Sleepless in Midland

My favorite yard ornament got the Christmas spirit

It's Moulding Our Future, a beautiful sculpture by D. Haskew that's planted on a lawn at a private home here in magnificent Midland, Texas. The lad has been sporting a Christmas stocking cap on his bronze noggin this holiday season helping spread the Christmas spirit. As we approach the new year I expect the cap to come off soon. So here for your enjoyment is a photograph.

If you want sculpture like this of your own shop online here or here. To read more about the piece go here.

Merry Christmas, kiddo. And learn to spell.

Ray Villafane carves some crazy crazy pumpkin faces

If you haven't yet seen the talented Ray Villfane's pumpkin faces check out VillafaneStudios.com.

They are unbelievable.

Lois Gibson forensic artist

Drawing a sketch that looks like a person who is sitting right there is hard enough. But it has to be even harder when all the artist has to go on is a verbal description. The job of a forensic sketch artist isn't easy. And when someone with talent like Lois Gibson comes along she gets noticed.

She's so good that according to Dailymail.co.uk she earned the "Guinness World Record for being the world's most successful sketch artist, having helped to solve well over 1,000 crimes over her 30-year career."

But there's more to her work than criminal investigation. She also sketches faces of Holocaust victims based on descriptions from survivors. Pretty amazing.

See some samples of her work here. And come to think of it, since her sketches are usually of victims or criminals, getting drawn by her is something the rest of us might want to avoid.

Via.

Warbird nose art

Hubba hubba yowsa!

Yesterday we talked about the free admission to the CAF Airpower Museum today, Memorial Day. And any visit to the museum isn't complete without seeing the WWII warbird nose art on display.

Being the compliant type, this blogger observed and obeyed the no-photographs sign, so you won't see any of that art in this post. The various nose artworks had one thing in common. The subject in every case was a scantily clad female. Yeah baby. A pinup on a plane.

The CAF Gulf Wing visited with their B-17, equipped with a Norden bomb sight, and yes, nose art of its own. That's her on the right.

Fast forward to the politically correctness of the current era, and one has to wonder what the modern day nose art would look like. Gender, culture, race, color, creed neutral. A non specific blotch might pass multicultural scrutiny.

Hilarious street art by Oakoak

The problem with most graffiti is that it's not just narcissistic, but it takes so much work to get rid of it. This guy has a better idea -- find something unusual on the street, apply some creativity, create a cutout, and make a drab scene funny. It's the art of OakOak.

Did I mention that he's funny?

This is better than graffiti. It's removable.

Via Pleated-jeans.com.

You don't have to be Rain Man to appreciate this

Todd McLellan is the dismantler/photographer. It looks like a painstaking process, but the results are amazing. This is a disassembled typewriter with the components spread out in a nice orderly manner.

Click Everyone has a piece of the puzzle to see more like that.

You can almost hear Philip Glass in the background while looking at these.

Shadow art

Remember as a kid trying to make animal caricatures on the wall with the shadow of your hands? This is quite a few steps beyond. And the results are remarkable.

Found at TheMetaPicture.com where you can see more.

The artists are identified here as Kumi Yamashita, Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

More amazing Blu wall art

It's a series of still photos as a guy paints a courtyard and surrounding walls to give an illusion of an animated motion picture. Watch Youtube video. It's amazing stuff and makes one wonder how he got that paint to dry so fast.

Perhaps you'll remember a previous one posted here early this year.

Via Laughing Squid.

Updated: Dang. I need to check friendly blogs more frequently. Fireant Gazette posted Blu's art video yesterday.  He certailny has great taste.

More amazing sidewalk art

A couple of years ago we admired the photos of Julian Beever's amazing sidewalk art work -- see previously on these pages for links.

Here's another artist using the same principle, Edgar Mueller, who painted Ice Age in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, in August of 2008.

See more photos of it here. And watch him do it on Youtube.

Via Neatorama.

Art in the Park

The non-profit group called Arts Assembly of Midland has really given us some nice art to admire as we walk around Windlands Park. These photos were taken just after sunup the other morning.

CORRECTION (added 2/13/09): The sign for this sculpture is incorrect. It identifies a previous exhibit which this one replaced. The item you see above is Passion in a Bud Vase 2008, in stainless steel and etched pigment, 7’x 12’ by Jim LaPaso, Kyle, Texas

CORRECTION (added 2/13/09): The sign for this sculpture is incorrect. It identifies a previous exhibit which this one replaced. The item you see above is, Spy Hopping, 1996, Stainless Steel, 66" x 96" x 36" by Willie Ray Parish, El Paso , Texas. What is Spy Hopping? Here's an explanation, via PDF.

The sculpture is abstract. It is not a whale, but is about surfacing sea mammals. Parish did a number of sculptures in the '90s derived from the various shapes that appear above the water line when sea mammals surface. The idea was to try to draw attention to the environmental damages to the earth and particularly the oceans. This particular one is similar to the "spy hopping" move that some whales regularly make. They get vertical in the water, sticking their heads above the water line, presumably to see what is happening. Willie Ray Parish is the Sculpture Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and founder and Director of the Border Art Residency.

The sculptures are rotating art pieces, and the Arts Assembly insures them and pays a fee for their use. There are two more on the way: Super Happy Chicken by Carter Ernst and Weathering the Storm by Paul Kittelson. However, their arrival has been delayed by an injury accident on the highway in route to the Midland. Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.

Rotating exhibits are an ideal way to enjoy big art like this. After they've been in place for a while we gets used to them, and just about the time we begin to ignore them, WHOA, what's that? A new one appears like magic.

Thanks to Danny Holeva, Executive Director at the Arts Assembly of Midland, for the corrections.  And thanks to everyone at Arts Assembly of Midland for bringing this fabulous art to the Tall City!