so stylish...

Remember that entry I wrote about the NY Tattoo Convention? I mentioned that someone from a Japanese fashion website stopped me in the subway that day to take my picture, but when I went to the site, it was all in Japanese so I couldn't find my photo. Well Dave Wallin from Tattoo Culture (he did my back piece) happened to find this here blog, and apparently he reads Japanese well enough to find THIS for me. Sweet! I'm the biggest photo and I'm at the top of the page! And just in case that link ever stops working, here is the specific photo:


I bought the dress on eBay. It's handmade from one of my favorite eBay stores, Lynn's Rags. The skirt portion is from a vintage dress, with new spandex fabric for the top. I added the strap around the neck so that it actually stays up (plus I need to be able to wear proper undergarments). I love this dress! I should go thrifting for funky old dresses so that I can make these myself.

NY Phil in Prospect Park

Monday night, I went to Prospect Park to watch the New York Philharmonic for free. It was fantastic! Susan, Patrick, and I rode our bikes there, first of all. Of course, this once again proved to me that New York City is the most bicyclist-unfriendly city in existence. There are barely any bike lanes anywhere. You're taking your life into your hands every time you want to go for even a short ride. I was, however, pleased to discover that Prospect Park, my second favorite park in New York (after the Brooklyn Bridge Park), is completely car-free! I just never realized before, but then Patrick told me such was the case. I'll have to go riding there more often now.

Anyways, the three of us brought blankets and picnic food, and met up with some other people who'd done the same and had already staked out a good seating area behind the center speaker. We couldn't see the stage very well from there, but we could hear it really well, which I think is more the point. The place was packed, too, so we may have had trouble hearing the music elsewhere, with all the chit-chat going on throughout the crowd.

I didn't pick up a program, so I don't know the names of the music the Phil played, but before starting, they did offer audience members the opportunity to text in (as in on a cell phone) their choice for the encore song (Do I detect an attempt to engage the young'uns here?). The choices were a theme from "Carmen" and an apparently less well-known French song (in honor of Bastille Day!). Unsurprisingly, the audience chose the "Carmen" song.

The performance was absolutely magical. Possessing little knowledge of classical music, I can't really critique the performance much (though it sounded just lovely to me). I can, however, describe the atmosphere. First of all, the sunset was brilliant. It was partly cloudy, which made for some really nice sky formations. The clouds maintained a dusky blue shade, and as the sun set, a bright pink and orange slowly overtook their undersides until the sun completely set. There's too much light pollution in NYC to ever see stars, but the moon was close to full and brighter than I'm used to seeing around here. Then once it was dark, fireflies came out! As I understand it, fireflies tend to prefer long grass and foliage, so it was a real treat to see so many of them mingling among the crowd. The temperature was also perfect: It was just cool enough to get away with long pants (which means no mosquito bites!), and not terribly humid. Now imagine all this with the NY Philharmonic playing in the backdrop. At one point, I said, "I feel like we're in a poem."

And then...

FIREWORKS!! YAY!!! These were really good ones, too (though they seemed unusually low to the ground...). The best was the very end, when firework after firework after firework just kept coming. These weren't the giant, loud, round ones. They were smaller clusters that fanned out when they exploded in the air; and it went on for what seemed like even longer than a usual finale. What a fantastically perfect end to the night. Yay summer! There's so much free stuff to do! Go here for a schedule of other Prospect Park activities (I especially recommend catching indie-rock band Deerhoof this Friday night).

WATCH THIS

Holy crap this is amazing:


MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

NY Tattoo Convention

After attending the monster event that was the NY Comic Convention a couple weeks ago (go here for my "official" review), the NY Tattoo Convention that took place at Roseland Ballroom this past weekend was really disappointing. For one thing, the venue was too small. I expected it to be extremely crowded (as all conventions inevitably are), but there was barely any walking space between the aisles to even begin with! In addition, Roseland being a traditional concert hall, the stage is in the same room as the "hall" where the booths were set up. So you not only had booths crammed into too little space, but you also had a massive crowd of people milling around the stage area, which afforded even less space for walking around.

The second floor was just as bad. It's not a whole floor--just a balcony that wraps around three quarters of the room with (again) little walking space between the booths and the railing.

