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!

Portraits Embossed on Aluminum Foil Pans By Idan Friedman

Designer and artist Idan Friedman of Israel's Reddish Studio has created a series of portraits embossed on aluminum foil pans. All the people featured in "Ordinary People and Disposable Objects" are part of his everyday life, ranging from close friends to passers-by.







As viewed when exhibited:



all images courtesy of the artist

Special thanks to Annals of America for bringing these to my attention

Reddish Studio

Lladro Atelier's Newest Decorative Porcelain Collection by Jaime Hayon: Metropolis.

Lladro Atelier unveiled their latest collection of decorative porcelain at the 2011 maison et objet show. The architecturally inspired pieces, created under the guidance of designer Jaime Hayon, include vases, lamps, planters, mirrors and boxes that together form a city.




The modern and futuristic pieces are rendered in matte porcelain and modern colors (light and dark yellow, light and dark green, light and dark grey, anthracite and white) whose detailed textures are reminiscent of embroidery. Although the exteriors are bisque, the interiors are glazed so that they are watertight.






images courtesy of Lladro Atelier
The individual pieces range from $215 to $600 and can be purchased here

The following images from Maison et Objet are courtesy of Designboom:




Lladro Atelier