Dear AT&T,

Please take the money you shower upon the hacks at your advertising agency ( BBDO Worldwide ) and instead install more cell phone towers or hire more nerds or do whatever it’ll take to improve your stinkpie of a network. I can’t make calls from my studio in Redhook, Brooklyn so that’d be a good place to start.

love,
Tonky

Background:

2005-
Artist duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude finally realized “The Gates,” a massive ephemeral art installation covering NYC’s Central Park with thousands of yards of flowing orange fabric suspended from orange plastic gates.

The concept was 20 years in the making and was funded entirely through the sale of concept sketches/collages rendered by the artist.  In the words of the artist, “an expression of joy and wonder.” No corporate funds, no government sponsorship, just pure aesthetics ( open to argument of course )

2010-
AT&T steals the work to sell its snake oil to the masses as part of its sponsorship of the World Cup soccer tournament. Despite a disclaimer stating, “The Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude have no direct or indirect affiliation or involvement with AT&T” the advertisement is a straight forward pillaging of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s intellectual property.

Tonight Tonight,

Some of my work is in a group show called “Made in Redhook.”
The opening is tonight Sat, May 22 |  7-10PM

Lucky Gallery is located in Red Hook
176 Richards Street, Brooklyn, NY. 11231
GOOGLE MAP

In fact, all day is the Redhook area studio tour. So why not make it a day-long adventure?

http://www.brooklynstudiotours.com/

Come on by for free wine and mind blowing art.

-Tonky

Loving the work and new portfolio site by Brooklyn based artist, designer, illustrator and all-around-dude Mark McCormick.

Mark is Senior Designer at CRUNCH Gyms and so you’ve likely seen his work across every aspect of that brand’s collateral. Cool icons for web, murals, print, you name it.

The melted snowman on treadmill above makes me yearn for Spring (dare I say Summer?)

Take a minute to look through the great concert posters, personal projects, and other goodies at his website: http://markmccormickdesigns.roxer.com

Also he’s participating in “Thing a Day” at his other website. Good for a daily intertube fix:

http://nakedfowl.posterous.com/

-Tonky

Welcome,

There is a delicious show in the gallery at the airport (Truax Field) in Madison, WI that features photographs and rapid prototypes (3D objects “printed” layer by layer) by scientists from UW-Madison’s various research departments in collaboration with Tandem Press.

The exhibition text surveys the history of medical illustration and explains how “as early as 13,000BC, drawings of body parts aided Egyptians during the mummification process.”

The fancy colored 3d objects shown above and in the gallery below (click image to see larger) are upscale versions of such tiny molecules as DNA and RNA and also molecular motors that will some day propel themselves through our body to perform repairs and deliver drugs  like chemo to affected regions.

The grey electron microscope image of a tree-looking tendril is a “trichome” on a mustard plant leaf. These structures are what make a leaf feel “fuzzy”

The crystalline image shows nanorods – a material being developed for use in solar cells.

This show is stimulating beyond the aesthetic joys these images provide because we are reminded that we live in the future. These scientist are inventing tiny robots that will repair fatal aneurysms and new materials that will allow us to harvest sunlight for energy and thus avoid wars cause by lust for the buried sunlight that is crude oil.

-Tonky

Perfect packing snow in Prospect Park BKLYN today. We made a 7′ tall snow rabbit to bid adieu to 2009. See you in the future.

-Tonky

This is one of the more labor intensive works I’ve made recently.

The title: The American Diorama refers to my ongoing thought experiment imagining this country a million years in the future.

Whether or not we are around still, I like to imagine what the dioramas depicting the USA will look like in the museums of a colonizing civilization of extraterrestrials.

This panel is made of birch and the medium is primarily acrylic paint layered and resisted. With some added collage elements.

-Tonky

If interested, For sale on Etsy HERE

This is a rendering from my submission to the design competition being hosted by The NYC Department of Transportation in collaboration with the Port Authority of NY & NJ to transform the currently drab construction fence that lines the WTC perimeter to something a little more amicable to tourists and local gentry.

Gound Zero is the more colloquial name for the World Trade Center construction site, no doubt the most politically charged patch of land in the country.

Project Statement:
The organic super graphic meanders through an underlying colorful grid along usable sections of fence. The viewer identifies with the flourish and in it sees their own navigation of the city. In this way, the composition reflects the vitality of the bourgeoning downtown commercial and residential neighborhood.

The rebuilding has proven slow due to infighting between powers that be: Larry Silverstein (leaser of the site) NY & NJ Port Authority (owner of the site), and victim’s families, to name a few.

The challenge it seems is to find a development solution that properly honors the lives of the victims and that also utilizes that highly valuable downtown real estate in a way that is best for the city’s future. Is the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower really the best we can come up with? ( USA founded in 1776, get it? )

Proposals due Oct. 5 – Get yours done now! $7500 design fee.
Submit Here

Welcome,

Feast thine eyes upon some installation pics of a new work I recently completed at a private residence in Manhattan this week. These kind patrons commissioned a one-of-a-kind variation on my unraveling composition in chrome theme.

I’d say it is located in Soho, but it is above Houston St. and so I am not sure if you neighborhood purists would scold me for that. Let’s call it Snoho-Bowery-Village until further notice.

Anyone know a good searchable map to accurately distinguish NYC neighborhoods? I’m talking block by block precision.

-Tonky

Please pay a visit to the Tea Lounge in Brooklyn, NY to see my recent show The American Diorama. An alternate title could be Advetures in Laptopville. Dang do people love that free internet. Have a gander, drink a well-crafted beverage, and buy some art!

July 3 – August 3

837 Union St
Brooklyn, NY 11215-1308
(718) 789-2762

VIEW GOOGLE MAP

-Tonky

Ok I realized I was wrong to claim Sweden is totally godless after yesterday’s trip to Historiska Museet in Stockholm to see “Mary, the Dream of the Woman.”

Essentially they take a look at modern femininity through the lens of ancient religious icons and the work of contemporary artists, musicians, and dancers like Anne Hamilton, Eva Dahlgren, and Virpi Pahkinen respectively.

The sound environment is sublime and their thoughtful combination of old art with new art engages the effect the historical/mythology Mary has on our world and our notion of the female ideal. This show is important to see whether or not you believe in God.

Check out their website and translated press release HERE