Art Designer

Annual Love at the Glove art show goes virtual | SIU

By Debra A. Gilbert 8 months ago


Love at the Glove

Love at the Glove organizer Bill Sieber, left, speaks to a guest at the 2019 art show. The annual Love at the Glove, which is always held around Valentine’s Day, is going virtual this year due to the pandemic.



SIU Media Services


CARBONDALE — Love at the Glove has for more than 20 years been a spirited and somewhat risqué celebration of art featuring pieces focused on matters of the heart.

Whether it be romance, heartbreak, anatomy or subjects of a more risqué nature, the Surplus Gallery at Southern Illinois University’s Glove Factory on Washington Street in Carbondale presents both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional art installations, as well as performance art pieces, around Valentine’s Day every year.

While the event took a three-year hiatus from 2015 to 2017, Bill Sieber, a recent MFA graduate of SIU’s School of Art and Design, brought Love at the Glove

… Read More

Jar Jar Binks Becomes an Evil Sith Lord in Scary Star Wars Fan Art

By Debra A. Gilbert 8 months ago

Jar Jar Binks is an important part of the Star Wars franchise. While the Gungan is not, perhaps, roundly beloved by the fanbase, he is important nonetheless. He was also an ally to the Jedi the Republic. And, unwittingly, the one who allowed Palpatine to assume control of the galaxy. In an alternate universe, Jar Jar might have been downright evil. Now, we know what that might have looked like, thanks to creature designer Kevin Cassidy, Senior Character Artist at Roundhouse Studios.

Taking to Instagram, Kevin Cassidy recently revealed some art he cooked up that completely reimagines Jar Jar Binks as a Sith Lord. It is, in a word, shocking. The basic shape of Jar Jar is still there. The shape of the body. The big ears. But this version of the character is undeniably menacing, with a rough, weathered look and a stone face that could not be mistaken

… Read More

A Natural Work of Art May Be Hiding Among Indian Cave Masterpieces

By Debra A. Gilbert 8 months ago

Ten thousand years ago or more, people started painting the walls of caves near Bhopal, India. Over the millenniums they made thousands of images in what are now called the Bhimbetka Rock Shelters: men, women, a couple having sex, dancers, children, hunts, battles, about 29 different animal species and mythical beasts like a part-boar part-ox part-elephant.

Over time, art styles shifted. Human figures donned clothes. Horses and elephants sprouted riders. Wars danced across sandstone faces. Today, many of the cave walls are now palimpsests, with medieval warriors covering Chalcolithic art on top of even older Mesolithic drawings.

Still, an overlooked pattern spotted by a tour group of scientists in March 2020 seemed so, so, so much older. Older than representational art or humans or primates or fish or horseshoe crabs. Eleven feet up on the wall of an area called Auditorium Cave, the visitors had identified something that looked an

… Read More

An Indian design brand hits cinematic high with an exclusive Top Gun franchise collaboration

By Debra A. Gilbert 8 months ago


An Indian design brand hits cinematic high with an exclusive Top Gun franchise collaboration

© Priyanka Roshan
An Indian design brand hits cinematic high with an exclusive Top Gun franchise collaboration

For hobby pilot and brand consultant Akshay Sharma, a venture that began in a serendipitous moment — when he could not find a wooden replica of a vintage aircraft propeller he wanted as a decor accessory for his newly built home — is now paying global dividends.

His boutique decor brand, WoodFeather, has been picked by Paramount Pictures’ Top Gun franchise, starring Tom Cruise, to design, create and sell, globally, propellers inspired by Maverick, the next movie in the super-successful series.

Two years ago when Sharma stumbled upon an article on Maverick, which will release in July 2021, something sort of clicked in his head. “I felt goosebumps go up my arms. It would have been a missed opportunity if I did not do something with Top Gun,” he says, the excitement palpable

… Read More