Oooh, fire! Beautiful, candy-hued flames engulfing equally beautiful, candy-hued houses {both drawings, and found imagery}. Oh my word, I absolutely love this work by artist/designer Jennifer  Mehigan. She is a graphic designer who is currently working towards her BFA in Art Education at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, Australia. Now, not that I would ever want her to ever switch majors, but she may want to consider a career in Arson Forensics.

{via Art Hound}

Well, I’m back from Salt Lake City. I am exhausted, inspired, overwhelmed, and I have pretty much completely lost my voice from laughing/talking all day and all night at this year’s Alt Summit. If you weren’t there, I’ll give you a quick rundown… on the very first day of the conference, I was lucky enough to speak on a panel about “Successful Collaborations” with these lovely ladies:

As you can see, as soon as I was finished talking {first day, first panel, first speaker!? Yes, it was nerve-wracking!}, I got myself a giant cup of coffee and spent the next two days learning all sorts of things, from all sorts of amazing people. My favorite talk was from the keynote speaker on Friday… Ben Silberman, the creator of Pinterest. He was funny, humble, and well, totally and completely inspiring!

So, so good! {look how big that lunch crowd is – that tiny white dot in front of the black screen is Ben!} Now, if you’ve never been to Alt, you should know that you’ll learn an insane amount of information about being a blogger, but you’ll also learn how to look fabulous. All the time. Apparently everyone {including me} got the memo that this year, was in fact…

Buns, shoes, accessories, vintage dresses, stripy tights. Yep, the Sartorialist should show up to next year’s event… he’d have an abundance of material to shoot! Speaking of photos, on the final night, the third floor of the hotel was taken over by a whole bunch of fantastic mini-parties put on by some of Alt’s very generous sponsors! I think almost all of them had a photo booth… so, my super-cute roomie {Kathleen, of Jeremy & Kathleen} and I hit as many as we could:

What a couple of weirdos. I’m not sure why we’re attempting the ‘sexy pout’ in every shot… oh well, we had fun! And then I lost my voice ; )

If you were there, I hope you had an amazing time. I highly recommend the Alt experience to anyone who is interested in the world of blogging… and photo booths.

{All of these images are from Alt’s Flickr stream. Thank you to the fantastic photographers that documented the past crazy few days for us!}

Ah yes… another day, another portrait series! Instead of being faceless {like yesterday’s featured work}, these vintage-looking people are covered in graphic, tribal, gouache markings. LOVE! This simple, yet striking series, titled Legends, is the work of Brooklyn based artist/illustrator William Hatch Crosby.

{Thank you so much to Rina for sending me a link to William’s work!}

Oh, Aris Moore. I love her work so, so much. I wrote about her in 2009, in 2010, and now in early 2012. She is currently working on her MFA and it’s amazing to go through her blog and actually see the evolution of her work! Apparently, according to said blog, she is playing around with the idea of making a little book out of the series shown here… YES! DO IT ARIS!!!

I love these gorgeous, organic, graphic ceramic sculptures by German {Australian based} artist Vera Möller. Wouldn’t it be amazing, and quite frankly kinda magical, to find a few of these little things “growing” on the forest floor while out for a morning stroll…

Yes. Yes it would.

Gasp! I’m dying… DYING! I absolutely love this work by Maria Aparicio… and friends. All of these pieces are collaborations with various photographers. They supply the stunning images, and she supplies the soul-crushing, jealousy-inducing embroidery. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sit down so I can catch my breath. Um, you may want to call 911. Thank you.

Any post that starts and ends with a tribute to Frida Kahlo, has to be a good one!

I’m sure you all know about this fantastic project, appropriately titled Remake, but just in case you haven’t heard of it… well, I just had to show you! Inspired by a similar contest running in the UK, Jeff Hamada of Booooooom.com put out a call for people to remake classic works of art using photography only {oh, and no post-shot photoshopping tricks allowed!}. Van Gogh, Magritte, Lichtenstein, and countless others all make an appearance… several times! There were an insane amount of creative submissions – these were just a few of my favorites.

{1.“Self portrait dedicated to Dr. Eloesser” remake by Yesenia Caloca, original by Frida Kahlo   2. “Girl with Ice Cream Cone” remake by Stephanie Gonot, original by Wayne Thiebaud  3. “La bonne foi” remake by Noemi Mazzucchelli, original by Magritte  4. “Ohhh…Alright…” remake by Emily Kiel, original by Roy Lichtenstein  5. “Self Portrait 1889″ remake by Seth Johnson, original by Vincent van Gogh  6. “Portrait of Frida Kahlo” remake by Danilo Ursini, original by Frida Kahlo}

This sweet, nostalgic series by American artist/illustrator Danielle Kroll almost made me cry. It certainly made me miss my grandparents, Blanche and Frank, and has sent me on a hunt for as many photographs of their house as I can possibly find! I remember the smells, the sounds, and yes, where the Christmas tree went every single year.

{She submitted this piece to Anthropologie‘s new tumblr page, etymologie... lots of lovely things to be found there!}

Look what arrived in my mailbox yesterday! Yes, it’s the beautiful new book featuring the photographs of Austin based artist Alyson Fox. Now, to be totally honest, I didn’t even know that Alyson did photography work, as she’s best known for her beautifully bizarre drawings {which I absolutely love!}. Well, I’ve officially added this book, titled “A Shade of Red”, to the list of reasons to be jealous of Alyson Fox. She took portraits of 100 women, with basically nothing in common, except that they were all wearing the same shade of red lipstick. There is a quote at the beginning of the book that gave me shivers… and made me want to get myself a tube of bright red lipstick:

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived…Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips….That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.
~ Colonel Gonin (commenting on the liberation of the Bergen-Belson concentration camp)

Thank you so much Alyson… this is an amazing addition to my collection of art books! xo

{The book was published by Chronicle Books, and be purchased here.}

Retratos Pintados from Northeastern Brazil
Anonymous
c. 1940-1980

Don’t have a gold watch, but always wished you did? No problem. Unsightly blemish? Totally taken care of! Ah yes, when a black and white photograph {of what you actually look like} just won’t do! Retratos Pintados are photographs that were hand-painted by artists, during the middle of the 20th century in Northeastern Brazil. They used layers of oil-washes to beautifully enhance, well, everything! Eu amo ♥

{found on Rose Gallery via 1stdibs.com}