Modern Art Monday Presents: Jasper Johns, Between The Clock and The Bed

All Photos By Gail

Jasper Johns began to incorporate a cross-hatch pattern in his paintings after seeing it on a car: “It had all the qualities that interest me — literalness, repetitiveness, an obsessive quality, order with dumbness, and the possibility of a complete lack of meaning.” Using encaustic, a method of paint that suspends pigment in hot wax, Johns created lush, layered paintings with richly textured surfaces.

Edvard Munch, Self-Portrait Between the Clock and The Bed

Between The Clock and The Bed (1981) reference’s Self-Portrait Between The Clock and The Bed (1940 – 43), one of artist Edvard Munch’s last works.

Jasper Johns Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art NYC. Edvard Munch Photographed in the Met Breuer, NYC.

Video Clip of The Week: Visitors, “Pollyanna”

Jun24

People will say that originality is overplayed: I disagree. While it may be virally impossible to do anything truly original within the pop music landscape, that does not mean that intermingling the definitive essences of two bands that really have nothing in common — and that may or may not even be verifiable influences on the band performing the music in question — isn’t going to be utterly mind-blowing. What am I even talking about? It’s this week’s Sunday Jam, the curiously named “Pollyanna,” which comes to us from the experimental progressive rockers called Visitors. Successfully combining the best of Yes‘ most LSD-ridden mindfuck prog meandering with Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Ferrell releasing his Id with wild abandon, this song is intense.

Hailing from Salt Lake City, Utah, Visitors is Ian Cooperstein (Vocals, Lapsteel), Bryan Lee (Drums), Ian Hilton (Guitar), Ty Brigman (Guitar), and Bassist Cameron Jorgensen, whose lyrical bass runs definitely recall those of the late, great Chris Squire, who is possibly the greatest progressive rock bass player of all time. Just being serious. “Pollyanna” can be found on Visitors‘ upcoming debut album, Crest, which is out on July 13th, 2018.

Pink Thing of The Day: Pink Flamingo LED Phone Charger Cable

Jun22

All Photos By Gail

I am such a sucker for anything that lights up, but when it is also a Pink Flamingo, that is an easy sell. This adorable and practical Pink Flamingo LED charging cable is sure be conversation starter wherever its used! It can also be used as a night light!

Manufactured by DCI, the 46” USB cable is punctuated by 8 LED Pink Flamingo lights and is compatible with iPhone 5, 5s, 6, 6 Plus, 7, 7 Plus and 8. The cable retails for about $18.99. Google it to find your best price.

Photographed at the New York Now Gift Show at Javits Center.

Product Review: Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches For Allergy Symptom Relief

Jun21

All Photos By Gail

If you suffer from seasonal allergies, like I do, then you know that the symptoms can really lay you low — especially when they can linger for weeks at a time. There are plenty of effective over the counter remedies, like antihistamines, cough suppressants and expectorants to help you get through the worst of it, but there are few factors to consider. Maybe you are someone who isn’t good with remembering to take your next dosage, or maybe you are conflicted about what you can take that won’t bring on unwanted side effects, such as drowsiness. Most importantly, you want to know that the ingredients in whatever remedies you choose to take are safe and as natural as possible. It’s a lot to deal with when all you want to do is feel well again.

Coincidentally, a week into my most recent onset of allergy symptoms, I was contacted by a representative of Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches, which are an organic, all-natural treatment for the relief of coughs, colds and allergy symptoms. She asked if I’d be interested in trying out Dr. Loos Harmony Patches as I blew my nose for the millionth time that day “I am having an allergy attack right now!” I replied. “How soon can you get them to me?” She put a package in the mail to me and I had them two days later! I started using them immediately.

Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches are transdermal patches containing herbs and organic, natural ingredients that you apply to your skin and leave on for up to 12 hours at a time. I received samples of two different varieties of cough, cold and allergy relief patches: one that treats Age 8 to Adult, and one for Mature Adults 50+ Years. For my first treatment, I applied five of the Age 8 to Adult patches as directed on the reverse of the packaging – 3 on my chest and 2 on my back – about an hour before bed time on a Friday, and slept with them on me. The patches seen above are about the thickness of a sheet of paper, and once they are on your skin, you do not feel them at all.