As for the vendors, I was impressed by the distances some of the tattoo artists travelled to be here. There were a number of tattooers from Europe and even a couple from Japan and Taiwan. But I was disappointed that there weren't more vendors selling stuff. I expected there to be art, books, jewelry, clothes... But there were only a handful of booths selling more than tee-shirts. I did end up buying one print by someone named Michael Brown, but he wasn't at the booth, there was no business card, and his name is not on the list of vendors on the Con's website; and with a name like that, I doubt I'll ever find any information on the guy.

I'm not in the market for a new tattoo right now, so I actually got pretty bored after only being there a couple hours. I had planned on making a day out of it, but with nothing new to look at and not even any music or bands to listen to (you'd think that a concert hall would take advantage of its own facilities, but I guess not...), I headed out pretty quickly. I didn't even take any pictures. Even if I had found people whose tattoos I really liked, there just wasn't enough space to photograph them well without dragging them to a more open area (like the bar! Hmm... maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all...).

Well, at least admission only cost $18 and a I got a few free stickers and a matchbook out of it.

Oh yeah! And on the subway ride there, this guy took my picture for a Japanese fashion website! Oh no! But I just went to the site and it's all in Japanese! I can't even find my own photo! Awww... Well if anyone out there can read Japanese, let me know if you find me on www.apparel-web.com/trend/cafeglobe.com/fashion/streetsnapny/usa

Happy Easter!

Just found this picture on Cute Overload and had to share it here:


"Peep show." Heehee...

kiwiberries

I was in my neighborhood overpriced health food store the other day (I needed Japanese buckwheat noodles and Chinatown is too far away for a grocery run). And they had these weird fruit that I'd never seen before called kiwiberries. Here's a picture:


(from nzkiwiberry.com)


And here's a photo from phronesisaical.blogspot.com that shows their size:



They look like mini hairless kiwis. I assumed they were a hybrid of kiwis and grapes, but it turns out they're a real fruit, just some cousin of the furry kiwi I'm used to. They're also apparently really good for you. Check it:

(from kiwiberry.com)


I thought they were a bit steep at $4.99 (you only get 8 or 9 in a package), but you can just pop them in your mouth like grapes and the thought of eating kiwi without having to peel it really appeals to me, so I bought them anyways. But blech! What a disappointment! They're much more squishy than a regular kiwi--they feel like an overripe peach in your mouth. And all the delicious tart that kiwis have is completely nonexistent. These things are way saccharine. I'm going to stick with my 4 for $2 hairy kiwis.

go me!

I have two new posts up at AnimeIntro today because I'm just that good. (kidding!) I'm hoping the latter one will generate a good deal of debate, as it concerns fansubbing vs. file-sharing vs. piracy, so everybody please clicky clicky.

In other news, I may be getting a press pass to next month's New York Comic Con thanks to AnimeIntro--sweet! I'll obviously be writing a formal blog about it there, but some more personal reactions may surface in here. So far the only events I've ever managed to get into with a press pass have been free admission to museums.

blogging fun

New post at animeintro.

Also found this fantastic artist yesterday. David Horvitz does all kinds of conceptual things that require some serious audience participation. For one thing, he's taking one photo of the sky every day for this entire year. He'll mail them to you for free. I signed up yesterday. Here is yesterday's sky (it's in NYC):



My favorite thing he does is offer for people to pay him a certain amount of money, which he'll then use to go to a specific place and mail you an item. Most of the options are big (expensive) trips to foreign countries (which I totally wish I'd thought of first!), but some are as small as giving him $5 for him to mail you one of his secrets.

I have two favorite cheap ones. One is giving him $10 to write a letter of apology to someone he knows. He'll send one copy of the letter to its recipient and one to you. He has an example of a letter on his website. This letter is really simple, but so touching for some reason. So far, 12 people have bought apologies. I think this is absolutely genius. It's incredibly voyeuristic, but also sort of vicariously relieving. Even if you're too scared to make your own random apology, you can be part of someone else's. I think I might purchase an apology letter in the coming days.

