Modern Food Fight: What playing with your food can do.

It’s Giuseppe Arcimboldo gone 3D! As a team, Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers have created and published eight children’s books about food play. Their creative art stems- no pun intended- from Saxton’s eight birthday where he received his first pocket knife. He promptly used it to carve a pumpkin and this, he states, is what drew him toward the art of carving food.

Joost Elffers, of Dutch decent, lives in America and began writing books in the early 1970’s. He met Saxton and they began creating books with Saxton and the “illustrator” and Joost as the author. Joost mentioned once that he never understood why Americans carved the stem out of the pumpkin when it already made such a cute nose.

(Dr. Pompo's Nose, 2000) Perhaps this is what Joost meant by a "cute" nose?

Before meeting Saxton, Joost co-authored many books such as Origami, Cat’s Cradle, and Anamorphoses- all with very creative and interactive subject matter. Saxton’s wife, Mia, helped jumpstart his career by founding the eeBoo Company. Together, she and Saxton created products that could be both entertaining and educational. Some of these products include growth charts, cookie cutters, and stacking blocks, all of which fueled the fire for Saxton’s vegetable carving.

Later on, the two men joined together as friends and co-workers and produced a plethora of children’s books featuring carved veggies and fruits in playful situations. Some of their most famous books include How Are You Peeling?: Foods with Moods, Food for Thought, and Fun with Food.

                                 

(Spot o' Rain?) A dog made out of a pear and an umbrella made from a zucchini.

                 

(That's Radish-u-Bus)                                                     (Winky)

Food Fight

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was one of the stranger artists, especially considering the fact that he painted in the 15^th century. He didn’t start out as a strange painter though; his early years were taken up by painting exquisite portraits for French parliament members and two kings, Ferdinand I and Maximilian II. Arcimbaldo also painted frescoes with fellow artist Giuseppe Meda. He was commissioned to paint The Stories of St. Catherine of Alexandria, which still hangs in the Como Cathedral today.

Arcimbaldo at his best can be seen in his later works of portraits painted using fruit. This is where the “strangeness” comes in. In the 15^th century, people were very much drawn to romantic and realistic paintings. Arcimbaldo probably received a few negative comments for his wild art but it didn’t stop him from creating. There isn’t a way to distinguish his most famous works; they all are very prestigious.

His paintings are well known today. Most of his fruit portraits were rediscovered in the early 20^th century by surrealists like Salvador Dali and Octavio Ocampo who have based their own works off of Arcimbaldo. It is also rumored that the progressive rock band, Kansas, used his painting named Masque as one of their album covers. 

    

(Vertemnus)

(Self Portrait)

The Land UNDER the Land Down Under

My next artist is someone probably not well known, not famous, and definitely not molded to the category of classical art. Known to those only by her screen name, Go-Devil-Dante has created some of the funniest (in my opinion) comics and drawings of anime (traditional Japanese cartooning) characters. While poking fun at many of the realistic animators, she draws her characters with sketch-like qualities but seemingly adds beautiful, vibrant colors to anything she creates.

Go-Devil-Dante is a classic “shipper.” A shipper is someone who takes characters from anime, manga, and cartoons and places them in a relationSHIP scene with another character from either the same or different cartoon. Shippers’ drawing themes can range from sexual and intimate to wild and funny. Go-Devil-Dante’s main focus is on the funny.

(Sketch Request for ToysAndChoco)  An example of two shipped characters (Near and Mello from Deathnote)

While currently residing in New Zealand, Dante works as a commissions artist; drawing the requests of those who ask. Although she has been known to ship from many animes, the most common characters in her drawings appear as Light Yagami and L (Deathnote), Aang, Zuko, Katara, and Sokka (Avatar: The Last Airbender), and more recent fanart of the different countries from the hit Japanese show Hetalia Axis Powers. She also enjoys drawing men in drag. 

(Enchanted Zuko) Zuko and Sokka from Avatar: The Last Airbender

(Congrats, Olymians 2010) The characters of Canada, Germany, and America from Hetalia Axis Powers.

   

Woman's Work

The artistic spotlight in the nineteenth century has almost always been a prize which men possess but, sometimes, a woman came along to claim the prize. As a young girl, Rosa Bonheur was well on her way to claiming the prestigious title of what most people deem as the most influential artist of the nineteenth century. Her art is depicted as realistic and “animalistic”, though some will argue that the way she acted and the fact that she was a woman contributed largely to her influential status.

