In this video, Mick Burson paints a wall in Denton, Texas, that was inspired by the slums in Brazil. With no sketch, just a level, and a big paint budget, he was able to knock it out in a big three day weekend and make it to work on time Sunday night.

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Ignacio Torres is a photographer I met in my hometown of Denton, Texas. It wasn’t until he moved to New York City, though, that we became friends. I had the honor of working a bit with him this past summer in New York, and through this realized just how unique and phenomenal he really is. He has gained an abundant amount of recognition this past year for his 3D moving GIF photos. And rightfully so. They’re incredible.

English film-maker Philip Bloom really nails it here, with this short documentary on Texas old time BMX legend and gun fanatic, Jeff Pierce. He’s part redneck, part hippie and part nutcase! I hate guns, but really enjoy nerding out on the camera work here. Shot with a Red Epic and Phantom Flex, the slow-mo on this film is absolutely tremendous. If you are wondering where all the empty bullet shells go, Pierce recycles them into bicycle valve caps.

Using thousands of large crayons, artist Herb Williams creates a field of sculpture flames for Unwanted Visitor: Portrait of Wildfire at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas.

While vodka may be the last thing you thought you’d come across in the heart of Austin, Texas, it’s just what you’ll find with Deep Eddy. For everything from cocktails to on the rocks, Deep Eddy Sweet Tea Vodka is the perfect antidote to a scorching Texas summer day. It’s not your grandma’s sweet tea, but it has the same slow, sweet, Southern taste — and it’s actually infused with real tealeaves and local clover honey.

Some say you can even smell the happy, sunshine-laced scent of freshly brewed iced tea. Although it isn’t currently sold outside of Texas, a portion of the proceeds support the Friends of Deep Eddy, an Austin-based group dedicated to protecting the 75-year-old namesake swimming hole. Like the bottle says, ‘take a dip … the vodka’s perfect’.

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With Summer drawing to an end in America, the time to take that last vacation before Fall starts is now. Instead of doing the traditional visit to the beach or camping in the woods, why not try the Texan desert? Located in Marfa, Texas, this ultimate bohemian destination named El Cosmico has been described as ‘part vintage trailer, yurt and teepee hotel and campground, part creative lab, greenhouse and amphitheater’. All it takes is a few glances at the pimped out trailers and yurts to make any pencil pusher stick it to the man and run off to live their hippie fantasy.

Texas-based photographer Ansen Seale uses slit-scan photography, a process by which a panel with a slit is placed between the camera and the subject, to create his beautifully warped and abstracted images. No computers are involved.

Through watching cowboy movies, among other things, we’ve learned that Texas is full of dust. Fortunately, there are people such as Scott Wade who knows how to embellish something that is disgusting. Wade started to produce simple hearts or phrases such as ‘Wash me, you dirty fellow’ on the windshields and windows of cars. Later on, he improved his skills and now he can make a Mona Lisa or a Rembrandt by using the ‘dust extraction’ technique. He does not own a gallery because it should be really expensive but he has a huge permanent exhibition touring the city. The art of Wade reached the advertising world and brands such as Mitsubishi have used it in their graphic campaigns.

YACHT founding members Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans live in Portland, Oregon and Marfa, Texas, and consider themselves ‘generalists’ in the fields of music, art, writing, and everything in between. Their new album, See Mystery Lights, has just been released, along with companion materials ranging from book and mixtapes to a limited-edition playable copper record of mantras. We checked in with Jona to get his thoughts on the music that inspired their own album and he started with the Radha Krishna Temple song, Hare Krishna Mantra: ‘A not-so-secret-thing about YACHT is that when we see Hare Krishna monks dancing down the street in their orange robes and shaved heads, it takes a great deal of self-control for us not to run after them. This is not to say that we want to stop them or join them. We just want to see what happens at the end of the chase’. Read the rest of Yacht’s Secret Playlist.

