Winkler + Noah Are Out to Get You

Here at DC we get all manner of submissions, which usually appear in the form of gaudy copper range hoods, vaguely grammatical musings on rugs, and other gross stuff we would never post from people who obviously do not read our blog. But occasionally, something wicked this way comes, and today is that day. When I opened the email from photographers Winkler + Noah, I thought to myself, mmm, this is Creepy McCreeperson, and our readers don't really want us to go there. Right? Right? But as I perused the web, trying in vain to find something SPECTACULAR to post for y'alluns, I could not get these pictures out of my hormonal little head. Behold:

I don't know. Maybe it's just because I am incubating a little tot of my own, but these pictures FREAK ME OUT. Winkler + Noah manipulated portraits of children for their series Puppet Show, and there's something about these images that reminds me of those horror movies where dolls attack their unsuspecting victims in gruesome ways, all while maintaining their charming, disarming wide eyed sweetness.

Holy Village of the Damned zombie kids! Please don't kill me....

Brains: it's what's for dinner.

So cute, but he will use those luscious lips to eat your face off in a heartbeat. Those soft, vacant eyes are just a ruse to lure you into complacency. Do not fall for it!

Besides fashioning an army of killer kids that will steal your soul and leave you with an unfortunately shaped cranium, Winkler + Noah have been busy at work on other projects that range from the merely dark and edgy, to the patently nightmarish.

I actually really dig these moody and twisted images of moonlit roads from their Darkland series. As long as the puppet kids don't jump out from behind the trees, I feel pretty good here.

And who doesn't love the animals? Awww, my own precious posessed fluffy makes exactly the same face right before she tries to scratch your eyes out. Adorable!

I like giraffes! This is ok!

Uh, that thing keeps tracking my movements across the room. Gives new meaning to the term "wild eyed." I think this horse is secretly in league with the zombie kids, and I don't want any part of that.

And then there's this. Sweet jumping Jehosaphat, Granny's got an ax to grind!

I told the retirement home not to send in any more help when she cries and complains about not being able to get in and out of the bath, or wants someone to fetch more decorations from the attic.

Last year she swore up and down that this Christmas would be so much better and I just wanted to believe her. Maybe next year will be different.

After all, would this face lie to you?

Belated Valentine

You know, every time I think that there could not possibly be one more piece of taxidermy in the art world and that the trend is, ahem, totally dead, something new pops up and makes me rethink the whole ordeal.

Emily Valentine uses the feathers from road kill, cat kill and lost pets to create these super-saturated pet pups.

I love their vibrant colors and the fact that each one has it's own sweet little expression.  

Here is Valentine with her work, isn't it crazy how tiny they are?

Recently, Valentine has been (cover your eyes!) trapping and killing the Mynah bird, which is a registered pest in Australia.  From what I've read, it sounds like she's doing good, and starting a dialogue through her work about animals and waste and pests and non pests and so forth.  But I really can't get past the fact that she kills them.  Bugs are pests, but I still politely shuttle them outside when they land in my house.

I know we have a few readers down under, what do you think about this Mynah bird?

For the rest of you, don't you think those puppies are adorable?

Happy Belated Earth Day!

I know I'm a little late to celebrate Earth Day, but I just woke up to some sweet treats in my inbox and I have to share. I've written before about how much I like photographer Eirik Johnson's work, so I'm pleased to show selections from his new portfolio of images called Sawdust Mountain, which is due out in book form this May via Aperture. Of his pictures taken along the Northwest coast, Johnson says, "SAWDUST MOUNTAIN tells the story of the tenuous relationship between industries reliant upon natural resources and the communities they support."

Johnson positions himself as impassive observer through his pale, withdrawn aesthetic. In his best images, judgment is superseded by the simple record. Many of his images are so timeless as to recall the 19th century photographs of the west and its imminent expansion.

The sense of scale lends itself to the awe inspiring sublime; to live and work in such an environment is to be dwarfed by nature itself.

And of course the rural Northwest has a contemporary mythos of its own. Home to such disparate characters as Kurt Cobain and the vampires of Twilight, its brooding darkness suggests an introspection not found in sunnier locales.

Perhaps most present is the great sense of industry, of struggle between nature and humanity, of the brute force necessary to eke out a living from the earth.

Although a solid wood table may cost a thousand dollars or more in a store, it's more than obvious that the money doesn't go to the loggers, that somewhere down the line retailers and middlemen eat up the profits, and that the people living closest to the land are left living hand to mouth.

Sawdust Mountain has an air of desperation and abandonment, much like that of another blue collar community, Detroit.

Beautiful, but sad. And I can't leave you on a Friday feeling down and out, so I have one more present for you, courtesy of DC reader awesomus maximus, Cristina.

So, speaking of natural resources, while it's hard to feel contempt for the loggers, it's somewhat easier to hate on fat cat oil execs who love nothing more than to chant the mantra, Drill Baby, Drill. And why not when there's gold in them there hills? And oceans? And arctic refuges? To commemorate their extraordinary greed, I present this golden oil derrick music box. What song do you suppose it plays?

Singing dolla dolla bill, y'all... Dolla dolla bill, y'all!

Have a good weekend, my special peeps. I'm off to Ikea to, uh, probably buy some stuff made out of wood. Or whatever Ikea "wood" is made from...