Cabinet

St. John’s Bible

St. John’s Bible is an impressive take on the illuminated manuscripts of the past. I must confess that I’ve had the desire to make something like this as well, but was deterred, rightfully so, by the amount of work and knowledge necessary to put it out.

Back in the 1990s, Donald Jackson observed the monks of Saint John’s Abbey processing with their Book of the Gospels for Sunday Mass, and he recognized the importance of “their book.” To create a Bible that would capture the beauty and tradition of centuries of liturgy and carry it into the future—that is the vision that united a calligrapher in Wales with a group of Benedictine monks in Minnesota.

It really is a work of art in its own right, and something I admire not only for its beauty, but its greater vision.

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Coralie Bickford-Smith’s covers

Coralie Bickford-Smith is a senior cover designer at Penguin Books, where she has created several series designs. She studied typography at Reading university and has recently been sharing her experience with students at London College of Communication encouraging a sense of play in the process of design.

Among the other benefits of having a permanent residence, being able to build a personal library is high on the list. I’ve always liked the way hardcovers look when you remove the glossy protective layer. This set is just perfect. Oh, and to be a cover designer at a publishing house is my dream job.

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Spaceman

One of dominant themes in my most recent sketchbook have been astronauts. I’ve been using them as a device to explore the space on the page, and try to achieve a sense of depth, sometimes with only a figure. I stumbled on this guy’s oil paintings and was blown away by how his work visualizes what my sketches merely suggest. I really love it all, and his non-spaceman work is great too. Look at more by visiting the link.

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Cercle et suite d’éclats

...in Cercle et suite d’éclats, Varini has taken on the challenge of working at the scale of the village, superimposing perfect circles on the town of Vercorin in the Swiss Alps. From inside the village, the graphic is fragmented and impossible to read, but from a nearby vantage point, the lines come together to form a series of rings.

Felice Varini has taken a town in the Swiss Alps and somehow convinced them to let him paint a giant optical illusion. I love this because everyone has played along. I love this because it is executed so well. I love it for its simplicity. What a great opportunity for everyone to share in a moment together.

View the link below for the full panoramic photo.

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Stenciled Buildings

EVOL is an artist who takes his love of stencil art to the streets of Germany and creates the illusion of buildings on electricity boxes and concrete structures dotted around local cities. He has since taken it abroad. The stencilwork is quite something.

This guy doesn’t just stencil, he does paste-ups too; different, but still good. I’m not as big on ‘street art’ anymore, but if there’s even a little thought behind it, I still get excited. He has some really good photos of some work on an abandoned soap factory.

If I saw one of these in the wild, I would do a really big tag on a nearby wall, then a little mini-tag on one of these.

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