Playing With Fire.

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (Reuters) – Czech artist Ladislav Vlna has swapped his brush for a blowtorch as he ‘paints’ with fire to create artworks that change according to lighting.

Vlna’s self-titled metallurgic painting technique results in surprisingly delicate and detailed pieces, mostly portraits or figures, with oxyacetylene torches.

The 40-year-old artist begins by painting a draft upon a steel surface and then carves, sharpens and polishes the basic image into it before putting a flame to the engraving which alters its color, depending on the temperature. This process gives the piece its unique appearance.

“I am painting using fire instead of a paintbrush. I am extracting the colors from inside the steel with heat and fire.”

You can read and see more about this extraordinary artist at Reuters. Definitely treat yourself and have a wander at his website! Truly beautiful and unique pieces.

Fridgeness.

Finally got stuff transferred over to the new fridge, and my Philco is defrosting. The Philco will be repatriated into my studio as art storage. I have no idea what the deal is with current fridges, and why they have all dispensed with egg trays. My Philco has two of them. Hmmmpf.

The Prophetic Order of the United States.

Right Wing Watch has an in-depth breakdown of the Religious Reich which now has a great deal of control over uStates government. It’s in sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Who Are These People?
  3. Trump and the Prophets: Made For The Era of Social Media?
  4. Overlapping Networks
  5. God’s Own Party?
  6. POTUS Trump and the Prophetic Order of the United States

I’m just going to have a few bits here…

Brody and Lamb’s book, “The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography” is scheduled for publication in January 2018, but it won’t be the first. It will face competition from “God and Trump” by Stephen Strang, who heads the Pentecostal media empire Charisma. During the campaign, Strang gave a media megaphone to Trump-boosting prophets like Wallnau. Strang’s book, which promises to explore “what is God doing, now not only in Donald Trump’s life, but also in the life of the nation,” is scheduled for release in November.

Meanwhile, POTUS Shield leaders continue to personally assure Trump that God Himself put Trump in power, something Amedia told attendees at the March POTUS Shield gathering that Trump understands:

I said to the man’s own face, ‘If you didn’t see God got you elected, with all the mistakes you made, and how you should have lost this election 50 times, then you will never see God.’ And he said, ‘I know it was God.’

[…]

For many Religious Right leaders, support for Trump is transactional: Trump promised them the Supreme Court, attacks on legal abortion and Planned Parenthood, and legal changes to make conservative Christians more politically powerful. But POTUS Shield members believe that something even greater than the Supreme Court is at stake: the future of the church and the reign of God on earth. They give Trump assurance that he’s on a divine path, and they give their followers a sense of playing an important role on the world stage, warring with the devil to take political and culture power away from liberals and secularists and establish the kingdom of God in the United States and around the world.

If you’re inclined to laugh, or shrug, don’t. Instead, think. This is terror. This is terrorism. This is a regime of sweeping oppression waiting in the wings, trying to take the main stage. This has been at work for many a year now, and this is the one and only chance they have, and they know it. I see in my own referrers here, how many people search for things like “Trump tackles elite satanic pedophiles” and the “prophecies” of this, that, and the other self-styled prophets. The Religious Reich has the perfect puppet, and Donny does not dare dismiss them, or spurn their desires, they are about the only thing keeping his arse firmly in the white house.

If there should be a face to atheism, to humanism, to the benefits of a secular society, it should be centered here, in direct and open opposition to these people who, in their pettiness and need to subjugate others, are climbing to ultimate power.

You can read the whole thing at Right Wing Watch, recommended.

Flowers For The Tiny Tyrant.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

From Lizania Cruz’s series Flowers for Immigration.

A stunning project, so eloquent and poignant.

“Say it with flowers,” the expression goes. So, to communicate the thoughts that immigrants harbor about President Trump, artist Lizania Cruz decided to invite some of them to create bouquets for him. Her ongoing photo series Flowers for Immigration documents the resulting arrangements — quiet, beautiful manifestations of opinions that are often unspoken or silenced.

All are the creations of undocumented immigrant bodega workers who spend their days helping New Yorkers express themselves through flowers. Cruz, wanting to see the florists do the same for their own feelings, launched the project last November. Since then, she’s recruited 11 flower sellers to participate in the project. Not everyone she approached took her up on the offer, with some disagreeing with her objective and others refusing out of concern for their status. But providing a platform for those whose lives are at the center of current debates over immigration is precisely the goal of Cruz, who herself came to the city after being born and raised in the Dominican Republic.

“I hope viewers will be able to connect with the beauty and humanity of these undocumented workers and that their voices are amplified,” she told Hyperallergic. “Undocumented workers can’t go out and protest because of fear of facing legal actions. So I hope this project allowed them to have an opinion.” The participants, whom she paid for their involvement, are identified only by first names.

You can read much more about this project, and see much more at Hyperallergic, or visit Flowers for Immigration.

Word Wednesday.

Disjunction

Noun.

1: a sharp cleavage: Disunion, Separation <the disjunction between theory and practice>.

2: a compound sentence in logic formed by joining two statements by or: a: inclusive disjunction b: exclusive disjunction.

[Origin: disjunccioun, from Old French disjunction (13c.) or directly from Latin disjunctionem “separation,” noun of action from past participle stem of disjungere.]

(1350-1400.)

” ‘No, Omega, Ariane. She killed one of the guards.’ ‘Good Lord. When?’ ‘Ten months ago. Disjunction – followed by escape.’ ” – This Night’s Foul Work, Fred Vargas.