My other favorite is for people to pay him a dollar to think about them for one full minute. Twenty-one people have bought a minute of time, by far the largest number of people to participate in any of these projects. I think this is very telling. People are actually so full of themselves that they're willing to pay someone--a complete stranger no less--just to think about them. But on the other hand, a couple people paid David to think about someone else. Someone named Jim Darrough paid him to think about his step-mom who had passed away four days prior. Quote:

I thought about Jim Darrough's step-mother, Arleen, who passed away on February 24th, 2008 at 3:32 am Pacific Time. Jim was holding her hand at this time. I thought about Arleen from 1:18am to 1:19am on February 28, 2008 in New York.

Ok, that's actually really moving. As is this one:

I thought about Luca Kunz's mom who is in a hospital in Switzerland from 3:12am to 3:13am on February 29th, 2008 in New York. I went a little over a minute to make it stronger.

People love their families so much that it helps them to know that a stranger knows who the family member is, and is actively thinking about them.

I think that the entire body of work just speaks to the interconnectedness of everyone on Earth. And it's as easy as dropping an envelope into a mailbox. Maybe that's too obvious of an explanation, but I think it's rare that you see such a blatant physical manifestation of this. I look forward to reading more about David's exploits.

bob loblah's law blog

I was recently hired as a featured blogger for animeintro.net, and my first post is now up. I'll be posting every Monday and Thursday. It's a new website, so it doesn't get much traffic yet and I pretty much have to create my own readership, so if any of my loyal readers here either care about, or have friends who care about, anime, manga, designer toys, Japanese fashion, and other offshoots of Japanese pop culture, please pass on the link :]

The blog cover page.
My current post: The Oscars Hate Anime

I'll probably be providing a link here every time a new post is up for the next few months, but don't worry, it'll only be a short little sentence each time.

Oh yeah, and the post went up yesterday and I already have three comments! Yay yay! So exciting!

GASP!

OH MY GOD I WANT THIS!



It's graffiti artist Der's contribution to the new French Dunny series. The rest are coated in your standard crazy cool paint jobs, but this one is actually a little French dude! He's holding a little baguette and wine bottle and wearing a beret! Awwwww... I want I want I want!

Kazuhiro Okamoto’s “Translucent”

I’ve been consuming comics like crazy lately, but the titles I regularly follow have been coming out too slowly. So I decided I need to add another new series to my palate. I really want something different, though: no high school romance or boy-on-a-quest stories. Last week, I picked up the first two volumes of Kazuhiro Okamoto’s “Translucent” (from Dark Horse Comics), an unusual story that seemed promising.

“Translucent” focuses on 14-year-old Shizuka, who is afflicted with “translucent syndrome,” a disease that makes her body “see-through.” It affects each person differently, with some people being completely transparent all the time and some (like Shizuka) regularly shifting from visible to varying degrees of translucency. Emotions also affect the syndrome, with negative feelings and stress causing Shizuka to go completely transparent and happiness causing her body to return to normal. If someone with translucent syndrome remains completely transparent for two weeks, it’s likely she’ll stay that way forever.

“Translucent” was a promising concept in theory. An adolescent girl with an unusual disease should allow for some entertaining drama. But in reality, the series falls completely flat. For one thing, there isn't enough attention given to the disease itself. We’re repeatedly told that there’s no known cause or cure. And that’s it. I can suspend my disbelief enough to ignore the scientific impossibilities at work here, but wouldn’t there be people studying this disease? Shouldn’t Shizuka at the very least exert some effort into understanding it?

For another thing, the art is totally unimpressive. The characters aren’t detailed enough to tell them apart. Shizuka’s friend Mamoru is supposed to be the most beautiful student in the entire school, but the only difference between her and Shizuka is their hairstyles. Bodies and body movement are also rendered extremely stiffly.

I could get past the amateurish art if the story itself was well told, but, unfortunately, it’s not. Problems wrap up much too simplistically to be enjoyable. In the first volume, Shizuka’s body turns completely transparent, so she has to move away to be close to a translucent syndrome specialist. But a special parting gift from Tadami makes her so happy that her body returns to normal, so the doctor tells her she only has to visit once a month and Shizuka returns to her old school. This quick fix and lack of development is unsatisfying.

