Art Here and Now
Daring creativity happening now around the world
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Categories: Dance, Featured, France, Martial Arts | 4 Comments

When you watch cats, birds and flying squirrels jump, land and glide from place to place without a second thought, rarely injured, with great grace and efficiency, most people think this is simply encoded into their species. This ability comes from their animal form, nothing more.
Some people though see this movement as something to [...]

Categories: Art Life, Dance, Drawing and Illustration, Featured, Galleries, Government, Outer Space, Painting, Performance Art, Philosophy | 1 Comment

I have all kinds of crazy dreams. I’ve had one of them for a long time, and I’ve never told anyone about it until now. Even for me it’s a nutty one. My secret dream was to be the first artist in space.
I had such a strong desire for this, I think, [...]

Categories: Art Life, Environmentalism, Featured, Painting, Photography, The World | 6 Comments

This post is part of Blog Action Day.
(Outside the norm, today’s post has intermixed store links to more easily show environmentally friendly art tools and materials.)
Art is still mostly a hand made thing. As most things hand-made, materials of the craft used to be natural – wood, clay, marble and natural pigments. But [...]

Categories: Cinema, Featured, Music & Sounds, United Kingdom, United States | 2 Comments

I was born after the 1960s. What I know is only from stories and grainy video, comprised of many heroic and striking moments, modern stories not unlike King Arthur’s Court or Hamlet. The difference is, these are modern stories from not that long ago, and you can see their effects clearly all around [...]

Categories: Art Life, Cinema, Featured, Philosophy, Photography | 1 Comment

I read a New Yorker story recently about the cult of Leica cameras. Some of the most famous photographs in history have been taken with Leica’s, and photographers love them. But at $4,000+ a pop, you’d better really love it, and you’d hope it takes a great photo.
…as the camera has evolved over [...]

Categories: Art Life, Artforms, Featured, Food and Agriculture, Multidiscipline, PhilosophyComments Off

On large farms, sometimes only one crop is grown. Many times these crops are corn or soy beans. These crops are more lucrative because they are used in many processed foods and may be subsidized.
Small farms, on the other hand, often have many crops that rotate and change over the course of a [...]

Categories: Big Business, Cinema, Czech Republic, Documentary, Featured, Installation Art, Marketing, Performance ArtComments Off

In the late ’80s, Czechoslovakia became a democratic state, and in 1993 peacefully separated into two countries – the Czech Republic and Slovakia. With democracy came capitalism and advertising, and with capitalism and advertising came The Hypermarket. Hypermarkets are the world’s superstores, selling shoes and spinach, pipe wrenches and pumpkins, all you would [...]

Categories: Featured, MultidisciplineComments Off

Over the last five years, artists Miranda July (most widely known for making the film Me and You and Everyone We Know) and Harrell Fletcher have provided 63 art recipes or assignments as part of the project Learning to Love You More. Over 5,000 people have completed assignments and submitted them to the web [...]

Categories: Cinema, Dance, Featured, Music & Sounds, Painting, Performance, Philosophy, Photography, Sculpture, Sports, Television, Theatre | 2 Comments

I went to an afternoon of flat track roller derby, and even though it’s a sport, I could care less who won or lost. A lot of us were there to be entertained. Roller derby is dramatic and theatrical. Lots of players and whole teams have strong characters (whether real or mythical), [...]

Categories: China, Featured, Installation Art, Language, Sculpture, WordsComments Off

I’ve been trying to learn Japanese this year. I’m making progress but it’s definitely slow. While I took Spanish in high school, my brain didn’t shift the way it is now. As I started to write and learn these brand new characters, I started noticing all the things I take for granted, [...]

Categories: Cinema, Documentary, Featured, IraqComments Off

Each scene rolls on quietly with poetic light and ambient sounds, with the few words spoken coming from the Iraqi people themselves. Each of the three parts of the film focus on one person, and simply shows what they see and hear, as their voices sparsely speak about their lives. The first person [...]

Categories: Controversy, Drawing and Illustration, Economics, Featured, TechnologyComments Off

I used to flip through the Artist’s Market when I was in middle school. Back then, the prices paid for illustrations from books and magazines seemed extravagant. I didn’t understand until later how little artists get paid for their time and skill.
How about $.69 per hour?
Mechanical Turk is an Amazon project which hands [...]

Categories: Cinema, Dance, Featured, Music & Sounds, Theatre, United StatesComments Off

The Producers and Hairspray both began as movies, became musicals, and then turned into movie musicals. I have little doubt the new musical Young Frankenstein will follow the same footsteps.
It’s still in previews and has its flaws, but mostly it’s a lot of fun. From some really funny moments to a giant Frankenstein [...]

Categories: Economics, Featured, Japan, Painting, SculptureComments Off

International art collectors are warming up to a new breed of daring Japanese artists that are no longer beholden to Western styles.
Mentioned in the article is a Contemporary Arts Fund. I’m not sure how well known this is, but there are funds (like mutual funds) created by financial organizations that own artwork instead of [...]

Categories: Cinema, Featured, Moving Pictures, Philosophy, Short Films, Television, United States | 3 Comments

A common view of people involved in meditation of any kind is that they’re wimpy. They live in the clouds and forests among birds and silence, stay in big quiet stone buildings and don’t do much that actually affects the world. They’re just not realistic. “That’s nice and everything, you’re not hurting [...]