Bat false faces I made and modeled over the years 🦇 Who else is ready for Halloween season? @jymdavis
Most of these bats were made during my five U.S. National Park Artist-In-Residencies. The first slide, for instance, was inspired by the endangered Townsend Big-Eared Bats at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona📍A couple others were made a Lassen Volcanic National Park (North California) and Craters of the Moon (Idaho). The American west is big time bat country @lassennps@cratersofthemoon_nps@petrifiedforestnps@lavabedsnps@craterlakenps
The Flying Monkeys terrified me as a kid! I decided to look into the backstory: Wizard of Oz costume designer Adrian Greenberg had a big challenge when translating the monkeys to the big screen in 1939. The screen tests show the many different looks Adrian's team played with. In the original book drawings, the Flying Monkeys look like real animals audiences might see at a zoo, such as chimpanzees or macaques. They have big feathery wings like a bird's, but they don't wear any clothes. This makes them seem more like a wild, magical species that lives in nature. However, in Adrian's costumes, the monkeys look much creepier and more like little soldiers. They have blue-grey skin and wear matching blue and red outfits, including tiny vests and hats.... still no pants tho. The wing design in particular went through many design changes: instead of being soft and feathery, Adrian designed tough and leathery, almost like bat wings. In the final on-screen design, it is more like bird wings, similar to the book (but smaller). By giving them uniforms and more human-like faces, the movie makes them look like freaky little henchman.
Adrian also made other changes from the book: He famously changed the silver shoes from the original book to the vibrant Ruby Slippers to ensure they would pop against the Yellow Brick Road. For Dorothy, he selected a blue-and-white gingham check specifically calculated to look "farm-fresh" yet vivid in technicolor. The Wicked Witch also received a masterstroke of design, as Adrian transitioned her from a traditional hag into a sharp, structured silhouette that defined a new "movie villain" aesthetic.
Self-portraits and paintings by artist Leonor Fini (1907-1996). I really love her handmade masks and outfits, some of them created for the famous surrealist costume balls of the 60's and 70's.
Fini was an Argentine-Italian surrealist painter, designer, illustrator, and author, known for her depictions of powerful women. She transformed Surrealism by portraying women as mysterious and independent rather than passive subjects. Her dreamlike paintings combined mythology, psychology, and erotic symbolism in ways that challenged the male-dominated art world of her time. Fini’s work also explored gender fluidity and identity long before these themes became common in contemporary art. Anyone else get early @bjork vibes?
“I believe in the mystery of things.”
Music: @goldfrappmusic
👁️👄👁️ 'Dolls Factory: How Dolls Are Made' (1968) from the British Pathé company. How dolls were constructed at the Rosebud Mattel factory from the molding of the heads to the 'horrific' process of popping in the dolls' eyes.
The narration is insane
In 1970, Graciela Iturbide picked up a camera as a way to process the loss of her young daughter, Claudia. She eventually found her voice documenting everyday life in Mexico, working almost entirely in black-and-white. Her style is driven by pure curiosity - she simply shoots what she connects with in the moment. You can really see the influence of her mentor, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, in her self-portraits (last two slides with the plastic snakes and deceased birds).
Iturbide describes herself as "complicit" with the people she photographs, forming a connection that lets her subjects open up. For me, this is what gives her portraits such a poetic, lived-in feel. While she’s spent plenty of time capturing the energy of Mexico City and the borderlands, she’s most famous for her deep dives into indigenous communities like the Zapotec, Mixtec, and Seri. Whether she’s exploring gender roles, rituals, or local festivals, her photos tell the story of a culture that is constantly evolving.
Bedouin mother photographed by Ilo Battigeli, 1948. Battigelli (1922-2009) was an Italian master photogapher whose photos of the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia created a unique record of the area. After offering to photograph the children of Emir Turki ibn Al Utaishan, he and the Emir become close friends, and as a result, he was allowed to travel all around the Eastern Province - an area that was usually off limits to outsiders.
You probably know Cindy Sherman's legendary self-portraits, but have you seen her overlooked CLOWN series from the early 2000's? These portraits (taken of herself, as usual) express the idea of putting on a 'joyous exterior' and hiding a 'hidden sadness'. It is worth noting that the series was created in the chaos of post 9/11 America.
In the September 2004 issue, @artforum described Sherman's series: "Human nature is luridly on display in this particular troupe. In their eye-popping domain, everything is patently artificial. Even though the clowns display moods and behaviors—cocky, clever, raucous, inquisitive, innocent, withdrawn, or indifferent—that can be endearingly familiar, their difference from us, despite the human posturing and pantomime, is pronounced." - Jan Avgikos
This clown series was a big influence (along with Bruce Nauman's disturbing clown video) on my own goof on clown portraits. I made clown masks and did clown selfie prints for the @elephantgallery (Nashville) CLOWN SHOW in 2018.
