HMK : iF : Irregular Frequency Mystery Stream : Episode 0301 : Electric Vibes

Release Date: January 18th, 2013

Previously on Irregular Frequency...: iF: Mystery Stream: Vel Volla

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Migwell

Barriba Cantina HMK Art + Audio Preview

Barriba Cantina HMK Art + Audio Preview, a photo by Howdy, I'm H. Michael Karshis on Flickr.

Read all about it! HMK + Barriba Cantina San Antonio Express News

New HMK Art+Audio - Especial Day Drinking Preview
3-7PM Wed September 12, 2012

Barriba Cantina on the beautiful San Antonio Riverwalk

Luchar Por Tu Derecho A La Fiesta!
(Fight For Your Right To Party!)

Muchas Gracias Hector Saladña!

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HMK

RIP Chuck Ramirez

Way back when in the late 1990's, I was honored when my friend and colleague Chuck Ramirez called me one morning and asked if I wanted to do the invite for the Blue Star Arts & Eats - my answer - Totally! The only thing was.... it was due to the printer the next day.

I remember drawing this little dude, my caricature of Chuck, while I was on the phone with him going over the details of the invite. I finished the illustration, bought some props: vino, daisy and a pear at HEB (save the receipts!) brought everything downtown to Robert Lopez's photography studio and shot it. This is one of the polaroids I saved from the shoot.

Thanks to Chuck this was my first of 3 invites for Arts & Eats and I can still hear him sincerely digging the final piece and thanking me profusely for making it happen with such short notice. That next week there was a nice bottle of wine from Chuck at my office along with a thank you note. Thank you Chuck. Thank you for your inspiration and generosity over the years - I miss you already man!

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HMK

Parties & Perfume

I stopped by Galeria Ortiz last night on my walk over to my buddy Rob and his wife Lisa's place over in Olmos Park and was treated to not only some very cool new works by artist Franco Mondini-Ruiz, but the cup cakes and champagne made for a very nice pitstop!


Galeria Ortiz Contemporary is located at 4026 McCullough, just one block north of Hildebrand, across from Julian Gold. I'm not sure how long the Parties & Perfume show is up, the site had no end date info, but if you're in the neighborhood Galeria Ortiz is most definitely worth the stop - check it out!

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HMK

Ghost in the Machine

Check out the amazing work of Erika Iris Simmons, an artist specializing in using non traditional media... old books, cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards, etc.


In her latest series, Ghost in the Machine, she brilliantly showcases a number of portraits of musicians made out of recycled cassette tape with original cassette. Also included are portraits made from old film and reels.

Nice stuff: Ghost in the Machine.

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HMK

The Art of Philip K. Dick Covers

Thanks to the children of Philip K. Dick, world-famous science-fiction writer and creator of futuristic worlds such as Blade Runner (based on Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and Total Recall (based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale), we've got an amazingly comprehensive site dedicated to his life work of futuristic novels, stories, and essays.



Check out the amazingly varied interpretations of his novels via this ever growing collection of over 650 PKD book covers contributed from fans around the world.




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HMK

Thanks to good folks over at Design Observer.

Daily Drop Cap

hat's Right. The Daily Drop Cap. An ongoing project by typographer and illustrator Jessica Hische. Each day (or at least each WORK day), a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap is posted for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere.




To use a Daily Drop Cap on your site or blog, follow the instructions in each post and read about the usage limitations. Enjoy!

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HMK

Tonight!

An Evening in Provence Art Sale Preview Tonight 5:30 to 7:30 @ Southwest School of Art & Craft. Featuring brand new work from artist Henry Stein, Gary Sweeney, Chuck Ramirez, César A. Martinez, Cynthia Myers among a host of other great artists + one of my latest speaker pieces, above, Tread Water 061.

I'm excited and honored to be included with such amazingly talented folks - hope you can make it - it's early and free!

Southwest School of Art & Craft, 300 Augusta, in beautiful downtown San Antonio, Texas.

More info: Southwest School of Art & Craft.

