The Canine as Canvas, a slideshow of dog grooming insanity:
Angela Kumpe, who has become the groomer-to-beat at contests like this, spent more than six months turning a poodle into a buffalo, but changed her mind after her mother, Linda Smead, died Feb. 24. A week ago she began grooming Missy, a friend’s poodle. The design, which she called a ”grieving angel for my mom”, included a reclining woman and delicately shaped flowers. Kumpe took home first place.
Finally got a chance to check out Paula McCartney’s solo-show Birdwatching at Klompching Gallery in DUMBO tonight. Stacy posted a great write-up of the show earlier this week on the 20x200 blog:
Since 2003, Paula McCartney has been creating a world where the birds sit still for her camera, come when called, and show themselves when asked. The project is a deliberately constructed theater as well as a kind of conceptual landscape photography, and through it she has managed to create a world that even the most die-hard naturalist would envy. What I’m most touched by in viewing these images is that the artifice has become an intrinsic piece of the art itself: she isn’t trying to trick you into thinking that these are anything but craft-store bought fake birds. An even more subtle “inside” joke are her captions that from scene to scene mix real life species with some more fancifully made up common names that are just close enough to real North American Birds to sound legit to the non-birder ear. These images are made with a tender humor, as well as an honest appreciation for what it really takes to be someone who learns to see the seemingly invisible in the natural world.
Lies, deception, and birds? Totally coveting the book.
Sky Mall Kitties by Nina Katchadourian
I didn’t think I could like Nina Katchadourian more than I already did. Then I saw Sky Mall Kitties.
(via maniacalrage)
Research on flipping things inside out leads to bizarre animal birthing books.
Veterinary obstetrics: including the diseases of breeding animals and of the new-born
Untitled work image by Holly Lynton
Yesterday, Jeffrey posted about some work-in-progress by Jen Bekman Gallery artist Holly Lynton and I can’t get this image (a.k.a. The Turkey Madonna) out of my head. Isn’t it wonderful?
(via Jen Bekman Gallery blog » Blog Archive » Holly Lynton Sneak Peak)
Bread Bird by Dayton Castleman
An inquiry as to whether birds would eat bread in the shape of their own. In this case, Chicago pigeons would not.
(via today and tomorrow)
GIF by stephanie davidson
“I came upon twin fawns in the display case of a mom and pop toy and science store in Kansas City, Missouri. It took me two years to win the trust of the shop owner and save the money to buy them. A taxidermist spotted a dead deer by the side of the road. He stopped to properly dispose of the body and realized she was pregnant. He opened her and found near full-term twin fawns, he removed and preserved them.
Deer rarely have twins and the taxidermist retained the uterine gesture of their bodies. I built them a vitrine with a light blue base. Their prematurity exaggerates the delicacy of an incredibly sweet thing. The points of their hooves, the length of their lashes, the spots of their hides, nose to small nose in an ur-cartoonish realism … Viewers’ eyes trick them into believing the fawns are breathing. The tragedy of beauty is its transience.
The twins live forever in their own demise. They are sleeping beauties.They have been muses since I first saw them … We dress death in lilies and bronze the names of our dead sons on walls. We erect altars of toys and hold candlelight vigils to express hope. My twin fawns sleep endlessly on their baby blue block in my studio. The twins never opened their eyes yet their wondrous fatality evokes an acceptable alternative to death.”
I’m not really a sucker for sentimental things, but this just got me.
(via brocatus)
Watch this music video for the song “Triumph of a Heart” by Bjork (directed by Spike Jonze) and you will be rewarded generously with a cat dance sequence. It just might make your day.
