Erin Rice

April 7, 2014
Theme is anxst + worry.

I stared at this image above for waaay too long; it’s gotta be one of the best animated gifs I’ve ever seen. These incredible looping animations were created by animator Nicolas Fong. Thanks to Russell Alton for helping me I.D. the creator via Twitter. Have a look at some more below.

View the whole post: Mind-Melting Animated Gifs by Nicolas Fong over on BOOOOOOOM!.

Within the small confines of her 3 x 6 meter studio in Seoul, JeeYoung Lee‘s imagination is without boundaries. For each of her photographs the artist fills every square inch of space with hand-made props, set pieces, and backdrops and never edits or modifies the image digitally post-shoot. We first featured Lee’s work on Colossal last year, and OPIOM Gallery has since shared several more installations spanning from 2008 to 2014. Via OPIOM:

She does so with infinite minutiae and extraordinary patience, in order to exclude any ulterior photographic alteration. Thus materialised, these worlds turn real and concretise; imagination reverts to the tangible and the photo imagery of such fiction testify as to their reality. In the midst of each of these sets stands the artist, those self-portraits however are never frontal, since it is never her visual aspect she shows, but rather her quest for an identity, her desires and her frame of mind. Her creations act as a catharsis which allows her to accept social repression and frustrations.

It should be noted that Lee’s photography seems to be influenced, at least conceptually, by artist Sandy Skoglund. Her latest exhibition titled Stage of Mind will appear in both Bogota and Belfast later this summer. (via My Modern Met)

Update: Lee will also be exhibiting several pieces at Gallery Nine 5 in New York later this week.

The euphoria experienced as you begin to fall in love, the pile of books bought but unread, the coffee “threefill,” and other lyrical linguistic delights.

“Words belong to each other,” Virginia Woolf said in the only surviving recording of her voice, a magnificent meditation on the beauty of language. But what happens when words are kept apart by too much unbridgeable otherness? “Barring downright deceivers, mild imbeciles and impotent poets, there exist, roughly speaking, three types of translators,” Vladimir Nabokov opened his strongly worded opinion on translation. Indeed, this immeasurably complex yet vastly underappreciated art of multilingual gymnastics, which helps words belong to each other and can reveal volumes about the human condition, is often best illuminated through the negative space around it — those foreign words so rich and layered in meaning that the English language, despite its own unusual vocabulary, renders them practically untranslatable.

Such beautifully elusive words is what writer and illustrator Ella Frances Sanders, a self-described “intentional” global nomad, explores in Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World (public library | IndieBound), published shortly before Sanders turned twenty-one.

Norwegian, noun

Japanese, noun

From the Japanese for leaving a book unread after buying it to the Swedish for the road-like reflection of the moon over the ocean to the Italian for being moved to tears by a story to the Welsh for a sarcastic smile, the words Sanders illustrates dance along the entire spectrum of human experience, gently reminding us that language is what made us human.

Arabic, noun

Norwegian, noun

Japanese, noun

In addition to the charming illustrations and sheer linguistic delight, the project is also a subtle antidote to our age of rapid communication that flattens nuanced emotional expression into textual shorthand and tyrannical clichés. These words, instead, represent not only curiosities of the global lexicon but also a rich array of sentiments, emotions, moods, and cultural priorities from a diverse range of heritage.

Yiddish, noun

Hindi, noun

These words invariably prompt you to wonder, for instance, whether a culture lacking a word for the sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees is also one lacking the ennobling capacity for such quality of presence, for the attentive and appreciative stillness this very act requires. Our words bespeak our priorities.

Japanese, noun

Sanders writes in the introduction:

The words in this book may be answers to questions you didn’t know to ask, and perhaps some you did. They might pinpoint emotions and experiences that seemed elusive or indescribable, or they may cause you to remember a person you’d forgotten. If you take something away from this book … let it be the realization or affirmation that you are human, that you are fundamentally, intrinsically bound to every single person on the planet with language and feelings.

Swedish, verb

Portuguese, noun

Tagalog, noun

Italian, verb

Yiddish, noun

Swedish, noun

Complement Lost in Translation with Orin Hargraves on how to upgrade our uses and abolish our abuses of language, then treat yourself to this illustrated dictionary of unusual English words.

Illustrations courtesy of Ella Frances Sanders

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Photo by Mossy Tortoise

My name is Katie Bradley, and my shop is called Mossy Tortoise. I’m a wife, mother and nerd. Somewhere in the time between running after two mischievous boys and everything else, I have become an artist and crafter. I live in Vancouver, Washington.

I love tortoises, and I love to crochet. I would have never thought that combining these two hobbies would result in a madly successful Etsy shop, yet here we are: my cozies are selling faster than I can make them! I try to add one or two new cozy designs to my shop every month, all of which are my original inventions. New designs come from customer requests, silly ideas of my own, or from my children, friends or family (“Hey, can you make a tortoise cozy that looks like a…?”).

I have been crocheting for over 25 years. I love keeping my hands busy, and crocheting has become a part of my daily life. I bring my projects with me everywhere I go. Friends and family have gotten used to seeing me crochet at the playground, at kids’ sporting events, during meetings, or while riding in the car.

All of my cozies are custom-made to the exact measurements of a client’s tortoise or turtle. I have to crochet for several hours each day to keep up with orders. At this point, I have made well over 1500 cozies. Although my designs are silly, I pride myself on producing beautiful pieces with high-quality stitch work.

When I started my Mossy Tortoise Etsy shop, I had already been operating Mossy Rock Designs successfully for several years. Selling on Etsy has been a wonderful experience for me; I love that each Etsy shop is different and unique. There is a sense of community rather than of competition among sellers. I love that buyers come to Etsy expecting something handmade and unique, and that they are willing to pay a fair price. I shop for Christmas gifts on Etsy myself, and I enjoy finding just the right handmade gifts for my loved ones.

My interactions with clients and other Etsy sellers have been overwhelmingly positive. I receive daily message from happy customers, as well as encouraging messages from other Etsy sellers wishing me well. I even get messages from shoppers who don’t have a tortoise, but just drop me a note to tell me that my work made them smile. It makes my day that I am able to make others smile or even laugh with my funny creations.

At this point, both of my shops are one-woman operations. If business continues to expand, I anticipate having to hire one or two crocheters to help me during the holiday season. We will see. I also hope to publish a calendar, greeting cards, and maybe a little book with all the pictures I’ve taken of the tortoises in their cozies. The trouble is finding the time to find an agent and to pursue those endeavors!

Follow Katie’s work on Facebook and the Mossy Tortoise Blog.

Maker and process shots by Kim Hansen from Urban Blue Photography, product photos by Mossy Tortoise.