Catching Fire!

So I caught the newest volume of the Hunger Games series (Catching Fire) with my pops over Thanksgiving break.  This one did not disappoint.

First, let me say that this movie may be one of the most accurate adaptations of a book I've ever seen.  It was dead on and I was quite pleased.  There were extras of course because the books are told from Katniss Everdeen's (the protagonist played by the darling Jennifer Lawrence) perspective (it's all in first person) so whatever else that was going could not always been described in the book.  I thought the additions were fitting. 

The casting of new characters were also spot on, particularly with newcomers to the series Jena Malone and Sam Claflin (pictured above on the left and right) playing new tributes in the way I pictured they should, as well as, Jeffrey Wright playing a convincing brainiac and Philip Seymour Hoffman nailing the producer of the games.  Is he good?  Is he bad?  It's hard to tell.  Of course, readers of the books know.

Everything got better as a whole compared to the first Hunger games movie.  My only complaint is that I have wait to see the two part conclusion of the series.  Two parts?  From one book?  Ugh.  Greedy bastards. 

a little of both of us

My friend Mark suggested that if I wanted to get Bethany into poster art, I should consider approaching it from her perspective first by focusing on things she likes.  Well, she's into fashion.  She likes to read about it and look at all sorts of clothes and shoes.  She likes shoes.  One of her favorite designers is Betsey Johnson.  Betsey's style is, as Bethany describes it, "Girly Punk."  From my perspective, Betsey is fun and definitely eye catching, which is what I generally look for in a poster. 

So I looked up vintage fashion posters to see what came up.  A Frenchman named Berbard Villemot did a lot interesting stuff for the Bally shoe company.  One poster that caught my eye is called "Bally Kick," which was done near the end of Villemot's life in the 1980s.  Bethany likes it too.  What do you think?

My current poster wishlist

This is subject to change!  This subject to grow! 

Africa by David Klein (1960s). Great colors that would totally go well in our living room.

Philadelphia by David Klein (1960s).  Because it's Philly, duh.

Cognac Monnet by Leonetto Cappiello (1927).  Great color, great value and it's beautiful. 

Wedding gifts to ourselves

So now that I'm a mature adult with a house and wife (do those things make you a mature adult?), I want to have real art around the house.  What do I mean by that?  We won't just put things around the house we like, but perhaps some with value.  I want to invest, but stocks and business crap bore me and my comic book collection is barely getting my money back, so original art is!  So far, I have convinced Bethany to go with it.  No more dorm room posters! We've transitioned from thumbtacks to nails.  That's how you know something is real art, if it requires nails. 

Speaking of dorm room posters, if you are into the history of posters or follow the poster market at all, which I recently am, it seems that posters that may have been on a dorm room wall decades ago seem to have value now.  Well, as long as they are original printings, no reproductions.  People are paying hundreds of dollars for original printings of the Star Wars movies and Farrah Fawcett.  It's funny, but nostalgia pays.

Anyways, I though I would share some of the new pieces we have in our house.  The first is a sculpture that I bought for Bethany as a wedding present.  In our first year of dating, I was living in Texas and she was home in Delaware.  Since we had to fly to see each other, we would at times meet in other cities.  She saw this piece in Santa Fe years ago and I took a mental picture of it.  Bethany loves Giraffes and family, which I think is part of what drew her to the piece.  It's called "Daddy Long Legs" by Todd Warner.  It's part of series all featuring animals sitting on furniture that has the same print as they do.  If you check out Todd's Website, you'll see how he gives a dreamy humanistic quality to his animals.  We like animals.  Most of our art features animals.  She was stunned when she got this gift.  She couldn't believe that I remembered.  Given that it was five years ago, I'm glad she remembered too!

The next two were wedding gifts we bought for ourselves on our honeymoon in Hawaii.  I convinced Bethany that rather than using our gift money just to pay off our wedding, why not buy some things for ourselves.

The first is a Normal Rockwell print you may have seen before.  I have always been into poster art.  When I saw that the old fishing town of Lahaina had a vintage European poster store, I was hoping to pick up a cool European throwback.  As you can see that's not what we got.  Let's just say that me and Bethany have different tastes!  We looked at dozens of posters and this piece was the only one she seemed really responsive to, obviously because of the faith thing.  It's cool, though because I have always like Rockwell's realism and I don't mind reminders for her to stay faithful.  This one is War World II propaganda piece (1943).  It was part of series of four prints that promote buying war bonds in order to preserve our freedoms.  Maybe I'll convince her to let us get a European piece eventually!

The last is a numbered giclee by Robert Bissell.  It is part of a series called, "Hero."  All of Robert's works feature animals in whimsical manners.  We also got this in Lahaina.  I never get bored at looking at it and it makes a great statement piece in our house.  It's currently above our fireplace.

I like graffiti

Is graffiti a legit art form?  I think it is.  I love it.  That's why I used it for my new background.  There's probably a bunch of old timers that think it's all heinous and inappropriate and criminal.  It can be, but only, in my opinion, if it spreads messages of hate or violates other art.  If it's done in a creative manner and doesn't break one of my rules then, thumbs up!  It's another form of freedom, freedom of expression. 

I'm a big fan of graphic art, so that's probably what I'll talk about here for the most of the time.  This includes vintage posters, comic books, advertising and street art.  I think that's what they are calling graffiti now.  My favorite source for street art is Street Art Utopia.  Check out their website (link below).  It's a site where people submit the street art they see around the world.  Skim through it.  You may be in awe of the creativity of the human race and maybe inspired to do some of your own. 

Cheers.

Street Art Utopia

I'm back!

So I've been inspired lately to return, you can thank my wife for that (oh, I'm married!).  Not that anyone was anxiously waiting for me to blog or anything, but I think I'm going to try for one post a week.  I've made my mind to focus just on the artsy fartsy stuff because that's the only thing I like to rant about.