Ingrained Devotions
Could you imagine having something this inspirational and beautiful in your home, secured as any other piece of hardwood flooring, mixed in amongst their plain but shining beauty, but bearing this mark of devotion, setting itself apart from all the rest.
The footprints in this board are from 70 year old Buddhist monk Hua Chi, who has been praying in this same spot at his temple in Tongren, China, for over 2o years. His footprints, which are up to 1.2 inches deep in some areas, are the result of his prayers, performed up to 3,000 times a day. Though, in his older age, he says he has greatly reduced his quantity of prayers to 1,000 times easch day. Still, his ingrained marks of devotion now serve as a source of inspiration to younger monks who continue in his footsteps to make the footprints themselves. [Via Offbeat Earth]
Surreal Wallpaper
In the world of interior design, we have seen a dominating trend of layering — layering pattern, color, texture, shape, and so on and so forth — on top of every imaginable surface. If not a bombardment of layers, then a simplistic echo of its noisy brethren with the presence of damn near nothing — a blank canvas devoid of color and plastered in smooth monochromatic colors, lines, and shapes.
Surrealien, a German design house, found this method of layering on our walls to be a method of ignoring architectural preconditions. Though wallpapers have come into their own as a decorative fashion and not necessarily a faux pas, they are still treated in the same manner — slap it on, do your best to make sure all the seams and patterns line up, and then pile on top all those pictures, borders, and whos-it-magoos of decoration.
Surrealien’s wallpapers now blur those lines that border architectural wallstructure and apllied interior decoration. But don’t think of this wallpaper as a mural — its not a design that’s made to piece around architecture so it is seemingly fluid; that appearance of a complete picture simply skipping a spot and continuing in the next. Rather, the wallpaper is adapted to the particular infrastructure of a room so that the paper’s design literally moves around the architectural detail; like being pushed by some previously unknown about force-field.
All the necessary information about the rooms infrastructure — doors, light swtiches, every hole or discontinuance, even the intended placement of hanging baubles like pictures, paintings, and aforementioned whos-it-magoos — are turned into a technical plan. A schematic grid is then applied and all those defined parts are turned into objects with their own force-fields that interact with the wall paper patterns. Depending on the shape, size, and position of those influencing wall elements, the program generates exact warping functions.
Link: Surrealian
A Burton Alice in Wonderland
Disney released pictures last week of their upcoming film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, due to be released next year. And what better team for this film than to pair up once again Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Boham Carter…although, admittedly, Gilding rather likes their perverse and warped perception of all things child.
As with all things Burton, Alice in Wonderland will be a re-imagining of Burton’s own freakish imagination, which picks up the story in a kind of sequel sort of way. The film begins at a party where Alice, now 17, finds out that she is about to be proposed to in front of hundreds of snooty high society types. Making a run for it, Alice, of course, ends up following the White Rabbit down a hole, back to Wonderland. A decade has thusly past, and though the White Rabbit is convinced that she is the right girl, Alice doesn’t remember her past visit to the wonderous Wonderland. But the creatures she has forgotten are ready to revolt and been waiting –hoping– for Alice to help them.
And, another marvelous bit of candy to roll around on the back of your tongue, the film will be in 3D.
Along with Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter and Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway will be playing the White Queen. Check out these gorgeous official pics released from Disney as well as some still of the film itself.
More details on the film are revealed in this article by slashfilm or you can go straight to their source and read it from USA Today.
Slippery When Limp and Occasionally Erect
This is just wrong on so many levels — and utterly hilarious, and if given the chance Gilding would own one for the sheer pleasure of seeing the look on her guests faces when they picked it up.
So, when not in use, this concept gel remote control by Panasonic becomes limp and placid and displays a colorfully pulsating light show. But with a touch, it becomes excited and rigid, and fulfills just about every childish metaphore that has been thrashing your frontal lobe into your skull while reading this. [Via cubeme]
By the way, you can thank Atomic Terrier for turning Gilding on to this .^_^.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Gilding picked up a few books yesterday at the bookstore. Among them were Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a qausi written novel by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith.
The expanded edition of the well loved classic of Jane Austen’s novel, features all new scenes of bone-crunching, brain slurping zombie mayhem. The story begins with a mysterious plague having fallen upon Meryton that brings the dead back to life. Feisty heroin Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wiope out ever last one of the rotten skin-dripping menaces, but she, of course, is soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy.
What is ensues is what critics are claiming will be a humorous comedy of manners and polite society sparring between two young lovers and even more violent, bloody, ooze dripping sparring as Elizabeth wages war against hordes or flesh-eating undead.
Ahh…to be a girl in a world where once must overcome the social prejudices of a class-conscious landed gentry and scour the land of the vile stench and chomping teeth of zombies.
Romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses — what could be better!
Down Lo on How to: Succulent Vertical Garden
Apartment Therapy found this great Trellis Moss Garden How to from the Lowe’s Idea Library.
