My favorite etsy artists, pointblankdesign

Let me introduce you to the vibrant and lively art from Sara's etsy shop, pointblankdesign. Music, monsters and girls with guns! This shop has it all. My favorite piece of hers is this portrait of Woody Guthrie, This Machine Kills Fascists. Woody painted that phrase on his battered acoustic guitar, because he firmly believed that his music could change the world. That's why Woody is one of my lifelong heroes, and why I love this print so. The piece captures that strength of art, character and belief so well.

If you're in the mood for monsters, my favorite is Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera. Chaney was another one of those fully committed, amazing artists. What he did with just his face and his movements in silent movies was more convincingly frightening than 97% of the horror movies made today with outlandish CGI effects. Sara's profile says that she loves breathing life into familiar images. With her use of modern color and composition here, she takes an iconic horror film character and electrifies it. Gloriously ghoulish.

Shooter has a girl and a really big handgun. I love the contrast of the feminine bubblegum pink aura surrounding the strong and fairly violent female figure. Sara uses stencils in her work, along with bright acrylics and spray paint. The combination here gives you the clean, graphic lines and attention-grabbing hues of an advertising poster, combined with an unsettling image. She doesn't call the shop pointblankdesign for nothing, people.

Let's wrap up with Bob Dylan. Why? Because it's my blog, and I like to get Bobby in here as often as possible. This terrific portrait gives me one more excuse. There's a graffiti element to this piece that I love, along with the white mist coming off Dylan like an electric charge.

Take a tap dance through Sara's shop. Frankenstein is there with his bride, along with the coolest Miles Davis, the most volatile Sid Vicious, and the swankiest Rat Pack. What a cornucopia of brightly colored fab.

CD's I can listen to without hitting skip: Bringing It All Back Home

You know I kind of have a Bob Dylan thing, right? This is my favorite Bob Dylan album, Bringing It All Back Home, from 1965. This is the album where Bob first went electric. The A side was acoustic, the B side electric, and at the time that was apparently a big hairy deal. Bob had been one of the leaders of the folk movement, so his use of an electric backup band caused folkies to go insane and call him a traitor. Did they listen to the B side at the time? Because it's amazing. He had grown tired of the whole "folk music hero" tag, and reinvented himself with this album.

This work is a testament to three components of creative inspiration: amphetamines, nicotine and youth. I don't know anything about the first on that list, but the words on this album just bubble over in a manic, surreal fizz. It's almost impossible to keep up with the language here. It kicks off with "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and I have spent most of my adult life trying to sing along with that song word for word without missing a single one. Still hasn't happened, but attempting it while driving always makes me giggle. Plus, the line "Twenty years of schooling, and they put you on the day shift," has been my personal motto for years.

Stuck smack in the middle is probably my favorite Dylan song of all time, "Mr. Tambourine Man." Also a glorious spill of beautiful words, this song is so lyrical and winsome, it always sort of wells up inside of me. Bracketing the CD at the end is "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue," one of Dylan's amazingly caustic breakup songs. I've never quite gotten over the line, "Yonder stands your orphan with his gun, / Crying like a fire in the sun." Beautiful.

In the middle, you get romantic songs ("She Belongs to Me"), silly songs ("Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"), and political songs (the unbelievably fine "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," which gave me another of my favorite life mottos, "He not busy being born is busy dying"). Dylan doesn't get much better than this.

To truly get the whole effect, check out the 1967 documentary, "Dont Look Back," a chronicle of Dylan's 1965 tour of the UK. It's worth it for a couple of scenes--one with the elfin and fey Donovan exchanging songs with the wired and urban Dylan, and the other with Dylan in a verbal sparring match with some poor Englishman. Guess who won that one?

Also, you get the great "Subterranean Homesick Blues" on dropping cue cards bit with Allen Ginsberg in the background with a big walking stick. Cooler than cool. I saw this movie as a young child, and it had a great impact on me. Fun game: Try and count how many cigarettes Bobby smokes throughout the movie. Hint: It's a whole lot!

Shelter from the Storm treasury!

Yep, I am officially a Treasury addict! My theme for this one was the line from Bob Dylan's song, "Shelter from the Storm": "Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm." You get cookies, beautiful mugs for coffee, and a cat. What more do you really need?
You can find it here, for a little comfort on a cold and rainy night like tonight.

