Saturday, August 31, 2013

Pharaonic Decor

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Pharaonic Decor is a statue and furniture maker from Cairo Egypt. Drawing inspiration from ancient Egyptian culture he creates incredibly detailed antique style wonders.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Pharaonic-decor/164864900309076

Friday, August 30, 2013

Wiredrawn Creations

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Wiredrawn Creations is a mixed media artist from Sacramento, California. Repurposing items such as bullet casings and clockwork gears she creates a variety of creative Steampunk jewelry.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/WiredrawnCreations

Thursday, August 29, 2013

My Little Sweet-pea

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My Little Sweet-pea is a painter from Cornwall, United Kingdom. She is a self taught artist who offers personalized hand made canvasses, wooden plaques, clocks, pet portraits, murals, face painting, and even baby bump painting.

http://www.mylittlesweet-pea.co.uk/

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

For The Love of A Doctor

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Recently we had the opportunity to speak with Annabel Graham, the artist behind the Doctor Who themed jewellery shop Wearable Whovian Jewellery. We spoke with her about her creations, the effect the internet and social media have had on jewellery making and distribution, and tips that she has for new designers and crafters. 

Starving Artist: Why did you choose Doctor Who as the subject for your jewellery? 

Annabel: In 2007 I was inspired by a Doctor Who Confidential. I actually want to work in the behind the scenes industry of TV/Film, but getting there with two kiddies under 3 years old in tow was daunting. Focusing on my jewellery abilities, it became a tangible way to be part of that production buzz and develop my skills as an artist. I'm still working towards my goal, and having fun designing and making themed jewellery. I chose Doctor Who because of the passion for the show and the uber, ultimate goal to work on it one day. 

Starving Artist: What kind of response has your work gotten from fellow Whovians? 

Annabel: It's been quite amazing. I am increasingly humbled by their support – having fans is a bit mind-blowing at times. 

Starving Artist: How do you feel that the internet and social media sites have helped jewellery makers to reach customers? 

Annabel: Starting out, advertising is a huge cost and the risk is it wont work. Social media has been by far the best way to advertise. Banner exchanges, editorials, and word of mouth. Public forums offer that personal interaction, the face to face customer service for an online sales platform. It's an exponential thing, and it's just going to get bigger and more integrated into everyday. As artists we have to embrace the media, even if it scares us just a bit. 

Starving Artist: What tips would you give to someone who is new to jewellery making? 

Annabel: Start small, but just do it. Develop drawing skills and keep your hands busy. Your ideas are no less important than those people who you admire. Find a sales platform that works for you and stick with it. Spreading out over many sites is counter productive. Dot com websites are cheaper than you think. Copyright is so important. I cannot stress enough that to make inspired-by works it is necessary to find out 'what you can make'. Research what is actually public and don't be afraid to ask for permissions. 

 A huge thanks goes out to Annabel Graham from Wearable Whovian Jewellery for sharing her time and thoughts with us for this interview. To view her jewellery or find out more about the Wearable Whovian shop please visit their website at http://www.whovianjewellery.com/

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Dark Poetry Custom Tattoo Studio

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Dark Poetry is a body art and modification shop from Ramsbottom, United Kingdom. Specializing in portraiture, black and grey work, color realism, new school, and Japanese tattoo styles they can pierce or tattoo just about anything that you can imagine.

http://www.darkpoetrytattoo.com/

Monday, August 26, 2013

Dolly Rose

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Dolly Rose is an alternative model from Bristol, United Kingdom. Her beauty and style are unconventional and amazing. Integrating elements of underground cultures into her modelling, including graffiti and body art, her work exists in a genre and world all it's own.

http://dollyrose82.wix.com/dolly-rose
Photo by: Dark Flame Images

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Accidental Artistry

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Accidental Artistry is a visual artist from Edinburgh, United Kingdom. A mom and a science scholar she fell into selling her art purely by accident after sharing pictures of some of the paintings she created as gifts for family and friends.