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Whilst in Austin the other weekend, I spent a couple of nights at a beautifully designed hotel called the Kimber Modern, which is located in the happening SOCO area, just a short hop, skip and sideways roll to the bustling hive of restaurants and cafes along South Congress. The Kimber Modern is a hotel with a twist. First up, the architecture is stunning, this elegant and contemporary building with subtle splashes of color to break up the overall white-walled minimalism. And then there are the clever design touches, such as communal hammocks made from car belts, and a giant tank churning liters of water in a calming, almost Zen-like manner. [photos by Alison Zavos]

The other quirky but practical touch at the Kimber Modern is that there are no door keys. Woah! That’s right, no clunky door keys. Instead, guests choose a four digit password when making their booking and this gives them access to both the main building and the door to their room. As long as your memory is half-decent and hasn’t been clouded by the Sangria on tap at the local Tex Mex, this is a surprisingly efficient system. In the rooms themselves, cheerful colors mesh with the classic minimalism, while fun and vibrant artwork sits above the beds, acting as a gentle reminder that you really are deep amongst this cultural fermentation that is Austin, Texas.

Kimber Modern Bed and Breakfast
110 The Circle
Austin, TX 78704
Ph: (512) 912-1046

I was in Austin last week and spent a night at the Austin Motel, where the rooms are all themed and the signage is a little … err … suggestive. As far as I can tell, it’s either telling me to bugger off or to come prepared. I mentioned it to the receptionist as I was checking out, asking her about the story behind its rather provocative nature, but she clearly didn’t find any humor in it and dryly responded that it was erected in 1938. Erected? Hmmm.

From deep within the WTF files, comes this out of Austin, Texas: a dive bar at which a rather unique form of bingo is played. Yes, every Sunday at Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon, a dive bar near the main college campus, the locals play Chicken Poop bingo, which involves a poor fowl wandering aimlessly about a cage full of feed dropping its bundles on random numbers. When these ‘bundles’ find the right hole, ‘the patron with the corresponding ticket number wins cash’. Ah, huh. OK, bingo! Yippee. [photo by Connie Tsang]

Having played South By South West over the past couple of years, Golden Bear have just released a souped up new EP, Everest, which sees the Texan rock band playing together like they would at a rehearsal or a show. Says frontman Chris Gregory: ‘I was a little anxious about being able to approximate the sound of our live show in the first place, but I figured to hell with it-let’s give it a shot. And I’m glad we did. There were no endless nights of playing the same song 150 times, no overscrutinaztion, and in all honesty, no hitches in the plan whatsoever. It was loose, rowdy, and rewarding, just like our shows’. You can download the Golden Bear track, All The Stars [listen below], for free via the Music Download section in the third column of the Lost At E Minor site.

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Says Austin photographer Rachel Marton about her series on dead rodents: ‘There was a small ring of death around my house. consisting of a mouse, not even fully grown, and a chick, just lying on the sidewalk’. My sister watched as a larger bird with something in its mouth swooped down into our yard, dropped it, then flew away. Our cats started to play with it when she realized it was a fresh hatchling and scooped it up. He was still alive so I took him to a wildlife rescue near town. All of this happened within a two week time constraint, and it’s been too hot in good ol’ Texas for the cats to go hunting now’.

Working out of Texas, photographer Brittanie Pendleton captures slithers of untouched serenity. Her photographed world is slightly unsettling for its moodiness and ambiguity, but its grittiness and muted colors are beautiful and engaging. Of her work, she says, ‘I mostly do digital photography, self-portraits and landscapes, with the occasional kitty portrait. My photos focus on everyday situations, and finding beauty in the mundane. A lot of my work is also centered around sex, sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle’.

I like the offbeat quirkiness of Janet Karem’s artwork. She is an expressive painter whose main area of interest is in ‘playful abstract cityscapes’. ‘The first paintings in this series were inspired by the historical buildings lining Main St. in the small town of Denison, Texas. As the series progressed, I began to paint old theaters or world architecture in a similar style, and more recently, have begun new series of city skylines. Beginning in 2008, I have also had a special focus on jazz musicians, figurative and portrait paintings. While I do not tend to abstract the figures to a great degree, I have pushed boundaries in the environment to create movement, and used very expressive brushwork. When I paint I layer and layer paint. There could be 50 layers of paint on any given spot. I use a method I developed on my own that is a bit like sculpting, as I work I am tearing down as much as I am building up. In so doing, I do not mix on the palette so much as I try to let my paintings shimmer the many colors and values that can be seen in any given thing’.

With that annual music-thon, SXSW, kicking off next week, we thought it would be a good time to put together a playlist of some of our favorite acts who’ll be performing there, including Tigercity and British Sea Power [pictured above]. So we did.

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