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So What Does My Smog Check Have In Common With Michelangelo?

November 30, 2016 by Lonnie Lardner

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(Pic #1) Detail, Creation of Adam, ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, Rome, 1508-1512. Fresco by Michelangelo. Or is it?

Notice anything odd about the iconic Renaissance painting above?

Hey history buffs: Is it possible Italian master sculptor/painter Michelangelo stopped in to get his car smog checked just before he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? I mean, is it at all conceivable? Hear me out.

On my own recent mandatory visit to the Smog Shop, I found myself so hateful of having to be there, and stay there, that I took out my camera to “play” in the waiting room. My eyes fixated on these beautiful patterns and marks in the old painted, cracked, cement floor. All these gorgeous textures and colors — I was mesmerized. (Pics #2, #3, #4, #5). I suddenly realized why they were so meaningful to me: they were (unplanned) modern day recreations of background (sky) images in famous tramadol historical “frescoes” like those of Michelangelo.

So for the fun of it, with the help of Photoshop, I replaced the original crumbling sky in the “Creation of Adam” panel (Pic #6) with a shot of the Smog Shop floor. (Pic #2). So Pic #1 is a fraud.

I hope Michelangelo doesn’t mind my messing with his masterpiece — I suspect he’s cool with it — cuz after all, he’s the one who famously said, “I’m not a painter, I’m a sculptor.”

P.S. – Big fan of his in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

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(Pic #2) Detail, smog shop floor, waiting room.

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(Pic #3 and #4) Detail, smog shop floor, cashier line. Yes, those are my toes.

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(Pic #5) Detail, smog shop floor, restroom.

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(Pic #6) Original image, authentic background, Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel.

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(Pic #7) Smog shop in Westlake, California.

Filed Under: Found Art Tagged With: art is everywhere, Creation of Adam 2016, found art, Michelangelo, Photoshop, Sistine Chapel, smog check and art, Vatican art

Art Underfoot

April 30, 2016 by Lonnie Lardner

blue walkway / Kaplan

(Pic #1) Gorgeous stained cement walkway spotted in Ventura, California. Photo by Josh Kaplan

One more argument against walking while texting: the beauty below.

While Fort Lee New Jersey has already passed a law banning texting while walking, other towns are considering the move, in an effort to make streets safer. I applaud it — but for a slightly different reason.  Just look what you miss. If your face is buried in the small screen, chances are pretty pharmacy no rx slim you’d see the art beneath your feet just waiting to be discovered.

I grabbed the pictures below with my iPhone while on a walk on the streets of Calabasas. I swore off texting while walking on this day, and feel the universe rewarded me with these.

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(Pic #2) Quirky geometric “sidewalk sketches” in Calabasas, California.

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(Pic #3) An insecure start to a game of Tic-Tack-Toe, carved into the sidewalk in Calabasas, California.

Filed Under: Found Art Tagged With: art is everywhere, art underfoot, found art, sidewalk art, sidewalk studio, street art

Today’s Pic: The Hidden Art of Renovation

July 31, 2015 by Lonnie Lardner

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(Pic #1) Cement floor with spray paint guides for electricians and engineers. Midtown Manhattan corporate renovation project.

If you look closely, way cool images just emerge from the floor.

I’m pretty sure the temperature reached close to 8000 degrees in New York this week. The sweat poured off my brow, and my hair stuck stubbornly to my neck. I hated life. Then, on a tour of a construction site in a skyscraper I’ll be working on in midtown Manhattan, I looked down and found reason to smile.

Spray painted markings used to communicate placement of electrical wiring and other conduits that keep a corporate machine on the grid. They could have been rough sketches for a Hieronymus Bosch painting, some secret codes from a tech convention, or a faraway glimpse into the cosmos.

Floor 18 cropped tf copy

In any case, these images were just waiting to be found; I’m glad they found me. Because suddenly, the brutal heat gave me a break, and I got inspired from the simple act of observation.

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Filed Under: Found Art Tagged With: art is everywhere, construction art, found art, hidden art, renovation art

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