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Houston, TX by Theron Murphy

It’s the newest craze that’s sweeping the Internet. It’s Maddie On Things!

17 March 2012 by Theron Murphy

Billed as a “super serious project about dogs and physics” (do I detect a note of sarcasm here?), this blog is a traveling show of sorts. Maddie’s owner, photographer Theron Humphrey, will be hitting all 50 states over the next 365 days with his noble hound in tow.

Austin, TX by Theron Murphy

How he gets Maddie to balance the way she does, is what I want to know. I mean, the photos are gorgeous and she is certainly adorable, but come on man, out with the secret. I have a giant coonhound of my own, and he won’t balance on our kitchen floor for long. In the blink of an eye he’s on his side, jowels flapping everywhere, howling in his sleep. I even tried to show him this website, but he just passed out next to me on the couch.

Cedar Creek, TX by Theron Murphy

Austin, TX by Theron Murphy

I digress, but you can follow Maddie’s incredible adventures at maddieonthings.com.

Tulsa, OK by Theron Murphy

Okesa, OK by Theron Murphy

What type of photography captures your attention these days? We may not have Maddie, but we have lots of great images here on Zatista!

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Image: Collider.com

Via SF Gate

Ralph McQuarrie, the artist and illustrator who brought George Lucas‘ Star Wars script to life, passed away on Wednesday, March 7, 2012. He will be remembered as a pioneering collaborator, one of the first illustrators to work widely with filmmakers, giving shape to their words and vision.

Image: movieline.com

Lucas credits McQuarrie’s images for landing him a production deal for the Star Wars series with 20th Century Fox. After first being turned down by United Artists and Universal, Lucas hired him to draw the martian landscapes, super villains and hyper-futuristic spacecraft that made the films famous. Everything from Darth Vader‘s mask to Boba Fett’s helmet and C-3PO’s golden skin began with a stroke of McQuarrie’s hand.

Image: thesuperficial.com

The artist went on to work extensively in the movies, eventually contributing to the production of other classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. He and a cast of collaborators also won an Academy Award for their work on the 1985 film Cocoon.

Image: wharferj.wordpress.com

As a member of the generation that grew up with his drawings all over everything from our bed sheets to our underwear, I can attest to McQuarrie’s powerful ability to capture the imagination. I’m sure the global creative community is mourning the loss and light of his artistic talent.

Related articles

• Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie dies (news.blogs.cnn.com)
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NIMBUS II: Artist Berndnaut Smilde creates indoor clouds. Photo: Berndnaut Smilde

Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde really has his head in the clouds. Specifically, he’s deep in thought, wondering how to create clouds indoors. As these pictures show, he’s gotten pretty good at it.

Photo: Berndnaudt Smilde

So, how does he manage to trap one of nature’s most magical amalgamations? Well, he doesn’t – not really – although he does come close. Smilde uses a smoke machine to create the fluffy white stuff, but that’s where the challenge begins.

Photo: Berndnaut Smilde

From there, he has to very carefully manipulate the temperature and humidity in the room where his work is displayed. When done correctly, the clouds hang in place, part performance, part ethereal sculpture. With a little back light for effect, they transform any space, although the artist is careful to choose venues that emphasize the dramatic associations that go along with bringing weather indoors.

Low Lying Clouds by Scott Spencer on Zatista

While Zatista is indeed awesome, we can’t send you clouds. We can, however, send you awesome paintings of clouds. If owning a painting is more up your alley than owning a cloud, then check out our clouds today. They’re heavenly!

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cafepress.com

We all know that artists create fads – they’re notorious trendsetters. But these days trends come from all over and spread at an alarming rate, thanks to the Internet. A simple thing can turn into a national or even a global obsession, seemingly overnight.

Take the mustache for example. An interesting thing happened last year; one second they were an unpopular (at least in the current era) form of facial hair. Then, relatively quickly, they turned into some sort of icon. Now they’re everywhere! Especially the swoopy, robber baron kind.

Image: etsy.com/thetangledweb

I don’t remember the point it went from “funny ha-ha” to “whoa.” Forget about t-shirts and coffee cups, Etsy exploded with knit mustaches of all kinds – lip fur prostheses, if you will.