https://www.facebook.com/accidentalartistry

Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Enchanted Locket

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The Enchanted Locket is a jewelry maker from Phoenix, Arizona. Heavily influenced by Steampunk culture they create amazing and unique made to order lockets and pendants.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TheEnchantedLocket

Friday, August 23, 2013

Daria Lvovsky

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Daria is a toy maker from Rehovot, Israel. Using needlepoint and a healthy dose of imagination she brings to life the images that inhabit her soul and would be more than happy to bring to life the ones inhabiting yours.

http://www.etsy.com/people/darialvovsky

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Legion

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Legion is a street artist from Cologne, Germany. The darkness of his paintings can be seen in both his choices of subject matter and the no holds barred style in which he represents them.

https://www.facebook.com/legionstreetart/

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

CreativeButterflyXOX

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Creative Butterfly is a wood crafter and designer from Rochester, New York. From custom wedding cake toppers to holiday decorations she makes unique and creative pieces for any special occasion.

http://www.creativebutterflyxox.etsy.com/

Monday, August 19, 2013

Matt Corrado

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Matt Corrado is a visual artist and designer from Washington, DC. Specializing in all things creative he designs and makes a wide variety of colorful wonders and also spearheads many art based organizations and projects.

http://www.mattcorrado.com/

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Ginny's Junk

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Ginny is a jewelry maker from Orlando, Florida. Inspired by unusual colors and textures, as well as both simple and elegant designs, she crafts jewelry that appeals to ladies of any age or background.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/GinnysJunk/

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Random Sketcher

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The Random Sketcher is a visual artist from Lancashire, UK. By sketching the world around him with a keen eye he captures moments in time that might otherwise be lost. While looking through his work one can feel his appreciation for the arts and respect for the unbending nature of the human spirit.

https://www.facebook.com/TheAnonymousSketcher/

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Poppy Sinclair

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Poppy Sinclair is a performing artist from Austin, Texas. Utilizing a wide variety of skills, including burlesque, Gogo dancing, and even human suspension, she never fails to put on an amazing show for her audience.

http://thepoppysinclair.tumblr.com/

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The Therapy of Art

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Recently we had the opportunity to speak with A New Day UK, an organization located in Blackpool/Lancashire, UK that aims to ensure that the outcomes of the Every Child Matters initiative are attained on a community level by providing a quality structure of assessment, training and fun. We spoke with them about their mission, the effect they have had on their community, and how art therapy has helped with some of their programs.

Starving Artist: Can you tell me about A New Day UK? What is your mission and how do you achieve it?

New Day UK: A group of eight women have joined forces to establish a St. Annes-on-the-Sea based Community Interest Group. A NEW DAY UK CIC was originally founded by local woman Dawn Armistead to encourage community engagement through creative activities in order provide solutions to community issues. Our mission is ensuring that the outcomes of every child matters are embedded in the community of Blackpool and Lancashire. We are all children as we all have parents. We aim to achieve our mission by working in association with others who provide high quality Health and Social care activities, assessment and training to a recognized standard.

Starving Artist: What forms of art education and art therapy do you utilize?

New Day UK: The debut project 'Hands Around The Family - A Fruitful Event' is a model of how we use art with therapy . The project which involves children, babies, grandparents, mums and dads having their hands cast in plaster, from which a fruit bowl will be created. Throughout the event fresh fruit smoothy experiments take place alongside discussions on how to use fruit to make delicious healthy drinks and activities undertaken as a family.

A New Day UK CIC recognizes that building and maintaining communities by helping families works best if it is fun. A New Day UK CIC wants to extend beyond the local area and support Lancashire based artists, musicians, health and youth workers and sports practitioners, with the hope of developing a national model for projects that can improve local communities that encourage local participation. All we want to do is get people together and create something that will be of real benefit. In short we want to give people something to do together that they can take with them, be it a work of art, a song, a new friendship or a sense of community and be proud of it.

