Space 1026 is a veritable gold mine of creative spirits. Based in Philadelphia, it is two floors of studio space for artists, as well as a community for their collective inspiration and collaboration. While browsing through the many artists Space 1026 supports, I discovered the work of Damian Weinkrantz and was immediately taken with the intricate simplicity (intriguing oxymoron, right?) of his drawings. Damian combines simple shapes with precise detail, creating a delightfully strange balance that captivates me to no end. I also have to admit that I am a complete sucker for practically any design that incorporates the triangle, which is clearly the superior geometric shape. Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction provides a brief biography of Damian, affirming my sincere admiration:

“Damian Weinkrantz is a Philadelphia based artist/curator obsessed with secret identities, animal allegories, history, science fiction, regular old science and discussing the general stomach churning anxiety that is life. He can be found zipping through the city on bike, goading someone into an arm wrestling competition, passing a decent book into someone’s hand or trying to insert the word consanguineal into any conversation. He is a firm believer in the power of accidents and the miracle of mistakes.”

Unfortunately, Space 1026 only provides a limited number of images, and I can’t seem to find much of his work anywhere else on the Internet. However, it looks like he’s currently working on a zine, and hopefully we will be seeing much more of his work in the near future.

Browsing through Monica Canilao’s portfolio truly blew me away. For a twenty-three year old artist, the volume and complexity of her work is absolutely staggering (I could hardly choose a few images to post), not to mention outrageously inspiring. Monica uses found materials and the themes of “home, community, and the passage of time” to breathe new life into fleeting moments of the everyday.

“My interests lie in the imprint people leave behind them. I have always felt that things made by hand have a life in them. That if you care to take the time to make something by hand, that it will last longer and be worth passing on.”

She discusses her artistic vision and creative process further in this Fecal Face interview, which makes her seem a little bit more like a real person and not some incomprehensible anomaly (which is how I felt when I first looked through her work). Monica’s impressive resumé of past shows (there are over fifty!) demonstrates that I’m clearly not the only one who is entranced by her work. If you happen to find yourself in San Francisco, London, or Portland this month, you are lucky and take me with you to see her exhibition in action, please.

As an amateur collage enthusiast, let me just say, Wow. Joseph Cornell is an artist who created beautiful sculpture collages throughout his life, and they certainly still inspire to this day. Heavily influenced by the Surrealists, Cornell used found objects to set a fascinating little scene inside a box. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels so rightfully intrigued: one of my very, very favorite authors, Jonathan Safran Foer has accumlated various poems and stories inspired by Cornell’s boxes, and compiled them into a book.

I received this book for Christmas, and it really is quite lovely. Some of the contributing authors include Robert Pinsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Paul West, Rick Moody, Howard Norman, Robert Coover, Dale Peck, Diane Ackerman and Barry Lopez. I love love love the concept of this book… almost as much as I love the work of Joseph Cornell.

I saw Rachel Ward’s post about Tomatina and couldn’t resist sharing my experience at the infamous world’s largest tomato fight. Let me know if you are thinking of going, I have lots of advice…

We made 3 trips to Bunol in total. The first was the weekend prior to Tomatina. Not much activity, just some people beginning to tarp up some of the buildings.

Well, I take that back…apparently there was also a heavy metal concert in Bunol that day, which explained why there were tons of kids dressed in all black on the train ride there. The second trip was the evening before the festival. We contemplated camping there like lots of people did, but we didn´t and that was a smart move in hindsight.

The day of Tomatina, we caught the first train from Valencia to Bunol at about 7am. It was packed. Very packed. About another full trainload of people couldn´t fit on. Lots of Aussies and Brits on the train and some very hungover people as well. Witnessed a girl barfing in the car behind ours…she didn´t appreciate everyone cheering her on either.

So we get to Bunol and almost immediately off the train Smith runs into a guy from his kickball team in VA Beach. Random. We quickly realize that the bathroom situation is pretty nonexistent. That turned out to be pretty funny for Smith who was glad that he was wearing multiple pairs of socks. I´ll spare you the stories, but let´s just say there was some fairly good bathroom humor and Smith was (as usual) the center of it. Here’s other people waiting/cheering on Smith (inside one of the very few “porta-loo’s” around. I think we saw 5 total…for 30,000 people!)

We make the 30 minute trek down into town and things are already going in full force.

There is a ham on top of a pole. The pole has grease all over it and people are trying to climb it to get the ham.

We watched that for a while and then decided to go put away a litre of beer. Oh yeah, and we had to take a picture of these guys.