Bonheur was born in France and studied art under the gentle hand of her father. She began working as an artist at the age of thirteen, first practicing in prints and engravings and then working her way to copying some of the masters shown in the Louvre. Her interests and subject matter in her later years revolved around the ideas of human and animal qualities, physiognomy, and cruelty.

Although Bonheur’s subject matter wasn’t much different from what other artists produced at the time, perhaps what made her so revolutionary were her mannerisms. Since she was a young girl, Bonheur insisted upon dressing in trousers rather than the traditional dress a woman would wear. She stated that, “I was forced to recognize that the clothing of my sex was a constant bother. That is why I decided to solicit the authorization to wear men’s clothing from the prefect of police. But the suit I wear is my work attire, and nothing else.” She claimed that, because she was always working and painting around animals, the proper clothing for women was impractical for her. It is rumored that Bonheur was an early lesbian but nothing has ever been confirmed.

Her two most famous works of art were completed in the middle of her life. Horse Affair, completed in 1855, stands as Bonheur’s largest painting. She described herself as a painter, sculptor, and animalier. When she painted Horse Affair, she dressed as a man and actually went to the horse affairs in Bordeaux (a place where women were not commonly seen). Her other acclaimed work is called Plowing in the Nivernais.

   Horse Affair, 1855  (8ft x 16ft)

Plowing in the Nivernais, 1849

          

Sculpters of cows done with metal.

Death is only the Beginning

Many people may recognize my title as a quote by the infamous Imhotep from the 1999 remake of “The Mummy.” What many people don’t know of is the innocence behind the real Imhotep’s past.  The Imhotep I’m about to tell you of is not an evil mummy out to rid the world of Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz. Instead, this (normal, not possessed, non-divine) architect built Egypt’s first pyramid.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much information about the real Imhotep. His creations took place in the midst of Bronze Age Egypt- about 1300 BC- and there isn’t any substantial record of his life. He did, as previously mentioned, build one of the most outstanding buildings in the ancient and modern world.

The Great Pyramid of Djoser still stands tall in Saqqara, Egypt. Many thousands of years have eroded its walls and chipped its exterior mud brick but it will forever serve as a tribute to the so-called “great” pharaoh Djoser and as a remarkable step forward in the world of architecture.

Traditionally, pyramids were built as tombs (spanning 13 acres or so) for ONE pharaoh. Imhotep seemed to have the right idea: start with a very large, sturdy mud brick step (called a mastaba, the Arabic word for bench) and slowly add smaller steps on top of it. Imhotep’s original pyramid doesn’t look like much compared to the Sphinx or the pyramids of Giza but he was the original creator and perpetual road-paver for some of the most extraordinary structures in the world.

The Great Step Pyramid of Djoser, Imhotep.

   

THIS IS NOT THE REAL IMHOTEP. THIS IS ARNOLD VOSLOO PLAYING A PHONY VERSION OF HIM.

A sculpture tribute to the real Imhotep.

Living in a Material World.

As the art world’s true “material girl,” Tara Donovan makes it onto my blog with her wacky, witty, and incredibly fascinating sculptures. As a young graduate student in 1987, Donovan bused tables for a living. She took to employing everyday items such as drinking straws, paper cups, and plates to make monumental sculptures and, as a beginner, ordered her toothpicks by the box from the restaurant she worked at.


Close-up of Elmer's Glue sculpture (Strata, 2001-2002)

Some years later, she lives in New York and works out a 7,000 square foot studio located conveniently next to her home. Some would call her works true manifestations of OCD. Many of Donovan’s projects involve her locking herself in studio to work on these sculptures with nothing but white-washed walls to keep her company. She confessed to TIME Magazine that she likes to keep her work and her home life separate, although she designed them to coexist.

Donovan has been working on sculptures for years now. One of her most famous includes a life-size abstract design of scotch tape intricately wound around it to create a balance of reflective light and color. “I’m constantly looking for this phenomenological effect,” she says of the work. Donovan also mentioned her skill with extreme multitasking, something which aids in raising her twin one-year-old boys and running an art studio. 

Donovan's Scotch Tape (Nebulous, 2002)

(Moire, 1999) Adding machine paper rolled into small circles.

(Transplanted, 2001)  Ripped and stacked tarpaper.

   

Reality vs. Fantasy

Breaching the thin line (for some) of what is fantasy and what is reality is our next artist, Tom Friedman. In 1989, Friedman was a mere graduate student at the University of Illinois in Chicago when he began his studio works. Originally starting with charcoal drawings, Friedman admitted that the world of “art speak” was so foreign to him that he became frustrated and cleared out his studio by boarding up the windows and painting everything white; essentially starting from scratch.

