San Francisco: No Room For Parking, But There's Always Room For Jell-O.

 

above: San Francisco's Marina made of Jell-O

 Liz Hickok is a San Francisco based artist working in photography, video, sculpture, and installation, and currently... Jell-O.

 
Above: San Francisco's famous Alamo Square

 
Above: Liz Hickok's Jell-O Alamo Square

News of Hickok's "San Francisco in Jell-O" series is spreading quickly. Her work has been included in such publications as The New York Times, Harper's, and San Francisco magazine, as well as on the cover of Artweek. She has been featured on several different local and national news and radio programs such as the CBS Early Show, VH1, Spark* (KQED, Bay Area), All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation (NPR). Below are more fun images of the City by the Bay in Jell-O. 

 Foggy San Francisco:
  

The Palace Of Fine Arts:  

The Ferry Building:

  

 

Twin Peaks:

   

  The Bay Bridge:

   

 Her San Francisco Jell-O creations are available as limited edition C-prints on her site. 

  Liz Hickok

Can You Take A Pretty Picture?

Communication Arts invites you to enter your work in the 48th Photography Competition.

Now is the time to promote your talent by having your work selected for the largest and most important juried competition for photography.

Selected award-winning pieces will appear in the August Photography Annual of Communication Arts magazine. More than 70,000 copies will be distributed worldwide, assuring important exposure for the creators of this outstanding work.

Deadline: March 13, 2007

Click here for submission guidelines, PDF entry forms and FAQs:
http://www.commarts.com/competition

Send A Virtual Mix Tape for Vday!

Genius execution and idea! Thanks to Kim Genkinger for bringing this fun interactive valentine by Exopolis to my attention!

Pick a song from lots of fun ones (I prefer the Pixies song), label the tape and send it cyber.

Right here, baby.

Art with Heart (free downloads)

Free Photoshop Brushes for Valentine's Day from some super talented and generous designers!

Jason Gaylor of Designfruit commissioned some folks at Blacksuits Creative to help out on some designs for this Valentine set. There is quite a mix of ideas here. Thanks to Katie Canada, Dan Spencer, and Erik Rothrock for helping Jason put these together.


There are 15 Brushes in this set. The brushes work with Photoshop CS and above. Anything before CS will require using the PNG files also available here.

Thanks guys..and Happy Valentine's Day!

Gloomy Valentine Trailer

In Honor of Valentine's Day, a sneak peek at Warwick Burton's newest film (thanks to a correction from a reader!), Gloomy Valentine.



Learn more and download fun (or gloomy) wallpapers at Dead heart studio

Funky Find of The Week: The Jet Coffee Table

above: Jet Coffee Table by Lorraine Brennan

Lorraine Brennan’s Jet Coffee Table, inspired by those paper planes most of us made in elementary school (and occasionally flung at that cute little blonde girl when no one was looking), is one of those designs we can’t help but instantly fall for. Made from 2mm steel, it succeeds as abstract sculpture, functional accessory, and whimsical design element. And the best part is you can’t get in trouble just for having one … even if you had no intention of throwing it… we swear.

Lorraine, who used to have her own design company, now is responsible for the design, launch and on-going development of French Connection Home.

Sitting Pretty: Swarovski Studded Lounge Chair

A Little Bling On Your Furniture, Perhaps?
The Vendome Chair, an otherwise conservative piece in black wool, is tufted with buttons made of Swarovski crystals.

Now that's sitting pretty!

$3,390 at Sipure Design in Miami, (305) 940-4655.

Lowbrow Artists do Highbrow Charity

Thanks to Corey Helford Gallery of Culver City, today's most respected and popular "Lowbrow" Artists (see previous article on lowbrow art here) have culled together a fabulous show benefiting The Alliance For Children's Rights that takes vintage paint-by-number art and transforms it into unique pieces of low brow art.

Granted, this is not the first gallery to promote and exhibit the idea of paintng over vintage art. To be fair, The Wurst Gallery did this years ago, only not restricted to paint by number art.

With fun original creations by such well known popular artists as Mark Ryden, Shepard Fairey, Joe Ledbetter, Jeff Soto, Camille Rose Garcia and Gary Basemen, just to name a few, these paintings are available for auction on ebay with 100% of the proceeds benefiting The Alliance For Children's rights (see their mission statement below).

Available for purchase on ebay, the auctions ending on Friday, Feb 16th and prices are already rising rapidly, so you'd better get your bids in now.

Here are just a few wonderful examples of the original vintage PBN and the finished pieces. Click on images to enlarge:

Mark Ryden:

Gary Baseman:

Ana Bagoyen:

Shepard Fairey:

Jeff Soto:


The bids are moving up quickly on these works already, so if you'd like to see many more (and you should) be sure to visit Corey Helford Gallery of Culver City or check out the auctions on ebay.


above: Corey Helford Gallery

Nonprofit's Mission Statement
The Alliance for Children's Rights is protecting the rights and futures of abused and impoverished children throughout Los Angeles County, in hopes of creating a world in which all children are able to have a safe and permanent family, access to quality health care, a quality education, and all of the support and services they so rightfully deserve.

House & Garden Goes Goth With D.L. & Co.

Goth seems to be back in a big way. I don't know if tatts brought back Goth or Goth brought back tatts, but either way, skulls, knives, absinthe, hearts, snakes and vector art seem to be taking over the art and retail world, as well as flesh.


click on above image to enlarge

Bergdorf Goodman & House & Garden Magazine hired Douglas Little of DL & Co, who describes himself as a "modern alchemist", to create the Gothic Splendor Windows at Bergdorf Goodman for a special House & Garden Issue. The windows were breathtaking and it's only fair that you get a chance to see them too if you weren't able to see them in person :
.

Do It Yourself, But Do It Right.

Want to have complete graphic and design control over your world? Well, the following products and sites make it easy for you to design everything from your own postage stamps to the badging on your car to your athletic shoes.

Just click on the images below for more information and direct links to the sites or products.

Once upon time, the only creative DIY stuff available was for kids. Coloring books, mainly. But now, for those of us who fancy ourselves "creative", there are a million cool things on the market to which we can add our own sense of design.

From customizing your laptops with Mac Styles to creating your own messenger bag online with Re:load Bags. Stamps, placemats, nite lights, pillows, they can all reflect your own style or your own art and design.

Now you can be that complete control freak you always wanted to be.

See more of my DIY stuff for Frustrated Artists list at ThisNext.