MonkeyPuzzle

28.3.10

Moving Pictures

Thanks to Laura over at Animalarium, who always shares such beautiful work on her blog, for sharing this animation Vogens de vogels (according to birds) from Dutch artist Linde Faas. Turn up the volume and listen in a quiet space to experience the subtlty of sound and image.

25.3.10

Margareta Kern

Margareta Kern has documented women in Croatioa, Bosnia and Herzgovina who have been making clothes in which they want to be buried. This is not an established custom or tradition, she heard of it while in her mother's dress shop. Just a small population of women are doing this, but she traveled around the area and managed to photograph and interview many of them.
This is such a beautiful project to consider, and the images are no less amazing to me.

18.3.10

Found Photo

. ..... .

SX70 circa 1976

This is part of a collection that I found which we will be seeing in the future in the form of a small road-trip book. They are a odd mixture of the amazing and the mundane all from one of my most nostalgic eras: that of my earliest years, which make me feel a certain ownership over these. (That, and the fact that someone gave these coveted moments up) I can almost swear I've witnessed the bits and pieces that make up these images, but in a different time and place.

17.3.10

An Odd Bestiary

. ..... .

"There were people who ventured out and glimpsed what life was like beyond the stone walls surrounding the medieval community, and when those travelers returned home they brought word of an earth so large, so full of splendor, so remote from the experience of those at home, that their tales altered people's dreams."
Laurie Block,
from the introduction to The Odd Beastiary compiled and illustrated by Alan James Robinson.

This is my happy thrift store find today.

I love that the descriptions sound like something Edward Gorey might have dreamed up, particularly with the sloth which reads:" His looks, his gestures and his cries all conspire to entreat you to take pity on him" - Charles Waterson

12.3.10

I Breathe a New Song

I Breathe a New Song, Poems of the Eskimos edited by Richard Lewis and illustrated by Oonark.

My latest happy thrift store find is this circa 1970 book of Eskimo poetry illustrated by Oonark, whom I just guessing is a inuit himself.
It's generous with the playful illustrations.....a quality I admire in a book.

6.3.10

Lauren Nassef

I've posted several times about Lauren Nassef, but she is well-worth revisiting.

I love the simple straight forward nature of her drawing while having a sly sense of humor.

Her Drawing A Day blog is still going strong after years and I see that she's just uploaded 20 new pieces to her shop, which fill me with want, like this quick fox.

26.2.10

Tarkovsky's Mirror Set to Arvo Pärt's Mirror in the Mirror

I think I keep looking for these beautiful little spots to rest my eyes and mind and this is a particularly lovely one.
Hope you all a a wonderful weekend.

*via flor de papel
also really worth the visit.

22.2.10

Joni Sternbach

Joni Sternbach's
wet collodian plates.
Images like these give my mind a place to rest. A moment of peace. A monasitc mini-vacation daydream.
They're like a mug of tea alone on the back porch in the afternoon.
Drink it in.

19.2.10

Sick Day

I'm going to try my hardest to stay quiet and restful today. It's a sick day.

It's been an exhausting week and at the center of it have been the trials of raising a strong willed and determined teenage son.

You rarely see teens blogged about on lifestyle blogs. Always toddlers, or under twelves.

Their messy and trying is cute.

Teens' messy and trying is not.

How do parents survive these years with any sense of humor intact?

Then he gives me this.

His high school poetry assignment.

A page from Napoleon.

(sigh)

Such complicated creatures.

1.2.10

The Loveliness of Lark Press

In spite of the lack of sleep, which is not due to active debauchery, but a, hopefuly temporary yet inconvenient sleeping disorder which has set in the last few days, my long weekend in Portland has been good.
Lots of good girl-family time, which is rare and prized.
And a bit of shopping.
The most satisfying of which was here. Lark Press is my dream shop and this time I had the good luck to meet Nik of Bittersugar, who has a show just across the street of a phonetic alphabet at Ristretto Roasters at 3808 N Williams. You can see more photos on her blog.
You can snag these here.
My plan is to get one for each letter in my family: PEAQ. I'm very excited about this, though I have no wall space in my home yet, so I will have to clear a wall first.

So happy that I gave my son a Q name, because that quail is so perfect he makes my teeth hurt.

29.1.10

(Curtin, OR)

14.1.10

Ok, so this takes a little more than 5 minutes (without buffering) and is amazing to see. My computer takes an agonizingly long time with the buffering, and I was happy to see it through to the end.
This stop motion of a limited edition artist's book being made from printing to binding was made by Abigail Uhteg at the Women's Studio Workshop by compiling some 3000 photographs. See more info here.

13.1.10

Jess Hirsch has a new website.

10.1.10

Brittany Sanders

These a few select images from Brittany Sanders' limited edition book, Denkbilder. It's a slim edition of 7 and just 4"x4" in dimension, but full of old images culled from turn-of-the-century books of Paris and text (and this part I love) that has been selected from a much larger work of Walter Benjamin on the modern city.
I love what happens when text and images are recontextualized and made into something beautifully, uniquely it's own, but with a thread of the original ideas.

9.1.10

Bird Feet

Bird Feet by Bryan Kring

19.12.09

Christmas on Craigslist

For all of you out there who have procrastinated so long and are feeling the pressure of coming up with something special for your loved ones this Christmas, Craigslist has a few ideas. Just search Christmas and see a few things you may not have thought of on your own.