Mundane icons of everyday life. My favorite!

Just imagine the kind of a party we could get going with all this stuff… and, we’d even be able to clean up when it was over. On the guest list? Well, obviously you and me, with the guest of honor being the artist known as El Grio. Oh, and you better believe that I’d invite Jonna Pedersen, and Vincent Pacheco. Something tells me that this might just be their kind o’ party!

{via Brown Paper Bag}

Whoa. I lost my breath when I saw this work. The beauty, and stunning simplicity, of blue ballpoint pen on canvas… really, really, really big canvas! Korean born, Brooklyn based artist Il Lee started working like this over 30 years ago, and still continues today… now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m suddenly inspired to run out and pick up a few pens. Blue ones.

{Thanks to David Garber for sending me a link to Anthology, who recently featured Il’s work.}

All of my weekend guests have amazing taste, and Brittany Reiff is no exception! She and her husband/business partner Jacob are the founders of Wantist, a “curated collection of gift ideas created to help you give amazing gifts on every occasion.” Seriously, if you want to buy something fabulous for someone special, or something special for someone fabulous, then Wantist is the place to go. Oh, and speaking of wanting things, I want every single image that you’re about to see:

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I’m jealous of David O’Brien

Meticulous barely scratches the surface when describing David’s work. I’d also call the pieces vivacious and invigorating with their spirited color palettes and grand scale. But what I find most inspiring is, right when the smile breaks and eyes light up, it’s the crazy detail that really blows my mind.

I love it when a piece of art draws you in and the longer you look, the more you sense the time and patience that went in to creating it. I can’t help but get caught up in imagining the passion and persistence it took to create his pieces. I’m a sucker for precision, and I’m jealous of David’s.

I first fell for his art a few years ago after seeing his colorful ink and watercolor explosions and mesmerizing mazes.

Upon discovering his newest work, I fell all over again. For his latest, the Human Entropy Project, he’s switched to photography and assembled massive collages of chaotic swarms of people. No seriously, those are people.

{detail}

Beginning with himself, and eventually photographing everyone he knew in various positions in front of a green screen, David collected thousands of images. After painstakingly manipulating and arranging each figure by hand, the completed prints are these incredible five-foot wonders to look at.

The remarkable thing to me is that amid the frenetic swarm of people, these pieces feel happy. I think there’s a lesson in there somewhere internauts.

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Thank you so much Brittany! This is amazing work… I wantist it all! xo

Paper? Yes, it’s just paper… perfectly chosen hues of colored paper, cut with insane precision, and then layered on top of each other to create this beautifully dizzying work. In fact, I’ll bet if I look at these images, by Vancouver based artist Sarah Gee, long enough I may very well go into some kind of jealousy-induced trance… yep, here I go.

Step one: Take a gorgeous photograph of a gorgeous girl.

Step two: Paint on it.

Yep, that’s what American photographer Shae Acopian Detar did, and the results are killing me! Love, love, love!

{via Design for Mankind}

I have a crush. Well, I have quite a few actually… so many, in fact, that I’ve turned them into a new series of guest posts, that start today, on the always lovely sfgirlbybay. The series is called girl crush. Can you guess why? Yep, the posts will feature amazing women artists that I have huge art crushes on! Here’s why I chose to do this…

When I was in university, I minored in Art History. As a young female artist, I wanted to know why there weren’t more women in my textbooks… surely they existed?! And it wasn’t just the Renaissance and Rococo periods that were lacking – I have a Pop Art book filled with artists that I love, but there is not one woman in it. Doesn’t that seem kinda crazy? Yes, yes it does. Luckily, contemporary art seems to be balancing things out a little more… I know that more than half of my posts feature women. Granted, I’m jealous of work regardless of the artist’s gender, but as a woman artist myself, I absolutely love to see, and celebrate, the successes of inspiring, crush-worthy “girls”… hence the catchy title of this series! Sigh… I have so many crushes, on so many artists, that these posts just might go on forever! So, now that I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, you can tell me… who do you ♥?

{textbook worthy images by: 1. Tina Berning 2. Martha Rich 3. Maia Flore 4. Laura McKellar 5. Beth Hoeckle 6. Margaret Kilgallen ♥♥♥}

That’s right… I said your shirt! Yep, all you have to do is get a ticket to the  submiT event in Vancouver on Thursday August 18th, 7pm at Performance Works on Granville Island, and you’ll be all set. Here’s the deal – there are ten very cool, limited edition t-shirts featuring artwork by a killer line-up of artists* for sale, and the money will go toward primary education in Ethiopia through imagine1day. Great art, great cause! Now, what do these very cool t-shirts look like? Well, you’ll have to go to the party to find out, and…

I’ve got a pair of tickets! Who wants ’em?
Answer this question:
Who’s your favorite unconventional artist, and why?
Tweet your answer, and be sure to include @submiTvancouver and @jealouscurator so that we know you’re talking to us! The winner of two tickets to submiT Vancouver {value at total of $60} will be drawn at random from all entries on Wednesday, August 17 at 10pm. submiT Vancouver will announce the winner on Facebook and Twitter. Good luck!

*{The work shown above is from five of the featured artists… but not the art work that will be on the shirts, of course! In order: 1. Ben Skinner 2. Jessica Bell 3. George Vergette 4. Fiona Ackerman 5. Sarah Gee}

Auntie Peggy Has Departed 2003 {mercerised cotton, audio equipment, 2 part looped soundtrack; Aldwych Tube Station, The Strand, London}

Gasp! Be still my beating heart – Doily cobwebs… hm, or cobweb doilies… well, either way, I’m left slightly breathless. I wish so much that I had been able to experience London based artist Shane Waltener‘s ode to Auntie Peggy before she departed.

{Thanks so much to Kelly at Design Crush for sending this my way… clearly, she knows what I like!}

Paul Burger is yet another BFF that I met at Alt Summit last January. He runs the very fabulous cargoh.com {a curated marketplace for independent artists & designers} with his partner in crime/wife Cariann Nesler. What started as small talk at a party in Salt Lake City, has turned into an amazing friendship that I feel very blessed to have.  For whatever reason this unbelievably generous guy is looking out for me… yes, I have referred to him as my fairy-blog-father {although he’s younger than me!} on more than one occasion. And now, as if he wasn’t awesome enough, he sends me this very cool guest post:

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I’m jealous of The Post Family…

Yee-haw! Giddy-up! Ride em’ cowboy! Sorry, I couldn’t control myself… that’s what these gorgeous, optically confusing, rodeo collages, by American artist Kevin Buist, do to me. Ok, y’all come back now, ya hear. {I actually googled “rodeo slang” for this post, so it really could have been much worse.}