The other day Kenny and I were walking through a forested part of a nearby park when we heard an unusual but distinctive chorus of abrupt teeny clicking chirps...hummingbirds! A whole mess of them were zooming around and yelling at each other through the trees. I was reminded of the lovely paintings of Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904) who painted many paintings of hummingbirds in almost primordial, jungly landscapes. Let's look at some shall we? I find them just very refreshing to look at...I like how they exude an exotic humidity. I would love a whole room full of these.
Update: My Dad just emailed me this tidbit- he and my stepmom bought a colonial inn in Fredricksburg, Virginia years ago and with the inn they inherited this portrait painted by Heade! That's pretty fun. Too bad it wasn't a hummingbird painting...then I could swipe it.
As sort of an amuse-bouche for your eyes, check out Matthew Kirscht's paintings inspired by vintage Halloween imagery. Some of these are pretty demented, but I like the the sort of unself-conscious sincerity they exude nonetheless.
From I Heart Chaos: "In 1946, surrealist Salvador Dali formed an unlikely friendship with Walt Disney and they spent a short time collaborating on a short film called "Destino". Unfortunately, only 18 seconds of Destino were ever shot, but in 1999, Roy Disney reconstructed the entire short using computer rendering and hand-drawn imagery based on the original sketches and storyboards. The piece was supposed to have been part of Fantasia 2000, but didn't make the cut and hasn't ever seen release anywhere else. So far, the Disney lawyers haven't come after this YouTube video, so cross your fingers that it still works when you click on the play button. And if you want to know where the original footage, is, look for the two weird turtle monsters at around 5:22."
"Five O'Clock Shadows in Dali-Disney Land" by Todd Schorr
The new Hi Fructose is coming out soon, with loads of great new stuff, and including two big articles (I just about killed myself over) with Todd Schorr and Michael Hussar! You can see some preview pages here.
I am really liking the work of Charlie Immer- more so now that I saw one in person recently at a friends house and could see the lovely rendering and luminous color in person. Some of his newer work could be characterized as gummy bear horror...lots of gelatinous type creatures in pale jello colors, with skeletonized features. I think it's pretty great and fresh to look at.