The Diana World Tour {brought to you by the good people at Lomography} has made it’s way around the globe, and is now landing in Australia and New Zealand. There are all sorts of amazing things included in this exhibition, but it’s The Diana Clones Exhibition that’s making my heart beat a little bit faster than usual. Sweet Diana cameras have been turned into sculptural, jealousy-inducing, art pieces by 25 amazing artists. Mushrooms, bunnies and Eskimos? Um, yes please!

Sydney 3 February – 19 February 2011 Blender Gallery

Melbourne 25 February – 11 March  2011 No Vacancy Gallery
Opening Night:  24 February @ 6pm

Auckland 18 – 31 March  2011 The Department Store
Opening Night:  18 March @ 7pm

{via frankie magazine}

Whoa. So beautiful… oh sure, freezing cold and totally isolated, but beautiful none-the-less! For all of my Midwest and East Coast friends, who are currently digging themselves out of the latest winter storm, I dedicate this post to you ~ Snow Blind, a photographic series by Berlin based artist Matthias Heiderich. Keep warm everyone! xx {It would be really mean to mention that my tulips are coming up already, right? Right. Ok, never mind.}

{via Junkculture}

That’s it… I’m packing everything I own into a bunch of tiny little pink and yellow suitcases, and then moving myself into this series of still life photographs {titled Our Home My Home} by New York based artist Erin O’Keefe. When I first saw these images, I couldn’t decide if she was trying to convey a sense of emptiness, or the promise of something new. Turns out, the answer is ‘yes’. Here, in Erin’s words, is what this project is about:

The photographs in this series are still life set ups that include images of various empty rooms that were part of a year of transition. I emptied my childhood home after the death of my father, and moved to a new home with my husband and children. I am interested in the tension between the space of the still life in my studio, and the spaces depicted in the photographs.

Whoa… what an amazing few days in Salt Lake City. Alt Summit was sort of like summer camp {in the winter} for art & design bloggers. Graphic designers, artists, writers, interior designers, magazine editors, event planners, fashion writers, all showed up to share everything they possibly could about their areas of expertise. I spoke {which was an insanely amazing thrill!}, I learned a truck load of stuff, barely slept,  and had more coffee than a girl should probably consume in three days. But I think the most fantastic part, was the fact that I met so many people who, before Thursday morning, I had only known by their twitter handles. Now of course they should all be filed under #brandnewbffs.

{Image: the lovely view from our hotel, courtesy of one of my roomies, Janette Crawford of storeenvy.com}

Ok, I’ve written about Australian artist Laura McKellar at least four times, and yep, I’m still jealous of her work. Today however, I’m also jealous/inspired by her generous spirit. She is auctioning off the above artwork {as well as a photograph by Nikki Toole} in an effort to help those affected by the flooding in Queensland. The auction will “raise money for the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal. All of the money raised will be donated. The auction will finish 9am Monday January 24th.” Please help if you can ~ Thank you!

{Oh, and speaking of good causes, yesterday I received my very own “green bag lady” cloth shopping bag in the mail, courtesy of the very sweet Teresa Van Hatten-Granath. It’s soo cute, and until the end of today you can get yourself an anniversary freebie bag… Yep! Just click here}

Ah, the power of a circle. Granted, these images are striking on their own, but something fantastic happened when American artist Marco Suarez cropped these landscapes into circles… they kind of look like their own little planets now, any of which I’d be quite happy to live on!

Oh yes! I would happily serve breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert on any of these weird little miss-matched animal portrait plates by LA based artist Angela Rossi. Don’t worry… I won’t serve venison.