From there on out, Freidman began placing everyday objects that he found in his apartment in his studio. “At this point I sort of dropped the idea of making art,” he says. “It was more about discovering a beginning.” These “beginnings” started with a single object and slowly grew over time. Friedman’s first obscure work consisted of the tedious gathering of eraser shavings over months and then forming them into a circle which frayed around the edges.

       

 "I found there would be an element of logic that would connect them, like the process of erasing with an eraser and achieving this minimal focal point as the idea of erasing."

Friedman’s absurd views on what should be called art didn’t stop there. He went on to make many contemporary sculptures using such things as yarn and toothpicks. From 1992-1995, he gathered all the words in a college dictionary and spread them like paint splatters across a solid blue background. In the same year he constructed a big bang-like supernova out of some three thousand toothpicks. Not to mention his morbid creations of people “melting”, as they are made out of yarn. Tom Friedman continues to amaze folks around the world. His sculptures have been shown in many parts of Europe, including Geneva and Rome. He currently lives in Massachusetts.

Erasers (Untitled, 1995)

Friedman's toothpick supernova (Untitled, 1995)

Going up the stairs and going down the stairs...

If you're an avid watcher of Family Guy, you'll understand the reference when I say that the next line of the title is "going up the sideways stairs." Even if every person in the world got my lame joke, there's only a handful of people who can make sense of my next artist. Let's take a look through the eyes of Mr. M.C. Escher.

M.C. Escher is one of the world’s most renowned graphic designers and his work can be found in many museums and, luckily for me, many websites. Over his lifetime, Escher created over 448 lithographs (printings on plane surfaces that the area on which to be printed is ink receptive and the area around it is ink repellent), woodcuts and engravings, and over 2,000 sketches. Escher spent most of his childhood life in The Netherlands. He failed the second grade because of illness however; Escher showed promise in the art world at a very early age.

 In 1958, Escher published a book entitled Regular Division of a Plane. He became increasingly aware of Roman architecture and began to base his designs around the mathematical concepts used within the structures. Regular Division of a Plane contains many of Escher’s works of woodcut blocks and sketches in which he described as the systematic buildup of mathematical designs in his artwork.

Following his claim to fame, Escher also constructed many blueprints for “impossible” structures of architecture. One of his most famous works, Relativity, is a drawing of multiple stairs all leading in different directions, yet still attached to the same foundation. It is in these drawings that Escher most captures the use of mathematical concept in art. His tessellations are also widely renowned as some of the most complex ideas. Escher was one of the first to experiment with tessellations and created many over his lifetime.

  
(Relativety, 1953)



(Night and Day, woodcut in 1938)

When you think of art, who's the first person that comes to mind?

Some might say Van Gogh, Monet, Seurat, there are a lot of possibilities. Let's start out with someone who EVERYONE can relate to: Pablo Picasso. A man who could realistically paint just as well as or better than any other artist but chose not to, Picasso started what we know today as the Cubist Movement. Here's one of my favorite quotes from him:


  “My mother said to me, "If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope." Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.”


Maybe you thought he was a bit of a narcissistic guy, but he knows his stuff. During his childhood, Picasso became well-acquainted with the art of painting realistically. As he grew from a child to an adolescent, his work began to change. Once an adult, Picasso began experimenting with different kinds of painting. Most of the paintings produced in his adulthood were known as "cubist" paintings. In other words, Picasso painted and perfected the art of abstract.


Many of his works are first attempts at the new style. At the beginning of the 20th century, Picasso made his first trip to Paris, the art capitol of Europe at the time. It was there that he met Max Jacob, a man who taught him the language and later became his roommate. These were desperate times for Picasso. Working as a true starving artist, he slept during most of the day and did all of his painting at night.


During the outbreak of World War I, Picasso turned even more of his attention to art and lived a lifestyle similar to that of a "Bohemian." At this time he befriended several officers, commanders, and composers, including Igor Stravinsky whom he took many opportunities to sketch. This is his most famous sketch of Stravinsky.

(Portrait of Igor Stravinsky, 1920)

In his later years, Picasso became increasingly aware of his old age and level of attractiveness to young women. Over the course of many years he had earned a reputation of somewhat of a gigolo, dating and courting younger women until they no longer found him attractive. Most of his paintings at this point reflected a sense of how he felt: an old, short dwarf standing next to a lustrous young woman. Picasso died in 1973 following a dinner party where his last words were, "Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore."

(Self Portrait, 1906)