Beer Can Butterflies

While I was sitting in a doctor's office, I was skimming through a home decor magazine and came across these beautiful wall sculptures. They were sculpted butterflies in the pattern of a flock. I wrote down the name of the artist so that I could look him up when I got home.

Paul Villinski is an artist who works with found objects and after finding crushed beer cans, decided to create a butterfly installation using them.

“These pieces explore themes of transformation and recovery through the metamorphosis of crushed beer cans from the streets of New York into flocks of realistically crafted butterflies.” 

Beer Can Butterflies

I used to be an art history major and remember learning about 'found objects' in contemporary art. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Robert Rauschenberg are known for incorporating random objects, 'readymades' into their artworks.

I think that using found objects in art is a really important subject especially today because recycling and re-using are the ways of the world now. Plus, I believe that anything can be used in art. The simple design of a beer can or the way it looks crushed can be considered art by someone out there. Paul Villanski just took the idea and ran with it, morphing his found objects into resembling beautiful things found in nature.

Artist's Website

This one time...I met a musician

Being a photography major, I typically generate lots of different ideas and projects that I want to focus on. Recently for a documentary class I decided that I wanted to go out and find a musician of some sort and use them as a subject. My journey began and after finally and randomly meeting a musician in a bar in New York City, we both decided to work together.

Jason Soffer is an acoustic singer-songwriter from England. He grew up outside of London and moved to Brooklyn about a year and a half ago. He's in his late twenties and although going to university for business, decided that he truly wanted to try his hand at the music business.  He had always loved music and is greatly influenced by The Beatles and James Taylor. He told me that he picked up a guitar one day and just decided that he wanted to learn to play, never thinking that it could end up being a priority in his life. He wrote a lot as a child as well. He writes all of his own music and we spoke about how he goes about writing songs. He said he always heard the music first and the words came second. After performing at a couple of open mic nights in Brooklyn and Manhattan, he met a producer. During the day, he works near Times Square with his brother selling commercial spaces, but by night he works with a music producer in Brooklyn.

Jason and I decided to meet at the Brooklyn Lyceum theater in Park Slope. In exchange for some free prints, he played his music for me and we spent a few hours in the abandoned part of the historic building (which actually used to be a bath house over a hundred years ago). In my opinion he sounds like a mix of James Blunt and maybe a little bit of Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

I'm really glad that I got to meet Jason. As a photographer who wants to focus on being apart of the music business, he gave me some really great material to work with (himself) and some experience at it as well. The best advice he gave me is that you have to do what you really love otherwise you'll constantly be changing your mind in life. I admire his courage and the fact that he's putting himself out there and that inspires me to do the same. I hope he makes it.

The Art of Pour Painting

Holton Rower's Website

I'm fascinated by the painting style of Holton Rower, a New York artist. He calls his completed works "Pour" paintings. The way in which he creates is by constructing a 3-dimensional shape, usually square or multiple squares and attaching it directly on top of a canvas or plywood. Then he continuously pours many different colors onto the box in the exact same spot. This creates waves of different colored patterns. They usually come out looking psychedelic and textured and are hung upright on the wall. Fun fact, Rower's grandfather was Alexander Calder, a famous artist known for mobiles and abstract sculptures.

When I watched a video of the process, I was so mesmerized that I decided to try it myself. I assembled a small rounded coffee can to a canvas and began the pour process. I love the freedom of it. You let the paint flow where it wants to go and there's no thought involved. I've been painting for over 10 years and my biggest challenge was always that I put too much thought into what I wanted my result to be. It became frustrating and therefore I began to paint less often. This process really inspires me to start again.

My own pour painting:

Video of the Pour Process