The Santa Clara County Office of Education has been, for the past twelve years, been building an impressive collection of children's artwork. I wasn't aware of this until recently though.

From the SCCOE web site:

Thirty-four student artists from public schools throughout the county were honored when their work was accepted for display at the COE (County Office of Education). Their work—selected from 280 submissions—now will hang alongside more than 600 other pieces that have been collected in the past 12 years. We welcome visitors who want to stroll through our hallways and view the creations of our talented students.

My daughter Olivia was one of those selected this year. A month ago, we attended an unexpectedly moving awards ceremony, at which educators and major Bay Area arts figures spoke about the importance of art in both education, and life.

This year's winners are here, and below is Olivia's piece, which now hangs in the main hallway in the SCCOE building (click to see larger).

Yeah. Dad's proud.

Well, i wasn't sure it was possible to reduce a person's essence, the totality of what makes them them in a few brush strokes.

Bit it kinda seems like cartoonist Doug Shannon does a pretty good job.

This guy was at a party I went to saturday (a Bar Mitzvah, actually, which was a unique experience for this california gentile), and of course I had to shoulder kids out of the way and say do mine next. The best thing is to watch the guy doing this, seeing which people he reads and captures instantly and who he does not. It requires not just a particular cartooning talent to do this nonsense, but also a certain intuition about people. We all have varying degrees of how well we read faces and body language; some people just seem to have an extra gift.

I've been trying to lay hands on these images for ages.

Finally, as I said, skin stories is out on DVD. What this means is that the image that I've long, long wanted to use as a design source for my tattoo backpiece is in my hands.

Now all i have to do is decide who. And there are only two artists i know who can do this justice, and who i wanna spend months with working on it. My friend Klem, or my friend Freddy (sorry, that links to a stupid flash thing, click on 'artists' - but it doesn't work on Safari).

But here's the image in three pieces. I might later try'n stick these together in one but it doesn't matter, this is enough to take to the shop.

Finally.

I've posted a mini version previously - below is the whole thing, and here is the verse that inspired it.

Skin Stories, a brilliant film by Emiko Omori and Lisa Altieri-Sosa, is finally available on DVD. This is a video I've talked about before, an in-depth exploration of tattooing in the south pacific, with a particular focus on tattooing in New Zealand's Maori culture. It's the best film i've ever seen on tattooing, largely because it eschews the usual focus on the outrageous ('look at these crazy people who tattoo their faces!') and simply tells the story in the voices of people who wear tattoos.

I've been waiting for this to come out on DVD for two years; both because I wanted to own it, and because there's an image in it that I need to take to my tattooist so we can begin work on my backpiece.

It's a bit on the pricey side; it's coming from hawaii, and it's not something that's going to sell thousands of units, so I forgive them. But for those who've been waiting to get hold of this (that may be only me), it's about damned time.

I'm thinking of doing a major blog re-design.

I'm aces at the movable type template/plugins etc, but i sort of suck ass at graphic design (when I say suck ass, I mean in a bad way). So i need someone who can work with me on this who sorta gets movable type templates and who gets my aesthetic.

Anyone interested?

What I got in mind is something akin to this; with a color palate and design based on classic old school tattoo flash. I want to keep something similar to the general layout i have now (i have too damned many links to do two columns), but with a re-vamped (and maybe easier-on-the-eyes) color scheme. I actually have a shirt that looks really similar to the color/design feel i want (click for a full-size view):

If you're interested in helpin' me out, let me know.

My man Julian Lamb of Ruby Crush sent me some quick snaps of his latest work; this stuff ain't on his site yet (though I hope it will be soon); so this is a preview or what's to come. He sent me several but i particularly want to feature this, which I think us simply awesome.

(click those for a bigger view)

He's perfectly captured the look of the classic swallow tattoo (which represents both home, and freedom, in classic sailor tattoo lore). It's a stunning piece. I love how Julian's work is developing; if I had the cash I'd buy one almost everything he's shown me.

This is a sort of artistic brilliance that defies my ability to describe.

It left me utterly speechless.

Rabbit by Run Wrake:

It's longish (8 minutes) but watch the whole thing. It's utterly hypnotic.

(Props to Dauber for the find)

Someone gave me this today. I've heard the quote before, but i love the image and quote together.

That Darwin, he was one smart geezer.

(tx, B!)

No idea why I'm still awake. I even took a sleeping pill and yet, 2:15, i'm fuckin' around on line, listenin' to Horslips and looking for a decent image their logo to make a t-shirt from; reading song lyrics, tryin' to figure out sometihng to write about.

And i just happened to stumble on a video of something I've been looking for for two or three years.

I wrote about it recently - tattoo flash I want for a backpiece. An image originally drawn by an artist in long beach, CA (Where my parents grew up), in a shop on the Long Beach Pike.

I was looking at some video on some site someplace and there it was; a quick pan-and-fade, not a complete image, and very small. But there it was.

It isn't enough to give my tattooist to show him what I want; even though we'll be re-interpreting the thing, i need it all and in enough resolution to print well. That'll come later when I get the DVD sometimes this fall. But it's enough for me. It's enough to tell me, yeah, that image that grabbed me back then when i found it, it still grabs me the exact same way today.

These are crappy screen grabs, color's washed out and they're small; but they'll do.

