The Longest Illustration I Have Ever Seen

Thanks to my boy Jay for showing me this site zenvironments.com The illustration/artwork is by Zach Johnson and I think he has tired fingers.

Forgive me if I am repeating myself…

My first follow up post! Less than a month in and I am already recycling – I was afraid of that. I just received my book on Marilyn Minter in the mail and it is fantastic. Seeing her progression as an artist is quite interesting. The quality of the book is great, the pages w/ her work look fantastic. It feels a bit like a text book, but I am willing to overlook that.

Read the publicity blurb from Amazon below:

This first major book to focus on the highly respected and influential contemporary artist Marilyn Minter features work from every period of her career, spanning nearly 40 years. Minter’s perennially-expanding reputation was already well established by the 1980s, secured by work that engaged formal aspects of painting with the unexpected subject matter that remains central to her practice. Today her paintings–and, increasingly, her photography, which also exposes the ultimate failure of fashion and glamour to hide either our flaws or the dirty underside of human beauty–are recognized as significant influences on several generations of artists, including many emerging stars. One of her glittery color images recently appeared at the 2006 Whitney Biennial and on the cover of its catalogue, and more of them in a recent solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This comprehensive retrospective catalogue reproduces in full color nearly every painting Minter has made, along with a wide selection of her painterly photographs. It also includes the early, haunting Coral Ridge Towers series of black-and-white photos of the artist’s mother. A major and substantial new text about Minter’s work by noted art historian Johanna Burton is complemented by lively, informative and insightful interviews, a rare opportunity to hear Minter in her own words. A lengthy conversation with painter Mary Heilmann is augmented by “20 Questions for Marilyn Minter,” which were assembled by Matthew Higgs from those posed by a wide range of artists, curators and friends.

But it here

Socially Distorted Strengths

So, I promise that this is not becoming a music site. That being said, I saw Social Distortion last night and they kicked ass. Mike Ness is just an awesome front man. His voice is as good live as it is on record. They played a great tune off their greatest hits album Far Behind:

Now between writing about them and De la Soul yesterday, it made me think about career longevity. How do you keep yourself going in a work environment, creative or otherwise. I came across a great article by Susie Wee of HP:

Use your weekend strengths at work

…An additional tip that I gave was: Use your weekend strengths at work.

My advice here is to think about the things that you do on your weekends and in your free time when you’re with your family and friends. Chances are that you’re spending your free time doing things that you love to do. Chances are that these things use your natural strengths, i.e., your weekends strengths. And, chances are that your weekend strengths can be used at work! Read more.

Now what the hell does this article have to do with either of the band I have posted about in the past 2 days? Well, what better weekend strengths are there than playing music for a bunch of people. Its adapting a party to your job. Now, most of us can’t do that, but I bet there is something that you do outside of work that can help you inside (and no, flasks don’t count).

Dave Mckean: Mister Sandman

I first came across his work while I was in college. I was starting to use some comic book style elements in my work, so I headed in to the local comic book store to see what artists were up to. I was a super hero fan when I was younger, so comics for an older audience were a new concept for me. Personal history lesson aside, I saw this kick ass cover to a Sandman comic. I was just learning photoshop and Dave’s work has been an inspiration ever since.

His illustration style has branched out into motion graphics and film:

He might blow up but he won’t go pop.

Today’s post is a little different. Stan Whitney is a painter, a rather successful painter. He is also a professor at Tyler School of Art. So, his paintings are good, but the focus of this post is how he forces (yes forces) you to be creative in his class.

I had him as a professor about 10 years ago at Temple’s Rome campus. The non art students used to come to our class to see us get bitten in half, chewed up, spit out and finally stepped on.

“I feel as a professor you want to tell [students] the truth,” he said. “My job is to guide them in the right direction; whether they get upset doesn’t matter to me. In the end, it will make them better artists because they will have to defend what they create beyond the classroom.”
Read More.

Two people in the class could not hang and bailed out, one went as far as to leave the program completely. I took my weekly beatings with my friends laughing at me. I would spend all week trying to come up with something that would get me off the hook.

My favorite critique was this:
“I was talking about you at dinner the other night (this has to be good right??) and I think you are in the wrong field (fuuuuuuck me). You have a beautiful voice – have you thought about radio? I really don’t think you have what it takes to make it in the creative field” Now, that hurt a little, but he was right. I spent most of my time over there partying with a little dash of art on the side.

So, I did not quit and go into radio, I spent a little less time partying and a little more drawing (or did both at the same time). I finally had a good critique “Guess who finally showed up this semester!”

At the time, I hated that class, but it is the one class that I look back on most fondly when I think about college. Stan forced me to actually think about what I was doing. He probably would not remember me now, but I tip my hat to him, w/o that class my creativity would have not grown in the way it has.

Thanks Stan

Who are the people that helped you establish yourselves creatively?

Marilyn Minter

I first stumbled on her work at the moma in san francisco (I was supposed to be sitting in a conference room, but that is another story). Her work is hyper-realism and pretty intense… A quick interview about her process can be found here.