And I like that. These two works from Richard Telles Fine Art here in LA.

Found, and more info, at Airworks.

The LA County Museum of Art’s just-opened BCAM and courtyard addition features lots of little things made big. A balloon bouquet of tulips MADE BIG, a toy firetruck MADE BIG. Inside there’s a table and chairs MADE BIG – us museum goers feel like kids walking under it. But I thought it was the real kids next door making the best art in the Boone Children’s Gallery (inside the old May Company building.)

Inside there’s a bunch of work stations for anyone to make cardboard models and add them to the large floor model of a city of the future. Also, a building-block area with a wall of Polaroids of kids standing next to their creations. And of course, a whole 2-D visual art area with much collaging and painting happening.

Outside during the opening three-day weekend you could grab handfulls of red construction flags and mark off a footprint for your imagined soon-to-be-built structure. You had to move fast though – I hadn’t finished my large circles on a hillside before two toddlers uprooted my work.

I fist saw his work while having a fabulous lunch at the art-filled Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis. This is Will’s site.

She’s showing at Honor Fraser here in LA thru March 28. 

The iconic facade and sets of Disneyland’s It’s a Small World attraction were designed in the late 1960’s and bear the unmistakable markings of that time (and the couple proceeding decades). But I wanted specifics. What had Mary Blair, the attraction’s main designer, been exposed to that may have inspired the famous styling of that ride? Here’s a sampling of what I found:

Top image below: Mary Blair, Small World concept art, 1965. And below, two pieces by Auguste Herbin, 1951 and 1950, that are undeniably similar to Blair’s work.Below is a collage by Ray Eames in 1949. Besides a similar styling to Blair, the collage technique and use of transparent layers was something Blair would later use in many of her Small World collages.Below is another Blair illustration, and below that, a Paul Klee painting, Burg und Sonne, 1928I saw many similarities between Klee and Blair, like the three images below. The first image, Klee’s Landscape with Yellow Birds, 1932, uses leaf shapes seen in the Blair piece below it. The third piece is also a Klee and has some subtle similarities to the work above it.The Small World attraction debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair with a an enormous kinetic sculpture at the entrance called the Tower of the Four Winds (second image below). Designed by Rolly Crump but I see inspiration in an unproduced Do Nothing solar-powered kinetic toy designed by Charles and Ray Eames in 1957 (first image below).And lastly it seems It’s a Small World continues to inspire others, like perhaps Rex Ray (second image below) whose work possesses the same sense of retro-whimsy seen in Blair’s art for the finale scene in the attraction (below).SEE ALSO MY: Patty Wickman Paints Women Wrestling and I’m All Hey that’s from Epcot

Saw this Patty Wickman painting last night at the super crowded opening for LA Weekly’s “Some Paintings” show. My friend and I immediately recognized the setting as a photograph of a model for a scene in the (now gone) Imagination ride at Epcot, sans Figment the dragon.

I’d probably get pissy about her using the work of vintage Disney Imagineering designers but I sort of blew my wad on Dan Colen earlier. What I can muster makes me say, “So Patty, why didn’t you just sculpt your own little set and use that as your source material? Because I highly doubt you meant to reference a Kodak-sponsored creativity pavilion when you painted ‘Struggle Garden’ in 1998.” 

Meh, who cares but me anyway. Everyone else will think it’s from a Tord Boontje installation. His whole oeuvre seems inspired by that scene. Maybe that’s what both Patty and Tord are really saying  - “Hey Disney, we liked the old Imagination ride, could you bring that back please.”  

And yes, that’s the same Aunt Joan who improves Monet’s paintings with scrapbooking stickers.
Also, if you happen to pass through the center of North America anytime soon, stop by her farm and see my Uncle Gene’s art installation/performance happening all over their property, consisting of: pantyhose stuffed with human hair hanging from trees, electrified metal plates smeared with peanut butter, strobe lights (some on motorized bases), talk radio broadcast over outdoor amplifiers, and nighttime aerial fireworks shells launched horizontally into the surrounding trees. He doesn’t know it’s art but he calls it, “Stay away you damn deer and stop eating my bushes!”

More from North Dakota and beyond  in my Flickr pages.

Don’t know who did it or why but found the picture on Flickr (while searching for “Picasso” - go figure). Video here.

It’s one of the best things I saw in Vegas. It’s designed in-house under the direction of Audra Danzak, lighting design by Daivd Hersey, and scenic elements designed by Stephen Stefanou. The display is changed five times a year (but constantly refreshed) and takes about a week to change out.

Holiday show: Dec. 1
Chinese New Year: Jan. 12
Spring celebration: March 15
Summer garden party: May 17
Harvest show: Sept. 13

He’s part of the nightly shows at the “Lake of Dreams” inside the resort and the highlight of my Vegas trip (as was the entire Wynn resort). The shows have an oddness to them that makes me think the designer was French but I can’t find any info on who the deserves the creative credit. [I shot the picture below but not the videos.]

One of six shows happens every hour and half-hour. The large “screen” is a waterfall when the show isn’t happening, and the lake is filled with bubbles during the show so the submerged LED units have something to bounce light off of. Here’s another show with a bullfighting theme:

He is here, with more here.