Three years ago my time on the internet was occupied by checking facebook and livejournal. Now, the majority of my time online is spent catching up with my feeds on Google Reader. It’s interesting to think that blogs have come so far, not only in my world, but for millions of others as well. Although not always the most reliable of sources, reading blogs fills up my daily requirement of information intake. For me, it’s mostly art, design and culture blogs, a smattering of food blogs, the big two in music (in my opinion – Pitchfork and Stereogum, but I’d love any suggestions on others out there) and the precious gems of my collection, the printmaking blogs. Reading these 100 or so blogs has kept me fairly current with the world, in comparison to three years ago when I really had no clue what was going on outside my bubble. Is it the equivalent of reading the New York Times or any other renowned publication? No, but it is an important step in how we get and share information and it’s pretty cool to witness these changes first hand. 

Anyway, I just wanted to share with you some of my favorite blogs…

Mainly text/link based entries:
Kottke – I can’t even remember when I started reading kottke, but it’s definitely one of the first that I started off with. Jason Kottke is essentially a great editor; picking out delicious internet gems that are always interesting reads. 
Dooce – Another classic that I’ve read for years now. Heather B. Armstrong is a legend in the blog world and has some of the most hilarious posts I’ve ever read. She also has some of the most critical fans, whose comments sometimes make guest appearances. 

Mainly image based entries:
It’s Nice That – One of my more recent reads, there’s always something new and beautiful being posted here. 
Dear Ada – Birdie, of Dear Ada, features work from a handful of artists each day. This blog has played a big part in my discovery of new artists both big and small.
Not Paper – Another relatively new blog in my roster, Not Paper feeds my collage addiction. Mmm, tasty.
OMG Posters! – My source for news in the poster world. OMG updates frequently on new prints for sale, often leading to an empty wallet and very happy walls.
 

A summary of my favorites that I posted to tumblr this week:

Monday:

Illustrator Natsko Seki, featured on It’s Nice That.

Tuesday:

Obey poster for Jane’s Addiction, perhaps one of my favorite Obey posters I’ve seen. (via OMG Posters)

Wednesday:

Post-election frenzy leads to an adorable illustration by Patrick Moberg.

Thursday:

Dear Ada featured woefoep, originally posted on notpaper (one of my new favorite blogs!).

Friday:

“Nevermore” by the always delightful Emmanuel Polanco.

Taking a break from the often infuriating process of trying to cram an ungodly amount of text into a (relatively) small amount of space by posting on the ol’ blog. To continue the inspirations posts, I wanted to highlight a playlist that I made over the summer. 

Even though I don’t have a musical background, music is, perhaps, one of my biggest inspirations. I am always listening to music, especially when I’m working, so it’s only natural that the nuances from what I’m hearing manifests itself into my artwork. I have a lot of old standbys (Spoon, duh) and a tendency to listen to the same handful of groups over and over and over again until I find something new. To give you an idea of my mindset at the time, here’s my summer 2008 playlist (which used to be on muxtape before it went belly up):

1. Health – “Heaven”
2. Holy Fuck – “Korock”
3. The Octopus Project – “Porno Disaster”
4. Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Vietcaterpillar”
5. Aphex Twin – “Fingerbib”
6. Crystal Castles – “Air War”
7. Modeselektor – “Hasir”
8. Dabrye – “Hyped-Up Plus Tax”
9. TRS-80 – “Tickle Fingers”
10. Add N to (X) – “Metal Fingers in my Body”
11. Justice – “One Minute to Midnight”

Watch out for a zip file of this mix tonight, once I get back home!

I don’t know about you, but my Google Reader boasts a ridiculous 98 subscriptions, which makes it difficult to keep up with the flood of inspiring images that I find on various blogs. I used to bookmark everything and even gave del.icio.us a try, but both things became bloated with the amount of links I had and I could never find specific items if I wanted to go back to them.

