And very productive! Giliell has transformed her English, Spanish, and not so jazzy planer into wondrous works. Click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
And very productive! Giliell has transformed her English, Spanish, and not so jazzy planer into wondrous works. Click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Malia Obama (Pinterest)
Malia Obama has chosen to stand with Standing Rock.
A group of 100 people gathered in Park City to protest the revival of the project by new U.S. President Donald Trump. Despite freezing temperatures and heavy snowfall, Malia Obama joined the protester who were holding up signs that read: “Exist. Resist. Rise.” and “Impeach corporate control,” according to the Daily Mail.
Along with protesting the construction of the pipeline, which will disturb sacred grounds and introduce contaminants into the local water supply, the group was protesting the festival sponsorship by Chase Bank, which is invested in the pipeline. The rally was held in front of the Chase Sapphire on Main lounge.
Courtesy MSNBC via YouTube.
Chairman Archambault on MSNBC: ‘President Is Circumventing Federal Law’.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II was more surprised at the rapidity with which Donald Trump signed presidential memoranda purporting to speed up the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) and reinstate the Keystone XL pipeline than he was by the act itself.
“We were prepared for President Trump take a run at everything we have accomplished in the last two years,” Archambault told Tamron Hall on MSNBC on Wednesday January 25, the day after Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum attempting to move DAPL along. “This nation better start bracing itself for what’s to come if in the first four days we’re witnessing him using an executive order to circumvent federal laws. It’s not right, and it’s something we better get ready for. I was disappointed that it came this soon, because we had worked so hard for the last two years.”
The tribe wants closer study of the pipeline’s potential effects on water supply, sacred sites and treaty rights, he said, and Trump is trying to do an end run around such statutes as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
“The troubling thing is that this president is circumventing federal law,” Archambault said. “We have Treaty rights, we have water rights with our Winter’s Doctrine, we have NEPA.”
The Keystone XL Pipeline Will Create Just 35 Permanent Jobs. Don’t Believe the Lies.
For those who still insist fossil fuels are the future, the Trump administration represents a new day for some old ideas. In an early sign of things to come, the president showed his faith in big oil when he signed documents Tuesday pressuring federal agencies to support construction of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines. Each of these projects faced enormous protests and was put on hold by the Obama administration because of legitimate environmental and due process concerns.
Congressional Republicans frequently howled at far less heavy-handed exercises of executive power under the previous administration. Today, they applaud Trump’s move on the mistaken premise that these pipelines are good investments. Not only will these projects not create long-lasting jobs – as CNBC, not exactly an anti-corporate mouthpiece, has noted: “Pipelines do not require much labor to operate in the long term” – they will further delay the inevitable transition to clean, renewable energy our economy needs and the American people demand.
Standing Rock Chairman Archambault Sends Strong Letter to Trump.
Editor’s note: Reaction was swift and strong when President Donald Trump signed a series of Presidential Memoranda and Executive Orders designed to move the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) forward and revive the Keystone XL pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe responded immediately, and on January 25 Standing Rock Chairman Archambault wrote a letter to Trump explaining the legal constraints, the support that the Environmental Impact Statement and the tribe have, and the need for a leader-to-leader meeting. The full text is below.
DAPL Profiteers Steal Marty Two Bulls Designs.
You’ve probably seen and shared at least one of the many brilliant political cartoons by Marty Two Bulls at some point in time. Marty Two Bulls—an artist from the Oglala Lakota Nation—has been drawing political cartoons with great success for many years. His work has long been a staple on the pages of ICTMN. He’s known for bringing clever humor and hilarious imagery to hot, controversial issues: most recently the anti-DAPL movement in Standing Rock.
But now, you might see his work in places it shouldn’t be: dozens of t-shirt sellers who are hoping to make a buck from the #NoDAPL campaigns have ripped off Marty Two Bulls designs and been using them to sell t-shirts of their own with no credit, profit, or acknowledgement offered to the artist. Now, Two Bulls has taken the matter into his own hands. In addition to filing dozens of reports to stop production of the rip-offs, he has decided to sell t-shirts of his own.
The design thieves are mostly from overseas with no connection to Native country.
“So far I caught over 20,” Two Bulls said, “I go online, I search terms like #NoDAPL and Water is Life on Facebook, and there they are.”
Marty is an amazingly talented artist, and one of the best political cartoonists in the world, he’s brilliant. Please, if you want to show support for Standing Rock, take the time to make sure your item is coming from the actual artist. Most artists aren’t rolling in money, and this theft hurts, one more than one level. Marty is trying to do something for his people, and if you want to help, and like his artwork, please buy from Marty Two Bulls.
© C. Ford.
There’s a special hell in having to wash embroidery, especially embroidery you’ve put over a thousand hours into, fortunately, it made it through. I had to see if I could get the rest of the colour bleed out so I could just focus on finishing the damn tree. Paranoia saw me putting in way too many colour catchers, but the tree quilt came through, brilliantly, and the last of the colour bleed is gone. I think. Now, I must iron. Then one of these days, I might actually get back to work, which would be nice.
