April Flowers
“Beauty is whatever gives joy.” -Edna St. Vincent Millay
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, 2008
Music: Happy & Artie Traum – Scavengers
I’ve pretty much been spinning this record for the last two days.. so good.
Book Cover Design: The Ghost of the Wooden Squid
I did this design for Ryan Buynak’s collection of poetry, published by Paradisiac Publishing, and the book is now available on Amazon.com. I basically started with a paper cutting of a squid that I designed and it’s silhouette made of tissue paper. I photographed it and then tweaked the coloring and added text in Photoshop. And there you have it. Check it out on Amazon here:
Villages in Progress
I’m shifting gears for a little bit and working on a small series of 5 x 7 inch villages.. I’ve also got some larger village themed paper cuttings in the pipeline.
Coffee by Candlelight..
..spinning a Happy & Artie Traum record I picked up yesterday, and taking in the early (still dark) spring morning. Happy Friday. I’ll be hitting up the Final Friday artwalk in Lawrence (Kansas) tonight, including the Annual Art Auction exhibit at the Lawrence Arts Center (I took a sneak peek yesterday..). I’ve got one work — “Congruity” — that will be part of the live auction on April 14. For more info, check out the LAC website.
“Misty Dreams” by Happy & Artie Traum:
Random Project Information
I supported my local economy this afternoon… In other news (as referenced in the blog title): Saturday, the book “The Ghost of the Wooden Squid: Random Acts of Poetry” by Ryan Buynak will hit shelves. I did the cover design back in 2010 – it’s a little different from my normal work (and being that it’s based around a wooden squid, it kind of had to be..). I’ll post it here on Saturday. I met Ryan back in ’09 at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC at a show that mutual friends of ours were playing. It was the last show I saw in NYC in fact before I moved back to my homeland. Anyway, Ryan contacted me about a year and a half later to do the cover. He has two books previously published and has work in several poetry compilations.
I also met with the singer of a local band today to talk about doing some animation work for a video for their forthcoming album due out next year. Vague info, I know.. I don’t really like to talk about things until they are actual things.. But it’s kind of cool — trying to think of new and different effects and ways to animate with cut paper.
Til next time.
Music: Chris Smither – Lonesome Georgia Brown
Now on rotation: Chris Smither’s Don’t Drag It On. Throwing this day to the wind work-wise and hitting the outdoors and record stores (intentional rhyming in progress)… More paper cuttings to come tomorrow.
Nature’s Light Photography
I’ve got this photograph of a Kansas lake sitting above my fireplace. Go check out Nature’s Light Photography by Richard Heinze. We’ve been neighbors at the Mid Winter Art Fair in Kansas City for the last couple years, and I couldn’t resist buying this one when I saw it.
Music: Jerry Garcia – Love Scene from Zabriskie Point
Full Flower Moon
I decided to go with a moon… 11 x 14 inch paper cutting. A “Full Flower Moon” is the name of the full moon in May. Found online: “Quite simply, May brings bright brushes to paint the earth canvas with infinite flowers. In the full moon light of this month, the flowers are said to grow at night, and even dance in honor of the moon.”
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