One Rare Bird

Crush of the Week: Miranda July

I'm not sure where to begin when describing my enormous crush on filmmaker-writer-artist Miranda July. Along with being insanely talented, Miranda's numerous works address larger questions about life, love, and humanity - which for me, makes her  not only crush-worthy but truly inspirational. So instead of trying to share her myriad of works, I'm going to show one of her art installations, titled The Hallway, that I found quite profound.

 

Thank you Miranda for being my Crush of the Week. Even though you're no long taking submissions for Learning To Love You More, I think I'll still participate and start sharing the assignments here on my blog in the very near future. You are truly one in a million! xo

Crush of the Week: Nina Nolte

What's more appealing than soaking in a refreshingly cold pool on a hot Summer day? Why drinking and smoking with your girlfriends while wearing a colorful turban of course! And who better than Nina Nolte, with her colorfully modern and surreal paintings, to document the awesome time we're having? I'm seriously dying to jump into a pool right now.

"Nina Nolte’s paintings are figurative - and depicting reality in this manner represent both an artistic as well as conceptual challenge. Based on photography her paintings follow an inner imagery that has its own unique logic, which manifests itself as a compelling coherence of the individual elements."

Thank you Nina for being my Crush of the Week. Your paintings are truly delightful. Call me up for a dip, or a drink, or both, anytime! xo

{via The Jealous Curator}

Crush of the Week: Charmaine Olivia

This isn't the first time I've featured the artwork of artist Charmaine Olivia, and I cant imagine it will be the last. The above image - aptly titled Deer Wearing Gym Socks - is what got me crushing on Charmaine to begin with, and since being wildly talented wasn't quite enough, Charmaine decided to mix her diverse artistic ability with a seductively whimsical imagination and viola! She has hypnotised me with her awesomeness. Who knew it could be so easy?

"I'm a dreamer, painter, tea-drinker, self-taught San Franciscan artist. I was born and raised in a small beach town in Southern California where I first started drawing with soy sauce on napkins but have since upgraded to paper and paint. I now reside in San Francisco's sunny Mission District where I love playing Scrabble in the park, cuddling with my kitten & drinking peppermint tea. My clients & projects include Urban Outfitters, Nylon Magazine, Eyes on Walls, Envelop, Threadless, Infectious, illux.dk, Pingg, Bolia.com, Cool Hunting & Society6, to name a few."

Thank you Charmaine Olivia for being my Crush of the Week. If you're ever looking for new subjects to paint I look awesome in a Native American headdress - just FYI. xo

Crush of the Week: Dottie Angel

If you've never heard of Dottie Angel (aka Tif Fussell) then you leave me no choice but to assume you've been living under a rock and you desperately need to be enlightened. But before I enlighten you I'm going to take a moment to collect my thoughts and calm my hysterical crush...

Okay, one of the things I absolutely adore about Dottie is that in so many ways she is everything I am not (maybe that's why Tif came up with Dottie?), and looking into Dottie's world, with all it's beauty, calm, and creativity, gives me a much-needed break from my own. And the best part is I can't tell where Dottie ends and Tif begins - which I'm quite sure is what happens when each of us starts living out our best imagined selves.

"Dottie Angel lives in a run down cottage over looking the sea. She has two airstream trailers in the yard, one is her studio and the other stores her vast collection of vintage notions... her eight children are home schooled and spend the day outside running barefoot and their evenings sitting by the fireplace, learning ancient crafting techniques. They never talk back to their mother and always smile... she has several chickens, seven rescued greyhounds and a bearded dragon named STIG... Dottie spends most days dressed in an old vintage slip that belonged to her grandmother, that she customized. She thinks to herself, surely everyone dreams of living this life, or at least dressing like they do... Tif [on the other hand] lives in suburbia, is a Brit, a mother of four kids who talk back and a wife. She wears a customized slip and dreams of living Dottie Angel's life..."

Isn't she absolutely fabulous?!? If you want to get out from under your rock and stretch your legs you can visit Dottie on her blog, view her images on Flicker, and buy a bit of her work on Etsy. Thank you Dottie and Tif for all the beauty you bring to the world and for your genuine loveliness. You've made my day! xo

Crush of the Week: Julia Solis

I've been following the work of photographer Julia Solis for a while now and she is beyond crush-worthy. Julia spends her time scaling the crumbling walls of decaying and abandoned mental hospitals, prisons, factories, schools, and theatres (just to name a few). The result is not only amazing images, but a heavy sense of sadness, loss, and haunted wonder. I can't help but imagine the former life of these places once filled with happy school children, rough inmates, and busy nursing staff. To see Julia's full portfolio of work you can visit her blog, Dark Passage Travelogue or her website, Dark Passage where she shares many of the stories behind the  ruins.

"Abandoned stages large and small. Grand old movie palaces, ballrooms, school auditorium, theaters in hotels, mental hospitals, churches and jails. No matter how glamorous or shabby, they have one thing in common: Before being darkened forever, they were the sites of entertainment, pleasure, and contemplation - sometimes for audiences who had no other means of escaping their worlds."