Information and Detailed Instructions Are Printed on the Back of Each Package

Although I had been waking up several times during the night with coughing fits for, say, the previous five nights, on this night I didn’t cough even once during my sleep. Once I was awake on Saturday morning and hit the twelve hour mark, I removed the patches, showered, and applied a fresh round of patches to my clean, dry skin. I wore those patches from noon until midnight. I only coughed a few times throughout the day; and when I did, the cough was much more productive than it had been. I felt much improved from the previous 24 hour,s to say the least. Bonus: I didn’t have to remember to take any pills or other oral medications!

Saturday night, I slept without any of the Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches on me, but Sunday I decided to try the Mature Adult patches. These patches, seen in the photo directly above, are slightly thicker than the pink patches, and are therefore easier to apply, especially to your back area. Besides the visual difference in the color, shape and thickness of the patches, there is a difference in the adhesive, in that the Age 8 to Adult variety contains a small amount of acrylic, and the Mature Adult variety is recommend for anyone with sensitive skin. The propriety formula on both patches is identical, with the active ingredients being USDA organic ginger, chamomile, and fennel, with no alcohol sugar, bicarbonate or additives.

Because Harmony Patches are applied directly onto the areas of the body where symptoms originate, the ingredients are absorbed into your body immediately and can get to work right away to make you feel better. After using the patches for a few days my symptoms were great reduced and I was much more comfortable. I recommend them!

Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches are also available to treat Tummy / Digestive Distress in both Children and Adults. Get more information about the Dr. Loo’s family of Harmony Patch products at This Link, and visit Amazon Dot Com to Purchase!

Eye On Design: Foscarini’s Light Bulb Series By James Wines / SITE

Jun20

Immersive Reverse Room Installation at Foscarini Showroom Featuring The Light Bulb Series (All Photos By Gail)

NYCxDESIGN is New York City’s annual showcase of all things Design-related! Must-attend events include a Saturday evening (May 19th) filled with parties hosted by dozens of SoHo showrooms, where you can get caught up on all the latest trends in furniture and lighting while eating and drinking yourself into a stupor. It’s all kinds of crazy fun. We saw a ton of cool stuff this year, but I think we had the best time at one of the evening’s early stops, the showroom of Italian Lighting experts, Foscarini, which is located on Greene Street right in the center of all the hot design action!

On this evening, Foscarini were celebrating the launch of The Light Bulb Series, by Architect/Designer James Wines in association with SITE— the architecture and environmental arts studio that he founded in New York City in 1970.

The Light Bulb Series on Display in the Foscarini Showroom

The Light Bulb Series is a designer art-house collection consisting of a limited and numbered edition of pieces – based on a reflection of the light bulb as an archetype, with its typical bulb-like shape, produced in a series of surprising provocations, as follows:

James Wines translates this reflection with explorations that revolve around the principal themes that have always guided his architectural research. These are inversion, dissolution, nature, all those statuses of “architectural flaw” which make it possible to rethink reality, giving it shape and then at the same time breaking down its boundaries. Wines’s light bulbs are in turn melted, broken, inverted, turned black, and invaded by nature. A propensity towards experimentation, doing better but also doing differently, which has always animated Foscarini as well.

The focal point of the party however was Wine’s Reverse Room installation, which he designed together with his daughter Suzan Wines, both of whom were in attendance for the evening.

The endlessly Instagrammable Reverse Room was devised to emphasise the surreal quality of these experimentations: in a dark-walled room, upside down and slanted, with monochrome tables and chairs, the table lamps blink down from the ceiling, whereas the suspension lamps peep out from the floor.

It is an invitation to think of a world, of design, and therefore of what is possible, where it is always imaginable to shed light differently.

Visit Foscarini’s website at This Link for more information on The light Bulb Series and other Foscarini Lighting Designs!

Five Points Festival: The Mother of All Photo Recaps is Here!

Jun19

All Photos By Gail

If you happen to be a fan of character-based, pop culture collectibles — which includes dozens of items encompassing such must-haves as enamel pins, plushies, art toys, limited edition / designer vinyl toys and action figures, monsters, model kits, art prints, novelties and seemingly endless subcategories of amazing swag — then the Five Points Festival, which took place in Greenpoint, Brooklyn over the weekend of June 2nd and 3rd, 2018 is the only place you want to be. There’s a lot to distill in this recap, so we are going to get right to it. If you weren’t at Five Points Fest, here is just some of what you missed!

You can’t really talk about Five Points Fest without at least mentioning Kidrobot, acknowledged worldwide as the premier manufacturer and retailer of limited edition art toys, signature apparel and lifestyle accessories. Their booth was crammed full of goodies like these pocket collectibles.

