Woodpigeon tonight!

/


Mark Hamilton, founder of the band Woodpigeon, has been generously lending his talents as a writer for many issues now. (thanks, Mark!) Woodpigeon is playing tonight at Broken City in Calgary. Their poster is illustrated by Jeff Kulak, who was part of the first edition of Work/Life in 2008. His full page illustration for Work/Life has always been one of my favourites:

I'm planning a new edition of Work/Life to be released by the end of the year. The details are being worked out and the website prepared, but if you'd like first notice of the call for participants you can sign up here.

Olaf!

/

I am so happy to have the talented and internationally recognized Berlin-based illustrator Olaf Hajek profiled in Issue #3. Alanna Cavanagh was lucky enough to be in Germany last summer to interview both Olaf and his studio mate, Martin Haake (profiled in the upcoming issue #4).

Gestalten has just released a book about Olaf and are also selling some art prints. Here's an excellent short film created by Gestalten about Olaf and his work, entitled "In Full Bloom":

(the embedded film seems somewhat buggy - click here to see it on Gestalten's site.)

Applied Arts Illustration and Photography awards

/


There's still time to enter your illustration and photography in the annual competition held by Applied Arts. For all the details and deadlines, click here. Congratulations to Mike Kerr (image above) for his inclusion in last year's annual. Congratulations to other UPPERCASE friends: Renata Liwska, Dushan Milic, Valery Goulet and Zina Saunders who were selected for 2009.

UPPERCASE is pleased to host a show of Mike's new work, opening the first Thursday in February. More details and previews coming soon, but here's a teaser of the show:

Elder Style: Doris Eaton Travis

/


One of my favourite illustrated books is Lauren Redniss' gorgeous book, Century Girl, about the life of Doris Eaton Travis:

"When Doris Eaton was born on March 14, 1904, the average American could expect to live 47 years. Today, at 102, the 5' 2," blue-eyed Virginia native has already lived more than two of these life spans.

In 1918, Doris kicked up the youngest pair of legs in the bedazzling, feathered chorus line of Florenz Ziegfeld's annual Follies stage spectacular. For her 100th birthday in 2004, Doris was back on the same Broadway stage, in black taffeta skirt and silver heels, leading a conga line of a dozen dancers.

By the time she received her honorary doctorate at age 101, Doris had starred in silent and talking pictures, performed for presidents and princesses, bantered with Babe Ruth, offended Henry Ford, outlived six siblings, wrote a newspaper column, hosted a television show, earned a phi beta kappa degree in history (at 88), raised turkeys, and raced horses."

Here's a picture of Doris at a young 105 years old!

Confabulation

/


These collages are part of Emma Clayton's Confabulation Series:

"Confabulation is a memory disorder in which a person fabricates imaginary and sometimes fantastical experiences to fill the gaps in their memory. They have no idea they are being untruthful and it is sometimes known as ‘honest lying’. In this experiment at confabulating, 250 adjectives, 125 verbs, 125 nouns and 125 adverbs were generated and placed in individual bowls. Words were then selected at random and brand new sentences, and by consequence, mental imagery, were created. The Confabulation Series is a set of six 420mm square posters which explores these fantastical phrases in the most appropriate medium for them - typographical collage."

I heart the Arctic

/

Jacqueline Bos: "I Heart the Arctic is a mini book inspired by stories of the arctic, Inuit myths, arctic cultures, icy landscapes and the infinite possibilities of the Aurora Borealis. I created this illustrated mini book after completing a year long illustration series on Inuit myths and extensive readings about arctic cultures. I Heart the Arctic is a lighthearted illustrated book full of whimsical drawings and plays on the term arctic circle."

Look for Jacqueline's "Cover Me" submission in the current issue of UPPERCASE magazine.

