Forsake Not Your Peeps

At the drugstore yesterday, I walked down the Easter aisle in hopes of picking up a bit of seasonal chocolate. But the rows and rows of shelves that earlier were brimming with candy were EMPTY! Across the aisle, next to the lonely leftover toys and baskets, stood the boxes of Peeps no one wanted.

If you, too, have excess Easter Peeps at your house this week, get creative. Try your hand at a collage or diorama with them; use them as building materials. For examples, just search “Peeps art” or “Peeps diorama” and Google will oblige with numerous contests and exhibits.

Peeps are more than cute little sugar boosts. They can be the key that unlocks the artist in you.

[Art by Kathy Ansell and Chris Broquet.]

It’s Ba-aaaack: The Big Egg Hunt

Easter’s on its way and London is once again festooned with colossal, artful eggs. I wrote last year about the inaugural event sponsored by Fabergé; this year, chocolate giant Lindt is sponsoring the Big Egg Hunt.

If you’re anywhere near London, please take advantage of this playful outdoor art exhibit.

[Pictured is one side of Equinox by Barbie Harrison.]

Saving Nature with Art

While reading about octopuses yesterday (and yes, it’s octopuses and not octopi—something about avoiding a Latin-Greek mashup in the currently accepted scientific taxonomy), I came across the ice sculptures of Basia Irland.

Before your imagination starts conjuring winter festivals or cheesy centerpieces on cruiseline buffet tables, look closely at the photograph. It’s a BOOK and it is complete with CONTENT.

Irland embeds her works with the seeds of plants indigenous to the particular river region from which she launches each book. As her books decay, they disseminate content and restore watersheds.

Watch an Irland-narrated video about her work on the Orion magazine Web site. Or explore the artist’s other projects on her Web site. If you’re a book or nature enthusiast, you’ll appreciate her innovative ecoactivism.

“[I]n Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
—Henry David Thoreau

“That’ll Do, Pig. That’ll Do…”

It’s a holiday today. (Isn’t every day?) To be specific, it’s National Pig Day.

There’s no official ruling on how one is supposed to honor this day. Like National Chicken Month, some folks promote consumption of the animals while others try to raise awareness about their intelligence and individuality.

As you may have guessed, I reside in the latter camp and prefer to pay tribute to the porcine clan through a blog post.

If you want to explore the subject, please start by reading The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood, Sy Montgomery’s memoir about the rescue and life of her personable pig. (He’s the black-and-white real animal pictured here.) It’s good reading no matter which camp you’re in.

If you’re artistically inclined, you may want to create your own little piggy à la the felted wool (from Amber Rose Creations) and folded paper (by Román) varieties pictured here.

If you’re a carnivore, you could give pigs a break today and celebrate by NOT eating pork (or, for that matter, any of the pigs’ friends on the farm). Or you could veg out a different way by watching Babe.

However you choose to celebrate, Happy National Pig Day.

Where Dogs and Jewelry Converge

Need a distraction today? If you like dogs, the online Vintage & Collectible Dog Jewelry Museum is worth a visit.

The jewelry exhibited is part of the personal costume collection of Deb Schneider and spans the decades from 1900 to the present. It can be searched by dog breed, manufacturer/artist, or jewelry type. But don’t get too attached to anything you see—Schneider isn’t parting with any of it.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum…

My husband started receiving a magazine recently that he didn’t subscribe to. Nor is he anywhere close to the demographic the advertisers are targeting.

I threw the first issue into the recycling bin without so much as glancing at it.

The second issue, for some reason, compelled me to open it. And what did I see? A DIY method of creating Christmas trees from magazines!

Good golly, Miss Molly: At last here was something to occupy my OCD tendencies, serve as a proxy for art, and make use of an unwanted periodical. It’s all about folding—no cutting involved, so even I can do it.

In my continuing efforts to be green, I’d considered making a tree from books this year; I liked the idea of renting a tree but the closest vendor is in California. So a magazine it is.

Who knows? Maybe origami will become my next special interest.

Cloudy with…er…

No gloom and doom here, no nasty weather. Only art in the form of a cloud.

Really. Watch artist Berndnaut Smilde demonstrate how he creates clouds for exhibits.

[Thanks to a Lull reader for this.]

My Friday the 13th Lens

I’m not genuinely superstitious, but I do love Friday the 13ths. I feel especially motivated on these quirky days to rise above life’s disappointments and unfortunate circumstances and see only loveliness in the world.

On this last Friday the 13th of 2012, join me in contemplating this photograph of one of Everton Wright’s Walking Drawings. What better combination than art, animals, and beach?

In Praise of Art

“I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.”
—Saul Bellow

[Art by Gustave Caillebotte.]

“Hippity, Hoppity, Easter’s on Its Way…”

There’s something about eggs.

I don’t know what attracts me to them: their smoothness? their asymmetry? their promise of new life? Something about them seems like Hope to me.

In kidhood, I had a large tin egg illustrated with Peter Cottontail scenes which, with enough rotations of the handcrank, would play a tinny version of “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” I no longer have the musical oddity, but it comes to mind each Easter.

Last weekend, I happened upon some eggs of a different kind. They’re part of The Fabergé Big Egg Hunt and charity auction in London—grand in scale, unique in design, a few even falling into the “exquisite” category. Each of the 200 eggs was created by an artist, architect, jeweler, or designer to benefit Action for Children and Elephant Family. These eggs, of course, led me to people and places and loveliness that I hadn’t known existed.

Take a gander yourself and see where the eggs take you. (If you’re anywhere in or near London, you must go see them. I’ll be jealous, but that’s okay.)

