Yes. That’s right. Vintage tattoos made of hand-sewn lace.

You’ve got to think that for Theresa Honeywell this painstaking work must be almost as agonizing as getting a real tattoo. This is how she explains her process… “[Each piece is] made in the similar labor intense way that a tattoo is made, using only a needle to draw with, but instead of ink on skin, my medium is only thread on thread.”

I’m getting a headache just thinking about this. Ouch! Hand cramp! Ooh! And now my eyes hurt! Aaaa!

Writing about Diane Arbus the other day got me thinking about Cindy Sherman – another female photographer that I love. Cindy’s subject matter? Cindy… kinda. She is the subject of every single one of her photographs, although you might not be able to tell. She morphs herself into all sorts of characters (I love the the B-Movie starlets) in order to make a commentary on the ‘role and representation of women in society, the media and the nature of the creation of art.’

{Super cool fact: Cindy Sherman recently bought two pieces from another artist that I’ve written about… Martha Rich. Just one more reason for me to be ridiculously jealous of you Martha!}

Oh! Just missed Tina Berning’s solo show at Gallery Hanahou in New York. The show was called Passengers and closed last Friday. If you live in New York, I hope you got to see it. If not, all 29 drawings that were in the show are now up on her site. Enjoy!

{I wrote about Tina for the first time last July… Yep, still jealous.}

How do you make a photo-real painting even more technically difficult? Do it on a series of individual panels and then put it together. Jeff Cohen makes this look easy… I, however, get a bit of a headache just thinking about it.

Julie Morstad‘s website is full of so many amazing drawings, it was pretty hard to decide what to show. After much debate, I opted for a house theme… hundreds being crushed under foot, one that is obviously a bit cramped, and several that have been uprooted and are falling into nothingness. All excellent choices I’d say.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Canadians out there!

I am thankful for the people who put so much effort and love into their beautiful art blogs. They inspire me, and of course, make me jealous… how do you find time to do 5 posts a day?! Anyway, if I could send each of  them a piece of pumpkin pie I would, but I can’t, so I’ll send a little link love instead. Love love love love…. xo

obsessive consumption //  Pikaland //  share some candy //  BOOOOOOOM! //  my love for you is a stampede of horses //  Design for Mankind //  Book By it’s Cover //  Poppytalk // sfgirlbybay

I usually write about contemporary artists, but today I’m jealous of an artist from a few decades back ~ rewind to the 1960’s if you will. These amazing portraits are by Diane Arbus, one of America’s most influential photographers. She was best known for capturing the images of somewhat strange people, or to be a little less politically correct… ‘freaks’. Her life story is quite interesting but a bit sad, and her completely made up life story in the movie Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, is even more interesting and even more sad. If you  haven’t seen it, you should! It’s beautiful, very Alice in Wonderland.

Original drawings of rosy-cheeked girls with glasses, pink hair, and antlers. Why didn’t I think of that? Luckily the LA based artist behind ‘Pretty Little Thieves’ did.

Cowboys, cafes and drugs ~ there’s got to be a story in there somewhere.

I’m not sure if I’m more jealous of these oil paintings by Drew Deane or the many inspiration gathering road trips she’s obviously been on. These amazing signs remind me that I still haven’t lived out a life long dream of driving across the southern states in an old gold convertible… I know, I know, how very Thelma & Louise of me.

This just in:

Detail of ‘Spiritual America’, Richard Prince 1983

Here’s a strange coincidence. As I was working on my latest show, ‘Finders Keepers’ {featuring work that uses found imagery}, the Tate wound up in the middle of a controversy over exactly that.

A few days ago a nude photograph Brooke Shields, at the age of 10, was removed from the walls of the Tate. Children’s campaigners are calling it pornography, not art. This is where the line gets fuzzy. The original photograph, taken by Gary Gross in 1975, certainly looks like child pornography… Brooke’s mom consented to this photo by the way. Years later that same image is rephotographed by artist Richard Prince, in order to make a statement about ‘a society that would celebrate the commodification of a little girl’, and therefore becomes art  – right? It was supposed to be included in the current exhibition, ‘Pop Life: Art in a Material World’, at the Tate Modern, but was taken down before the show even opened. I guess all we can do now is ponder the age old question, What is art?  Makes your head hurt a little bit doesn’t it?