There also appears to be no overarching storyline. This story really needs a concrete direction. I thought Shizuka’s desire to become an actress despite her condition (which develops after her successful drama club performance) would be the spine of the story, but it’s more of an afterthought, really, happening concurrently to the plot rather than driving it.

I actually ended up returning these books to the store because they’re so unsatisfying. It’s really disappointing to see such a creative theme executed so poorly. Next time I want to try a new manga, I’m going to read the whole thing in-store before buying it.

luuuuuurve

I found yet another artist in my internet travels with whom I've fallen in love. Audrey Kawasaki's paintings are STUNNING. She paints these charming art-nouveau inspired wispy girls on wood. The girls have oversized, incredibly expressive eyes and juicy lips, an obvious anime/manga influence. Most of the figures are transparent, so you get to see the woodgrain through them, which gives the paintings a natural, warm feeling. Audrey also retains a sense of edginess by incorporating explicit and metaphorical sexual imagery, as well as the occasional skull or animal skeleton.

Here is a big ole' image dump of some of my favorites from her website:















Audrey currently has a solo show at the Copro Nason gallery in Santa Monica. I desperately wish I could be there. And even though the show only opened three days ago, all her prints and originals are already sold out. All her prints in her personal website's store have also been sold out for some time now. Curses! I really need to take a trip to California one of these days to check out their art scene. Goodness knows there's no shortage of local talent here in New York, but the art establishment in Cali seems more lighthearted, varied, and less elitist, if I'm basing my impression on the art alone. Bits of California culture in general (skateboarding, movie-making, pop culture...) seem to be allowed (embraced?) into the art scene there. For someone to be big in New York, their art has to be Very. Serious. It's like... lighten up! You'd never see something anime-inspired in Chelsea. Maybe Brooklyn, though... Good thing I live there :]

heehee

Ok, this cracks me up to no end:

It's a vinyl toy designed by Amanda Visell. Its name is "Baby-Eating Crocodile."

HA!

And here are two illustrations from her website to accompany it:





HILARIOUS!

The figure was originally part of a multi-artist show at Gallery 1988 in LA, and now the whole series of toys are being released as a blind-box set. I think the set as a whole is kind of meh, though, which is especially disappointing given the awsomeness of Visell's contribution to the collection. As an art show, all the different styles may work, but as a blind-box set, there's not enough cohesion. And it's not just the art styles that differ wildly, it's also the level of detail. The individual boxes are $7.99 each, which is about average (i.e. expensive as hell), but I wouldn't want to pay that for (or even own, for that matter) a couple of these.

Anthony Ausgang's Clean One, for example, features bright, fun colors, but the character's lack of detail gives it a flat and boring look overall. Peter Gronquist's Stella and 'Roo is also unsatisfying. There's a seem right down the center of its tummy! What's that about? Who thought that was a good design choice? The colors, too, are bland. Designer toys are usually immaculately put together and cleverly colored, so this one looks cheaply made by comparison.

On the other hand, Greg Simkins' Scurvy Nevil is highly detailed and intricate (not to mention, ADORABLE). I covet this little trinket like nobody's business. Joe Ledbetter always comes through with amazing toy creations, and his Ledkin and King of the Deadbeets are no exception. This is how you do mock 2D. The creatures, being actual toys, are obviously physically three-dimensional, but his heavy black outlines and solid, stark color blocks give the little guys the feeling of being drawings on a page.

About half of these toys are really creative and weirdo, while the others aren't particularly special. And even though they're sold as a set, none of them match. They're better as singular pieces; but in that case, I don't want to shell out eight bucks in the hope of getting a Joe Ledbetter or Amanda Visell toy, only to end up with some ugly thing I don't want. Let's face it, $8 is too much to pay for a three inch chunk of plastic anyways (not that it's ever stopped me before...), so if I'm going to actually pay that, it has to be for something unique and clever whose design looks like it received a lot of work. The odds of getting that in this case aren't high enough. My advice? Wait a couple months, then buy them pre-opened on ebay.

Do your civic duty, damnit!

I voted today.

Go Obama!

