Día de los Muertos photo shoot!

A few months ago I wrote a blog about Sylvia Ji. A super talented artist that creates beautiful sugar skull art work. I love her work so much that she was a big influence on my latest creative 'Dia de los muertos'. 

The Hair and the amazing sugar skull makeup was by Eduardo Mella and It was shot by the one and only Nikki Ormerod. 

Michelle

Stacey

Heidi

Photographer: Nikki Ormerod
Hair & Makeup: Eduardo Mella from Judy Inc
Fashion Stylist: Marie-Eve Tremblay
Photographer Assistants: Thomas Dagg & Julie Riemersma
Model: Michelle, Stacey & Heidi

Through my research, I read some fascinating things about this Mexican holiday. I felt really inspired by this colorful tradition.

'Dia de los muertos' is the Spanish for 'Day of the Dead' and It is a Mexican celebration honoring the souls of the dead. The dead are believed to pay a visit to their friends & families for 3 days. To honor them,  the families create altars decorated with crafts, food and symbolic decorations and a picture of the love ones. I kind of love that.. Cemeteries, streets windows and houses have bright vibrant color decorations and flowers everywhere! There is even food and festivities that take place in the streets. Yep, death is a celebration in Mexico! It really is a happy event. The part I LOVE the most is that it keep the family, friends and loves ones together.

Again through my research, I came across this really hilarious new Mexican trend. The Mexican pointy cowboy boots! I have pictures to prove it.. and there is even a documentary! LOL

 

L'Art Du Deplacement

This is amazing!

Have you ever heard of Parkour? PK? Art Du Deplacement? Freerunning? People doing insane jumps between buildings.. What ever you call it.. I freaking love it!!! Many questions are raised between the differences of parkour and freerunning but it is quite similar.. I read that freerunning is expressing yourself within your environment and parkour is aiming to get from A to B the fastest. Parkour is often combined with other forms of acrobatics, such as free running, street stunts, tricking and traditional Chinese martial arts like Qing Gong (light body skill). It is amazing and is becoming more and more popular.

Parkour has appeared in various television advertisements, movies such as the film Casino Royale, documentaries, comic books, video games and music videos. Remember Madonna's video for her song "Jump"? Also her music video "Hung Up" contains some clips of free running. For Madonna's Confessions tour, free running was used for the choreography of "Jump". Even the Militaries from different countries are looking for ways to incorporate parkour into training such as the British Royal Marines, they hired parkour athletes to train their members.

I think that this new sport kinda reflect our lives. The buildings and fences represent the obstacles that we face and that we see impossible to overcome.

I can't help asking myself.. what kind of shoes are they wearing to do this? I believe one of them is wearing Kalenji running shoe.. Kalenji has become a firm favourite in the scene as THE shoe of choice amongst Freerunner’s and Traceur’s alike. The shoes are ugly!.. but they seems to be the best! Free running founder, Sébastien Foucan (The Casino Royale dude) helped K-Swiss develop the first shoe for free running and parkour. The shoes are called the Ariake. Sébastien appears in a commercial for K-Swiss, free running. You can see it here.

Want more? Here is 2 great documentaries about Parkour and Free Running:

"Obstacles are found everywhere, and in overcoming them we nourish ourselves."

Quote by David Belle, Parkour founder.

Meet Herb and Dorothy Vogel

Herb & Dorothy – An Art Collector Documentary – artmarketblog.com

I was recently made aware of a new film that has just been released called Herb an Dorothy which is the true story of a postal worker and a librarian who built a world class art collection. Projects such as this can only have a positive impact on the art market and increase interest in art collecting so take the time to go and see a great (and award winning) movie while supporting the art market.

Details of movie below:

SYNOPSIS

HERB & DOROTHY tells the extraordinary story of Herbert Vogel, a postal worker, and Dorothy Vogel, a librarian, who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history with very modest means. They lived off of Dorothy’s salary and used Herb’s to collect art. They only had two requirements when purchasing art: the piece had to be affordable, and it had to be small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.

Over the decades they collected over 2000 pieces of art, (keeping all of it in their tiny apartment) and became patrons of artists including Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi, and Lawrence Weiner.

He was a postal clerk. She was a librarian. With their modest means, the couple managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history. Meet Herb and Dorothy Vogel, whose shared passion and disciplines and defied stereotypes and redefined what it means to be an art collector.

http://www.herbanddorothy.com/

http://vogel5050.org/