Why I can't go on vacation

These pictures are so gorgeous, that I want to go there, sub zero temps and all. As far as I'm concerned these relics are our modern marvels of the world.

Edward Burtynskey does this obsession better, and with more philosophical and theoretical flair, I just react to these photos emotionally. There's a lovely U.S. Navy graveyard in the Suisun Bay near San Francisco that's fine, but the primal nature of the russian ships, ripped apart by the ice, is far more moving to me.

Via [IOC]

Richard Serra

JP and I missed the ginormous (now a word recognized by the O.E.D - w00t!) Richard Serra exhibit by about 16 hours when we were out east for MSA's graduation. Instead we got a bunch of rain. But we both remember the Dia:Beacon exhibit we saw a few years ago fondly and wish we'd made it to MoMa.

The nerdy among you saw the Serra segment on the NewsHours last night, the rest of you will have to settle for wikipedia. In a nutshell he works on many materials and tries to create new spaces and forms using an number of simple transformations like "lifting" or "cutting".

To get a completely innappropriate view of him check out his work in Cremaster 3 as "The Architect" pouring vaseline down the Gugenheim spiral.

At any rate. If you visit or live in NYC you should check out the exhibit before the pieces fall on someome and get banned.

Here's a pretty 'arty' description of his work. IT really doesn't suck as much as these guys make it seem. In fact his pieces are pretty incredible.

Miya Ando Stanoff

Miya Ando Stanoff made the rounds on the internet a few years ago (I was sure I first learned about her on CoolHunting, but I can't find it up there anymore). She works with flat cold steel that's treated with tempering heat (I think) and pigments. The result is a really cold effect that's very soothing to me. I had the privilege of seeing her work in person in San Jose a little over a year ago, and the effect really is quite stunning. Her site has a new movie on it that makes me all mellow.