I love these books of handmade paper. They are just for me, to mess about, play, get ideas out of my head, get me in the mood, whatever. This is my second book, the one I got for winter solstice. On my mind, Wakinyan Rising, probably because it’s very windy and cold.
© C. Ford.
Raw Meat, Cabbage, Moldy Bread, and other things that have inspired Japanese fashion label CUNE.
Don’t call it fashion. At least that’s what Hironori Yasuda will tell you if you ask him about his label CUNE, which he started in 1994. If anything, they’re “barely clothes,” he says.
Yasuda isn’t swayed by trends. He makes what he wants, and each season he picks a seemingly arbitrary theme, one that typically has no place in the world of fashion, and designs his entire collection around it. He doesn’t think about who would wear his clothes, or how they would wear them. In fact, he even says “you don’t have to buy them.” But with two stores in Tokyo, one in Fukuoka and a thriving online shop, people seem to like his bizarre creations.
You really need to click over and see all the stuff, it’s amazing. I love the red cabbage dress, and I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Same with the meat jacket pictured above.
It’s all at Spoon & Tamago.
Warning: blood, gore and human nastiness on display.
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I was reading an article about some street art in Brussels, and how a lot of people are shocked, disgusted and upset by it. These two works:
Some people are quite distressed and outraged, and many protest on the basis of children seeing these works. Thing is, there’s history bound here, as these are takes on paintings by Jan de Baen and Caravaggio, or at least attributed to those august painters. If people don’t want children to be upset by Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac, they shouldn’t be teaching them anything about christianity, either.
As for The corpses of the brothers De Witt, there’s not only a great deal of history bound therein, but also the depth of ugliness in human nature. The modern take on it is actually less brutal than the original, which, when viewed in person or at full size, shows terrible detail. Limbs sliced, toes and fingers cut off, noses cut off, genitals cut off, gutted, and hung upside down. It’s not a nice painting, but doing that to the De Witt brothers wasn’t nice, either.
During 1672, which the Dutch refer to as the Rampjaar (“Year of Disaster”), France and England attacked the Republic in the Franco-Dutch War. De Witt was severely wounded by a knife-wielding assassin on 21 June. He resigned as Grand Pensionary on 4 August, but this was not enough for his enemies. His brother Cornelis (De Ruyter’s deputy-in-the-field at the Raid on the Medway), particularly hated by the Orangists, was arrested on trumped up charges of treason. He was tortured (as was usual under the Roman-Dutch system of law, that required a confession before a conviction was possible) but refused to confess. Nevertheless, he was sentenced to exile. When his brother went over to the jail (which was only a few steps from his house) to help him get started on his journey, both were attacked by members of The Hague’s civic militia in a clearly orchestrated assassination. The brothers were shot and then left to the mob. Their naked, mutilated bodies were strung up on the nearby public gibbet, while the Orangist mob partook of their roasted livers in a cannibalistic frenzy. Throughout it all, a remarkable discipline was maintained by the mob, according to contemporary observers, making one doubt the spontaneity of the event.[18]
I can’t say I’d be happy to see such a sight writ large on a building, but I can’t say it would bother me, either. Mostly, I’d be intrigued and interested. Overall, I’d be in favour of it staying, because it never pays to forget that we’re much more ape than angel. It’s not as though we have stopped being barbaric apes, we haven’t. What has changed is art. The old patron system of art is long gone, as are the specific schools held by various masters. The church no longer dictates what is to be depicted, and current events are no longer primarily chronicled by art, as we now have much better means to do that sort of thing. That said, most people remain completely unaware of just how much history is chronicled by paintings. Most people have also successfully distanced themselves from the atrocities we continue to commit, not all that different to what was done to the De Witt Brothers. We tell ourselves that we don’t do that sort of thing, those people do. Being reminded of our long lasting bad habits is not a bad thing. If these make people uncomfortable, good. If they make people think, all the better. It never pays to ignore history, or pretend it isn’t important, and if it takes a sort of resurrection of old pieces to drive that home, it works for me.
The article about the Brussels works is here.
(photo by Chim Pom)
Japanese art collective Chim↑Pom, known for their provocative, politically-charged artwork, has built a tree house along the U.S.-Mexico border. It was built in a private backyard in Tijuana’s Colonia Libertad neighborhood and offers views of the border separating Mexico from the United States
Earlier this month the art collective tweeted out two pictures of the tree house being built. But now, as Carolina Miranda from the LA Times details, it’s been completed and is quite popular among the local kids. Chim↑Pom gained access to a private backyard simply by knocking on the owner’s door and asking for permission. The owner said yes.
