Art Good, Hitler Bad. » Pretty Pictures

Coffee and Robots

Charles — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:44:39 +0000

I’ve seen this guy in the neighborhood for years. He never seems to talk to anyone, just draws at the cafe on the corner. I’ve always wondered what he works on with his multi-color retractable pen. Evidently the answer is robots. And who doesn’t love robots?

(click on the pic to get a closer view)

Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak a better picture of his work sometime. Maybe not. Either way, it’s always a pleasure to see what the creative mind conjures up in seeming isolation.

Solemn Faces

Charles — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:32:52 +0000

Today I stumbled on a collection of paintings and sketches from a woman named Julia Colton. As flea-market folklore has it, she was originally from the Soviet Union, and had a showing in Paris at some point in her life. Her work dates from the mid 1940s through the mid 1950s and depicts portraits of solemn looking characters often in dull and muted colors.

It isn’t clear when she arrived in the US, but it’s fair to assume that the hardships of Communist Russia, the Great Depression and WWII definitely colored her often somber and tragically bleak work.

This is the grim and pensive beauty that I took home with me.

I didn’t capture the entire collection, but it’s safe to assume I’ll document more in the coming weeks.

Pa and Ma

Charles — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:27:07 +0000

Domino!

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:28:51 +0000

Found screwed to the side of a building at 22nd/Tennessee.

Unearthed

Charles — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:13:58 +0000

From the corner’s of a basement comes a new collection of unearthed Beauparlant drawings, including some of my new favorites. At this point, everything that needs to be said about this young, mysterious artist’s depression era work has.

Enjoy the latest (but hopefully not the last) batch of marvelous, panoramic renderings of childhood fantasy courtesy of Albert Beauparlant.

73 Cents

Charles — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:07:38 +0000

Rarely do murals, let alone politically charged murals captivate my attention. However, today’s post on Salon’s sWell introduced me to the heart-breaking story of teacher, turned advocate Regina Holiday, her husband Fred’s bout with both cancer and the insurance company CIGNA, and the mural she created in response to the current state of health care in this country.

I’ll let someone else tell the details of this story:
http://open.salon.com/blog/rahul_k_parikh/2009/09/25/regina_holliday_the_art_of_health_reform/

For information on Regina Holiday, go to her blog at: http://reginaholliday.blogspot.com/

$2 Portraits

Charles — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:55:27 +0000

Stumbled on a great concept project via http://www.whatimseeing.com. Simply put, when someone asks you for change, instead of ignoring the person or saying no as is so often the case, offer them $2 in exchange for a portrait and a story if they’re so inclined.

Oh, and evidently tons of people around the globe have joined this awesome project

Great stuff.

Angels

Charles — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:44:21 +0000

Somewhere in heaven an angel lost their wings.

In all seriousness, this made a pretty majestic picture, albeit a fairly morbid one.

Meat is Murder

Charles — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:41:02 +0000

Pareidolia = phenomenon when a random stimulus is perceived as significant

Felting

Charles — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:58:21 +0000

Some people discount Facebook as merely a digital tool to feed our own burgeoning narcissism, heralding in the unavoidable demise of meaningful personal interaction. But as I see it, Facebook is a great way of peering into the private lives of people you may like but don’t talk to very often.

A cousin of mine recently took up a hobby called needle felting. As she described it,

“You take a bunch of wool – yup, the type that’s sheared right off the sheep — straight, curly, kinky, grey or brown, dyed or not and you take this very long, very sharp needle and you stab…stab…stab…your little pieces of wool and the fibers begin to grab hold of each other and compress and tighten into shapes.”

After poking around the FB group dedicated ot this craft, I found the work of a Carrie Peterson whose Circus Side Show collection of felted characters is a really awesome spectacle. it never ceases to amaze me what the artist can create in the most strange of mediums. Enjoy!

strong man