Late night inspirations ~ just fell into another one of those random research distractions that the internet so easily sucks me into... this time the starting point was a discussion with Rose (the R of A+R) during the Lucky shoot, and it came up that her sister was a musician and artist, so being curious, did some poking around and came across Blanca Apodaca's uber page, which then led me to the images of her painting her newest album cover on her dining table - which i happily perused while listening to songs from her new album Butterfly Core (Sugar Painted Valentine is stuck in my head at the moment)... Anyhow, loved the mix of styles in her album cover, it seems to be a fascinating mix of.... hippie - gangsta - colorful trippiness? See more images on the next page --

TO PAGE 2 of "Blanca Apodaca's Butterflycore"! ----->

Tags: art - music - paint

Finally, an alternative to paint chips and paint swatches to help you decide what paint to go with... at the Hardcore: New Finnish Design Exhibition in the Meatpacking District (i think this was the best exhibition i saw this trip), i was introduced to the work of Finnish group, Pentagon Design, and their great "Touching" Exhibition concept for presenting paint textures for Tikkurila Paints. It was hard not to go straight over to the large farm animals in various colors/glosses/etc... and impossible not to play with the magnets on the magnetically painted horse!

From the Pentagon Design press release: "Who can resist the urge to touch these near-life-size domestic animals, reined into modeling the diverse selection of Tikkurila paint coatings? Horses, pigs, cows, and calves have been given makeovers with surfaces to match their natures. You can feel the character of the coatings in your fingertips as you pet and stroke the nostalgic mammalian models. Beneath the feeling lie hard facts: the various options for covering a resin surface not only look different, they feel different. There's magnetic paint, textured coating, tinted light putty and chalkboard paint, oil putty, alkyd paint. There are pearl and silver glazes, done in a lace pattern. This urban petting zoo for the design world is amazingly illustrative, both tactilely and visually."

More images on the next page! (From both the Hardcore exhibition as well as their press images.)

TO PAGE 2 of "Touching by Tikkurila & Pentagon Design"! ----->

Tags: animals - exhibition - nature - paint