Iranian artist Maryam Ashkanian embroiders individuals deep in sleep onto the surface of her handmade pillows, matching the size of her subjects to the area one would physically occupy if they took a nap on her work. The stitched sleepers lay sprawled in different configurations on the white background, some with their arms outstretched, whiles others hold them tucked into their bodies. These sculptures are a way to access the wide subject matter of dreams, a place where Ashkanian feels we can observe ourselves in one of the purest forms. You can see more of her sculptures on her Instagram and Twitter. (via Ignant)
Artist and SAIC professor Pablo Garcia (previously) has added an update to his previous take on the two century old Camera Lucida, an optical device that allows you to trace images and scenes directly from life. The new version, NeoLucida XL, is similar to its predecessor, however with a much larger viewfinder. The prism inside the updated analog device remains the same size, while the larger mirror and glass make it much easier to draw the projected “ghost image.” You can read more about the device on its Kickstarter page.
Spanish sculptor Isabel Miramontes creates figural bronze sculptures that bring a visual movement to ordinary silhouettes. Her works provide unusual shapes within the body of her subjects, opening up torsos to reveal elongated spirals and horizontal bars that seem to reveal an inner turmoil. Often the faces of her sculptures have blank or passive expressions, unknowing participants to the tangle of bronze which twists below. Miramontes is represented by Canfin Gallery in New York and Lucy B Campbell Gallery in London. You can also see more of her work at Galerie De Medicis.
Check out Flight in Formation, a captivating video edit of birds landing and propelling from a telephone line by Mason Charanza. The black and white work gives the feeling of a musical composition despite the piece existing without a soundtrack—layered vertical lines acting as elements of a stanza or stringed instrument. The birds seem to pluck different notes as they appear and disperse in an undulating rhythm, the continuous shot duplicated a dozen or so times from top to bottom. You can see more of Charanza’s rhythmic videos on his Vimeo and Instagram.
Today I want to talk about FLYTE, this website’s nonprofit arm.
Over the last few months, I haven’t kept everyone as up to date about the organization as I would like. I apologize for that and promise that, starting today, that will change.
Though quiet, we’ve been doing a lot of work behind the scenes, improving our website and strategy, and creating new partnerships so that FLYTE becomes a more integral part of this website and community.
First, as a refresher, what is FLYTE?
The Foundation for Learning and Youth Travel Education (FLYTE) provides logistical, planning, and financial support to high schools and teachers who want to take their students overseas to give them a real-world context for what they are learning in school — think visiting the D-Day beaches in France or learning about sustainable development in a rainforest in Costa Rica. I started it in 2015 because I believe not enough kids get the chance to travel, see the world, experience other cultures, and realize the practical side to their education!
While many wealthy school districts send students on overseas educational trips, schools and teachers in underserved areas have little or no opportunity to offer their students this experience. Their schools and communities lack the resources to make such a trip happen. I wanted to create an organization that helps people in forgotten parts of the country, because everyone deserves a chance to see and learn about the world!
Thanks to you, FLYTE has raised over $88,000 USD. Last year, we sent a group of students from Atlanta to Mexico and another group from Washington, DC, to Cuba (and we’re preparing for a third trip in June). These students had an amazing time and the trips had a profound impact on them. Here’s what a couple of the students said about their experience:
“This trip means so much to me because having the opportunity to travel outside of the country and my community (an opportunity a lot of peers don’t get to have) is amazing and it really helped open my eyes and see that there is so much more outside of Atlanta.” – Nokio, BEST Academy student
“I would’ve never thought I would have gotten out of my city, where people hurt and do bad things to one another. It makes me want to travel and learn the history of every country in the world!” –Tija, junior at Anacostia High School
So, today, I want to talk about a few other changes with FLYTE:
First, we’ve created a volunteer section on the FLYTE website. Now we’ve created a space where volunteers can help grow the organization with us. I love the passion this community has for FLYTE and I want to better channel that into action. You can visit this page to see our current volunteer needs.
