Puzzling...

Here are a couple ways that puzzles, art, and printing have been creatively combined. Kent Rogowski created this image for his series entitled Love = Love by mixing pieces from store bought puzzles. Found [Via]

Flowers and skies were taken out of over 40 store bought puzzles and combined to form a series of spectacular landscapes. Although puzzle pieces are unique and can only fit into one place within a puzzle they are interchangeable within a brand.

Kent sells 16x20 limited series runs of his puzzle art.

Last year art and fashion publication, Visionaire, released these puzzles from six different artists for their 51st issue. The large scale 25 piece puzzle with 8 inch puzzle pieces were designed so they could be mixed and matched. Found [Via]

Visionaire, the fabled art and fashion “magazine”, is about to appear in its 51st incarnation. While the issues differ radically from one to the next, each is dedicated to a particular theme that a host of celebrated artists set out to interpret. The latest, published in a couple of weeks, takes the theme of “harmony” and contains six large-scale 25-piece jigsaw puzzles.

Each puzzle can be assembled to reveal the singular image created by each artist, or they can be mixed up together – in “harmony” we imagine – to create wild and crazy abstract pictures.

Just how big is a pixel anyway?

Scott Condray from Visualville was kind enough to share this lesson plan with us from his Photoshop course. This knowledge combined with the fact that our LightJet images files at the equivalent of 4,000 dpi can be a powerful tool when preparing your files.

It’s Not The Size Of Your Pixel… It’s How You Use It!

In this Lesson we’ll explore the concepts of resolution, dpi and ppi.

A pixel is the smallest unit in a digital file. Digital files consist of a series of pixels running the length and width of the file, thus creating a two dimensional image. Open an image file in Photoshop and zoom in as close as you can, (1600% is the maximum) and you’ll be able to see the individual pixels that make up the image. The higher the number of usable pixels per inch, the higher the resolution. Resolution is more about the ability to show sharp image detail and less about the physical size of an image.

Digital capture devices, (Scanner and Digital Cameras) measure resolution in pixels per inch (ppi). Output devices, (photographic printers and printing presses) measure resolution in dots per inch (dpi) they are not equivalents. Scanners and digital cameras create pixels, not dots, however the pixels will eventually be output as dots.

For example:
A 300 pixel per inch scan, output on a printer with a 300-dpi resolution will yield a print that is one inch in size (one dot was created for each pixel).

It might be better to ask, “How big is a dot?” For a printer capable of printing 300dpi, each dot is 1/300 th of an inch. If you print a file that is 2400 pixels by 3000 pixels on a printer that prints 300 dpi, and the printer produces dots that are 1/300 th of an inch then one inch of paper will be printed for every 300 pixels in the file. The size of the print output will be 8 inches by 10 inches. How big is the pixel? 1/300 th of an inch.

If you output the same file on a printing press that produces a 600 dpi output each dot will be 1/600 th of an inch. With 3000 pixels in the file, the press will produce one inch of image on paper for every group of 600 pixels. The total output will be 4 by 5 inches. In both cases there are 2400 X 3000 pixels in the file, but one output device yielded an 8 X 10 and the other a 4 X 5. Which device produces the higher resolution… the printing press.

Think of resolution in another way. Digital files do not have any size other than the space they occupy. How big is an RGB file that is 2,400 by 3,000 pixels? About 20 MB. How big is that? The answer is we don’t know until those 2,400 by 3,000 pixels are output.

So how big is a Pixel? As big as you want it to be. Wouldn’t it be great if everything worked like that!

Lincoln images rediscovered

A little piece of history was rediscovered at the Library of Congress. Some previously mislabeled glass negatives were correctly identified as being from Lincoln's inaguration to his second term on March 4, 1865 by Carol Johnson, Library of Congress curator of photography. You can see a good size crowd gathered outside the Capitol building for the event.

"These negatives add to our knowledge of this special event," said Johnson. "They show what that wet Saturday looked like with the massing of the crowd. They also convey the excitement of the people."

Johnson was prompted to examine the negatives after a Library of Congress patron alerted her to the fact that these visually similar photos had radically different identifications in the Library's online Civil War photographic negative collection. But instead of choosing between Grant and the Grand Armies Review, she opened a new door to the past by looking closely at the images and recognizing Lincoln's second inauguration.

MacBook Air

The much awaited and highly anticipated announcements from the opening of the Macworld Expo have flooded the internet today. One very cool new product they have launched is an ultra thin laptop. The new 3 pound MacBook Air will start shipping in 2 weeks. To get an idea of the size check out this video posted on Gizmodo.