Andy Warhol Dunny Series 2

Andy Warhol Brillo Box Object Series

Artists Kathie Olivas and Brandt Peters have designed a new mini figure series called Dark Harbor, which Kidrobot manufacturers and distibutes. We’ve been fans of Kathie’s work forever, so these super cute little guys are fun to see!

Eric Althin’s Sad Salesman designer toy and vinyl collection started as a labor of love and has grown into a family of endearing characters inspired in part by Eric’s young son and daughter.

The Dessert Oracle came home with me to join my collection!

Eric’s Pink Astral Wizard (created in a now sold-out limited edition just for this show) also won Sad Salesman an award for Breakthrough Artist! Congratulations!

Jim McKenzie is a formerly New York-based artist who has enjoyed great success with his unique hybrid character creations such as the Pumpkin Crab, Racoonicorn and the Pugglepillar, as well as his adorable Scarecrow who is, literally, scared of crows. Jim recently relocated to live the dream out in Burbank, California so we were happy to catch up with him at Five Points Fest!

Racoonicorn

Jim painstakingly hand sculpts all of his creations.

Limited Edition Pink Scarecrow

He also does amazing digital paintings. Jim McKenzie!

Frank Ape is another character that has evolved from the street to the merchandise market thanks to the innovative vision of his creator, Brandon Sines.

Here is Geoffrey hanging out with Frank Ape on the exhibit hall floor. Hilarious.

Do you like Rock Stars? I get yer Rock Stars right here. Meet Matthew Lineham, who makes all kinds of wildly collectible merchandise featuring his own charicatures of famous rock stars from back when pop music did not yet suck. His shit is the shit.

Check out these David Bowie Valentine Cards, which are just insane.

If I was a person who still bought T Shirts, I would have to own this Halloween-themed Robert Smith design for sure. Twenty Bucks? What a bargain! I hope that you are doing a Google on Matthew’s website (M Lineham Art) right now because I am not going to make it easy for you by adding any hyperlinks to this post. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

Husband a wife team Kelly and J. Spencer Shill work with both original and appropriated characters for their Jellykoe line of prints and soft toys. Do you like Uglydolls? Check out these out Mini Monsters that Kelly sews from Spencer’s original designs. Ugly Cuddly!

Ron Swanson’s Meat Palace

Ron Swanson Fans: this one needs to go in your TV room right now. And this Pennywise poster; just brilliant.

Move over, Barbie and make way for Pidgin, the fabulous creation of New York sculptor and doll maker Joshua David McKenney. A reinvention of the fashion doll, Pidgin is a medium for the language of style! All dolls begin life from an identical sculpt, and are then hand painted and styled by Joshua, so that no two are alike. The dolls have ball joints, so they’re fully posable and can be interacted and played with, as well as being a unique work of art!

Beautiful!

If you were at the fabulous Ramones and the Birth of Punk Exhibit out at the Queens Museum a couple of years ago, then you may have seen the art of Naoshi, who created a very memorable Kawaii-influenced picture of the band!

Ramones By Naoshi

Naoshi also works with sand (called Sunae in Japan) to create colorful tiny pictures, and makes enamel pins of her characters. Oh, the cuteness. You can find her shop on Etsy.

Posters By Tara McPherson

Five Points Festival proved to be an ideal place to pick up original paintings, drawings and other unique wall art that you’d otherwise have to scour dozens of galleries to find — if you could find them at all, because a lot of these guys are underground, baby!

Look at this cool and affordable Monster art by Justin Lieter! You can see the top of Justin’s head behind the number 5 on the Kewties sign!

Do you like Sharks? I sure do. This awesome grinning shark character is the signature creation of the street artist known as Sharpy. I think his work is just fantastic.

Chil Pepper By Mike Grossman

Chil Pepper (which, genius) is the creation of Mike Grossman and is part of his Goofy Froot series of anthropomorphic fruit characters. Yes, I just typed that.

Okay, how great is this unintentional homage to The Residents? An artist named Christian Hooker (real name? Likely not) took one of photographer Gene Korman’s most iconic images of Marilyn Monroe ever, photoshopped out her face and replaced it with a giant, flame-encircled eyeball. It is so many kinds of brilliant.

Many of the artists in attendance participated in a Live Painting Event, where each artist created an original spray paint artwork on-the-fly!

Here are Chris RWK and Jim McKenzie in action!

Here are Chris and Jim again, a little bit farther along!

It was fun to watch the artists paint while enjoying tasty snacks from a selection of food trucks, like these mini donuts from Glazed and Confused!

