Carry the weight of the world

Originally uploaded by K weav

Had to post this set by Katy in Portland. I would say, for her age, she is an excellent photographer. I think she limits herself a lot, though. She has lots of pretty pictures and well-composed self portraits, but nothing that could carry a deeper message. The image here - a photo and digital edit she says does not mean she’s “clinically depressed or emo” - Is the only one I could say really digs deeper than the lens.

Props to Katy’s ability to capture people with emotion and beauty. Now if she could just make a statement…

Shapefinder #5

Originally uploaded by allegedgenius

This is actually my new flickr account. I just wanted everyone to know it’s there. The pic here is a series called “Shapefinder”, where I show how one would find figures in seemingly random shapes or lines. I’ve been doing this kind of practice for years, simply scribbling random lines on paper and finding the faces or people who pop out of the chaos. If you’re looking to learn cartooning, this is a great routine to get into. You find how to exploit body parts and facial features to get what you want. You’ll be surprised what pops out of nothing. And with some practice you will see faces pop out of other things: rocks, trees, clouds, wood grain, etc.

station panarama tiny size Originally uploaded by Inthehat

WARNING: Shameless plug for a friend follows!

inthehat, aka Matt, a friend of mine from high school, is an aspiring photographer that has a great view on how a camera and photo should be interpreted: an extension of the dynamic vision of the human eye. He specializes in panoramics, but his general still photography is real and honest. He has all the right elements to his composition: form, space, proximity of elements, movement of the eye and depth. I am interested to see how his work would survive a themed montage. If he was to shoot a series that compared urban areas to rural or small village communities, I am sure he would turn heads.

Matt seems to be one of those artists who can’t decide if he’s a hobbyist or professional. While he enjoys and is skilled at photography, I am not sure if he wouldn’t shy away from making that his career. He is a musician as well, a trait of multimedia studies instilled by the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics (VSAA) where I first met him. I expected many of the students I knew to be interested in more than one art form, and it always seems to be music paired with either visual or moving image arts (film, video, animation, etc).

I encouraged him to expand his panoramics (literally) to take one panel and add more panels vertically to further break the rectangular mold of photography. I also think he needs to sell his work on Lulu.com. I hope he takes my suggestion.

DORIAN LIGHT TEST
Originally uploaded by KOUMAKO

Koumako is a terribly talented artist who has a plethora of content on Flickr. He has no profile info, but judging by the mapping option on Flickr it looks like he/she resides in France. This is a great example of how astonishingly realistic the tools in openCanvas, created by Portalgraphics, can be for a digital artist. I am using it for the first time and can’t believe I never heard about this before. I will never paint in Photoshop again. And Koumako makes a convincing argument why.

With profound color techniques and dramatic contrasts, Koumako gives us a world out of focus, translucent and dreamlike. You could imagine the same reflections from a dirty mirror pointed towards a pool of crude oil surrounded by demons. Koumako makes a splattered blend between shades, but it almost looks like clay gouged out and spat upon.

If you have not tried openCanvas yet, please do so by downloading it at http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/.

If Koumako, or anyone who knows this user, can send me some real life info to add to this review, please do so. I want to give overwhelming credit where it is due.

Silversafe frontman Johnny Davidson announced to fans in the band’s emailed newsletter this week that he would resume his solo career. Davidson, who has followed in the footsteps of the Goo Goo Dolls frontman and adopted to go by “Jon” as a soloist, has showcased his solo skills in live sessions for Silversafe, taking over guitar and mic to change up the set. Davidson’s voice and musicianship resembles many other lead vox jocks who have splintered out to rock it for themselves; his style and sound reminds me of such artists as John Reznick from the Goo Goo Dolls, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, Aaron Lewis from Staind, Chad Kroeger from Nickelback, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and both Lane Staley and Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains. He has a solid dynamic in his vocals and has offered lyrics with emotion and purpose. Fans of Silversafe, I being one of them, are interested to see what is derived from this solo project. From the sample on Davidson’s MySpace Music profile, we can expect a poignent, mainstream-capable acoustic rock project.

Check out Johnny… er, Jon Davidson, on his MySpace page: go to http://www.jondavidsonmusic.com/ or http://profile.myspace.com/jondavidsonmusic/. Davidson will be performing Maryland in March and PDX local spots in April. Stay tuned to his MySpace Event Calendar for details.

Flickr is a great resource of art and photography, with 2-million-plus images just in the “art” tag as of this writing. To help spur creative discussion and get people to look at designs in a critical way, I will post installments under Flickr Reviews on a periodic basis.

Let’s see what we have today:

Posted by sensesmaybenumbed: photo of graffiti artwork, original graffiti work not copyrighted by photographer.

This is genius. What’s the message behind it? “Oh thank heaven for 9/11?” What a morbid thing to claim. Or is it? Did it take a few buildings and lives to make us aware of our own mortality and position in the world’s popularity contest? I hate to think those lives were lost and we did nothing to learn from the situation. Perhaps this is just a clever adaptation to the popular chain’s logo to remind people all the ways 9/11 affected the economy and social attitudes of America, but it’s a great discussion point for extrapolating the residual impact of the nations worst tragedy since Pearl Harbor.

