IFTTT

If this then that.

In my college course on artificial intelligence I learned how life can be modeled as sets of rules structured this way. Amidst the chaos it does seem that much of our existence can follow this structure.

It's just hard to follow, though. Like why Stevie Ray Vaughan ended up on that last minute fateful flight. Like why the piece I painted for Jason had to be of this portrait of Stevie Ray so that now I cry painting it because... well you know.

Anyway, IFTTT is easy to follow. And cool. It's a site/app/community thing that pulls together iOS functionality with lots of social media sites allowing one to create a 'recipe' taking the input from one 'channel' and generating output to another. It's very versatile and user friendly. I've scratched the surface with recipes to automatically spread posts to this blog on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. We'll see what else I might cook up.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

Woof!

"Can't do it man. The master of funk descends on hartford at 7:30." - PCU

Awhile back I had the honor to gift a piece to Lou Reed (http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2009/12/full-bleed.html). Then, thanks to Stephen Tisdale (http://vinylshuffle.com), I got to give a piece to George Clinton for his birthday.

Yeah, THAT George Clinton.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

Full Circle with @riozilla and @amoebamusic

Back in high school, I was friends with Rio Caraeff. He introduced me to some great music, including The The's album "Dusk" which is one of my favorites still.

Today Rio is CEO of VEVO, the company presenting official music videos and live shows through YouTube in the one way acceptable to the major record labels. Recently he commissioned the 4 above pieces: Michael Jackson, Beyonce, 50 Cent and Adele. Almost 20 years later, full circle.

Back in school, too, I took a family trip to San Francisco. It was around the time I was starting to get into my dad's vinyl: Brubeck, Beatles, Khachaturian and Mangione. We went to the Haight and I was introduced to Amoeba Records. Woah.

Seeing that place got me seriously started hanging out in West L.A. record stores like Record Surplus, Moby Disc, Rhino Records and Penny Lane. I spent countless teenage hours crate digging. Some of the records became my first canvases.

Today, Amoeblog shared http://www.amoeba.com/blog/2012/11/jamoeblog/daniel-edlen-s-vinyl-art-creates-on-the-artifacts-of-creativity-.html about me. Another pretty cool full circle moment.

Nice day, today.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

Seeing the Music

"If only we could pull out our brain and use only our eyes." - Pablo Picasso

The way I conceive it, art only happens when we do what Picasso is talking about. When we flow in the moment without our brain filtering and simply allow whatever is supposed to come out to do so.

When you lose track of time, you've found your art. When you find what enables that loss, you've found your connection to your art.

For me, music is my connection. It's sort of like meditation, not thinking about each dab of the brush, simply seeing the light and dark. Seeing the music.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com

No Light Without Shadow

I was standing next to my John Coltrane portrait at the Open Studios event at http://santamonicaartstudios.com last weekend and a thought struck me. Following that show I sold the above Freddie Mercury, which reminded me of that thought.

Both pieces have black on the label because they're white. It's a challenge to paint pieces like that with just white on the record and black on the label. I have to make sure the light on the record is balanced by the shadows on the label, otherwise the portrait is broken.

I've been sharing Zen and Taoist quotes on Twitter at http://twitter.com/dedlen recently. A lot of them are about recognizing the yin and yang of life, the two sides of things when distinction is made. I don't particularly like adjectives because they require and create categorization and differentiation, but they exist in our lives. So one has to find balance between the two sides, between the light and the dark.

Like I do when I paint shadows on the label and the light on the record.

Peace.

____________________________

creating art on the artifacts of creativity

http://danieledlen.com