'Wild Things' Inspire

/

After watching the movie Where the Wild Things Are I was inspired to buy the soundtrack and after a thousand plus listens all I want to do in life is write a song as gloriously simple and affecting as 'Worried Shoes' (track 4 for fellow listeners). I wonder how many others felt the same?

I thought this was the genius of Karen O. (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) but it turns out that Karen O & the Kids are covering Daniel Johnston. I had long heard of the myth, and the madness, of Daniel Johnston but deliberately shied away on account of the darkness. This is the first time I've encountered the raw beauty of his lyrics. Sold.

So now, thanks to 'WTWTA' I am also inspired to watch 'The Devil and Daniel Johnston' (2006) an acclaimed documentary celebrating Johnston's complex life and art. Click here to watch the film's trailer.

 

 

Visual artists have also taken inspiration from Where the Wild Things Are. I spoke to the talented artist, and UPPERCASE magazine contributor, Stefanie Augustine about the film and her personal creation "Wild Things" (pictured above).

"I loved the movie. It felt like a rare gift in the midst of so many bad movies out there -  really beautiful and refreshing. I had the urge to paint after seeing the movie, but even more so I had the urge to build things out of sticks!! (which I didn't actually do), but it makes you feel like, why don't we build things for fun more often?" Good question.

The artwork that Stefanie did make after seeing 'WTWTA' was directly inspired by the film's colors and her curiousity to see how the characters would work in a collage style. Scratchy whimsy are the words I find to describe her unique vision and style. Love it!

To see more of Stefanie Augustine's original creations and her client work, visit her website here. Thanks for sharing Stefanie!

Sam Weber

/


The Alberta College of Art & Design (ACAD) welcomes Sam Weber, internationally acclaimed illustrator and ACAD alumnus, as part of the Design Talk Series from our Visual Communications Design major. Weber's work has been featured in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, SPIN, Flaunt, The Walrus and Business Week, and he has created illustrations for Sony/BMG, Herman Miller, Wired Penguin, ESPN, Random House, The Folio Society and DC/Vertigo Comics. After graduating from ACAD, Weber continued to New York, and received his graduate degree at the School of Visual Arts. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

ACAD is proud to present Sam Weber on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 7:00 pm in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Hall at ACAD (1407 - 14 Avenue NW Calgary). No admission charge.

Komboh

/

"Komboh is comprised of two individuals who realized that working together solved more problems than it produced." Michael Mateyko and Hans Thiessen, recent graduates from the Alberta College of Art & Design joined forces to form this company. Michael provided some excellent illustrations for the current issue of UPPERCASE. Here's his image for "Fedora", below. Thanks to Michael and Hans for visiting my fourth year design class on Monday, October 19.

Sink your claws into it

/


Maija, friend of UPPERCASE, has a t-shirt design in the running at Threadless. Please vote for it!

"As I was doing the dishes one winter's day, I saw an orange tabby in the tree outside the kitchen window, stalking a magpie. Just as he was doing his pre-pounce butt-wiggle, another magpie swooped down and grabbed the cat's tail. The cat whipped around (nearly falling off of the narrow branch), but the tail-squeezing magpie had already retreated to a higher branch. So the cat began stalking the second magpie, while the first magpie hopped along the branch behind the cat, waiting for the butt-wiggle-- squeeze, spin, escape, bird snickers, rising feline fury. Rinse, repeat."

Missed Connections

/


A charming blog of illustrated "missed connections" by illustrator Sophie Blackall:

"Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down." {via All the Mountains}

Type Tuesday: Kapitza

/


Kapitza is a foundry in London that specializes in vector illustrations which are available as open type font files. Their latest release is Allotment: "This spring we were finally allocated a small allotment in the London Docklands after being on a waiting list for over five years! Since then we had great fun growing, harvesting and eating our home-grown potatoes, strawberries, onions, squashes and broad beans. We also got inspired by the vegetables, weeds, tools, sheds and bird houses to create a new picture font called Allotment. We hope you like it and that the gardening bug will bite you too!"