I meant to put a word in on the 2014 John Picacio Calendar Kickstarter but Stuff and Things got in the way.
Anyway, now that it’s in the last three days, your time to join it is running out. The project is already funded, but I get the impression it won’t be sold in stores.
It’s also a chance to support his ongoing Loteria card project:
If you like art and need a calendar, you might want to go over and get in while the getting is good…
It’s easy to assume that everyone in the world follows Randall Munroe’s geeky online stickman webcomic XKCD, since it seems all my friends do. For those that don’t, last Monday he put up a strip called “Time.” This strip, like his uber-large “Click-and-Drag”, plays with the conventions of the form. “Time” started out with a static, non-gag image with the hover-over label “wait for it.” Since then, he’s updated the image every half-hour to an hour, even though he’s done new strips on the usual M-W-F schedule. If you follow the images in order, “Time” shows two people (which XKCD devotees have dubbed “Cueball” and “Megan”) building a sand castle.
Here’s an animated gif of the images so far:
Here’s a quicker version, which you can also step through, speed up, slow down, etc.
Here’s the explanation page for it, as well as its own Wikia. We now have a real-life version of those people obsessively tracking online image snippets from Pattern Recognition, except we actually know who they’re from.
The obvious metaphor is how time continues to flow and things change when you’re not watching.
As of this writing, the images are still being updated. Munroe could keep updating that one comic for a long, long, er, time, especially if he decreases the update rate.
Conceivably, “Time” could be a long-running conceptual art project and keep updating for the rest of our lives, and beyond, like that German church playing John Cage’s “As Slowly as Possibly” for 629 years…
So back in February last year, I took a business trip to Stavanger, Norway. There I stayed in a Hotel that had a large tapestry I dubbed “The Eye of Sauron”:
Now comes word that Stavanger has another Eye of Sauron.
Cities outside Stavanger are obviously suffering an Eye of Sauron Gap…
John Picacio ‘s Kickstarter for his 2013 art calendar only runs through noon on November 28, so if you want in, you better hurry up.
He’s already at $25,000, and his next stretch goal is at $30,000.
Newly Hugo-minted artist and all-around good guy John Picacio has launched a Kickstarter for his 2013 art calendar. Actually, he launched it October 29, and it’s already met the initial goal, I’ve just been too backlogged with Other Stuff to put up a note until now.
Anyway, I’m sure it will be a swell calendar, and you still have until November 28 to get in before the Kickstarter closes.
(King, Stephen) Beahm, George. Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King. Centipede Press, 2009. First edition oversized hardback (slipcase is 15 3/4″ high by 11 1/2″ wide), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, in fine, illustrated slipcase. A huge, heavy book, only slightly shorter than the Lovecraft art volume they did. I hadn’t been planning on picking this up, nice as it is, but the publisher had a sale. And it’s nice to have all the Stephen King-related Michael Whelan works in one place (since, unlike this completely awesome and completely insane Stephen King collector, I don’t have the original paintings hanging on my wall).
From The Austin Post, a venue of which I was previously unaware, comes ridiculously awesome bacon sculptures. Come for the full mech suit and the AK-47, stay for Patrick Bateman’s business card.
While the weird herons were far and away the most interesting art I saw in Stavanger, I did find the installation in my hotel (the Radisson Blu Royal) of a large tapestry I called “The Eye of Sauron” sort of interesting:
This was evidently by an artist named Randy Naylor and was for sale. Which makes me wonder exactly who he thinks will buy a four story piece of interior hanging art in Stavanger.
There was also a similar painting behind the breakfast buffet tables I called “The Eye of Sauron Jr.” that was probably more practical for the average art buyer.
Wandering around Stavanger, I took pictures of some the statues, none of which were impressive. “Expressionless men in hats staring off into the distance” seemed to be the dominant motif.
Indeed, the only art that really knocked me out while I was this weird mural of herons on the back of a (for lack of a better word) tenement building there:
Click to embiggen. Also, a full roof-level image can be found here.
Turns out it was done by a Belgian street artist named ROA from something called the “NUART Landmark Series.” ROA seems to have done lots of cool, freaky animal murals in other cities, but very few people will ever see the one in Stavanger…
I don’t know the actual address of where this building is. To see it, walk down along the road on the south-east shoreline from the Oil Museum, then jog north on Verven (I think) where there are a bunch of apartment buildings in the shadow of the Stavanger Bridge until you come to a circular pond/park/dog park right beneath the bridge, then look back toward the center of the city.
(Edited to add: Another view.)
It’s not every day you read about an attempted $20 million art heist, much less from the museum dedicated to the works of famous fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. However, the real kicker is that the perp (or, technically speaking, “alleged” perp) is Frank Frazetta’s own son.
The main tool of theft seems to be a backhoe rather than a broadsword.
(Hat tip: John DeNardo of SF Signal.)