Second, we’re looking for interns. We need help. We’ve tried to do it all alone, but we need some help growing FLYTE. If you live in the NYC area and are fluent in social media, we’d love to have you! We’re a licensed 501(c)(3) and you can get an internship that counts for college credit. You’ll work in my office in NYC with my executive director and the rest of the Nomadic Matt team. You can apply here!
Third, this website now has a dedicated FLYTE page where you can see all the updates and information about the program, school trips, and anything else FLYTE related. Moving forward, FLYTE is going to become a more integral part of this website. Let’s work together as community to show more kids the world (especially in today’s environment where people want to close borders rather than open them)! This page is a work in progress and we’ll be expanding it over the next few weeks!
Fourth, we’re starting weekly emails to donors that will update them on the school, kids, organization, and everything in between. This is something that should have happened a long time ago, and I just never got my act together. My executive director and I are now making it a priority to send out weekly emails to you, so that you will always know what is going on in the organization and the kids, and how your donation is being used.
Fifth, we’ve moved to a new donation platform that will allow us to host donations right on our website (no more going to another website), reduce fees, and accept recurring donations. This new system will ensure that it’s easier to donate and that there are fewer fees when you do! It will be live by tomorrow!
Finally, I need your help again. We’re sending a group of students from Excelsior Academy in Newburgh, NY, to Quito, Ecuador in June! The students will volunteer at Casa Victoria, a grassroots community betterment program located in a struggling section of Quito, and work with local students in an after-school program. Not only will they get to experience another culture, country, and continent but they will also give back while there.
Please help us finish raising money for the students at Excelsior. We’re a little over $20,000 from our goal. I’ll be matching donations up to $10,000, which means that if the community can donate at least that much, we’ll hit our goal and send the kids on their way (any extra money raised will go to future trips)! For most of these students, this will be their first time out of the country so this is a chance to really make an added difference!
Newburgh, once a thriving manufacturing center on the Hudson River, has faced deindustrialization and failed urban renewal attempts that have left the town struggling both financially and socially. Complicating the matter, the Newburgh school district is located in what the FBI has repeatedly named one of the ten most dangerous cities per capita in the United States.
As Excelsior teacher Christine McCartney says, “At Excelsior Academy, we strive to create global citizens who recognize their power to enact change at both the local and global level.”
Here are the students talking about why this is so important to them — and what this trip means to them:
$50 – For donations of at least this amount, I’m offering my e-books How to Teach English Overseas and The Ultimate Guide to Travel Hacking, and my guides to NYC, Paris, Bangkok, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
$100 – For donations of at least this amount, you will get the e-books and city guides PLUS a signed copy of the print book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day and a FLYTE t-shirt (US shipping only).
$250 – For donations of at least this amount, you will get all of the above PLUS an hour of travel planning with me, a souvenir from Ecuador, and a thank you card from the students!
If everyone donated just $10, we could fund the entire trip – and many more like it – right away. The more we raise, the more we can help these students and others like them.
Ten bucks isn’t a lot — it’s one less Chipotle meal, a couple of beers, one Old Fashioned, one Uber ride. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things.
If you can’t donate, you can also help by sharing this campaign on Facebook and Twitter, and by emailing your friends, family, cousins, pen pals, coworkers – anyone – and letting them know about this. Help us spread the word about this cause so we can change as many lives as possible. The more people know about this, the better!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your past, present, and future support of this program!
P.S. –Here’s a super awesome and shareable Adobe Spark page that has all the essential information you want to know about FLYTE! You can share this page with your friends, family, and on social media! Please help up spread the word!
Photographer Chris McCaw uses the power of the sun to burn markings into his photographs, destroying small areas to appear like the sun itself. McCaw stumbled upon the technique for his series Sunburn after forgetting to close the shutter during an all night exposure. The light of the morning sun destroyed his efforts from the night before, reversing the tonality of the work in a way that has inspired McCaw to continue to experiment with injuring the surface of the photograph.
“The subject of the photograph (the sun) has transcended the idea that a photograph is simple a representation of reality, and has physically come through the lens and put it’s hand onto the final piece,” said McCaw in an explanation of the series. “This is a process of creation and destruction, all happening within the the camera.”
The resulting image from McCaw’s technique shows the landscapes he photographs with a burnt hole or streak where the sun appeared overhead. Often McCaw will combine several works to showcase the sun’s movement—charred dots or a thick line marking its arched path.
