All about my amazing friends and family

I like to promote my friends and family and today I'm writing about Jeff Newcomer, my brother.
Jeff Newcomer is based in Minneapolis so I get to see him about once or twice a month. He helps out with the boys if they need to get picked up from school once in a while or if they need an extra hand at their Cub Scouts meetings.

Jeff is a great photographer with over 20 years experience on the job doing portraits, restaurant, food, events, and corporate imagery.

I'm currently working on his website, http://www.jrnewcomer.com. Also trying to improve his search-engine optimization. Would you believe there is another Jeff Newcomer who is also a photographer? The other Jeff has all the google top slots -- for now.

I'm still working on the jrnewcomer.com website, trying to develop a responsive portfolio for him in between doing some layouts and design jobs and chauffering the boys here and there.

Corporate Events Photography by JR Newcomer / Jeff Newcomer Photography Minneapolis

Small Ring Dishes

I love having a few of these around for vitamins, a few small chocolates, or earrings...

I make them by handbuilding pinch pots. I use a squeeze bottle to apply the black slip. They are fired at one of the fabulouse Minneapolis parks nearby (Fuller Park). A lot of our park buildings have ceramics facilities -- what a great city.

Here are some pics from the process.

Here are some recent pics that my brother took - he transformed by sunny dining room into a photo studio.

Most of these dishes are about 1-inch deep and 2.5 to 3.5 inches diameter.

Here's a pic from the day we shot the images - you can see how Jeff used white paper - he also put thin white curtains up to make the light more diffuse.  We decided to use Skittles for the pic, because they're more colorful and fun-looking than chocolate pieces.

This picture shows the dishes as greenware, un-fired clay.

I bought the small squeeze bottle with the metal applicator for applying black slip decorations from Continental Clay in NE Mpls.

This imagery of black line art is a common theme in my work. Here's a work on paper with acrylic and gold leaf from about 2003

Buy the small ring dishes in my etsy shop https://www.etsy.com/shop/kellynewcomer

Questions? Ideas? Contact me or leave a comment below. Thanks for viewing.

Tardigrades or Waterbears: Why they are amazing

Why tardigrades are so awesome...
Apparently not everyone has watched the Cosmos episode that featured the waterbear or tardigrade. Here's a link to a 30-second clip from the second episode of Cosmos (above) https://youtu.be/2I-PQxuPkjA

These little invertebrates live all over the earth and they are pretty amazing because they can survive the vacuum of outer space, being bombarded with all kinds of gamma radiation. Every other life form from earth would just die out there. But when International Space Station scientists put tardigrades in outerspace, they dry up into a little hard balls, then when brought back to earth and hydrated, the little suckers just come alive and start eating and mating!

Serious science from http://tardigradesinspace.blogspot.com/

"YES, indeed many of the tardigrades survived the trip in space, and a few of them became the first animals to return alive after exposure to both space vacuum and solar radiation ... the space vacuum and cosmic radiation did not affect their survival or reproduction at all. This was true for both Richtersius coronifer and Milnesium tardigradum. What this means is that these animals can either protect their cells from expected damage of the extremely dehydration impact of space vacuum, or that they can repair damage that arise in some way. At the moment, we don’t know which is true.

I carved a couple tardigrade lino-cut blocks for printing on blank books and blank cards. The initial tardigrade notebook I put on my Etsy shop was my biggest seller of 2015.

It's kind of cute. It has eight fat little legs. The mouth parts are weird, like some kind of alien, the tardigrade's mouth has a tube that pushes in and out vacuuming up its food.  I wasn't sure how to draw the mouth (which is also its anus).  I made the mouth cuter than reality -- simplifying it into more of an anemone or flower-like appendage. The point of the art isn't scientific, it's about adoring these little critters which are part of many earth biomes (and maybe they came from outerspace - theory of exogenesis: 

"Panspermia Hypothesis – the “seeds” of life exist throughout the universe (perhaps as extremophiles!). The Earth was “seeded” by life arriving from space (also called “Exogenesis”).

Quote above on Exogenesis and Tardigrades and other Extremophildes from U Alberta Biology Lecture http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/courses.hp/bio208/Lecture_Notes_files/Biol208_Lecture_8_Extremophiles.pdf 

Next: to get these items placed into nerd-friendly shops like science museums. Let me know if you have a contact there who I should contact to place some of these items. 

Posted by Kelly Newcomer, Jan. 2016

Kelly Computer and Mr Machine visit Hippie Modernism at the Walker Art Center

Thoroughly enjoyed the Walker Art Center's Hippie Modernism Exhibit.

Need to read this essay from the catalog by Hugh Dubberly and Paul Pangaro. Apparently Dubberly has the full text on his website (Yay, because I have so many books, I really don't want to buy anymore -- there's no more room.) http://www.dubberly.com/articles/cybernetics-and-counterculture.html

I had seen the Archigram show at the Contemporary in Chicago a few years ago (Archigram was a futuristic architecture group from England in the late 60s, early 70s) In this exhibition, I was introduced to similar groups  -- a few pics:

Mr Machine checking out the posters
Please excuse  the lack of detail regarding some of these works - My aim here is to preserve some of my inspiration and favorite works from the show.

 

Ettore Sottsass, from The Planet As Festival, 1972 , handcolored lithographs on paper (above)

 

Onyx, Parsec City, Mike Hinge 1968-1970 (above)

 

Sture Johannesson, The Aquarian Planetarium, Day and Night, I am You, Copenhagen, 1969, Screenprint, Lithograph, and offset print on paper. (above)

This one really reminded me of what Edouardo Paolozzi was doing at the same time. 

I love these things!

 

 Suitaloon 

 

Haus-Rucker-Co Mind Expander 2, 1968 (above) 

This was designed for two people to sit in

 

Ant Farm Black Van (above)