One Man's Blog » Art

Where Did All the Cute Puppies Go?

John P. — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:34:51 +0000

Another one only from the mind of Colby Jones…

Subscribe to his feed for routine goodness.

To The Struggle Against World Terrorism – A Gift From Russia to the USA

John P. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:30:57 +0000

As nations, the USA and Russia have often found themselves on different sides of various socio-political philosophies. And at times, an uneasy peace seems to exist between the two greatest nuclear powers the world has ever known. But despite all obstacles, the people of Russia reached out to Americans with a gesture of hope and kindness when President Putin dedicated an extraordinary monument as a gift in honor of those who perished in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“To The Struggle Against World Terrorism” is a 100 foot high, bronze sculpture conceived of by Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli. Zurab is the President of the Russian Academy of Arts and Director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (among other things).

I suppose that only a man in a position such as this wields the necessary power to convince a government and it’s people to get behind a gift of this magnitude. Its certainly akin to the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France.

The “The Tear of Grief memorial” as it’s come to be called, is located in Bayonne, New Jersey across the water, 10 miles from the site of the twin towers and within view of the Statue of Liberty. The sculpture is in the form of a 100-foot (30 m) tower made of steel and coated in bronze, split with a jagged opening through the middle.

Inside the opening hangs a large stainless-steel teardrop, 40 feet (12 m) high, in memory of those whose lives were lost during terrorist attacks in the United States. The eleven sides of the monument’s base bear granite name plates, on which are etched the names of those that died in the September 11 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Tsereteli has not disclosed the cost of the sculpture except to say that he was paying for labor and materials. A lawyer for the sculptor released the cost of the figure at about $12 million. This being the case, I’m not really sure how much of the cost was born by the Russian people, vs. Tsereteli himself. But hopefully they’ll work that out in the traditional Russian fashion…

The following photos are courtesy of Joseph Hoetzl

And there are more on Flickr if you want to see them.

Here is the official Web site, but it’s quite weak so not really worth a visit at this moment.

The Most Interesting Origami Discussion Ever

John P. — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:18:44 +0000

Robert Lang is a pioneer of the newest kind of origami, using math and engineering principles to fold mind-blowingly intricate designs that are beautiful and, sometimes, very useful.

Some of the origami patterns have been used even to go into space telescopes which need to be large at the destination, but small for transportation. It has also been used in heart stints and even automobile airbags.

And if you’d like to give origami a try, here is how you can create the origami turtle that she showed in the previous video:

iPhone Custom Restore and Bootup Images

John P. — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:41:05 +0000

Well folks, I just followed the iClarified guide to jailbreak my iPhone, and now I’ll be able to take and stream live videos from it. So eventually when I get it working you can look for more video updates from on location as I travel around and stuff.

One of the things that you can do is set up custom startup and restore images, and I spent a lot of time searching for some good ones. So these are the ones that I had saved in case I wanted to use them. The blog here seems like as good a place as any to put them.

The Latest From Colby Jones

John P. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:30:29 +0000

Here is the latest cartoon from Colby Jones. If only life were this convenient… Enjoy!

Khoda – The Amazing Painted Film

John P. — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:29:40 +0000

Thanks to Ben Huh for this little tip. (Follow him on Twitter)

The best way to describe this film is directly from the author’s mouth:

My graduation film Khoda.

What if you watch a film and whenever you pause it, you face a painting? This idea inspired Reza Dolatabadi to make Khoda. Over 6000 paintings were painstakingly produced during two years to create a five minutes film that would meet high personal standards. Khoda is a psychological thriller; a student project which was seen as a ‘mission impossible’ by many people but eventually proved possible!

Plasma Cutting the GeekBrief Logo

John P. — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 08:12:36 +0000

Ok. This post is going to get me in big trouble with Greg Lewis. I still owe him a piece of art from like 2 years ago. Yet Cali Lewis (no relation to Greg) asks me if I could cut the GeekBrief logo out on the PlasmaCAM for her and I do it in like 48 hours. Well Greg, I only have one thing to say… when you’re as hot as Cali, I’ll finish your art in 48 hours too!

All kidding aside though, Cali and Neal have been waiting patiently for months since they first saw my machine sitting in the garage, and I finally got off my lazy butt and decided to cut the GeekBrief.TV logo out in celebration of their 500th show! So, if any of you would like to watch a little video about cutting things out of steel with a giant robot, here you go.

