I was in Boston this past weekend for the Legends of Style event at the Boston Center for the Arts. The show was jam packed with over 200 pieces of art work from some very talented street inspired artists, including but not limited to Kenji Nakayama, Ryan Lombardi, Jessica Hess! The Scion sponsored event had a great turn out, with DJs & Breakdancing throughout the night! I opted to enjoy the night and not have to worry about a camera but check Always on the Grind for photos!

Coincidentally this past weekend also happened to be the Open Studio weekend for Boston University’s Graduate Painting Exhibition. I made a point of checking out the exhibition and stopping into a few studios. I was blown away by some of the talent coming out of the graduate program at BU! The gallery at 808 Commonwealth Ave, as well as the studios on the third floor of the building, were filled with beautiful work. The show runs through May 4th so hurry up and check it out! A few of my favorites

L > R: Johnathan Daly & Lindsey Warren


L > R: Julia Fernandez-Pol & Lika Yurkovetsky


L > R: Karen Ann Myers & Adrienne Ginter (Hand-crafted Flowers)

Last Thursday I witnessed a show that easily jumps into my top 5 live performances list! For those of you not in the know, ‘I’m From Barcelona’, is an indie-pop group from Sweden with a lot of members. 29 to be exact!. They play music that is so happy it makes you want to cry good tears. Their performance in Philadelphia, at the First Unitarian Church, was packed with balloons, confetti, the cutest Swedish girls, and the most beaming, blissful, & jubilant crowd ever! Basically it was a HAPPY FEST in all capital letters! ‘I’m From Barcelona’ does not play very many live shows, especially in the US, so if you have the opportunity to witness euphoria make sure you pay the $14 for a ticket, slip on your dancing shoes, and show up ready to SMILE!

More Photographs from the show via PeteHerron.com

A few years ago I stumbled upon HillmanCurtis and their beautiful collection of films. I was particularly interested in their Artist Series films. The Artist Series features some of my favorite artists, such as Mark Romanek, Stefan Sagmeister, & Milton Glaser. I always go back to a couple of these films every few months or so and am just as inspired by them as I was the first time I saw them. This Milton Glaser piece is my favorite and I can only hope he is as RAD in real life as he is in this video. I almost cry watching this! INSANE!

“My belief is that if you like Mozart and I like Mozart we already have something in common, so the likelyhood of our killing each other has been diminished” - Milton Glaser

Another conceptual piece I’m working on for a big SOLO show in 2009! This is a vending machine, which you will be able to insert any random object, a thought scribbled on paper, or anything else that fits in the slot…Then you’ll get it back! Remember! You GET OUT OF LIFE, WHAT YOU PUT IN! Details will be available in a few months but I can promise you this…Its going to be soo FUN! Looking forward to great things as always. Won’t you join me?

Familjen a.k.a. Johan T Karlsson, a Swedish techno/electropop artist, has blown my mind with the video for the song ‘Det Snurrar I Min Skalle’. That is Swedish for ‘It’s Spinning Inside My Head’. Directed by Johan Söderberg, the video is a mash-up remix of footage from a tent revival. I am hesitant to even use the term mash-up because this is so far beyond what your typical media mash-up has become. Open your eyes and ears and enjoy!

**Where do you start to look for archived footage like this? There are probably so many gems out there waiting to be reborn into modern magic!

via Ryan Firth

Jon and I planted Wildflower Seeds yesterday…We will be waiting for the KaBLOOM so that we may Party!

