The Alien has arrived

George St., Charleston, S.C.

I popped in Caviar & Bananas yesterday morning at the end of my walk to treat myself to their naked kale salad. Mmmmmm. I took a look over the fence in the little park across the street and spied this recent addition.

Hello there! Is it cooler where you live? Will you take us back with you? 

According to the sign it isn't an alien but a Subterranean lizard by Austin Abt.  Silly me. Thanks for making me happy Austin.

Marsh Art

Coco Vivo Art Gallery, Broad St., Charleston, S.C.

We can't help it. We are suckers for marsh art. I used to joke that I'd like to be a Marsh Artist as opposed to learning Martial Art. This painting caught my eye at the Coco Vivo Art Gallery on Broad St. Flipping through their web site it looks like the artist is Mitch Billis who appears to divide some of his time between the lowcountry and Tuscany. Not. Too. Bad. Here is his website.

While we are on the subject of art, go ahead and bookmark Barbara Stroud's blog. Barbara is my "lazy girl's art walk" as she introduces new artists each week and I can enjoy learning about them without the crowds of the evening art walks. 

I just finished the last episode of True Detective so my regular life may now resume. It's been a week of gluttony TV watching.

Inside Nothing is Everything

When I walked to the City Gallery at Waterfront Park to check on the coffee stirrer sculpture I happened upon the magical world of wee flower petals, insect parts and bone created into images by Ben Timpson. It seems impossible to find what is going on at the Gallery through any of the city web sites but here is the scoop from organicprocess.com

Ben Timpson's Inside Nothing is Everything:

From an upcoming biography on Ben and his art process:

"When classically trained painter Ben Timpson turned his artist's eye from large canvases to tiny bits of the natural world, his work entered a mysterious realm of fanciful, dark beauty. Flowers, insects, blood and bone – the eccentric materials Timpson collects find their way into miniature compositions he assembles into slides in painstaking marathons at his light table. These haunting and whimsical photographs, published for the first time in "End of the Roll: Goodnight 35mm," capture a style that trades traditional notions of painting and collage for an evocative visual alchemy. The result is a gallery of alarmingly original images, and the publishing debut of a remarkable young artist."

Here is his gallery web site. Don't say I never give you anything.

G'night kids. The week is almost finished and it frightens me to think of everything I need to squeeze into eight short hours tomorrow.

Coffee Stir Stick Madness

Art Gallery at Waterfront Park, Charleston, SC

I like reading Jonathon Brilliant's blog about creating an art sculpture and then going to see it in person. I had visited his giant water bottle at the North Charleston waterfront park and this morning I tracked down the amazing stir stick creation and walked around it grinning and scratching my head.

70,000 wooden coffee stirrers were woven in place and held by tension. The form was created during a ten day site specific building session. The piece became the most lyrical and playful of the stir stick installations to date and gives an indication of the direction the installations will be taking in future versions.

I like his description here:

...in many ways it has become a lot like a torqued basket fed through some sort of photoshop filter. I like to think when i am working that it is a bit like a labor intensive version of the cloning tool inside the photoshop interface.