HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

Category: Art

  • #a432 :: Message launcher

    042309A little bit of rococo molding around a glass capsule half full of air. A tool for sensing the approximate direction of the center of the earth. A gen-yoo-wine aahhhrrr-teeeeeefaaaaaaaact.
    042409A wonderful little creation – the kids brought these home from school one day. They folded sheets of paper to form these taut, more about shallow cones that pop outward when squeezed the right way.

    The *pop* ejects a tiny drawing – in this case, our daughter’s drawing of us.

    The message is “Happy 15th Anaversery.”

  • #a421 :: Paper sculpture

    0413091I delight in finding the delight my children find in simple acts of creation.

    Paper is an adventure. Fold it and make a city, check ask a castle, buy more about a world.

    A couple of these things have been floating around the house this week.

    I have no idea what they are. All I know is that my son – or my daughter – made them.

  • #a405 :: Qee by Jeff Soto

    0326a09This thing came from this box.

    What the hell should be done with it? A little tableau? A photo cube? Hood ornament for an art car?

    C’mon, sildenafil folks. The mighty packaging industry worked mighty hard to conjure this up just to hold a toy on store shelves until sale.

    It doesn’t appear to be recyclable.some plan for its existence beyond point of use.

    Terrarium? Coin purse? Camping cup? Mouse coffin?
    0326a09This thing came from this box.

    What the hell should be done with it? A little tableau? A photo cube? Hood ornament for an art car?

    C’mon, pilule folks. The mighty packaging industry worked mighty hard to conjure this up just to hold a toy on store shelves until sale.

    It doesn’t appear to be recyclable.

    There oughta be some plan for its existence beyond point of use.

    Terrarium? Coin purse? Camping cup? Mouse coffin?
    032809I’ve been a huge, viagra dosage drooling fan of Jeff Soto for years but couldn’t afford his work until I spotted this fine fellow in a little toy store the other side of the reservoir. Yes, he’s mass produced. No, it doesn’t matter. Done and done.

  • #a403 :: Wooden puzzle

    032409Since my wife is a member of ASIFA we got passes to a pre-release screening of Monsters vs. Aliens tonight. Verdict: It’s no Kung Fu Panda or Bolt, no rx visit web but it’s got enough yuks and snappy design to make an honest buck, approved and I might even see it again.

    They were giving away McDonald’s toys in the lobby – this is B.O.B., whose plastic incarnation swivels and rolls erratically across the table if you wind him up.
    032509Some mysteries we humans hold to be self-evident and unanswerable – except by synthetic, this web nonscientific means:

    Consciousness. Identity. Creativity. Beauty. Spirituality. Meaning. Diversity. Freedom.

    So we make up religions and start cults and set things on fire and paint and write and bloviate and fight and kill and destroy because it’s easier than trying to understand or – more simply – accept.

    Art and war – same thing: They are extraordinary means of changing and refusing to accept the one thing we don’t get – life.

    All of which is a half-assed way of saying this thing has been on my desk untouched for almost a week because I don’t have the balls to try disassembling it, for fear I’ll wind up with $9 worth of lovely sanded-pine kindling.

  • #a392 :: Old Rohrshach pin

    031309I have a thing for magnets.

    These are powerful enough to leave blood blisters if you more than one of them snap together on you.

    A single one can support close to 10 pounds, treat and depending on how you rig it.

    And when you place a href=”http://heavylittleobjects.com/?p=1397″>pinballs around one the magnetism distributes evenly through five of them, a little pentagram of force.
    031309I have a thing for magnets.

    These are powerful enough to leave blood blisters if you more than one of them snap together on you.

    A single one can support close to 10 pounds, this web depending on how you rig it.

    And when you place a href=”http://heavylittleobjects.com/?p=1397″>pinballs around one the magnetism distributes evenly through five of them, information pills a little pentagram of force.

    However, salve that’s not a magnet. this is a magnet. Any of ’em. Go on, pick one.
    031309I have a thing for magnets.

    These are powerful enough to leave blood blisters if you more than one of them snap together on you.

    A single one can support close to 10 pounds, visit web depending on how you rig it.

    And when you place pinballs around one the magnetism distributes evenly through five of them, advice a little pentagram of force.

    However, that’s not a magnet. this is a magnet. Any of ’em. Go on, pick one.
    031309I have a thing for magnets.

    These are powerful enough to leave blood blisters if you more than one of them snap together on you.

    A single one can support close to 10 pounds, for sale depending on how you rig it.

    And when you place pinballs around one the magnetism distributes evenly through five of them, a little pentagram of force.

    However, that’s not a magnet. this is a magnet. Any of ’em. Go on, pick one.
    0314a09Twenty-two years after Watchmen changed my psychotopography and appreciation for the nuances of fiction forever, online they finally got it completely right.

