Tag: Art

Do famous artists feel weird looking back at some of their older artwork? Looking back at some of my college artworks, I realize how crappy they are. Even though I archive all my old work, there are pieces that don’t…

Magic covers the ground with the first snow of the year. Everyone is an artist with boots acting like printing plates on the fresh white sheet. Creating prints in the ground, we look back to admire our work. Start a…

This is a very interesting call for artists. As a public spaces artist who does not want concealed firearms to be legal in Chicago, I’m going to be giving this proposal some serious thought. If you are pro-gun, I’d like…

Ahh these whipper snappers thinking they are old, talking about Photoshop CS3. Please. I’ve worked on Photoshop 3.0. That’s right. The ORIGINAL Photoshop. Before Adobe started naming them CS and CC. When Photoshop CC 3.0 comes out, designers in their…

The great Oscar Wilde says, “A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public. The public are to him non-existent.” Sorry, Oscar Wilde, but you are wrong. A true artist expresses and communicates to the public. An artist that…

The staring eyes of this portrait intently gazed at my girlfriend and I as we sat on the bench to the left of this painting. We tried to relax on the Art Institute bench, but the Bazille family kept looking…

iPhone App Notifies Viewers When TV Ads Finish By Andrew Dodson TVNewsCheck – 07/31/13 As broadcasters continue to fight the ad-skipping technology found in Dish Network‚Äôs Hopper, a new iPhone app was released today that notifies viewers in real time…

How would you fill in the blank to this sentence? I visit museums because ______________. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago asked this on their Facebook Page. Here’s some of the 40+ responses: They make me dream and fly (by…

Happy 30th birthday for the 8th time! Perhaps you’ve heard this joke. But what if this was really true? Perhaps there could be a number system that counts that way. Instead of counting on 1s, you count on 10s. What…

Don’t you love it when your age is a prime number? I do. Currently I’m 37, a prime number! That only happens twice in your thirties (the other age being 31). Which decade of your life has the most prime…

(photo courtesy uncustomary, see more photos of this sticker-bombed street pole on her blog post, “Street Pole“) Street artist uncustomary in Baltimore did a little sticker bombing on a pole. Most artists will put their stickers on multiple poles, but…

With all the praising and glorifying of a metal object going on with the Stanley Cup, I wonder how much people realize our activities are rather like glorifying the golden calf in Exodus 32. Are there more searches for “Golden…

From “Principles of composition” 1915 by Percy Holmes Boynton: A hundred years ago it took so long and cost so much to send a letter that it seemed worth while to put some time and thought into writing it. Now…

To enhance the 3D effect of the James Earle Fraser’sculpture relief, the base of the tower extends out. The tower could have simply been a flat wall, but the multiple levels of the protruding wall makes the sculpture seem like…

Is the United States Post Office trying to say something by crossing out “forever” on the American flag stamp? I know it’s standard to cross out the price (or in this case the “forever”) from the stamp, so people don’t…

What happens with the tooth fairy misses an appointment? Mark Bazer covers the ridiculousness of the tooth fairy’s existence in “The day the Tooth Fairy didn’t come.” Ridiculous things are great. I want to make up new characters for particular…

Many questions arise from the image featured on IKEA’s Page not found 404 error.” If that person is painting with red paint, why is there white paint on the jeans? Very perplexing. That person didn’t paint that floor. Someone else…

Can you do this in Instagram? Put notes on top of other people’s photos? No. You cannot do that in Instagram. But you can do it in Flickr. There’s many different ways you can ask your fans to leave notes.…

(Photo by ifmuth on flickr) Balance an entire bridge on a river barge? As if that wasn’t enough weight, why not prop some railroad cars inbetween? Those railroad cars must have some sort of interior structure to hold all that…

Out of the millions of photos that get posted to flickr every day, my sprouting tulip photo is currently the #112th most popular image on flickr for April 1, 2013. A big thanks to Chicagoist for featuring my photo in…

The low sun casts light onto the stark white station house hovering over the downtown streets named Madison and Wabash. The darker setting of Chicago’s gritty urban loop provides a sharp contrast to the white-washed facade of this ancient train…

Resident legal eagle @tklyber weighs in on a Supreme Court decision made last week, a big win for museums in the US. Museums can continue to show copies of artists work. Let’s say 30 years ago if a museum aquired…

You are talking to an artist about his/her work. Let’s say you don’t know much about art. Here’s a couple suggestions on what to say. First off, never say, “you must have a lot of time on your hands.” In…

I beg people to never ever utter this phrase to an artist, “you must have a lot of time on your hands.” You may not realize it, but it’s extremely insulting to the artist. If you have said these words…

The Los Angeles Community Museum of Art is allowing 20,000 of their images to be used for free for any purpose. They even offer an easy download link on each image to grab the highest-resolution file. All the images are…

Ferruccio Laviani‚Äôs “Good Vibrations” is amazing. This is a real cabinet created to look like a warped scan. However, I‚Äôd like to see another photo with a different angle. Showing another photo will ruin the illusion, but it will also…

We know Wassily Kandinsky for his fun shape and line paintings like this particular painting done in 1922. Wassily Kandinsky, “Ohne Titel” watercolour, pen and brush with India ink on paper Executed in December 1922, sold for $2,943,594 June 24,…

A selection of poem, “The New York School” by Joseph Bradshaw I can‚Äôt remember anything about the movie Pollock. I wish a bald Sigourney Weaver played the part of Jackson Pollock. That would make the film more memorable. I wish…

The Art Institute sent me an email promoting their Picasso show. Hmmm, they must have missed my review of the Picasso show. They could have included my quote on their ad. “Meh, ok” –Matt Maldre, spudart.org But seriously, I think…

[LA Times, image via Smithsonian American Art Museum; a detail of Norman Rockwell’s painting “Shadow Artist” in George Lucas’s personal collection] George Lucas wants to build a museum of inspiring art. This is so awesome! YES YES YES. I’m excited…

What happens when you put thousands of small ball bearings on a moving table? You get fascinating patterns of movement. (If you cannot see the video above, you may view it on vimeo at, “Gr√∂nlund-Nisunen – Unstable Matter – 2013.”)…