The Farce That Is “The Wall”.

Ryan Zinke (Twitter).

Ryan Zinke (Twitter).

Just when you think rethuglicans really could not possibly go lower or more regressive, *bam*. Ryan the fink Zinke has a problem with the stupid wall – placing it on U.S. land would cede the Rio Grande, oh no wtfbbq!!!11!1 The solution? Doesn’t seem to be one right now, outside of making sure endangered animals are endangered right into extinction. It seems the only way to keep the Rio Grande would be to either steal land from Mexico, or build it on Mexico’s land and claim it for uStates. Or something. Jesus Fuck. There’s that Colonial mindset at work.

E&E News reports that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke talked about the logistics of building a border wall while speaking at an event held by the Public Lands Council this week, and he said the Trump administration didn’t want to build the wall on American soil because it would mean ceding the entire Rio Grande river to Mexico.

“The border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall,” Zinke said. “The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall? We’re not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we’re probably not going to put it in the middle of the river.”

Zinke didn’t elaborate on how the wall would get built if it wasn’t located on America’s side of the Rio Grande or in the middle of the river, which implies that it would be built on the Mexican side of the border.

Elsewhere in his talk, E&E News reports Zinke said the Trump administration will seek a waiver to the Endangered Species Act so it can build the wall in jaguar habitats that are for now protected from “destruction or adverse modification.”

Via Raw Story. And, Ryan fucking idiot Zinke has now said there’s no such thing as clean energy. Nope.

Nemo’s Megalodon! And Giant Squid! And Cycloptopus! And…

Oh, the work of Nemo Gould is so many things. Wonderful. Awesome. Imaginative. Out of the Box. Fun. Every good thing. His outlook relates very much to mine, and I love that, but it’s hard to see how anyone wouldn’t take joy in his work. Also, he has a thing for tentacled beings, what’s not to love? He even did work for the Monterey Aquarium!

Nemo Gould.

Nemo Gould.

The Megalodon is Gould’s latest work, a 16-foot-long salvaged fuel tank from an F-94 bomber plane’s wing. The shark has working propellors for fins, and a tail that glides back and forth ominously. A cutaway on the side reveals various boiler and control rooms, each with their own delicately installed moving parts. It’s packed full of tiny human figures and whimsical creatures alike, all in mid-task as they operate their predatory underwater vessel.

The project took Gould a little over two years to finish. “I’d wanted to make a cutaway vessel for years, and had been putting objects aside for that purpose,” he explains. “I know it sounds backwards, but the tank was the last missing piece.” He found it at an aircraft salvage business, and from there he was able to assemble the final sculpture.

Gould says his process is a lot like solving a puzzle. “I maintain an extensive collection of things that I feel strongly about one way or another,” he says. “The challenge is to find which of the million potential relationships between these things could lead to the best art.” More so than his skills as an artist, machinist, fabricator, woodworker, et al., Gould says that “maintaining a vast, organized library of seemingly random objects is the real trick.”

Megalodon 2016 (extended) from Nemo Gould on Vimeo.

Just two more, and it’s killing me to not post all of them, and there are so many, so you’ll have to go visit!

Nemo Gould.

Nemo Gould.

Cycloptopus is a fearsome hybrid of two of my favorite monsters, one real, one mythical.  This creature is particularly dangerous because of its irritability.  You’d be irritable too if you were powered by an open flame and your body was made of wood.

Materials:

Radio cabinets, rocking chairs, fake fireplace, decorative clock elements, cabinet knobs, wall paper, chair parts, lamp parts, wheel hub, motors, LEDs.

Nemo Gould.

Nemo Gould.

I have been fascinated by the Giant Squid for quite some time. A real life, terrifying mystery of the deep.

I have posted a step-by-step essay of this piece with lots of process photos over at Instructables.com

Materials:

Street light covers, belt wheels, railing sections, brass fireplace hardware, candle sticks, drawer pulls, chandelier parts, wood planks, vanity mirror frame, timing motor, gear motor, LEDs, lawn sprinkler, pop rivets.

There are videos for most all the wondrous creations, showing them in their full glory and movement! Fair warning, you’ll be lost in Nemo’s world for a long time, but that is in no way a bad thing!

Oh, and don’t miss Octovarius! * Nemo Gould, Kinetic Sculpture from Found Materials. Go visit!

