I found out Adam Wallacavage has a show at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City!

My heart is pounding and I can barely type...

I love Adam Wallacavage's cooky, turn-of-the-century-turned-tentacle chandeliers (I had another post on his earlier work and, myself am working on some sculpture) and I am enraptured and flabbergasted that his newest works are down the freeway from me in Culver City's Corey Helford Gallery!

His latest is truly breathtaking. I cannot appreciate enough how elegantly Wallacavage traverses the line between macabre and quirky. There is nothing cute about his work, so I don't mean to make light of the otherworldliness of his cephalopodian sconces and lamps - they are impressive, ostentatious, and striking. Subtle in their absurdity.

Since my last encounter with his pieces, it much has changed - the composition of the chandeliers seems to take precedence over his previously trademarked gaudy embellishments. The design is much more three-dimensional, as well, with multiple angles and breadth in mind whereas previous works featured specific intersections. Even his colors are handled differently (and wonderfully); he hasn't relinquished tawdry contrasts and saturated tones, but he's given more attention to the transitions between his generally two-toned palettes. The shades move over the pieces in a more organic form, giving fleshy depth to the skin of his meandering tentacles despite the outlandish hues.

The fact alson that I get to use this dusty vocabulary excites me! When I look at these pieces, it seems almost that some words were created for aesthetic encounters such as this:

I made a cuttlefish!

Dear reader,

If you are not Casey Fay, you may read on.
Otherwise, you are going to have to turn back now because the following post is about the incredible Christmas present your girlfriend got you.
If you stumbled upon me because you were Googling yourself and found your name and illustrations on my blog, then you should be totally embarrassed that I caught you!! And that I'm going to tell Ashleyanne of your narcissistic tendencies.

Love,
Danica

P.S. It's ok for you to look at da pie stuff. But nothing else!

A dear friend from my favorite moments of high school put in a custom order on Etsy with me last month after having shared via facebook our mutual of cephalopods. As it turns out, she - like me -is in cahoots with a super nerdy wonderful illustrator! Casey Fay is the author of the should-be/soon-to-be renowned children's book Wonders of the Sea: Cephalapods (currently sold out - DANG IT) and the illustrator of many awesome quirky, colorful, animal adventure pieces (I want this one so bad!)

For this Christmas, his lovely lady wanted to bestow upon him a gift celebrating his affection for these wonderful invertebrates of the sea. She enlisted my services - seeing as I manifest my own love for cephalopods by crochet hook - with a special request for a brightly colored cuttlefish. I hope my handiwork reflects Mr. Fay's whimsical imagery justly:

I love Adam Wallacavage.

I might have a small obsession with tentacles...

Last night I opened my very own Etsy store because, aside from "The Sheean Compound" being in desperate need of rent for next month in lieu of Matt's work-prohibitive appendectomy and while we wait on a long-delayed job to start *breath*, I found the perfect industrious translation to my love of handy work AND the creepy-crawlies of the ocean! Just before Petra was born, I took up crocheting. I found a simple pattern for left-over-yarn octopi and modified the pattern to create the bulbous-headed silhouette I wanted. It occurred to me that such modifications weren't so hard to do and, before I knew it, I had a pretty cute lookin' squid on my hands -err, belly - too!

OHMiGOSH!

But anyway, check out the store and see the pocket-sized cephalopods, some foot-tall sea creature toys and, the ever-so-popular, 100% organic cotton jellyfish.

As I was saying...

I have a small obsession with tentacles.

Adam Wallacavage does, too. But his obsession manifests itself in more than just Haunted-Mansion-quirkiness, there is a hint of Winchester-Mystery-House aesthetic his practical, but whimsical, pieces of art.

At first glance, these chandeliers looks like any 19th-20th century appropriation of European romantic opulence in lighting; but a closer look (or a crazy colored wall) will draw your eye to the starfish, shells, and suction cups that house the glass-blown lightbulbs. If that doesn't catch your attention, the crazy & beautiful shadows the light fixtures cast, definitely will!

If ever I move beyond crocheting cephalopods, I would surely love to take on the challenge of sculpting the organic lines of the invertebrates of the deep into functional and touchable art.