Apropos of nothing, here's a picture of a bowl from hi+lo modern. The op art movement had as its subject perception itself, and utilitarian objects with op art designs have always seemed remarkably generous to me. They are beautiful things with no meaning intended and no strings attached.
Now, to be perfectly clear, I think Diment and Prall are both amazing artists, and I find their portfolios both inspiring and intimidating. It's just that I think my friend was missing the point when she said that these other artists were better than Harper. It's cool if she prefers more realistic paintings, but that doesn't make the work she likes better than the work she doesn't like.
When I was in grade school, the "How to Draw" series of books was really popular. In theory, you would start by sketching a bunch of boxes and ovals, add details and end up with a perfectly realistic cat or racecar or horse or dinosaur. In practice, most of us ended up with a beautifully-detailed horse that looked like a sway-backed dachshund.
Just because something looks simple doesn't mean it's trivial or easy to do.
Earlier in the month, my husband and I received a flier for the Cape May Bird Observatory's Spring Weekend, and a poster went up in the ornithology department at work. That was how I connected Charley Harper's name to the wildlife art I had been inspired by for a long time. Seriously, look at this!
There are some prints of his available at theframeworkshop.com, along with a coffee table book. The water strider lithograph just blew me away. I spent a good bit of my childhood trying to catch these bugs - they're speedy little things - and I'm impressed not only by Harper's design sense, but also by his choice of detail. He really looks at the animals he paints.
There is a great selection of his prints from the 1950's at the Treadway Gallery. I think I know what my husband is getting for a present, once he defends his thesis!
Harper's bird art is featured on the packaging of Coffee for the Birds, which sells fair trade, shade grown varietals and blends. That's a great thing to support, in case you were wondering - good for birds and people, too. We used to have a bag of their Guatemalan blend in the office - it is a step up from Starbucks and a world away from the big blue tub of Folgers.
Mike Libby's work at InsectLab is really incredible. He combines the carapaces of dead insects and arachnids with antique watch parts, capacitors and LEDs. Seriously, these are beautiful.