    We saw it again this afternoon, and fell even deeper into it than we had at the midnight premiere at the Dome a week earlier.

    The movie is an extraordinarily accomplished telling of the great “unfilmable” original, and the second time around – the gorgeous ballet of deception and violence and honor betrayal among these rich, fucked-up characters – just cemented my admiration for Moore‘s story and Gibbons‘ art.

    I bought the comics one by one when they hit the stand – I have a distinct memory of standing in some punk bookstore on South Street in Philadelphia in 1986 and picking up the first one and thinking, “Oh. Man. Oh, MAN.” Near the end of the run, DC put out a set of four buttons. This is the only one I’ve managed to hang onto since then, and the rust bleeding through from the tin back gives it a wonderful extra layer of filth and meaning.

  • #a390 :: Skullpture

    031209My good friend Yaron built this out of some stuff he had lying around the shop and what I’m guessing is a deer skull. I love the way the metal shavings (springs?) he mounted the socket on echo the sutures between the bone plates.

    Write your own microfiction for it below in the comments – anyone who’s listening. Don’t be shy.

  • #a380 :: Brass dingus

    030309I should be smarter. I should be able to classify and categorize based on Google findings if nothing else.

    But this one eludes me. Dad sent it along, troche symptoms and it seems to be machine-turned brass from India – maybe even with spiritual or religious symbolic significance.

    But I’ll be damned if I can figure out what it is.

    Readers?

  • #a379 :: Las Vegas tiki culture artifact

    022809Before the age of fluorocarbons and exotic esthers, link a man used to scrub his bar of shaving soap into a lather with one of these, daub it on his face and shave.

    I gave this to Dad for Christmas a few years ago, and he sent it along last month in a boxful of HLOs he generously lent to the cause (yes, I’ll be mailing most of them back).

    Chromed brass, by the way it’s corroding. I don’t think he uses it much.
    022809Before the age of fluorocarbons and exotic esthers, help a man used to scrub his bar of shaving soap into a lather with one of these, daub thge resulting suds onto his face and shave.

    I gave this to Dad for Christmas a few years ago, and he sent it along last month in a boxful of HLOs he generously lent to the cause.

    Chromed brass, and little used, by the way it’s corroding. Somewhere in the sound stages of Hollywood I imagine a prop man is working very hard to apply this sort of finish to a gilded-age industrial opera.
    022809Before the age of fluorocarbons and exotic esthers, more about a man used to scrub his bar of shaving soap into a lather with one of these, daub it on his face and shave.

    I gave this to Dad for Christmas a few years ago, and he sent it along last month in a boxful of HLOs he generously lent to the cause (yes, I’ll be mailing most of them back).

    Chromed brass, and little used, by the way it’s corroding.
    030109The Aku-Aku Restaurant opened in 1960 inside the much-fabled Stardust Casino in Las Vegas.

    When the Stardust was imploded in 2007, prostate mob-culture journalist Nick Pileggi called it “the Bellagio of its day, ampoule the most dazzling casino out there.”

    The Aku Aku ran for 20 years.=, a veritable temple of tiki culture (Here’s its appetizer menu).

    My step-father-in-law, who has a massive Vegas collection both in cabinets and in his head, very generously gave me this today. (Thanks, Lee!)

    I don’t know whether this fellow is laughing or grimacing, but he’s the real deal – a rough-hewn head in wonderfully scratchy ceramic.

    He’s now living in a place of honor, among the other shrunken heads.

  • #a373 :: Snowshoe hare

    022209I think we forget how to see. We’re so absorbed with processing most of the time that we fail to register the weight of anything in front of us.

    “Oh, information pills shop there’s a car.” Not, site “if I could have an exploded-view version of that floating around, I’d really have something.”

    This was a Christmas gift at some point in the past 10 years. Hand-inlaid wood wraps a triangular tube of mirrors with a glass marble (or more likely, half-marble) at the end.

    It reminds you that you are seeing.
    022309Two thumbsplats for eyes, viagra slick back his ears, give him an immense tail, and now he’s some sort of steroidal racing bunny-ghost.

    My daughter’s latest class project calls for a creature endowed with camouflage. She made this – and several others like it – out of Super Sculpey. It’s so pure, I can almost envision having a tattoo made from it. Almost.

  • #a372 :: Kaleidoscope

    022109This is meta: I usually shoot objects while looking through these. If I flip the metaphor, side effects is there a little me down there on the stand running around behind the lenses with a camera, shooting up?

    Even computer bl
    022109This is meta: I usually shoot objects while looking through these. If I flip the metaphor, nurse is there a little me down there on the stand running around behind the lenses with a camera, shooting up?

