Pasadena-based artist Jesse Fillingham works to explore themes of "myth, introspection, creation, and wizardry." We like those themes, and his series of drawings depicting "an alternate creation myth composed of trees of strife, knowledge and life, as well as ephemeral libidinous pritis - robed men ponder and wander through graphic landscapes."

We are really enjoying the photographs of New Jersey-based photographer Robin Schwartz this morning. Schwartz, as you probably gathered from her photos, is an animal person and her daughter has been the subject of her body of work stretching over eleven years. Schwartz is a professor of photography at William Paterson University.   

Photographer Ruben Brulat has traveled via land only, through Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Japan and Mongolia for his latest series entitled Paths. "The bodies of people become friends, performing - not without difficulties - leaving wounds, marks, and souvenirs from a time before heading towards different paths, (after sharing one for a while). The Bodies of these people become a part of the accidental and dramatic landscapes, like the trees, the rocks or the black sands of gunung bromo." 

Collaboration between the artists Thyra Hilden and Pio Diaz has produced this wonderful light sculpture, Forms in Nature, that likens a ball of tree branches. The light source in the center illuminates the ball and casts a forest of trees onto the floor, walls, and ceiling! Hilden & Diaz describe the piece, "The shadows engulf the room and transforms the walls into unruly shadows of branches, bushes, and gnarled trees. Mirrorings are thrown out upon the walls and ceilings provide weak Roschach-like hints of faces, life and flow of consciousness."

The Camera Lucida is an optical device that was designed by Sir William Hyde Wollaston and used a prism to project an image onto paper for tracing. Some claim that many of the Old Masters used them but they now are only found in antique stores and on EBay. Come Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin who recently teamed up to design the NeoLucida with the belief that it will "profoundly change how people see, how they draw, and how they think about art."

With the Beastie Boys issue now available in our webstore, arriving in our subscriber's mailboxes and hitting newsstands next week, we look at the hilarity and nostalgia that is a 1987 appearance on the Joan Rivers Show. From Joan calling it Licensed to KILL to Adrock doing a Pee Wee Herman impression, MCA taking over her desk, girls in leather mini skirts dancing, a DJ Hurricane turntable encore...we've already watched it several times.

This weekend in NYC, one of our favorite graffiti artists, Horfe, will be joining others in a group show at Klughaus Gallery. One of the reasons we have always admired the works of the Parisian artist is his mixture of classic animation and illustration to a public medium, creating a unique and prolific body of work on the streets. Here is our interview with the artist from January 2012.

One of our favorite institutions and longtime supporters of the local San Francisco art scene, Needles and Pens, have now officially been doing their thing for 10 years aka a decade! Round of applause everyone! In celebration of this awesome accomplishment they are throwing a massive group show with over 70 participating artists, a book release, and live bands at the opening reception. Party! The opening reception goes down tomorrow, May 10, at the Luggage Store in San Francisco and we strongly suggest you come out to this very special event.

Juxtapoz will be headed to NYC this week for all the festivities around Frieze and the surrounding art fairs. But one thing we will definitely be checking out is Jane Alexander, cover artist of our Contemporary African Art survey in November 2008, and her installation work with Museum for African Art that is residing at The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine on Amsterdam Avenue.

One of our favorite artists that we learned about last year was Rhode Island-born, Christian Rex van Minnen. The paintings he had at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica were absolute standouts, a new, bizarre twist on pop-surrealism and classical painting that just captured our attention. We just saw some of his newer works, and wanted to show them today.