The Sharpie is a tool utilized by graffiti artists across the globe. The Sharpie Show, brings it all together to pay homage to this basic instrument and for many, an essential tool:

The Sharpie Show, “an exhibition by artists who utilize marking pens as part of their craft,” comes to Los Angles’ Crewest Gallery Saturday, February 7th, 2009 with an opening reception from 6pm – 9pm with beats by DJ Phyz Ed and live printing by Two Rabbits.

Do you have to be a Medici or a Rockefeller to collect art?

Not according to Herb and Dorothy Vogel. This documentary film tells the extraordinary story of Herb, a postal clerk, and Dorothy, a librarian – an ordinary couple of modest means who managed to build one of the most important contemporary art collections in history.

In the early 1960s, when very little attention was paid to Minimalist and Conceptual Art, Herb and Dorothy quietly began purchasing the works of unknown artists. Devoting all of Herb’s salary to buy art, and living on Dorothy’s paycheck alone, they continued collecting artworks guided by two rules: the piece had to be affordable, and small enough to fit in their one-bedroom Manhattan apartment. Within these limitations, they proved themselves curatorial visionaries; most of those they supported and befriended went on to become world-renowned artists. Their circle includes: Sol LeWitt, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Richard Tuttle, Chuck Close, Robert and Sylvia Mangold, Lynda Benglis, Pat Steir, Robert Barry, Lucio Pozzi and Lawrence Weiner.

Check out this flickr photo set of WICKED luggage paintings by artist Ben Floeter.

3191 is a joint photography project between Maria Vettese and Stephanie Cogdon Barnes. They live three thousand nine hundred and ninety-one miles apart (as the care drives, not as the crow flies), wake up early and take a photograph each morning, to share that day.

With only four days left of their year of mornings, I was happy to read that their project has been picked up by Princeton Architectural Press and a book will be published in the autumn of 2008.

Congratulations on the book ladies!

Stay tuned to their website as a new project titled “A Year Of Evenings” will begin January 15th.