Posted by greglas, “Dave Sleeping”, sketch.

I really like this sketch. At first, I had to click on it to see it wasn’t a fast sketch of a dead person in some horrific accident. The mouth is ambiguously positioned so it looks either like it’s hanging open or the figure has really big lips. The accents of the strokes and angles suggest a very limp, drooping subject, almost blending into the floor in slumber. A framed sketch like this is ideal as a sleep aid in a bedroom; as humans are biologically suggestible, often people will get more tired if there are others around them sleeping.

Posted by Kai_Lvx, “Brisbane art”, photograph, subject is not created or copyrighted by photographer.

This is an obvious addition to a busy downtown economy. Aussies are the fussy Europeans of the Pacific, and art such as this supports the need for environmental persuasion to be happy about shopping. The structure looks like it is made out of a metalic material, most likely polished steel, and is most prominently identified as a walking figure with arm outstretched. Note how the head is looking up and the arm is curved downward, suggesting it is offering a friendly arm-over-your-shoulder. Seeing this reminds me of the hometown feeling some shopping districts offer, welcoming both tourists and residents a comfortable, hospitable experience in each shop. It also suggests that the local economy wants visitors to feel proud and excited to be a part of that area, whether that is as a worker, volunteer or a consumer. Can we put one of those in downtown Portland?

There are plenty of ways for musicians to gain notoriety in the mainstream market, or even to widen their audience. For music labels and critics, there is a standard formula for success, and even if they don’t admit it, the three main ingredients of this formula have to be balanced to ensure a band’s full mainstream potential. Here we discuss those ingredients and how to make them work for your band’s needs. (Note: This is not guaranteed to get you a contract or a new fan, because you still could suck.) Read the rest of this entry »

Most bands who get started with a bang do so through great marketing and addicting talent, and Portland-based Silversafe is no exception. With all sorts of little notes in various small social networking sites, a Google search completed on February 16th, 2008 shows 1310 results, and most are relevant. That’s saying something for a band that only got its start less than two years ago. And more importantly than that, they are listed in all the right Web 2.0 ways. Read the rest of this entry »

I have neither supported the numerous insane proposals for the use of hemp to replace every single tangible thing in the universe or been big on the production of the marijuana plant in general. I have, however, just recently purged every CD case I own because I have CD spindles and a large CD tote that I keep all my CDs in. That’s almost 50 pounds of petroleum-based plastic heading to a landfill because there is no local place to recycle said unusable refuse. With downloadable songs and MP3 compilation CDs burned from a home computer to run in an MP3-compatible CD player, the pressed music CD is becoming rapidly outdated. Consumption of music is increasing in volume and speed of adoption. It is more likely now to make it in the music industry with nothing more than MySpace samples and a CDBaby account than it is trying to hock your plastic discs at the local Sam Goody.

CD cases were originally created from plastic for a number of reasons. For starters, they were three-dimensional surfaces, meaning they had 6 sides on which to attach labels and indicators, A better idea when stacked because you can see the names of artist and album easier. The tray also had a spindle, called a hub, that was specifically designed to allow a snug fit and avoidance of surface-to-surface contact between the disc and the tray which could cause scratches if dust was present. Finally, it was water splash resistant, meaning if you splashed liquid onto the surface of the case it wouldn’t damage the case itself, ensuring the insert and CD were protected.

CD cases, called jewel cases, have had some drawbacks, however. Other than the fact that there are few places that recycle the plastic, the cases had small, weak tabs on the arms of the front cover that would easily break if dropped or hit. The hub, usually made from a series of thin plastic tabs in a circle made to bend in and release the CD for use, would often break, making the hub unusable and the CD bounce around in the case.

Hemp cardboard or pasteboardwould be an interesting tactic to replace petroleum-based CD cases. There are other paper-based options that would also make sense. The bottom line is that natural fiber packaging would be more sustainable for the music industry than plastics. And the outdated process of vinyl record recording and packaging proves that it is not unheard of to pursue this kind of initiative. Records were protected from scratching by a paper sleeve within the cardboard cover, primarily because the cover was produced with soft fiber that tended to not only hold foreign particles on its inner surface but hold an imperfect inner surface that itself would have caused scratches to occur. There was no hub to separate the surface of a record from the cover, and so even inserting and removing a record in a case was potentially harmful to the medium.

Sustainability means finding viable opportunities to reduce our footprint on the environment. Cardboard cases have been in production for a while now. The next step is to make them an industry standard and find alternative materials that would reduce the amount of wood-based pulp used in production. If not hemp or kenaf (a member of the Hibiscus species), then at least 100% recycled cardboard. The last measure in that initiative is to develop with the plastics industry a central repository for jewel case recycling.

Support sustainability in all industries, and reduction of frivolous production practices in the creative industry!

Carrie Iverson is presenting an installation of prints on paper and “prints in fused glass” at the Bullseye Gallery on NW 13th Ave in downtown Portland until February 16th. Fused glass? Sounds interesting, but web images are making the installation confusing. Read the rest of this entry »