(Poster by Shepard Fairey)

tattoo part deux

So! The tattoo was the most excruciatingly painful experience of my entire life. I think I'm definitely done with the tattoos for a while. Dave did an amazing job! The birds have a very painterly look to them, which is exactly what I was going for. Joe also says he's never seen such a realistic tattoo, if that's any indication. I'm really, really happy with it. It hurt SO BAD, though, especially when Dave was working on my spine. The whole tattoo took about four hours and I don't know how I got through the whole thing without whining or crying, but I did. It also bled a lot, which was kind of icky.

The irritation and pinkness around the tattoo hasn't entirely faded yet, so I'll have better photos up in a couple weeks, but for now, here are these ones:

Just the black outline.

Another angle, so you can see the bird on my shoulder. He's my favorite.

The finished product. It'll look a bit lighter once it has completely healed.

GASP!

GASP! I want these!


They're toys! Made of wood! And they're adorable! And Japanese! (And made by Takeji Nakagawa.)

AWWWWWW!

LITTLE WOODEN SAMURAIS!!

new tattoo

I'm getting a new tattoo this Sunday (but shhh don't tell my parents!), so I decided to chronicle the process here. I'm getting a small flock of birds on my back. There will be five birds in all, starting with one standing at the lower left corner (like at my waist) and the last one on the back of my right shoulder. I'm specifically using a royal tern for the breed, because their wings take on some very sharp angles when they fly and it looks really cool. (P.S. I'm not just getting this done for vanity; the image does have a meaning for me, but it's private :P )

Here are the photos I took from Google images as reference:



They'll be about three inches tall on my back, and will consist of a light black outline with all the inner shading and color having no black linework, and an overall painterly, wispy look.

I'm getting it done by Dave Wallin at Tattoo Culture in Williamsburg. At first I planned on going to Saved Tattoo, but they have turned out to be totally elitist and overpriced. My room mate has been trying to get an appointment with them for months and they won't even give her the time of day. When I went, they told me the tattooer I was interested in is currently in Copenhagen, and then told me to contact him through MySpace (Have I ever mentioned how much I hate MySpace?). I can't even get a real e-mail address?? Okaaay...

Anyways, Tattoo Culture is only a couple blocks away from Saved, and I stumbled upon it when I started walking in the wrong direction by accident. It is so much more welcoming. The guys there were friendly and warm, the studio was impeccably clean and organized, they have multiple artists who take walk-ins (not just appointments months in advance), and they have rotating art on the walls. (As an aside, the current art exhibit is cool enough that people should stop by just to see it. It's photographs of regular people in their conservative work clothing, then photos of the same people in their punked out, personal clothes, with their tattoos all showing. Very clever.) And, most importantly, the tattoo artists there do really excellent work, especially Dave and Gene, the two resident artists.

Dave Wallin was awsome. This will be my first really "big" piece, so I'm kinda nervous. But Dave discussed every detail of the tattoo with me--feather style, shadows, exact placement, even the amount and angle of "light" hitting the birds--so I feel 100% confident about being in his hands.

When I go back to get it done Sunday, I'll get Dave's original sketch and will take photos of the stencil, linework, and finished product. He estimated about 4 hours of actual tattooing, so here's hoping I can handle the pain long enough to get it all done in one sitting.

looooove

Found more illustrators whose work I adore, this time through the Vinyl Pulse site.

First up is Sarah Joncas, a Canadian artist whose ultra-feminine work has a decidedly Dali-esque feel to it. These are so pretty it kills me.




Then we have Camilla d'Errico, another Canadienne. Her adorable girls have incredibly expressive eyes, and the girls in helmets are especially quirky and cute. Check out her "Birds and the Bees" series in the Recent Work section for some incredibly sexy (and slightly demented) cuties. Meanwhile, here are two of my other favorites:



These two artists are in a joint show at Thinkspace in LA.



I wanna go! Vinyl Pulse only lists shows and stuff for California. What about us NY'ers??

...

The Society of Illustrators is currently hosting an online exhibit of art that responds to the war in Iraq, by contemporary graphic artists and illustrators.

I rarely write about personal things in here, but this is one time when I really feel compelled to. I met a wonderful man through an online dating site last May. After messaging back and forth for a few weeks, we met for a date, and ended up really hitting it off. Long story short, Joe and I have been together for about seven and a half months now.

