Merry Christmas, Jellyfish!

Please enjoy this artsy film I made starring a jellyfish at the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY. If you turn the sound up you can hear Christmas music as well as a family arguing over camera angles. The Newport Aquarium is amazing. You can walk underneath several tanks full of sharks, sting rays and sea turtles. Awesome!

Impressive. Most Impressive.

There's no denying that I'm a huge Star Wars fan. For Halloween Paul and I (well, mostly Paul) set up a projector in our backyard so we could watch "A New Hope" with friends and neighbors. After seeing that, of course, we just had to watch The Empire Strikes Back the next day (we watched that one inside, since it was pretty cold and we didn't want to continue to bother our neighbors with our geek fest).

On the heels of that, I just found these photos of Star Wars actors in between shoots on Wired. Part of me wants to look away, since these real photos belie the existence of another galaxy that I totally subscribe to every time I see one of the Star Wars films. But I love seeing how young George Lucas was as well as how many endlessly creative people participated in the film (and the fact that it was made 2 years before I was born).

P.S. Anthony Daniels couldn't sit down in his C-3P0 costume, so when he needed to rest he leaned on this board. In the blazing sun, in Tunisia. Yikes.

I'm Back!

I can't believe my last post was in April! Yikes! A lot has happened since then, namely, I got married in September, went on an incredible honeymoon, then moved from Chicago to Evanston in October. Paul and I got married at the Columbus Park Refectory here in Chicago, surrounded by 100 of our closest family and friends. It was the best day of my life (as well as a pretty sweet party).


Here's a picture of my husband Paul on the balcony of our hotel room on the big island of Hawaii. Our room overlooked all this gorgeous greenery! We couldn't have had a better view (the ocean is to the right of Paul's shoulder).

It feels good to be back in real time, not in the exciting-but-stressful bubble of wedding planning. I can't wait to get back to posting about cool stuff.

Sweet Children's Secret Room

If I have kids, I'm totally going to install this trap door that leads to a playroom for them. If I don't, I'm still going to install this. When my brother and I were little we used to look for trap doors in my parents' house, and we loved the trash chute in my grandma's apartment building. We would have LOVED to have discovered this treasure.

The Indecisive Seagull

I sat outside on the patio at work the other day talking to my mom on my iphone. The whole time I was on the phone a seagull had landed near me, and was peaking into the window of the cafe, looking for scraps (I think). I recorded it and sent it to my mom.

It's 50% funny and 50% kind of sad.

Art. It's Alive!

Wanna see what the Roy Lichtenstein woman looks like in real life? She's here!

It's Not Quite Priceless

Last week the Chicago Tribune ran a story about a Glen Ellyn man named Patrick Scoff who produces paintings and leaves them in spots all around Chicago. He's got a following too - people track his travels through Twitter and Facebook and follow him around the city to pick up the paintings, sometimes only seconds after he's left them there. It has to be costly, since he doesn't make a profit, but he's getting some attention for his art (or his nontraditional promotional tactics).

Scoff's system is playful and fun, but has really nothing to do with the quality of work he's producing. It reminds me of how I often attempted to win a stuffed animal from those claw machines as a kid, pumping it full of quarters to grab a stuffed animal, only for the thrill of obtaining it and then later leaving it in the car.

I guess I'll just keep watching and see what happens.

And Now A Post About a Yacht

Hermes, the French fashion line of scarves, ties and purses, has finally teamed up with Wally, a yacht brand, to create the world's most insane yet stunningly beautiful yacht. It costs $151 million and has enough space for 20 staff and 12 guests. Other items: a massage room, a tree, a library, pool, movie theater, and a "beach", essentially a huge deck that lies just above the water.



But why does it have room for 20 staff but only 12 guests?

Because it's for villains. Who else has a staff of 20 but so few friends? Some of the people I could see owning a WHY yacht are: Jackie Treehorn, Lex Luther (he owned a yacht in Superman Returns), Glenn Close's character in Fatal Attraction, and the husband from Sleeping with the Enemy . Ultimately, whoever owns this yacht must keep a pet puma, have a laser in one eye, and must attempt to annihilate his enemy on the beach deck, only to find that his enemy has been saved by a team of kindly manta rays and dolphins.



Most villains are minimalist design types -their surroundings are supposed to be cold and elemental. Heroes are seldom minimalists - Wayne Manor was a sprawling and ancient castle, as was Dr. X's X-Mansion. Clark Kent's boyhood home was a modest farm house. I'm staying away from this yacht. Not because I can't afford it, but because I don't want to be the bad guy. Okay, it's because I can't afford to.

After finding out about this gem I became interested in other expensive yachts. Check out these beauties. There are pictures of the marble bathrooms and cineplexes too.

Picasso's Light Paintings

Oh, Picasso. He's been dead for 37 years but still manages to pop up on the internet with cool ideas. For instance, these photographs on Google's Life images database.



The story behind them: In 1949 Picasso's friend and Life Magazine photographer Gijon Mili presented Picasso with light "pencils, and then photographed him while he designed these incredible figures. Mili thought these photos were extraordinary because they illustrate Picasso's creative brain with much more immediacy than any sculpture or painting.

What I love about the photos is not just the beautiful figures but the way his squat, bald and shorts-wearing 68 year old body seems to be exuding creativity from every sore joint.

Hello, me, it's me.

Happy New Year, and welcome to my blog, Mies Van Gogh.

My name is Emily. I was born and raised outside of Boston and now live in Chicago, where I work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Human Resources. I recently graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago with an M.A. in art history with a focus in contemporary art. I've lived in Chicago for seven years and now live in Pilsen with my fiance, Paul.

The blog will be a collection of rantings about art and art history, design, photography, and the occasional strange idea, like if it's possible to raise a family in a submarine or how to keep a squirrel as a pet. I promise it will be more interesting than a nap, less intense than a fire drill, less rambling than your high school english teacher, and more entertaining than those movie theater commercials disguised as previews. Enjoy!