Things were really gearing up at that point and it was hard to walk down the street without getting buckets of water dropped on your head from the balconies above. Somehow we managed, not that it mattered with the ensuing mess. In the 30 minutes it takes us to do that about a bazillion more people show up. We try to get back to the ham on a pole scene, which is the kick off of the fight and kind of the main area, but it was too crowded. There are already a few outbreaks of tomatoes coming from locals at this point…

…and we hear a cannon go off, the signal that the ham had been captured and the trucks would now start rolling in. We cut through some of the village streets that paralleled (kind of) the main tomato fight road and ended up in what I think was the thick of things. We managed to get a great view of the first truck from a distance because we were in one of the squares where the street isn’t narrow.

I could already taste tomato, but having only taken a small amount of shrapnel thus far…

…we moved in closer to the actual street where the first truck had just passed, letting loose the first of the tomatoes.

The fight had begun, but there were still many, many more tomatoes on the way.

More trucks, more tomatoes.

What happened next was not a tomato fight, but a tomato war.

Forget everything online about there being all of these rules where the tomatoes have to be squashed first and no one gets hurt or mad. It hurts and it’s dangerous.

The sopping wet t-shirts that were being lobbed all over hurt the worst. Once the 2nd tuck past us, I could barely see out of my goggles. It was more crowded then bourbon street on new years.

I threw very few tomatoes for being in the world´s largest tomato fight. Instead most of my efforts were directed at staying on my feet, not getting trampled or run over by the massive trucks, and taking the beating that was coming from every possible direction.

It was a beautiful, frightening mess. After about 20 or 30 minutes I was accosted by a group of young locals who began chanting “camisetta! camisetta!” as they ripped off my t-shirt. Anyone who still had on a shirt at that point didn´t for much longer. I fell down once which was pretty scary, but people were pretty good about yanking those who had fallen back up in the spirit of safety.

After about an hour of relentless combat we had made our way to the edge of the fight and I was able to remove my goggles, just now being able to actually see what was going on. wow.

Just about then the cannon fired again signaling the end. we followed the trail of “clean” people backwards and found the “river” (more of a creek) and some “showers.” Some locals were also happy to spray you down with their garden hoses. The mess was unbelievable and I was surprised how quickly it began to stink.

The town began cleaning up immediately with fire hoses, squeegees, etc. I guess it´s like cooking, where you want to take care of that kind of mess before it gets harder to clean.

We got as clean as we could and began the 30 minute uphill miserable trek back to the train station. I figured it would take us all day to get onto a train, but it only took a couple of hours. They wouldn´t let us on the train without shirts, so we had to go buy the 9 euro festival shirt along with another 20,000 people who were in the same boat. This is the part where you wished you were a super hot chick in a bikini because the guys who had backpacks were dying to give them their extra shirts. Smith and I, not so much. I have tomato in my ears and i can´t get it out, and i´m pretty sure the ear infection that is brewing will be pretty fun on the flight back. All in all, a great time and an even greater mess. Tomatina on YouTube

www.blacksburgbrewing.com

I am a brand new blogger for the CT. Seat belts on, kids. After perusing several Wikipedia articles, I found quite a little gem. Ever heard of La Tomatina? It is a festival held in Spain at the end of August in which thousands of people gather to throw tomatoes at each other.I could not make this stuff up.The festival officially begins after someone successfully climbs up a grease-covered pole to reach the Ham of Destiny. (Okay, so I named it that.) Then the water cannons are turned on, and it is every man for herself! The participants are prohibited from bringing anything that may start an all-out brawl (glass bottles, etc.), and they are required to smoosh the tomatoes before throwing.The origins of this holiday are unclear. Wikipedia, which I hold as THE authority on anything, ever, has more information, for those of you who wish to attend.The festival also has its own website: www.latomatina.es Thanks for reading, and remember, whenever this crazy, mixed-up world has got you down, I’m here to transform that ugly frown. 

“Nick Combines Found Imagery With Drawing & Painting To Create Myriad Surfaces Of Faces, Eyes, Pattern And Texture. Motifs Mingle With Symbols And Signs, Plucked From Their Original Contexts, In Unexpected Combinations.”

With that kind of description, who wouldn’t be intruiged by the artwork of creative genius Nick White? Nick is a recent graduate of Kingston University in England, and his youthful fervor is quite evident throughout his work. His illustrations are quirkily fascinating, and really quite inspiring. He dabbles in many artistic endeavors, including filmmaking, patternmaking, bookmaking, and body building. His videos are terrific diversions on a gray cloudy day, but let me just warn you that they are a bit silly.

(click to view)

I also totally love this book he made, called “Phew. For A Minute There.: A Book Exploring Memory. Photographs As Triggers, Other Peoples Memories, Made Up Ones And The Inaccuracy Of Them.” Sort of similar to a journal/sketchbook type thing, but with a super interesting theme.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out the pdf poster Nick has provided for our enjoyment, chock full of heads. Appropriately thoughtful from a thought-provoking guy.