The 1,000 Gallon Jeep Waterfall Art Machine

John P. — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 06:21:52 +0000

Now this is a fantastic piece of marketing. And it works, just look at this blog post! Jeep is getting some free advertising…

The technology behind this waterfall is very similar to how an ink jet printer works. Essentially, thousands of nozzles are configured individually to allow pictures to be drawn with falling water. The results are simply awesome.

The Massive Business Card Gallery – Over 250 Amazing Business Cards

John P. — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 06:23:58 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of the business card. I think it is a serious art form because you try and say so much about a person or organization with so little room to work with. It takes a creative genius to really make a fantastic impression with a business card, and after all… that’s what they’re all about!

Since I’ve been collecting these in a directory for years, i decided to upload the entire gallery right here. If I ever come across more, I’ll add them. But until then, have fun wasting your entire afternoon on these!

Now, I’ve never uploaded this many images to a single post (in fact, this may be a world record!!!), and I’m sure this article is going to put some serious load on the server because so many images have to be downloaded by each visitor. Hopefully no one Diggs this thing, cause the server is going to die for sure!

Seriously! 250+ thumbnails on every single page load… well, let’s just say I’m glad I work at a hosting company! Cause I may be needing a whole lotta bandwidth real soon… Thank you Layered Tech!

Cracked LCD Desktop Wallpaper

John P. — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:03:05 +0000

I downloaded this completely cool desktop wallpaper that makes your LCD look like it has been broken, and a bunch of people at work keep asking me what happened to my monitor. Awesome!

Now you can get it too… Download the Broken LCD Desktop Background.

By the way, if you view the full sized version in your Web browser, most of them have a right click option that lets you set the image as the wallpaper… hint hint. So you could, for example, go to your friend’s computer, pull up One Man’s Blog, and install this bad boy when they aren’t looking!

Thanks to Kensington Victoria for the find.

Amazing Elephant Artists – Yeah You Read That Right!

John P. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:42:13 +0000

Ok. This was e-mailed to me, and when I first saw the title I almost didn’t watch it. I thought it was going to be some sort of gimmicky video featuring exploited elephants or something.

But I went ahead and watched it. Wow! I’m simply stunned! I’m not going to spoil it for you guys, but you aren’t going to believe what you see…

4 Incredible Human Video Game Performances

John P. — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:19:23 +0000

Some of you may have seen one of these videos before, as they’ve been watched a total of like 10 million times, but most people have not see all four of them. The choreography and coordination to create these videos are both incredibly creative and extremely well executed. A little about the project:

GAME OVER is one of the art projects developed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). It consists of a series of collaborative animation movies which revive some of the very first video games. The pixels are replaced by a group of real human-beings that are moving from seat to seat in a theatre during about 4 to 6 hours. Each “pixel” has its own rules and decides what s/he wants to do for each picture. Once all these pictures are turned into a short animation movie, a giant human-scale video game unfolds “live”.

Human Space Invaders

SPACE INVADERS is the 2nd video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). This stop-motion video was shot and played during and for the “Belluard Bollwerk International” festival (Fribourg, Switzerland | www.belluard.ch) on June 24th 2006.

Human Tetris

TETRIS is the 4th video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). This stop-motion video was shot and played for “LES URBAINES” festival http://www.urbaines.ch at the Palais de Rumine (Lausanne, Switzerland) on November 24th 2007.

Human Pole Position

POLE POSITION is the 3rd video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). This stop-motion video was shot and played during and for “The game is up!” festival at the Vooruit (Ghent, Belgium | www.vooruit.be) on February 11th 2007.

Pong

PONG is the first video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency). This stop-motion video was a test-case aimed at developing the series.

The project homepage for Not So Noisy / Game Over can be found here.

One Man’s Weekly Links – March 7, 2008

John P. — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 06:33:28 +0000

It’s been a little while since I’ve dished out my weekly links. Let’s see if I can get back in the habit from here on out…

Threadless Wall Graphics Shop – Very cool! And Cheap!
Spade High School’s Last Graduation
Cool Cars We Miss – #1 My NSX!
TripIt is a travel assistant that automatically organizes travel plans.
Bubble Guru is totally cool. But way, way too expensive. Where is the free version?

