The World of Action and Story

Parisian Corner Building

First the French taxed real estate based on the number of rooms but attic rooms were not counted.  Builders started making Mansard roofs to create more untaxed rooms.  The French government (Parisian?) then started taxing the rooms behind Mansard roofs.  Eventually the builders responded by making Faux-Mansard roofs; for people liked the look of Mansards but it was cheaper to make boxy buildings with a fake slant of roof atop.

In the same way, at one time the French levied real estate based on closets.  The people responded with armoires.

I assume all this is true.  My old boss and real estate appraiser, James Mason, told me these facts.

I like the way LARGE words were sometimes painted on French buildings of Atget's time.

The Letter "A"

Corkboard Font "A" or perhaps Marbletop Font?

A New Typeface Design

I think I'll call this font Banknote.

I Foolishly Redesign the Japanese Flag.

The Japanese flag is a red circle on white.  Simple and elegant.  It is reflects the Japanese red crowned crane, (see below), which is mostly white with that same red accent.  It has been described as the perfect flag.

But if you followed the hearts of the Japanese people, their flag would have a spring-green circle instead.  The Japanese are simply obsessed with this color.

Above image from nejohnston.org

My Typeface, Gothil

Sitting Room Chair

What Should I Call My New Typeface?

Bird O'Clock
(respective times below)

                                               10.40                                                              2.10       
                                                 9.35                                                              6.12

Tale of the Uninherited Prince

Now, don't you want to read more of this story?  No, no, not the Lorem Ipsum part, of course.  

This artwork was inspired by the Descriptions of Holy Cities, which are Islamic graphic-layouts of various cities, stylized and labeled.  They are bound in small, Beatrix Potter sized books.  The Met Museum has two of these which I regularly go to peer at.  The museum opens them to different pages from time to time.

Nine Objects Mistakenly Identified as Alien Flying Objects and One...

Which one is the real McCoy?

Orcherstrated Cloud Progressions

More interesting than the photos here themselves is the process.  I took a two cloud photos, superimposed one on the other, then slid the top one to create movement.  I am drawn to cloud studies; saw some beautiful ones at the Met this year and later adored Magritte's simple, painterly studies at his MOMA show.

Stove Bird

My grandmother had an old fashioned stove, on the front was a small graphic of a chick hurrying out of it's shell. 

The Challenge of Modern Life

My Designs for Punctuation Marks

The Typeface will be called Termite or perhaps Target Practice.  What do you think?  The typist can choose between two sets of alphabets and marks.  One is whole, as above.  The other has "termite holes."  The frequency of the termited font could be set from never through rare to frequent through always.  If this is too difficult another solution would be -

It could have a Bold function which would allow the typist to choose which specific letters and marks are termitted.  An alternatively holed type would be accessed through the Italic function.  This would give a varied and more natural look to the text.

They Made a Movie Out of It

Retro-Futura

A modern yet retro look.  I should move the first u over to the left a smidgen but I am just dedicating an hour or so to this project from concept to execution and posting.  Perhaps I should align a couple other things too but I actually like the imperfections.  Only the small case t and r are bespoke.

Previous Drawings, New Format

Artwork Derived From the Design Elements in the Previous Post

If you click on the above image, you will be transported to a subtle animation, (for you students at Hogwarts, it's like a portkey).  However, it was made in Flash and will not work on muggle mobile devices, only muggle computers.  To quote Professor Gilderoy Lockheart, "It's like magic!"

Read my previous post for the story of why I had to make this all by myself. 

I was once in the Wildenstein Gallery when they were talking about a Nevelson sculpture which hung on the wall.  It was upside down and had just been sold.  They pondered if they should tell the buyer. 

You can click the below picture to see a nice version of my faux-painting set in a pleasing white/negative space.  But I'm not going to tell you that it's hung sideways in case that's the way you like it... Oops!

My Representation of Molecules Showing the Number of Protons in Each Element

This is just a quick idea of how to represent molecules/atoms so that people especially students can easily get a feel for what the atoms/molecules actually are.

Abstract Drawing

Colored Sculptures

Richard Serra, eat your heart out.

A Mute Machine for Playing John Cage's "Silence"

A couple of years ago, a pianist played John Cage's 4'33 on the piano at Carnegie Hall.  All she had to do was not play a note for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.  But, she accidentally hit a note.  How great and historic to actually make a mistake with this piece!

That performance necessitated my invention of the Theremin 4'33, a mute machine but it uses batteries for the on/off light.  (You should look up Leon Theremin for fun.)

Animation Study

Quick Study of a Very-Imaginary Bug

I was casually counting the number of wild bee and bumblebee species (subspecies?) in a left-wild and weedy corner of central park.  One small bee had the shiny metallic-green you see on some common flies.  A jewel.