Via Make.

Cool Stuff Friday.

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I really, really don’t want to spoil the surprise here. I’ll just say I was laughing myself silly, and this is someone who is delightfully familiar with the flat rat phenomenon. Go see!

One of my most favourite authors, Jim C. Hines, came out of model retirement for a good cause:

Click for full size!

Click for full size!

And, from The Creators Project, Vintage Posters can now be yours, for free!

1490115251312-Berger45-vintage-printable-wwwfreevintageposterscom_

1490115310194-destination-moon-vintage-poster-wwwfreevintageposterscom

If the posters of today still had the look of those of yesteryear, would they still get tagged and trolled as often? Much work today, it seems, lacks the graphic audacity of yore, opting instead for forms and formats we’ve become accustomed to. That’s why, when you find vintage posters in flea markets, you find prices that might suggest they were just printed.

Many of these posters are available online, but it’s often difficult to find high enough quality to print them beyond standard A4 printer paper sizing. Finally, our savior: FreeVintagePosters.Com. The name explains the concept rather well. From Soviet propaganda posters and advertisements for airlines of the 60s, it’s up to you—there are several categories ranging from “Sport” to “Film” to “Nature” and everywhere in between. At Creators in France, we’ve been redecorating. Check out a few of our favorites below:

Head on over to see their picks, or go straight to FreeVintagePosters.com.

Horses Of Course.

I have a backlog of submissions I’m slowly getting posted, but serendipity strikes, and I have two horse submissions, very different from one another. We start with the amazing and beautiful art of painting resin horse models, thanks to Kestrel. This is time consuming and difficult work. This isn’t a type of art where the artist gets to simply go with flights of fancy, the object here is intense realism. One such artist, Mindy Berg, has her latest up for auction, and it is a beauty!

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I am so very proud to formally introduce to you my newly completed Lucius resin, sculpted by Emilia Kurila. Lucius needs no introduction.. but in case you have not seen him before he is one of the most coveted resins in the hobby (for good reason!). Made from a small edition, he is one hard resin to find, either painted or unpainted. This particular copy has been with me since the start of the edition, and it has taken me since then to complete his coat. Now we all know that time doesn’t necessarily equate to quality, but, I do want accentuate the fact that I have taken my time on this piece with no holds barred, and allowed myself to boldly go where I have not gone before…

Introducing Skywalker. Destined for great things, in this horse I aimed for the stars. He is by far the most detailed and complicated pattern I have ever attempted. Skywalker was painstakingly hand painted in oils, with each tiny hair a stroke of a minuscule brush, and there are thousands upon thousands of tiny hairs. There is a great reason that this technique is not commonly employed! Although a beautifully effective way to create realistic coat patterns, it is an incredibly slow process. Acrylics and pastels, and some pencil, were also sparingly used in his creation as well. He is an example of what I can create without time constraints, my painting “magnum opus” to date.

Then we have some photos from rq, of an interesting place visited for a work event, which also had a horse. I think it would make a cool cabin. They should have made the tarse large enough to slide down! Click for full size.

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© rq, all rights reserved.

Santiago.

An animated self-portrait exploring the line of human evolution and a projection of a possible future.
As our evolution turns from biological to technological, are we now the bridge between the born and the made.
I painted this stop frame animation on myself using face paint, a mirror and a camera.

Copyright Emma Allen.

Story, animation, performance -Emma Allen – emmaallen.org
Post Production – Huxley Studios – thisishuxley.com/
Sound Design – Edapollo – soundcloud.com/edapollo

Emma Allen
instagram.com/imakefings/
twitter.com/imakefings
facebook.com/paintfaces/

Wonderful! I like the beginning best. Santiago on Vimeo. Santiago at The Creators Project.

Friday Rat.

This is Rune (roo neh), my sweetest little boy. He’s not so little anymore, but always sweet. He’s recently been accepted into the Hades & Hellquin club, and it’s not easy to get accepted by those two elders. I have four boys who are an odd mix of Rex and Hairless. Rune has been getting more hair as he ages, but he still doesn’t have full coverage. The others are Ingo, Inigo, and Balthasar. I got photos of Ingo and Inigo, but Balthasar is not a social guy, and he’s bloody huge and very fast, so no photos of him. Rune likes traveling on the top of my head.

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© C. Ford.