A few weeks ago a French street artist named JR won for his global effort to level the playing field through photography. His “wish” is to use art to change the world. He goes to various countries and posts giant photos on walls, sort of a photography graffiti, the purpose, to make people look up…pay attention…and most importantly ask questions.

One instance is where he wanted to show people of Palestine and Israel that they aren’t so different. For instance he went into Palestine and Israel, took photos of Israelis and took photos of Palestinians…doing the same jobs. So they went into various cities of Palestine and Israel posting a photo of a Palestinian and an Israeli doing the same job (ie two taxi cab drivers, or two cooks)  on each wall and asked the people to tell them which was which. Of course they couldn’t. The point being we are all just people, we decide what makes us different and are our differences worth fighting over?

So that’s an example of that he does. The photos create quite a buzz in every city he goes into. And they are great photos, I mean the kind that really get your attention. They did some really cool things with them including posting on a train. Well watch the video to see what I mean.

I love Vimeo – so many of the videos on there are just insanely creative. There’s this one particular artist that really captures my attention. His animation is often made from PAPER! I can’t even get those MASH paper games to work much less an entire animated video.

So a year ago I ran across this one and fell in love with it – in my opinion his fan video for Grizzly Bear’s Two Weeks is better than the original.

Two Weeks – Grizzly Bear from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

Here is one of his newer videos

Ten by Ten – Bluebrain from Gabe Askew on Vimeo.

I love this idea – it reminds me of Texas architect Brad Kittel’s Tiny Texas Houses. In fact I’d venture to say Brad’s been doing this far longer than this guy – but oh well Yahoo didn’t come to Texas.

But notice these are MEN designing these houses – I seriously doubt many women would buy into this. Don’t believe me? Go to an airport, see how men pack versus women. One backback vs two suitcases and two carry on’s and that’s only because “they” won’t let us bring three carry on’s on board.
Anyway, usually when I’m at home I resign myself to one space. Kind of like a dog in its kennel. Yes I just compared myself to a dog, stop before you get to the B word why don’t ya. After dinner and a bath I tend to just hang out in my room. I don’t know why, it’s my happy spot. It’s comfy and everything I need is right there. So the idea of living in a tiny house actually really appeals to me.

I’m fairly certain I could do it. It’s large spaces that cause us to accumalate more crap right? I need a chair to fill that space, and a painting to fill that whole…I need some candles for that bare shelf and on and on and on. Next thing you know you are loaded down with a bunch of “stuff” you don’t need.
It baffles me how many friends and clients will shop houses based on how much stuff they have. Not location or quality of home first, but space – they need loads of space.

The more I think on this the more I like it, the wheels are spinning.

Rubicon, Intro Episode

Wanna watch?