My favorite etsy artists! Lakeillustration

Oliver Lake is quite a talented fellow, with a great gift for capturing the quirks and personae of our popular cultural icons. You all know that I can't get enough Alfred Hitchcock, so imagine how delighted I am by this fabulous black and white portrait of the directing master. You recognize this face instantly, but this portrait captures both the darkness of his work and the humor of his personality. Also, there's something about this print that reminds me a bit of a fingerprint from a crime scene, and isn't that apropos?








Ah, the genius of the young Robert DeNiro in Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Truly one of the most brilliantly disturbing films I have ever seen in my life. Isn't the color of this print marvelous? The acidic daisy yellow with the stark black, the intensity of Travis Bickle's gaze. The entire message of the movie is captured in this one image.











And this portrait of Beat Daddy Allen Ginsberg. Howl changed the literary world, with its reinterpretation of Walt Whitman's style. Ginsberg was truly one of the kindest, most talented writers of his generation. He believed that his love and his writing could change the world for the better. Lake's print captures his effusive spirit and warmth. Compare it to the DeNiro portrait's starkness. There is a similarity of style, but the way Lake handles his subject is entirely different, as the two figures could not be more opposite.







Look at this lovely, haunting landscape, House Where Nobody Lives. It's ghostly and gorgeous, and reminds me of the American Depression era, for some reason. The vaporous trees, the abandoned car, the encroaching darkness of the periphery. Even the house seems to have a facial expression. So beautiful.





And we can't leave this post without a Bob Dylan reference. "I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours" comes from Dylan's song Talkin' World War III Blues from the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album from 1963. A fantastic quote turned into a print that reminds me of old time advertising posters. Wouldn't this be beautiful hung over your bed?


Honestly, I could list Lake Illustration's entire shop here. The prints run the gamut from Jack White to Virginia Woolf, Bettie Page to Johnny Cash. Vibrant colors, familiar faces, unusual landscapes, memorable quotations--Lake Illustration has it all.

Check out Oliver Lake's shop on etsy:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/lakeillustration

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, parts 29 & 30

Welcome back! I'm creating a piece of jewelry for each line from Bob Dylan's song, "Tangled up in Blue." Line 29 goes like this:


"She lit a burner on the stove, and offered me a pipe."


As long as the stove was lit, I thought we'd toast marshmallows and make smores. The charm on this bracelet has a campfire with a pair of marshmallows over it. The bracelet has marshmallowy pearls, graham crackery and chocolately painted jasper beads, and blue and brown glass nailhead beads. Mmmmm. . . smores.

Line 30:
"'I thought you'd never say hello,' she said, 'You look like the silent type.'"
Oh, this one was tricky. The bracelet has a little dog tag charm that says "Joy," for her joy when he said hello. It also has butterflies, Celtic knots, and brilliant and bright blue, green and yellow glass beads. When in doubt, throw the book at it and see what sticks!
Stay tuned.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 27 & 28

Welcome back to the "Tangled up in Blue" experiment, where MAB, your intrepid jewelry designer, is making a piece of jewelry inspired by each and every line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Now, when we last met, I couldn't find the little scrolly things to use as question marks a couple of lines back. Don't you know, as soon as I stopped searching madly for them, they reappeared. So, I used them for line 28, "I must admit I felt a little uneasy when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoes." The scrolly thingies also work as shoelaces! Hurray! I added some sweet little light blue and clear crystals in front of them, for sparkle factor. I love sparkle, can you tell?

Line 28 brings us back once again to the hook: "Tangled up in Blue." Here's a double strand copper bracelet, a "tangle" of two strands, with bright little cobalt tricorner glass beads. I used two larger swirled copper beads, and a copper toggle with a pansy on it. I love cobalt blue with copper, two very complimentary colors together.

Only two stanzas left! Yowzah!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 25 & 26

Line 25 goes like this:

"She was standing there, in back of my chair, said to me, 'Don't I know your name?'"

Now, I have these lovely, scrolly little metal doohickeys, and I was going to make question mark earrings with them. However, I searched high and low and never could find the doohickeys. These song lines with no real imagery are a little hard to capture in a piece of jewelry, but that's why this is a challenge, right? Or else I would have just made up a song about jewelry to make jewelry about. . . not a bad idea, now that I think about it.

Anyway, these little spirals springy thingies substituted for the spiralling of a question. I know, kind of lame, but there you go. I suspended light blue Swarovski crystals inside them on a head pin. The earrings are very cool and different; I just don't think the represent the song line very well.

Oh, and last night I found the scrolling things, stuffed in under my mass of jump rings. Sigh.

Onward to line 26:

"I muttered something underneath my breath, she studied the lines on my face."

