Secret Still

It might be telling too much about my upbringing, but I’ve been whittling since I was a kid. It’s a creative activity, sure, but it’s not a challenging one; it’s more just time consuming. The only real challenge is not cutting yourself, which is not much of a challenge at all after a while. If you want to carve a duck, just think about what a duck looks like, and keep carving things away until it looks like that. Simple. It might not turn out to be the most realistic and beautiful duck ever, but people will be able to look at it and know it’s a duck. Gerhard Demetz has probably never made a duck, but if he did it would be an amazingly realistic duck, rife with subtle meaning and potential. Probably more philosophical weight than you would want to place on a poor duck. The children he carves seem to work pretty well for just such a purpose though. I know they weighed me down with introspective thought. I will say this about whittling a duck: it never made me question any foundational societal behaviors. That’s more bunny-carving behavior.

Gerhard Demetz

Just to change things up for your Tuesday afternoon (is it Wednesday in Malaysia yet?), let’s try out an artists whose work is a little bit more unusual, more fragile, and certainly more transitory. Andy Goldsworthy uses nature as a medium, and does it so beautifully that I would go so far as to say that it is one of the sources of real wonder still creeping around in the world. This isn’t really the Christo-style, large format experiential sculpture stuff, in fact some of it is downright tiny, but it tries to do the same thing, which is to take something that is innately mysterious and beautiful (nature) and restructure it to magnify those qualities and add a man-made aesthetic. It’s a delicate act, but Goldsworthy manages to not cross the line into works that are too contrived and lose their magic. Marvel just a little bit at the world, and be happy you’re in it.

Andy Goldsworthy

I spent all day on Sunday building a bookshelf, an oversized behemoth slapped together out of shitty Douglas Fir to hold all of my books. I like it, don’t get me wrong, it does what it needs to, and it certainly is sturdy, but I wouldn’t say that it possesses any kind of craftsmanship, and it’s certainly not beautiful. But it did give me an appreciation for wood as a medium, and how difficult it is to try and make it do anything you want. Willy Verginer has been all over the internet in the last week or so, but I would be remiss if I didn’t post him up now that I have a deeper understanding of the frustrations of wood. Because just look at what he does with it. Not only does he have the mastery of the medium to create such beautiful sculptures, but then he uses color and placement to add new layers of expression to each piece. Way to go, Willy; way to take what little pride I had in my crappy bookshelf and smash it to pieces by being so much better. But I’ll tell you one thing your sculptures can’t do: hold all of my books. Booyah.

Willy Verginer

In a twist of awesome, artist Jessica Joslin combines bone and brass to create a curiosity cabinet of dreams you never thought possible. Her menagerie has gotten fairly extensive over the years, so be prepared to spend some serious time going through her collection. And definitely be ready for a metaphorical steampunk chubby. It’s good to know there are still plenty of artists out there making the unusual beautiful, doing things I never considered, and just generally keeping the sense of wonder alive in my mind.

Jessica Joslin

Damn you, Cooper, for making everything look so effortless. Can’t you at least look like it was difficult for you to make such great work? Your smooth style is somewhere between James Jean, Miyazaki, and pure badassery, and it’s just not fair to the rest of us. I’m so completely angry with you for being talented and impressing the hell out of me.

Jessica Cooper and blog

I’ve seen and posted about a similar project in the past, but Thomas Doyle’s snowglobes were just too fantastic to pass up. They depict tiny slices of suburban worlds, askew and eerie, while their inhabitants look on in shock. I’m always amazed by two things: that suburban scenes are so normal and bland that almost anything can make them seem weird, and that anything other than a little model of a landmark looks creepy inside of a snowglobe. Actually, those little landmarks are kinda creepy. Snowglobes are just off-putting in general.

Thomas Doyle

Coming in hot (and coinciding with one of today’s videos) is Philly artist Leanne Biank. Do Philadelphia residents hate when people call it Philly, as much as I hate San Fran or Frisco? Just wondering. Aside from being button cute, Biank throws down some amazing work in a variety of mediums. There doesn’t seem to be a substance that she can’t create beauty with. Her work falls somewhere in between some Blaine Fontana and Jason Sho Green, but with a composition and lexicon of symbolism all her own. If I had a rating system for work around here, this would get two high fives, which would have to be the highest rating because I only have two hands. I mean, I could do feet, too, but no one needs to touch my feet. That’s damaging for everyone involved.

Leanne Biank

Like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I live in a world of my own. Sometimes I forget that the things I find commonplace are anything but to everyone else. For instance, I realized this morning that I’ve never mentioned the work of Jacob Arden McClure. I just assume that most people have heard of him. I do that with a lot of artists apparently. Well, I’m gonna rectify these exclusions, starting with McClure. Dude lives just across the Bay in this world, but it looks like his mind occupies a world thousands of miles from my own. His work is rife with ephemera and icons torn apart and reassembled to reflect the casual darkness they’ve wrought. Think of what it would be like to dip a finger into a rotting tub of fatty American Dream. That’s pretty close. It’s hard to describe what imminent disaster looks like. It feels like a barn on fire at night.

Jacob Arden McClure

Thanks to It’s Nice That, I got to find out that UK artist Barnaby Barford has a new show that just opened up in London. Barford’s new show, Private Lives features witty ceramic figures with even wittier titles, featuring all the pop characters we know and love. Think of it as Pop ceramics. The above piece is titled Stick that on YouTube!, if that will give you any idea of what his work is like. Barford’s work does what any good, modern, pop art does: it satirizes our idolizing of popular characters in a culture that can barely wipe its own ass anymore. Something like that.

Barnaby Barford - Private Lives

I didn’t want to bother with translating his page over from whatever language it’s in, so I can’t tell you anything about Joon Kim except that I have never seen sculptures so beautiful in all my days. They fall somewhere between realistic sculpture and vector graphics. Just go look at some of the photos and my word-vomit will make sense.

Joon Kim