History Earned: Saint Arnold reppin' Astros gear

Houston Astros 2017 World Series Champions!!!

Just felt like the world needed a Saint Arnold Brewing Company / Houston Astros mashup and drawing it up was a perfect way to avoid cleaning my apartment! Recommended pairing:  Paul Wall's "World Series Grillz" on eternal repeat. Still riding that Game 7 high!

Reopening Etsy Shop with Custom Etched Glass!

 

tortilus.etsy.com

Buy My Paintings (PLEASE) Part Deux

Hey-o friends!

First off, thank you all for your kind words. Seriously, your support has meant a lot and I really appreciate it :)

"Caffeine" 10x14in

That said... Guess what time is? Time for me to beg you to fund my funemployment in exchange for paint splatters! wheeee! So if you want a painting, email me: cristina dot tortarolo at gmail and we can talk specs.
[For people who requested something last summer that I wasn't able to get to: I'm really really sorry- ended up getting a job and running out of time. If you're still interested let me know, I just don't want to make any assumptions.]

"Get In" 16x20in

While I started out mostly doing characters from movies I think I'm finally ready to move away from that. But whatever, who am I kidding, I'll do pretty much anything :3 Lately I've been illustrating quotes and that's been really fun. (You can check out past stuff here) Also anything from graffiti is fair game.

"Auguries of Innocence" graffiti

If you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what you'll want we can chat and figure something out. I'm just. that. desperate. :)

"Sound and Fury" graffiti

Rough estimate-wise, I'm thinking a $10 base + $5/hour. So depending on size and the complexity of the image it'll probably fall somewhere in these ranges:
~50in^2 $20-30
~100in^2 $40-50
~200in^2 $100-120
This is definitely something we can talk about more in depth via email per individual case. Just throwing around some general numbers.

"Doors of Perception" 8x16in

Lastly, I've decided to set up shop on Etsy, so that's where I'll be posting anything random that doesn't get sold. Heads up.

Thanks dudes! Much love,
tort

Specialization is for Insects

If anyone wants the PDF, I GoogleDocs'd it HERE.

Science is art, art science

—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know

I'm going through another one of those phases where I obsess over the people I want to be when I grow up instead of working on the steps to become them (like tracking down their address and social security information). Actually that's not quite fair, I have been trying to work on a fun side-project animation for about a month now but keep getting distracted by my job, responsibilities to my future, and fantastic animators who blow my mind open with their science-art.

First up: Candaş Şişman dives into the artistic side of math with F L U X.

Dedicated to the sculptor İlhan Koman, this animation explores new perspectives on his works "Pi, 3D Moebius, Whirlpool and To Infinity" with hypontic audio-visual textures. Remember Peripetics? Similar animation style, but overall F L U X is more fluid and less... strange.

(via Change the Thought)

Next: David Bolinksy's 2007 TED talk, The Inner Life of a Cell. He chats about truth, beauty and the exciting field of medical animation. You can can check out more of his studio's work on their website. Seriously Jeremiah, your dad is a bamf.

Now, I know I've been saying this a lot lately but how has someone not made a live action remake of the Magic School Bus series yet?! WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. I'm looking at you, Spike Jonze, for apparently not having any qualms rewriting our generation's collective childhood memories anyway. Wait, I take that back. The only person I would completely trust with my favorite book series is Michel Gondry. So you guys should to work on it together. Mmkay, good talk.

Last but not certainly not least, I present to you one of my all-time favorite animations: Procrastination, an unassuming masterpiece that perfectly captures how it feels to resist productivity at all costs. This is Johnny Kelly's graduation film from the Royal College of Art in 2007 and while it might not have anything to do with the science-of-art or art-of-science, I trust in your abilities to figure out how it's relevant.

Aaaaaand that's my cue.

The Sound of Surrealism

Isn't it fascinating how our brains have trained themselves to interpret reality? All we're doing is inputting vibrations from the environment. Somehow this assault of stimuli is translated into electrochemical signals and sorted into networks, popping out the other end as sound, color, and meaning. (It's magic! ...fucking magnets...)

After awhile we get pretty used to how things are supposed to sound, look and feel. I mean, we've built up a lifetime of experience to tell us what is or is not physically possible. And that is why surrealism rocks so hard. I like to think of it as the art of stomping on your expectations. Ironic, absurd, subconsciously extracted- call it what you will. Sometimes it means transcending reality by drawing inspiration from internal reservoirs (ex: dreams). Sometimes it means messing with the fundamental laws of nature (ex: melting clocks). Sometimes it means disturbing you on a fundamental level, forcing you to question what exactly it is that you've been experiencing all along.

So, here to wake you up from this perceptual operating system we call reality, I present Zeitguised, a 3D motion-design group, self-described as "the strange, obscure twin of contemporary zeitgeist imagineering." I found their videos browsing through Vimeo staffer's favorites (a very redeeming way to waste time, for sure).

