Unusual Life

In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the “Domestic Transformer.”

Walter Dymond, groundskeeper of Harold Lloyd’s estate, Greenacres, with the Lloyd Christmas tree. He was responsible for the construction of the Christmas tree from two trees (wiring the branches of one into the other), and placed the ornaments where Mr Lloyd directed. Harold and his wife Mildred decorated it every year from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, and collected thousands of ornaments for it from all over the world. It was 20 feet tall, 9 feet wide and almost 30 feet around. The tree was fire-proofed and remained up, all year ‘round. – (1972)

****Yeah, Harold Lloyd

When Galen Dively fixes breakfast, he gets a revelation every morning. He’s the creator of “Jesus Toast”, a metal stencil fitted into an everyday toaster, for your religious and pop culture edification.

He also has created a lovely Mary toaster and, just in time for the holidays, if you buy 3 Jesus toasters you get a Mary toaster absolutely free. Yes, indeed.

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If you don’t want to spring for a toaster devoted completely to the Lord Jesus Christ, then hustle on down to Archie McPhee’s Jesus Toaster Tattoo.

Don’t even want to buy a cheap plastic stencil? Try a do-it-yourself holy image of the Christ. Spread butter in an enlightened style. Toast. Worship.

Not sure you want to break bread with Jesus. How about rocker Ted Nugent?

Love toast? Take your passion extra-large.

Toasty Links:

The Bread Art Project

Toast Art by Maurice Bennett

Toaster Art Gallery

Welcome to Elite Waste’s new line of Urban Homes. You are about to witness the newest trend in 21st Century living. Would you like to live in a home and never pay mortgage again? Simplicity and luxury optimized in our High End Dumpster home, The future of urban living has arrived!

“Bumber By Number” is an interactive and fully immersive Paint-by-Number art exhibit curated by Marlow Harris and JoDavid for the 2011 Bumbershoot Arts Festival.

The show features an interactive audience participatory paint-by-number homage to Edouard Manet’s “The Picnic” (“Le Dejeuner sur L’Herbe”) by artist Ryan Feddersen. In addition, bask in the glory of Victoria BC artist Bill Blair’s amazing life-size paint-by-number banners and guitars, and local Seattle artists create incredible canvases of altered vintage Paint-by-Numbers.

Ryan Feddersen has created a tableau complete with hand-cast wax crayons used to bring her murals to life.

Canadian artist Bill Blair creates Stories for Paint-by-Number and paints huge 9′x7′ foot Paint-by-Number backdrops.

Over 40 modern, contemporary, abstract and pop surrealist artists were given vintage completed Paint-by-Number paintings and asked to alter them in their own style.

Here is Janet Galore’s “Blue Boy”, prior to transformation.

Seattle artist Troy Gua chose two clowns he called “Father and Son”.

Pop culture cutie Lisa Petrucci adds her own personal style to this tiger painting.

Fantagraphics favorite Jim Woodring puts his own twist on this bucolic covered bridge scene:

John Brophy, fresh from his show at Seattle’s Roq La Rue Gallery, creates “Gift Horse”:

Art Army artist Mike Leavitt, who shows in Seattle at Roq la Rue, Copro Nason in LA and the Jonathan Levine Gallery in NYC made this fine trio of work:

Detail of Mike’s work:

Jim Dever’s Duck’s Revenge is for sale with all proceeds to benefit Camp Corey:

Nancy Guppy’s piece is an homage to Robert Hardgrave:

And her completed piece:

And Robert Hardgrave himself took a staid and formal arrangement of flowers…..

And re-created the piece in an unusual and unexpected way.

Seattle artist Mary Iverson was recently featured in Juxtapoz Magazine.

“Bag Painter” Chris Crites, chose a classic ship to alter:

And added his own personal style to the piece:

Show details:

• Curated by:
Marlow Harris
JoDavid

• Featured Artists:
Ryan Feddersen
Bill Blair

• Special Guest Artists and PRICE LIST will be posted on the Bumber-by-Number website.

High-Resolution photos by Jodavid on Flickr

MORE PHOTOS HERE: Seattle Twist Bumber-by-Number

• WHEN and WHERE?
Bumber By Number and other Visual Arts exhibits are open 11am – 8pm, 9/3 – 9/5, and the Location of the exhibit is the Seattle Center Pavilion (just east of Key Arena)

Free Visual Arts Preview, Thursday, September 1st, 3pm – 9pm, – Mayor’s Arts Awards are 4-6pm

• The dates and times of Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival are 9/3 – 9/5, 11am – 11pm at Seattle Center.

Please visit their website for information…
www.bumbershoot.org/

A visit to our Paint-by-Number Salon on Treasure Hunter’s Roadshow hosted by Andy St. Claire.