Juan Francisco Casas Amazing Bic Pen Art

John P. — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:33:17 +0000

When I first encountered Juan Francisco Casas’ art I was stunned. Sure, there are a lot of artists out there that can draw lifelike figures. But how many of them work with nothing but a blue Bic pen? And draw photographs up to 10 feet tall? As far as I know – exactly one.

Here is what the Daily Mail had to say:

They may look like pin-sharp photographs – but these amazing pictures are actually drawings created with the humble ballpoint pen.

The stunning pictures, measuring up to 10ft high, were drawn by a rising star of the art world, Juan Francisco Casas.

Casas, 31, can use up to four 14p ballpoint pens for a canvas and his works are already a sell-out at exhibitions.

Formerly a traditional painter, Juan began the drawings three years ago based on photographs of nights out with his friends.

According to Juan:

I also wanted to create it with something that everyone has – a Biro (Bic). I don’t think it has ever been done before. For me it’s not that different from painting. I was trying to show that it doesn’t matter what material you use, it’s what you do with it.”

I actually just sent him an e-mail via his contact form and am hoping to commission him to do a drawing for me. If we ever hook up and he takes me up on the offer I’ll certainly share the results here on the blog. For now, enjoy some of his current work.

This next one is amazing. I think it was like 10 feet tall or something:

And here is a closeup to prove it’s a drawing:

Ok, this next one is of a woman in the shower. Please don’t give me any grief, it’s only a sketch, and there is really no detail. The face is amazing on this one. Just look at the eyes…

Pose for the camera!

Flossing is important:

Finally, here is the artist hard at work:

OMB Photo Featured in Architecture of the Absurd

John P. — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 07:44:24 +0000

Several months ago I was pleased to be contacted by Dr. John Silber’s assistant about a photo featured in my article about a Weekend in Denver. Dr. Silber, who spent 25 years as President of Boston University, was completing a new book entitled Architecture of the Absurd: How “Genius” Disfigured a Practical Art, and was interested in using my photo of the new Denver Museum of Art as the inside cover for the book.

I was quite pleased to provide the original images for Dr. Silber’s book, and even more pleased when he generously sent me an autographed copy! Thanks Dr. Sliber!

The premise of Dr. Silber’s book is that a number of modern architects are neglecting basic design principles in a never ending quest to push the limits of creativity and to out do one another for the most spectacular appearance. In the process, Dr. Silber argues, clients and inhabitants of these facilities suffer.

Here is a snippet from the book’s description:

Have you ever wondered why the Guggenheim is always covered in scaffolding? Why the random slashes on the exterior of Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum, supposed to represent Berlin locations where pre-war Jews flourished, reappear, for no apparent reason, on his Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto? Or why Frank Gehry’s Stata Center, designed for MIT’s top-secret Cryptography Unit, has transparent glass walls? Not to mention why, for $442 per square foot, it doesn’t keep out the rain? You’re not alone.

In Architecture of the Absurd, John Silber dares to peek behind the curtain of “genius” architects and expose their willful disdain for their clients, their budgets, and the people who live or work inside their creations. Absurdism in a painting or sculpture is one thingâ€”if it’s not to your taste, you don’t have to lookâ€”but absurdism in buildings represents a blatant disregard for the needs of the building, whether it be a student center, music hall, or corporate headquarters.

If you’d like to see the original photo which caught Dr. Silber’s eye and demonstrated the absurdity of architectural design enough to warrant the inside cover, just select the thumbnail here.

The Weather in Texas

John P. — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:57:05 +0000

Once again from the mind of Colby Jones, the truth about weather in Texas.

ThorBob the Texas Viking

John P. — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:27:51 +0000

Yet another funny one from Colby Jones. How does he come up with this stuff?!?

Pod Invasion Part 2

John P. — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 05:54:32 +0000

Cartoon courtesy of Colby Jones…

Stop War Stop Sign

John P. — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:17:33 +0000

Related posts:This Obama Craziness Has Got to Stop! Stop Action Video – the Mountains of Patagonia Simple Things You Can Do To Stop Global Warming Related posts:

One Manâ€™s Weekly Links – October 12, 2007

John P. — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:01:12 +0000

This weeks theme… Art!

Ron Mueck: Hyper-Realist Sculptor
Adam Burn: Burn Comics (Contains nudes. You have been warned.)
Matt Bilfield (make sure and look around the site, not just at this one piece)
Bob Staake Illustrations
The Beauty of MS Paint
Peter Callesen Paper Art
Paintalicious