Reading Room - O Magazine Septmeber Issue

Reading is one of my favorite pastimes and any illustration assignment that involves books, be it a review or a cover will undoubtedly be a pleasure to create. What made this assignment unique was that the art director, Jody Churchfield, asked me to illustrate three pieces using three different styles. Usually consistency is key in illustration so this was a rare opportunity indeed.


Some of the sketches:

and finals:

Thanks Jody!

More on the Historical Museum Stockholm, Riksutställningar / Sweden

Travel back and forth is a co-production between The Swedish Travelling Exhibition and The Museum of National Antiquities in collaboration with Institute for Futures Studies. The exhibition involves exhibition designers Maison Beton http://maisonbeton1.blogspot.com, and the Swedish artists Anna Svensson www.annasvensson.se, Fredrik Söderberg www.fredriksoderberg.se , Kollektivet Livet http://kollektivetlivet.se  

The exhibition will open the 26th of February at the Museum of National Antiquities and will be shown there for a year before it will go out on tour in Sweden 2012 – 2014 to approximately 8 – 10 different county museums.  

Each artist gets a to design a room. The room that I've been asked to create works for is titled "Truths and Myths" and will be built out of logs- how perfect is that? I am so excited about this project.

Some images from Maison Beton:

Dazzling

Samantha Fields is added to Western Project's roster.

 

Destroy the Destroyers, 2007
acrylic on canvas, 52 x 72 inches

A fantastic facination with Franz Boas

I'm working on a commissioned art project for the Swedish National Museum of Antiquities that has led me to the discovery of an amazing man. Boas once summed up his approach to anthropology and folklore by saying: "In the course of time I became convinced that a materialistic point of view, for a physicist a very real one, was untenable. This gave me a new point of view and I recognized the importance of studying the interaction between the organic and inorganic, above all the relation between the life of a people and their physical environment." -Franz Boas

"Franz Boas posing for figure in US Natural History Museum exhibit entitled 

"Hamats'a coming out of secret room" 1895 or before. Courtesy of National Anthropology Archives.

Drawing of a Kwakiutl mask from Boas's 

The Social Organization and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians (1897). 

Wooden skulls hang from below the mask, which represents one of the 

cannibal bird helpers of Bakbakwalinooksiwey.

Pride in Brighton

tusen takk

 

Phil Hays now has a website! He was the reigning department chair when I was a student at Art Center College of Design. Phil was an amazing illustrator and could give a precise critique if you asked for one. When he spoke his voice was all gravel and sticks. On his office wall hung a beautiful black and white portrait that said "To Phil, Love Andy(Warhol)"