Category: Art
ZZZZOMBIES, a Short Film
“ZZZZOMBIES – a stop motion animation on overhead projector”
ZZZZOMBIES from David King on Vimeo.
This one made me actually laugh out loud. In the living room. By myself. Which is weird, and made me feel like a dork. But I loved it, and I think you will too.
Make Something.
Yesterday I was showing my husband the bracelet I made (and by “made”, I mean I savaged* a store-bought bracelet and added an evil eye bead). Part of the modifications involved bending a head pin. I did a…passable…job, for a first-timer.
He asked why I don’t just ask our chain-mail-making friend to do it for me.
Because it’s better to make your own stuff, is why.
There’s nothing nicer than making something. I don’t know if it’s ancestral memory of when we had to make everything ourselves, or maybe it’s the novelty of handmade in a world of mass-produced. But something about holding something that wouldn’t exist if not for you is wholly satisfying.
Granted, the bracelet I “made” was put together using stock parts, but still, my hand was involved in the final product. I make other things, too: I knit, I bake, I cross-stitch, I paint a teeny tiny bit. Oh, and I write, in case you missed that somehow (!).
Friends and family have seen (and read!) the stuff I’ve made, and the comment is nearly always the same:
“I could never do that.”
Of course you can! I taught myself to knit with YouTube. I learned how to bake bread by making some really shitty bread. I’m learning how to draw right now, and believe me when I say that my drawings suck mightily. But that only means I’m learning.
Do you ever wonder what happens to all the writing I talk about? The daily quota has to go somewhere, right? Some stories don’t come together and get put on hold. Some, frankly, suck ass and get tossed. But I’ve gotten better only by coming back again and again and making something. Every night when I go to bed I want there to be something I made that wasn’t there before. It’s a powerful feeling to leave your mark, however small, on the world every day.
Have you made something recently? Go on, do it: make, bake, saw, sew, glue, paint, grow, make a tremendous mess. Life is too short to be passive. Go create something that’s all yours.
*Yes, I mean “savaged”, not salvaged. I ripped that sucker apart.
stonetree: The Visual Work of Marcel Meyer
My Favourite Childhood Nightmares, Dream 2
This is a technique called “animated photography”, and it’s something I’d never heard of before. The fact of the photo being static, except for small movements, immediately calls your attention to the nightmare unfolding. It’s eerie.
See the rest at stonetree.
Video: Tales of the Unexpected
I’m not even sure what this is, but it’s strangely calming to watch. Make sure you have your sound on.
(Not a screamer, promise.)
(via Kill All Skellys)
PS – re: yesterday, I WROTE MY GOAL TODAY. BOOYAH. I’M BACK.
Dark Craft: Lovecraft Edition
“In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”
And of course, a special mention: Disappointing Monsters, a webcomic with a recurring Cthulhu who’s “a bit of a dick”.
(crafts via Geek Crafts, Grim Reviews, and Geek Art Gallery)
Artist Laura Shill: The Happy Family
See Jane. See Jane laugh. See Jane put the kitty in the boiling water.
See Mother. See Mother fill the bathtub. Drown, daughter, drown.
See the rest of Happy Family here.
(art by Laura Shill, captions by yours truly)
If.
Honestly, I never much cared for poetry. I tried writing it myself as an angsty teenager (who hasn’t?), but it never really spoke to me or, frankly, interested me much.
But I’m a believer in happy coincidences, and believe me, this one caught me at just the right time. Let’s just say there’s a lot of sky-is-falling going on in my life right now. I could use some bolstering.
It’s not horror, it’s not dark, it’s actually inspirational and beautiful…but rest assured I’m still working on good ol’ blood-n-guts behind the scenes. You haven’t lost me to the light side just yet.
“If”, by Rudyard Kipling.
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
Death Upon Death: Johnny Dombrowski
Death Upon Death, ©Johnny Dombrowski
“Throughout art history, the skull has had such a strong symbolism attached to change, fear and of course, death. As a mark of everything from mortality to just basic evil, it was an iconic image not to be trifled with. Lately, on the other hand, it’s become increasingly trendy. The skull has become one of the most common images in artwork today. Is the strength behind those 22 bones dying? Is it becoming just another cliché? With it’s recent repetition, are we shattering everything that the skull stood for?”
I love this artist’s style; it reminds me of the old fifties’ horror comics I grew up on.
See more at johnnydombrowski.com
I’d Cry Too
Anatomical Model of a Woman’s Head Crying
© Zoe Leonard, 1993
sniderwriter 