Public Art at its best

I'm sorry about the lack of posting this week. So far this week, work has been unbearably busy. I've been taking work home each evening and then have had dinner or coffee with someone every night. I've had almost no time at home where I wasn't visiting with someone or working on homework. So there has been no time for posting. Which is sad because lately I have a ton of things to talk about.

I'll start with my new favorite find. I've been reading Cute Overload for about a year now. I love that I get to see something adorable every single day. It makes me smile. And this past week I had even more to smile about since they profiled the work of Florentijn Hofman, a dutch artist who specializes in large public art displays. And one of his recent projects is a subject near and dear to my heart. Rubber Duckies.


For those of you who haven't followed me from the beginning I wrote a blog post a while ago about my two rubber collections, rubber duckies and condoms. Yeah I know, kind of a bit odd. But I love rubber duckies. How can you not? And how can you not love a rubber ducky that towers over buildings and boats. Hofman has set up his floating scuplture in several different cities includes ones in Brazil, The Netherlands, Germany, and France. The ducky then spends several months in the city before moving on to its next location. I love Hofman's words about the installment. "The friendly floating rubber duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!" I can only imagine how passing by this bright floating icon of cheerfulness would make me smile every morning.
But Hofman has not restricted himself to ducks and his other works have been equally as amusing and beautiful. This rabbit (The Giant of Vlaardingen) was made out of scrap wood and was moved to three locations within the city. Hofman states that the wood was of poor quality but I'm just stunned at how beautiful this rabbit is. And of course scale makes it so much more impressive.

Hofman plays with scale at this exhibit which appeared at Gallery West in The Hague, Netherlands. For the exhibit, Hofman created a large number of stuffed animals many times the size of a regular stuffed animal. They were then placed into the building, crammed into corners and stairwells, and then photographed. The images play tricks on the mind and looking at the photographs I began to think that the building was simply smaller. The photos cleverly do not allow any actual measure of scale. I was impressed by how sad and at times menacing these stuffed toys could looked when I remembered that they were much taller than I was. This huge monkey had to be my favorite.

Over the years I've become a huge fan of public art, particularly cheerful public art. And Hofman is just a master. I'm in love with his ducky series but all of his scupltures have been inventive and beautiful. Hopefully, his duck will make the swim across the pond and set up an installment somewhere in the US. Landlocked as I am, I would make a trek out to see it. With my love of rubber duckies, I could simply consider it a pilgrimage.

Rubbers

I have two significant collections in my life. I have always been a bit of a collector but these two have been my most ambitious collections. The first is rubber duckies. For anyone who has ever seen my bathroom you know that I have quite a few. The whole bathroom is decked out in duckies but the cabinet is where I keep most of my actual ducks. As you can see below the cabinet is pretty full. I either have to find a better place to store those or stop buying them. 

The other collection is...well...rubbers. I'm not really sure how I started collecting condoms. I think it stems from the fact that I like buying things out of vending machines. I know that it is a collection that not a lot of people have. I get a lot of questions if I mention them. My family when traveling will often buy me condoms as souvenirs. My mother, bless her heart, gave me some old, old condoms that she had found. And I have picked them up all over the place. My favorites are the ones my sister brought back from Italy. Apparently Italian men are so...good...that you can only buy condoms in six packs there. By the way, before you ask, no I don't collect used condoms nor do I use them myself. I get those questions every time I mention my collection. And I mean every time.  

So last night I went to one of the only places where I can apparently buy for both collections. Yes, the adult bookstore. My sister was in a terrible mood last night so she called to see if I wanted to go. It's actually a lot of fun to go to just make fun of some of the products. It's always wonderful when you look at a box and have no idea how to use the "toy" inside. We laughed and by the time we left she was in a good mood. But while there I found this little toy. A vibrating rubber ducky. I had to add it to my collection. And of course I bought for my other collection as well. Sorry no pictures of that.