A giant statue of a lady in Hamburg, Germany can be seen floating at Alster Lake with its knees up, several international news sites reported on Thursday, August 4, 2011. Oliver Voss’ “The Bather” Credit

Slide Show

Spain has the running of the bulls. Seattle has the Running of the Balls.

Giant dump truck poised to unload 10,000 balls down the hill.

This bathtub couch started as cast iron clawfoot bathtub and has been converted to a fashionable and comfortable sofa for the new millennium. Ruff House Art starts out with old cast iron bathtubs, which were found in nearly every home at the start of the 20th century, and were often thrown out when the house was remodeled, and converts them to groovy furniture

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This amazing Dune House is located in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

This design by architect William Morgan adopts a Lord of the Rings aesthetic with a very different initial inspiration. The project is actually built into the earth, making two separate townhouse apartments carved into a sand dune. The apartments are entered at street level and a common stair leads to the upper floor’s entryway, bedroom and bath. On the main lower floor, the living, dining and kitchen with mostly built-in furniture open oceanside to a covered terrace at beach level.

The building was constructed in 1975 using swimming pool technology, a gunite-concrete shell anchored to a cast concrete floor. It’s also one of the original green roofs, as it’s topped by a mantle of earth stabilized by native landscaping which helps to maintain a 70-degree temperature inside.

Slide Tour by William Morgan Architects

If UNUSUAL is what you’re looking for, step right this way…

Our friend, Steve, is a great guy who has a thing about collecting unusual treasures to surround him in his home. The collection is incredible, astonishing, visually overwhelming, and sometimes disarming in nature. We’ve posted several times in the past about Steve’s passion for finding items which are unique, yet compliment other items in his multi-layered mix of visual spectacle. Today’s post is a video filmed by Unusual Life’s Marlow Harris. To say his home is a museum of wondrous treasures is an understatement. Marlow’s new video captures of the true essence of Steve’s incredibly strange home. Enjoy!

Steve invites you to take a tour of his Weird House in Seattle

Here are links to our previous posts featuring Steve and his home with many more photos and videos…

Steve’s Strange House ! – from August 2009

Comics, lawsuits, science fiction and a very unusual home from 4/07

Extreme Home Tour – November 2010

Designed by J. MAYER H. architects, this “Metropol Parasol” is a central courtyard that becomes the new contemporary urban centre. Its role as a unique urban space within the dense fabric of the medieval inner city of Seville allows for a great variety of activities such as memory, leisure and commerce. A highly developed infrastructure helps to activate the square, making it an attractive destination for tourists and locals alike.

It looks crazy out-of-place in this ancient city of Seville, but I’m in awe of their sense of adventure to build something cool and modern like this instead of a fake antiquity.

Home Office, originally uploaded by chelseagirlz.

The Longaberger Company is maker of handcrafted baskets and offers other home and lifestyle products, including pottery, wrought iron, fabric accessories and specialty foods. The company is based in Newark, Ohio, and there are approximately 45,000 independent Home Consultants located in all U.S. states who sell Longaberger products directly to customers.

They have the coolest Home Office in the world, shaped like the baskets they sell!

Features of the “Home Office”:

Offices are situated around a seven-story, 30,000 sq. ft atrium where employees and guests can enjoy the natural daylight from the skylight.

Two basket handles are attached to the building with replica copper and wooden rivets.

The handles are heated to prevent ice from forming.

Two Longaberger tags are attached to the sides of the building. The gold leaf painted tags are 725 lbs each and measure 25′ long x 7′ tall x 3″ thick.

OH Warren – Elm Road Drive-In Theatre, originally uploaded by scottamus.

Oh wow, what an awesome sign spotted in Warren, Ohio. And those films aren’t more than a couple years old, so I’m hoping this sign is still there. Great colors, “modern” design. I’m just praying they realize how cool this sign is and the owners preserve this, even if the drive-in goes away.

Meet at Noon, at the Kiddy Pool at the North end of Greenlake in Seattle on Friday, January 1st, 2011!

Here are photos from the last few years. We’ll do it again this year, Saturday, January 1st, rain-or-shine. See you then!

What a great way to get the New Year off on the right foot.

Luckily, wigs do offer some insulation from hangovers and there’s no need to fret about bad bed-head.

Rain-or-shine, umbrella’s & kids ok. Meet at the Kiddy Pool on the North end of the Lake at noon. I’m pretty sure we’ll all be pretty easy to spot.

More details on Seattle Twist.

Separation of Church and State, originally uploaded by moe.syczlak.

Unusual and beautiful shot of the Christmas tree inside the rotunda in the state capitol in Madison, Wisconsin.