Apple Launches 13-Inch Ultralight MacBook Air- Christopher Null for Yahoo! Tech

As widely expected, Apple is launching an ultra-thin notebook called the MacBook Air. At 0.76" thick at its widest point, the three-pound Air has a wedgelike shape that tapers down to 0.16" thick at the front base. LED backlighting on its 13.3-inch screen, multi-touch trackpad (which offers some nifty features like rotating photos, all in the touchpad), and a backlit keyboard. Specs are decent: 1.6 or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (on a cleverly shrunken socket), 2GB of RAM, and an 80GB hard drive (or 64GB SSD option). No optical drive (of course), and just one USB port. It'll set you back $1,799, which is on the inexpensive side for ultralight notebooks with specs like this.

ASU Art Museum receives 1.4 mil bequest

Wilhelmine “Helme” Prinzen, who passed away in 2007, left her more than $1 million estate in Paradise Valley to the ASU Art Museum. She had originally planned for her donation to remain anonymous, but later changed her mind to encourage others to consider including the ASU Art Museum in their estate planning.

Prinzen’s endowment will be used to assist and advance emerging artists through exhibitions organized by the museum and purchases of works by emerging artists for the museum’s permanent collection. In addition, the endowment will fund research and education in the area of contemporary art with emphasis on emerging artists.

“The Prinzen Endowment recognizes the ASU Art Museum's history and ongoing commitment to exhibitions, publications and educational programs that focus on emerging artists,” says Heather Lineberry, senior curator and interim director of the ASU Art Museum. “Helme's bequest significantly enhances our ability to continue these programs and to provide extraordinary experiences with contemporary art and artists for our students and audiences.”

Prinzen loved the ASU Art Museum, a place she found that reciprocated her interest in contemporary art, especially that of emerging artists.

“While Helme recognized that showing the work of artists already consecrated by art history or the market was important, she was attracted to our more adventurous approach,” says Marilyn Zeitlin, retired director of the ASU Art Museum and curator of its 2000 exhibition of Prinzen’s work, the first in a U.S. museum. “We were the first to show and collect work by Heidi Kumao, Einar and Jamex de la Torre, and gave the American audiences the first opportunity to see the works of Cuban artists in 1998. Helme liked that we often produce the first printed documentation of emerging artists’ work.”

Avedon show at the PAM

The Phoenix Art Museum continues their great series of loan exchange with the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson with a new showing of Richard Avedon's work. Avedon, perhaps one of the most recognizable names in photography, captured portraits of the famous from Henry Kissinger to Marilyn Monroe. He never stopped working, even up until his death at age 81 he was on an assignment for the New Yorker magazine. Constantly re-inventing himself and his subjects. One of his most famous images "Dovima with Elephants" shown here. The PAM's exhibit opens January 12th and runs until April 20th.

Essence of Avedon: Photographer's evocative works offer insight into his subjects, himself By Richard Nilsen for he Arizona Republic

When he was just 23, Avedon began taking photographs for Harper's Bazaar magazine and turned fashion photography on its ear.

"For the first time, you saw fashion photography taken into the streets," says Dennita Sewell, curator of fashion design at the Phoenix Art Museum, whose collection includes several of the gowns Avedon photographed in his first work.

"Before that, women posed properly in front of a chandelier in a beautiful hotel, or in a studio with perfect hair, but Avedon gave the pictures a bit of adventure.

"He captured this excitement, that if only you were in Paris, if only you were in that suit, if only you ran across these scenes, fabulous things would happen to you, too."

Suzy Parker, Dovima and other models leaped over the sidewalks in the Marais district or stood in evening gown in front of elephants. It was all new, all energy, all somewhat outrageous.

"Mixing that beautiful satin with the wrinkled skin of the elephants was so striking, so unusual for the time," Sewell says.

Kevin Dyer at Celebration of Fine Art show

Kevin Dyer will show in the Celebration of Fine Art, which takes place under the “big white tents” January 12 – March 23, 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona. A resident of Phoenix, this is the 1^st year that Dyer is participating in this prestigious, juried and invitational art show and sale. In it’s 18^th year, the Celebration of Fine Art, a fusion of the best art galleries, art studios and art shows, brings 100 of the finest international and U.S. artists to Scottsdale.

Dyer is known for his “sense of place” photography and has been recognized by National Geographic, Art Talk, American Art Collector and The Art of Seeing and has recently exhibited at the Herberger Theater Center. Dyer received his degree in Media Arts and Journalism from the University of Arizona. “I am pleased to be selected for the 2008 Celebration of Fine Art show and sale. I especially like the show’s personal yet professional environment. It offers me a wonderful opportunity to meet and connect with people who love and buy art,” said Dyer.

The show is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week from January 12 through March 23, 2008. Celebration of Fine Art is located in Scottsdale, Arizona on North Scottsdale Road just South of the Loop 101 in the big white tents.

Good luck to Kevin! We hope it is successful for you. If you are not able to make it to Scottsdale, you can also check out Kevin's on line gallery.