Mocca Gallery

Imagine waking up, looking down at the foot of the bed, and seeing this… pretty sweet.

We have this ritual, whenever we fly, Deb buys a copy of Vanity Fair magazine. After she’s done with it, I go through it and clip out the really cool ads. High quality commercial graphic art kind of stuff. This time there were also some goodies from the in-flight magazine from Southwest Airlines. Here is what appealed to me on our latest trip. Mostly booze, real estate, and Cirque Du Soleil ads.

When I was a kid I decorated one entire wall of my bedroom with one huge map. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall. I found all the topographical U.S. geological survey maps of the local area, with our house in the very center. It was beautiful. Interesting colorful patterns when viewed at a distance, and fascinating detail up close. I was always finding some curious spot on the map that would prompt an adventure to see that place in person.

I’ve often toyed with the idea of doing that again, with a wall in my home office, or maybe in tile on the floor. Rather than take on an entire wall, I thought it best to do a 16×20 section first. Something I could frame, if it turned out well.

Recently I was looking at a detailed New York City map on Google. It was amazing, their graphical representations of the buildings is fantastic. This is perfect I thought. Plus, I could add collage elements of our recent visit, like theater tickets, and place them on the map right over the actual theater. Very cool. I also created a additional layer for the subway lines. These bright colored lines seem to hold the entire thing together.

Click here to see the full image. Can you imagine an entire wall done like this? I think it would be beautiful. I think if we ever moved to New York, I would have to do it.

I recently picked up a free magazine named 944 outside a small neighborhood restaurant in Las Vegas. The magazine is for and about people in new city centers like Phoenix and Las Vegas. It was a real eye opener.

The magazine was beautiful, very high quality, glossy and thick, similar to Vogue or Vanity Fair. Like New York fashion magazines, there were articles about the arts, celebrities and current affairs. But there were interesting differences in the advertising. Instead of ads for ‘things’ like a fashion designer’s latest wears – the ads focused on ‘lifestyle’, a youthful contemporary urban lifestyle. There were ads for nightclubs, restaurants, art galleries and inner-city condominium loft spaces. The copy I saw was published for Las Vegas, and the ads were mostly about the city’s nightlife industry.

I normally don’t care for fashion magazine advertisements, although I do admire their artistry. But I love these new ads, they have a gritty, hedonistic sensibility. What’s not to like?

You are thinking about words you are reading on a webpage I designed to display words that express thoughts I was thinking about a photograph that was taken of a sculpture that was sitting in a sculpture garden in an outdoor gallery in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in March of 2007.

At first I didn’t see the drawings on the surface. Then, when I did see them, I assumed they were made by the artist using paints that matched the color of the metal, as to be visible only when viewed at certain angles according to the light. How clever, I thought.

Then I realized, the surfaces were blank, but it was dusty and people were drawing in the dust with their fingers. It occurred to me that new layers were always accumulating, and the dust images were constantly changing. For some reason, I really liked this idea of a dynamic layer of anonymous art on top of a fixed layer of old famous art.