Most of what I have shared so far has been some variety of full image manipulation with some layering and effects.  Today I have a different type of image to share.  These images were painted using words as brushes.  They are also my first two attempts at doing this (and remember, on my phone!!) so be kind!

This first picture is of one of my friends shooting pool.  Look for the words: Light, Shadow, Rob, Shirt, Cueball, Cue, Table and Background.

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The iPhone art continues.  Three shots from this past Friday’s Day of the Dead artwalk outing.

Cass of the Dead

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Here is my next entry in the “Phone Artwork” series.  Again, the theme here is that everything from start to finish (including taking the original picture) was done on a mobile device.  And by mobile device I mean the device you use, amongst other things,  as a telephone.

The other day our friend MentalSwitch offered up a delightful little post entitled “Hello Nurse!” It featured a photo of an attractive model dressed as … well, hell, rather than me trying to describe the shot and failing miserably, why don’t you just click on over there and see for yourself. But before you do, please be forewarned that the photo is NOT SAFE FOR WORK!!!!

Ahem. Well, actually, its worksafeness (or unworksafeness thereof) became the topic of some discussion here. Initially the pic was posted without a cut, meaning that the image itself would appear on the front page of S&R. Later, after some complaint and brief deliberations, we moved it behind a cut with the dreaded “NSFW” tag, indicating that the content would most certainly get you fired if it were accidentally viewed by any decent, God-Fearing American^® co-worker. And since way too many of our readers work in places where others might be looking over their shoulders, this was a practical concern. As one colleague put it – and we’ll let that colleague name himself if he wants to – “if the wrong person had walked behind me with that image up on my screen, I could have been walked out the door that day, no appeal.” Full Story »

New technology brings new creative outlets.  If you had told me ten years ago that I would be taking pictures and doing artistic manipulations on my PHONE I may not have believed you.  Yes, this piece (posted in the spirit of Halloween) was shot and fully edited on my iPhone.  It sort of reminds me of the closing scene of the director’s cut of Brazil (not the love-conquers-all version) and that’s okay.

Art as the Servant of Commerce

“… every Beatles song ever recorded is going to be advertising women’s underwear and sausages… It’s one thing you’re dead, but we’re still around! They don’t have any respect for the fact that we wrote and recorded those songs, and it was our lives.” – George Harrison, 1987.

“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.” – Walt Whitman

The Levi’s jeans company is currently running a new advertising campaign featuring Walt Whitman’s poems “Pioneers! O Pioneers!” and “America.” Full Story »

The Tate Museum has the finest collection of the works of J. M. W. Turner in the world, and from time to time they feel the need to refresh the public with another show to keep proving that Turner deserves the “greatest British artist ever” tag. Back in 2005 this resulted in a hugely interesting show called Turner, Whistler, Monet, which looked at the interactions between the three, and it was a genuine treat. This time around it’s Turner and the Masters, a look at the painters that influenced Turner. At least that’s the intention. And everyone loves it. Well, not quite everyone—only Brian Sewellseems to give it the critical eye it deserves. The Times calls it a “Magnificent and hugely ambitious exhibition.” It’s quoted right there on the Tate website. What it turns into, however, is something completely different, something along the lines of Turner the Competitive Cockney Gnome who Tried to Outdo Everyone without Ever Having an Original Idea.
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Up With Sharpies™!

I’m not sure when it started. As long as I can remember I’ve adored those silly beanie caps, especially when they’ve got working propellers. One in particular sticks out in my mind: Some years back at an antique mall I saw one that had “Fort Logan” printed on it. Fort Logan, if you’re not already aware, is a mental health facility on the Denver/Sheridan line (next to the national cemetery), which includes some group homes and whatnot.

By no means PC, but I’m still kicking myself for not buying it.

Sketchy sketchy! These came about while I was working on Mr. Sacramento (along with the accidental birth of a teen heartthrob): Full Story »

Or: Up With Sharpies™!

My muse, lately, has done little more than get me consistently buzzed on marker fumes. With the job market as it is, there’s been plenty of time to devote to such a delicious distraction. Yes, the arts are thriving… at least in my mother’s basement!

I submit, for your viewing pleasure, the latest bubbling beaker in an ongoing experiment in post-9/11 psychedelia (marihuana cigarette consumption prior to viewing optional): Full Story »

It has been alleged that Scholars & Rogues is not, strictly speaking, a political blog. Sure, we write about overtly political issues and devote our share of time to things like media policy, energy and the environment, business and the economy, and international dynamics. Yes, we were credentialed to cover the DNC, but we don’t really do hard, insider, by god politics. Daily Kos is a political blog. Firedoglake is a political blog. Little Green Footballs, The Agonist, Politico, The Seminal – these are real poliblogs.

