Mediocrity is the Number One Killer

Don't settle for mediocrity in art.

Andy Warhol said in an interview once, "I just did the easiest thing I could think of". And the public bought into it anyway, didn't they?

Here are some quotes about MEDIOCRITY .

The first one goes like this:

"All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy."- Scott Alexander

The Art of Amy Crehore

Little Pink Woopie

I got this off boingboing today. What can I say? It's hokum and surrealism bundled together in one cute little package, folks. You want more? There's more.

The Art of Amy Crehore

"Bergman Enjoyed the Process"

Ingmar Bergman
Woody Allen
I have not been keeping up with things in the news for the past couple of years and I'm behind on everything that I used to enjoy so much, like movies and things. I'm too wrapped up in my own work. But, I happened across this NY Times article yesterday.It is lovingly written by Woody Allen about his great friend and inspiration, Ingmar Bergman, who died July 31, 2007. There are some very interesting things in it. Woody writes:
"I did manage to absorb one thing from him, a thing not dependent on genius or even talent but something that can actually be learned and developed. I am talking about what is often very loosely called a work ethic but is really plain discipline. I learned from his example to try to turn out the best work I’m capable of at that given moment, never giving in to the foolish world of hits and flops or succumbing to playing the glitzy role of the film director, but making a movie and moving on to the next one."
Making art or films is not all about ego, money, or parading around for attention. For some, it's about the actual creative process: challenging oneself and turning out good work, a striving for quality and moving on to the next. Read the rest:
The Man Who Asked Hard Questions
The Art of Amy Crehore

Surreal Bubble Woman

Read about Miss Sally Rand

The Art of Amy Crehore

The Nude Over the Bar

A Bar Nude from the Grand Imperial Hotel in Silverton, Colorado

I don't hang out in bars, but this gal does...every single night. Do her arms ever get tired of being in that position? I have to wonder. Maybe she is too drunk to notice and maybe she doesn't notice all of the men staring at her from their bar stools.

The same men every night. Drooling.

Lord Have Mercy.

The Art of Amy Crehore

The Romantic Sexuality of Surrealism

Meret Oppenheim's Famous Teacup 1936Meret Oppenheim holding a furry teacup in a furry outfit 1967

Robert Hughes wrote an article for the Guardian last March (as a review of the surrealist show at the Victorian and Albert Museum) about the romantic sexuality of surrealism. He went on to talk about the creation of sculptural objects that had a significant influence on design and fashion. Of all the objects one remembers, it is Meret Oppenheim's furry teacup and here is how the story went:

"The most famous of Oppenheim's works was Object, 1936, which grew out of an accessory design she had done for that principal patron of surrealist "thing-making", Elsa Schiaparelli. For the brilliant couturier, Oppenheim had done a gold metal bracelet covered (on the outside) with beaver fur. She wore it to meet Picasso for drinks at the Café de Flore, and Picasso remarked that if you could have a fur bracelet then practically anything else could also be covered with fur, and so transformed. Why not a coffee cup, for instance? So Oppenheim went right ahead, with cup, spoon and saucer, and the result was one of the few really sublime sexual images of the 20th century. It compels you to imagine raising this furry cup, wet with hot fluid, to your lips; it offers no possible meaning other than cunnilingus; it is exquisitely graceful and inescapably direct, both at once, and if ever a single work was enough for one artist's career, it is Oppenheim's cup."

Read more of this fascinating article by Robert Hughes here:

L'amour fou

Meret Oppenheim Read about Meret,

one of Surrealism's many outstanding women artists and muses.

The Art of Amy Crehore

There Have Been Stranger Things

Double Bass Uke by Franz Walter AltpeterChris Knutsen’s family holding his harp ukuleles. Cute!

Gregg Miner wrote an interesting article about the history of a strange hybrid instrument called the Harp Ukulele. Gregg says, " Harp Ukulele – the name alone seems a contradiction in terms. Yet once upon a time in America, this unlikely hybrid (or perhaps 'variation' is a better word) was dreamt up and produced by not one, but two, unique individuals – separately and in completely different forms". The article goes on to tell us about Chris Knutsen's and Franz Walter Altpeter's original harp ukes and then we get to see some contemporary versions.

Harp Ukuleles

The Art of Amy Crehore