Great New Artists

January has been a successful month so far here so I thought I would do a little time-out housekeeping-type post for all my lovely readers.

So far 2009 has seen a lot of new artists from YouTube and other sites on the internet but I thought it would be in keeping with my more academic nature if February took a slightly different track. I feel it is neccessary to understand old art in order to truly appreciate new art so the month of Feb will be dedicated to some of those old favorites with short descriptions of why they were so great.

Hopefully the rest of 2009 will get back to my roots here at Great New Artists and find some more great painters &ct. making great new art for everyone. Since the summer is usually pretty heavy with this kind of thing floating around we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that around that time.

Speaking of youth…Olga Kay is one of the best jugglers I have ever seen…actually I shouldn’t say that because I haven’t really ever paid much attention to jugglers myself but if I were to do a comparison I would say that she is it.

The real reason I love her is that she carries with her so much vibrance and youthful energy that it makes me want to take up juggling or make more videos. I love people who make me want to do something…in case you haven’t noticed since I say that in almost every post. She’s got a great sense of humor and she is really supportive of other people that she thinks are great too so I think everyone should be supportive of her.

Not since Free Hugs have I seen a YouTube video that made me cry quite as much as The Beckoning of Lovely. It all started when Amy Krouse Rosenthal made a video called 17 Things I Made in which Amy chronicled some of the things she has made including the ordinary and not so ordinary.

Through this video audiences learned that she is a writer, a mother and a maker of things including an 18th thing which she promised to make on 08/08/08 at the Millenium Park Bean–That’s where The Beckoning of Lovely began.

The Beckoning is not over yet as you will see at her blog and on the videos so this is only the first in a series I will do on her work in the coming days. I may even do a Suite 101 article about her later.

A little known fact about me is that there are very few things as or more exciting than break dancing (actually dancing in general) and film but little did I know when the two are combined it’s like…wow that was really cool!

OK so maybe words can’t explain it as well as I thought. Director John M Chu obviously feels the same way about this because he is the mastermind behind the League of Extraordinary Dancers which is a dance crew comprised of some of the best dancers from all over the world and a ton of celebrity guests. They were recently featured as part of the performances on YouTube Live and even more recently on Ellen Degeneres’ TBS special which was filmed live at Ceaser’s Palace both videos can be seen through their YouTube channel.

John M Chu is also the director of Step Up 2: The Streets which I regrettably have not seen yet (but plan on seeing now) and in looking up his IMDB page I actually expected to see a long list of credits but I was surprised to find that it’s actually rather short.

In keeping with the tradition of counting down and looking back which seems to transcend generations and religions every year round about this time I decided to write about some of the best new artists I found this past year.

Valsartdiary I actually found out about her a while ago before 2008 started but her style is classic.

Katarina Sokolova one of the best digital painters I have ever seen.

Kawaii Goods.com great little shop full of pink stuff.

Graffiti Paris is a book not a person or organization but it still counts as one of the best art related things I found this year.

Of course there have been a lot more great things this year than just these but it’ll be more fun if I don’t tell you what else to like