of year when innocence and eerie collide into one traditional celebration. (Pint-sized bleeding zombies and vampires running around your hood begging for candy anyone!? )

Even though Alex Clauss' work is not necessarily centered around Halloween, it definitely gives the same sort of feeling. Clauss' prints and videos collectively show their observer a spectral and nostalgic sensibility, and even a bit of bizarre humor.

Read more about Alex Clauss and his wonderfully strange work HERE

And the most fitting for last, this one actually is in the essence of the coming holiday.

Automation, 2008

Single-channel video

Mwaaa Haa Haaaa....

DEFY MONDAY: Diva

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I'm usually a jeans and t-shirt kinda gal myself, and whence the weather changes, a sweatshirt is added. In the office - layers and layers of button-ups and v-neck sweaters. Both wardrobe types which lend themselves well to anonymity, and a special skill that I have to be able to blend way into a crowd.

It could be the pre-AM frost coming in my open window last night, well before the morning alarm, or the thawing of a pitbull before morning coffee - he woke teeth gnashing, ready to take over France or some other unknowing country, like a little Napoleon (feel bad for the lab that lies next to him); whatever it is I have a wild hair, and this DEFY MONDAY: I say - diva.

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It could be something "subtle" like the pigeon feather headdress or the androgynous bow tie, both pictured above.

Or you could go for something all-consuming, but anonymous still, like these knit costumes below from Mark Newport - an artist exploring masculine identities through knit one-sees. Okay, okay, gender politics, but don't they just look plain cozy?

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But, I said diva - you want to be anonymous?Let's shake it up out there. Fall into and reside behind a mask like one of Nick Cave's (not of the Bad Seeds) Soundsuits.

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Nick Cave is an American performance artist interested in wearable sculpture, but I don't think you have to be a diva or an artist to make your own awesome outfit!

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I just ordered some new on-sale sweaters in COLORS (read: not black, grey, or brown), & I might even splurge for an afternoon cup of coffee (read: diva).

Its the little things sometimes,

let's all live - LOUDER.

***Don't forget, Halloween is coming up!