Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Recently found Mikey Artwork =]

So i did a post about Mike SS and his artwork, I was looking for this drawing and one of our good friends had it. I love this, its mikey at his best. I miss you so much my darling <3


Friday, May 11, 2012

The Darwin Martin House

I really enjoyed our last excursion to the Darwin Martin house, it was gorgeous and I may come back and take the two hour tour when the house is closer to being finished. The architecture was very planned out and Frank Loyd Wright put a lot of thought in exactly how he wanted his structure.


 With all the hidden things and the way he liked to make people feel uncomfortable in a space, to move or sit somewhere, it reminded me a bit of Rose Red. Rose Red was loosely based off a mansion called the Winchester House in which the wife continued to build the house to confuse the ghosts she believed were haunting her.
The Winchester Mansion contains 160 rooms and cost more the $5,500,000. There are miles of twisting hallways, with secret passage ways, staircases and doorways that lead to nowhere. A lot of it was designed by Sara Winchester herself. It was said that she asked helped with her design of the house with nightly seances and for protection from "bad" spirits. There was never any blue prints to the house and there also wasn't a building inspector.
"Mrs. Winchester’s elegant Grand Ballroom is built almost entirely without nails. It cost over $9,000 to complete at a time when an entire house could be built for less than $1,000! The silver chandelier is from Germany, and the walls and parquet floor are made of six hardwoods – mahogany, teak, maple, rosewood, oak, and white ash."
http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/thehouse.cfm




 Rose Red on the other hand, was a mansion that was remodeled to be a hotel, actually named Thornewood Castle, when author Stephen King wanted to use it for his movie, he modeled it to its original structure. In the book, Ellen Rimbaur and her life at Rose Red, she had married a rich man from an oil company and the house was his gift to her. The story goes that the house had been build in the early 20th century, on an old indian burial ground, which Ellen was not aware of upon purchasing the property. Mr. Rimbaur intended to cover up this fact and burned the bones of the Indians, aggravating the spirits. Many people got lost in the house, men would turn up dead and women missing. As had Mrs. Winchester, Mrs. Rimbaur continued to build her house for the spirits. She had hallways that led to nowhere and hallways that got smaller, with hidden doors for the rooms. I believe even though this house is fiction, it still poses a certain art.








Western New York Book Arts Center

I enjoyed the excursion we went on a couple weeks ago to the printing press place called the Western New York Book Arts Center. I bought a print from there of a cupcake and a little buffalo post card. Not only did they have a workshop for printing but they had room to exhibit other artists pieces. I knew Buffalo was an artistic city but after this class I am really beginning to notice just how much this city does for art.
I also enjoyed the video we watched about Amos Kennedy and how he made printing a career. In the Book Arts Center, they explained how patient one has to be to make prints. I never realized how much work really goes into it. I enjoy looking at Amos's posters because they are different from any art I've ever seen.
Amos Kennedy makes posters with very opinionated thoughts that sometimes make people uncomfortable but I like the slogans he adds. These are probably my favorite ones I have seen of his work so far.


Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Fire Chicken

I finally finished the oil painting I started 4 semesters ago, of my very good friend Michael. With a little help from Mr.Porter, I think it turned out pretty good. This is Mikey driving in Cali (though the picture was in Depew) in his Fire Bird, that he called the Fire Chicken.:)
<3