***Look closely!

To laugh often and love much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and
the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and
to endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others; To give one’s self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm
and sung with exultation;
To know that even one life has
breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

My high school art teacher introduced me to this quote and I have kept it with me ever since. However, I have just recently discovered that there is a debate whether this quote was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Turns out the quote may be traceable to a 1905 publication. Apparently, in a collection of quotations on “success,” a poem by Bessie Stanley appeared facing a page with a quotation from Emerson. Perhaps the mistaken attribution began when someone copied the source inaccurately from that collection. Here’s a 1905 article from the Lincoln Sentinel about Bessie Stanley’s Famous Poem. (via transcendentalists.com)

This got me thinking about the ‘mind-link function’, as I like to call it. The idea that people across the world can tap into ideas and energy floating around and come up with the same or similar ideas once a particular idea is conceived by someone, somewhere! Sure you can’t find this quote in Emerson’s writings, and he damn well could have gotten credit for something he didn’t write, but who is to say the dude never said this, or something similar. And Miss Bessie, well I’m sure she wrote it too! The important thing is that we have the quote, and lots of other things that people have created, credited or not, and all these things make the world a bit better. It’s a little bit mind-link function and a lot bit of thinking! Throw in computers and things are just going to get straight up weiiiird.

So Me, the artist who did Justice’s Grammy winning D.A.N.C.E. video done did it again. This time the motion graphics and retro mash-up typography jive to Justice “DVNO”. Somehow So Me has found a perfect balance between cheese-ball pre-set effects and genuinely crafted retro-ish motion graphics. I can’t get enough of the amazing transitions throughout the whole video! Some favorite moments…The Mayhem explosion, Cool type-treatment on the Grid, and DVNO constellation type warp! Its all soooo GOOD!

via Stereogum

Below is an excerpt from Return to Love, a book written by Marianne Williamson. This was posted on the ANP Blog almost two months ago, but I wanted to post it here, hoping that a few more people would read it.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, whom am I
to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are we not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about
shrinking so that other people won’t
feel insecure around you.
You were born to make manifest the glory of God.
That is within us.
It’s not just some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

The VBS show Hi-Shredability has posted the first of a three part segment on Thomas Campbell. Thomas has long been an inspiration. The natural beauty of his films, the poetic humor within his paintings, and vibrant colors found in his photographs. His overall approach as a contemporary renaissance man is one that I admire.

Thomas Campbell has an upcoming surf film scheduled to be released in late 2008 and appears to have a website in the works >> ThomasCampbell-Art.com

Over 4 years ago I met a kid named Kyle. He lived in a place in Allston, which I eventually ended up living in two years later. At any rate, I met Kyle because we would go to his place to PaRtY! The interesting thing was that it was usually his roommates throwing the parties, and as they raged on Kyle would usually be in his room making music. Not in an anti-social way, but in a inspiring (I need to rage it on this kiddie xylophone right now!) manner. Long story short, I lost touch with Kyle when he moved down to New York. A few months ago I got a random online request for an official friendship bid, and guess who it was!? You guessed it, Keelay. I thought, who the hell is Keelay? I don’t know this person and I haven’t dipped to accepted random friend requests without a nice message to accompany them. Turns out Kyle is Keelay! One thing led to another and before I knew it I was catching up with Keelay and all of his recent projects! Keelay is killin’ it on a number of levels! Music, Video, Poetry, Blogging…you name it! If you didn’t know, now you do >> http://keelaydogs.com/

Keelay - Puppies CD from Keelay (Kyle) on Vimeo.

“Ceremony” by New Order has been my favorite song for quite some time now. So good that I get goosebumps every time I listen to it. It makes me want to create, imagine, and discover!

New Order - Ceremony

This is why events unnerve me,
They find it all, a different story,
Notice whom for wheels are turning,
Turn again and turn towards this time,
All she asks the strength to hold me,
Then again the same old story,
World will travel, oh so quickly,
Travel first and lean towards this time.

Oh, I’ll break them down, no mercy shown,
Heaven knows, its got to be this time,
Watching her, these things she said,
The times she cried,
Too frail to wake this time.

Oh I’ll break them down, no mercy shown
Heaven knows, its got to be this time,
Avenues all lined with trees,
Picture me and then you start watching,
Watching forever, forever,
Watching love grow, forever,
Letting me know, forever.