Pokemon Papercraft: Boxy Pikachu

Here's a simple one piece Pikachu papercraft by Lee Urn Lun of Malaysia. As everyone knows, Pikachu is one of the main characters in the Pokemon video games and the Pokemon animated television show. This papercraft is a modification by Lun of his paper model bunny template. A download of the Pikuchu template is available here. The model in the photograph above was built by my young daughter. ^^

Escape into Life: Issue no. 16

Christopher Holloran

This issue of Escape into Life expresses every reason why I began the journal in the first place. Lara Cory's article, "The Etsy Phenomenon," challenges us to see the effects of a democratic web on art. The article provoked a lot of conversations, and I invite you to read the string of comments.

Also in this issue, Escape into Life introduces a new project for artists. Inspired by Giorgio Vasari's artist biographies published in 1550, Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, I'm asking artists to create their own stories about their lives. We will run the artist autobiographies periodically through the online journal.

The Etsy Phenomenon . . . Lara Cory's balanced account of the success of Etsy with much room for opposing viewpoints.

The Poetry of Kelli Russell Agodon . . . Kelli Russell Agodon is the author of several published books, and her work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly.

What is Real: Chuck Close and Kazimir Malevich . . . Mark Kerstetter provides a fascinating analysis of photorealistic and abstract painting, and whether either one can be said to be "real."

PeopleMatter: Interview with Nic Rad . . . Nic Rad talks with Lara Cory about his PeopleMatter project, explaining how he intends to give his paintings away to the public for free.

Why Nic Rad Matters . . . Nic Rad's portrait project is an intelligent critique of celebrity culture, and a brilliant use of social technology to promote art.

New EIL Project:

Lives of the Artists . . . Arists! Tell your story. How did you become an artist? What style and medium do you choose for your work and why? See the website for more details.

What is Escape into Life?

Escape into Life hosts over 700 contemporary artist profiles, and is also an online arts journal with contributions from nearly 25 different writers. Many of our contributors—ranging from well-known published authors, university professors, and freelance journalists—continue to publish art reviews and art history essays month after month. In addition, our poetry editor selects a new poet to feature in the journal every issue.

The Escape into Life digest comes out about twice monthly and you can subscribe at the top of the website, next to the search bar.

As an organization, we seek to promote the arts in all its forms. Our next milestone is to merge the thriving online publication with a viable online art store and auction.

Coloring Book Page

I guess Barb's ABC book has inspired me because when I was asked to create a coloring book page I went for an ABC heading on this silly artwork I created with the wacom tablet.

This is for a collaborative coloring book we are doing that will be available for download and purchase at the upcoming Mermaid and Octopus Show here in Dallas. You can read about the upcoming opening at exquisitecreatures.org. You can also download the coloring page for free by clicking here and scrolling down the page.  All of the artists that are in the show will be invited to submit a coloring book page, a portion of the proceeds from this show will benefit the Emergency Artist's Support League.  The art show is my teacher  Katrina Doran's baby... she is the organizer, curator and overall make it happen person.  I have been helping her with some assorted graphic design duties related to the show. The design work has been fun and made me flex some old muscles that I forgot I even had. I created the info website and just finalized a postcard promo piece.  I am real excited about this show and will post more info as we get closer to the opening in May.

 

Is Nic Rad the Next Warhol?

Nic Rad, Peter Schjeldahl

Nic Rad's PeopleMatter project is essentially a portrait project in which the artist paints media personalities, tech-industry giants, literary and entertainment figures. He shows the portraits on his website and offers his paintings to anyone who can give a good enough reason why they should have them. (Some portraits have a paywall; meaning these works must be purchased.)

Reading the interview Lara Cory had with Nic on Escape into Life sparked my thinking in the direction of contemporary art as a predominately social vehicle. Because the PeopleMatter project has leveraged the potential of the web to spread word about a single artist's work, I see this experiment as noteworthy and perhaps suggestive of how art is increasingly becoming a social object.

One could argue that art has always been a social object--a topic of conversation, a locus of interaction with others in a museum or gallery--but I believe the acceleration of the web is serving to emphasize the social aspects of art. And if it continues, I believe we will be seeing more projects like Nic Rad's, which enroll the public to participate in the process of the art-making, exhibition, and sale.

There is a Warholian overtone to the PeopleMatter project. Like Warhol's silkscreen prints, Rad is making a statement about celebrities through his portraits of them. He sees these portraits as "avatars" and "graphic symbols" of members of the media, inspired by how we are represented to each other online. Furthermore, his method of aiming for imperfect works, perfectly resonates with Warhol. Rad says,

This kind of painting requires a certain speed and stops looking and feeling like art. It starts to look like fan fiction or signage or candy wrappers; it looks like everything but nice furniture . . . which is why I believe I’m doing something right.