And a special grande muchas gracias to Lydell Toye at a US Signs!

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HMK

Nixie Concrete

The vintage Z560M Nixie tubes, used in former East-Germany in the mid 20th century as numeric displays, were the inspiration for the design of Daniel Kurth's Nixie Concrete.

The Luxembourgish designer enclosed the shiny orange Nixie tubes in a reinforced rough concrete body which can optionally be wall mounted. The strength of this design lies in the application of 'retro technology' and its interesting combination of components and materials, where one is easily fooled as to what is old and what is new. All electronic components in this fully functioning prototype are assembled by hand.

Unlike other clocks that make use of Nixie tubes, this one does not read like a traditional display. Kurth experienced that clocks - regardless of their esthetic value - sometimes form a disturbing factor in one's house, since being constantly reminded of the time can be stressful. By rearranging the display, one can enjoy the playful interaction between the 6 different tubes without realising straight away what time it is. A short focus will however allow you to use it as a 'normal' clock. The time in the picture reads 10:23:54.

More on Daniel Kurth and his awesome Nixie Concrete Clock.

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HMK

Illustrations by Emma Kelly

I'm really digging the fresh and energetic style of London illustrator Emma Kelly, I think you will too: I Like To Draw Things.

Really nice work.

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HMK

Marco Brambilla: Civilization

The Standard Hotel in New York, recently declared to be the Municipal Art Society's Best New Building of 2009, has an incredibly stunning HD video installation located in, of all places, their elevators!

Civilization, a chronological video sequence using over 500 looping clips to simulate the “journey” from hell to heaven plays on high-definition monitors which are seen through a viewing port in each of the elevators at the hotel and move according to the direction of the elevator.

It's awesome and I can't wait to check it out in person later on this year!

Do yourself a favor and check out Civilization by Marco Brambilla and Crush, Toronto.

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HMK

Heinz Edelmann

Sad news about Heinz Edelmann, he passed away yesterday, July 21st 2009. Edelmann was 75. The photo above is from 1968.

With Heinz Edelmann, the graphic design community looses one of its most innovative practitioners. During his long and prolific career he has created groundbreaking work in the fields of Animation, Advertising and Publishing.

Among the best known of his creations are the illlustrations he did for twen Magazine and Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazine, his book designs for the publishing house Klett Cotta and his posters for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German Broadcasting).

Then there is of course the one chapter in his oeuvre that has made him known worldwide: his stunningly inventive work on the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine.


Edelmann also designed many book covers, including the first German edition of Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings,' and won a contest to design the mascot of the Expo '92 world fair in Spain.

More here: AGI. RIP Heinz.

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HMK

Unnatural Habitats

Rethinking the Modern Zoo. I like this idea a lot more understanding that it's only a temporary installation.

Should institutions dedicated to natural sciences depict a world untouched by civilization as a matter of history?

The Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna has chosen the opposite approach: this spring its animals share their pens with an installation created by artists Christoph Steinbrener and Rainer Dempf that reflects the degradation of animal habitats.

Check out the slideshow over at SmartCompany.

That Deli type is awesome by the way!

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HMK

Wicked Cool Junk Art

Speaking of really wicked cool stuff made out of junk...

Here's how artist Paul Loughridge of Lock Washer Design introduced himself in an interview for Aether Emporium:

"My name is Paul Loughridge (pronounced Lock-ridge). I was "given" the name Lockwasher by a classmate in metal shop way back in high school. Since my name was so often mispronounced and lockwasher fit...Lockwasher Design seemed the appropriate name. I'm a designer, sculptor, assemblage artist, junk dude...crackpot.

I'm a product of the late '50's and "happy to be - #1. totally taken (married) , B. a father to an incredibly talented "tweener" daughter and third. really enjoy creating new stuff out of other/old stuff" I am and have been a graphic designer, ice cream scooper, trade show manager, 2nd place winner in the 8th grade softball toss, event coordinator, teribull speller, store merchandiser, dishwasher, auto parts driver, prep cook, landscape designer, mattress builder, donut shop helper, auto mechanic, country club snack bar nerd, bonsai fanatic, toy collector and frequent finder of found objects...not necessarily in that order."

