category | art, clips, pop culture, your 2 minutes
4:38 pm July 2nd, 2009
YOUR 2 MINUTES WITH…KAWS
category | art, clips, pop culture, style, video
5:34 pm May 19th, 2009
KAWS. KATRINA. Enough said.
I sat down with my favorite artist/icon/cool guy in his Brooklyn studio…
Check out his blog for musings and pix.
Check out his website for gear and goods.
Check out this video for a behind-the-scenes peek at KAWS (or, The Life of Brian…sorry B, couldn’t resist)
category | art, pop culture
10:44 am April 20th, 2009
Happy Monday? Moss proclaims: “Dead is the new black.”
I woke up to this email blast from Moss, usually one of my favorite design stores:
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Now, I’m all for postmodern irony and the occasional sick and twisted pop culture moment, but a crocheted Heath Ledger finger puppet?!
I couldn’t help but surmise where this would fall on New York Magazine’s approval matrix…highbrow despicable? Highbrow brilliant?
I think the artist, Francesca Basilico, subsumes a category all her own: wannabe-highbrow-brilliant-yet-despicably-self-indulgent.
It’s especially telling that this “collector’s item” is now on sale…
category | art, pop culture, website art
1:35 pm March 21st, 2009
Matt Siren: The Artist Behind The Image
Hello hello hello. Welcome to my website. And my new blog!
First of all, how cool is my portrait illo???
My pal MATT SIREN – kick-a$$ illustrator (you’ve probably seen his ubiquitous “ghost girl” tag all over NYC) — created it for me.
I love Matt’s rendering sooooo much that it’s become my official logo. Biz cards, stationery, stickers, you name it. Here’s how the whole thing went down:
Matt and I were introduced by Lee Holin (artist extraordinaire and proprietor of my favorite NYC gastrodive, Meade’s, in the Seaport). Lee overheard me talking about my obsession with Matt Siren’s work, and he said, “Dude, Matt and I went to school together. I can introduce you.”
Matt and I met for some drinks and talked about the project. I told him I wanted something graphic, clean and very pop art, kind of a combination of Ghost Girl and a human version of the Hello Kitty icon.
Within a few days he sent me two amaaaaaazing sketches.
I flipped when I saw these. And, as much as I loved the three-quarter version, I had to go with the full-frontal “Kitty” version of Katrina. Matt did several incarnations:
As you can see, I chose the “pop” color version.
Matt also sent me a tricked-out version of the side view (sweet!).
So…keep your eyes peeled for my Matt Siren illo EVERYWHERE (everywhere)…you never know where it’ll pop up. And, stay tuned for my soon-to-be-launched web video interview series “YOUR 2 MINUTES”…it’s a twist on Andy Warhol’s quote about “15 minutes of fame” crunched into a bite-size version that appeals to our shrinking attention spans. Everyone I interview — artists, designers, celebs, and generally fascinating people — will be given their very own 2 minutes of fame with me. Who knows, maybe you’ll even get YOUR 2 MINUTES one of these days…Matt’s rendering makes a special appearance in the show, and Matt himself will appear in the debut episode!