S&R, on the other hand, writes about music. About literature and poetry. About art. Education. Sports. Culture and popular culture. The Ramsey case and what it tells us about the state of media. And now that the election is over, S&R is writing about politics less than ever.

So really, what is S&R? Full Story »

by Michael James Hawk

When is a Work of art truly original? Put another way: when is a Work not derivative of someone else’s work?

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“I’m interested in what motivates you, and how you understand the world.” He glanced sideways at her. “Rausch tells me you’ve written about music.”

“Sixties garage bands. I started writing about them when I was still in the Curfew.”"Were they an inspiration?”

She was watching a fourteen-inch display on the Maybach’s dash, the red cursor that was the car proceeding along the green line that was Sunset. She looked up at him. “Not in any linear way, musically. They were my favorite bands. Are,” she corrected herself.

He nodded.

- William Gibson, Spook Country

I’ve always been intrigued by the curious dynamic of influence. Full Story »

Grab a walking stick, sling on a backpack, grab a notebook, and don your pith helmet. Keri Smith and her inventive new book want you to go exploring in an effort to free your creativity.

How to be an Explorer of the World: Portable Art Life Museum challenges readers to look at the world around them with fresh eyes. “Creativity arises from our ability to see things from many different angles,” Smith writes.

In that vein, Smith’s book reads like a primer on how to capture everyday wonder. Full Story »

Last night we watched the Final Cut of Blade Runner again, and if you don’t have this package I can’t recommend it highly enough. 25 years on, Ridley Scott was able to finally re-craft the film as he wanted it originally, and the result is a stunning achievement. Scott has been one of our greatest directors for a very long time, but this may be his finest moment to date.

This viewing (probably my 35th or 40th – I lost count a long time ago) got me to thinking, all over again, about how little the film was acknowledged at the time of its release. Full Story »

Westword staff cartoonist Kenny Be is a bit of a legend here in Denver. He’s been caricaturing local officials and issues for years and has a great knack for picking out hilarious idiosyncracies. For the Democratic Convention, Kenny took on an ambitious project: depicting delegates from all U.S. states and territories. He just completed his project, “Delegating Denver,” and as Convention week begins, it’s well worth the time to peruse it at this link.

Some of my favorites are of course Colorado, Kentucky, Ohio, and Wyoming (”The majority of Wyomingites are uneducated, foul-mouthed cretins who look like toothless meth addicts out on parole. But those are just the Republicans who hate to pay taxes and abide by federal regulations”).

When it comes to art, part of me has never fully grokked the photorealists. I mean, in an age before photography, sure, but these days if you want photorealism wouldn’t you prefer, you know, photos?

Then there’s the other part of me, the part that’s always cognizant of Keats:

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

The truth is that what some of these artists are capable of is nothing short of remarkable. Their technique is necessarily flawless and the best of them can infuse a subject, by design, with a greater degree of character, gravity, even intent than a photographer, who is more or less constrained by what’s in front of the camera. Full Story »

So, in completely unrelated news, they’re testing the Hadron Collider this weekend.

Our economy has demonstrated remarkable resilience.

— President Bush at a press conference; July 16.

We’re spending like a drunken sailor.

— Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., predicting the federal budget deficit would double this year; according to Manu Raju of The Hill newspaper, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, for the first nine months of fiscal 2008, the government ran up a $268 billion deficit, $148 billion more the same period last year; July 17.
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A few weeks ago we showed you a painting by Miro and posed the question: is this art? The consensus opinion seemed to be that sure, I guess it’s art, although I wouldn’t pay a penny for it.

Today we look at digitally generated images and ask the same question. Specifically, have a look at Electric Sheep, my cool new screen saver program. According to the Web site:

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver created by Scott Draves. It’s run by thousands of people all over the world, and can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers “sleep”, the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as “sheep”. The result is a collective “android dream”, an homage to Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Full Story »

One of my main interests is how we know what we know about the Civil War. My fascination in the topic stems not only from my work doing public history on the front lines at the battlefields in Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville but also from a public relations perspective. “The Lost Cause,” as a concept, was a basically huge public relations campaign to influence the way Americans remembered the war—or, as Robert E. Lee said, “to transmit, if possible the truth to posterity, and do justice to our brave soldiers.”

In that context, Gary Gallagher’s Causes Won, Lost, and Forgotten: How Hollywood & Popular Art Shape What We Know About the Civil War proved to be a fascinating and fun book to read. Full Story »