The American Flag Made of Toy Soldiers, Sneakers, Legos, Eyeglasses & More.

above: detail from Dave Cole's American flag made of melted toy soldiers and paint.

In honor of this year's Fourth of July, I'm sharing with you some artistic interpretations of the United States National Flag. However, I can't write a post on modern art and American flags without mentioning Jasper Johns, the artist whose modern paintings of American Flags are known throughout the world, the most famous of which is shown below:

above: Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1959

Now, a selection of America's Stars and Stripes, aka Old Glory, as assemblages made with everything from Greek beach pebbles to bike chains.

American flag made of melted and painted plastic toy soldiers by artist Dave Cole:




American flag made of toy soldiers by Valerie Leonard:



American flag made of eyeglasses and ephemera by artist David Datuna:




American flags made of license plates by Aaron Foster:




American Flag made of Cooperstown baseball bats cut in half for wall mounting. Available here or on ebay:


Converse created American flags made of red, white and blue high-tops for several of their stores worldwide. The images below are from their Soho, Dusseldorf and Berlin stores:






American flag made of beach pebbles on the shores of Cyprus, courtesy of Hans2568:




Artist Cameron Gray has created mosaics of the American flag from oil paintings of food on 2 x 3 wood tiles. (and this one from erotic photography too graphic to show on this blog):




American flag made of reclaimed bicycle chains by ReGeared on etsy:




Giant Lego American Flags (for both the Nixon Library and Disneyworld):


above photo courtesy of mynico76 on flickr

above photo courtesy of Gotham Guy on flickr

above photo courtesy of Disney Dan on flickr

And lastly, I love these composites of modern chairs making up the American flag made by Design Within Reach and sent out as e-mails to their customers:



UPDATE! I just received this year's DWR flag composition made with Adirondack chairs and here it is:


Related links of interest:
• US Flag Rules and Regulations
• The Flag of the United States on Wikipedia
• A nice article by Kristian Goddard on the Resilience of the Stars and Stripes.
• A website dedicated to the U.S. Flag
• US Flags and Flagpoles

Forever may she wave. Happy Fourth of July!

Art to Rave About. Self-Portrait Made Up Of Ecstacy Pills By Artist Scott Blake.

Artist Scott Blake, a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate, specializes in unique forms of digital mosaic and bar code art. A few years back, he created this self-portrait comprised of Ravers favorite drug, MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as Ecstacy or simply "e".






Scott collected all of the XTC pill images from Dancesafe.org, a harm reduction organization promoting safety within the rave community.

Pixel Dimensions - 5184 x 6480
File Size - 61.3 Megabytes
Color Mode - RGB Color
File Format - Photoshop Flattened
Individual Pill Pixel Dimensions - 144 x 144
Pills Generated - 256

See more of his work here.

Red Vines, Candy & Junk Become Celebrity Portraits In The Hands Of Jason Mecier.

above: Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines & Black Licorice twists

Los Angeles born, and now San Francisco-based, mosaic artist Jason Mecier creates portraits of famous personalities with assemblages crafted of candy, food, yarn, dried beans and just plain junk.

In his licorice mosaics, He artfully twists red and black licorice to create uncanny likenesses of some of today's most popular entertainers and images from popular culture.


above: detail of Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines and Black Licorice

In his "junk" portraits, the objects he uses to craft the images include things relevant to the celebrity or personality of his subject, such as the Campbell's soup cans and banana used to compose a portrait of artist Andy Warhol:



Red vines and black licorice:

Mo' Nique:

Michael C. Hall as Dexter:

Elizabeth Berkely in Showgirls:

Taylor Lautner:

Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street:



Other Candy
Taylor Swift made with Good n' Plenty Candies:


Pam Anderson made of various hard candy and candy bars:

details:

Christina Aguilera made of candy:

The Olsen Twins made of candy:

The Spice Girls made of candy:


Some of his impressive "junk" portraits.

Mary Louise Parker (star of HBO's Weeds):

Conan O'Brien:

Tina Fey:

Chelsea Handler:

Donald Trump and detail:

Frida Kahlo and detail:

Singer Pink:

Kathy Najimy:

RuPaul:

President Obama:



To see more, visit Jason's website.