Now comes the unusual part. He's in the military. And I'm a staunch pacifist. He's still extremely liberal and atheist (as am I) and we share many of our world views. But in the past, I always maintained that I couldn't date someone in the military because I assumed the thought of (or knowledge of) him having killed someone would change the way I felt and/or treated the guy. Granted, Joe hasn't been sent abroad or seen combat yet, but there have been a few instances already in which he was slated to go to Afghanistan, but then the situation changed for him. Every time he gets a phone call or e-mail from the military, my heart skips a beat. What if things are changing again, and now he does have to go? Would our relationship survive him being gone for a year (or potentially more)? Would he even survive?

Honestly, it's something I don't even want to think about, but unfortunately I have to.

Since meeting Joe, my attitude toward the war, toward the U.S. government, toward soldiers in general, have all undergone a shift. I hate the reasons for going into Iraq, but recognize that at this point, the American military presence cannot just pick up and leave. I mean, with the way things have developed, Iraq is damned if we do and damned if we don't; but at least General Petraeus seems to be making some headway, and a new, hopefully more realistic and responsible, administration will be put in place in less than a year. As for the current administration, my opinion has done nothing but get worse and worse (not that it was even remotely positive to begin with...). Never in my life have I felt so distrustful and disgusted by the U.S. government. Even with elections looming, I still have very little faith in the government anymore. I've always known that politicians are inherently evil (such is the nature of the beast), but by now, I've pretty much lost all faith that these people are trying to help Americans. I'm even leary of Obama, who I support and fully intend to vote for in the primary. I just have a lot of doubt that his message of hope will follow through (though I have way more doubt among the other candidates, both Republican and Democrat).

As for my attitude shift toward soldiers... Well to be honest, I used to hold a lot of disdain for them. I know this was an unfair assessment; there are a lot of different reasons people choose to join the military, and as far as I can tell, blind support for the Iraq war is very rarely one of them. Wanting to kill people is never a reason (or if it is, then that person will in all likelihood get kicked out or not make it through training). After meeting Joe, though, after revisiting Suzanne Opton's photographs of soldiers at Fort Drum in light of the disappearance of some of them, after watching National Geographic's "Inside the Green Berets," after reading the cards sent into PostSecret each week from soldiers... now when I see soldiers in airports, recruiters on the street, etc, all I feel is sadness. Not because I pity them, but because I think I now share at least a little sense of empathy. The entire Iraq war has been such a huge, devastating mistake. Iraq's culture, cities, and civilians have been pillaged and destroyed. What started out as a "pre-emptive strike" has devolved into a mess of sectarian violence, civil war, and destruction. It's not fair that American lives are being sacrificed to this monster, much less the thousands of Iraqi lives.

It's all a big, irresponsible, disgusting mess.

So here is my presentation of the Society of Illustrators' "Artists against the War" exhibit. I'm posting the pieces that spoke to me the most, and my response to them in both artistic and personal parameters:


R.O. Blechman's "Support Our Troops"I love this drawing's simplicity. Its message is clear: blind patriotism is suffocating and prevents anything productive from getting done. I hate hate hate hate the blind patriotism that is foisted upon us by conservative media and the current administration. We're told that if we don't support the war, then we're not supporting the troops. This is completely bass-ackwards. I support removing our troops from harm's way; and I don't like being told that being anti-war makes me anti-soldier. Those fucking "Support our Troops" magnetic bumper stickers, which this piece is referencing, are straight-up stupid. How is forking over a dollar for a car decoration supporting anything? These people who wear their indignant patriotism on their sleeve are ridiculous. Are they sending encouraging letters to the troops, writing congress to demand that the troops receive adequate supplies, or doing anything even remotely constructive? No, they're buying magnets to stick on their gas-guzzling cars (which is part of the reason we're over there in the first place), and then maintaining a mindset that tells them they're part of the solution when in actuality they're doing nothing.



Serge Bloch's "Cannon Fodder" This one in particular is infinitely frustrating for me. How could politicians with no military experience (ahem Bush cough Rumsfeld) so carelessly ship sons and daughters, parents, husbands, wives, friends, companions... into such a quagmire? No plan, no exit strategy, barely any strategy at all for that matter, no real committment to catching Bin Laden, despite the fact that he was the one who masterminded the 9/11 attack, not Saddam Hussein. It's just so enraging! People are not cannon fodder, damnit! But they're certainly being treated as such.



