A view inside Ab Roger Design’s Rainbow House
Jim Henson
Inspirations from NYC: Part 3 - Northern Soul at the Union Pool
The second half of our trip turned nocturnal. Friday night we closed down the dance floor at the Union Pool, a hip bar in north brooklyn complete with two rooms for bootie shaking, fire pit and taco truck. What else do you need?
Inspirations from NYC: Part 2 - Heaven for Muppet Junkies
The massive campaign to promote the new muppet movie made New York a heavenly place for muppet junkies like my family. Beyond the ads everywhere, we found a Jim Henson exhibition at the Museum of Moving Images in Queens.
The Museum of Moving Images is a must see for any pop culture junky. It features costumes, props and stories from the greatest movies and tv shows in history.
Jim Henson’s Fantastic World exhibit opened me up to his work beyond muppets. I mean there was plenty of muppets happening (bert & ernie, rolph, fraggles, etc.), but it was his earlier work in film and commercials, and the process documentation that I found most fascinating.
If you’ve seen any of my bolg, you know that I’m a total muppet junkie. Seeing the sketches of character development (like big bird above) and storyboards of hilarious short films (watch Time Piece) and commercials broadened my admiration of Jim Henson’s genius.
Inspirations from NYC: Part 1 - Warhol and Steak
In our recent trip to New York, I was reminded that there is inspiration everywhere. Friday night we were lucky to stumble upon the Pink Pony on our tear through the lower east side.
While waiting to be seating, I found this huge book about Andy Warhol. I’ve always been a bit skeptical of Warhol and pop art in general. As a graphic designer, the reuse of commercial art for fine art has always given me a stink face.
A quick flip through Giant provided a visual look at Warhol’s path, including his time as a commercial artist. It popped my ignorance bubble and validated a lot of his pop concepts by showing his insanely in depth studies of anything he found beautiful… many of those revolving around repetition. I was reminded of my long nights in design school endlessly sketching subjects in search of insight.
Also… the food and ambience at the Pink Pony was perfect… including the trippy backward mirror.
I feel like I’m the only one who spent too much time watching old school MTV this weekend… many highlights… but this was a standout. Yeah Yeah Yeah live recording of Maps at some video music awards… whoever envisioned this and pulled it off is a genius.
Future Shock Bike Crew, Queens, NY
Check out this crew of hoodlums that roll around Queens with crazy huge systems built onto their bikes. Read more at ReedYoung.com.
Turned out great as always Reed and crew! Totally worth the headache of dealing with badass high school kids!
The Artist’s Way: Week 1
Since my wife is in Argentina for 6 weeks, I was jealous and wanted to go on an adventure too. So I decided to try The Artist’s Way, A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It’s this weird hippy ass 12 step book for “recovering” creatives that totally creeps me out, but I’ve been fascinated with for a while. I don’t really think I’m a recovering creative, but I’m an inspiration junkie and this sounds fun.
So week 1 runs you through these exercises to expel your creative demons via a bunch of writing exercises about your past and shit. Again… I don’t think I have these, but I’m going for it. It has you write 3 pages of stream of conscious writing every morning and take your inner artist on dates and shit. Maybe I’m in denial… I guess we’ll see.
I’ll try to check in regularly.
3 Inspirational Movies About 90s Contemporary Art
Looks like movies about contemporary art come out 10 years after their time. I’ve watched two of these movies in the past month and I think the third one serves as an inspiration to the entire generation, though he’s not referenced in the other movies.
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
A movie that begun as a documentary about street art, becomes a documentary by a street artist about the insanity of the original documentarian(sp?). Inspirational insight into the world of street art also provides interesting commentary on the copycat culture and vapid state of the contemporary art world.
Beautiful Losers (2008)
Look into the cultivation of the 90s underground art community. Talks to dozens of different artists from the movement about their inspiration and how they all came together. My only complaint about this movie is the requirement of dejection in the movement… but I guess that was the 90s.
Basquiat (1996)
The influence of Basquiat is all over the previous two films. Street art, kid art, pop art… Basquiat helped define all of these. This is the only non-documentary of the 3, but the tragic story is well told and the cast is pretty amazing. A must see for any creative.
So what are the contemporary art films that come out in 10 years going to be about?
2 Inspirational Articles for Bolggers (I hate the word blog)
This month’s issue of Fast Company features two great articles for bolggers of the world.
The Story of Boing Boing - a mini-biography the evolution of the small group that makes the world’s most popular bolg and their motivation, content selection and direction… or lack there of.
TV and Twitter are in Love - a look into how Twitter is innovating the way the world interacts with television and the people behind it.