Genius. Read the entire interview over at: Aether Emporium and checkout mucho mas images from the mind of Lockwasher.

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HMK

New Math

Genius.

More proof that after all is said and done there is always more said than done.

More New Math.

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HMK

Adam Haynes Paintings & Illustration

Holy cow this is some amazing work!

Nice stuff Mr. Adam Haynes!

And dig these sweet illustrations Mr. Haynes just completed as part of the global Vertigo campaign for Nike.



You know you want to see more: The Adam Haynes Portfolio.

Love it.

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HMK

iPhone New Yorker Cover Art

Wow! Mr. Jorge Colombo drew the above June 1st cover scene, of a late-night gathering around a 42nd Street hot dog stand, entirely with the iPhone application Brushes. Because of the smears and washes of color required by the inexact medium, it comes off as dreamy, not sharp and technological.

“The best feature of it is that it doesn’t feel like something that was done digitally; quite the opposite,” said Françoise Mouly, the art editor for The New Yorker. “All too often the technology is directed in only one direction, which is to make things more tight, and this, what he did very well, is use this technology for something that is free flowing, and I think that’s what makes it so poetic and magical.”

Read the rest over at the New York Times and make sure to check out more of Jorge Colombo's iSketches as well as iPhone artist Xoan Baltar I found over via flickr, they're really pretty amazing.

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HMK

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

Absolutely brilliant.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre.

Bravo Mr Wilhelm Staehle! Bravo!

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HMK

You rock Designer Observer, thanks again.

SXSW 2009 Rocked!

Dude...

Man, it's Wednesday and I'm finally feeling relatively focused and getting back up to speed after seven exhilaratingly exhausting fun filled days up in Austin for this year's SXSW.

I drove up from San Antonio with my buddy James Lewis from Rackspace on Monday afternoon March 16th for the Rackspace Cloud Lounge Party intending to stay for a only few hours with plans to come back up on to Austin Thursday to check out the music.

Long story short, thanks to my friends Todd Morey and Shane Whitefield for hooking me up with primo nice places to crash, I ended up staying an entire week serving as the interim band manager for Manhattan Love Suicides, one of my new favorite bands all the way from Leeds, UK!

More on that later though...

The timing could not have been more perfect. My main work machine crapped out just hours after meeting a small mountain of deadlines enabling me to take a well deserved, guilt free break!

Above and beyond all the live music, film and interactive activities at SXSW there are also some amazing things to check out during the day including my Top 3 Free Must See List - The Austin City Wide Garage Sale, The Texas Guitar & Record Show and the API (American Poster Institute) sponsored Flatstock 20 Rock Poster Show.

I scored the above prints, The Boxer, The Bowler and The Mountie at Flatstock from artist and super cool dude Micha Smith.

And don't be bummed if you missed out on SXSW this year - you can still check out the Austin Record Convention's Spring Show, right around the corner on April 3rd, 4th and 5th!

Ok, back to reality for now, mas SXSW goodness to come!

That's Right,

HMK

Man Gains Right to Art Confiscated by Gestapo

Wow. It's kind of humbling when you consider how far we've come as a species.

This is truly an amazing story to me.

BERLIN, Feb. 10 -- A court ruled Tuesday in favor of a Florida man seeking the return of his family's collection of rare art posters, worth an estimated $6 million, more than 70 years after the works were confiscated by the Gestapo and then given to a German museum.

Peter Sachs, a retired airline pilot from Sarasota, Fla., had sued the German Historical Museum in Berlin for custody of at least 4,200 rare posters depicting movies, cabaret shows and political propaganda from the early 20th century. The collection had been assembled by his father, Hans Sachs, a Jewish dentist who fled Germany in 1938.

Continue Reading: Man Gains Right to Art Confiscated by Gestapo.

I can't wait for the movie and the book archiving the posters!

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HMK

Thanks to the Washington Post Foreign Services' Craig Whitlock.