Philippe Guillerm's curvaceous violin sculptures are certainly a sight to behold. Their expressive poses give these well crafted string instruments much life as though each sculpture has its own personality. I imagine they would make a great subject for an animation. One could leap from a violinists arms and land gracefully to perform interpretive dance movements to the sound of moody classical music. But before I follow this tangent to its tragically corny end, I'd like to say that I am very impressed with Philippe's work, only I would like to see them photographed in a more creative setting with dramatic lighting.

Here is a short excerpt I found on Phiippe's website:

Guillerm's music-inspired sculptures are whimsical and curvaceous string instruments, he uses the theme as a way of expressing human nature and needs, you see an instrument, he sees an attitude. 

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I'm sure many of you have stumbled upon 'The Tale of How' on your cyber travels since it spread like a virus over popular blogs, forums and social networking sites. The stunning psychedelic animation was created by a passionate group who call themselves The Black Heart Gang. Each member of this close group of friends contributed their own unique talent and skill to form the perfect collaborative dynamic. Tale of How was produced over a period of nine months in the collaborators spare time with no budget!!

I first saw this Animation when the illustrator of the group 'Ree Treweek' registered on our own Surreal Art Forum and introduced the project to our forum members. Although the story, style and aesthetic of The Tale of How is very unique, I would personally describe the experience as a Tim Burton, Danny Elfman & Doctor Seuss combo on a large dose of LSD (and I draw this comparison with great appreciation and respect).

Visit the official Black Heart Gang website for a high resoution version of The Tale of How.

Here is an excerpt of Ree's post on our forum:

'The Blackheart Gang is a collective of friends with a passion for creating stories. The idea for The Tale of How was to create something original, inspiational, beautiful and sincere. The story is the second part of a three part story, developed by Ree Treweek and Markus Smit. Markus wrote the story and the music. Ree developed the characters, and drew all the elements for the world. Jannes Hendrikz composited, sylised and directed the animation process & Justin Baker was head 3d animator and modeller.'

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My friend Delvin Solkinson of Elvism was kind enough to send me a copy of Alex Grey's CoSM: Journal of Visionary Culture volume 4 which was dedicated to Albert Hofmann's 100th birthday, the Swiss chemist who discovered LSD 50 years ago. Delvin had published a very interesting article titled 'Entheo Art: Mystical Offering and Spiritual Forum', in the journal and wanted to share it with me. I had heard of Alex Grey's Visionary Art journal before, but had never actually seen it and enjoyed many articles within, especially the article (written by Grey) describing the meaning behind his painting of Hofmann. I was very pleased to see that some of our featured Visionary Artists (on beinArt.org) had been published in CoSM as well including Maura Holden, Naoto Hattori, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffmann  & Alex Grey himself (who were also published in our first Art Book: Metamorphosis). Allyson Grey, Luke Brown, Guy Atchinson, Michele Wortman, Eli Morgan, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Erial & Carey Thompson were also featured in the CoSM Journal.

Here is an excerpt from the journal written by Alex Grey on his portrait of Albert Hofmann 'St. Albert and The LSD Revelation Revolution' (shown in this article):

'In my portrait of Dr. Hofmann, the eye of transcendental spirit in the upper left hand corner of the painting releases spiralic streams of primordial rainbow spheres of potential, one of which becomes a compassionate alchemical angel, whose tears drip down to anoint or 'create' the LSD molecule that the doctor holds in his hands, and a demon, here identified with Nazi power tugs or pushes at it. LSD opens a visionary gateway to the heart, as shown by the spiral of fractally infinitizing eyes resembling the stripey eye-spheres of the molecule, swirling into the center of the chest. On St. Albert's shoulder blade is a portrait of Paracelsus, the Alchemist of Basel, 500 years ago, who is credited with founding modern Chemistry, yet his alchemical goal was to discover the Philosopher's Stone. Alchemy was the art and science of the transmutation of the elements, like turning lead into gold and the identification of the soul of the alchemist with the chemical transformations as a metaphor of their journey ti enlightenment. Modern Chemistry took the psyche and mystery out of the material weighed and measured world, reducing the world to a heap of atoms. LSD brought psyche back, front and center to the chemical material world. That is partly why I believe that LSD is the Philosopher's Stone, the discovery of which, also in the town of Basel, is the result of an alchemical process put in motion by the great Paracelsus. In the portrait, I painted a lot of LSD personalities and symbolism in the aura of Dr. Hofmann. Some of these people were Dr Hofmann's friends, like Aldous Huxley, Gordon Wasson, Maria Sabina and Richard Evans Schultes. Each of these people had a special connection to psychedelics. Huxley wrote fearlessly about the psychedelic experience in The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell, which also talks about Visionary states and works of art.'

I am also happy to announce that I received an order from The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors for 10 copies of Metamorphosis Art Book for their gift shop (what an honor). Thank you Alex and Allyson.

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Sally Cruikshank has made many bizarre animated films, all of them involving colorful surreal environments and characters. Much of her imaginative and dreamlike style is the result of Max Fleischer's influence in her work. Fans of Twilight Zone might remember the weird animated Hell sequence she did for the 80's film version of the series.  She also made a strange music video for Oingo Boingo.

Click the following titles to view some of Cruikshank's other animated worlds.
 
Quasi At The Quackadero
 
Face Like A Frog  
 
Make Me  Psychic
 
You can view a selection of Sally Cruikshank's colorful paintings in this photoset on Flickr. To see more works by Sally visit her website "Fun On Mars" where she has a blog, artwork for sale and additional animations on view.  

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