Joshua Barndt

Yesterday I was working on a photo shoot with my friend Ryan Marr, and we almost couldn't make it into the studio in time to set up because his friend Patrick, who owns the studio, got into a car accident with this artist Joshua Barndt. So naturally, I looked him up on the internet, and now he's my new hero. Elephants + Environmental Descruction + Mind Blowing animation = good times.

Free Fall from joshua barndt on Vimeo.

Check out his website. You won't be sorry. http://www.joshuabarndt.com/

Morning people stop kidding yourselves.

As it turns out, I'm not a morning person. I've been struggling for months to wake up before 10, and get to work promptly and effectively, and failed every time. I never seem to get it together, and off of other people's websites and the couch before 6pm, which is long past the threat of morning. I must be a night owl because night seems to be the only time of day that I can write lucidly, and think clearly about what I'm writing, without feeling panic stricken by the whole ordeal. The problems is that night is also very distracting.

I'm considering some kind of sleep reprogramming, where I wait until I'm absolutely dead tired before I go to sleep, and regardless of hours, wake up at the same time everyday. But that seems unfun.

Clearly, this blog is going nowhere fast. From what I gather, most blogs live and die by their ability to focus on a singular topic, preferably a singular topic that people want to read about, and especially a singular topic that people want to read about from the person writing the blog. These credentials seem as though they're unlikely to materialize for this here Micropsic Vision.

With that in mind, here's my friend Sharlene's movie 57 ways (formerly Vag), fresh to the internet.

Enjoy

57 Ways (2009/ 5 min. / Canada) from Sharlene Bamboat on Vimeo.

Marcel Dzama

I’m pretty enamored with Marcel Dzama right now. His small-scale, seemingly quaint, ink and watercolor drawings offer profound emotional depth and political critique that’s surprising for their form.



With all the talk of torture in the news lately, these wartime figures that recall the traumas of WWI, seem as appropriately commonplace as the trees and birds that he combines in these whimsical conversion of everyday life.


















He recently directed this video with Patrick Daughters for the Department of Eagles song “No On Does it like You”.



I love the tone of this video, and how these desperate scenes of human depravity appear almost effortlessly celebratory. It’s pretty haunting.

Yesterday was for the people.

Lately, life has felt good. I’m riding my bike in late November; my thesis is back on track; and I’ve had art published twice in the past two weeks. It feels good, really good to live in a place where I’m continually confronted with inspiration, and opportunity for collaboration, and until yesterday I was convinced that life in Toronto was for me.

I woke up happy and clear headed, made coffee, turned on the CBC, and heard on the news that a deer was found sleeping in a tiny park in the downtown Financial District. Growing up in the suburban scrawl of St. Catharines, I remember a sense of excitement when our overly manicured, playground landscape, was disrupted by a deer, or another undomesticated creature. Wild animals amazed, not only because they challenged the tedium of our everyday scheduled clockwork life, but also because they reminded us of the space and shape of the wilderness we encroach upon. Aside from the odd grumbled-at raccoon, we used to feel lucky when we happened on a wild animal. But not anymore, and not in Toronto.

Apparently the urban world has completely lost touch with the part of humanity that feels bad about our ever-expanding environmental destruction. Yesterday, at around 11:15 am, shortly after the arrival of a veterinarian yielding a tranquilizer dart, the Toronto Police Department tasered the shit of the deer. The doe had been lying calmly in the garden for hours, a calamity that apparently brought much of the downtown core to a “standstill”(where would we be without the National Post)!?! When surprised by the dart, the Deer made a break for the sidewalk, and was met with tasers, according to Const. Tony Vella of the Toronto Police, in the interest of its own safety. You can see the video for yourself here on Blog TO.

Its pretty horrifying to realize that we live everyday in an environment that is a danger to all animals except for humans. Our own ambition has shaped us into creatures that navigate the world aggressively by neon street signs, walk always on the right, and bridle our children with adorable leashes for their own safety. I hope this trend turns around, but with the ever urbanization of our world, that seems unlikely. I feel helpless.
This is making me think about working on a series about confrontations with animals. Here’s something I did a few weeks ago for my Dad’s birthday present. I think I’d like to do more.

New work

Someday these posts will become consistent. I promise.

In the mean time, here is some relatively new work. I've been distracted, trying to feel out the world of art directing, which means I've been drawing for others, as opposed to for myself. But I've managed these last few sketches as part of a drawing group I started with a few friends.

Here goes.
This first one, called dinner, ended up terribly scanned in a McMaster Art Magazine. I have mixed feelings.

This one was inspired (loosely) by the idea of a time machine.

Painting Subjectivities

I seem to have fallen off the thesis wagon a bit. I left a dealine in my dust last week. I didn't know what hit him. Oh well. So here's what I did in the spare time I don't have.



My friend Sharlene made a film called Vag. I'll leave the premise to your imagination. It looks good. Really good. I think, for a studies student, she may have a promising career in film a head of her. She solicited Jess and I to make the costumes and help on set.




The aesthetic was German Expressionist, so I painted shadows on the clothes to externalize subjective realities.












Photos by Sharlene Bamboat (I think, or Gustavo who had her camera).

The Dirty Dozen bid farewell to their leader

Last night was the goodbye party for my favorite Western fanatasist/phenomenologist Jarett. As a consequence I was convinced to spend a good 24 hours frantically creating this:It has since appeared on a t-shirt.

Some Ideas

So today was tattoo design day in my head, and here's what I came up with:

For my friend Coral , who wants a judy to commemorate her thesis film and mom.



For me, although chances are I'll never be able to muster up the commitment needed for any life-long image, no matter what the significance.
And for Nick, even though he has no intention of getting a tattoo. But it would be funny if he did, right?

Chubby Nutritionist

"Mark my words, ten years from now fats will be out again, and we'll all be bananas for High-Fructose Corn Syrup."

I'm baaaaaaack.

I must admit that my dedication to this blog over the past months has been pretty fickle. And by fickle, I mean flaky. And by flaky, I really mean non-existent. But I'm 27 now, and I've recently quit my job here at Law law law, and I feel as though I have a new lease on life. So, like a phoenix, from the ashes of complacent ennui, My Micropsic Vision rises again (this time as a halfbreed blog/ web comic, or blebglomic?).

So here comes the first post of 2009, a tribute to my good friends Eli and Jess, whose LOLCATS fanaticism has inspired so much laughter, anguish, and moral indignation (they also bought me my first set of nice drawing pens).

So here goes ANIMAL RIGHTS COMIC: VOLUME 1

HUMAN KITTIES LUVS THIER MUGS