Archive for March, 2012|Monthly archive page
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In case I haven’t told you, I’m a fan of the concept of the world of vehicles seen in Disney and Pixar’s Cars series, so I thought I’d show off how Jacken DeBox would look if he was ‘car-ified.’ The other pages show off my sense of humor.
Buzz Spector
Buzz Spector is an artist and critical writer whose artowrk has been shown in such museums and galleries as the Art Institute of Chicago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA. Whew!
Spector’s work makes frequent use of the book, both as subject and object, and tackles the relationship between public history, individual memory, and perception. He has issued a number of artists’ books and editions since the mid-1970s, including, most recently, Time Square, a limited edition letterpress book hand altered by the artist and published in 2007 by Pyracantha Press and ABBA at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Like Buzz, I tend to throw in many things I think people would find very memorable, even if it’s in text form. In the first picture you see, there are words that give a particular meaning and a bit of graphics at the bottom. In some of my pages, I have my own text and graphics. One one page, I decided to add a ‘prayer’ from Billy Graham, which was forwarded to me by my grandmother. My grandmother understood my displeasure for the way this country’s been acting lately, which is why she decided to show me the prayer.
In his other works that stood out to me, he lined up a hundred easels, split an image into six segments, and made part of the work literally pop out. I’m sure I’ll be able to think of something original for my book based on Buzz’s works.
Dan Eldon
Dan Eldon was a spunky, incredibly talented artist, adventurer, and activist who left a legacy and a powerful humanitarian spirit that continues to inspire people of all ages over the world. “Inspire people of all ages over the world.” That’s enough to make CJ say “I’ve got to look into his works because this dude was a lot like me. Well, sort of.”
Born in London on September 18th, 1970, he displayed signs of an excellent sense of humor at an early age. I, too, like having a sense of humor, which is what you may find throughout the pages of my artist book. I prefer to keep it family-friendly, however, as there is no honor in showing objectionable content in places where the faint of heart can easily find it when he/she least expects it.
When Dan was seven years old, he and his three-year-old sister Amy moved to Nairobi, Kenya with their parents, Kathy and Mike Eldon. He attented the International School of Kenya and blossomed, enjoying such activities as staying in a Maasai village, a trip to the exotic Arab island of Lamu off the coast of Kenya, and climbing Mt. Kenya.
According to his Web site, Dan began drawing and painting and showing signs of artistic talent early on in his childhood. This may appear that his drawing style is much more different from mine. Perhaps his influences didn’t include Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, or Jim Henson.
He also work on his own collages, including the one below.
In April of 1993, Dan published hs first book, Somalia, a collection of photographs and collages which sold rapidly to aid workers and soldiers posted to the country considered most to be more dangerous than Bosnia.
On July 12, 1993, Dan and his three colleagues (Hos Maina, Anthony Macharia, and Hansi Krauss) raced across Mogadishu to cover the bombing of what was thought to be General Aideed’s headquarters. In the ensuing confusion, all four young men were beaten, clubbed and stoned to death by an angry mob furious about the death of over 50 of their friends, fathers, and brothers at the hands of U.S. and U.N. soldiers.
His view of his world may seem a little nightmarish, but it has taught me to be more careful wherever I go and whatever I do.
Linda Zacks
Linda Zacks is an artist and designer from Brooklyn known for a mixture of illustration, graphics, and big ideas. Her work has appeared in campaigns for Sony Style, Adobe, INQ Mobile, and The Newport Beach Film Festival among others. She has also shown in art exhibitions through the world from the 1000 Journals show at the SF MOMA to CBGBs in the United States, the Paris subway to Sydney.
Linda graduated from Brown University with a year at The Rhode Island School of Design. She has been recognized with Broadcast Design Awards and selected as a “Fresh” artist by Communication Arts. Her work was also selected for inclusion in American Illustration 30.
Like Linda, I also have a passion to play with words and letters. In some of her works, she comes up with clever ways to represent differences between certain concepts (e.g. Night and Day) and help the viewer tell many pictures and/or words apart by color.
Furthermore, she can take pictures of something distinctive, like bathing suits, and set up a category of where these suits fall. And setting up categories is one of my biggest interests in the world of creativity. I even plan on showing a couple of pages of facial expressions from A to Z.
And then there’s the alphabet itself. Just now, I’ve gotten the idea of using my character, Clumpy Gumbottom, to take on the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Actually, I’ve decided to use Clumpy for future use in constructing geometric shapes merged together. I’ve recently done Jacken’s feelings alphabet, which fairly similar to Linda’s inspiration.
Because most of her work mainly consists of elementary components, like colors and letters, Linda is very inspirational to my development of my artist book.
Pages 14 & 15
Here’s what coming right after the page with Billy Graham’s prayer.
Pages 12-13
Hopefully, this will make some X-rated enthusiasts think.
Double-page spreads
Some may not be much, but here’s what I’ve got.
The last one covers two pages, but it comes much later.