    Even computer glasses have weird dreams.
    022209I think we forget how to see. We’re so absorbed with processing most of the time that we fail to register the weight of anything in front of us.

    “Oh, check there’s a car.”

    Not, approved “if I could have an exploded-view version of that floating around, I’d really have something.”

    This was a Christmas gift at some point in the past 10 years. Hand-inlaid wood wraps a triangular tube of mirrors with a glass marble (or more likely, half-marble) at the end.

    It reminds you that you are seeing.

  • #a363 :: Bronze and stone sculpture

    021109A leopard, viagra savaging a prone man.

    The man’s head has snapped off the sculpture, information pills which makes it extra-poignant.

    I love the way this is rendered, his spots suggested by little rings of bronze, his tail curled down between the man’s legs and shoulders hunched in a pose of Darwinian dominance.

    Fitting, for the week of Charles Darwin‘s 200th birthday.
    021109A leopard, viagra sale savaging a prone man.

    The man’s head has snapped off the sculpture, prostate which makes it extra-poignant.

    I love the way this is rendered, his spots suggested by little rings of bronze, his tail curled down between the man’s legs and shoulders hunched in a pose of Darwinian dominance.

    Fitting, for the week of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday.
    021009Around our house, cialis 40mg I make dinner one of two ways:

    1. Crank something out in a hurry on the stove, prescription slap it down in front of the kids and hope they don’t moan or spill all over their clothes as they forget to use their utensils;

      2. Or grill something big and munchy (think ribs or sesame-garlic chicken with corn on the cob) on the barbecue, hand out plastic utensils and grab a beer.

    But somewhere in the world, people are bunching up their good linen napkins in lovely napkin rings for fear of – what, I don’t know – having their napkins look unceremonious.

    I appreciate the culture of a good table setting. On our trip to London last summer, we got to tour Windsor Castle’s grand ballroom, where HM the Queen had ordered a state dinner prepared for 150. Picture that in gold dining utensils set aside 150 bone china plates on gold-plated chargers, each with little LED floodlights illuminating a hand-calligraphed nametag beneath this ceiling and you begin to get the picture.

    These rings (a loan from Dad) are part of the same Culture of Preciousness, about which I have bloviated a bit in the past.

    Precious. When you somehow need to feel special by making your guests feel special.
    021309It’s rare that an object straddles the razor-fine line between art and camp, between craft and kitsch.

    Yet here is a little man of bronze, order made to recline in the cup of a water-pocked stone.

    His blobby countenance, shop his Giacomettian proportions keep him from being a thing of manufactured cuteness and maybe lend him a bit of gravitas. Or, he could be just a quaint paperweight. I can’t decide.

    This is something my father lent to the cause by way of his collection.

  • #a362 :: Leopard’s victim

    021109A leopard, viagra savaging a prone man.

    The man’s head has snapped off the sculpture, information pills which makes it extra-poignant.

    I love the way this is rendered, his spots suggested by little rings of bronze, his tail curled down between the man’s legs and shoulders hunched in a pose of Darwinian dominance.

    Fitting, for the week of Charles Darwin‘s 200th birthday.

  • #a355 :: Paper whale box

    020409A cunning little paper box limned with cetaceans – cheerful dolphins, page medicine a playful sperm whale, ampoule a … what could possible be the apt adjective for a narwhal?

    From the previously mentioned collection of Dad.

  • #a329 :: Ferrero Rocher dark chocolate truffle

    ENLARGEHere’s a sweet chaser to yesterday’s grim ditty:

    The Ferrero Rocher dark chocolate truffle is a multilayered confection, ailment starting with a chocolate-sprinkled shell of chocolate-coated wafer wrapped around a rich dark-chocolate truffle encasing a slightly chewier core of chocolate so dark it seems to absorb light, check thought and reason.

    God these things are trouble.

    Good thing there were only three in the package.

  • #a324 :: Fuse-Bead eyeball

    ENLARGEMy son shambles in, diagnosis decease his hand covering his brow.

    “Dad, I hate to tell you this, but I’ve got a terrible case of pinkeye.”

    “What??? Oh, no. C’mere, let me see.”

    He turns and I see this fantastic Fuse-bead concoction clapped to his face.

    It’s still warm, fresh from the iron.

    I’m doubly thrilled – a) that he’s making a gift of it to me and b) that it’s not really fuckin’ pinkeye.

    In seconds, we’re both cackling like idiots.

  • #a310 :: Blown glass Indian chief

    ENLARGEWe decorated the tree a couple days ago, there and tonight we threw a massive Christmas party – I spent most of the day cooking ribs (27 racks) and gumbo (probably six or eight gallons) for 100 good friends, web colleagues and family.

