Category: Art

The Blanket

The Blanket

Stefanie Snider

I’m not exaggerating when I tell people it’s like Halloween every day in this house. Some people have an abiding love of angel knickknacks. Some collect fine porcelain. Me? If it has a skull on it, odds are it will find a place in my home.

That being said, it’s not all gloom. There’s a sugar skull, embellished and dainty. There’s the vodka, the cut-glass bottle gleaming like crystal.

And now there’s this:

skullblanket

 

It took me about four months, during which time I had to teach myself to crochet. It weighs a ton, and the colours are even more eye-searing in real life. It’s gaudy and kitschy and I’m so damn proud of myself for finishing the thing.

And now that winter is kinda, sorta finally here, I plan to spend my lazy Sunday afternoon curled beneath this Technicolor monstrosity, book in hand and coffee at the ready.

(To give credit where credit is due, I stole the idea from Granny Mania via Pinterest. But those 630 squares? All me, baby.)

The Art of Jeremy Mayer: Typewriters Reimagined

Stefanie Snider

I love typewriters. (Like, REALLY love them.)

Part of the appeal, I suppose, stems from nostalgia: I banged out my first childhood stories on a monstrous electric typewriter that weighed almost as much as I did.

The other part is the romance of the typewriter: the mental image of a struggling writer hunched over clattering keys in a cozy attic office (with rain on the roof and endless cups of steaming coffee, natch).

I was admiring the pretty typewriter pictures Google had to offer when I came across the wholly unexpected:

jmayer

jmayer2
Says artist Jeremy Mayer:
“I disassemble typewriters and then reassemble them into full-scale, anatomically correct human figures. I do not solder, weld, or glue these assemblages together… I do not introduce any part to the assemblage that did not come from a typewriter.”

He makes the most incredible wildlife, too:

jmayer3jmayer4

I find them eerily beautiful.

There are many more stunning pieces where these came from: check out JeremyMayer.com or the artist’s tumblr, which is where these photos were sourced.

All photos in this post are copyright Jeremy Mayer.

It’s “Only” $225

Stefanie Snider

alexander-mcqueen-silver-skeleton-key-ring-product-1-7799654-366160431_large_flex

I have notoriously expensive taste.

When we went shopping for my engagement ring, I knew nothing about diamonds. I simply went to the case, pointed at a pretty, and the nice lady behind the counter let me try it on. It was lovely. It was $10,000. It went back in the case.

I have a fetish for purses. A big one. Show me a well-crafted bag and I get the sweats. Drop me into any Winners store, leave me for five minutes, and I’ll home in on the most expensive bag there, which of course will be crazily above my budget and will have to be left behind. It’s a gift, and a curse.

So then I found the keychain above. I spend a lot of time online (give me the interaction of the internet over cable any day), and followed a link to a link to a link til I ended up seeing the above picture. He’s so cute! Lookit his little articulated limbs! I need him, and more than that I think I feel the beginning of infatuation. He’s perfect. So I click the little picture and goddamnit he’s by Alexander McQueen and costs TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS.

I guess his virtual presence will have to suffice.

(If you have a bajillion dollars to blow, find him here, which is also where I snagged the photo.)

When I Think How Good (Life) Can Be…

Stefanie Snider

“Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.”
– Truman Capote

 

Today is a holiday for most of Canada, including Ontario, where I live.

All long weekend I’ve been having these… flashes, presentiments I guess, of what life would be like if I were ready to write full-time. I mean, for the last 72 hours I haven’t worn a lab coat; I haven’t worn safety glasses or gloves or sensible footwear. I haven’t spent any time at all doing things according to what other people wanted.

Instead I spent time outdoors, with family. I rose when I felt like; I stayed up late, reading. In short, I made my own schedule, a privilege denied me by my workaday week. And while I never stopped thinking about writing or where my career is headed, it was with excitement and hope, not dread.

When I came to the page I felt refreshed and thrilled to be so lucky, and I can’t help but yearn for the time when this will be my daily routine. Nothing excites me more than the idea of spending eight, ten, twelve hours at my desk, watching movies play in my head while I chase the words that describe them.

I had one of these little flashes just now, sprawled on the bed reading We Need to Talk About Kevin (which is brilliant, by the way). The sun’s going down, and the branches of the trees are starting to do that black-silhouette thing I love so much. I just felt so calm, so at peace, and it makes me want to move forward into the time when I won’t be under fluorescent lights at this time of evening. When I can look forward to spending time watching my bats after a long day of writing, when I can sit on the back deck with a hot cup of coffee and not have to worry about whether it’ll keep me up that night.

I get these little glimpses, and they make me briefly so happy. But like a junkie, I want more. It used to hurt unbearably, reaching for something that seemed so out of reach. But every month my writing’s earning a little more, then a little more, and it makes me start to think: There could be something here, if only I can keep on track and push myself a just a little further each day.

