Joe Mills

Vlog for This Week

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On the Set

Image courtesy of On the Set

Just something silly I saw on Flickr. I like how these were made as actual television sets and not just the set as we would see on television. It adds another dimension that we do not often think about. Plus, the attention to detail is very nice. They have captured the dirty floor and the pictures on the wall in the above Cheers set.

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The Puzzle Apartment in New York

Image courtesy of The New York Times

I will not be able to do this story justice, so I implore you to read the article here. Anyway, I will do my best. A family had bought an apartment on the Upper East Side in New York City. They had gutted it and basically gave a young architect carte blanche to design the inside. Unbeknownst to them, he basically created a home wth a game or puzzle embedded within the living space. Here’s a small excerpt from the article:

They are living in a typical habitat for the sort of New Yorkers they appear to be: an enormous ’20s-era co-op with Central Park views (once part of a triplex built for the philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post), gutted to its steel beams and refitted with luxurious flourishes like 16th-century Belgian mantelpieces and custom furniture made from exotic woods with unpronounceable names.

But some of that furniture and some of those walls conceal secrets — messages, games and treasures — that make up a Rube Goldberg maze of systems and contraptions conceived by a young architectural designer named Eric Clough, whose ideas about space and domestic living derive more from Buckminster Fuller than Peter Marino.

The apartment even comes with its own book, part of which is a fictional narrative that recalls “The Da Vinci Code” (without the funky religion or buckets of blood) and “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” the children’s classic by E. L. Konigsburg about a brother and a sister who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and discover — and solve — a mystery surrounding a Renaissance sculpture. It has its own soundtrack, too, with contributions by Kate Fenner, a young Canadian singer and songwriter with a lusty, alternative, Joni Mitchell-ish sound, with whom Mr. Clough fell in love during the project.

Now…this is an inspiring story. I think this would be so amazing to create somehow. Unfortunately, I do not have the man-power or resources to create it on this scale, but it could possibly be created within one room of a house like a child’s room or a basement. Regardless, I wish I could wrap my head around connecting a multitude of different pieces together to create something on such a grand scale. That kind of thinking really takes drive, initiative, creativity, and like-minded indivduals to join with you. Alright, I’m done gushing….

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Treme

Since I spent a good bit of my spring break with The Wire boxed set in my DVD player, I have been craving to see David Simon come back to television. Hopefully, the wait will not be much longer. I had heard about his Treme project last year, and he has just finished shooting the pilot in New Orleans. The hope is that HBO will pick it up for a full season after seeing the final project. While there seems to be some parallels between Treme and The Wire since they both examine one city, I am not sure if there is a better way to examine many of the issues surrounding our country. I was telling someone recently that I have begun to like television more because it gives you the ability to dive incredibly deep into a full-fledged story that, in some ways, is not possible in a movie. Unfortunately, we are so programmed to think of television as something to be devoured in bits and pieces. I think it works much better when you can follow a story over a number of episodes and seasons. That is why The Wire is successful. So, here’s hoping that HBO picks up Treme so Simon can tell another story…

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The Creative Process

My most recent video blog…I’m not sure if I’m getting the hang of it, but I’m going to keep trying…

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Characters at War

My fourth grade students are currently working on character design as part of a project, and I recently came across an exhibtion that Pictoplasma put on a couple of years ago called Characters at War. I was mostly intrigued by the design of the exhibition since the students artwork will be displayed in a similar way when everyone is done. I’m just glad to see that it really works as a way to display characters. I’ll have to post their work here when we are all done.

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NFL Draft Glossary

Image courtesy of ESPN

I am a sucker for lingo related to a specific profession because it is amazing what people come up with to call different items. I mean, why can’t you just say exactly what it is? It should explain why English can be such a difficult language to master since there is so much slang. I even created a game about Diner Lingo.

Anyway, the NFL Draft is in a couple weeks, and ESPN put together a list of football related terms. (You need an Inisder account to view the whole thing or see a partial list in ESPN the Magazine.) Anyway, here are the explanations for the above illustrations:

CIRCUS ELEPHANT
Huge lineman with quick feet and good footwork.

BUBBLE BUTT
Thick, heavy backside and thighs; a sign the player has a low center of gravity. A good thing.

LONG STRIDER
Running back or receiver whose gait is marked by long, looping strides, like those of a track runner. Such players are sometimes deceptively fast but also have a hard time cutting or running tight routes.

That…is just the tip of the iceberg…

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Cup Stacking

It seems like there should be some inspiration here for a piece of artowrk, but I just don’t know what it is. Regardless, I think this cup stacking is pretty amazing. I think it is funny that cup stacking is actually more difficult as you get older…

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Today’s Video Blog

The one good things baout this video blog…if I stick to it, I might be more likely to make sure I spend at least sometime every week working on artwork. It is tough to keep the momentum going sometimes….

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My First Try at a Video Blog

 
video management, video solution, video streaming

I’m hoping to capture my creative process through a video blog. I created my first one yesterday, so we will see what happens. I’ve been wanting to do something like this with my students, but I haven’t figure out the best method yet. I guess this is my way of trying to figure it out.

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