Ever since Nick Nolte shot down Reuben Toro in the Scorsese part of New York Stories with the single best put down in art history, if not movie history, I have not been able to get myself to fully embrace spraypaint as a medium. I have found myself marveling at it, awestruck in front of it and even switched a few nozzles myself, but for me the paint runs just a little too thin. It’s not that it can’t make you think, but rarely does the image reach inside and grab hold like a starfish clamped onto your heart.
This is all being undone, though, by a myriad of artists who have started to take the notion of “wall art” to new levels. Banksy comes to mind, of course. But also this guy, Blu, whose stop motion work is mind-blowing and other-worldly. And a third guy I recently stumbled across, Alexandre Farto (AKA Vhils), who has done something interesting by working with the texture of the wall itself. It is worth taking a look at this video. Nice to see the medium of graffiti go beyond what it has always appeared to be on the surface and reach somewhere a little deeper.
“Lighting is everything.” My Mom taught me that at an early age. It wasn’t an art lesson, it was a beauty lesson. But it was an art lesson, too. After all, how you light your subject determines a lot.
Then, when I got into drawing, my Dad sat me down with his long-time friend, Lee Chapman. At the time, Lee lived in a beautiful sprawling house with a pool, up in Laurel Canyon. He was an ad guy, but his true calling was fine art. We had his paintings in our house and I had already heard many stories about his drawing and illustration skills before I had met with him that day. It was intimidating as hell. “So, you like to draw?” I remember him asking me. “Let me show you something.” Continue reading ‘Lighting is everything.’
How many Emails do you get a day? 100? 150? Me too. A little over a year ago, I was sitting in an airport, heading to a pitch with my co-workers. We were all sitting with our collective mobile devices, Emailing away. All of the sudden, I stood up, threw my arms in the air and shouted out, “I’m at ZERO!!” A temporary victory over my Inbox. And although people laughed, it pointed out something sad. Email is the new boss.
Soon after, I started working on ways to take back control over my work day and, more importantly, the creative process. Email is the quintessential “death of a thousand cuts” because all of the reasons to check it are excusable. It is, after all, productive. But it’s also a diversion. We talk to friends and family through it. We use it as a to-do list; leaving Emails in our Inbox as a reminder to get something done. These things are valid reasons to check Email throughout the day, but together they create a monster of distraction and overwhelmedness. A monster we embrace, because it is often easier than the task at hand. Email is the perfect diversion from our top priority because it is acceptable and, often, helpful. But at its worst, it can be an avoidance tool.
Sunny day. Sweeping the clouds away. On my way to where the air is sweet.
A nice sunny day today and the settling in of Summer. Something about it brought me back and I remembered Jim Henson. Sesame Street was created when I was 1, the same year my parents split up. I don’t know exactly what life was like for me back then, but it had to be a little rough.
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?
I saw them all. Every single one. It was escape, but in an accepted way. A special place where things got explained that nobody was explaining, humor was expected and, most importantly, kids were honored. On Sesame Street, the rules all apply, but innocence is guarded. A lot of us needed that back then, I guess.
Come and play. Everything’s A-OK. Friendly neighbors there, that’s where we meet.
First of all, I bet on Orlando – straight up, with no spread. It was a calculated wager, actually, as I wasn’t betting for money, but for an opportunity. The opportunity to be amazingly right. You only get a few chances to be amazingly right and $5 is a small price to pay, in that regard. $50 would have been too much. For that much, I’d have actually had to have thought that Orlando would win.
On the other hand, I predicted that Adam Lambert would win American Idol. And he did not. As it turns out, music is different than sports – in fact, it might be its polar opposite. Pop music, which is what this contest was about, is about popularity, after all. And Adam just wasn’t as popular. And the best singer didn’t win the singing contest.
“SKETCH BOOK. Conceptual Drawings from the World’s Most Influential Designers” just arrived on my desk. It’s a timely release, as much has been made about doodling recently. I’m in advertising, most of us in the creative department doodle constantly in meetings and sometimes are condemned for it. More often, though, it is accepted in our culture as, for the creative, it is sort of our way of taking notes, and sometimes even relaxing ourselves. Our ECD is well-known for drawing spheres that he shades to perfection. It is clearly a form of meditation for him and, well, he’s doing okay.