I can’t believe the holidays are coming to an end {seemed kinda quick, didn’t it?}. Well, at least there’s still one more day, and time for Marcel Dagenais, my very last guest, to pop in for a visit. He is the editor-in-chief of Working Class Magazine, a very cool Brooklyn-based quarterly art magazine. Yep, “editor-in-chief of an art magazine in Brooklyn”… definitely an item that’s very high up on my list of “things to be inspired by/jealous of”. Hmm… looks like Marcel might have a little list of his own:

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I’m jealous of… Guy Bourdin

The late french fashion photographer comes to mind not only because he was producing revolutionary photos for his time, but he was also changing an industry. In his work you see beautiful women but always in contrary settings making both his real life story and his work so provocative and special. Throughout his career he shot for everyone from Italian and French Vogue and also contributed work to international group photo exhibitions. His style is still prevalent in the photography you see coming out today, and I think it will go on like that for forever. He set a new standard for photographers by breaking traditional rules. Being able to leave an impression like that on any industry is certainly something to be jealous of.

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Beautiful! Thank you so much Marcel!

So, here we are on the last day of 2010! Pretty exciting for all of us, but especially monumental for San Francisco based artist Lisa Congdon. Today marks Day 365 in her A Collection a Day, 2010 project! Yep, that’s right – every single day of this entire year Lisa photographed, or drew a collection of things, and then posted them to her blog. It’s an unbelievably beautiful bunch of stuff {vintage toys, art supplies, buttons & thread, and the list goes on}. I’m totally jealous of her knick-knack packed shelves… oh, and also that Uppercase Gallery has turned these daily posts into a beautiful little book due out in the Spring of 2011! It’s going to be gorgeous!! Ok, ok, but enough about my jealousy, today is all about who makes Lisa jealous ~ Enjoy:

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I’m jealous of Alexander Calder.

From the moment I saw Alexander Calder’s show at the SF MOMA many years ago, I became smitten. I immediately bought two books on the man, Calder’s Universe and a vintage copy of his monograph entitled Calder (by Maurice Bruzeau, now out of print and difficult to find). I lay on my sofa and devoured them in less than a week.

Alexander Calder is best known for his mobiles, but he touched practically every artistic medium of his time (stabiles, graphic design posters, rugs, toys, sculpture, painting, drawing, jewelry, ceramics, etc.). Two years ago I had the privilege to see his work again at the Whitney. They featured his wire Circus, which made him famous in the 1920’s (he was a bit obsessed with the circus). It was incredible to see. He is one of the most experimental and prolific artists of the last century.

Born and raised in the U.S., Calder left for Paris in 1926, when he was 28 years old., and there is art career blossomed further and he became part of the avant-garde art scene of the day. In 1931 Calder married Louisa Cushing James. They traveled continually. By all accounts he was a good-natured man.

Intensely creative, fearless, prolific, modern, good-natured, lived in Paris in the 1920’s, world traveler, kept enormous messy studio. What is there not to be jealous of?

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Exactly! Thanks so much for dropping by Lisa, and congratulations on your lovely collection of collections! Can’t wait to see the book.

I’m so happy to have editor & stylist Victoria Smith {of the always fab blog sfgirlbybay} back again! She was one of my weekend guests this past summer… I guess I served her enough glasses of sweet lemonade, because she agreed to come back over the holidays! She’s hilarious, unbelievably generous, and has amazing taste, which is why I can’t imagine that she’d be jealous of anyone, but it turns out, she kinda is:

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i’m so incredibly jealous of the selby. todd selby has the life. he gets to visit super talented, and creative people and photograph their homes and studios. now, i know what you might be thinking, “hey, isn’t that what you do, too?”. well, i do, but i aspire to do it as well as the selby. i don’t know how he does it exactly, but i’m very envious of todd selby’s ability to light his subjects in such a way that i feel as though i’m right there in the room. i am a visitor, right along side him. his photography is what i am most jealous of. i get to visit rad people, too. i just wanna do it as well as mr. selby. kudos, dude.

this is one of very favorite selby visits – that of eileen and mark wiesmayr at home in venice beach, winners of the Selby x CB2 contest. lucky. i’m quite jealous of them, too!

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Sigh. So many people to be jealous of in this post! Thanks so much Victoria… see you next summer ; )