Friday, August 27, 2010

Found Art Friday 20

(Anti-vertigo Glasses)
Welcome To Found Art Friday! At The Department of Homeland Inspiration, we're back after the Replenishment.  Are you feeling well-balanced?  It's hecka special still to sharpen some new pencils and have a lunchbox that doesn't smell like last week's apples.  I'm sorry folks, but pencils should be that yellow pencil yellow.

Offerings from the field:
"Sidewalk" Esquire Anonymous
Fogwebs in Maine (plus an apparition?):  Jim Lindenthal
Only an 8 day Salmon fishing Season!  Appreciated by Grillmaster Jeff
 Baseball at Dusk from Sonya Devine

See you next week and may your world sift together along with some specks of beauty to share: 
FAF@homelandinspiration.org




Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Manifesto of the Month


Apple Core, by Claes Oldenburg

In the multi-tentacled world of art practice and study, manifestos written by artists are something we can enjoy chewing on as organizing principles, historical documents, or thinking starter fluid. Here is a manifesto we have been inspired by recently re-visiting:  http://www.silurian.org/art/iam4.html
Claus Oldenburg, 1961

Miniature Soft Drum Set, by Oldenberg

In order to "teach" sculpture, Art Ranger's must stir up and bake her own manifesto constantly.  She begins by launching into a riff on "man the tool builder", as a primary step in human evolution contributing toward the creation of a myriad of three-dimensional objects.  Then wondering where utility branches into "art", and where art can still "function" in daily life.



Chimp Sticks (as opposed to chopsticks) used to forage termites, etc.


(with skill and determination)
Chimp using a found, made, or discovered "cleaver" for breaking up food into smaller, more bite sized pieces.  Evidently, there are several culinary tools that are of fairly recent origin for the chimp set.

This moment of invention, of animal inspiration, having some thread in common with the human art making urge.  Can you make this leap of faith with us ?

FOUND ART FRIDAY coming to you and by you.  Send images to   FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Really this time: Shake well before using


Welcome Back (home) to The Department of Homeland Inspiration!
Hope you had or are still having summer. What happened to it, anyway? Did ever it arrive to you? Did you ever get around to it? Did you even get one sunburned knee or a red neck by accident? Are you once again reminded of fleeting, ephemeral type words? Hmmm, am I talking to myself again?  Back to Blogging - why bother - who has the time - who cares? Well, I'm not sure - which is why it feels so apt a companion to the art practice itself - a way of re-framing the frame and breaking out of it too.  She's determined to perform this Art Service as though hired by the higher ups, though this blogging muse is so, on the surface, unrelated to actual survival.

Speaking of hires, Art Ranger is teaching two sculpture classes at the local tower of learning
due to some Federal stimulus money that will run out soon. The place has a considerable patina, since the campus is situated on a 80 yr. old former army base that once occupied 28,000 acres of an old sand dune.  The president of the college is a lady who evidently fended off a bear with pepper spray during her summer vacation - we're hoping to have lunch with her to hear the rest of the story.  Meanwhile, Art Ranger has been re-learning how to weld and hoping not to cause an explosion or singe her eyebrows, but is planning to make some sparks fly as she tries to pass along some skills.  Quote from Welding Teaching Manual: "Start the class off by banging on a piece of pipe with a hammer. This will get everyone's attention ..... from this point, you can explain that with the right tool (fire), this pipe can be shaped into just about anything." Wow! We'll keep you posted. On the first day, we're going to make the students hammer some nails, because everyone wants to be able to hit the nail on the head.  In life, we must squash things and re-do them. Straighten a nail by coaxing. Mangle some beyond repair. And succeed with rhythmic determination.  

Art Ranger News Tidbits
A few small wows gathered for you from our sabbatical, from our Home on the Range, and from the sporadic motherlode dada-base of art/life intersection.
Fruita, Colorado
somewhere really hot
Savored Road signs and Towns From our 20th anniversary drive from California to Colorado:
BROWN MATERIALS ROAD
BUTTONWILLOW
KIMBERLINA
YELLOWCAT
EARLY MAN
SILT
SIFT
BROWSE
And lastly, the Adopt A Highway gift from the
DEMONIC SOULS MOTORCYCLE CLUB
Omigosh - have you ever watched a dog steal a peach off the table and secretly try to eat it? A charming elongated medley of curiosity, destruction, and discovery.  Does the fuzz mean it's alive?

And did you know that chickens burp?  Pretty much a cartoon of a burp sound, suitable for adolescent boy movies.Art Ranger and her team at The Department of Homeland Inspiration are still working on a TINY MOVIE about the economy - "keep it simple stupid". Well it's just not simple, or tiny, it's HUGE and absurd. The project is taking so long, that it is now a hysterical documentary.


Housing Bubble feeling ill

Interview with Allan Greenspan:

Announcement: Found Art Friday resumes next Friday August 27th. You can now send images to FAF@homelandinspiration.org. We received a number over the summer that will be folded in as we go. Thank you for you participation and your frequent or sporadic visits.

Peaces of Love,

ART RANGER missed you