That inspired me to invent this drawing, it was done entirely in Mac Pages, not Adobe or drawn by hand.

Calling Card, recto + verso

A Cake Recipe from 1956

My mother kept a pamphlet cookbook for cakes in the bottom drawer.  I don't think she ever made one from it though we were treated to a homemade desert most nights.

When I needed to make some cartoon hearts earlier today, I thought of it.  Here's why.

The pamphlet had recipes for only 12 cakes, one themed for each month.  It was not the baking instructions, whether the cakes were devil's food or crammed with lemon cream, it was the fun shapes that made them special.

The lamb cake it featured for April was covered with Baker's shredded coconut with halved black jelly beans for eyes and a half red one for the nose.  We found it waiting on a side table each Easter at my grandmother's house.  (I doubt the lamb actually was in the booklet, probably not, it was a mold cake?  I might be mixing up my memories.  I was guessing it was the April page.)

In October you were supposed to make a witch's head cake, a flag was for the fourth of July, but February's concoction was simply the cleverest of them all.  It was a Valentine heart.

Just bake one circular cake and one square cake of the same size (circle diameter = square side).  Then cut the round into half and put the pieces together.  Frost it up nicely and your sweetheart will think you're half a magician.

The fun cover.

My favorite from their other cake pamphlet of Animal Cakes.  And below, how it was done.

An Elegant Witch's Hat House

This would make an interesting roadside architecture piece.  Would they sell Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans here?

I grew up on Eastern Long Island where we could drive by a roadside, cement teepee which sold souvenirs from the local Shinnecock Indians.  It was not too different from this.  And we had the Big Duck, which everybody loved.  It's still there.  You used to be able to buy Long Island ducks inside.  Nowadays?  I wonder what it sells?

At one point, they moved the duck down the road about a mile.  I had wished that they painted duck footprints between the locations.

Big Duck and maiden-not-in-distress photo from preservationinpink.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/the-big-duck

A History Lesson

Certain Beheadings were looked forward to with more fervor and anticipation than others.  For example, the guillotining of Lady Uxley, inventor of the coffee filter, did not occasion an overly popular event.

HOWEVER, the beheading of her dear cousin, Lady Blackapple drew record crowds.

Top, unaltered photo courtesy of The Detroit Institute of Arts, Portrait of a Lady, by the Dutch painter Nicolaes Pickenoy.

Nicolaes Pickenoy(Dutch, c.1588 -

Nicolaes Pickenoy(Dutch, c.1588 -

My Favorite Letter of the Alphabet

My favorite letter is O.  It is by far the easiest to move into place when I make a word.  You can roll it.  But Q stays in place better, it has that convenient kick-stand.

When Life Gets Difficult

Life gets difficult and messy at times.  When that happens, try this. . .

Step One:  notice and appreciate the small things.
Step Two:  repeat until it becomes your personality.

My Rug Design

When I was 5, I used to sneak down my grandmother's basement to look at the musty Navajo blanket she stored in a wooden chest.  I've loved them ever since.  Below is a Navajo blanket which I found after I designed my rug.  It's a masterpiece.  

Now I know what the Met Museum felt like years ago when they borrowed The Lady and Unicorn Tapestries from the Musee de Cluny to hang next to their own Unicorn Tapestries.  The Flemish, Cluny Series made theirs pale in comparison.  Until then, they were thought to be of similar quality.

Renderings of both can be seen in the Harry Potter movies.  The Cluny's series hang in the Gryffindor common room.  The Met's Unicorn in Captivity, from their series, is in The Deathly Hallows.

http://www.icollector.com/Navajo-Chiefs-Blanket_i8531360

There's Aways One!

The Papier-mâché duck my mother made stands in our living room.  It has the same orange beak as this waddling.

Common Mistake for My Name

I imagine a section of Helsinki called Helinski, and this is the tile for its subway stop.  Helsinki has the world's most northern Metro.  I like to think Helinski is the last stop on the line going most north, the most northern subway stop in the world.

I'm starting to get into Donald Evans territory here, the artist who made fake postage stamps and invented countries to go with his stamps.  He imagined his countries in detail.  I loved the way he created the perforations by typing periods over and over until holes appeared in the paper.  He made his own cancellation stampers too.  Notice the value of each of the domino stamps below = the domino dots.

Well, Melville did say in Moby-Dick, “It is not down on any map; true places never are.”

Stained Glass Design

I was inspired by the stained glass in a small cathedral I visited recently.  And also by the use of negative-black space in the Rose Window of the Cathedrale de Chartres, detail below.