Mountains in Denmark

Though it is kind of long this is a really interesting talk given by a Danish architect (he is pretty funny too):

Herb and Dorothy

Laura and I met up with Grace on Saturday afternoon to go see the documentary “Herb and Dorothy” which was playing at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth.

The film told the story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a couple who lived their entire life in Manhattan. He was a postal worker and she was a librarian; they lived in a very small rent controlled one bedroom apartment. What made them utterly fascinating was that they were also one of New York’s foremost art collectors. Since the 1960s they had been buying works from unknown and emerging artists in NY; they lived on Dorothy’s salary and bought art with Herb’s salary. By the time they decided to donate their collection the National Gallery, they had amassed close to 5000 works which was valued in the millions.

A few notes:

-It is rare in our society to have people so entirely dedicated to something with no though about profit or economic value. They never sold a single work, and their entire life was lived simply, modestly.

-They were as interested in the artists –as actual people/friends/ human beings- as they were in the art. They weekly made phones calls to numerous artists to see what they what new art they were up to and were seemingly constantly on the move to galleries and artist’s studios.

-They sought the beauty in the unconventional and the unusual. They were intent on seeing the thought and development of an artist’s work.

It was a well made documentary and will be well worth your time when it comes out on video (I don’t think it will be seeing many theater showings in Texas). Here is the trailer:

IF - Pattern

Three examples of the Golden Spiral pattern in nature.

And the inks.

Calliope

My sister wants to hear about our cat.

Well there is not much to tell yet besides that she has two modes: sleep and kill. She misses us when we are gone all day and immediately wants play (= getting us to animate something so she can de-animate it) when we get home. Oh and we settled on a name: Calliope (keeping with a Greek inspired name, her mother was Persephone).

Oh and through a complicated camera set up I was able to get a photo of her enormous paws from below (how many fingers can you count):

Yep 26 digits total. A mediocre cat has just 16.

Sewing Spiders

This rather scary creation was an entry in a contest over at Deviant Art in which one was to design a creature for the movie “9” which just came out. They are pieced together from a bunch of miscellaneous sewing machine parts.

Chihuly

We went and saw a Chihuly exhibition today at the Dunn and Brown Gallery in Dallas. His glass pieces make for great photos:

Gallery website: http://www.dunnandbrown.com/

IF - Welcome

Calico Polydactyl

Laura and I had a great trip out to west Texas this labor day. See my mom’s post, it is all there. Well all except one minor detail. On our way home on Monday we stopped by Laura’s great aunt and uncle’s in Colorado City. They happened to have some kittens they were giving away. We happened to have just been in discussions on whether to gain animal responsibility. And so we now own a little calico polydactyl.

I apologize in advance to all those afflicted with cat allergies.

Sense of Scale

A great website zooming from galaxies to atoms:

http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index_f.htm

Undoubtedly inspired by the Powers of Ten; a 1968 short film by the architects Charles and Ray Eames.

IF - Strong

Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, please remember me and please strengthen me only this once, O God, that I may be avenged on the Philistines for my two eyes."

-Judges 16:28

I always thought the story of Samson was rather sad. Here is a man whose exterior strength was unrivaled but who lacked the inner strength of character and mind; which ultimately led to betrayal, public humiliation, the loss of his eyes, the loss of the Lord’s favor, and his death.

A Lesson In Supply and Demand

On my desk at work is sitting a book. There is nothing particularly interesting about this book; it is not more than five years old and looks like a soft-cover text book.

Yet I was informed that it costs $1000.

It is IATA’s Airport Development Reference Manual. The compiled information on airport design contained within it apparently exists no where else, and said information is highly valuable to the right people. So they can charge anything they want for it. So they settled on $1000 which I confirmed here: http://www.iata.org/ps/publications/adrm.htm