Oscar luncheons, gift bags, extravagant over-arching grandeur in the midst of economic crisis, blah blah. Things are getting somewhat interesting, though, as Minneapolis, Minnesota’s cute little Zeichen Press will have their cards represented in the much-savored gift bags.

Above is an example of my favorite one of the cards, simply because horseshoe crabs are amazing, amazing things, and letterpressed cards, in all of their textured glory, are amazing, amazing things as well.

Hollywood folks who will receiving Zeichen Press cards include Richard Jenkins, Brad Pitt, Kate Winslet, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Danny Boyle, Stephen Daldry, David Fincher, Ron Howard, Gus Van Sant, Robert Downey, Jr., Philip Hoffman, Michael Shannon, Penelope Cruz, Viola Davis, Taraji P. Henson, Marisa Tomei.

Zeichen Press offers an array of hand-made letterpressed goods, including cards, coasters, and CD sleeves.

www.zeichenpress.com

The problem: What to buy the person that has everything.
The problem: You’re not creative enough to make anything.

The solution: Turn to Samantha Ferguson!

Ferguson has just started up a new website dedicated to offering custom portraits for regular everyday folk. She can render you, your loved ones, and your friends as joyful caricatures! And even if you’re not into turning yourself into vector art, you can come up with a concept, send it to Ferguson, and watch as she creates custom artwork for a baby’s room, holiday cards, stationary, or your office.

www.illustratedportraits.com

Most of us have probably been to craft fairs. They’re usually the same ol same ol rehashing of vendor after vendor setting up on fold out table after fold out table. Raised in Craftivity, curated by Maria Buszek, features crafty art that is less practical and more exciting. Whether it be embroidery, woodworking, beadwork, ceramics, or knitting that artists like Elaine Bradford, Orly Cogan, Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, and KnittaPlease embrace, literally every one of the artists on display are ridiculously inventive with their creations. Raised in Craftivity is a long-running show for a reason; it not only tells, but shows visitors that crafts can result in much more than tea cozies and aprons.

The show is on display from now until March 7th, 2009, at the Wignall Museum in Rancho Cucomonga, California.

Elaine Bradford‘s Locked Antlers features yarn and buttons wrapped around real deer heads.

Orly Cogan creatively embroiders naked beings over pre-printed fabric in Butterfly Song Triptych.

www.chaffey.edu/wignall/upcoming.shtml

Industrial artist Reis Niemi makes some interesting art. He welds his own guns, makes embroidered underpants, and creates images of wigs serving as hair for cellphones. It seems only natural that he would purchase handkerchiefs from a 100 year old man’s garage sale and attempt to make art out of it. His newest show, Invisible Forces, will begin on display at the Punch Gallery on First Thursday, February 5th, and will feature fabric sculpture, forged ironwork, and painted liquor bottles — all guaranteed to be pieces that are slightly curious.

www.punchgallery.org
www.riesniemi.com

Opening January 31st at the MarinMOCA (which is not in Marin, but in Novato, California — go figure) is a photography group show entitled Depth of Perception. The show features dozens of artists, including Sebastian Davila, Dan Van Winkle, and Andrea Land.

The artist I would like to highlight at this moment, however, is Xavier Nuez, who will be showcasing two pieces from his Alleys series. If society has told the public that there’s nothing redeeming about dingy abandoned buildings and dark freeway underpasses, Nuez thinks otherwise. This series features hyper-colored high-contrast nighttime shots of graffiti-covered bridges, industrial waste sites, and overgrown vegetations, in historically downtrodden places such as Detroit and Compton. Nuez sheds light — quite literally — on these dark and dingy places, and he relives his family history of homelessness and experiences with violent street gangs through these visual testaments to his past.

www.nuez.com

Jeff Koons is a man with a plan. He makes installation pieces that are not only artistically sound, but thought-provoking as well. They are modern art pieces that have They make you wonder how he created them and what prompted him to make them. Twenty days ago, a modern art exhibit at Versailles ended, and on display there was a giant glass balloon animal, as shown above. We’ll come back to more about Jeff Koons later on, but for now, people in Berlin can be lucky enough to catch his work at the Neue NationalGalerie, through February.

www.jeffkoons.com