Lo and behold, Tumblr! I know that Tumblr is meant to be a simple way to blog, but I’ve found it works spectacularly as a method of visual bookmarking. With Tumblr, I can post photos of things that I would like to remember accompanied by a link or a short description. Scrolling through a long list of my photo posts is a lot easier than trying to read a long list of links or searching through tags that I don’t remember to include with a link. What it all comes down to is that, while I’ve been terrible at keeping up with this particular part of the blogosphere, I’ve been pretty decent at updating my Tumblr page, Lost & Found. Seeing as most of the things on my Tumblr page are relevant to my artwork / my visual vocabularly, I thought it would be good to post them here and elaborate on why I find them attractive.

The first installment from my Tumblr archives highlights three artists that I keep going back to: Cody Hoyt, Benjamin Edwards and Joey Piziali.

CODY HOYT

I stumbled upon Cody Hoyt at a time when I was thinking about using text in my work. Coincidentally, at that time, I was reworking a screenprint of scrambled text and Hoyt’s prints and drawings were on my mind. My work ended up more Wayne White, but I still can’t stop thinking about these. I love the 3D quality to the type, the transparency, the layering…it all builds up to this intense chaos. 

BENJAMIN EDWARDS

With all the geometric shapes, map references and architectural qualities, it’s hard not to see why this is relevant to my work. I can see myself working more towards this direction with the cut&paste technique I was using with some of my Longitude prints. I love how these prints create such a complex environment but are still made up of simple geometric elements. If I had endless time and resources, I’d love to make prints with hundreds of transparent colors and thousands of little cut out shapes.

JOEY PIZIALI

Texture, texture, texture. I love the worn away appearance of printed matter. Piziali uses found billboard material for his work, revealing large halftone dots among his colorful geometrics. His work made me rethink how I was using collage in my own work.

I’m going to start posting images that inspire me and snippets from my notebook. I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile and I think I could really benefit from it right now, because my head feels like it’s going to explode from all of the unorganized thoughts.

I stumbled upon David Maisel at the beginning of the summer. It was on one of the many blogs that I’ve been reading (I cannot live without Google Reader) and I was instantly hooked. The photos above are from Terminal Mirage and The Lake Project. The photos are aerials depicting areas of the landscape that have varying concentrations of chemicals.

Nick Butcher of Programmable Press. He did a print with the Decoder Ring Design Concern in Austin, TX and there’s a gallery featuring some in progress shots of the print – here. All of the images above are actually his paintings. I love the different whites and the texture.

The map images are from Ace Jet 170, a great design blog that has lots of found type, vintage maps and all that good stuff. I’ve been looking at lot a maps and aerial photographs lately trying to pick up on the visual language. Road are surprisingly difficult to fake. When it looks wrong, it looks wrong and I can’t say that I can pinpoint why at this point. I guess the fascination with maps/aerials started as a new way of looking at landscape. I wanted to work with the idea of fictional locations and constructed landscapes – something less literal than what I had been doing. So I’ve been working on pieces for my show this summer (at Artifacts) which is going to be called Truth or Fiction. I haven’t quite hit my stride yet, which makes me a little worried, but it’ll be okay.

One of the problems I’ve been having is that I have so many different thoughts and ideas that I’m having difficulty focusing on one thing. It’s like the concept is all there (or maybe not?) but I can’t get it organized enough to write a decent statement or anything. I’ve been writing down all the thoughts when they come to me. Here’s a selection:

- fictional locales that could be taken as reality, real places. vintage, old world maps in combination with aerial views, a hybrid? not completely literal.

- in transit, in between two points/places, not at the final destination

- what is the significance of fictional locations/maps?
–personal connection: an effect of my upbringing/childhood to create worlds for myself
–a reaction to the uncomfortable – telling lies, half-truths &c., dissatisfaction with an environment leads to creating your own?
–hides discomfort. a method of projecting confidence when it’s not really there? (how would the viewer know if you’re actually telling the truth?)

- maps that lead nowhere/are cyclical, maps that are confusing/are not able to be read or deciphered, maps that are combinations of places/based off of memory of the location &c.

I really want to see if I can do an independent study next semester with a printmaking faculty and work on some etchings. Given that I have only worked on etching for less than a month, I might be wrong, but it feels like it could be the right medium. Or at least the right medium in combination with something else. (It’s always hard for me to limit myself to a single medium.) I’m not even sure if that’s something I could do. I guess I should look into it instead of just talking about it. That’s all for now.