infinity elephants

Something a little different today. Vi Hart has a whole series of videos called 'Doodling in Math Class' which are awesome (which you can find on YouTube). While she disavows having a love for numbers, seeming to favour geometry over algebra, these are wonderfully talky videos with a real love of the beauty of mathematics (over the unloveable way it is too often taught) and drawing.



I confess, I think in a very similar way sometimes. I'm flumoxed by the question, "What are you thinking?", because I'm unconvinced anyone wants to hear this sort of monologue, though I'm charmed hearing hers.

I also love the Möbius Strip Musical Box.


Find more on her website.

Working with the Insects (& other animals)

And while we are on the topic of insects (Were we? Oh dear!), how about an artists who collaborate with insects, rather than using their, um, corpses?





Duprat's aquatic caddis fly larvae, with cases incorporating gold, opal, and turquoise, among other materials. Photos Jean-Luc Fournier. via Cabinet and boyfrendo

French artist-naturalist Hubert Duprat collaborates with caddis fly larvae. Like their relatives the butterfly, they develop their wings while in silk cocoons, but they often incorporate random items for strength, like grains of sand, minerals, bits of plant, fish bone or shell- or random things they find lying around. Duprat carefully removes these, but provides them alternative media like gold spangles, pearls, semi- and precious stones. The larvae make their choices, using different available objects in their aquarium, or re-purpose previous blinged-out cocoons. Duprat traces his work to 19th century entomologists, who similarly tried introducing foreign objects to insects. The work straddles that interesting art-science divide.

American artist-beekeper Hilary Berseth works with bees. Using a framework of wire and wave, he coaxes or suggests to the colony how to construct their hives.


Programmed Hive #6, 2008
Honeybee comb on board mounted on hive super, wood, urethane foam, wire, metal, paint, UV lacquer
24 x 24 x 48 inches (61 x 61 x 121.9 cm)


Programmed Hive #7, 2008
Honeybee comb on board mounted on hive super, wood, urethane, foam, wire, metal, paint, UV lacquer
47.5 x 29 x 26.5 inches (120.7 x 73.7 x 67.3 cm)

Canadian artist Aganetha Dyck also works with bees; she is interested in, "ramifications all living beings would experience should honeybees disappear from earth". She leaves objects in hives to be covered in honeycomb - a different sort of collaboration (a little more like Duprat, perhaps).


Aganetha Dyck, Queen, Beework on figurine of Queen Elizabeth II, 2007, 15 x 10 x 8", Michael Gibson Gallery, London, Ontario.


Sports Night in Canada: Helmet 2000, helmet, honeycomb, Kelowna Art Gallery


Shoes altered by bees

She also works with her son Richard Dyck to produce digital scans, like this one, of hives:


You may also enjoy the Finch&Pea article about artist Elsabé Dixon's collaboration with moths.

If you are interested in artwork by animals, check out Ottawa's SAW gallery. Currently, they are showing an exhibition called Animal House: Works of Art Made by Animals billed as the “first ever critical overview of animal art.” The artists include dogs, cats, elephants, chimpanzees, gorillas and a turtle.


David Ferris Sela paints by the temple 2008 © David Ferris


Kira Ayn Varszegi Koopa at work 2007

Talking Trees, with scarves

I have posted about cutting paper, and before I continue on with the wonders of folding paper, I would like to go off on a brief tangent to ask, "How cool is Jing Wei?" This young illustrator grew up in Northern California, though she was born in China. Currently she is based in "a treehouse in Brooklyn". Her style is has a touch of the surreal, magic, the cute and comics, but she has such delicacy of line and colour, in her chosen media: the woodblock print. Oh, and she has a things about scarves. Go look at her portfolio already! You can find more on her blog too.


Roperite - woodcut, ink, 12 x 12 (inches, I assume?)


Lobsters - woodcut, ink, 9 x 16.5


Groover vs. The Automatic Cat Feeder- woodcut, ink, 4 x 6


Talking Trees - woodcut, ink, 11.5 x 14

It's all fun and games, until...

Check out the darkly beautiful work of Ericailcane.

Lepus timidus- puntasecca 35x50 cm, black ink on 320 gm, magnani avana paper,ed.ltd to 21, 2007




Funny games- puntasecca 25x35cm, black ink on 280gsm, magnani natural white paper , ed. ltd to 22, 2007





You will find etching, screen prints, drawings, wall paintings and more on the site. Also, I like the set-up; more intuitive than many artists' online portfolios.

Art and Fashion: Wildlife as Headgear

If you did peruse the portfolio of Raquel Aparicio, you would be sure to notice this delightful, avarian headpiece, which I call the Goosehat (for obvious reasons):


But she, of course, is not the only one to portray such living headgear. In fact, the idea of furry and feathered friends on our heads has been in the collecive unconcious, forever, but a clear trend in art and illustration for the last few years.

The always fascinating Art and Ghosts (flickr, blog and shop) has a bear-head, a wolf-head, flocks of birds, nests and fruit as headgear (as well as the ever-popular anthropomorphic animal-human hybrids, wherein the subject has the head of an animal - a related but distinct trend, less importable to street fashion and millinary).

The ever magical Julie Morstad has multiple birds, boxing bunnies and even swimming fish as worn on heads.

Sirène is an illustration by one of our favorites, Princesse Camcam and shows a young girl with a school of fish as hat.

Here with have a buffalo head hat in Buffalo Dream by San Francisco illustrator Fumi Mini Nakamura.


Or consider this yak fringe by Swedish illustrator Linn Olofsdorf (with shop):


Wondering how to get in on this trend? You could always follow the lead of
Nagi Noda and use your own hair to make an avatavistique hat.




I dare you. You know you want to. The Magpie and Whiskeyjack look forward to seeing this trend filter down to streetware.