Subversive public artwork

I appreciate Miguel Marquez's Outside project.

I find inside less interesting (except for the bird thing...that's intriguing)...

Posters for movies that never existed

It's a bit of an odd thing: to make posters for movie sequels that never existed.

But it worked pretty well.

I particularly like...

Football as art

I'm digging ESPN's ongoing illustrations of the big college football storylines from the weekend.

Actually, I should say I've been digging Chris Morris's illustrations of the same...

Awesome chemistry posters

Simon Page put together some posters for the 2011 'International Year of Chemistry'. Three of the prints are for sale on his online store, but they're prohibitively expensive (£55).

The rest of his posters are pretty gorgeous, too, with nice colors and geometric designs.

The other awesome chemistry posters I want to mention today are from Compound Interest and are way more informative than Page's. They aren't quite as pretty, but they're ones I would certainly post on the walls of my new classroom next year.

I want lots of them, and they're at least way cheaper ($12.81 per poster) though not quite as large (23" x 16").

Anybody wanna get me some gifts?

Fallen Astronaut

I know I should keep posting Christmas ephemera, but I feel like taking a little left turn today. I might fit some more Christmas something in later today.

Instead, I want to marvel at the brilliance of the only sculpture on the moon: Fallen Astronaut.

The sculpture is among the most touching, beautiful efforts of commemoration that I've ever heard of. One of the astronauts worked in advance to find as light-weight, hideable tribute to his fallen comrades (some of whom were actual, Soviet comrades - brotherhood knows no political bounds). He managed to sneak the sculpture up TO THE MOON, and then he and his fellow astronauts had to distract mission control long enough to set up a make-shift memorial.

I love the moon. I love the idea that we as a species walked on the moon. I desperately want us to get back to the moon.

More info about Fallen Astronaut on Wikipedia and at the Smithsonian.

I made a flower!

Big thanks to Neusole Glassworks for offering up a groupon through which Calen and I got to take a class and each make a glass and a flower on our fall break (a new thing this year - supposedly to help with second quarter's discipline stats).

It'll be a week before we can go pick up our product (annealing and grinding and all, natch), so no final pics just yet. For now it's just production stills.

...couldn't drag me away...

How gorgeous is that photo (source)?

It's a silhouette of the Wild Horses Monument in Eastern Washington State, and I'm thinking that we've got a new destination for vacation some day.

There are a bunch more photos at this site...

...and video here...

XKCD...again...

If you're not paying attention to xkcd, you're doing yourself a drastic disservice.

Today's comic is, again, a work of art...in which Randall is posting the slowest-updating animated-gif-style comic I've seen. Every half hour, apparently since midnight this morning, the comic updates to show the two main characters - cue ball and Megan - sitting by the side of a body of water, lying down, then Cue Ball waking down to dip a toe in the water. Some of the half-hourly updates have been slight movements of arms and legs; others have been larger movements of Cue Ball down to the shoreline.

It's amazing how expressive Randall manages to be while using only stick figures.

And it's amazing how dedicated and geeky his fans are...the xkcd forum thread for the individual comic...the explainxkcd post for the comic (though the site is being bombarded and is temporarily unavailable)...and a specific forum post showing each of the comics in order - and as an animated gif...

Randall, I shake your hand, sir...

So that's what Nixon looked like?

I don't necessarily get art. 

Some of it is pretty; some is fascinating. Sure...

What I don't get is where artists come up with their ideas. Who, for example, thinks to himself, "I'm going to make portraits of all the presidents" then goes way out of his comfort zone to produce sculptures, papercrafts, masks, drawings, paintings, and mixed media products?

Clearly, this guy does...

Nixon (front)

Nixon (back)

Coolidge

FDR

Taft

Such a precocious pig

Thank you, Ann(i)e Coale for continuing to grace us with your gorgeous artwork...

A colorful blog

I'm not usually down with design blogs, but Plenty of Color is kinda pretty...