more ArtPrize highlights

I was only in town for precious little time this week, so I didn't get to see all or even most of ArtPrize, but here are some highlights and thoughts on what I did get to see.

the handsomely designed guide book

I don't know the name of the entry or the artist that did the above piece, but I think it should become a permanent part of the Grand Rapids cityscape.

This piece of Jewelry was done by one of the aunts.

This near life sized pair of giraffes was executed by Lori Hough, who is a friend of my moms and I have known her for a long time. She gave me and Gordie some pointers on large-scale papier mache that was very helpful in making the griffins.

Oh well would you look at that! A photo of my friend Audria, a.k.a. Vivacious Miss Auduacious. I'm not surprised. She's a great model. I have used her before myself.

I liked this dollhouse village. It can be seen at Fountain Street Church. Vote for it here.

I saw this and though "Malcolm Liepke entered ArtPrize!" But nay, this painter is just an accolyte of Liepke's. She admits it in her statement. Thats ok though, since I myself have been known to be a great admirer of Mr. Liepke.

I really thought this was great. It's a prototype for a bicycle design. Not only do I think it's a great proposal, but I think it's unusual and pretty grand for something that falls more under the category of industrial design to be displayed alongside sculpture and painting. Vote for it here.

This is the infamous Steampig.

This here is a living statue. I prefer not to directly say anything negative about it, I will only say that in the brilliant and hilarious film Hot Fuzz, the local community considered the living statue in their town so tacky that they murdered it.

These steampunk robotic butterflies were one of my favorite pieces that I saw.

And they move! I apologize for the too brief and too crappy video, but I wanted to show them in motion

The butterflies can be seen at the UICA. Vote for them here.

AND OF COURSE GO VOTE FOR THE GRIFFINS!

ArtPrize has begun!

Well, as I mentioned in the last post, the griffins got damaged in the storm the night before the grand opening of ArtPrize. I was up all night on the phone with my people back in Michigan trying to figure out how to get them fixed and then I spent all day Wednesday on the phone in between classes getting updated on the progress. All three griffins were blown over onto their sides in the storm, and suffered cracks and other damage to their wings. In the spots where they were damaged, their weatherproofing got compromised (they got wet), and therein lay the real rub of the situation. Until the damage could dry out, it couldn't be repaired, because we can't seal them up still wet inside. To further frustrate this, at the time, the weather report was predicting intermittent rain for the next three days. Blessedly, the weather stayed clear on wednesday long enough for my mom and sisters and some other helpers to go and spend three hours blowdrying the griffins wounds so they could be patched and resealed. By the time I got back to Grand Rapids this afternoon, the damage had been almost entirely repaired.

SO, I sit grateful that the damage was not worse, and now we can all just relax and enjoy ArtPrize. I didn't have much time to explore but I did get a chance to walk around a bit. Expect more photos tomorrow, but in the meantime enjoy these thoughts on ArtPrize

This is the courtyard of the Cooley Law School. They are directly across the sreet from Legion Design studios. Gordie and I had been interested in exhibiting there, so we went over there during venue matching to personally introduce ourselves and request their hosting space. They never got back with us. Apparently because they were too interested in hosting these giant dildoes:

This is around the corner from Legion Design studios. While it is common for ArtPrize artists to pass out fliers and postcards with their vote number, this is the first actual billboard I have seen.

This sort of thing only feeds the criticism of ArtPrize when people say that it is not an art competition, but an advertising competition. Also lending to that is this:

This fellow was in Rosa Parks circle with televisions physically strapped onto his person. I thought this was his actual entry, since performance and time-based pieces are allowed albeit uncommon. But no, this was just an elaborate promotion to encourage people to go see whatever his real entry is, several blocks away.

And now, I give you, all three griffins, finished, damaged, refinished, and on display at last in 2010 ArtPrize:

in case you didn't know . . .

ArtPrize officially starts tomorrow, but the griffins are already up and on display.

GO!

on Ransom street between Fountain and Lyon, the patio out front of the GRCC library
I want everybody to take pictures of themselves with the griffins and post them to the FB page

make sure to register tomorrow and VOTE FOR US cuz we r broke!

sketchy sketch sketch at the met

hey team,
last night in the first official class of my graduate painting studio, our professor (taking a deconstructive approach) had us draw lit cubes and spheres in charcoal for 3 hours. It was like a freshman drawing class, and while I didn't completely embarrass myself, it was also not my finest hour.
thankfully, I was able to restore my self-esteem a wee bit today, when our writing workshop professor sent us to the met, which is one of my all time favorite places to sketch!
even though I have been to the met dozens of times, today I found significantly large rooms that I had never before come across, including one of my new favorite spots, the visible storage gallery.
Here are the doodles from today:
Panther and Cubs, by Edward Kemeysbust of Paul Wayland Bartlett, by Clinton Ogilviedid not bother to keep the info on the following

the griffins in the media

hey team,
hopefully you are all fans of the griffins facebook page. If so, you should have already been informed that the griffins got mentioned in a couple local media outlets. For those of you who may not be within the distribution regions of the Grand Rapids Press or RevueWM, I have faithfully scanned and now post those pieces here for you
RevueWM:
Grand Rapids Press:And also, the griffins now have their own twitter! so all you tweetheads go forth and become followers! so that we can spam you with updates on progress, media, and most importantly, how and when to CAST YOUR VOTE

costume sketch night @ society of illustrators

Hey team,
as you may well know, every Tuesday and Thursday Society of Illustrators hold sketch night. Tuesdays is nude, Thursdays is costumed. Its got fun live music, excellent models, and a reasonably priced cash bar. I frequented it with some regularity last summer. Now that I am in New York for good, I intend to go whenever possible.
I hit it up last night, and here are some doodles for you.
warm ups:
5 minutes:10 minutes:

20 minutes:
that one stinks up the joint a bit. I made the head a little bit too big and sort of accidentally gave her a man's face. And not just any man's face, either. Now that I look at it, I totally drew the face of my friend Joe Bierma, which is odd, I must admit.
This one is a darn shame. I'm pleased with the way I drew the figure, but that head! barf! I erased and started over and that I think only made it worse. It certainly doesn't help that I switched to a black prismacolor to redo the head.
That sketch reminds me of when I was in high school I used to doodle these nice imaginary figures, but I was afraid to do the faces because I didn't think I could do them well, so rather than ruin a nice figure with a terrible face, I would draw animal's heads on them. I sort of wish I had done that here.
There. That's much improved.
Last pose of the evening:

meet the new classmates

Hey team,
classes started yesterday for the masters in illustration at SVA.
Not only are there literally hundreds of places in the area that will deliver any crazy food I want to me in my studio, but the facilities are beautiful.That there is my new studio space. It needs to get a bit more lived in, but that will happen soon enough.
This is the view of Chelsea from our studio loft.the wall of fame showcase displaying the many published works of the program's alumni:Some of my classmates hanging out in the kitchenSpeaking of my classmates, team, there are but 18 of us in the class of 2012. Please allow me to introduce them to you

Tony DiMauro

Nina Frenkel

Trip Carroll

Joanna d'AvillezCecilia RuizElizabeth BaddeleyJohn MaltaDasha TolstikovaBrad SoucyCharles ChaissonHaejeon Lee, a.k.a. JessicaAlicia JacobsCharnelle PinkneyJaeKyung Jeong, a.k.a. Heather
Rebecca ZomchekRafael AlvarezLiPei Huang

You may notice, team, to your right the blogroll has grown, and everybody here with a website is now included to. So click around and familiarize yourself.