Starving Artist: What kind of a response have you gotten from your community and how do you feel you've directly impacted the lives of the members of your community?

New Day UK: Vicky Wells, Strategic Interface Manager for Families, Health and Well-being is undertaking the monitoring and evaluation of this project and has said “A New Day are a truly unique and inspirational organization, combing arts and therapeutic interventions to improve health and wellness outcomes for children, young people and families they work with to support early intervention and engagement is phenomenal.” The ‘Hands Around the Family’ gatherings on Grange Park and Talbot and Brunswick, Blackpool have proved a real success. Not only did they attract far more interest than expected from others, it received tremendous feedback from the families that attended, several of whom are volunteering to arrange their presentation event.

We have impacted people in the community be giving them access to something they had previously not had the opportunity of doing, by building social networks, by raising creative aspirations and engagement in creativity as well as using it as a therapeutic outlet to discuss family issues and identify solutions
Starving Artist: What can people do to help out the New Day UK cause?
New Day UK: Anything – A New day UK works on your skill and self -identified goals of personal development. We also use a blended skills approach to teams that allow for best practice and creative development of projects. Spread the word, volunteer, identify what it is they care enough about to make a change too and work towards each day.

A huge thank you goes out to A New Day UK for giving us their time for this interview. to find out more or to get involved please visit their website at http://anewdayuk.com/

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Dzy Lnd

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Dzy Lnd is a visual artist and clothing designer from Birmingham, United Kingdom. Using Drip Dry techniques and hand drawn illustrations she prints very clever and colorful clothes and stickers.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/DZY-LND/156114394478738

Monday, August 12, 2013

Georgi Jones

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Georgi Jones is a designer, painter, and Fire Poi artist from Burlington, Vermont. With such a wide variety of skill sets, from crafting scale mail jewelry to spinning flaming swords, Georgi is a modern day renaissance woman. Her dedication to her craft can be seen in the quality of her handmade poi supplies, the detail of her paintings, and the cleverness in her jewelry and clothing designs.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/divinelightsofvt

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Marcy Horror

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Marcy Horror is an Alternative Fashion model from Austin, Texas. Heavily influenced by her love of Rock n Roll and Horror Cinema she tests the boundaries of modern fashion by combining dark content with an adorable and wild attitude. Her style has a forbidden allure and edgy approach that shatters the mold of conventional beauty.

http://www.marcyhorror.com/


Photo by Le Mew Photography
https://www.facebook.com/LeMewPhotography

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Super Awesome Bowties

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Super Awesome Bowties are bow tie and hair bow makers from Florida. With a wide selection of unique and cool designs, as well as accepting commission pieces, they can make just about any kind of bow tie or hair bow you can imagine at an affordable price.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SuperAwesomeBowties

Friday, August 9, 2013

The Fire Pit Gallery

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The Fire Pit Gallery are steel sculptors from Niles, Ohio. They specialize in making top quality, unique, and functional art that looks beautiful whether lit or unlit. Their pieces are so detailed and diverse that they have a custom fire pit that would look amazing in the backyard of any fire lover.

http://thefirepitgallery.com/

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Danielle Tunstall Photography

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Danielle Tunstall is a horror photographer from the United Kingdom. Her passion for horror and graphic design blend perfectly to express the monsters that exist in her beautifully morbid mind. With the goal of sharing her psychosis with the world she holds back nothing in her terrifying photographs. Her dedication to interaction with her fans can be seen frequently, most recently in the contest she is holding where she offers up her prints for free to five lucky fans.

http://danielletunstall.com/

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Outlaw Art

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F1nk-0ne is a street artist based out of Bristol, UK who has had more than his fair share of run ins with the law because of his art. Recently he talked with us about these experiences, how he discovered street art, and the state of the European art scene today.

Starving Artist: How did you first get into street art?

F1nk-0ne: I got into graffiti when I was about 12 years old. I got mixed in with a Bristol graff crew who painted a lot of trains at night. At first I would just follow everyone around and watch and pick up the techniques they were using, but then I started drawing out a load of ideas that I just felt needed to be painted. That's when I started hunting down abandoned buildings and practicing my can control and techniques before moving onto publicly visible walls.

