Welcome to Marwencol

In 2000 five men beat Mark Hogancamp outside a bar so severely that he nearly died.  After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with little memory of his previous life. Unable to afford therapy, Mark decided to create his own. In his backyard, he built Marwencol (Mark/Wendy/Collen), a one-sixth scale World War II-era town that he populated with dolls representing his friends, family and even his attackers.  He used the small dolls and props to redevelop his hand-eye coordination, while he dealt with pyschic wounds from his attack through Marwencol’s many battles and dramas.

In the same vein as Daniel Johnston and Henry Darger, creativity becomes a healing power and a way to negotiate a world that is sometimes too painful to be a part of.

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Help Creativity Explored, a Non-Profit Arts Organization

"French" by John Patrick McKenzie

I love this piece. It was created by John Patrick McKenzie, a participating artist at Creativity Explored, a nonprofit visual arts center where artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit, and sell art. With the help of Creativity Explored, Mr. McKenzie, and many other artists like him, have discovered what it is to be able to express themselves through art and, in many cases, have been received with wild acclaim and invitations to exhibit nationally and internationally. In order to enable this institution to continue doing great work they would like your help.

Please take a moment to read the info below and click on the link to donate $1 to Creativity Explored at no cost to you! You don’t have to fill anything out, enter your name, etc.  Just select Creativity Explored as the beneficiary. They have the opportunity to earn several thousand dollars and they need your click to make it happen!

Landor’s San Francisco office selected Creativity Explored to be one of three nonprofit beneficiaries to receive a share of $10,000. Click on the Creativity Explored post-it note to give CE $1 at no cost to you. Since you can only select once, please forward to your friends so they can give CE $1 too!  Or, post it on your Facebook or Twitter page. Landor’s Make Good Happen campaign will run until January 15th or until all $10,000 has been distributed.

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Behind the Scenes With The Date Farmers

Yesterday I had the chance to hang out with my dear friends and extraordinary artists, The Date Farmers (Carlos Ramirez and Armando Lerma), while they installed the work for their new show,

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A&O Interview With Jesse Reno

Choosing Between Shapes

I’ve been mesmerized by Jesse Reno‘s paintings for years. To call them mere paintings is almost myopic, relegating them to a definition that can easily be obtained through a cursory inspection. It’s best to take your time with Reno’s work, to examine the layers, the complex pattern work, scrawled lines, and his preternatural subjects who adorn the surface like holy beings, deities, and sacred creatures from another realm. To deny Reno’s oeuvre this small justice is to miss the visual stories the artist seeks to tell; ancient glyphs from the dreamscape of Reno’s waking life, unearthed into the light of day.

For this A&O interview, I asked the prolific Portland-based artist to share some of his inspiration and recent work with me. Reno was also kind enough to include a written piece with info he normally shares with his students for the “Tips & Techniques” section of A&O. You don’t want to miss this!

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