recycled art: leo sewell sculptures

In the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, I was able to see two of Leo Sewell's large scale sculptures in person. Made from bits of every this and that, the animals are meticulously assembled with each piece arranged so that it fits exactly into place. They are like a 3D version of the I-Spy books for children and one could stare at them for hours calling out each new object they spot. We applaud your patience and craftsmanship Leo!

nicholas jones: book sculptor

Bibliopath Nicholas Jones is a Melborne sculptor employing books as vessels designed to hold his folded sculptural creations. By stacking, folding, cutting, tearing, sewing and remodeling each book he turns the discarded cultural artifacts into noteworthy art.The beautiful repetition of the folded pages turns them into elegant compact sculptures.
Jones, intrigued by their history explains, "these books were conceived, born, loved, stored, discarded, found anew, studied, cut, folded and reborn".

aaron moran: mixed media sculptures

Just discovered the fantastic sculptural work by Aaron Moran who's work shown here was recently exhibited at the Chapel Arts in British Columbia. This summer, find more of his work at the infamous Cheaper Show (video below) in Western Canada. Aaron's work is made from found wood and other materials, looking like tiny Mt. Zermatts. See more of Aaron Moran's sculptural art on his blog, Smoke Signal Publishing.

miyoshi barosh: crochet assemblage sculpture

Miyoshi Barosh is a graduate of both the Rhode Island School of Design, and the California Institute of the Arts. Her soft sculpture is an accumulation of many layers, colors and textures. Miyoshi blends embroidery, crochet and knitting using recycled sweaters and blankets as raw materials for her dimensional, cozy sculptures.
Her work can be found at the Luis De Jesus, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica California.
www.luisdejesus.com

gail anngan: ceramic artist

This lovely dinnerware was made by Gailan Ngan, a Vancouver-based ceramist and visual artist who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2002. Her creations are both wheel thrown and hand altered, fired in electric and salt kilns.

future flower: widnes waterfront regeneration

This is Future Flower, a regeneration project for the waterfront at Widnes near the River Mersey in England. The 14 meter-high metal blossom has giant petals of perforated galvanized steel-approx 4 ft long. The giant flower was commissioned as part of the wider Widnes Waterfront environmental uplift and public art program and designed by London architect Tonkin Liu. At night it is powered by LED lights and small wind turbines.

The project is funded by the North West Development Agency as part of a wider Waterfront Regeneration Programme to the clean up of the vacant, polluted riverfront land of Southern Widnes, Cheshire. The program encompasses the regeneration of about 200 acres of former industrial land on the banks of the River Mersey. It will create 1,100 jobs for the local economy with the development of a modern business park environment and associated leisure facilities.

The arrival of the flower signals the beginning of this transformation. It is intended to spur the repopulation of the waterfront by nature, and by people, drawing visitors from the neighbouring Catalyst Museum and Spike Island Visitor Centre eastward on to the trans Pennine Trail.
more here.

thaddeus wolfe: ceramic vases

Gorgeous vases by Cleveland Institute of Art graduate, Thaddeus Wolfe. Wolfe is inspired by science and the crystalline structure of all matter. He says, “Underlying and unperceived, on a molecular level there is a structure to all organic matter.”
available at, funny enough: Matter

shannon rankin: paper art

Shannon Rankin slices maps, manipulates and folds them into spirals, circles and three dimensional surfaces. Rankin's new terrains have texture and form, a new geography. Her style borders on origami, but her approach is reductionist, cutting away to the bare gorgeous minimum.

brian jungen: assemblage sculpture

Brian Jungen is a Canadian artist who reworks objects, taking them out of context and giving them new meaning. His sculptures seem to articulate a paradoxical relationship between a consumerist artifact and an authentic native artifact. These sculptures shown are made with rubbish bins, plastic white chairs as whale skeleton and rearranged nike football gear as native american relic.

brian dettmer: book autopsies

Brian Dettmer is a master at altering media. WIth his book series, he removes sections and pages of books, excavating their content and revealing intricate tiny worlds within. Dettmer works with dictionaries, text books, science books, medical guides and other large format, thick books. Some of his previous work with melted cassette tapes can be found here.

jenni tieaho: environmental artist

Jenni Tieaho

antoni gaudi: mosaics

Parque Güellmosaic benches by Antoni Gaudi.

beach plastic prints: judith & richard lang

These prints of arrangements of Beach Plastic were collected from Kehoe Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore.

In 1999 Judith & Richard Lang began collecting plastic debris—carrying it away by the bagful— all from Kehoe Beach, a remote stretch of the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Northern California. Certain colorful items would catch their interest: milk jug lids, combs, toy soldiers, disposable lighters, cheese spreaders from lunch snack packs. They collected alot of multiples so that they could show what is happening in the oceans around the world.

The plastic is all washed up from the ocean, not left by beach goes. In their studio, they use the found detrius to make artwork including large sculptures, installations, photo tableaus and jewelry.

feminism: art+sex+politics: mca denver programs

An upcoming program at the MCA Denver for April is Feminism & Co., exploring issues relating to women and gender. $15/person 6:30-8PM

Thursday April 8: Motor Maids: Women & Motorcycling--Suzanne Ferriss and K. Alex Ilyasova

Thursday April 15: Women & Social Enterprise--Judith Nafziger manager of Ten Thousand Villages and Tamra Ryan CEO of Women's Bean Project

Thursday April 22: Witches--Melinda Barlow on witches in film and M.E. Warlick on witchcraft imagery in art

Thursday April 29: End of Man--Performance artist and modern dancer Michelle Ellsworth contemplates the imminent demise of the Y chromosome

frida kahlo: haute art

These paintings from Frida Kahlo (career of 1926 until her death in 1954) show vivid colors, realistic details and her signature complex symbolism relating to specific incidents in her life. My favorite being her personified shot down deer, a brilliant representation of her emotional state.