Surfing Lake Superior

I've tried surfing before and I was surprised at how fun and easy it was (at least, relative to how difficult I expected it to be). Maybe I'd start surfing regularly if I didn't live in Minneapolis.



UNLESS...

Professional surfer Jamie Sterling heard there's some decent sized waves Lake Superior. So he traveled to Beaver Bay in Duluth, Minnesota to find out.



And he is crazy.

Ruairi Robinson

I've been saving this post for a lazy Sunday, as a 12 minute video is a bit long for the workday, perhaps. But Ruairi Robinson's Blinky is pretty excellent.

Watch out, wimps! It starts out fun, but things quickly become... a bit creepy.



Also, I was surprised to see that I remembered Ruairi Robinson's previous work from a few years ago; The Silent City.

Houston

There is absolutely no information about this artist, other than their name might be Houston (thanks to the clever URL and his Vimeo username. I even checked the source code of the site, and found all the images labeled with HOUSTON). Hmmm. It's a mystery to me.

That doesn't make me like these sculptures, installations and photographs any less.









Maybe it makes me like it more?

Are We Designer

We Are Designer is a small studio in Germany that does some fantastic work.

I've never seen such a lovely 'Global Trendbook and color chip book for presentation of current collection of automobile color coatings.' In fact, I've probably never seen one of those at all... but I kind of want this one.







You might want to check out their Behance portfolio, as it's a bit easier to look at.

Aesthetic Apparatus

Aesthetic Apparatus has always been an inspiration to me. Formed 12 years ago in Madison, Wisconsin (where I grew up), they started a kick-but studio and moved to Minneapolis around the same time I came for school. I was very into printmaking, and their constant stream of screenprints for rock shows blew me away. It seems like they've always made a point of making cool things for cool people.

Recently they hit the 500 Poster milestone and put together this little montage to celebrate.



Congratulations!

Care Center Slaughterhouse

Ben Martin is a great friend of mine who's super creative and has an awesome sense of humor. He recently put together a faux-horror trailer called for Hobo with a Shotgun trailer contest.



It's gross, so be warned.



Do me a huge favor and vote for Care Center Slaughterhouse right now! Voting ends super soon, so do it now!

Help Ben out! He'll let you run your fingers through his suave mustache as a reward if he wins!

L.A. : Day 1, Half a day of L.A

Airport food: That is one BigAZ Chicken Sandwich

My great friend, Adam, and I signed up for a spur of the moment weekend of relaxation, eating and great weather. We were headed out on a cheap, Sun Country, evening flight to L.A with little-to-no agenda besides getting away. I was interested in doing a little trend shopping and some documenting for the blog.


Adam and Lindsay

Francesca and I had been there last year around January and we had the time of our lives. I was really looking forward to the couple days that Adam and I had. This was Adam's first trip and he was stoked to take a couple days off as well.


5 bucks for a 6 inch "PIZZA"

Our flight was no big deal, normal besides some nasty plane food (cheese pizza that was like a huge cheese cracker) and we touched down as it was getting dark.


View of the Rocky Mountains


Our classy hotel

We picked up our rental car and headed to West Hollywood and to The Grafton on Sunset, a hotel on Sunset Boulevard and La Cienega.


Scandal!

Adam was impressed as stepped into the main lobby. There was a risqué cropped photo of some scandalous activities hanging on a huge wall and the place was spotless.


Huge photos hung above our sleazy (but awesome) beds covered in zebra print

Our room was fantastic. Hanging behind both of our beds were some larger than life photos and zebra-pattern bedding. Living in style!


Adam got the upper half

As you can see we had a great time taking photos of what was to be our space for the next couple days and freshened up for a second before going out.


I got the lower half

We grabbed the car from the valet and went out to joyride and look for a place to eat.


Delicious!

We were really close to some great shops and restaurants. Including this great Argentinian place. My friend Ryan later told me that L.A. has a great rating system where great restaurants are graded by the health inspectors.


Quiet Monday night in L.A

I wish I would have known that the whole way though - but it was a great place and now that I look back on the photos, I see that this place was an "A"!


Shrimp and Endives

I had some kind of Endive Shrimp thing, and Adam had some vegetables and meat thing (great descriptions, I know). Still, we were happy, full and sleepy.
We headed back to the hotel where we crashed to some Cooking Network shows.


Makeshift Toothbrush courtesy of the hotel - the 4 bristle special.

Jillian Tamaki's book covers

Illustrating classic literature is a pleasurable illustration challenge: it's always interesting to see a reinterpretation of a popular subject. It's frequently done, though, so making a fresh spin is difficult. Jillian Tamaki does a beautiful job with her embroidered book cover creations.

