wondercabinet

Secret art plans while baby kicks.

I am excited, because I have been deep in the lair of wondercabinet headquarters planning a whole new line/series of new work for the etsy shop.

I am having a baby in July, and along with it will come a different lifestyle and a hiatus from teaching (which is making me sad lately, because I love teaching, but then little boom-boom does a somersault in my belly and makes me laugh again). during this time i will be bonding with baby and devoting myself to the development of home-based work: new art works, my little shop, as well as a non-online (realish worldish) sculpture/performance piece.

I am so excited about the new work. I can't tell you what it is. I will produce it in May, June, July and launch it all in my Etsy shop, and then I will give birth to the baby. Lots of birthing new babies going on. I bet if you tune in regularly here, you will put together the hints and get and idea of what's coming. Or maybe I'll just break down and tell you. I suck at keeping secrets.

eye candy no.7

Adriana Varejao.

eye candy no.6

Cal Lane.

It's the shell of a bombed-out car, with a lace filigree pattern cut into it.

This just in: How to Live Life.

Print by Emmanuel Polanco

Finally, a list of principles for living which celebrates - defends, really -  the possibility of moving forward in a state of constant uncertainty. Yay. Thanks Bre Pettis for coming up with it.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away.
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

Gorgeous Terrariums

Paula Hayes is a NY artist who works with living things most respectfully and beautifully. She does landscape design as well as lots of small scale art, such as these incredibly delicate little ecosystems inside of hand-blown glass. This one above could be a whole island ecosystem in miniature; the scale confuses in a nice way. Aren't these delicious?

Yum! After a long Philly winter I wanna crawl in these and sleep until my baby is ready to come out.

And BTW, some of my buddies went dumpster diving after the Flower Show in Philly last week. Did you all find anything?

eye candy No.5

Shahzia Sikander, detail from an animation.
She was trained in classical Pakistani miniature painting and she alters and subverts this visual language in her work in various ways. I love how sometimes the drawn lines or color patches from a traditional scene will break free and begin its own irrational singing and babbling over the surface of the image, like in this one. Sahzia Sikander, I love you.

eye candy No. 4

I love when is more important in a painting that the architecture is there to organize color and story, than to be a naturalistic description of perspective etc. But mostly I love the warm, rich oranges and reds that envelop this lovey pair. And of course, the unbelievable brushwork, the teensy details.

eye candy No.3

Steven Alexander, Primrose Path

Isn't this wonderfully melancholy?