This audio-visual candy comes from a six-act (but only three-minute) exhibit they aired for the opening of the Zirkel Gallery. It presents a hyperrealistic fusion of plants, human bodies, textures, sounds and architecture. Watch it fullscreen. With headphones. Relax let yourself travel to a reality controlled by sound waves and fueled with lysergic acid diethylamide. Delicious.

First up, the original Peripetics. And because I so love the way they describe themselves, this is an "installation of an irreversible axis on a dynamic timeline."

Don't worry, there's more : Peripetics Ex Machina features scenes, outtakes, and iterations of the exhibition that didn't make it into the final cut.

(and that is why I want to learn 3D modeling)

Other gems among their work include Room Zoo, commercials for the Toyota Aygo & Yaris TVC and Untitled Geometries: Booleay. They remind me a lot of ATTIK's work on the new Scion ad campaign, but that's a whole different can of worms (/blog post).

Honestly, I'm curious how watching these videos makes other people feel. After all, that's the best part about perception, maaaaaaan. Even when presented with the same stimuli, we all walk away with our own personal gut-feelings. Brilliant or nonsensical, you decide!

: : : : : Want MORE Zeitguised? Visit their portfolio, blog, or videos

And I've decided to make playlists again.Partly because it's fun to think of songs that are conceptually linked to posts and partly because I like documenting what I'm listening to. Unfortunately, seeqpod is dead and buried and took all of my previous playlists with it. So it goes. Cristina-from-the-future, this is for you.

The Sound of Surrealism

Alan Parsons, Beyond the Wizard's Sleeve, Chemical Bros, Lemon Jelly, MM MMM GOOD.

Oh Rauschenberg, You Elusive Beast

Visiting the Menil Collection always brings back good memories. Houston in the Summertime. Wandering the surrounding neighborhoods back when I didn't recognize the street names... Good times.

UNLESS THEY TAKE AWAY YOUR FAVORITE PIECE OF ART.

Which leads me to this post's

Bad News:

That big Rauschenberg from the back room has been replaced. (I know, I know, it's really embarrassing that I don't even know the name of my favorite. All I remember was that it was hard to remember and I to write it down somewhere after every visit. Yea, a lot of good that did). Honestly I'm a lot more torn up about this than I thought I would be, and I blame this on the fact that I CAN'T FIND IT ANYWHERE ONLINE. Seriously, anywhere. (It'd probably help a bit if I knew the name but that's not the point). I've been looking through artcyclopedia archives for about an hour, which in internet time is like fucking YEARS. Zipped through the first three stages of grief like nobody's business, getting hopelessly stuck on the fourth which I assume will stick around until I either FIND THE GODDAMNED PIECE or realize I've wasted an entire afternoon pining instead of writing up that Research Methods paper. I should go do that at some point.

Good news:

My desperate searching hasn't necessarily been in vain. Apparently by browsing through every. single. art. archive. ever. you turn up some pretty obscure works (whodathunk) So I present to you: Rauschenberg on Dante's Inferno.

Specifically, this one is Canto VIII: Walking around in the fifth circle of hell and Virgil getting denied entry into Lower Hell (a-thank you, Sparknotes). There's an entire gallery if 12th-century-literature-you-read-in-high-school-but-don't-remember-too-well is your thing.

Also, I found that there are a lot of places nearby-ish that have Rauschenberg pieces on permanent exhibition. Fieldtrip, friends?

Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur, R-berg count: 21

Downtown Houston MFAH, R-berg count: 3

Obviously, Menil Collection, R-berg count: LESS THAN IT SHOULD BE.

The Modern in Fort Worth, R-berg count: 2

And last but not least, Save the Date!

Sunday, June 6, 2010, 3:00 p.m local artist Nathaniel Donnett will be speaking on Robert Rauschenberg in The Menil.

: : : : : More Menil Programs

:::::EDIT:::::

I have the best friends in the universe! Charlotte found it!! The piece is called "Holiday Ruse (Nightshade)" and the only picture I can find of it is on this artblog. (Which does a great job of describing the museums and neighborhood in the area, by the way)

Now I just need it back.

plz k thx

Happy day after Pi day!

...

IT IS DONE.

for now.
I'll keep uploading things, but am ready to unveil it to the world!

Drumroll please...

MY WEBSITE (/portfolio)!

Go ahead: click it.

Let them eat crack.

This week's edition of Mild Obsessions is brought to you by British badass BANKSY:
a somewhat anonymous Graffiti artist from Bristol who specializes in satirical street art and drawing rats. Visit his site for more sTuFf: outdoor stencils, indoor installations, a video, a "gift shop" of downloadable images. Saweeeet.

"Pissing Guard"

"Artiste"

"Media" (My favorite)
"Let them eat crack."
You shouldn't mess with graffiti writers...

And just so it's out there: Houston has a pretty kickass street-art scene as well.
CHECK IT @ Marco From Houston's Flickr