Author: Matt Maldre

Ever look at items on a website and then have ads for that website follow you around other places online? Christie’s the high-end auction house is stalking me on the internet. “Click on Calder” a Christie’s banner ad asking me…

Summer is here! Every year in the summer Chicago raises the bridges to let sailboats swim over to Lake Michigan. This beloved ritual marks the start of summer for many Chicagoans. The second bridge raising in Chicago happened on a…

Do you ever put iPhone icons next to each other on your iPhone, because they look cool together? I need one more iPhone app icon with an animal to complete an iPhone screen tic-tac-toe. My iPhone home screen now features…

On the day of black, rainbows of color stream onto the Way of the Cross. Between all the kneeling and standing, chanting and silence, my booklet would become illuminated with splashes of color. As my girlfriend observed, “it’s like a…

General Mills’ new policy: if you engage with us online, you can never sue the company. The Consumerist reports: In new language recently added to General Mills’ website, consumers who interact with the company online will be agreeing to give…

Make a photo available via a Creative Commons license allows it to run wild free on the internet. You’ll never know what will happen. In 2007 I shot this HDR image of a tugboat on the Chicago River. Accidentally using…

The tulips are starting to break the ground in Chicago! While walking to work, the dirt graveyards on Michigan Avenue started to get some life. Little red sprouts coming out of the soil! Standing in the middle of Michigan Avenue,…

Watch a little boat fly up and down the Chicago River releasing green dye (youtube video). The pattern the boat follows looks like the one would use mowing the lawn. Next year I wanna see zig-zags! If the boat was…

The Muppets have Facebook Pages for Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal, and Walter, but not Rowlf the Dog. Unbelievable. A Facebook search for Rowlf the Dog yields only his Wikipedia page. Rowlf totally needs a Facebook…

Vertical lines. Horizontal lines. The difference between the two means the difference between the World Series trophy and a weber grill. These are works of art for sale by my brother, Erik Maldre. Venturing into the never-ending snow with his…

An image search for my name, Matt Maldre, brings up four photos of me–and a photo of the great artist Joseph Beuys. Google is implying that I am the late Joseph Beuys. While I would love to have this honor,…

While putting away laundry, I tweaked my right knee, prompting me to lie down and think of this poem: Popped right gone knee, stopped night laundry — Matt Maldre (@mattmaldre) February 13, 2014 At first I was thinking about how…

At the Olympics, stuck in a bathroom with no cell phone? Nobody around. What do you do? You know the Russian construction is really cheap, so why not just break through the door? That’s what American Olympian bobsled pushers Johnny…

I’m extremely honored that the Yahoo Creative Team asked that one of my photos be included in the 10-year Flickr anniversary video! Here’s their request: I immediately thought they would want to use one of my most popular photos, like…

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… How about counting using odd numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9… I bet you can can count using even numbers. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, etc. But what about reciting all the odd…

Four hours and 33 minutes of a realistic drawing is condensed down to 3 minutes 42 seconds in this youtube video: The artist Marcello Barenghi does have some mad skills. But you can also make a drawing like this with…

I love questions. Does anyone know of any book that are about questions? Specifically the history, science, or psychology of questions. Not a book with lists of questions. Nor lifestyle or career books. But books that talk about the nature…

The Croatian language has a lot of the letters k, v, and z. Type of bunch of those letters into Google Translate like this: vzkvzvkzv zk vzkvzkzv kzvkz vzk vz kv zvzvkvz kvzkzv kzvkzvzvzv kvzkzv Google thinks that it’s Czech.…

The clothespin artist stands at the front steps of the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1994. My fellow college freshman friends and I approach this man selling clothespin necklaces and tshirts with simple clothespin silhouettes. While signing…

In 2013, spudart.org had: 265,267 Visits 244,989 Unique Visitors 324,996 Pageviews Of those pageviews: 157,057 from google search 35,149 unknown 9,684 stumbleupon.com 7,699 bing search 7,455 yahoo search 4,916 answers.yahoo.com 3,972 reddit.com 2,653 search.mywebsearch.com 2,601 aol search some other sites…

In the past week the Spudart Facebook Page had 28 posts. Here are the top three that got the most clicks. Seriously? There’s a Kickapoo State Park in Texas? 29 clicks. This also got 418 views! The other posts on…

Looking for some creative sources? Here are 60 (formerly 45) websites that bring interesting posts. You could subscribe to them using an RSS reader like feedly.com. 3quarksdaily: 2,000 readers A Creative Universe: 664 readers Art in America: 232 readers Art…

As if having one state park named Kickapoo in Texas wasn’t enough. There’s also a Kickapoo State Recreation Area in Illinois. The folks in Oakwood, IL must have had some fun naming their road Kickapoo Park Road and the loading…

Cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary both sound like totally cool concepts. Intersecting different areas of thought to generate creative results. But what is the difference between cross-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary? I posted this question across the internet. The answers fell into two groups.…

There are many variations done on Vincent van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” but how many people captured a photo or created an illustration that looks like this famous painting, but never realized the likeness? This would be like creating a masterpiece…

Sherlock Holmes is free! Run wild Holmes! Sherlock Holmes is now in the public domain in America–but wait–only the pre-1923 Holmes. Any characteristics of Holmes developed after 1923 are off-grounds. Fascinating how copyright law works. People can now do anything…

Giant yellow tennis ball is attacking Wrigley Field! What would that yellow sphere be? Ideas are explored on my baseball blog, Supernova at Wrigley Field captured in 1958 Topps baseball card. It’s a fun interdisciplinary blog post covering baseball, world…

If you are ever stuck on a color palette for a design, just pull out a bag of M&Ms. Grab a handful; and lay them out on the table. Viola! There is your color palette. That’s what happened to me…

Have problems with your Christmas tree? Consider a Christmas stick. Sound crazy? Yeah, it is, but I’ve been doing it for three years and I love it. Love your Christmas tree? Of course you do, Christmas trees are beloved. You…

A bit of wisdom at the end of the year: When January rolls around, you’ll know if your resolutions are serious enough to carry throughout the year. The inevitable question at cocktail parties around New Year’s is, “do you have…

We all know the Moon is made of cheese. Even the Chinese know because they are going to the Moon to bring back its delicious cheese. The taste is so out of this world! Why wait for the Chinese to…