Lori Nix

Lori Nix creates amazingly intiricate dioramas which she then photographs. Here are just a few examples of her work.

Lego Sculpture

Am looking forward to seeing this at the National Building Museum:

"WASHINGTON, D.C.— Using the LEGO® brick as his medium, architectural artist Adam Reed Tucker has given some of the world’s most iconic landmarks an unexpected makeover. His towering interpretations, which soar up to 18 feet high, will be the centerpiece of a new exhibition opening at the National Building Museum this July. LEGO® Architecture: Towering Ambition will feature 15 of Tucker’s large-scale artistic models, which at times incorporate up to 450,000 LEGO bricks. The exhibition will provide a new, detailed look at the intricate design, engineering complexity, and sculptural form of famous city buildings such as the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, and the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Opening July 3, 2010, the exhibition will remain on view through September 5, 2011."

“As an artist’s medium,” says Tucker, “the brick is not initially thought of as a material typically used in creating art. But as an architectural artist, it lends itself perfectly to my applications just as paint to a painter or metal to a blacksmith. I first and foremost do not view my models as literal replicas but rather artistic interpretations that capture the essence of their sculptural form.”

(from the museum's press release)

Thunder Lizards

Eureka! I have found my calling(s)! There is the (s) because my vocation is four-fold:

1.artist
2.interior decorator
3.teacher
4.museum diorama maker

If someone wants me to decorate their living room with a dinosaur tableau, then that would just be ideal. This week I went to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum end enjoyed the various dioramas, such as one in which a T-Rex goes in for the kill. Here's a detail (sans T-Rex):

Speaking of ferocious animals, I was substitute teaching for a second grade class this week. Because I was teaching in Spanish, I realized that I have better Spanish vocabulary when it comes to paleontology than when it comes to reprimanding children.

We read a short nonfiction piece about dinosaurios. Then I had each student draw a specific type of dinosaur, dino-appropriate foliage, or the like. We put it all together as a glorious hallway poster:

you can tell that I made the volcano (I did go to art school... I mean, look at that fantastic lava flow)

In the Dollhouse

Believe It Will Happen, Bridget Sue Lambert

Keep Your Schedule Pretty Full, Bridget Sue Lambert

I love the work of DC artist Bridget Sue Lambert. Her photographs of dollhouse interiors and vignettes with figurines comment on relationships, love, loss, and memory. I recently got to meet her at her studio and see her impressive trove of dollhouse props and people. So cool!

Here's an interesting article on midcentury modern dollhouse furniture devotees.
From one of the profiled collectors:
Finally, on the dollhouse theme: when I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam a few years ago, it was amazing. I thought the art was so beautiful that I almost cried. Amidst the Rembrandts, Vermeers, and other wonders is the Dolls' House of Petronella Oortman. This house (or one like it) is important in In the Image, a novel by Dara Horn that has dollhouses as a recurrent motif. I'll try to find the part of the book that describes the house (far better than I could).

From the Rijksmuseum website: "Seventeenth-century doll's houses were not children's toys, they were a hobby [among wealthy women]... This house is remarkable in that all of the components are made exactly to scale. Petronella ordered miniature porcelain objects from China and commissioned furniture makers and artists to decorate the interior."

RijksmuseumDolls' House

Toys

For a while I was using toys in little "semi still life" paintings. I'm not interested in painting them anymore, so I decided to take a photo of my collection and then put them away. One of the pinnochios is from Italy, one from the Czech Republic, and I got the red doll and camel in Egypt. It is hard to paint toys well and I was, appropriately at the time, advised not to do so.

"Carmencita Playing" by Antonio Lopez Garcia, a painting I like a lot, has toys in it. I love those little chairs and how Carmencita's back is to us, she's in her own world.