The vertical garden uses moss and drought tolerant succulents, requiring only an occassional light watering with a spray bottle.
Fashion Plus
Beth Ditto threw down a gauntlet of livid disdain at the fast-fashion chain, Topshop, when they approached the lead singer of the punk band Gossip, with an offer to perform at its flagship store in London. Blowups of her heart-shaped face and happily flaunted rotund form would be on display — in a store that doesn’t sell clothes that someone her size (or a few degrees difference in either direction) could wear. Ditto herself said, “I don’t think it’s fair to put my face somewhere where they would never let me in there to wear their clothes,” in a blog. She further wrote that if the chain wanted to capitalize on her star power, then why did it not offer her the same status it does Kate Moss and let her create a “big girl” line for Topshop.
When word of Ditto’s demand reached Arcadia Group, the parent company of Topshop, her sound off prompted a partnership that, after a couple of years, has resulted in Arcadia’s plan to unveil a collection that Beth Ditto has designed herself for Evan — the company’s plus size division.
Now, this is Gilding’s issue with this. The company may have placated the punk singer with giving her a designing gig to create a plus size line of clothing, but that hardly addresses the issue that Arcadia, and other such chain stores, creates whole stores dedicated to separating the masses of the skinny girls from the fat ones — and by fat, Gilding means that as a relative term, since the fashion industry generally equivocates healthy with obesity.
Ditto’s collection is the latest in the outpouring of fashions aimed at trend-driven, but otherwise considered full-figured teenagers and young women. A population which has begun to echo Ditto’s complaints of being an ignored entity by most merchants and brands.
But how is segregating the two-fold size wearing consumer by creating whole stores of their size addressing the larger issue at hand — that is, the subliminald message that to be larger than a size 5 is somehow wrong and less desirable and therefore worthy of a store built second to the trendy skinny store.
Good grief, this rant could go on forever. For now, Gilding supposes, we’ll celebrate the little achievements.
Synonomously Loathsome’s Antonym
Gilding hates to admit it, but she loves the bold audacity of this child. Her sense of adventure and her genuine demeanor makes swallowing the fact that this child lives in a world that makes more money in an hour than Gilding does in a year and that she then spends it on designer clothing, shoes, and accessories with names Gilding has to sound out in syllables complete with syllabic clapping, a pleasant horse pill to choke on.
By now Gilding is sure that anyone with half an interest in fashion knows of her, but trolling through the Sea of Shoes blog today and its author, Jane Aldridge (daughter of designer Judy Aldridge), snappy fashion and quirky good looks has left Gilding feeling a bit inspired about a new wardrobe.
So guilty a pleasure as it may be, Gilding has to say, she Hearts Sea of Shoes.
Digital Landscapes
This is totally trippy and exactly what Gilding wants the rooms in her home to look like when she grows up to be an eccentric artist, complete with one brooding daughter who loathes her mother in that love-hate-mostly love…hate- sort of way and commits acts of sexual debauchery at a young and shameful age in groups larger than the whole of her parents friend base, and a son that wears black, sleeps in a cave of a room, quotes philosophers with names too long to be pronounced and ideas too large to be comprehended in anything more than a debased, primal, animalistic understanding but loves his parents with that they-gave-me-birth-and-are-kinda-cute sorta way. Yeah, Gilding has nuclear family dreams in the most colorful of ways.
These installations of gilded home dreams come from Toronto artist, Alex McLeod. McLeod’s digital worlds of large balloon-like clouds and uninhbited landscapes in 3D renderings combines slick and glossy bulbous forms that can look like voluminous smoke stacks or creamy cumulus nimbus clouds, like barren trees stripped of life save their candy coated color or thick and woody and supporting some other equally poppy and graphic woodland animal. There’s even reedy grass stalks. Overall, they inspire dreams of a childrens world with a hint of something ominous seething below the hard candy cover.
The rest of Alexander McLeod’s Digital Landscape installation can be seen here, alxclub.com. [Via Art MOCO]
Swallowing Winter
Diggin this illustration, entitled “Flower Invasion,” by artist Kiersten Essenpreis — not so much the other half of the illustration [shown below] and not so much the other illustrations in the series wither. But really diggin this one — part.
The illustration is quirky — bold and melancholy, a bit mysterious and punchy. In this illustration in particular, a floral virus steals into a winter scene. Its a bit rebellious and ironic. In the completed scene, the floral virus takes over the children, swallowing them whole in its floral maul and then running away with their bodies for some snowy play. [Via Art MOCO]
Chaff ‘n’ Skaffs: Mai and the lost Moskivvy
Chaff’n'Skaffs: Mai and the lost Moskivvy, may be written for children ages 4-8, but the illustrations created by well-known artist and animator on the California scene Luke Feldman, is sure to have it appearing in many big kids book collection as well.