Image: Carstache.com

It got even crazier when someone started making mustaches for cars.

flickr.com CandyManGreg

Then there was a brief wave of mustache finger tattoos – get it?!

My question: In this brave new mustachioed world, does a craze like this help artists sell art? The question occurred to me as I was paging through illustrator Elizabeth Graeber’s work, whom I’ve written about before on Zatista. Does the fact that this piece includes a mustache make it marketable to a wider audience?

It’s kind of like trend chaos theory – Is a guy who gets a finger tattoo in Denver the same as the butterfly that flaps its wings in Kenya, unknowingly causing a hurricane in Florida? OK, that’s a little far-fetched, but  if silly fads help talented artists get more exposure, I’m all for them.

"Chester Arthur" by Elizabeth Graeber on Zatista.com

Long live the furry lip.

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New Year's Eve Ball, 1978. Photo credit: The New York Times.

What did you do to celebrate the New Year? If you haven’t ever been to Times Square on New Year’s Eve, odds are you’ve at least watched the ball drop on TV from a party or two. That moment when we collectively count backwards and sing “Auld Lang Syne” is one of those times when art fuses seamlessly into our existence, a cherished tradition.

Over the years, the ball itself – a fanciful amalgam of sculpture, craft and technology – has changed from time to time. The materials used in its construction relate directly to the era, so the ball is a beautiful physical manifestation of the passage of time and our status as a nation.

Millennial Ball | Image: TimesSquareNYC.com

Here’s a little time line, courtesy of Wikipedia:

• 1907 – Walter F. Palmer, chief electrician for The New York Times, creates the first New Year’s Eve Ball with iron and wood materials with 100 25-watt bulbs weighing 700 pounds (320 kg) and measuring 5 feet (1.5 m) in diameter.
• 1920 – The Ball was replaced with an iron material Ball and weighing less than the original, only 400 pounds (180 kg).
• 1942 – 1943 – During World War II, the descending of the Ball was stopped due to wartime lighting restrictions in case of enemy attack.
• 1955-1980 – The Ball gets replaced with a lighter version made from aluminum weighing 150 pounds (68 kg).
• 1981-1988 – Due to the I Love New York campaign, there are red light bulbs and green stem in a design of an apple.
• 1989-1994 – The traditional white bulbs again get put on the Ball, except for 1991 and 1992, as a symbol to salute the troops in Operation Desert Shield, the ball is covered with red, white and blue light bulbs.
• 1995-1998– The Ball gets computerized, aluminum coated, rhinestone, and has a strobe light system.
• 1999 – The aluminum Ball gets replaced.
• 2000-2007 – The Ball gets an overhaul for the new millennium celebrations with a design from Waterford Crystal and new technology. It weighed 1,070 pounds (490 kg) measured 6 feet (1.8 m) in diameter and installed with 504 crystal triangles, illuminated externally with 168 halogen light bulbs and internally with 432 light bulbs of clear, red, blue, green and yellow colors.
• 2008 – For New Year’s Eve 2008, the ball gets a makeover in honor of its 100th Anniversary. Brand new state of the art LED lighting provided by Philips is featured instead of the less efficient halogen bulbs. The new LED fixtures produce over 16.7 million colors and can be programmed to create special effects.
• 2009 – The 2008 design is maintained, but its diameter is doubled, and it is 20% more energy efficient than the previous one.
• 2011 – Energy-efficient LEDs are again used to light the ball. 32,256 little Luxeon LED bulbs, to be exact. According to Philips who manufactures an ever expanding line of LED bulbs, they are commercially available and they consume 80 percent less energy when compared to traditional incandescent lightbulbs.

The Kaleidescopic 2009 Design: Image: ArtDiamondBlog.com

Sadly, photos of the actual balls are hard to find online. Perhaps they became scarce when MTV announced last year that it would be putting Snooki from the cast of Jersey Shore inside a ball. Notice they said “a ball”, not “the ball” – very tricky none the less!

Zatista wishes all of our WallSpin readers a very Happy New Year!

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