Mind-Blowing Pieces of Art (Made With The Most Random Stuff)
Ever since that very first no-good punk caveman vandalized some perfectly fine cave walls, humans have kept on creating "art." But what is art, anyway? That's a damn good question. What? Did you expect us to have an answer? We're uncultured swine! Plus, art can be pretty much anything. Just look at ...
High Art Made From Lowly Jeans Material
Ian Berry captures the gritty side of city life through a medium that hasn't been used to make an artistic statement since the early '90s: denim.
Berry doesn't use dyes, so it can take him several weeks to achieve all those shades of urban decay. Like a redneck mosaic, he stitches together tiny individual elements cut from various denims, from the humble pair of workman's jeans to the vainglorious Whitesnake vest. And Berry has a near endless supply of denim, thanks to people from all over the world sending him their mom jeans in the hopes that they might be used for something less embarrassing than wearing them.
In addition to those city scenes and portraits, Berry has created the Secret Garden, a lush jungle oasis put together from the last batch of denim made in the United States. It's for the New York City Children's Museum of the Arts, and Berry hopes it will inspire kids to play outside and discover nature. Because what says "nature" like artificial flowers made from cotton that's been pulverized and factory-assembled into the roughest fabric we deign to touch?
Related: 7 Horrifying Uses Of The Human Body To Create Art
The Professional Hand Flutist
Mitsuhiro Mori is the only world-class flutist who doesn't own a flute. Instead, the (obviously) self-taught musician can mimic any note by blowing into his hands.
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Mori was discovered by his college buddy, pianist Keisuke Usuda, who realized his unique ability could change the music world ... or at least look weird enough that people would pay a lot of money to see it. Thus was the hand-flute / piano duo called Childhood born.
Although their inspirational New Age sound hasn't yet convinced the masses to put down their arms and embrace one another with open hands/flutes, it has taken them around the world to perform for Earth's most discerning novelty instrument aficionados.
Related: 8 Amazing Works Of Art You Need A Microscope To Appreciate
Stunning Paintings Done On Dirty Cars
Scott Wade lived in rural Texas for more than 20 years, where he spent much of that time doodling on the family cars' dirty windshields, because there's not much else to do in rural Texas. Wade's once-silly pastime has since blossomed into a unique skill he's exhibited for audiences in Istanbul, Mexico City, and anywhere else they have way more cars than car washes.
Like Michelangelo's first encounter with the Medicis or Vincent van Gogh moving to Arles, every great artist has their breakout moment. Wade's epiphany manifested when he thought to use a frayed, chewed-up Popsicle stick as a paintbrush. The discovery inspired him to try other tools and develop his craft.
In a perfect world, Wade says he prefers to use "natural canvases," or naturally dirty cars. It takes a lot of back road driving for windshields to accumulate that much dirt, though, so for his shows, Berry coats the windshields with oil and uses a blow dryer to apply fine dirt or powdered mineral.
Related: 9 Mind-Blowing Pieces Of Art Made With Ridiculous Materials
Intricately Carved Food Waste
Heidao, or Chinese nut carving, burst onto the scene more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. By mid-millennium, it had become such a craze that even the emperor was said to flaunt his nuts.
But it's not limited to nuts. Artisans also carve intricate scenes of daily life, mythology, or Chinese history into fruit pits from apricots, cherries, olives, or more popularly, peach, because the peach is a symbol of vitality, and also because "peach" shares a pronunciation with "escape." Sometimes art is a fickle mistress; other times, not so much.
Sometimes the carvings are fashioned into beads:
Or gaudy necklaces:
But the Mona Lisa of food waste is a little boat hewn from an olive pit in 1737 by legendary nutter Ch'en Tsu-chang:
He was inspired by "Latter Ode On The Red Cliff," a poem by Su Tung-p'o, which describes a moonlit boat ride with friends. Ch'en not only carved the boat itself, but also placed the poet inside it, along with his seven homies, chairs, dishes, and windows on tiny hinges. He also engraved 300 characters from the poem onto the boat's hull. Pit carvings remain popular today thanks to nutsmiths like Liu Jun, who studied the sculpting disciplines for eight years before cracking the Bigs.
Related: 6 Simple-Looking Artworks That Were Really Tough To Pull Off
Masterpieces Done Purely In MS Paint
Pat Hines has succeeded where many have leapt, but few have flown. He not only creates competent graphics, but stunning art with Microsoft Paint.
Hines has spent the past 15 years mastering MS Paint, much of that time while working an overnight reception job at a Boston hospital on a primitive Windows computer. Since he's a normal human and didn't enjoy Minesweeper or Solitaire, he spent much of that time messing around with Paint, proving that you can get good at anything if you spend enough time doing it.
Each image requires several weeks of delicate mouse-work, because Hines doesn't rely on crutches like a tablet or a pen. He does use the line tool from an older version of Paint, but even Michelangelo used a ruler every now and then.
Hines more recently put his Paint skills to use. He spent two years writing and illustrating Camp Redblood, a comedic '80s-style adventure about rowdy teenage summer campers fending off supernatural beasts while still taking time to prank their rivals.
Wow. We can't wait to see what Hines will do when he discovers clip art.
Related: 3 'Genius' Artists Who Created Their Best Works By Accident
The Most Beautiful Joints You Will Ever Smoke
When Tony Greenhand dropped out of high school, people expected him to spend his days rolling joints and playing Call Of Duty, but no one expected him to turn that lifestyle into art, fame, and most shocking of all, a living wage. Greenhand, a professional weed artist, rolls joints out of Biggie's wildest dreams.
Greenhand -- which is, incredibly, not his real name -- charges $50 per hour for his services, but he's no capitalist pig. He'll also roll you a doob in exchange for some bacon or blueberries, both of which might be slang terms that we just don't get. He used to create his art purely for the love of the game, but thanks to his newfound social media fame, he's currently taking commissions from celebrities ranging from Snoop Dogg to B.o.B. OK yes, his clientele is somewhat limited.
But make no mistake, the man is a serious artist. He's even journeyed all the way to the Dominican Republic and Cuba to study master cigar rollers. He also rolls for the good of humankind. This 12-gram Spider-Man joint sold for $1,100 at a charity auction:
And of course, he rolls for prestige, like when he did the world's largest joint, a watermelon filled with 4.20 pounds (get it?) of cannabis that could be inhaled with a hose:
This seems like a good time to bring up the fact that thousands of black men are still incarcerated on marijuana charges in disproportionate numbers. Just something to think about while you giggle at these photos, maybe.
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