Teddy Has an Operation

Stefanie Snider

This made me so gleeful. Just the right mix of charming and grotesque, just what I love.
I don’t know what it says about me that I find this so adorable.

(PS: Sniderville will be a day late this week; I’m going to a PAAAAARTY! See you Sunday xoxo)

Writers: Try a Writing “Sketchbook”

Stefanie Snider

But, you’re a writer, right? Not a visual artist. What the hell would you want a sketchbook for?

I got caught up in YouTube recently, one of those tangled webs of clicking random “suggested video” links, and I ended up somehow at videos of sketchbooks. Page after page, turned for the camera, sometimes with the artist describing their ideas or inspirations. They’re visual candy, and what struck me about them was the freedom of the artist’s sketchbook.

Trying something new, crossing it out, fiddling with styles and colours and composition. Knowing even before you start that whatever you’re trying may be a colossal failure, and doing it anyway. Scribbling out, starting over, playing with ideas. Not caring about the end product, because if it sucks you don’t ever have to show anyone. The sheer joy of a happy mess unapologetic on the page.

Which is why I’ve adopted the “sketchbook” model for writing.

Sitting in front of a cold, impersonal monitor watching a cursor blink doesn’t exactly rev up my creativity. The harsh glow of the blank screen offers little in the way of inspiration. Show me a white screen and I’ll show you boredom, frustration, and occasional panic.

But show me a blank page, put a pen in my hand, and it’s on. Scribbling (even the word, scribbling, describes a freer way to write than the measured clicks of keys) encourages experimentation. Stuck? Doodle in the margins. Plotting? Draw the path of the story. Flash of inspiration? Throw a key word in the middle of a page and weave a web of related points, characters, and themes all around it. Try writing in a different colour (though not red ballpoint, trust me. It’s a bitch to read later). Your “sketchbook” will become art all on its own; ink stains, wrinkles, coffee and crumbs all marking the times and places you fleshed out your story.

At some point, it’s likely you’ll want to type up your story, whether it’s for publication or just to see it in print. I resisted the sketchbook method for quite a while, since it’s double the work: first writing longhand, then inputting every word. It feels like a huge waste of time, if you miss the major benefit: You can always edit your work on the fly as you type it up. By the time your story’s down, you’ve already caught a lot of the simple errors of tense, missing words, and the like. You’re one draft ahead. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll find that the time lost to typing is more than made up by the extra output of a few scribbles here, a few paragraphs there. A notebook can be crammed in a pocket or purse and snuck out almost anywhere in moments of inspiration, which puts you way ahead of the game in terms of production. No booting up, no waiting for apps to load, just uncap a pen and go.

Try it out, and let me know: Does it work for you?

Dark Masks and More: Evan Campbell’s Creepy Carvings

Stefanie Snider

I was perusing the forums at ConceptArt again; a favourite trick when I’m lacking motivation. Something about seeing people accomplishing amazing art drives me to make more of my own.

I hit the mother lode today.

His name is Evan Campbell, and his work will blow your mind.

5 am web 900
“Gelatin head I sculpted and painted.”

GFXARTIST CELEBRATION
“Celebration”

luminous 2 - NIGHT CRAWLERS
“Night Crawlers”

Bound
“Bound Into”

God of Witches
“God of Witches”

Here’s his Gallery of Work, which includes many more morbidly fantastic pieces, as well as an intricate step-by-step guide to casting your own macabre latex masks. More of his work can be found on Deviant Art.

I’m wowed. I’m amazed. I’m gonna go write something awesome now.

(photos all copyright Evan Campbell, sourced from ConceptArt)

…And Then I Bought Something.

Stefanie Snider

A friend of mine linked me to this article on Cracked:5 People on Etsy Who Are Clearly Serial Killers. It features some…questionable objects: dead animal faces. Teeth from an asylum. A jar covered in what the seller insists is human flesh.

I read the article. I cringed. I laughed. And then I bought something.

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She’s photographed, according to Pamela Klaffke, the photographer, “with a holga cfn 120mm toy camera, using expired film”.

She’s a little eerie, but I love her. (Or maybe that’s WHY I love her?) There’s a certain dreamy quality to the print, an almost-Instagram-except-way-better distortion. She struck me when I saw her, and I had to have her.

I have a feeling, though, that she might be coming to live in my office with me. The office is where C makes me house all the weird shit he doesn’t like looking at (though why he doesn’t want anatomical drawings and stuffed elk heads* wearing tiaras in the rest of the house is beyond me).

Go check out the other critters in Klaffke’s collection (because, seriously, who doesn’t need a scary Hanukkah fox child in their lives? Or click here for the rest of the Cracked article.

(screen grab via Cracked, photo featured copyright Pamela Klaffke)

*(Relax, vegans: this is the head in question.)