Life, suddenly, has become legitimately hectic. I need to book airplane tickets, I need to start packing up my stuff, I need to find a shipping company, I need to clean up, take pictures, and advertise for people to take over our lease. I also need need NEED, more than anything, to finish up my latest translation. I. need. to. do. so, so, so many things.

True to form, I have responded to this dire state of affairs by developing a whole slew of brand new, remarkably time-consuming hobbies. I’ve taken to roaming the streets of London between three and six a.m., all the while listening to stand-up comedy on my headphones and grinning at hapless strangers. I’ve started writing out elaborate get-rich-eventually schemes involving illustrated books for the ‘tween’ market and ostensibly ironic, decidedly kitsch ‘zines.’ I’ve created a chart detailing the wide variety, growing number, and surprising locations of the empty takeout containers littering my room. The list goes on.

This is not to say, however, that all items on the list were created equal; one activity in particular does definitely rise to the top, both in terms of sheer hours consumed and intrinsically addictive nature. Namely, tracking down and admiring artwork online.

It started out innocently enough. A month ago, a blogger I like wrote about a screenprint she had bought for her daughter’s bedroom. I clicked the link to the artist’s website. It was cute. This artist had links to other artists. Eventually, I ended up on http://www.ai-ap.com. And it was all over.

AI-AP stands for American Illustration-American Photography. Which is kind of a misnomer, really, because a lot of the best stuff on it isn’t… American. Regardless, it’s a crazy resource for finding interesting work by current artists and photographers. The size of the online catalogue is mind boggling — and it’s all work submitted directly by the artists themselves, who range from students and amateurs to industry professionals (ie. New Yorker cartoonists and celebrity photographers). Some of it is pretty bland, but a lot of it, a LOT of it, is cool enough to merit further investigation. (I should take a minute here to note that the site is called American Illustration, not American Fine Art. Much of the content is more editorial than conceptual, something that might turn off a true modern art snob. Funnily enough, it’s actually this very same… ‘accessibility’ that I enjoy most.)

The site is set up in such a way that you can click through representative works of (quite literally) thousands of different artists. The best part (or worst, really, if you happen to be, say, my impatient editor) is that 99.99 percent of the time, if you just google the name of an artist or photographer who strikes your fancy, you can find their online portfolio. I usually just keep two browser windows open side by side, one with AI-AP and one to google artists.

It’s been, overall, a rewarding experience. It is such a pleasure to just click my mouse a couple of times and be able to see original, beautiful work by people all around the world. At the same time, it’s all a bit overwhelming. I mean, there are just so MANY talented people out there.

Ever since I was a kid, any afternoon I spent moseying my way through an art museum inevitably became an afternoon fraught with a great deal of conflict. I always left feeling humbled, exhilarated, depressed, inspired, worthless, challenged, and somehow more… alive. I know that sounds overly dramatic and contrived, but it’s true. I’m usually a master at keeping myself numb and sarcastic, so the smallest hiccup in that arena can get me pretty worked up. Luckily, this psychological rollercoaster never actually comes up very often because, quite simply, I am a lazy pile of poo. I always mean to go to museums and galleries, but just the thought of the crowds and travel are usually more than enough for me to rationalize staying housebound.

In one fell swoop, the discovery of this online community has removed my physical laziness from the equation. Now I can sit at my desk, wandering through a never-ending barrage of images, turning myself into an absolute wreck. Click. ‘I could do that. What am I doing with my life? I should start painting again and set up a portfolio and join my fellow compatriots!’ Click. ‘Oh my god, that is aMAzing. I could never do that. I need to get real and accept my place as a dabbler and just serenely admire the greatness of others.’ Click. ‘That looks just like something I sketched in 1999! This is clearly my true calling.’ Click. ‘Wow.’ Click. ‘I need a drink.’

AGHHHHHHHHHHH.

Right. I’m done now. I should do some actual work and go to bed.

So how was your week?



For those of you who have no desire to sift through thousands of images but do have a passing interest in illustration/photography, I’m going to start a section in my Links page for some of the artist portfolios I like best. To start things off, the image I used for this post (the man-erina on the beach) was poached off the site of a New York based digital photographer named Bob Carey. He’s not actually one of my favorites — you have to dig around a bit to find the better pieces — but I do quite like a couple of his photos.

In my last post I used a collage by Tez Humphreys, a young British dude based in Leeds who is actually very nice — I know this because I emailed him about buying some of his stuff. That whole deconstructed collage look is not for everyone, I know, but I happen to really like it, and I know how hard it is to pull off. I ‘dig’ his use of negative space.

I’m definitely going to start using more images from my adventures in this crazy new world on this blog, and regardless of where I get them, I pledge to start properly referencing image sources from now on. I’ve been very very bad about that.