The Arts In The City: Introduction (featuring Darick Maasen’s missing art & Kate Brooks’ Tahrir Square Cairo Egypt Images)

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"Every artist was first an amateur."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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In case you haven’t figured it out, I have a new segment idea, because as always I’m always looking around for new art and artists from around the world mostly online. Local art news I look up on Art Circuits & Miami Art Guide because they list many of the great art museum and art gallery events in the South Florida area. We really do not have permanent fine arts museums here in Miami and really how many times can I go visit Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MoCA NoMi) & Miami Art Museum (MAM) during the same exhibit tour? Art Basel Miami Beach happens only once a year, and trust me December 1-4, 2011 can’t come fast enough for me. Gallery Night in Wynwood Art District (2nd Saturday of the month) and Gable Galley Night (1st Friday of the month) are gallery art walks happening only once a month in the area art galleries. Sometimes this Chubby Bear is in the mood for the arts and online art hunting I go. When I’m art seeing around the web I occasionally find some interesting works of art and unique artists which I will start to share in “The Arts In The City” hoping to make it a regular part of my blog. There will feature all kinds of art - performing arts, fine art, pop art, modern art, contemporary art, abstract art, photography art, new art, art design, and art crafts. Mostly sharing with you the art pictures that interest or speaks to me the most. But could be just me talking about my latest visit to NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (TheMet) or Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) to the latest event happening at the Performing Arts Center or upcoming shows being put on by a Performing Arts Schools.

Today I was searching around looking at some things to improve my blog and researching topic ideas to write about when I bumped into something very interesting out of Chicago. Artist Darick Maasen (and friends) made the local news for building an 8-foot-by-11-foot igloo in his backyard with all the snow that has hit the area in the last few weeks. Then I found this interesting post on another blog Mike Mitchell’s Tumblr of Amazing Things! which happened to be about Darick Maasen's missing art. At which point I felt it was a sign and needed to reblog the post since he’s a cute Cubby Bear (albeit I’m not aware if he is gay or not; so don’t put words in my mouth). But I did find a Facebook picture of him with Andrea the Giant at Earwax which he wrote: “I'm just in the photo for scale...and to wear a bear mask...”. Below are a few images of his works that I enjoyed and wanted to share with you, as well as the re-blog of his missing art work.

Darick Maasen (wearing a bear mask) standing next to his Life-Size portrait of Andre the Giant at Earwax

Life-Size portrait of Andre the Giant by Darick Maasen

Artist Darick Maasen working on his Life-Size Portrait of Andre the Giant

Hands of Andre the Giant and artist Darick Maasen

Those of you who know me know I'm kind of a Man's Hand Connoisseur and Darick’s hands as exquisite sample.

Vintage Bear Woman And Cub by Darick Maasen

Billie Holiday by Darick Maasen

Missing Poster for Lincoln Death Mask by Darick Maasen

 Please help this artist recover his art painting from the thieves by rebloging this post.

Now on to the image an image that really captured me while I was reading The New Yorker online this morning. Yes occasionally having the printed copy is not enough. It was featured on their “PHOTO BOOTH” blog which always has interesting images. This one from the post Postcard From Tahrir Square: Kate Brooks. It’s an overhead image of the anti-government demonstrators gathered to protest in Tahrir Square during Friday's prayers. You can read about and see more great images from Kate’s (and other photojournalists’) experience in Cairo in the “Postcard From Egypt” blog post.



Anti-government demonstrators gather in Tahrir Square to protest during Friday prayers. Photographs by Kate Brooks - February 4, 2011

Those are actual people praying. There is something so moving about this image in contract to everything else coming out of Cairo at the moment.