Secret Still

Today can’t be all about colors to fight the blues (pun entirely intended), because sometimes black and white is just as good. Honestly, badass things are badass regardless of their hues, just look at badass ghosts. And cocaine. And Nicolas Delort’s ink on clayboard works, which are all hatched and re-hatched and so ultimately badass like a ghost on a shitload of cocaine. I mean damn, France, can you just stop producing great artists already? Leave some room for the rest of us. But do keep up the good work with your cheeses. I will definitely take all the cheeses you have, and yes, buy some art from all your great artists. I’m a little short on cash right now, but I do have some coked up ghosts I can trade you. They’re pretty badass.

Nicolas Delort

Teasing me with her

Negative space smooth lines

I could stare all day

Soey Milk

Given a choice between tranquility and chaos, I’d have to say I prefer chaos. Looking out over a perfectly calm, glass-like lake in the still of the dawn, I am just as captivated as most people, but after about 30 minutes of quiet reflection I want to cannonball into that lake and shout my head off in guttural animal cries. Tranquility has no where to go; it’s already achieved the ground state. And what’s interesting about that? I even find myself arguing in favor of things I don’t support or have no opinion on as an exercise in chaos. The storm of ideas and tricky thought it conjures in my brain, and the loud, passionate discussions it causes in my conversational partners are my rewards. Artist Anton Vill embraces that same noise, fighting the calm, white blankness of paper with as much visual information as possible. His work is the ripples spreading away from our bodies as they disappear into the lake, and the howls that shake the sky to let the world know that we’re alive somewhere. Each drawing beautifully encapsulates the organized chaos that comes with being a living, breathing, animal — all the fear and desire tearing us apart little by little. Entropy claims first our bodies, and then our spirits.

Anton Vill

On days like today, when it’s cold and rainy outside, I like to surround myself with things that are soft around the edges. If I didn’t have to come to the office, I would be at home, swaddled in blankets, watching cartoons with a chubby dog snoring across my legs, slowly cutting off my circulation. With that not being an option, I instead have to find those soft edges elsewhere, like in the work of Adam Tan. Don’t mistake soft edges for soft, however. His subjects aren’t necessarily soft, just his style. Soft shapes, soft colors, a modern illustration style topped off with a touch of Impressionism. Like a jangly, lo-fi pop ballad about having your heart broken. The edges are soft, and so is the delivery, but the subject matter is a sharp shot right in the feelings. Perfect for a rainy day to keep me calm but alert — heart beat steady, but mind on fire.

Adam Tan

If there’s one thing that I enjoy about having a forum to talk about art/design, it’s the chance to promote people from the places I consider special. Athens, Georgia is a place I got a lot of living done, some good, some bad, all mine. David Hale is getting a lot of living done there right this minute, and I’m honored to bring him, another Athens artist, to light via my electronic menagerie. Aside from being a very innovative tattoo artist, Hale also paints with a beautifully soft touch and a bent toward spirituality. He even breaks out of his own style to work with long-time collaborator Kris Davidson, and together they create something even more magical. Basically, the guy is an unstoppable force of creativity, and here’s me telling you all about it. This is a service I bring to you for the low, low price of free.99.

David Hale

Summer is built on slow moving mysteries and colors that laze all dazzling in your eyes. You don’t need to understand your life in the Summer, you just need to brush the grass out of your hair sometimes and maybe find a shady spot when the sky has held you too close. Summer is made of whispers that seem to last forever and join together into the susurrus of the breeze curling between the leaves. Henry McCausland makes the art of Summer, drink it down and cool yourself off.

Henry McCausland

Keywords for your magical journey down the dusty road of Summer with Stevie Gee: surfing, native american, girls, speedos, sunglasses, pizza, freakout. Enjoy the ride.

Stevie Gee

Image by Heiko Muller, available as a print from Thumbtack Press

Do I get a lot of emails? Yes. Do I get a lot of emails that are worthwhile? No. At least 90% of them are trying to sell me something or make my boner bigger (WITH THESE 42 SIMPLE STEPS!), and  7% are from friends and family saying things that they could’ve just as easily put into a text message. That leaves 3% of emails that I want to actually read and even then most of them are not fruitful. .5% are submissions, and those I love the crap out of; good or bad, I love it every time someone contacts me about their work. It’s an added bonus when the work is good and I can get really excited about it (talk about making my boner bigger). When Barry Friedland contacted me about Thumbtack Press I’m sure I got very tight in the pants region, but I was also swamped with work traveling, personal traveling, various plannings and projects, having a cold, having the flu, and trying to get crops sown and beer brewed for Spring/Summer. Now, NOW, I can tell you something that I have known for a few years: Thumbtack Press is great. It’s a noble cause to want to bring beautiful, affordable art into anyone’s lives, and I will support it however I can whenever I can. Thumbtack has the added bonuses of an excellent curatorial eye and something for pretty much any taste imaginable. I can tell you this from personal experience: put art you like on your walls, regardless of it being an original piece or a print or a cutout magazine page. Just do it. Get that shit up there and make your life better in every way. I’m currently going through Thumbtack’s vast reserve of product trying to find just one to add to my collection even though I’m running out of wall space that isn’t in my shower. Well, you know what, I know exactly where I can hang it. *points suggestively at crotch tent*

Thumbtack Press

Artist George Boorujy (previously mentioned), he of the tricky last name, sent word to let me know that he’s got a little side project/blog going on. In honor of the magics and mysteries of life, the wonder of discovering secret treasures, and the joy of sharing intimate moments with complete strangers, George is wrapping up his sketches in bottles and chucking them into New York’s waterways. This creative littering serves to connect him, via the most gossamer of experiential threads, to the person/persons/dogs that happen upon his itinerant artworks, and also to brighten their day with a sketch of their very own to take home and cherish forever and tell stories to their grandkids about. But not only that, like any good blog, the site/project provides George a place to reflect on his life, his work, and his relationship with the almost 7 billion strangers out there roaming the planet. This is lightning in a bottle (no pun intended)! By connecting with people in this way, bringing something strange and rare into their lives, he can virtually assure that his life has made an impact on at least one other person on this big, blue ball hanging in space. Throw a bottle into the sea and you will never stop being childlike, you will never see the world straight on but only at odd angles, you will never find yourself with nothing to wonder about, and most of all — you will never die alone — your spirit is now fused to someone else’s by a few millimeters of glass, paper, and graphite, and a few pounds of experience. Right now there is a bottle out there for you, bobbing back and forth on a see of chance, waiting to dispel your loneliness, and bind you to a fellow human in a way that is unknowably perfect. Oh, and it’s also got a nice sketch of a bird inside.

To kill time between now and your life-changing discovery, check out George’s show opening at P.P.O.W. Gallery on March 15th.

New York Pelagic

There’s probably nothing that gives me a bigger art-boner than excellent draftsmanship. Well, I’m gonna need to find some metaphorical books to put in front of it, because the work of Melissa Cooke goes beyond excellent into some realm that I don’t even have a word for. Perfecterrificent. Nailed it. Prepare for mental explosions and awkward pants times.

Melissa Cooke