Starving Artist: What are your thoughts on the European art scene, where it is now and where it will be in the future?

F1nk-0ne: At the moment the whole European art scene is in an awesome place. Every European country that I have visited seems to have great street art and it's becoming a lot more acceptable, which is great. About 90% of the work that I see abroad is incredible and it's all progressing at such a fast rate. Hopefully it'll only get better and the streets will all be really colourful, instead of small areas/occasional buildings where everyone paints. I hope to see it seen as the norm instead of the risky business that it is today.

Starving Artist: Where did your alias F1nk-0ne come from?

F1nk-0ne: It was actually a really basic concept. I had been painting under several different names over the years but when I stopped painting illegally and started doing my work on canvasses etc to sell I would just sign it with "Jimi" on the back. After a few years of doing this I started entering festivals and when you sign up they require an artist name so they can put you in the brochure and show where you're painting. I remember completing all this paperwork and then getting to the artist name section and panicking because I didn't really have one. After 10 minutes or so I was like "I really can't think of one I wanna use" and so I thought that I would kind of abbreviate that, change the spelling, and make it my artist name. So it went from "Can't think of one" to "F1nk-0ne" and it kind of stuck.

Starving Artist: In a previous discussion you mentioned that you had been arrested because of your art, can you tell me more about that?

F1nk-0ne: When I started painting years ago it was pretty much just an underground movement, unlike today where I have people paying me to paint shops, and because of this it was a lot easier to get yourself on the wrong side of the police. A lot has changed with peoples attitude toward street art since I started painting. All that I wanted to do when I was starting out was to get my name known around the city, whether it be on walls, rooftops, or vehicles. I would always paint with the childish attitude of "Fuck the police, I'm untouchable" and it ended with me getting locked up on several occasions. I have had my house raided by police on three separate occasions and there is nothing worse than having to sit back and watch as they tear apart your house in the hopes that they find proof that you painted a picture where the law says you can't. There has been run ins with the law since but never anything much. I mostly sell my work now and paint legal walls and festivals, at least that way I can make a living.

A huge thank you goes out to F1nk-0ne for sharing his time and experiences with us for this interview. You can check out his work at https://www.facebook.com/F1nk0ne.

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Always Anchors

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Always Anchors is a craft shop from Berlin, New Jersey. With a creatively hip style they hand craft everything from dream catchers to skeleton hair clips using top quality materials and a lot of love.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/alwaysanchors/

Monday, August 5, 2013

The Catt's Ugly Babies

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The Catt's Ugly Babies is a handmade doll maker from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Blending Gothic and Primitive styles she crafts a wide variety of eerie and beautiful dolls that would go well with even the most macabre of Halloween decorations.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/thecattsuglybabies

Sunday, August 4, 2013

The Lickers

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The Lickers are a 4 piece punk band from Indianapolis, Indiana. Inspired by early punk and grunge bands they create an infectious and raw sound filled with big, dirty chords and classic riffs mixed with sneering vocals and shimmering harmonies.

http://thelickersband.tumblr.com/

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Divina Denuevo

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Divina Denuevo is a leather bag and accessory designer from Vancouver, British Colombia. Using antique hardware and reclaimed leather her hand made pieces have a uniquely vintage style. 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DivinaDenuevo

Friday, August 2, 2013

Outlaw Heart

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Outlaw Heart is a plushie toy maker from Alberta, Canada. Whether you're looking for spooky skeleton sock monkeys, a funky felt octopus, or even a button eyed little Doctor Who they have you covered with their wide variety of hand made toys.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/OutlawHeartCreations

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Smash Garden

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Smash Garden is a jewelry maker from Cottonwood, Arizona. Incorporating nature into their handmade jewelry Smash Garden recreates the world around us in a stunningly detailed and creative way.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SmashGardenShop