Earl Schmearl

I think the milk and bread industries sponsored Earl. We did get all the lawn furniture and garden tools put away. But he hasn't amounted amount to much so far. This little video by my son-in-law, Alex Chen, captures what Earl did best today. Made some waves and giggles.

Uppercase and Feeling Bookish

Uppercase, the incredible magazine, gallery, book and papergoods store in Calgary just put together an exhibition of over 40 best of book designs sent in from readers entitled Feeling Bookish. The call for submissions was to design a cover that is a self portrait of your life. Uppercase gallery will show the work in their gallery at Art Central, opening tonight. For those of us who have to work tomorrow and can't pull off the drive to Canada, Uppercase is offering their magazine subscribers a peek at the majority of submissions in their upcoming Issue No. 7. Here is the link to their site and to their blog with more info about the show. Below is a winning submissions by Andrea Armstrong who sees herself as Chicken Girl, a title very close to my heart.

Good Bye to an Amazing Talent

As a young art director in the mid eighties, I was very fortunate to hire calligrapher Raphael Boguslav for a lettering project. My brief encounter with him, which included a visit to his studio, an impromptu piano solo, and a lunch he prepared for us from his garden, left a powerful impression on me. His dedication to exploring every possible combination of forms, paper, inks, and pens followed me for the next 25 years and influenced how I have arrived at answers for my own projects. A true renaissance man, Raphael was hit while riding his scooter in Newport recently and died shortly after. Take five minutes to watch the video/interview and I promise you'll be inspired, shown here. Raphael was a dear friend of my friend, Pat Hegnauer, and the clock you see at the end of the video was a gift to her. His site can be found here.

The Color of Candlelight

Paul and I get to work in candlelight again. Mole Hollow Candles has asked us to shoot their product line and packaging design for the new site we're launching this fall. We had so much fun concepting and shooting a series of lifestyle shots for them last year. I feel so lucky when I have a client who trusts me with so many aspects of their branding. Logo, packaging, photo, and now the site. They also let me sneak one of my vivipary paintings into each shot. Art and commerce?