So if you have several hundred dollars to spare, instead of several thousand dollars, now's your chance to pick up some snazzy paintings. I'm particularly digging the sushi, lemons and starfish paintings by Jennifer Tong, myself. Don't touch that "Lemon, Little Lemon" painting. I have dibs on that!
Our friends over at Paper Tiger have released yet another gorgeous and very limited edition print, this time by artist Nate Frizzell. The print, entitled "Nest," comes in a small edition of only twenty-five prints and is also available as a hand-touched artist edition print. These are absolutely breathtaking just on my computer screen, so I can only imagine how lush and vibrant they'll be in person.
AND!! For the rest of this month, Fabulist readers will get a bonus "mini-print" with any order just by mentioning "Fabulist" in the comments section, as well as an extra 15% off their purchase when using the code "buyer."
Yes, it's exciting news, and these are very exciting times. Happy July to you!
I am not joking. These paintings are based on real-life events.
But for the rest of you, who aren't hip to Kentuckian ways, you should probably check out Kathleen Lolley's upcoming show "Myth & Magic" at Giant Robot San Francisco. I'm betting they'll have an online gallery up after the show opens on July 19, but in the meantime, you can get a sneak preview on Kathleen's Myspace page. Which also just happens to be one of my favorite Myspace pages of all time. Her interests include "surrealism, comics, alchemy, mystery, birds, strange text & folk lore," and it really comes through in her work. Those just happen to be some of my main interests as well, so I'm well excited for this one.
I had the pleasure of attending the Ed Harcourt show at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, Oregon this past monday. I'm going to share a little bit of that experience with you here now, so that if by some sheer stroke of luck his short tour is going to be anywhere within an eight hour radius of you, you'll get in your car or plane or motorized go-cart or Big Wheel and roll yourself on down to the venue. Because you know how to treat yourself right.
First of all, Ed plays keyboards like he was practicing in the womb. If you've heard his music, you know this, but it was an absolute wonder to witness. And his bass player is some gorgeous minx with black, marcelled hair and pouty lips and she plays a KILLER bass. And all the band members were relentlessly charming, stylish and goddamn talented, and the songs were spot-on, and Ed's between-song patter is more entertaining than a lot of comedians' stand-up routines. Which yeah, says something about the state of comedy these days, maybe, but also says a lot for how absurdist and self-deprecating the man is. I mean, with jokes involving Bill Withers and ducks and stories about how his mother was a bearded lady and his father was a circus clown, how can you go wrong?
But most important is the music. And he really gave it to us, wandering out into the audience and serenading us with "Until Tomorrow Then" while the lights dimmed overhead and the microphone seemed like an extension of his soul. And soon after, we all parted ways, taking a little bit of that shared experience with us into the night. And that's the way it should be, huh?
Jerry Levitan interviewed John Lennon in 1969, when Jerry was just fourteen years old. Now he's produced a film using the interview as the soundtrack. It's animated mostly in black and white, with the drawings flowing into each other at times almost like a Rube Goldberg machine. I thought it'd be a nice mixture of art and message and history and entertainment, all rolled into one tight little five minute package just in time for your weekend. Happy saturday everyone!
Here is a subject near and dear to my heart: Little Golden Books. I spent many hours (weeks, months...) lost in their gorgeously illustrated pages as a kid, and I'd probably do the same if I were handed a stack of them today.
I don't remember where or how I stumbled across this video of Tiny Vipers (aka Jesy Fortino), but I definitely remember when. I remember it well, because I sat here at this computer at around three o'clock in the morning pushing play over and over and over again, dragging my boyfriend in here and making HIM listen, with headphones. "At least watch until she starts singing!" I said. And he did, because he's nice, and then he took the headphones off and handed them to me and said "yeah, she's talented." But he was unmoved, because he prefers French rap and Freezepop (not that there's anything wrong with that).
But unless your musical tastes are solely limited to French rap and Freezepop, I dare you to watch this and remain unmoved. I love the lonesome, haunted quality of it, the way the camera watches her while she ignores it and looks like she hasn't slept all night, she's just been up stewing on what she's singing and then launches into this six minute goddamn EPIC...
Edwin Ushiro uses memories and stories from his childhood growing up in Hawaii as the inspiration for his art. At once both beautiful and sinister, they often allude to ghost stories he remembers hearing as a kid. Spooky and atmospheric stuff.
Edwin's personal site is also worth checking out--the stories he tells beneath each of his pieces kind of sucked me in and wouldn't let go until I had finished reading them all. Twice.
I first read about artist Know Hope when I heard he was going to be showing at the Carmichael Gallery as part of a group show called Take a Deep Breath (June 21st-July 20th!).
A 21 year old man from Tel Aviv, he has created an incredible array of street installations in harmony with his hope to "move heavy hearts at least one inch to the side by confessing that I'm petrified and secretly in love with the world." He makes his art and his message a part of his urban environment, to uplift the people around him, which to me is one of the finest forms of self-expression there is.
So I feel like a bit of a squeeing fangirl, and maybe I am. But when a guy's signature character is a hunchback wearing a hoodie with a heart stitched to his sleeve, who can blame me?
The always intriguing Ray Caesar opened a show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery the other day in NYC, along with fellow artist and splendid chandelierist Adam Wallcavage. The thing that always stuns me the most about Ray's work is the incredible depth and richness and lushness of color he imbues his subjects with. They look *touchable*.
And yes, there's the creepy girls doing questionable things with older men in dour living rooms, but that's just part of his charm! Right?
If you can't make it all the way to New York before the show closes on July 26th, you can get a sampling of the pieces on display here and here. If you CAN make it, tell them I said hi. You'll be rewarded with a look of pure confusion, and that'll be awesome.
I've watched this video about ten times since it arrived in our inbox yesterday. The song is "Safe as Houses" by aKING, a South African band that apparently has an absolute genius with video-making AND lyric-writing. Example:
"Safe as houses, tuck me in. Daylight waits for no man.
You're still young and breathing's easy, suck it in.
Oh what a waste, this facade.
What a pity we've come this far..."
So click play and follow the futile exploits of a king trying in vain to hold his cardboard kingdom together as it collapses in the rain. None of his motley crew of subjects comes to his rescue, naturally. Maybe we can help him out.
This video clip of Grizzly Bear performing their new song "While You Wait for the Others" on Conan O'Brien the other night has been making the rounds, and it's easy to see why. The tune seems to remind everyone of something different. For me, it's a crazy combination of The Jimi Hendrix Experience-meets-Roxy Music-meets-roots reggae. All of which I happen to love (don't judge me!). Not that I'm saying it's derivative--the song and the absolutely golden performance by the band both have a tingly vibe that's at the same time both comfortingly familiar and uniquely their own. The best things always do.
Heard the song for the first time on Koula's show on 5 fm yesterday and couldn't rest til I found it on the net and could listen to it again and again. The video's really witty and funny and the song- lovely.
Could anyone post the guitar chords of it on here? I've tried but i can't figure out more than the chords for the verse. I'd really appreciate it!
Elementsbyelaine on 