Milton Glaser's "The Losses of War"
Honestly, I think this one just speaks for itself. Many of these pieces are deceptively simple, such as this. One little image evokes a deep gamut of painful facts and thoughts and emotions. This prosthetic arm stands for more than a soldier's lost hand. It stands for lost limbs; lost lives, families, homes; the forgotten minefields remaining in poor, war-ravaged countries; loss of innocence; loss of life; destruction of a culture, of history... of hope...



Gary Kelley's "Manifesto" This is probably my favorite. The figure looks so beaten. It could represent anyone involved in the war. The pacifists who are ignored or insulted, the Iraqis who are being invaded and killed from all sides, the soldiers forced to fight an unjust war... The darkness, simplicity, and skewed, half-fetal position of the figure are haunting. And the quote at the bottom is truly disturbing. It says "Naturally the common people don't want war... but it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along... all you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denouce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." Sound familiar? The man who said this was Hermann Goring, a leading nazi officer who ended up being tried and found guilty of war crimes. This is interchangeable with the rhetoric that was spouted to justify the war in the first place and is still being spouted desite the obviousness of what a mistake the war is. Eerie. Just... positively frightening.



Peter Kuper's "This is Not a Comic"
Of course I love this one--it references modern art! It also points out the contradictions at play not just in the Iraq war, but in issues we've faced throughout the Bush administration's tenure. Everything has been glossed over. Iraq was not an "invasion," it was a "pre-emptive strike;" destruction of animals' habitats and encouragement of pollution and consumption isn't "damaging" because there's no such thing as "global warming," and even if there were, it won't kill us in our lifetime; the removal of our "rights" is acceptable because we're "fighting terror;" ignoring the genocide in Darfur is acceptable because it doesn't suit American economic interests to intervene. There is so much going wrong in this country. And so many people are just complacent. I hope the new election brings out droves of voters, from both sides. It's time people start caring.



Koren Shadmi's "Tasting Victory"
I have mixed feelings about this one. Visually, it's very powerful. The red on the dress really stands out and is quite brutal, disturbing even. The painting is right to argue that this war is not comparable to those of the past. The "enemy" now is totally amorphous. There are no clear "good guys" and "bad guys," leaving out a sense of glory in fighting. On the other hand, this piece presents a very grim impression of soldiers in this war: faceless, violent, killing machines. I know there has been some very publicized horrible activity at the hands of American soldiers (torture at Abu Ghraib and that rape and murder of the 14-year old girl and her family, for example), but the vast, vast majority of soldiers are not attacking innocent people on purpose. I feel like this piece stands for the opposite of the blind patriotism I discussed above. Any extreme, obstinate frame of mind is going to be wrong. There is always more than one side to every issue. True, soldiers who have committed crimes must be punished for their deeds, but in general, in the case of Iraq, the blame needs to be spread among those responsible for starting and proliferating the war, not on those who are stuck carrying out irresponsible orders.

i'm in love...

...with these drawings by French illustrator Annette Marnat.











Her drawings are so French. The sketchyness and loose lines, slight cartoony quality, and exaggerated shapes, wrapping up to create an overall quirky feel, are trademarks of French illustration (see Toulouse-Lautrec, these guys, and pretty much any Franco-Belgian comic) , as well as some of my favorite effects in illustration and animation overall. I love love love love love these. Thanks to my French skills, I was also able to glean the following from what little information about her exists on the interwebs:

Annette was born in 1982 near Roanne (central France, northeast of Lyon) and now lives in Lyon. She studied at the Émile Cohl School, also in Lyon. She's had her illustrations printed in various publications and now works as a children's book illustrator, including the "Pavillon Noir" ("Black Ship," approximately) adventure series, which, near as I can tell, is about kids who are pirates.

I wish I could find more about how she creates the work on her blog. Some look like they're pastel, but the backgrounds, lighting effects, and repeating patterns are clearly computer-generated, so I'm wondering if they're not entirely done on the computer, with different built-in effects and textures.