She's also made a cover for Black Beauty and The Secret Garden; if you go to her blog you can see those as well!

Art Crank - Minneapoils! : Best Party Ever!

Saturday was the day we'd been waiting for! For a couple months we've been planning, scheming and waiting to attend Art Crank. We showed up around 7:30 or so to a HUGE crowd. We swam through the crowds and found our poster! The place was wild with bike and art connoisseurs, and a TON of really amazing artwork!!



Walking up to Art Crank...


A million beautiful bicycles


Francesca and Lindsay with their Bike-teas outside the Art Crank space


Shelter Studios was Filled to the brim! Adam and Chris ready themselves to enter & take a look


There were so many gorgeous bicycle themed posters


A view of the crowd

We saw the show over the next 45 minutes or so and were completely awe-struck by how many people and how much art was up. Last year Chris and I had the opportunity to go and this time was just as crazy! The posters were amazing, the people were electric, and we had a fantastic time bumping into some of our friends and colleagues that had come out to support us!

We ended up purchasing two new posters for the studio and heading over to Black Sheep Pizza in the warehouse district.


Chris and Adam are creepers in this low-lighting


Francesca and Lindsay

We had a super tasty dinner of some market salads and coal-fired pizza and chatted up the night together.


Chris and Adam make the duck face


Francesca and Lindsay are not amused.

All in all an amazing night! Thank you Art Crank!

Gary Baseman at MCAD!

MCAD was super lucky to have Gary Baseman come to Minneapolis to give a lecture on Friday. After months of anticipation, MCAD gathered in the large auditorium (all seats filled, the floor and standing room were packed) and overflowed into the small auditorium. He gave an inspiring, witty talk about life, art and inspiration to several hundred of us and flipped through some of his most recent works.



I had the pleasure of meeting him Thursday night with a couple of other professors from MCAD. I have only great things to say! Gary Baseman is an articulate, down to earth guy. One of the biggest things I got from our conversation on Thursday - AND - the lecture on Friday is that he cares a lot about making a personal connection with his work. A lot of his themes hold bits and pieces of his past and many of the stories and the way he presents his themes are fun, a little edgy, but still super relate-able.

It's always nice to hear about someone's process as well as their inspirations!
The work he showed was really fun and inspiring to all of us.



Here is a 6 minute snippit of his hour and a half talk at MCAD. You'll have to pardon my sideways camera holding for a moment. It straightens out in a couple seconds.
All in all - all three of us were very impressed and quite entertained!

I taught class after the lecture and all of my students were raving about the talk. It seems he's made quite the mark on the MCAD community.
Good show!

2011 Artcrank Poster

Hey! This year we were selected to participate in the Minneapolis Artcrank. We totally love the show and we are super excited!

We decided to do a collaborative piece that the three of us could work on together. We put our heads together to come up with the concept, then took turns until it was complete. Then we sent it off to be screenprinted by Steady Print Shop Co.

The show is tomorrow night, April 2nd from 5pm - midnight! Here is our piece!


(And here's a slighter bigger version.)



Our studio is littered with prints right now! Some of the detail fell out when we printed, but Lindsay went back in with a brush and some gouache and touched up every print for the show by hand! Now that's dedication!



So if you're in the Minneapolis area, make sure to head out to Artcrank tomorrow night! There will be screenprints by over 40 artists, are they're all only 30(!) dollars! Plus it's a huge party! Be there!

Skittles Touch!

The other day our friend Ryan sent me a link to these awesome ads for everyone's favorite candy; Skittles! These ads are seriously amazing, but you have to participate when it asks you to!

So do it!



The cat one is clearly the best, but I also got a kick out of the serious creeper nature of this one.



I don't know much else about the campaign, but you can find out who made it here.

The Art of Disney Animation

I was sent this link from one of my students (thank you, Brianna!), and haven't been able to stop looking through this gallery. It's a French blog, so unless you're skilled in the language the words will remain a mystery, but the images more than make up for it.
It was really difficult picking images to post–there are so many good ones and I haven't even seen them all!

Ben Thomas

We had an earlier post about the tilt shift photography of Olivo Barbieri, some fantastic stuff that pushes the "teeny tiny" look to the max. Ben Thomas is another tilt shift master–with a focus on cities, much to my delight.

Gift Complaint Form

Wire & Twine is a small studio that works out of shop on a small farm. They found that they were always just making things, so they decided to start a business around that. Seems like they have a cool thing going.

This past holiday season, they shared a free Gift Complaint Form that you can include in the box when you give a gift.



This would have come in handy since it seems like I know someone with a birthday for every day in March (including Lindsay and Francesca!).



Download a free PDF version for your next gift-giving session!

via Swiss-Miss