Sigh. Simple, lovely line drawings of ladies by Canadian artist Erin Gilkes {aka altantic treefox}. These are from her series titled, quite appropriately, Ladies… um, is that a friend shaving another friend’s leg? Hm, looks like my gal pals and I might have to kick things up a notch!

{I found Erin’s work on the always fab, Little Paper Planes}

Poor Teddy… he never saw it coming. One minute he was a cuddly, bedtime pal – the next minute, a beautifully constructed area rug, full of childhood nostalgia, skillfully assembled by Argentinian artist Agustina Woodgate. Oh well, at least he’ll never get forgotten in a closet… now he’s the focal point of the room!

{via Junkculture}

Simple pencil sketches, unbelievably detailed brushwork, and the actual paint palette all rolled up into one totally captivating, intentionally half-finished, painting… or in the case of American artist Colin Chillag , several captivating, intentionally half-finished, paintings. Love.

{via crisaris, via Beautiful/Decay}

When these girls were in the middle of making some pretty ill-advised life decisions, I bet they never thought  that  photographs of said ill-advised life decisions would wind up on the internet… or on hand-dyed, woolen tapestries for that matter! American artist Erin M. Riley finds her reference images online, usually on Facebook or Google {a hot bed of ill-advised life decisions} and creates elaborate woven art from them.  Such a unique and unexpected combination of medium and subject matter! Love, love, love.

The first thing I love about this insanely gorgeous installation by Italian artist Ludovica Gioscia is the title, Rococo-Hardcore. Awesome, no? The next 22 things I love are each and every layer of wallpaper {some of which are hand screen printed, others ready made} that she has applied to, and then peeled away from, this gallery wall in London. Yep, that’s a lotta layers of love!

{…thanks to Ben for sending her link to me!}

I’m so excited to be doing this “My childhood bedroom was…” post for blog for digs! I saw the post that Victoria at sfgirlbybay put together, and I jumped at the chance to participate. It’s a project that is raising awareness for dwell with dignity, a non-profit organization geared towards helping families escape poverty and homelessness through design. Now, I’m no interior designer, but I did have a bedroom full of rainbows and shag carpet that I absolutely loved, so I guess that kind of qualifies me:

I shared a room with my younger sister until I turned eleven. It was a magical day in the 1980’s when I left the Holly Hobbie wallpapered room to forge my pre-teen independence… in the basement! I filled my new space with the most important logos of the day {ESPRIT, United Colors of Benetton, Swatch}, and as many rainbow-themed items as possible. Luckily for me, one entire wall {wall, not floor!} of my new room was completely covered in a weird patchwork of insanely colorful shag carpet. I kid you not.

Now, eleven is a strange age for girls. You really, really want to be a teenager, but you’re still very much a little girl – hence this eclectic mix: a heart-shaped lamp, a very sassy hot-lips phone, and a shelf full of ceramic unicorns… and don’t even get me started on the many hours I spent listening to mixtapes about true, undying, can’t live without it love. Sigh. Oh, and speaking of which:

… yes, Johnny and Baby, like totally changed my life. Forever.

Ah, memory lane! There are several other bloggers sharing their rooms today too… here is the full blog for digs schedule, and to support dwell with dignity, please visit their site.

From a distance these paintings, by American artist Emily Eveleth, make me want to break every new year’s resolution I’ve ever made about eating sweets, and run right out to buy a big bag o’ jelly doughnuts… but when you get up-close and personal, um well, they get pretty up-close and personal! Oh my ~ am I the only one who’s blushing?

{Thanks to Sara for pointing me to Emily’s work. Oh, and if you need to work off a few broken resolutions yourself, come on over to sfgirlbybay ~ the house that jealousy built just got it’s final room… a gym!}

You’ve heard of making mountains out of molehills, right? Well, Sydney based artist Jonathan Zawada is making mountains out of “graph data (displayed as printed mirrors on accompanying plinths), modeled in 3D and then oil paintings created from those 3D renders.” Yep, a little more complicated than what the moles are doing! All of these stunning pieces can be seen in Jonathan’s new show, Over Time, that is currently displayed at Prism Gallery in Los Angeles. The show runs until February 28, 2011.

{via curbs and stoops}

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!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! And what an exciting year it’s going to be… especially for me, and Canadian artist Ben Skinner! At the end of February we’ll be installing Ben’s solo show {that I have the thrill of curating} at the Honfleur Gallery in Washington DC. I’ve seen the work in progress, and it’s fan-freakin’-tastic… yep, that’s a fancy curator term. Anyway, Ben’s been making me jealous for years, and here is the artist that makes him jealous:

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I am jealous of Joseph Kohnke.

Joseph’s meticulously hand-crafted kinetic sculptures are a marvel to experience. His acute attention to detail goes beyond the sensible (I’ve seen the shipping crates he has made for some of his works). The sheer beauty of his sculpture/installations is never lost to his viewer but the details that go into making them sometimes can be. Like all the custom parts he designs, fabricates from aluminum, steel or brass, sands and hand polishes for a specific kinetic component or mounting bracket. People use the term “detail oriented”, but oriented isn’t strong enough of a word. How about “detail obsessive”. If you’ve ever seen Junk Yard Wars, this is the other end of that spectrum.
Aside from his fine skills as a machinist the concepts stand on their own, often evoking deep personal experiences in a hauntingly poetic way. I can’t wait for what he’ll conjure up next.

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The stills don’t do this work justice… I tried to embed the videos here, but let’s just say that didn’t go so well. Please visit Joseph’s site to see these amazing kinetic pieces in action. Thanks for stopping by Ben – see you in DC!

{ps. Ben’s show opens March 4th and runs until April 8th.}