Whoa… I get nervous when I’m faced with a blank canvas – this is certainly a step up from that! This project is from 2012, but I just found it last week… clearly, I had to write about! This is the work of Alex Brewer, also known as HENSE. It was a private commission, in South West Washington DC, that transformed this old church into a piece of contemporary art. Boy oh boy… this would have been fun!

Philadelphia based artist/designer Mirim Seo sent her Special Sashimi project to me last week. For the first two or three pages, I thought “Oh, cute. A book about Sushi” … and then a few pages later, I gasped.

“Special Sashimi is about the slaughter of dolphins in Japan. The story topicted in this book is true. Each year Japan fishermen kill around 2,300 dolphins as a form of pest control, which has been accepted as tradition. And the killed dolphins end up in freezers and served sashimi in Japan. Illustrated with hand-sewing and watercolor on fabric. With this book, I hope to spread the true and help stop the senseless killing of the Taiji dolphins.”

Such a sad story, so beautifully told. If you’re interested to learn more, please visit this project on Mirim’s site.

CONGRATULATIONS … Amanda Lipke! Thank you to everyone that entered, and thank you so much to Tracy {who I had the pleasure of meeting at Emily Carr’s art market last night} for donating these fantastic prints!

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Canadian artist Tracy Jager is an alumni of Vancouver’s Emily Carr University of Art + Design… and this weekend just happens to be their “Comeback” Alumni event! There will be all sorts of things going on down there, including an art market, and you guessed it – Tracy is one of the featured artists! {I’ll also be there on Friday night – 26th from 7-9pm – to speak on a panel that will kick off the weekend!}. Anyway, in order to celebrate all of this alumni goodness, Tracy has graciously donated these two prints for a give-away! YAY! Please leave a comment below and I’ll draw one name {yep, you win both 10″x12″ prints!} on Saturday morning at 9am. Actually, let’s make that 10am just incase “The Talkback” keeps me out past my bedtime!

Don’t you love it when your cereal bowls, planters, tea cups, and salt n pepper shakers stare back at you? Me too! I have a thing for ceramics that are super weird… and totally useful {ok, those staring heads with blue dots are just weird, but I want them anyway}. This is the whimsical work of Los Angeles based artist Rami Kim. According to her bio she “loves working with puppets, paper, watercolor, gouache and lastly, clay, which has led her to a whole new adventure.” And what a weird/useful adventure it is! LOVE.

{This work is available in her shop}

Watercolors on paper… but how? I have no idea how Seattle based artist Jeffrey Simmons does this with watercolor on paper, but I like it! So ethereal, so rich, and so washy at the same time. Love.

Whoa. I so, so, so badly want to do this! All of these “ice cream cones” are made by people that have attended the Gelatology Workshop put on by Venice based collective, Studio Fludd. I’ve written about them before {ie. this gorgeous book}, but when I saw this creative/amazing project, well, my heart started to race a little faster! So. Many. Supplies!!! So far they have done this in Milan, Venice, Bruxelles, Saint Denis, Ljubljana, and Turin. You can see the cones via a cone-specific Tumblr that Studio Fludd has set up just for this project. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make some paper ice cream.

{via Booooooom}

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It’s here! After two years of work, COLLAGE finally hit shelves on Wednesday! I love, love, love collage which is probably why Chronicle Books asked me to do this! I chose 30 very talented collage/mixed media artists from around the world, but I didn’t want to just show their amazing work… this book needed a little twist!

I absolutely love found image collage, and could spend hours looking through old books in thrift shops. When I find an image that I love, it only takes me a second to make a cut n’ paste plan in my head – but what would other collage artists do with that same image? People like Jesse Draxler and Xochi Solis? Enter the twist! Not only did I feature 8 to 10 plates of each artists’ work, I also gave all of them the same starting image – a mustache-clad accordion player and his little bearded cowboy brother – and asked them to create a completely new, totally unique, original collage using all or some of that photo. And they did…

Gah! So good, right?! In some of them you have to work pretty hard to find the original image, and in other pieces it’s the star. I love that every artist took this image and completely made it their own. And so, I want you to be able to do it too! Here’s the photograph {which, by the way, is my dad and my uncle in 1958!}… Right click on it / Save it / Print it / Make a collage!

ps. Thank you to Chronicle for inviting me to do this, and for designing such a beautiful book! Thank you to the 30 amazing artists who made this book into a gorgeous collection of contemporary art.  To my dad and Uncle Bill for letting us use this hilarious picture, and for not making us pay any royalties! And, I absolutely have to send some love to UK based collage artist Anthony Zinonos. Not only was he one of the featured artists, but he also wrote the funny, touching, inspiring foreword… xoxo!

{work above by 1. Me  2. Hollie Chastain 3. Jesse Draxler 4. Bill Zindel 5. Xochi Solis 6. Anthony Zinonos}

Oh, I cannot even tell you how much I love these little ceramic children stuck to the wall! They are the work of American artist Beth Lo – she was born in the USA to parents who had immigrated from China…

“My work revolves primarily around issues of family and my Asian-American background. Cultural marginality and blending, tradition and Westernization, language and translation are key elements in my work.”

So fantastic! Beth is a very accomplished artist {clearly}, and she also happens to be a professor of ceramics & drawing at the University of Montana… is it too late for me to enroll?!

San Francisco based artist Stephanie Rohlfs makes all sort of things – sculptures, installations, collage – but I have a particular fondness for these weird mixed media gouache on paper pieces. The colors, the delicate balance of objects, and of course, we all know how much I love anything from the cacti family! And so, just to recap, do I love Stephanie’s work?

I wrote about New York based artist Jennifer Sanchez yeeeeeaaaars ago – ok, four years ago, but it seems likes ages! Her work has changed a lot, but one thing has stayed exactly the same… how much I love it! Her colors, patterns, layers, oh… so much fun! Jennifer described these three super duper layered originals {30″x22″} as “sour candy colored chunks. Neon stripes, lines and dots meet radiant polygons and swirls. It’s a punch of confection.” Sigh… Best. Description. Ever ♥

{These original “punches of confection” are $300 each, and are available here}