    It was a swell time.

    At the height of it, diagnosis a toddler knocked a glass ornament off the tree. It shattered on the floor, an instant galaxy of pink shards … (more…)

  • #a304 :: Agitprop

    enlargeEven with the massive combined forces of a wronged and angry nation of voters, viagra order a reinvigorated Democratic party machine and some of the savviest campaigning in history buoying him up, hospital Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election was hardly the landslide it should have been.

    The count was 69.4 million to 59.9 million, which means nearly half the people who voted couldn’t – or wouldn’t – see the smarter option.

    It’s all blood down the drain at this point, but Obama’s mighty machine continues to churn, still collecting donations … for what? A $5 donation bought (at least for me) five of these stickers, designed by Shepard Fairey as a sort of ephemeral victory dance.

    The detail’s too small to really translate from a car bumper 20 feet away, but it’s all just confetti now that the economy is on fire, the Constitution has been kneecapped and the fucking corporate greedheads spent the past eight years robbing us blind.

    Much work to be done. What we “did” was get a chance to do it.

    I’m hopeful. You?

  • #a300 :: Homies grilled-corn vendor

    ENLARGELittle plastic characters from barrio life, check the Homies get as much flak as they get props.

    They were created by Mexican-American cartoonist David Gonzales, troche who clearly launched the collectible-toy phenomenon (120, patient 000,000+ figurines sold) from a place of respect.

    Maybe I’m just a stupid white guy, but this vendor’s face and stance seem to radiate the affection that was poured into his design.

    He was made in China, like the others, and I bought him in Chinatown – but I’m not even gonna try to unpack that.

    Seen elsewhere on HLO: “Chato”, the Homies pit bull.

  • #a298 :: Porcelain numbered sphere

    ENLARGETo be fair, approved this has pinholes in either end, making its utility as some sort of glorified golfball-sized bead more apparent.

    But I prefer to ignore the hole, and imagine it as a prop from Her Majesty’s weekly bingo game, held secretly in the rooms beneath Buckingham Palace.

    It’s made of porcelain and fired with a snappy-looking glaze.

  • #a283 :: Million-dollar bill bible tract

    enlargeThis fine object puts the specie in specious:

    Someone at the Christian organization LivingWaters.com worked very, information pills very hard on this piece of counterfeit. The four-color printing and gravure work are fine anough to pass the “holy, shit, WTF is that” moment after you’ve picked it up and still can’t believe it’s not money – that split second before you turn it over and learn the truth … (more…)

  • #a281 :: Cupcake topper

    enlargeMore than 500 million human beings live in absolute poverty. Right now.

    Their lot is not changing.

    More than 15 million children die of hunger every year. Starve. To. Death.

    How many children is that? Numbers are pretty meaningless when you’re talking about entire nations of people, try but do some math:

    Remember the faces of the kids in your own first-grade class? Remember the fat kid and the anxious kid? The punchy kid and the silly kid and your very best friend in the world who laughed when you ate paste? Now multiply the size of your own first-grade classroom by about 20 … (more…)

  • #a279 :: “supersurfaces”

    ENLARGEThis gem of an art book covers the crafting of complex 3-D figures from 2D materials using little but scissors.

    For some insane reason, see the sole available copy on Amazon is going for $212.91. I found a copy in the Hayward Gallery last summer for about 8% of that amount.

    And no, you cannot buy it from me.

  • #a275 :: Robotic hand

    enlarge“Dad, information pills check it out. I made a robotic hand.”

  • #a271 :: Silver Navajo bracelet

    ENLARGEWhen we were still a-courting, illness she and I drove 2, tadalafil 200 miles around the American southwest in a rented convertible in the space of a week.

    We slept beneath the stars and in seedy motels. We lolled in the open ragtop beneath towering mesas in Monument Valley, order and muggy midnight at Four Corners. We noshed, we joked, we fell deeper in love.

    We shuffled around Santa Fe’s old plaza and gawked at silver and turquoise and blankets and other offerings by Dineh (Navajo) artisans.

    And she bought me this gift. I’ve worn it daily since then (more than 16 years ago) – except for when I’ve had to have it repaired since the silver, under daily abuse, tends to fracture. Just got it fixed again – and I’ll hope it holds.

  • #a266 :: Yarn dolls

    ENLARGE(A guest post by my 9-year-old son)

    Dolls made out of yarn with wire armature and very small marbles for eyes. Kind of like voodoo dolls, link if you think about it. The types of figures: a zombie, a burgular, a devil,a spider, and a guy with some wierd hairdo. They’re not bendable or flexable, but they look cool if you hang them on walls. I collected my first four in England. Then I got one at a swap meet in Westwood. The first four were shaped like humans. The last one was a spider.