Lots of faces and shoes in this song. Can I just say that I love the way this little necklace turned out? The light blue glass beads have brown "lines" through them, heh heh. I took a small oval Art Nouveau styled pendant charm and hung it in front of a blank oxidized copper Vintaj rectangle. Vintaj makes the grooviest metal beading supplies on the planet Earth, by the way, but they tend to be a bit pricey. I added some yummy chocolate brown glass pearls, and here we have a sweet, fairly simple little necklace.

I think we're starting to make some serious progress with this experiment!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part 24

The big news is, I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the epic song, "Tangled up in Blue," by Bob Dylan. We have reached line twenty-four, and it goes like this:

"Later on when the crowd thinned out, I was just about to do the same. . ."

So, I made a bracelet that "thinned" out, from one strand to two. It has a variety of aqua and turquoise blue Czech glass beads, and white and chocolate brown glass pearls. Mmmmm, chocolate. I love chocolate brown and turquoise blue together. The center bead is a beautiful faceted Czech glass rectangle.

Onward!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part 23

I think we might be nearing the halfway point, patient readers! So, I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." We have reached line twenty-three, and it goes like this:

"I just kept looking at the side of her face in the spotlight so clear."

I remembered these white glass face beads that I had tucked away in my stash, as well as this assortment of turquoise blue gorgeous beads, threw in a couple different shapes of gold beads, and we have a quirky little bracelet. Yay!

Gosh, I so love making jewelry. Can you tell?

And why is Blogger so weird? It's eating my spaces between paragraphs. My layout in the new post box is all jacked up. . . I'm going to just do my thing and let blogger fall where it may.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Parts 21 & 22

Not only can MAB not seem to count to twenty, I also completely forgot to add number 21. So, we had two number nineteens. . . ah, well. Please forgive me.

I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by every line from "Tangled up in Blue" by Mr. Bob Dylan. On to numbers 21 and 22, both wonderfully dangling earrings.

Line 21 is the chorus again, "Tangled up in blue." I took these lovely brass oval stampings, with a "tangle" of filigree, added some marbelized light blue glass hearts and twisted gold glass bugle beads, hung them from French hooks, and, presto change-o, earrings! They have really great movement to them.

Line 22: "She was working in a topless place, and I stopped in for a beer."

Stripping and beer. Okay. This could have branched off in various directions, but I went with tassels.

I took some shiny silver vintage chain, and made a sort of fringed tassle with different lengths that gradually get longer. Then, I added some opaque aqua glass blossom bead caps and some rhodium tulip-style bead caps. Eye pins, jump rings, stainless steel French hooks, and, voila! Earrings.

These are fab and unusual, with terrific dangle-ishisness.

Word of the day: dangle-ishisness.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Nineteen

No, not part nineteen hundred. Just part nineteen. I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from Bob Dylan's "Tangled up in Blue." Line nineteen goes like this:

"I seen a lot of women, but she never escaped my mind, and I just grew. . ."

I took this sweet Art Nouveau cupid connector and added some silver vintage chain and a heart-shaped skeleton key charm to it. Then I used these bright blue foil-lined glass beads and ivory glass pearls. The result is romantic, colorful and light.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Nineteen

Yes, it's the next piece of jewelry inspired by the next line from the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Line nineteen goes like this: "But all the while I was alone the past was close behind."

These earrings look like the past to me, with the lovely aged coin-like disks and bits of vintage chain. For the necessary pop of blue, I used these lovely Swarovski crystal bicones in Caribbean blue opal. The color on these little glass beads is amazingly dramatic for such small beads. You can always count on Swarovski for fabulousness. Swarovski may actually mean "fabulous" in Czech. . .

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Eighteen

I am just knocking them down, huh? I'm making a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the epic Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." And line eighteen goes like this:

"Working for awhile on a fishing boat right outside of Delacroix."

I've had this marvelous little articulated fish charm for awhile, swimming around in my charm box. So, I put together a mix of ocean blue glass beads, including more fish, for a bracelet packed with glorious fishy joy!

Articulated, by the way, means "with pivoting parts: made up of two or more sections connected by a joint that can pivot." I thought it meant well-spoken and with an impressive vocabulary, but the fish does not speak. He only bends and wiggles in a great fishy way.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Seventeen

To keep everyone in the blue loop, I'm fashioning a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the wonderful Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." And here is line seventeen:

"So I drifted down to New Orleans where I happened to be employed. . ."

A couple of things about this line--first off, I always thought that he was singing, "where I was lucky enough to be employed." Secondly, a little strange that I made this bracelet on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I've had lots of intriguing little coincidences going on lately.

So, I used the oceanic blue pressed glass beads from CaladoniaMarch on etsy. Then, I rooted through my charm stash, looking for New Orleans related items. Here's what I found: a crown for the King of Mardi Gras, a corss, a scallop seashell, a really lovely detailed cross, a scaly chameleon, a spooky voodoo skull, a cherub, and a tiny fleur de lys.

I visited New Orleans awhile back, and fell in love with the city. It felt more European than American, and I would love to return some day, to revisit. Unusual and charming.

The Tangled up in Blue Experiment, Part Sixteen

More blue! More blue! I'm making a piece of jewelry inspired by each and every line of Bob Dylan's song, "Tangled up in Blue." I have to say, this is my favorite piece yet to come out of this little experiment.

Line sixteen:

"But I never did like it all that much, and one day the axe just fell."

I didn't have an axe, but I did have this super cool vintage penknife that's been rattling around in my pendant box, just waiting for its moment in the sun. The knife is very old, but it does still open. I didn't check the sharpness, because sharp things and I sometimes do not get along. The sharp thing always wins.

I used this delicate filigree pendant behind the penknife. They looked interesting together. And then I added the turquoise glass beads and the yummy gold crystals. I'm kind of loving this one. It's quirky, but still pretty.

Stay tuned for more blue.

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Fifteen

Here we are at line fifteen of the Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by every line from the song.

Line fifteen goes like this:

"I had a job in the great north woods, working as a cook for a spell."

I have to confess that my idea of cooking usually involves a can opener and/or a microwave, so I went with the north woods angle. Plus, I had this great little brass bear charm that's been calling to me. He's a bear from the north woods, you see, possibly a grizzly bear, and he's so cool. I combined him with these bright blue to green to white rectangular table cut beads from Caladnoia March on etsy, and some sweet little brown freshwater pearls.

He looks like a happy little bear, doesn't he? Like he just raided a really great dumpster somewhere.

The "Tangled up in Blue" experiment, part fourteen

I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each line from the Bob Dylan song "Tangled up in Blue." Have I mentioned that this is a really long song? Okay, just checking. So, we've reached the hook again, line fourteen: "Tangled up in bluuuuue. . ."

I put together this sweet little two strand bracelet, with aqua and blue glass beads, hearts, and crystals, a little bit of silver and a sprinkling of white glass pearls. Two strands = tangled up! Blue = blue. See, it's just that easy!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part thirteen

Yay, it's lucky number thirteen. So, here's the lowdown on this whole crazy thing. I'm creating one piece of jewelry to correspond with each line of the wonderful Bob Dylan song, "Tangled up in Blue." Some are a bit more representative than others.

And lucky line thirteen goes like this:

"I heard her say over my shoulder, 'We'll meet again someday on the avenue. . .'"

I just picked up this compass motif silver charm this weekend. I paired it with a coppery aged Vintaj blank round pendant, and thought that looked kind of groovy. Then, I used those rectangular table cut glass beads from CaladoniaMarch that I'm so into right now. These are an incredible oceanic blue hue. Throw in some little coppery faceted crystals and some dark twisted bugle beads, and we have a necklace. Oh, and a silver mermaid toggle.

Onward, into the blueness!

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, part twelve

Yesirree, we are up to an even dozen pieces of jewelry inspired by lines from Bob Dylan's song "Tangled up in Blue."

Line twelve:

"She turned around to look at me as I was walking away."

I have to admit that I considered something eye or eyeball related for awhile. Then, I thought about a lovely pair of long chandelier earrings. You know, when you're wearing long sparkling earrings and you turn your head. How they catch the light, and perhaps the interest of someone looking at you.

I took a lovely pair of brass floral, art nouveau stampings and added cobalt blue crystals and French ear wires.

So pretty. So much better than eyeballs, too. . .

The "Tangled up in Blue" Experiment, Part Eleven

Yes! Part Eleven, I say! It's an epic undertaking. I don't know why I didn't do something a little shorter, like say "Whip It." Anyway. . . I'm creating a piece of jewelry inspired by each and every line from Bob Dylan's song "Tangled up in Blue." As you can see, we have reached line eleven. It goes like this:

"Split up on the docks at night, both agreeing it was best."

I have to say this is my favorite piece yet. It has an anchor for the docks. It has a moon for the night. It has a puffy heart for being tangled up. And does it have blue? You bet your sweet Bobby Zimmerman it has blue! Bright and beautiful aqua blue crystals, as blue as the sea by the docks where we split up at night. I think this one is fab.

And so we keep on going!