The hardest part about being a doodler is that you are not making eye contact with whoever is speaking. It’s a constant struggle because looking down and drawing is how I concentrated when I was a kid. I was deepest in my thoughts with a pen on a paper and still am. But it’s disprespectful to the other people in the room. But then so is interrupting and nobody seems to have any problem with that. Continue reading ‘Don’t call it a doodle.’
Recently, the annual MOCA fundraiser featured “blind” works by famous artists and non for to bid on. A great concept and a show that I would have gone to, if I weren’t deathly afraid of crowds of people circling around artwork. Thanks to the Internet, though, I can sort of glide in unnoticed and I am saved all the chatter and distracting movements and noises. This is one of the first art events I can say I’ve truly enjoyed – in large part because I didn’t attend it.
The Red Balloon was made in 1956, but it seems timeless, doesn’t it? Like for a lot of people, the movie, its images and themes are indelibly etched into my brain, as much like a scar as a birthday. Somehow, all sadness I felt as a boy is captured in that film, but it’s not considered a sad film. I think most people would call it a “wonderful tale of childhood.” Yet, a child wanders the streets of Paris, terminally alone, befriended by an inanimate object that appears to be his only companion. Think of the destitute setting one has to create for a balloon to have such an impact on a child’s life. And it’s true, this is not the Paris from other childhood stories, or paintings. This is a gray and lonely Paris. This is Daniel’s Reseda. In fact, in more ways than one, The Karate Kid and The Red Balloon are inextricably related, although I contend that The Red Balloon is deceptively more bleak. Pascal is, of course, Daniel – the fatherless boy, and all that entails. The kids with the rocks are the Cobra Kai. The Blue Balloon girl is Ali (with an i).
In The Red Balloon, the story begins, and continues throughout, with a young Pascal walking alone through unforgiving streets, petting stray cats and hopping on trains. At least with Karate Kid, we were given the gift of exposition. With The Red Balloon, we are thrown into a near-apocalyptic scenario – a child too young to be on his own, living with his grandparents, managing his way through a city too big and mean for him. It is straight out of a Dickens novel. And because it’s a balloon that Pascal befriends, the bleakness of it all is enhanced. Because this is the true plight of children who feel abandoned – to find solace not in other humans, but in objects. The red balloon is our dollhouse, our action figure, our tree fort and our toy gun. Daniel learned a skill, found his calling and overcame his fears. Pascal was transported away via angelic balloons, skyward. Pascal suffers so greatly throughout the 3o minute film, it is only really offset by the stunning visual images of balloons. But imagine if it wasn’t a balloon. The heart breaks.
Consider the horrific sub-plots of the stories we grew up with: a fatherless Luke, an apocalyptic Mad Max, the other mad Max (of chasing dog with fork fame), the wandering Tramp and even the foster care children of Escape to Witch Mountain. Pascal’s balloon is Alice’s white rabbit, is Dorothy’s slippers, is Superman’s cape, is Kevin’s Time Bandits, is Hansel’s cookie and Gretel’s lollipop. It is little wonder that my class grew up with a vague, but nagging, sense of impending doom. It is not timeless, it is timely. It is my parents generation who get the credit for living in Depression Era’s fallout, but then they went ahead and made the books, movies, TV shows and comic books that sent us straight into a fear of the destitution that their parents actually lived through. And the latch key didn’t help. A sea of children floating through life, the land of the lost, neither gone nor present, gripping our strings, madly pushing buttons in our glass elevators and holding onto our floating fantasies with poignant desperation. Mr. Miyagi and Obi Wan, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
This could easily have slipped into the realm of trite or, worse, cute. But
the photographer (Asako Narahashi) keeps it exactly where it’s supposed to
be – a careful look at a world cut in half, drowning or waving, we’re not
sure. Dark, turbulent, quiet and effective.
How many Emails do you get a day? 100? 150? Me too. A little over a year ago, I was sitting in an airport, heading to a pitch with my co-workers. We were all sitting with our collective mobile devices, Emailing away. All of the sudden, I stood up, threw my arms in the air and shouted out, “I’m at ZERO!!” A temporary victory over my Inbox. And although people laughed, it pointed out something sad. Email is the new boss.
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