Written by Amanda Chin, the story is of a pretty girl, and unidentifiable and faithful friend and a dapper lost mosquito (Moskivvy), as the trio set out on an incredible journey to escort Moskivvy home. The world they embark on is vibrantly colorful and uniquely whimsical.
You can check out more of Luke Feldman’s work at skaffs. There you can also follow the link to the book’s product page. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page where you can click and print free coloring pages of the 3 heroes from the book.
By the way, how utterly fucking cute is this toy of Mai from the story:
[Via Art MOCO]
Shanghai Gay
“It was shortly after the “hot body” contest and just before a painted procession of Chinese opera singers took the stage that the police threatened to shut down China’s first gay pride festival. The authorities had already forced the cancellation of a play, a film screening and a social mixer, so when an irritated plainclothes officer arrived at the Saturday afternoon gala and flashed his badge, organizers feared the worst.”
It was an American teacher, Hannah Miller, who helped put together the weeklong festival, and it was this same teacher who commenced the impromptu sidewalk meeting with said irritated police officer to negotiate what became a “crisis averted” and the first ever Shanghai Pride Week.
In the 12 years since homosexuality was decriminalized, the delicately orchestrated series of private events revealed how far China’s gay community has come, and how far it still has to go. And though there has been an unmistakable blossoming of the gay community in China, antigay violence is virtually unheard of.
Link: NYTimes– Gay Festival in China Pushes Official Boundaries
Adorned in Barbie
And the psychotherapist told you that cutting up your sisters barbie dolls what one of the seven signs of a developing psychopathic serial killer. When, in fact, you were only making art! Its alright, artist and Barbie Doll butcher Margaux Lange understands.
As Lange explains in her artist statement, Barbie dolls were an instruments of creative artistic exploration as well as a outlet to express all her fears, embarassments, joys, and explorations of human interactions through on-going narratives within elaborate handmade dwellings.
Fascinated with who Barbie is as a cultural icon, distinguished celebrity status, and the enormous impact she has had on our society, Lange childhood influence has moved with her to influence her artistic impressions as an adult. Specifically, Lange is interested in Barbie’s influence in defining gender roles of women in contemporary American culture.
Shown here a just a few of Lange’s pieces, all necklaces. You can see the rest of her jewelry, including earing, bracelets, and brooches, in her portfolio.
Horror on the Russian Subway
An awesome use of photomanipulation, these works by Russian artist Alex Andreev are part of his stylistic series, “Hermetic Art.”
Apparently, it is illegal to take photographs of the Russian subway. If this is what you see when the flash goes off, no fucking wonder. [Via English Russia]
Weird Earth
Some totally amazing and totally alien looking places on our very own little Earth.
The Dry Valleys of Antarctica are said to be the most similar place on Earth to Mars. Located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo sound, this region of Antarctica gets almost no snowfall, and with the exception of a few steep rocks, are the only continental part of Antarctica devoid of ice. Lake Vanda, in Wright Valley, is a perennially frozen lake several meters thick. Beneath that lies extremely salty water teeming with simple organisms, a subject of ongoing research. Less desirable in the perfect coctail icecube, but that threaded patterning in the ice lake is stunning. Via Oddee via Dark Roasted Blend.
The plantlife on this island resemble an intersting mix of Disneyland fairytale proportions gone organic and beyond lifesize slime molds. That slime molds link, by the way, takes you to some awesome photographs of slime molds — micro mushrooms.
Socotra Island, located in the Indian Ocean, is a part of a group of four islands that has been geographically isolated from the mainland Africa for some 6 or 7 million years. Like the Galapagos Islands, Socotra is teeming with 700 extremely rare species of flora and fauna, a full 1/3 of which are endemic.
Some of the trees and plants on this island, preserved through the long geological isolation, date back as old as 20 million years. Via Oddee via Sinlung.
Lastly, the Rio Tinto in Spain. It is the giant opencast mines of the Rio Tinto that create its surreal, Mars-like landscape. The rmoval of layer upon layer of soil and rock in search of iron ore, copper, silver, and a host of other mineral ores, has tinted this part of the world in hues of dusty pink, brown, yellow, red, and grey. The sheer magnitude of the mining has created depressions that resemble a man-made crater that measures several kilometers across.
The terraced rocks are streaked with unusual colors of mineral ores, creating the impression of a natural amphitheater.
But the Rio Tinto is more than an isolated cavity on the Earth’s surface. Its growth has concumed not only mountains and valleys but entire villages, whose populations had to be resettled in specially built towns nearby. Named for the river that flows through the region itself — which was named for the reddish streaks of color that permeates its waters — the unearthed minerals give the soil and waters of the region odd, otherworldly shades of blue, green, yellow, red and brown, making the Rio Tinto a landscape within a landscape. Via Oddee via andalucia.com.