"In the course of organizing clandestine scavenger hunts and other frivolities, Dark Passage has discovered a plethora of derelict sites, the exploration of which has fed an ever more urgent obsession. Rather than seeing the documentation of these spaces as an end in itself, it is meant as fodder for further creative projects. In the meantime, however, some of the photos and stories resulting from our excursions are presented on this site."

Thank you Julia for being my Crush of the Week. Your work is not only amazing but it gives me pause - and that's something I always appreciate and admire in an artist. xo

Crush of the Week: Cassia Beck (part 2)

Last week I shared Cassia Beck's amazing photography with the promise that this week I'd share her equally amazing collage art pieces. I am a huge fan of mixed media artwork, and I'm especially susceptible to said artwork involving vintage images of people. Add to that Cassia's eye for color, design, and simplicity and my crush has become officially euphoric. Not to mention her art causes my insides to burst with happiness!

"These quirky and playful scenes are made by artist and photographer, Cassia Beck. Cassia uses vintage magazines, cut paper and her own photography to create tongue-in-cheek scenarios with a vintage feel."

Thanks again Cassia for being my Crush two weeks in a row. I'm off to buy this next image immediately! xo

Crush of the Week: Cassia Beck

Today's post is simultaneously one the most exciting and overwhelming posts I have done to date. Putting together all my favorite toys from the 1980's was nothing compared to choosing what images to share from Cassia Beck's extensive collection of photography and art prints - they are all amazing! So I will start by admitting there are no words to describe my crush on Cassia. None. And because I can't bring myself to edit this down any further, I've decided to break my crush into two parts: photography today and art prints next week. I dare you not to love Cassia immediately.

Thank you Cassia for being my crush this week (and next!) xo

Crush of the Week: Amy Bennett

Every Second Counts'

Oh, Amy Bennett, how I love thee. You are endlessly talented and insightful, and I absolutely love how in touch you are with the complexity of human emotions and relationships. I could spend hours talking about all the meaning I interpret in your beautifully lonely, and sometimes downright depressing, oil paintings. But I will stop myself here and let you speak for yourself...

"Working with common themes such as transition, aging, isolation, and loss, I am interested in the fragility of relationships and the awkwardness of a group of people trying to coexist and relate to one another."

'We Can Never Go Home Again'

'Losing  It'

"The paintings are glimpses of a scene or fragments of a narrative. Similar to a memory, they are fictional constructions of significant moments. I am interested in storytelling over time through repeated depictions of the same house or car or person, seasonal changes, and shifting vantage points. Like the disturbing difficulty of trying to put rolls of film in order several years after the pictures have been taken, I hope the collective images suggest a known past that is just beyond reach. One of my challenges is to invite the viewer to form his or her own connection and narrative so that he may empathize with the occupants’ seemingly mundane existence."

'Cold Compress'

'Up To Our Necks'

"For my previous project I constructed a fictional model neighborhood. I considered who lived in each home, their family dramas, and the way their private lives might spill into view of their neighbors. The model became a stage on which to develop the psychological implications of belonging to a particular family, with all of its dramas, struggles and familiar routines. As I transitioned my model into winter, snowbanks of increasing depth seemed to fortify a sense of isolation and quietness."

'Coincidence'

'Vacationland'

'Heaven Help Us'

'Trespassers'

Thank you Amy for being my Crush of the Week. You've not only satisfied my voyeuristic side, but helped me realize I'm not the only one grappeling with the "fragility of relationships and the awkwardness of a group of people trying to coexist and relate to one another." You are awesome.

Crush of the Week: Andrea Zuill

I've never kept the same screen saver on my phone for more than a few weeks, but the above image by Andrea Zuill has been my screen saver for well over a year now, and I have no plans to change it anytime soon. Andrea has a special way of making me feel both warm and fuzzy, and at the same time a little bit depressed - which, if I'm being honest, sums up my personality quite well - so it's no wonder Andrea has creeped her way into my funky little heart and soul. With her colorfully quirky and unhappy characters, not to mention her crush-inducing talent, I don't see how I ever had a choice.

And, apart from her love of the colorfully off-beat and the fact that her given name doubles as my middle name, Andrea also shares my love for embroidery. Luckily for her she knows what she's doing and even designs her own patterns (which are available in her Etsy shop.) As for me, I'm lucky if I can get the needle threaded.

Swoon. Sigh. Thanks for being my Crush of the Week Andrea. I think I need to get my greedy little hands on that last image....brilliant!

Crush of the Week: Able & Game

Apparently there are two people walking the streets of Melbourne Australia who I was separated from at birth - ok, not really, but I'm not giving up hope. The design duo of Able & Game (aka: Anna Blandford and Gareth Meney) first caught my eye when I was on my desperate hunt for a 2011 calendar and I haven't stopped crushing on them since. Anna's illustrations are not only colorfully comical, they are embarrassingly relatable. The hilariously quirky sayings from the oddly endearing characters continue to keep me laughing, and I won't even get into my life-long obession with greeting cards. So, thank you Able & Game for reminding me that being a bit odd and blatantly nerdy isn't something to be shy about - you are all sorts of lovely and I'm positive you're mix tapes would rock my world.

And if my love for mix tapes, organization, the X-Files, and the fact that I own the following t-shirt aren't proof enough that we were separated at birth, then I don't know what is...