[Pics from top to bottom: “Caeruleus & The Good Egg” by Rhea Thierstein, and “Pandora” (dinosaur hatchling) by Martin Aveling.]

Somewhere There’s A War…

And sometimes there’s art.

Those Wilco lyrics seemed the perfect introduction to a virtual art exhibition called “ARMS into ART.”

I don’t know about you, but I can hardly bear to watch the news anymore for all the reports about wars and warlike activities. So I was thrilled to find that this Mozambique artists’ collective, Núcleo de Arte, uses weapons in a more intelligent and creative fashion than the militia—by turning grenades, AK-47s, and land mines into sculpture.

Oh, if only artists ruled the world…





[Art, from top to bottom, by Mathe, Hilário, and Fiel.]

Mystery Sculptor Strikes Once More

Last month I told you about the paper sculptures left anonymously at various libraries in Edinburgh, Scotland (“Art in Defense of Libraries and Their Treasures”). Each tiny masterpiece was a tribute to the literary arts and the libraries that preserve our heritage.

The Random Acts of Beauty created global buzz and desperate attempts to expose the artist. Yet, in a strange twist to our usual need-to-know-every-dirty-little-factoid culture, readers responding to a newspaper poll said they preferred the artist to remain unknown. For what is Life without a bit of Mystery?


Now the sculptor has returned—perhaps for the last time—leaving behind enough sculptures to total 10 and a letter (pictured above) disclosing two key details: The artist is a woman, and the artworks were her first venture into book-based sculpting.

In my book, that’s impressive: first-time art, creating a mystery, making headlines, ending the story on her terms. What a gift—for all of us.

[See more pics at Central Station and NPR.]

Art in Defense of Libraries and Their Treasures

I meant to post these pics long ago. Today is as good a day as any, I suppose. Enjoy.

Earlier this year in Scotland, sculptures started appearing in libraries. In the Scottish Poetry Library was a “poetree,” with a tag reading: “It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree. … We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books … a book is so much more than pages full of words. … This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas … a gesture (poetic maybe?)” The paper eggs were lined in gold and contained cutouts that, when properly sequenced, created “A Trace of Wings” by Edwin Morgan, Scotland’s national poet.

The National Library of Scotland received the gramophone-and-coffin with this tag: “A gift in support of libraries, books, words, ideas … (& against their exit)”

Art and Animals: A Winning Combination, Inside or Out

This is the first thing I saw when I opened my browser yesterday:


I started to share it with you yesterday, but didn’t because as I was trying to determine the story behind it, I got mired in discussions of whether it was Photoshopped, whether the horses were receiving decent care, and various interpretations of the setup. The photo has been around the Internet several times in the last nine years and is currently enjoying a new round thanks to … oh, I don’t know—some content aggregator’s desperate need to entice us to stay on its site, regardless of how old the news it circulates is.

Regardless of the circumstances, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It stoked my imagination. First and foremost, having my own field of horses is a huge pipedream. But beyond that, I started noodling about how I could shelter my herd in a similar fashion.

There’s always the traditional run-in shed with a twist: My husband would delight in building several à la various architects or styles—Frank Lloyd Wright, Antoni Gaudí, Santiago Calatrava, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Or I might choose nothing but varying styles of jumbo lamps (Tiffany, Noguchi, Mission) or oversized chairs (Eames, Biedermayer, Stickley, Mackintosh). My ideas also ran to huge sculptures of all the animals I’ve shepherded to the afterlife over the years: the pooch, the cats, the canaries, the baby bunny, the fish. Could all look like folk art or maybe painted according to different artists’ styles (Pollock fish, Klimt cats, Dürer bunny, Edo-period birds, Koons pooch). All the animals I’ve loved together in one place. How fabulous would that be?

Anyway, here’s the pic. Where does it take your imagination?

[Furniture by Jens Braun; photo by Jens Meyer for AP.]

Art Be With You

With the intention of expanding my creative skills, I recently took up drawing. This quote handily summarizes my attempts:

“I’m gonna mess you up so badly, Stick Man, that when I’m finished with you, you’re just gonna be a scribble. Yeah!”
—from Sleep Talkin’ Man

A Thursday Pause

Are you itching for the week to end? Are you ready for a break from heavy thinking?

Lighten your load today by visiting artist Matte Stephens’ blog. You’ll find works like the one below called Lillian Playing with an Abstract Thought.

Art Becomes Life

This definition of surrealism from illustrator Brad Holland caught my attention some time ago and I thought I’d share it with you today.

“An archaic term. Formerly an art movement. No longer distinguishable from everyday life.”

Yup. Aptly describes my existence. How about yours?

[The illustration is Brad Holland’s. I think it’s how some writers envision editors.]

Let’s Eat Cake!

Lull is two today. Can you believe it? Joyeux Anniversaire!


About the Cake Pictured: Created by JollyBe Bakery of pear buttercake with caramel-vanilla buttercream and pear-flavored rolled fondant. The painting is inspired by the work of Japanese artist Kishio Koizumi.

How’s Your Spirit Today?

“Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit.”

—Mark Rothko

The First Snow

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind
than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”
—George Santayana

Thanksgiving Day brought near 70-degree temperatures to us in the Horse Capital of the World, then rain. All day…rain.

But last night, the rain turned white: snow. There’s something about a first snow that sticks in my mind and heart and tickles the old joie de vivre.

Wilson Bentley delighted in the white stuff as well. He was the first (in 1885) to microphotograph snowflakes—more than 5,000 over the course of his life (1865–1931) and no two alike. “Under the microscope,” he said, “I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”

[Pic by KyScarlett.]