California artist, Benji Whalen’s polymer clay works overlap art and craft and popular culture. His clay and fabric sculptures are absurd piles of human beings in fights with body parts sticking out. Optimism and pessimism, faith and dejection, humor and sadness are simultaneously present.
Whalen grew up among artists in a Vermont commune where he was exposed to an "art as sustenance" philosophy that still informs his identity as an artist. This "Hippie Totem" piece amuses me as I take off on a road trip to visit my free-spirited children.
The storm sirens are blaring, too loud for me to think. I’ll leave you to check out Whalen’s work on your own here and here. Thanks to Susan Lomuto for the link.
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Ed T. ,
Interesting work, thanks for the heads up. I like the Hippie totem pole (although the word ‘hippie’ was a media coined term to describe what is a diverse and intelligent subculture, anyways…) Great blog… -Ed
Jan Thompson ,
Wow, I was amazed to see baked canes for nail art. I still have my air brush from ages ago when I did my own acrylics. I may just have to give that a try just for the fun of it. A whole new market opened for cane makers. I already have some ideas for how they can use kaleidoscope canes for the ends of the nails……Jan