essential creativity
Not just that these guys really are brothers, which is always fodder for good crazy fun. Not just they used to play at 42nd St and Union Sq., in the subway. Not just that they sound somewhat identical to my high school band. Not just that they look like about the most fun bunch of fellas you’d ever want to get in a van with. But for the pure raw energy of a band just playing because it pleases them. And all that other stuff.
Found this one, too:
I not only remember my first pair, I remember what else I was wearing when I got them. Blue O.P. shorts and a white O.P. shirt with a sunset scene on it. It’s easy to remember because I didn’t own any other clothes. The “Era” wasn’t just a cool shoe to have, it was the only shoe to have. It was designed by skaters for skaters. It was somewhere around 1980 and I was somewhere around 12 years old. I was spending as much time as I could at the Del Mar Skate Ranch, buying G&S stickers, eating Abba Zabas, drooling over Independent Trucks and playing the newly-released Pac-Man. It was MAYHEM at the Del Mar Skate Ranch – kids were everywhere. Skateboarding and video games were blowing up. For those of us that used to go to Oasis to skate, we couldn’t freaking believe ourselves. I grew up right on 24th St., so I could walk to the park by hopping over the slew and the train tracks, pass by the abandoned building with the broken windows and never even cross a street. The skate park was basically my backyard.
Continue reading ‘New book on Vans Shoes. Recalling an Era.’
I’ve had this story rolling around in my head for years…
A girl takes a photography class in college. As part of a class assignment, she grabs a suave freshman student to sit for her on a sheet-covered couch, siting against a wall, etc. Natural light fills the room, perhaps a bit over-exposed but nice – the subject smiles and is unusually comfortable and relaxed in front of the lens. The pictures capture something but she dismisses it and goes on to major in psychology.
29 years pass, the girl has her own practice, and that guy in the picture suddenly turns up as the President of the United States. What are the chances? She rummages through her garage, past old yearbooks and that first Nikkormat SLR. She wipes the dust from the viewfinder. Then, under a stack of old records and letters, she finds a proof sheet. It’s him.
Continue reading ‘“The Obama Photographs” Why does real life keep stealing my best ideas?’
Just found this nice animated gif, wandering around the Web. Back in the old days, we really sweated over this kind of stuff in GifBuilder. In fact, out of habit, I immediately took a look at how big this file was (392k!) and started thinking of ways I could knock that down. Old habits die hard, I guess. I just like how well it captures NYC. In just a few frames, I am somehow transported. And the fact that it’s a Gif somehow makes it all the more cool.
“Really?”
Back a number of years ago, I tried to put an end to the term, “Whatever.” At least in my little corner of the world. John Lennon said that “Apathy isn’t it.” And I believe that. Any person content to dismiss a situation with a single word seemed like part of the problem to me. And the term had an air of condescension to it, as though some kind of beachhead was gained for the person who cared least. I railed against it, chose not to associate with people who used it and let it infuriate me to no end. Eventually, either the word lost its spunk or people eventually realized that not caring put them, actually, in a place of disengagement that has little worth in most of life’s real endeavors. I suppose I just outlasted the “Whateverers.”
Enter “Really?” Not since “whatever” have I had this kind of visceral reaction against a word. For the most part, memes like “Really?” gain popularity because they make communicating a complex idea simpler. The NY Times has put the term to good use in their Science section, with a column by Anahad O’Connor called “Really?” where she tackles science questions, mostly pertaining to health. In that case it’s not sarcastic, so it sets up the column well. But when it does veer into the sarcastic, the message often gets lost. Take the article that ran in the LA Times Business section this morning, entitled: “GOP rides on the ‘Daisy ad’ storm. Really?” By adding that single word, we get it – the author is incredulous.
It was sad to hear that Claes Oldenburg’s wife, whom he also worked hand-in-hand with on his art, died this past January. To think of him working alone, without her, reminds me of my own grandparents’ years that they had to live without their significant others. Although in my family, the women all outlast the men. It also reminds me that different artists work best in different kinds of environments. Some close the doors and hole themselves up and others open their studios and prefer the presence of others. Warhol, obviously, was the ultimate open door artist. In fact, it could be said that, later on at least, he had no ideas of his own, but to reflect the world that swirled around him. He let his own fame become his art. And what is fame without the audience?
To have been part of the Pop Art movement and remained alive, innovative, new and truly relevant has been nearly the sole proprietary space of Claes Oldenburg – and the man knows how to fill a space. The show at The Whitney, in NY, features a number of works by Oldenburg and I’m itching to go see it. It is, in some ways, a retrospective, but seems to be marking a turning point in the 80-year old’s life. How his art changes is something I am more than curious to see.
“Are you a grafitti artist, Toro?”
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.
The following three things took me a full year to really embrace and do – weening off the drug is hard – but they are actually very simple tasks and can be employed in under 15 minutes. Continue reading ‘Email Rehab. My personal journey out of hell.’
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.
So, today, when I ran across this homage video to Jim Henson, created a couple years after he died, it was a strange reflection of a reflection. Continue reading ‘Summertime, Innocence and Depressed Frogs.’