Thus, Life on the Ocean Wave:

A life on the ocean wave, A-home on the rolling deep! Where the scater'd waters rave, And the winds their revels keep. Like an eagle caged I pine On this dull, unchanging shore. Oh give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest's roar. A life on the ocean wave, A-home on the rolling deep! Where the scater'd waters rave And the winds their revels keep, The winds,..... the winds... The winds their revels...keep. Once more on the deck I stand, Of my own swift, gliding craft. Set sail, farewell to land, The gale follows fair abaft. We shoot thro' the sparkling foam, Like an ocean bird set free. Like the ocean bird, our home, We'll find far out on the sea. The land is no longer in view, The clouds have begun to frown. But with a stout vessel and crew, We'll say : Let the storm come down! And the song of our heart shall be, While the winds and waters lave: A life on the heaving sea, A-home on the bounding wave!

Yeah. I think it's still working for me. Now I know, and I just have to wait for release of the DVD. And then it's all time and pain and money.

This is fucking brilliant.

I dunno how much I've talked about comics but i grew up on a steady diet of sci-fi pulps and comics. And Jack Kirby, more than anyone else, defined my early comic-reading days (Well, that and Gilbert Shelton, but that's spelled comix). My first comics ever were Kirby; an issue of Nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D was the first comic I read, and Kamadi was the first one I bought.

There's a reason they call him King Kirby.

Anyway, I just found this on BoingBoing, and it rules - a collage of Kirby comic eyes.

That's just a little sample, it's way bigger than this (sample thumbnail courtesy of BB).

Something is good and right in the world when photoshoppers/mashup artists take on the horrific 'art' that is Thomas Kinkade.

And the result is fucking hysterical. There are pages and pages of this, don't stop, they just keep getting better.

Gems like these:

Via BoingBoing, who make mondays less dreary.

I've been meaning to post about this since thursday - when it was going to be a sorry excuse for a half-nekkid-thursday post. Only I wound up not having time to even fuckin' think the last couple days. It was then only an after-thought, since I wasn't really feelin' half-nekkid so much on thursday.

In any case, I was gonna post this on thursday because that's the day I got a fed-ex shipment with this simply amazing DeadRingers Classic Skull Ring:

This is what girls looked like when I learned just how much I really liked girls.

That's from a 'Chicas de calendario de los años 70s' collection - 70s pinups from Spain.

(found as usual, on BB)

Man, what a difference from today's porn.

Go.
See.
MirrorMask.

Now.

Two words sum this thing up. "Wow", and "Acid Trip".

Wait that's three words. But nevermind.

I sat, partway through this movie, and thought, I'm watching an acid trip with my eleven-year-old daughter. And the sad thing is, I can't explain to her how cool that is, not yet anyway.

What makes up for this is that she got the movie. And I don't know any other kid her age who would. She can't think of a single one of her friends who'll get it, and she has geeky friends. She lists Coraline as her all-time favorite book; she worships Wolves in the Walls and loves The day I swapped my dad for two goldfish. She can't wait to read American Gods and wanted to know all about Anansi Boys, which is on my bedside now.

She gets Gaiman. She gets Dave McKean's art. She gets the crazed multi-media world he lives in.

She understands, without my having to tell her anything, what the inside-out dreamworld of MirrorMask was all about.

We walked out of the movie both saying wow together; geek rapture, but also art rapture. Because while MirrorMask is a movie, what it really is, is three-dimensional, moving art. like few movies I've ever seen, this film is complete, pure art.

It's hard to describe. The closest you cam come in spirit is to say it's like Yellow Submarine. But it looks nothing like Yellow Submarine. What it looks like, feels like, is walking into Dave McKean's mind and wandering around, a place where schools of fish swim through the sky, where you need a net to catch books, where stone giants float in the sky and old ladies keep sphinxes as pets. I guess one part Yellow Submarine, one part Cabinet of Doctor Caligari; with a side of Pee-Wee's Playhouse and a pinch of Tim Burton.

And no, that really doesn't capture it.

What's it about? Hell, it doesn't matter, at all.

Just go see it.

And let me add, I'm in love with Stephanie Leonidas, who looks like she's about fifteen in this movie, but is evidently old enough that I can buy her a drink if I ever run into her into a hotel bar.

I wanna do drugs with these guys, I tell ya.

My friend Lisa sent this to me. New Yorker cover, aug 2005. Hugs 'an kisses, Lisa!

I'll let it speak for itself. If anyone knows the name of the artist who painted this, give me a shout.

I love this drawing.

BoingBoing has the history and another link to the b/w version.

I'm almost tempted to get a tattoo with that version if tinkerbell.

I was talking recently about Voodou and Voudou Vèvè .

Now, a year or two ago when I was researching this, I really, really could have used this page of Voodou Vèvès. Best page I've found on the topic anywhere.

Good stuff.

Again, what would we do without BoingBoing.

This is from a gallery exibit on the pulp work of Norm Eastman.

Take a look here, at pages one, two, three, four, five and six. It's a festival of nazis and tormented women in torn clothing.

I guess we add this to the Sick and Wrong Art category. Me likey.

In the Sick and Wrong Art department, we find:

Toddlerpedes: doll-torsos and limbs frankensteined together by Johnny Beinart

The wonderful things we find on BoingBoing...