You might remember George Radebaugh’s sculptures or the Portraits from CDs. We have another great CD sculpture for you.
This next CD compilation is the rolling hills collection of 65,000 used CDs. ‘Wastelandscape#1’, created by Elise Morin and Clémence Eliard was pieced together by wire.
The sculpture reminds people of the accumulation of media. Media that felt necessary to buy and then throw out for the next thing.
Or something like that.
I’d like to introduce you to James Charles, he doesn’t design for the mint, but he ought to. Charles can take an ordinary 5 dollar bill and, with a few touches here and there, can turn it into a $700 work of art!
Some people argue that it is not illegal to draw/ink/create or otherwise alter existing pieces of money. Believing instead that what is illegal is trying to pass that money off as a greater denomination than it represented. Such as counterfeiting 5 dollar bills on top of 1 dollar bills or Xeroxing copies of $100 bills.
If it is illegal the secret service must have bigger fish to fry. They haven’t shut down the famous ‘Where’s George’ (www.wheresgeorge.com) bill tracking movement. I’ve seen more than a few bills with that website stamped across Washington’s face.
Even if it were against the law it would have to be forgivable. It’s that good.
Anyone able to turn 100 (Ben Franklin), 50 (Ulysses S. Grant), 20 (Andrew Jackson), and 10 (Alexander Hamilton) dollar bills into the band mates from ‘Kiss’ is an art master.
Charles’ subjects are pop icons, musicians, actors, politicians, artists etc.
I am partial to the bills he devotes to the artists. Notably, the Vincent Van Gogh, the Salvador Dali.
Followed second by those he’d done of fictional movie characters. Such as the 1931 Frankenstein’s monster and his bride, or the Oompa Loompa! Love that one!
If I can’t own one of these altered greenbacks, then I want to learn how to make them myself!
Online I came across a photo of one of those cheap-o crap prints from the 60’s and 70’s that you always see undusted in thrift stores. The kind that features a drab landscape or a couple of tots picking daisies. Something like that, you’ve seen them before.
In this tree filled valley with mountain view and ‘picturesque’ cabin, there is an unusual addition. An AT-AT, from Star Wars, making its way from the forest.
It hooked me immediately!
It’s a thing. There are slews of thrift store paintings bought for pennies and altered to include Star Wars characters. Or monsters; monsters are popular subjects. I’m not even a huge fan of ‘monsters’ exactly but add one to a crummy painting and it is an instant interest.
This painting of two daisy-chaining children is infinitely better with the charging Tyrannosaurus Rex. I chuckle every time I see it. The dinosaur looks so hungry, and those kids are just so ‘ho-hum’.
I am forced to wonder what the heck might be going on in their little heads. They see this thing coming at them and make no move towards safety.
The meaning of the painting, once so crappy and boring has been completely changed.
This thrift store painting isn’t ‘crappy’. In fact, it is the famous “The Sleeping Beauty” by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones; which I love.
Look at the face of the recumbent ‘sleeper’.
That is simultaneously hilarious aaaaaaand a little creepy, in a fun way.
See it?
It completely changes the meaning of the painting, doesn’t it? Kudos goes to Megan Stringfellow for coming up with it (her husband loves the Alien franchise).
She also did this fun image. Adding the TARDIS, which works for me so well. Not only because the TARDIS could belong in that timeframe, but it’s just painted in there so nicely.
It’s like it belongs in the painting!
And the addition of K9 is so cute!
He looks like a lil’ lap dog, I almost didn’t notice that he was not from the original painting. Suh-weet.
I’m including this last one, painted by Robert Brandenburg, for my husband and my son.
They have both just discovered the joy of Winnie the Pooh. It is nice for them but annoying for me. This is why I find this ‘Tigger and Pooh’ painting so cathartic.
Sources:
There is this couple and their baby (Lilly, Leon, and Orson). After moving to another country, they found themselves with a LOT of leftover boxes. Instead of reselling or trashing them, they recycled. In a manner of speaking.
They used their amassed collection of cardboard to build replicas of scenes from movies. This includes ‘Back to the Future,’ ‘Dumb and Dumber’ and ‘Home Alone.’
It’s amazing what they do with cardboard, some sheets, and a little lighting. Using household brick-a-brack, this trio captures the movies and my funny bone.
Look at that baby!
The three of them are so CUTE!
Cardboard Box Office is proof you don’t need to spend oodles of money on props or exotic locales to produce kick-ass quality time.
Below are some of our (my husband’s and my) favorites:
The famed historic Castro district of San Francisco is one of our nation’s first gay communities. It was the neighborhood in which Daniel Goldstein lived. And worked out.
The Muscle System, a gay gym favorite in the area, was getting new leather bench coverings for its equipment. Replacing the old ‘Icarian’ brand covers that had their heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90’s.
The ‘80’s and ‘90s, of course, being the early years of the AIDS epidemic; when the disease was just becoming known to the world.
Goldstein saw these old leather benches and noticed that there were figures woren into them that looked ghostly. Years upon years of gym patrons had been unknowingly adding their presence to the leather and creating a patina of people. Almost all these people were related to the LGBT community. Many of which were victims of HIV/AIDS in the decades when there was nothing medicine could do for them. These leather bench coverings became a shroud that documented decades of people who dealt with these weighty issues.
Goldstein, who himself contracted HIV in 1984, saw in the benches the years of friends who were sick while taking care that they were in shape. He rescued the old coverings and then framed them for public viewing.
The name ‘Icarian Series’ came from the brand name of the exercise machines themselves.
I know these leathers qualify more as ‘found’ art, but it took an exemplary mind to see them for what they represented. I find myself moved.
I find myself moved.
Artist George Radebaugh uses cast off CDs, along with recycled pipe for structure, to create these amazingly attractive sculptures. It’s initially hard for me to imagine how CDs can come together to imply depth and definition of color.
He has obviously mastered the art of CD sculptures!
And this fish here (below). It’s so cool!
It immediately evokes a ‘hey, is that a rainbow trout? It is a rainbow trout!’ kind of feel.
I’d much rather have this mounted on my wall than the actual animal.
It’s Bob Marley. Made from Bob Marley CDs.
Artists Mirco Pagano and Moreno De Turco made all these portraits of musicians out of CDs of that musician’s CDs.
Meta much? Here’s a close up of Marley’s face, there’s an enormous difference between viewing it from afar and seeing it up close.