All the paintings were auctioned off, with all proceeds going to benefit Planned Parenthood! Excellent!

We saw many very cool examples of toys and other merchandise made via the magic of 3D Printing, such as these adorable little planters from Meow 3D Printing! Check out the Pink Hedgehog!

You’ve seen his Batman Buddha on Worley Gig before, but were you aware that the artist known as 3D Mucky Chris has created an entire universe populated with Buddha-fied versions of many of your favorite sci-fi characters? It’s true!

The Tardigrade is an actual Living Thing That Exists, and now DoomCo Designs have created a Tardigrade character for all of you Tardi-fans. His name is Tarbus and he comes in variety of colors and two sizes!

Big Ten Inch Tarbus!

Tardi-great is more like it!

Here’s a bunch of other random stuff we liked enough to snap a photo (or two). Enjoy!

Is this the cutest thing in the universe or what? Presenting Mister Self Indulgence (Cherry Flavor edition) by Nouar (Martian Toys).

Mister Self Indulgence (a cherry pie with a chubby-cheeked grin who is poised to eat a slice of his own head) is a soft vinyl figure and he comes accompanied by his friend Lil’ Scoopy, who is a dish of ice cream. So cute, I can’t even live.

I am dead now, from the cuteness.

Artist Nick C. Kirk made this Pink Wookie character based on his photo of an actual Cosplayer whose likeness can be seen on the box.

GWAR Comics. I am speechless.

Pork Dumpling Pocket Toy

Topic: The Japanese have too much time on their hands. Discuss.

“Do Not Eat Me.”

Since art toy obsession is a legitimate lifestyle, you need some accessories to help you rock the look, amiright? KT Ferris Creations (#ThisShitBlinks) is a line of handcrafted Jewelry featuring hyperrealist doll eyes that open and close with the movement of the jewelry. Lovely and Disquieting!

We like these handbags by Marzipan Physics! Stylish!

Do you like Monsters? I got yer Monsters right here. This guy is called Mr. Death (2nd color Version) designed by Rockin’ Jelly Bean for their Freaky Monster Village series (sold by Black Book Toys).

Here’s a Pink Monster from Lonely Monster Toys By Elliot Lobell.

Zombie Alex from InstincToy is due for release in October 2018.

I don’t know this little guy’s name, but he looks like some kind of Monster Travelling Salesman, and he is just fantastic-looking! I found him at the booth for Mothership Toy Gallery.

Mummy Spice Version of King Creepy By Richard Strohmeyer.

One-of-a-Kind Figures by Emilio Subira (those that did not sell at Five Points Fest are available online from Mothership Toy Gallery).

I am pretty sure this Pirate Dude is called Captain Sturnbrau and he is by JPK, which are the initials of toy designer Jon-Paul Kaiser. Aaargh!

Before I forget, I must give a shout out to Five Points Festival’s primary sponsor, Clutter, which is the world’s premier magazine and media source for Designer Toys, and the originator of the Designer Toy Awards, as well as having a gallery dedicated to art toys, and doing custom manufacturing on-demand!

Thanks to Clutter for all that they do to support the community! See you next year for another rad Five Points Festival!

Modern Art Monday Presents, Henri Matisse, The Blue Window

Jun18

Photo By Gail

When The Blue Window (1913) was first reproduced in the May 1914 edition of the journal, Les Soirees de Paris, it was titled La Glace Sans Tain, or “The Mirror Without Silvering,” referring to a device known as a Claude Mirror: the dark, red-framed square in the picture. Many artists used one of these slightly convex. dark-tinted mirrors to clarify their compositions; a scene reflected in it is less colorful than life, its compositional elements accentuated. Something close to that effect is visible here in the structured vertical and horizontal bands and the cool blue palette that Matisse painted over other layers of color, some of which are still visible. As he simplified forms, he reinforced them with incising and scraping, seen here, for example, in the cloud at the top left.

Photographed at the Musuem of Modern Art in NYC.

The Worley Gig

• Art • Pop Culture • Music • Lifestyle

Modern Art Monday Presents: Jasper Johns, Between The Clock and The Bed

Video Clip of The Week: Visitors, “Pollyanna”

Pink Thing of The Day: Pink Flamingo LED Phone Charger Cable

Product Review: Dr. Loo’s Harmony Patches For Allergy Symptom Relief

Eye On Design: Foscarini’s Light Bulb Series By James Wines / SITE

Five Points Festival: The Mother of All Photo Recaps is Here!

Modern Art Monday Presents, Henri Matisse, The Blue Window

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