Currently McCaw’s Sunburn series is included in his solo exhibition Times and Tides at San Francisco-based Haines Gallery. You can view more images from his Sunburn series on his website. (via Juxtapoz)
Sunburned GSP#202 (SF Bay/expanding), 2008. 16″x20″ unique gelatin silver paper negative. Collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. All images via Chris McCaw.
Sunburned GSP#839 (Every 30 minutes, Arctic Circle, Alaska), 2015. Four 4”x10” unique gelatin silver paper negatives. Private collection
Argentina-based toy designer Mat Random has designed a new geometric wood figure as a follow-up to his previous piece The Feline, another posable toy that he has named The Simian. Due to similarly placed joints for the animals’ legs and head, parts can be swapped between the two breeds to create an entirely new hybridized creature. Each low poly work can also be posed on two or four legs by maneuvering the object’s nine components, adding a puzzle-like quality to the wooden toys. You can see more of Random’s designs on his website and Behance.
The Illusive Cat, 2016. Anamorphic sculpture. Oil paint on plaster, stainless steel.
London artist Jonty Hurwitz (previously) revels in the skewed and twisted world of anamorphic artwork, where the meaning of a dramatically warped figures is only revealed when reflected against a viewing device, in this case a cylindrical mirror. While Leonardo da Vinci is credited for creating the first known definitive example of anamorphosis in the 15th century, Hurwitz pieces are infused with modern technology, relying on digital renderings which are painstakingly transformed into physical objects cast from bronze, copper, or plaster. In more recent pieces he’s even begun to apply oil painting as a final touch.
Hurwitz had work on view earlier this year as part of Kinetica 2017 and you can see more of his recent work on his website.
In most countries, the design of manhole covers is scarcely given a second thought other than the basics of material and a generic pattern resulting in drab metal circles with a purely utilitarian function. But after World War II, city planners in Japan proposed the idea of allowing each local municipality to design their own manhole cover as part of an effort to raise awareness for costly sewage projects. Designs would reflect local industry, culture, and history. The result was a huge success, and now over 19,000 manhole cover designs can be found embedded across 95% of all municipalities in Japan.
John Daub from ONLY in Japan recently visited the Nagashima Imono Casting Factory to see how the manhole covers are designed and built. He also stopped by an annual gathering of enthusiasts called the Manhole Summit that began in 2014, and learned about a new deck of Japanese Manhole Trading Cards.
If you can’t make it to Japan anytime soon, you can go on your own manhole adventure by exploring the Instagram hashtag #japanesemanhole. (via The Kid Should See This)
Incorporating aspects of South American folklore, mythology, and religion, Berlin-based artist Olaf Hajek depicts thoughtful portraits of women and men infused with elements of life—often in their hairdos. Over the last few years Hajek’s illustration work has appeared in major publications from the New York Times to the Guardian, but he also exhibits his acrylic paintings on wood and cardboard in galleries around the world. His most recent collection of work is being published in a forthcoming book titled Olaf Hajek: Precious, and one of his pieces was selected for the Communication Arts Illustration Annual 58. You can see more of his work on Saatchi Art.
Working with a mixture of cold porcelain and polymer atop a metal wire armature, artist Ellen Jewett (previously) creates wildly intricate sculptures of animals covered in a tangle of surreal embellishments. The artist describes her works as “anthrozoology meets psychoanalysis,” where tiny clues left in the feathers, fur, and tentacles of each piece lead to a greater story of its meaning. From her artist statement:
Each detail, down to the finest filigree, is free-modeled by hand. Within each piece precision is balanced by chaos. The overarching aesthetic knocks on the door of realism, yet the hand of the artist is never intentionally erased; brush strokes and fingerprints abound. Even the narratives themselves harbor a degree of anarchy as they are rarely formally structured. Rather, I seek to achieve flow states while working to create a fluid progression of unconscious imagery.
Jewett most recently exhibited at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco for a group show titled Hindsight, and just wrapped up work on a body of 10 new artworks. You can see some great behind-the-scenes process photos on Instagram.
