Found Art Friday 70

Dear Blogospherians,
Here we go again!  Today's found art is nearing the shortest day of the year and thus we share our Frost Paintings.     

And the daily warming. With images of daily happenstance.

For a few months now, The Art Ranger will be in hibernation of the image.  She will collect vitamins and instead celebrate/ wrestle with the word for a while while replenishing the images. Won't you do it too?  Have a lovely holidaze with your people.  See you in a few weeks.  PEACE and LOVE and the gift of the right kind of attention to all people and things.  May justice and effort prevail!

Found Art Friday 69

Dear Members of The Department of Homeland Inspiration,
Here, we celebrate the unexpected moments that can be the stuff of "Art":

"Sunlight Hieroglyphics" found by an Art Vigilante in the Bay Area who waited for optimal light bouncing off windows onto a shrinkwrapped construction surface:

Which seemed to go so well with a swell set of tooth Xrays

Friday Errands from Anony Mous

America's Frayed InfraStucture, make ends might not meet 
and yet another example of patina.

What's on your mind? from Bonnie Hotz

Which makes Art Ranger think immediately of Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker". The new ears are quite fetching.

 Jim Lindenthal sends in this determined feathered creature (perhaps to sing (Christmas) Carols :)

"Is this a glottis?"  It's got to be at least a glottis and a half

 And also from Jim, a riot colored fungi hazard:

This image is an example of the internet turning the whole idea of "authenticity" and even authorship on its head. By a fairly well known photographer, but since we didn't jot the name down, now it is called 13226023366image_web. Some guy, some other country.

Has anything visual given you a smile or a startle lately?  Send it in to FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Found Art Friday 68

Dear folk of the Department of Homeland Inspiration,
Today's Found Art begins with an observer in the bay area who sent "little bits of wonder" #1

It's great to have your backpacking trip without even leaving the parking garage. 

And speaking of garages. An artist in Melbourne, Australia is creating 3D paint garage enhancement.

Then, low and behold (where did that expression come from?) These two images appeared on the same day

in order to have an unplanned dialog

(also from friend in the bay area: "little bits of wonder"#2)
 

Different types of scarecrows anonymously working

snapped out the window by request of the Art Ranger while driving around the mud puddle loving teenage wannabe driver

From Sonya Devine watching an Art installation: http://www.ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/features/fallen_star_house_to_be_hoisted_atop_jacobs_school_of_engineer_building_tod/

And what is it that makes a photograph be designated as "Art"?  Consider seeking out some photographs displayed as such to determine what you think. Titles can be great doorways.

Left: Allan Sekula, "Churn." From the series "Ship of Fools," 1999–2010. Photograph, 48 x 52 inches
Right: Bruno Serralongue, "Feu de machines, New Fabris, Châtellerault, jeudi 30 juillet 2009.
Oceans and Campfires: Allan Sekula and Bruno Serralongue, San Francisco Art Institute

If you are interested in contributing your own "bits of wonder" to The Department of Homeland Inspiration, we recommend multiple shots/angles/or types of light - of anything that interests you and choosing the best one. Of course many things already vanish too fast, and that is often just the moment we are looking for.  The next bird on a line, curious fungus, poignant discard, or surprising cloud formation?  Enjoy your week and send images to FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Found Art Friday 67

Dear Humans,
Art Ranger is in range, seeing what can be seen with her eyemind, but how about you and you and you?

We are sizing each other up

And two moments from Mr. Noah Lindenthal

(From the school binder - what's a mother to do? except savor it)

Send us the gross, the groovy, the mysterious moments of your daily view: FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Found art Friday 66

Welcome to the Department of Homeland Inspiration! Today's Found Art Friday opens with two images by Wick Alexander, an extraordinary painter and lately aggregator of Pioneer Modernism http://www.wickalexander.com

from the album called "Nevada"

Autumn Equinox at Hoover

  

from Gentleman Jeff somewhere outside of Johannesburg, California 
Mohave Desert 

One more for our PATINA series. Or how the tape ages is not unlike my neck.

 Art Ranger Receives Visitor in her Living Room.

May the God of Aiming balls into Holes look favorably upon you and your team this season.

What have you seen at your Department of Homeland Inspiration? Please send your Visual Evidence to FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Found Art Friday 65

Dear blogo visitors, 
Today's Found Art Friday means we need to clear our desktop at the same time as offering A short History of The Department of Homeland Inspiration.  Aren't there are things you've seen that make you wish you had a camera at that moment? What is visual memory?
As a person highly interested in current events, we were tired of how absurd and depressing almost all news and especially our national news is. We began to report on a very different subset of news, one which involves people tuning in to their immediate environments. Things that strike you.  

A few years ago, the Art Ranger-in-Training parked her car at a doctor’s office and saw this: This sign wasn’t “art” per say, but it managed to be poignant and thought provoking. Preventative medicine that seemed to be working. It made her want to bring her camera. Taking note. Taking action. Taking care.  All that  unexpectedly from a sign. “A sign”.  From that day onward, a deliberate and diligent digital visual diary had begun. As a supplement to the artist sketchbook, the art museum  of daily life was getting collected.  For close to two years now, the visual dialog is opened to anyone who wishes to share their visions.

from Bonnie Hotz 
(what great shoes)

2 by Noah Lindenthal near that amazing Army Surplus store in Englewood

Found by Jim Lindenthal in Pacific Grove
 

 And sometimes it is what people say about the picture that is most interesting: Still life with old bench and found sweater from Richard Piscuskas in L.A.

Have a great week! Send foundlings to: FAF@homelandinspiration.org

Gross

In honor of Halloween, we're going to meditate on the word gross. Don't know about you folks, but it was disappointing around age ten to find out that the word gross had another meaning or two. Bushels of peaches or turnips. A farmers almanac sounding relic. We liked gross for under-the-bandaid, barfy, moldy warty things, with over-sized sticky, icky, slimey parts that are the wrong color - perfect Halloween accessories. Those other grosses just didn't have the punch that the real gross did when it was young and new.   

We did not want to hear about the GROSS domestic product. Or really how much they grossed, because there are too many zeros to keep track of. Boooooooooo0000000000!

You Guessed it! Alan Greenspan guru-not

And hats on to Occupy Wallstreet!  I'm so heartened that the Rage has finally taken hold and hope they have a good sleepingbag. The gutsy activists are pinpointing the GROSS negligence and Obsene Gross Margins that the few did with your toiling hours, all gambling and golfing it off. 

On to simpler gross things such as the gorgeous color palettes of molds and decay around the Ranger's grounds.

Nature takes care of potentially gross things by processing vigorously back into earth while turning many colors, textures and shapes.  Of knowing how to make use of everything it has got. Autumn nutrients.
May your Haloween have just the right amount of  gross, or funny or clever or scary or plastic or elastic or delicious in it. If not, there are always memories of sorting and trading candy on the floor with tired feet and molars packed with tootsie pop mortar.  And feeling gross the next day (possibly crazy too).
By the way, Halloween is expected to gross 6.86 billion this year, consuming second place only to x-mas. Therefore, by gum, it must be a factor in our Gross Domestic Product.
Booooooooo!