Sh.

Beautiful, new(ish) work done for Nobrow 4 by my dear friend Sean Hudson.

Volleyball.

New work by my good friend Sean Hudson (whom I wrote about back in June). I love getting updates from him because I feel like I've seen his style and talent grow just in the few years I've known him. Keep an eye out, he's extremely talented!

 

 

Trees are Green Explosions Trapped in Time.

Wonderful. Found it under "Staff Picks" on Vimeo (which I finally created an account for). Enjoy.

Not your grandmother's needlepoint.

As per usual, I came across this lovely work a while back, wrote a note to myself to post about it right away, but here we are, a month later and I am just telling you about her now. Oh well! I learned about Ms. Joetta Maue while working at a great, great, little boutique in Park Slope called Urban Alchemist, where some of her beautiful needle points (I believe) are currently being sold. Although my personal taste for home decoration tends to be a little more streamlined and modern, I fell instantly in love with the giant "Be Strong" banner, and found myself dreaming about where I would hang the beautiful thing in my own apartment. The pieces at the store were only ones with text, but on her website I found that she also embroiders portraits and scenes of people, which I found very impressive and equally awesome. I'm not normally into feminine things, but the second-hand, vintage-y feel of the one-of-a-kind lace and linen on which she does her work, make Joetta's pieces too heartwarming and interesting to resist.

New Kids on the Block.

The following post may seem like a simple shout out for friends, but I assure you that the following artists are three extremely talented young men whom I've had the great pleasure of knowing personally (some, very personally), and I have seen their (already) amazing artwork develop over the past couple years. Now, they've all graduated (two from Parsons, one from SVA) and I am so excited to see what they do next, and share with you some of the awesome work they've already done.

Matt Reuter
Matt is an illustrator/designer/"maker-of-things" with an eerie capability to make even the cutest of forest creatures into something melancholy or slightly disturbing. What interests me most about the Parsons grad's work is his focus on nature and the oddities he creates in it. This strange filter which he puts his subjects through combined with somewhat childishly bright colors creates awesome ink drawings and watercolors which seem fit for a a more-than-slightly-trippy children's book. (I tend to enjoy the ink drawings in the "sketchbook" section of his website more than the colored works... but that's just me)

Lucas Sharp
Also a New School grad, Luc is a graphic designer/art director whose (pretty sweet) website offers an awesome portfolio of his typography design as well as a really neat video involving time lapse footage of budding plants and an ink tank (I remember hearing about it/seeing some of it while it was in the works). Being someone who is obsessed with fonts, (and I mean obsessed, I was just talking the other day about how important font styles are in our everyday lives...for magazines, storefronts, websites, bookcovers, everything really...maybe I'll write a post about fonts...we'll see!) I love the fact that his site is pretty much all fonts, and the different examples of use he has for each one (wood cuttings, posters, etc.). Also, make sure to check out the blog he has co-created with fellow Parson's grads Zeke Shore and Andrew Mahon (take a look at the post about the speech Zeke and Andrew gave at the Parsons commencement ceremony, it's pretty great!).

Sean Hudson
Having known the illustrator and SVA grad since 2007, I feel like I've definitely seen his work get better and seen him come into and perfect his current style. Sean's work often feels like a dream put onto paper, and his drawings (again, my favorite are the black and white ink pieces) depict slighty circus-worthy characters who look like they may have started off human, but took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Although I'm partial to the black and white works, he has a great sense of color and the palettes he chooses for certain pieces, in my opinion make them unique. Also, he may not like me for saying so, but I have the pleasure of having in my possession some of Sean's more early/random artwork... including portraits of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in a scene from Annie Hall, a picture of Cameron from Ferris Beuller done entirely in Christmas colors, and a black and white picture of a woman in a room with banana wallpaper from a homework assignment (which he insists is "terrible") which to this day is still hanging on the wall of my apartment and receives quite a fair share of compliments (so there).

"FRESH" designed by Matt Reuter.

P.S. I love you

A few months back, I came across an interview (below) with NYC-born, Philly-based creative genius Steve Powers, leading me naturally to do a little more research on the graffiti-turned-studio artist. What I found was an extremely impressive resume that included everything from years of producing graffiti in NYC, to protest and arrest, and now working with a $260,000 grant from the city of Philadelphia.

Here's a little background...
In 1997 Powers began producing artwork in NYC, outsmarting the legal system under the name ESPO (Exterior Surface Painting Outreach) and beautifying abandoned, heavily vandalized storefronts in TriBeca, Fort Greene, Bed-stuy, and the South Bronx. He'd work in broad daylight, in street clothes, and simply telling anyone who questioned him, "I'm with Exterior Surface Painting Outreach, and I'm cleaning up this gate." By 1999, Powers estimated that he had painted nearly 70 gates (pretty impressive if you ask me). Then, when I thought he couldn't be more of a super-cool badass, I find out that he was arrested for vandalism charges... mysteriously jut after participating in a protest against Mayor Giuliani's attempt to shut down the controversial art exhibit "Sensations" at the Brooklyn Museum (the arrest was clearly political).

Anyways, the main reason for this post is to tell you about the beautiful, amazing project Powers has just completed, entitled "A Love Letter For You" in which the artist has teamed up with the city of Philadelphia to produce 50 murals focusing on the rewards and difficulties of love and relationships all along the elevated train route through (a rougher area of) West Philly. Basically, I think the murals speak for themselves. Here are some of my favorites... hope you enjoy!

A Love Letter For You from Megawords Magazine on Vimeo.

The Sweetest Thing...

I'm sure by now we are all familiar with a little craigslist phenomenon called "missed connections" (I'd be lying if I said that I never made slight, insignificant eye contact with a mysterious young stranger on the R train and rushed home to see if he "felt something" too). And until now, I'm sure most of us have found it easier to laugh at and dismiss the (usually) harmless attempts at love or at the least, a one night stand, because well, it's silly. Right? Maybe. But stumbling upon the blog missedconnectionsny, I instantly felt more of a, well, connection to the swell of sweet messages sent out to strangers each day in New York. What clever Brooklyn blogger Sophie has done is taken her favorites of these posts and illustrated them so beautifully and poetically that they somehow become more human, and, now documented in little works of art, will perhaps have more of a lasting presence. It really is one of the cutest, most clever things I have seen in a while, not to mention that I love Sophie's style of drawing.
Here's some of her work: