Artist du jour: Shepard Fairey

I meant to put the art of Shepard Fairey on my blog for over a year, when I first became aware of him. Don't quite know what took me so long. I guess I needed a real life connection, like his up-coming show this weekend in San Francisco at White Walls. Apparently the show is already sold out! This guy has made an amazing career in the art/design world. Quite uncommon to straddle both worlds so sucessfully. He went to Parsons Design School and used Graffiti-Guerilla tactics with his Obey - Andre, the Giant campaign to catapult him to street-fame. His coup d'etat is of course The Obama Poster. He sells his designs on t-shirts, posters etc. on his own web site and in many young hipster boutiques. I love his patterns and the layering of patterns he uses on some of his pieces: very clever, very pretty and definitely catching the zeitgeist of vinatge and whimsy coupled with political criticism.

Window Stars

2 weeks ago I visited Ms. Searle's 7th grade class and brought in an art project that was connected to their learning about historical Islamic culture. We made paper stained glass stars, trying to replicate the beautiful and intricate geometrical patterns found in the mosaics of Islamic architecture. We talked about how their very advanced creation of patterns and arabesques was connected to their religion and the flourishing of science, particularly mathematics. This is another example that proves how close art and science are.Often people don't put the two together and actually think of art and science opposed to each other.
I also liked this project, because it is perfect for the holiday season without being traditional or leaning towards any religious holiday symbols. Its just festive and can be used by anybody.