Really Good Art -- Oren Lavie

I think you'll all agree that this totally counts as Good Art:






Fun Facts:
* The video was shot all stills - roughly 3225 still photos for the entire video, using one camera, hanging from the ceiling for the main body of the movie.
* It took 4 weeks before shooting to create an animated computer generated storyboard for the video, with 3d dummies for the characters.
* It took only 2 days of shooting for the live actors on set to re-create the 3.5 minutes computer sequence, frame by frame.
* Some of the bed sheets used in the video were taken from Oren’s own bedroom and are now considered collectors items, worth at the moment not very much and therefore used as bed sheets.
*Each of the wonderfully talented people above have worked on the video for a fraction of their normal rates (except Oren who worked for his normal rate of zero).

Please enjoy...

So I've completely fallen down on the whole "updating the blog" thing lately. Boo. Since I seem doomed to letting this blog lag for the next couple of weeks, I thought I'd give you something entertaining to watch while you wait for me to get my crap together. So enjoy one of my favorite videos. And don't ask me -- I don't even know how I found this thing.

Bad Art Defined

So I'm coming back to this topic after a break of a couple of weeks. I've been having a hard time deciding what to use in my "Bad Art That I Like" category -- not because I can't find tons, but because I consider most of it really good. So maybe it will help me if I try to define what I consider Bad Art, for the purposes of this blog.

1) Bad Art can not be "commercially" recognized as being Good Art. But since we've defined Good Art as "Fine" Art, does that mean that we can't recognize Comic Book Art? It's commercially successful (a lot of it) in terms of money, but most Comic Book Artists won't be considered "Fine" art because of the medium. What about this:


I may be wrong, but I believe this is oil on canvas. Alex Ross is the artist, and his talent has re-defined the world of Comic Book Art.

OK, then if we say this, what about viral internet-based art? You know I love Girl Genius. Phil and Kaja Folio are superstars in my world. But they don't use oil & canvas, I think they're pen & ink artists. And while you can buy physical copies of their books, the comic is really meant for the internet. So... what? Look at this and tell me it isn't Damn Good Art:

Even if you don't like the subject matter, it's still really well done.

OK, let's leave the Comic Books alone for a minute. We'll allow that while they aren't Fine Art, they aren't Bad, either. I guess this has been more a rant about people thinking that Comic Art is not Good Art, so I'll wrap it up with this: Please go to the CBLDF web page. Read about their mission. They say it better than I ever could. Don't think about it as "supporting comic books" (which isn't necessarily a bad thing to support, imho), but about defending the First Amendment. Free Speech belongs to everyone -- if we limit it in one area, we open the door to limit it everywhere. If you can, support them by becoming a member or sending a couple of bucks. They'll send you neato stuff if you do (not that that should be a reason), and it may make the difference between someone innocent going to jail or not, just because they couldn't afford decent legal representation.

Too much IRL!!

I know, it's been a week, and I le suck, as we say at work. But I have really good reason. First off, I went to LA last weekend for 4 days, to visit family, go to Knott's Berry Farm (woo-hoo!), and (most important) shop at IKEA.

I'll post some about each of these in the next couple of days (hilarious adventures!), but now for the next excuse: the IKEA trip was to get bookshelves, which I installed in my nightmare office, and spent two days filling. Then we went to Lowe's Home Improvement and bought a bunch of crap to "remodel" the guest bath. So guess what? My Real Life has been completely taking over. Weird. So I'll get back to this after my paint dries.

Pin Art

Following up on the whole "getting stabbed by a machine" post, I've decided to put up some pictures of Pin Art. Pin Art is the finely honed craft of smashing a pin with the needle of your sewing machine, so that the pin bends down into the mechanical workings of the machine, and the only way it can be extracted is with pliers and swearing. We've taken this process to a higher form, and over the last couple of years, have saved some of the better sculptures, displaying them in a tiny shadow box for all to see:Here are some lovely pictures of the Art out of their display box:



Clearly, you can see where the sewing machine needle hit the pin, forcing it into a "U" shape. Some of the pieces were damaged during extraction, but for the most part, they are intact. I have included an Art Creation Tool (top center) to show the damage that occurs to it when Pin Art is made.

Now, don't despair -- you too can become a fine artist. Simply refuse to remove the pins from your work before you run it under the needle, and then practice, practice, practice. Within a short time, you should have Pin Art of your own to display... and a machine with crappy tension.