The words “U.S.A. Visitor Center” are printed on the the tree house, which was built in response to President Trump’s dedication to build a wall along the border. But it was also built for Chim↑Pom member Ellie, who is currently barred from entering the United States after someone she was traveling with jokingly indicated on a customs form that he was involved in terrorist activities. (Note: Do not joke about terrorism with custom officials. They don’t think it’s funny). “Ellie can’t go into the U.S., so she sees it from here,” says Ryuta Ushiro, the group’s leader.
John Hurt.
Actor John Hurt, who gave us all so many great and iconic characters, has walked on at age 77. He has long been one of my most favourite actors, his name in a film would be all I needed to see it.
Born in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK, Hurt was the son of an actress and a vicar, and, after training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), made his film debut in 1966’s A Man for All Seasons. With his pained British voice and poignant stare, the actor would make an indelible impact on cinema, earning his first Academy Award nomination as Max, a heroin addict trapped in a Turkish prison, in Midnight Express, before performing one of film’s most memorable death scenes in Ridley Scott’s Alien. His next two films, as the severely deformed and chastised John Merrick in The Elephant Man (Oscar-nominated for Best Actor) and Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, cemented his status as one of the greats, and marks a stellar 4-film run.
Goodbye, Mr. Hurt, and thank you. I’d watch V for Vendetta again, but right now, it hits too close to home.
Via Daily Beast.
Utterly stunning works by Claude-Olivier Guay – just two here. While I’m busy putting my jaw back together, you can see and read more about this amazing artist at The Creator’s Project.
A raft of baby Chinch photos, more than enough to start your day with a thawed heart. (Our vet is a Chinch person, has three of them!)
All the Light Pillar photography a person could want, from all over the world, here’s a few:
MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC was born in 2014 as an open group on Facebook with the intent of creating a network between ceramicists and the public.
THE MESSAGE The message we want to put through is very simple: more clay less plastic.
PLASTIC POLLUTION Plastic pollution has reached dramatic levels. Reducing the use of plastic is a fundamental and urgent step to save the environment and improve the life quality of every living creature.
INVOLUTION AS A FORM OF EVOLUTION The aim is to highlight respect for the environment by inviting people to rethink their daily habits, for example by avoiding disposable plastic. Colanders, cups, plates, bowls … once made of clay and then substituted with plastic, can be made of clay again.
PEOPLE Today MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC is coming out of the web to meet people, promoting the reduction of plastic usage at cultural events, workshops and exhibitions.
ARTISANS MORE CLAY LESS PLASTIC believes in craft as a means of going back to a more human dimension, in artcrafts which are not just “things” since they carry stories and ancient knowledge within. By replacing a plastic utensil with a ceramic one we can all be part of a big revolution.
I’m all in favour. When I was young, plastic wasn’t ubiquitous yet. It was getting there, but you still saw much more glass, ceramic, and wood than you did plastic. Go on over and have a visit.
Joshua and James Wedzin with some of their art. James says watching his son work is influencing his own art. (Curtis Mandeville/CBC).
A lovely story about a child following his own artistic path in the wake of his father’s.
When nine-year-old Joshua Wedzin of Behchoko, N.W.T., isn’t watching TV, playing with his brother or at school, he is at work in his artist father’s studio, painting the stars.
His father, James Wedzin, is a well known Tlicho artist who taught himself and then trained at art school in Victoria. He draws inspiration from the landscape around Behchoko.
James said his son began watching him create artwork a few years ago. James said he would get up at 4 a.m. and head over to his studio to work on a carving or painting, and an hour later his son would get himself out of bed just to watch him work.
Joshua recalls being mesmerized by his father’s artwork.
“His painting was beautiful was [what I thought] when I first seen them,” he said.
James, 43, had been teaching others before deciding to take a break. That gave him the opportunity to teach his son.
“So this one day I asked him ‘would you like to paint?’ First he says ‘I just want to watch first.’ And then I painted and talked with him… I didn’t bug him to paint at the time… and then finally one day he came in and says ‘I want to paint northern lights.'”
The full story, and more pictures of these two extraordinary artists is here.
Mary Tyler Moore.
Popular television actress Mary Tyler Moore has passed away at age 80, Bradd Jaffy of NBC News is reporting.
“Mary will be remembered as a fearless visionary who turned the world on with her smile,” Moore’s representative said in a statement.
The former dancer turned comedic actress was taken to a Connecticut hospital on Wednesday where she had been listed in grave condition.
Moore has long battled diabetes, and underwent brain surgery in 2011.
For many of us, Ms. Moore was a part of our lives over decades. She was tremendously talented in the really hard stuff, comedy, and equally talented when it came to drama. She fought for little things that were truly big – like one episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show having Mary looking for, and referring to her birth control pills. That might seem like a tiny insignificant thing, but it wasn’t. Back in the day, that was one hell of a daring move, making it a fact that the lovely, very single Mary was sexually active.
Ms. Moore was also a tireless activist for diabetes awareness and research. She gave a great deal to so very many people, and she was widely and dearly loved. She’ll be widely and dearly missed, too. Goodbye, Mary, and thank you.
Via Raw Story.
