Another collective noun – today, a Knot of Toads. Looking for some toad trivia? In the Middle Ages toads were believed to have a magical gem inside their heads that acted as an antidote to poison.
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So, today, I’ve just been taking care of various errands, and doing some drawing. I’ve been mostly offline, so I have nothing to offer other than a double spread from my sketchbook.
You may notice a mention of Ben Frost in this extended remix of a doodle. That’s because it all started as a note to myself to check out more of Ben Frost’s work. Ben Frost really is an incredible artist. The problem is that the imagery is so sophomoric there’s really nothing I can post here that will allow you, my dear readers, to casually grasp the magnificence of his work. The images are sophomoric because his work is an evolved critique of consumer culture, which is inherently sophomoric. Frost juxtposes hentai images with McDonald’s packaging; romance comics with pharmaceutical product packaging. It’s really too much, in all the right ways. Go check it out.
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I don’t know about you, but I often fantasize about winning a hefty lottery and spending the rest of my life travelling the world, visiting art museums. Google has come up with something kind of like that for those of us that haven’t won the lottery yet. With Google Art Project, you can search by artist name (in order of first name, oddly), artwork title, or museum collection. You can even sign up (for free) or sign in with your existing google account information, and create your own collections. Once you find a piece you want to look at, you can zoom in so close you can check the thread count on the canvas. It’s amazing.
So… chances are I will never see the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, home to the famous portrait of Fyodor Dostoyevsky by Vasily Perov.
A bit closer:
Even closer:
Some collections have EXTREMELY high resolution – like MoMA in NYC. Check out this zoom on Starry Night by Van Gogh.
You can even do a search by museum view – basically, Google Street View – inside museums. Like MAM, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, for instance. Check it out for yourself.
You can visit literally hundreds of museums around the world like this including the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, Musée d’Orsay, Rijksmuseum, the State Russian Museum of St. Petersburg, the Tate Museum, et cetera.
So there you go: Google Art Project. Enjoy your trip!
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Another collective noun – today, a Jury of Owls. My regular list of collective nouns has no entries under “J” but by going down some online rabbitholes I came across a satirical dictionary from 1923 by Elbert Hubbard, “The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams” with the entry, “Jury: 2. A collection of sedentary owls.” While this might not be a legitimate collective noun per se, it does appeal to my sense of poetry. The more typical collective noun is “a parliament of owls”.
In Ancient Greece, owls were associated with Athena, the Goddess of (among other things) Wisdom. This is why, to this day, owls are depicted as wise. In France, eared owls (hiboux) are considered separately from earless owls (chouettes) – only hiboux are considered wise. In South Asia all owls are considered foolish. Could be worse, though – in many parts of the world, owls are associated with death, and even classical writers like Pliny, Virgil and Ovid depicted them as bad omens.
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Every now and then I see an image on Pinterest that piques my curiosity and voilà, I discover a new artist. Such was the case with Jason Cantoro.
Octopuss Woman
I’m a visual artist living and working in Montreal, Canada.
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I work with original photographs and drawings as well as found images for their iconic value. I bring them together through screen printing.– Jason Cantoro
Overpass Montreal
Cantoro is a co-founder of Studio CINQUNQUATRE in Montreal. Cinq-un-quatre (514) is the area code for Montreal. Coincidentally, I used to work in the same building their atelier is in, as a graphic artist for a sportswear company. While working in the garment business, I travelled to San Francisco a few times as one of our clients was Levi’s, and as it happens, Cantoro’s work takes elements from San Francisco and Montreal street scenes. There endeth our crossover, but I guess one of the things I like about his work is the familiar street scenes. That and his collage-inspired approach to printmaking. Familiar, yet unfamiliar.
The Sequel (E.T. 2)
Not knowing much about this artist I am pretty much going on the basis of simply liking to look at his work. Since Studio CINQUNQUATRE is practically around the corner from my home, I should pop by some time and check out some of this work in person. If it looks this good on the interwebs I’m guessing it will be stellar IRL (in real life).
More of Jason Cantoro’s work can be seen on his personal website or on the Studio CINQUNQUATRE site.
