I’ve never been interested in vinyl toys. I mean, they’re cute and everything, but I can’t rationalize paying $50 for a toy. I play with toys in the bathtub (yes, seriously), so why would I want something that’s so expensive I can’t even play with it? Books go on shelves, toys are meant to play. But I might have to reconsider my stance on collector toys thanks to Peskimo and their BambooZoo figures. Peskimo is a UK-based design firm whose character driven illustrations were just begging for toydom. I love their work, and dammit if I don’t love their toys. I’m not hyped on them being sold in the blind though. If I’m paying for it then just let me pick which one I want. Probably the toast guy. Or the weird, sad, blue monster. Or all of them. The good news: for $7.95 each I won’t have any problem playing with them in the bathtub. They are gonna kick my lego guys’ asses.

Peskimo

I have one question and one piece of advice for you, Harvey James. What the fuck is wrong with you? Advice: whatever it is, don’t fix it. A single long page full of illustrations that would make Jamie Hewlett jealous, chaotic, weird, and sometimes awesomely twisted. It’s like the greatest sketchbook I’ve ever seen. This motherfucker is my muse for the next few weeks.

Harvey James

Found through B/D. I tried to place his style by comparisons, but there’s too much originality. Isoe’s got his own incredible style and it will be a basis of comparison from now on rather than a product of it. I’m a fan to say the least. I even like his webpage design. Isoe for the win.

Charlie Isoe

Fuck a foggy Tuesday. Enjoy some Polaroids of the times I wish I was having.  Images like junk-fed needle dreams of my kodachrome childhood. Prosetic license is in full effect today.

Franck Juery’s Polaroids

Wagner Pinto is a damn charming name. It sounds like the name of a trying-to-do-his-awkward-best high school movie hero played by Michael Cera. In reality, Wagner Pinto is the name of a Brazilian artist who’s taken the styles of the world around him and made them his abstract own. Bright colors, mad lines, and a playful jumble like kids wrestling in the grass. What are you even doing still reading this. Go check it out. Go.

Wagner Pinto

I keep trying to look at the work of South Carolinian Hollis Brown Thornton without thinking I’m asleep. But the quality of his work is so dreamlike that I just can’t manage it. There are vague, ambiguous shapes drifting through static points in time, like every dream I’ve ever tried to grab onto while asleep. It’s the shock of grasping something intangible that is constructed from my collected ideas of tangibility. I don’t know how to make that sentence sound any less pretentious. Regardless of me sounding like a complete douchebag, the work of Hollis Brown Thornton is definitely worth a look. Several looks. Just openly stare at it for a while.

Hollis Brown Thornton

I don’t want to spend a year talking about how fantastic and clean the work of Australian transplant design couple Mia and Jem is. You can see that for yourself if you aren’t extremely visually impaired. Hell you blind bastards could probably even feel it through your braille interface. I unwittingly stole their bathroom symbols for my own bathroom door at home many years ago. They’re identity work is my favorite. Just so goddamn good. They’re Bay Area locals now, so maybe I should see if they need an intern. I’m a little old, and not in school, but i do make good coffee and like long walks on the beach. Who doesn’t like long walks on the beach? People in wheelchairs probably. Damn, I’ve insulted the visually and physically handicapped in this post. Only ones left now are the retards. Check.</p> <p><a href=” target=”_blank” />Mia and Jem

I found out about New York artist Larissa Bates through Beautiful Decay. They have a great interview with her up on their site. But before I read anything about her I thought “wow, it’s like Neo-French Renaissance or some male obsessed Gainsborough. And then she mentions those influences in her interview. It’s nice to know sometimes that I’m not completely uneducated. What I really thought was that her work looked like Henry Darger trapped in the French Renaissance. There’s the same kind of oddness about her subjects and the way they fit into the background, mostly that they don’t fit at all. Although I can’t pin down why. Of course a lot of her other work doesn’t look like that at all. She’s just a giant enigma wrapped in bacon-y riddle. Figure it out for yourself after reading the interview.

Larissa Bates

Co-ed duo Pillowhead caught my eye this morning with their fantastic skatedecks. In case you haven’t noticed I have a soft spot for skate related art. You might even call it an addiction. The judge did after the last “incident”. But, upon further inspection, the rest of Pillowhead’s work turned out to be just as spectacular. If Murakami’s Superflat brain exploded all over my favorite comics the result would be close to their epileptic abstractions. Is pop abstraction a genre? If it wasn’t before, it is now. The problem I’m faced with is one I’ve dealt with for years: How can you skate something so beautiful? Sometimes I just have to sacrifice beauty on the alter of skateboarding. The Gods will be pleased.

Pillowhead

What is up, Takashi Iwasaki, my colorful, Japanese painter friend. I dig your Dalek meets Chagall, bright abstractions, and I’d like to get them tattooed on the insides of my eyes so they can warp my dreams. Like a giant punch in the nightmares from Dr. Seuss. And for some reason your works make me really want a pastrami sandwich. I don’t know what that’s about, but I vowed long ago to report honsetly the entirety of my reactions. Regardless of my cured meat fetish, Iwasaki is tits in my book. He’s the sugar frosted cereal of my balanced art breakfast.

Takashi Iwasaki