What has changed since Warhol is our notion of celebrity, and Rad seems to pick up on this and play off of it in his portraits. He purposely intermingles actual celebrities with self-anointed ones, and blurs the distinction between the new media and the old. With Warhol, we have the mass-produced image of Marilyn Monroe or Elvis Presley, but with Rad, the mass-produced image is no longer meaningful as a critique.

Today we are deeply entrenched in mass-produced images and so what titillates the viewer is its opposite: the one of a kind and the possibility that it could be you. The democratic process by which a person can obtain a portrait of herself from Rad, simply petitioning for one on his website, appears straightforward:

If you feel that you’re a member of the media and are on some inexplicable trajectory and that I should consider painting you instead of one of my current subjects—tell me why. There’s a decent chance I’ll agree with you and make a replacement.

The democratic process, however, is not without its irony. Rad is offering to memorialize you as a cultural figure (read on his website: Become Immortal). And he's also capitalizing on our particular historical moment, with major industries, and social hierarchies, in transition; this project could not be achieved at any other period in history. The categories for fame these days are fluid and loosely-defined as new technology catapults regular people into the sphere of celebrity over night.

The genius of the project is how the website generates interest in the portraits. First, with the possibility to be painted, and second, with the possibility to receive a painting for free, Rad has created a mini-ecosystem of "celebritization," a word that Rad used in his interview.

The whole experiment could quickly be dismissed as a promotional gimmick, and Rad knows something about public relations and marketing for having worked in the field for six months; but I believe Rad is holding up a mirror instead.

His PeopleMatter project shows how we make each other known and important in this new cultural landscape; and how the individual is made into a media icon. It also shows how we use "graphic symbols" to represent ourselves in the Internet era; and how the public projects meaning onto these short-hand representations through floating bits of information on Twitter streams, articles, video clips, and web searches.

It is not by coincidence that many of the portraits resemble caricatures, some more than others. This representation of the celebrity is meant to be a visual reference point which may only capture a single quality of a person's character or beliefs, but serves to place them on the map of cultural dialogue. It is also important to remember that the portraits are set against the background of the entire body of paintings. Unlike Warhol's prints, these icons are taken together, as a cultural whole.

Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst, following the tradition of Warhol, put as much work into marketing their art as they did creating it. The PeopleMatter project is contradictory and wonderful for its ability to make art social while at the same time critiquing the social consequences of such art.

Rad does not attack the cultural apparatus, but instead feeds it to each of us. We are one among many; no single portrait deserves ultimate scorn or praise. None is set higher or lower. These portraits are a tapestry of dreams, however imperfect or fragile our dreams may be.

Optimizing tough photos

Working with some challenging pics this week. Lady and Mitzi are no longer here so I am working with the limited pics my client has on hand.  Today I dealt with glow eyes,  missing noses, and chair obstructions. Next week I get to start playing around with color on this multiple pet project ( I have 2 more pets to add to this portrait).

I am also eager to finalize some sweet kitty cat portraits that have been working on  ... lots of projects going on at once.

Saint Seiya Papercraft #2: Athena Statue

Here is another papercraft by Moustagua. Once again based on the Saint Seiya anime series, this is a papercraft statue of the Greek goddess Athena. In the series, Athena is assisted by warrior "saints" in her struggles against the other gods. This papercraft model appears to be heavily based on the real life gold and ivory statue of Athena that once stood inside the Parthenon in Athens. On the column is the traditional Greek winged symbol of victory and behind Athena's shield is a snake which is a symbol of Erichthonius, who legend has it was one of the early rulers of Athens. A PDF template of the statue may be downloaded here.

Saint Seiya Papercraft #1: Odin Statue

The Saint Seiya anime television series was popular around the world in the late 80's but wasn't aired in the US until 2003. Based on a Japanese manga series, the storyline of the show follows the exploits of mystical warriors called "saints" who fight for the goddess Athena in her struggle to protect Earth from other gods in the Greek pantheon. In the "Asgard" story arc of the show the saints encounter characters from Norse mythology. This papercraft Odin statue by French papercrafter, Moustagua, is presumably based on an image from this particular story arc. Odin is king of the Norse gods much like Zeus is in the Greek pantheon. With instructions in French, the PDF template may be downloaded at the bottom of Moustagua's page here.