WE'RE SUPPORTING

Beautiful, delicate, fragile, a little bit collage, a little bit sketchfull. This is the work of Kelly Smith. Combining several mediums in a collaborative expose between pencil, paint and print to create timeless works of elegant splendour, it is easy to compare Smith’s works to the last snowflake of winter, fleeting but real, avoiding the brash bright mercantile world for the prettier climes of illustrative pleasure. Smith has a twelve-day exhibition on at the 696 Space in Brunswick, Melbourne, opening November 14.

WE'RE THINKING

Greg “Craola” Simkins is hands-down one of my favourite artists. His work has been an inspiration from the very beginning. Incorporating a delicate blend of the surreal, graffiti stylings and more recently, classical art, the fluid movement of his compositions and the beautiful use of light and colour have had me entranced for years now. Read more

How old must Kermit be now? Not to old to collaborate with skater-friendly retailer Supreme and photographer Terry Richardson. Kermit, who usually wears nothing, has been hooked up with some new threads to advertise the brand. It seems Kermit and Terry are the perfect work partners: they’ve even released a video clip documenting the shoot.

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

Of all the weird places the world has to offer, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia has to be one of the coolest. Literally. At 3,700m above sea level, it’s the biggest and highest salt flat in the world, where after dark, temperatures can drop to minus 40 degrees celsius. The best way to explore the salt flat is to hire a 4WD and driver from the Uyuni township. En route, you can even stay at a Salt Hotel, where everything is, quite literally, made from salt: the chairs, beds, tables and even the walls. There’s no heating and the beds aren’t exactly ‘plush’, but it’s worth every salty second. Read more

WE'RE READING

Who wants to be famous? A lot of people, that’s for sure. And the first ones are the mothers of little American girls.
 High Glitz: The extravagant world of Child Beauty Pageants shows images of the children that take part in the different beauty contests around America, bursting as they are with extravagant haircuts, haute-couture dresses, false teeth and all the artificial beauty that you can imagine. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Named after the first openly gay politician in US history, Harvey Milk make some rather testosterone-heavy tunes. While appealing mostly to the stoner-rock and indie-metal set, the quintet from Athens, Georgia, aren’t afraid of a little melody, as the almost pop track Motown on their latest album, Life … the Best Game in Town, proves. But more often than not, the band gets down and dirty with some knuckle-dragging sludge rock. Amid the haze of searing guitar squeals, menacing power chords, and seismic bass rumbling, though, are some almost math-rock flourishes that hint at the brains behind the brawn.

WE'RE WEARING

Converse kicks off its hundredth anniversary with 1HUND(RED), a special artist series with proceeds going to the Global Fund. The project is a year-long release of shoes designed by notable artists, including Auckland-based illustrator, Dennis Juan Ma, whose shoe [above] is number twenty in the series.