One of the vendors I always make sure to visit at the twice-yearly NY Now gift show is Steve Parkes Wholesale. Steve travels extensively — mostly throughout African countries — where he sources local crafts to bring back to the States. Among his suppliers is a workshop in Madagascar that creates miniature cars and ornaments from discarded tin cans, and let me tell you, they are fabulous. Continue reading Pink Thing of The Day: Crescent Moon-Shaped Tin Ornament with Pink Roses→
“I want to be the painter of my country,“ artist Tarsila do Amaral (1886 – 1973) declared in 1923, at a moment when Brazilian artists and writers were actively developing a new, homegrown modernism. With his undulating planes, suggesting land, water, and sky, and a human-like cactus, The Moon (1928) offers the artist’s vision of a Brazilian landscape. Continue reading Modern Art Monday Presents: Tarsila do Amaral, The Moon→
Portland-based street artist MC Monster travelled all the way to NYC to put up this epic fantasy mural depicting the mysterious yet peaceful confrontation between a Wizard in a Moon-shaped boat and what is either a Dinosaur, or the Loch Ness Monster. To say that this tranquil scene encourages imaginative extrapolation is an understatement. The mural went up in November of 2018 at the First Street Green Art Park (located at 33 East 1st Street, NYC), and those murals tend to change every three or four months, so don’t wait too long to go check it out!
Update: As of March 16, 2019 this mural has been painted over.
Rockwell Kent (1882 – 1971) was a self-proclaimed wanderer who felt most at home in the wilderness. His artistic and philosophical devotion to nature lead him to explore far-reaching places that served as inspiration for his rugged landscape paintings, as well as several published travelogues.
Moonlight, Winter (1940) depicts the farm in New York’s Adirondack mountains, where Kent eventually settled in 1927. The scene conjures the artist’s vision of a certain — if somewhat distant — harmony between there vastness of the night sky and the quaint shelter of human life.
Photographed in the Whitney Museum of American Art in NYC.
Check out this cool custom gate that caught my eye as I was walking around in Chelsea the other day! The whimsical design is based on the iconic image of the Man in the Moon (with a space capsule embedded through one eye) from the 1902 French adventure film, A Trip to the Moon.
Spotted on 21st Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Chelsea, NYC.
