Exceeding the conditions of the material and materiality, I started to play with forms, respecting the logic of the vivid, intending to bring to life each and every piece of work, but life within the proper meaning of this term. Details and textures are taken from the vivid and real world, in order to arrange them in a nonanthropomorphic assembly. My intention is to assign to objects and shapes, aesthetic qualities that give them an inexplicable existence due to the illusion of life that I create. The vivid and its rules are canons that singularize these pieces of work, but the forms of the vivid have no limits in my mind, I try to expand and release the hyperrealist current from the handcuffs of the figurative and through my PhD research to assign it new nonanthropomorphic mass. My attempts were at the same time also empirical researches, each time I came across new challenges, that were becoming larger and more complex.
Lauren Aquino is a cool cat with a whole heap of design deftness. We dig her graphics and multimedia talent, and are delighted to feature her work in our March calendar.
February 27 is John Steinbeck’s birthday. When I think of Steinbeck I think of The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and this affectionate letter to his oldest son Thom.
I came across this letter on the Brain Pickings website some time ago. The posting provides some context. Steinbeck’s teenage son wrote to his father about falling in love with a girl, Susan, at boarding school. Steinbeck’s reply will warm your heart.
New York
November 10, 1958
Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.
First — if you are in love — that’s a good thing — that’s about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don’t let anyone make it small or light to you.
Second — There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn’t know you had.
You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply — of course it isn’t puppy love.
But I don’t think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that I can tell you.
Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.
The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.
If you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.
Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.
It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.
Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I’m glad you have it.
We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.
And don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens — The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.
Flip the switches. One. Two. Three. More. Create your mash-up of sound clips on the Fun Switcher. And save the URL (bottom left of the screen) for instant playback.
Hirst in front of his painting The Importance of Elsewhere – The Kingdom of Heaven. (photo: EPA/Kerim Okten)
Damien Hirst this. Damien Hirst that. Damien Hirst keeps popping up with his ‘art’. Hennessy Youngman captures how I feel about Damien Hirst. Watch his video.
Now you can suck on the solar system! (I’ve avoided the many less-tasteful, but dubiously more humorous, ways I could have written this lead). These solar system lollipops look amazing.
When the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, New York, was shut down in 1995, the New York State Museum was given possession of the suitcases of former patients. Hundreds of suitcases.
There have been several projects documenting the suitcases.
Photographer Jon Crispin is working on his own project, photographing the contents of each suitcase, capturing insights into the life of its owner. Crispin ran a Kickstarter campaign and will soon launch a website for the project. In the mean time you can see some of his work on his blog.
(All photographs in this post are from Jon Crispin’s blog.)
