Thursday, April 28, 2011

Inspiration Where I Am: West Village: Music, Man

Sam has a new gig in the West Village and I'm finding myself there a lot these days. I come for the live music he's playing and then wander between sets. Like the days I used to spend there in my first days in NYC these wanderings find me frequenting Bleecker Street Records. This almost too clean, but in an 80s hospital way record shop is one of my favorite places to look through vinyl. While it isn't the best record shop in NYC, it's close enough, and they maintain the perfect ratio of eclectic, kitsch and modern. It's a rare shop that finds you singing along to Sublime while leafing through vintage musical titles. That place is of course exactly where I want to be. Recently I returned to the scene of my virginal NYC existence. I've found that nothing much has changed, but that I'm a lot more in tune (hehe) to my art and I'm better able to find things that inspire me as an artist visually, instead of using the place for pure musical delight.

Case. In. Point.
I pride myself on being pretty dang knowledgeable of film must-sees, but A GLOVE STORY!??! Staring Barbara Streisand?! Who knew? Netflix is about to get all topsy turvey.


What?
Inappropriate.

If only, crazy drugged out record. If only.
I would have loved to be art directed on this baby. Gee, that photo's really intense. Let's add some buoyant font to distract from the situation we're depicting here. There. That's much better. Now try it lower cased. We have a winnnnnnnner!
Add more stars! No more. More. Um. More. OK... almost.
Make it plaid. No. More plaid. More. No more plaid. OK... Almost.
I am obsessed with this era. Most of the art books in my personal collection are nods to this bygone time when girls were best depicted as sex pots with a lot of skirt.
Adorable but smart. I live for vintage logo.
Sidenote: "An Adult Love Story"? Sign me up.
Keep it bold and do something heavy concept. The weirder the better. We don't need to use all the space. Seriously. This is always my mantra. LEAVE SOME SPACE! Sheesh. I love how free we used to be with it. Interestingly or uninterestingly(I've decided that's a word, deal with it.) enough, I feel this way about film too. For the most part I hate television with equal fervor to the passion I have for film. Why? NO SPACE!

Currently I adore the Simpsons, Parenthood and Modern Family. I leave all other TV alone. Why? These shows give the freaking audience SPACE. They let moments breathe. They don't force things into tight spaces. I have certain um.. opinions on the matter. Anyway. Leave some visual space, k?

Awesome crazy heavy handed patriotism font! Woot.

The thing that's most exciting to me on these late night excursions is recognizing the confidence between an artist's hand and a concept in these vintage covers. The almost toxic colors, ranging from ultra saturated primary to neon are completely unapologetic. The goofy illustrations are exquisitely executed. Concepts are bold but sentimental. The silly is embraced full frontal (i just like using that term where ever I can.)
I would never trade my experience as a child of the eighties. My friends joke that I would have been best suited to the 60s, where I could have done drugs, championed my causes with sit-ins and drawn the hell out of a lot of doe-eyed sailor girls, all whilst clad in baby blue tailored skirts. I'm glad for the life I lead now (where I can find contacts that can handle my prescription, etc.) I however am thankful that I have these kind of archives at my fingertips. So that's Thursday at She Sure is Sketchy. Be inspired.

No comments:

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails