Street Signs: The Good and The Bad.

Official signs are cropping up across the city, with four of Toronto's major streets now bearing signs with their Anishinaabe names. Spadina, or Ishpadinaa, is one of them. (Craig Chivers/CBC) .

Official signs are cropping up across the city, with four of Toronto’s major streets now bearing signs with their Anishinaabe names. Spadina, or Ishpadinaa, is one of them. (Craig Chivers/CBC).

Toronto is joining a number of other places as far as street signs go, adding the language of the original inhabitants of the land.

“By doing this, it shows that the First Nations people are still here. We’re still on their land. We share it but we’re still on their land,” Grant said.

That’s the problem though, isn’t it, that all the colonial people are still on their land, dominating that land, and dominating the original inhabitants, and not in good ways. While I have been in favour of various street sign initiatives, I think they have little impact on on non-Native people. Oh, they might ooh and aah for a moment or three, and then it’s ignored and forgotten.

Indian Country Today reported on this effort in Toronto back in July of 2013:

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Cool Stuff Friday: MAD.

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MAD (taken from the Danish word for “food”) is a not-for-profit organization that works to expand knowledge of food to make every meal a better meal; not just at restaurants, but every meal cooked and served. Good cooking and a healthy environment can and should go hand-in-hand, and the quest for a better meal can leave the world a better place than we found it. MAD is committed to producing and sharing this knowledge and to taking promising ideas from theory to practice.

MAD is a great place to lose yourself for ages on end. Food, food, food, but not all the regular ways food is addressed. Here, there is the breathtaking culture of food, from all over the world, the history of food, the art of food, traditions of food, innovations and artistry of food. Any curiosity you may have about food, you can find satisfaction at MAD. I’ve been trying to catch up, reading at the site for the past month or so, and I’ve barely made a dent. Two articles in particular got my attention in recent days: Turning Trash Into Delicious Things: a Brief Guide by Arielle Johnson, and A People’s History of Carolina Rice, by Michael Twitty.

The first article grabbed my attention because it addresses the waste of craft brewers, and that particular waste happens in my household, as Rick is a home brewer:

On an artisanal-industrial scale, spent grains—the malted barley that is steeped in water to make beer—is a major source of waste for craft brewers, with (roughly) 8 kilos of leftover barley for every 50 liters of finished beer. It can be used as animal fodder, but you can go beyond that, since it also presents creative flavor opportunities.

That waste, it turns out, can be used to make koji, which in turn can be used to make a form of miso. Click on over to the article for details, and recipes! The article on Carolina rice was eye-opening, and details the history of this rice from 3500 B.C.E. to 2013. There’s personal history in this overview of one food:

1770s: My great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother is captured in a war in Sierra Leone and brought to Charleston, without a doubt to grow and mill rice on a Lowcountry plantation. She is a member of the Mende people, who would later lead the Amistad slave ship revolt in 1839.

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1835: My great-great-great grandmother, Hettie Esther Haynes, is born and is later sold out of South Carolina, away from her mother Nora, into the cotton country of Alabama during the largest forced migration in American history—the domestic slave trade. Thousands of Gullah-Geechee will know this fate as rice cultivation faces competition from other countries and slaveholders are forced to reduce the number of bondspeople.

Now I’m going to read about The Carbon Footprint of Eating Out, A War Zone Cuisine, and Culture of the Kitchen: Cooks Weigh In.

Have a wondrous wander through the fields of MAD, it’s a journey you won’t regret.

Art Under the Microscope: Threads.

Most people are familiar with my work, so will readily understand my attraction to this particular piece of art examination, a microscopic look at the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry.

Triumph of Bacchus, design overseen by Raphael, ca. 1518-19; design and cartoon by Giovanni da Udine. Brussels, workshop of Frans Geubels, ca 1560. Paris, Mobilier National, inv. GMTT 1/3. Image © Le.

Triumph of Bacchus, design overseen by Raphael, ca. 1518-19; design and cartoon by Giovanni da Udine. Brussels, workshop of Frans Geubels, ca 1560. Paris, Mobilier National, inv. GMTT 1/3. Image © Le.

 

This photomicrograph shows the warp and weft threads used to create a background detail in the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry.

This photomicrograph shows the warp and weft threads used to create a background detail in the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry.

 

The horizontal threads are the undyed wool warps that are the backbone of the underlying weave structure to the tapestry.

The horizontal threads are the undyed wool warps that are the backbone of the underlying weave structure to the tapestry.

 

The decorative vertical threads include both crimson colored silk wefts as well as precious metal weft threads.

The decorative vertical threads include both crimson colored silk wefts as well as precious metal weft threads.

 

The Metal threads are made of very thin strips of gilt silver wrapped around yellow dyed silk.

The Metal threads are made of very thin strips of gilt silver wrapped around yellow dyed silk.

How exactly was the gilding of tapestries done in the 16th century? These microscopic images reveal all.

These images show the warp and weft threads used to create a background detail in the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry recently exhibited in “Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV.”

Viewed from a distance (like when the tapestry is hanging high up on a wall), the combo of the crimson silk with the gold threads looks like a bright copper, and here we can see all the separate colors and textures that build up that look.

Detail from the Triumph of Bacchus Tapestry.

Detail from the Triumph of Bacchus Tapestry. It was woven with wool, silk and metal threads.

The Getty has a fascinating tumblr, Art Under the Microscope, examining all manner of art in microphotographs.

Miss Hokusai.

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Last year we wrote an article about Oei Katsushika, the daughter of the famed Ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai. What we didn’t know at the time was that a Japanese film on that exact subject was just getting ready to be released. Directed by Keiichi Hara (Colorful) and Production I.G (creators of Ghost in the Shell), “Miss Hokusai” is coming to theaters in the U.S. this fall and the trailer was just released.

As we wrote last year, only about 10 actual works have been attributed to Oei, but considering Katsushika Hokusai created some of his most famous and brilliant works towards the end of his life it seems reasonable to wonder just how much of the work was created by Oei. And the film appears to tree in similar waters:

As all of Edo flocks to see the work of the revered painter Hokusai, his daughter O-Ei toils diligently inside his studio. Her masterful portraits, dragons and erotic sketches – sold under the name of her father – are coveted by upper crust Lords and journeyman print makers alike. Shy and reserved in public, in the studio O-Ei is as brash and uninhibited as her father, smoking a pipe while sketching drawings that would make contemporary Japanese ladies blush. But despite this fiercely independent spirit, O-Ei struggles under the domineering influence of her father and is ridiculed for lacking the life experience that she is attempting to portray in her art. Miss Hokusai‘s bustling Edo (present day Tokyo) is filled with yokai spirits, dragons, and conniving tradesmen, while O-Ei’s relationships with her demanding father and blind younger sister provide a powerful emotional underpinning to this sumptuously-animated coming-of-age tale.

Looking forward to this very much! Via Spoon & Tamago.

Not Your Grandfather’s Blue Jeans.

Courtesy Lauren A. Badams.

Courtesy Lauren A. Badams.

A team of scientists from the U.S., Belgium, Portugal, and the U.K. have pushed back the first use of Indigofera tinctoria as blue fabric dye in the world to South America 6,200 years ago. The previous oldest physical specimen was from Egypt 4,400 years ago, although there were written references to blue dye going back 5,000 years. The blue dyed cotton fabric was discovered in an archaeological site that has been studied for many years, Huaco Prieta, located in the northern coastal region of modern Peru.

Publication of the study by Jeffrey C. Splitstoser and his colleagues in Science Advances this month has set off wisecracks in popular science publications about Andean Indians inventing blue jeans, but it is a much bigger deal than that. Besides, what was new about blue jeans was the rivets, not the color.

[…]

Indigo blue was highly prized long before the Americas were “discovered.” The ancient Greeks understood India to be the source of the dye and indigo—along with spices and silk—made up the trade goods the Europeans were seeking when they got sidetracked by Aztec and Incan gold.

Why is it a big deal that indigo appears in South America long before Asia or Africa? If the dye required nothing but mashing up something blue, then it might be found everywhere the plant grew, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Most ancient dyes were fairly simple. Flower petals were boiled to make them yield up their color. Ochre yielded reds and yellows, depending on the exact iron content. A bright white dye can be extracted from milkweed.

The first difference indigo presents is that the dye is not in the flowers. It’s in the leaves. To make the leaves yield the color, they first have to be fermented. The fermented solids are then dried. The fermented and dried indigo is light and easy to ship.

The indigo solids must then be treated with an alkaline substance, commonly urine, to produce a dye that is apparently white. Yarn treated with the reconstituted indigo comes out white but then turns to yellow, to green, and finally to the deep blue that makes the dye so valuable.

In an interview with Live Science, Splitstoser speculated, “This was probably a technology that was invented by women.” He noted that women were typically in charge of weaving and dying in Andean cultures.

The discovery at Huaco Prieta adds another example of cultural knowledge either purposely destroyed or ignored out of arrogance by conquistadors who believed they were doing God’s work in destroying non-Christian cultures. That destruction fed the myth that Europe represented science when the Americas represented superstition.

These people who were burning Mayan writings and destroying works of astronomy and mathematics and chemistry were burning human beings for heresy at the same time. Indians had science and Europeans had superstition. It ought to be possible to compare cultures in a more objective manner than the settlers have chosen when they wrote all the histories.

Full article here.

Willard Stone.

Willard Stone, “War Widows” (nd), wild cherry wood, 7 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

Willard Stone, “War Widows” (nd), wild cherry wood, 7 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

Most people don’t know Willard Stone, a Cherokee sculptor who did amazing work, most of in in the 1940s. He was deeply affected by the threat of atomic war, and that is the subject of several of his pieces. There’s a show and centennial celebration of his work at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma until January 22nd, 2017. Hyperallergic has an excellent article about Mr. Stone.

TULSA, Okla. — Willard Stone’s wood-carving style might be described as Art Deco Cherokee, with a distinct, streamlined movement and natural themes that reflect his indigenous heritage. He’d originally wanted to be a painter, but a childhood accident with a blasting cap blew off his thumb and two other fingers. So he slowly learned sculpture instead, forming figures from Oklahoma’s red clay. His 1940s work in particular responded to the threat and promise of atomic energy, while still including the Native American motifs expected by his patrons. To mark the centennial of his birth in Oktaha, Oklahoma, the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa is exhibiting Following the Grain: A Centennial Celebration of Willard Stone.

Willard Stone, “Tree Dog” (nd), torch-burned cherry wood, 13 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

Willard Stone, “Tree Dog” (nd), torch-burned cherry wood, 13 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 5 1/8 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

 

Willard Stone, “Modernistic Indian Girl” (1946), oak wood, 9 x 2 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

Willard Stone, “Modernistic Indian Girl” (1946), oak wood, 9 x 2 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches (courtesy Gilcrease Museum).

There’s much more to see, and read, at Hyperallergic.  Following the Grain: A Centennial Celebration of Willard Stone.

Via Hyperallergic.

Erehwon Stairway.

Influenced by the M.C. Escher-esque designs of Indian stepwells, British architect Thomas Heatherwick has unveiled plans for a giant stairway to nowhere in New York City’s Hudson Yards. Tentatively titled “Vessel,” the public landmark will consist of 154 intersecting flights of stairs and 80 landings zigzagging up above a plaza and garden on the far west side of Manhattan. Made of bronzed steel and concrete, the structure is slated to open in 2018.

Resembling a giant bronze ribcage — or a beehive, or a basket, depending on whom you ask — “Vessel” will weigh 600 tons and cost $150 million. It will be among the least utilitarian structures of its size in a space-starved city: its 2,500 steps don’t lead to any offices or condominiums or retail spaces. Instead, the sculptural “Vessel” will essentially function as a massive observation tower and jungle gym. While hiking the miles worth of stairs to the top, 16 stories up, visitors will get 360-degree views of the surrounding city and a free workout. A curving elevator will make the structure wheelchair accessible.

In addition to Indian stepwells, Heatherwick’s design was inspired by a beloved piece of urban detritus from his youth. “When I was a student, I fell in love with an old discarded flight of wooden stairs outside a local building site,” Heatherwick said in a statement about the design. “It caught my imagination and I loved that it was part furniture and part infrastructure. You could climb up stairs, jump on them, dance on them, get tired on them, and then plonk yourself down on them.”

Years later, when Heatherwick’s studio was commissioned by Hudson Yards developer Related Companies to create a centerpiece landmark for the site, this old discarded wooden staircase came to mind. “We wondered whether [the commission] could be built entirely from steps and landings?” Heatherwick said. “The goal became to lift people up to be more visible and to enjoy new views and perspectives of each other. … The idea is that it will act as a new free stage set for the city and form a new public gathering place for New Yorkers and visitors.”

Thomas Heatherwick Studio, rendering for “Vessel” (2016) (all images by and courtesy Forbes Massie).

Thomas Heatherwick Studio, rendering for “Vessel” (2016) (all images by and courtesy Forbes Massie).

While the cost of this piece leaves me feeling on the faint side, I have to say I love the idea of stairs being allowed to be the focus, rather than just a way to get to something else, with the something else always being more important. This makes me feel a childish joy. It’s lovely to look at, too. It’s just the cost of it all that bothers; all that money could do so much good. Well, here’s hoping this does people a lot of good on the spiritual side of life.

Hyperallergic has the full story.

Fashionista Jesus.

A stained glass window at Rochester Cathedral depicts the resurrection of Jesus Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters.

A stained glass window at Rochester Cathedral depicts the resurrection of Jesus Credit: Luke MacGregor/Reuters.

People are not at their best when stretching themselves like a rubber band in order to justify and rationalize, and that’s certainly the case with Fashion Jesus. Unlike many people, I’ve read the bible, cover to cover, more than one version.  Given that reading, I can say that the bible is not overflowing with fashion, hot or otherwise. Well, okay, there’s some interesting bits, clothing-wise in Revelation, but other than that, the bible is a bit skint on the fashion side. That’s not stopping people from claiming they are being inspired by Jesus’s great fashion sense.

…But now Jesus is being put forward as an icon of an entirely different sort – in the world of fashion. The Church of England has given its blessing to London Fashion Week with an official video making the Biblical case for the clothing industry.

Shrugging off the “sackcloth and ashes” image of clergy’s puritan forebears, it argues that – despite criticism of the industry over size zero models and cases of sweatshop factories – fashion and design are ultimately an expression of God-given creativity.

In one extract, the Church’s de-facto catwalk chaplain says fashion designers have told him that they draw inspiration from church interiors, stained glass windows and even Jesus’s cloaks.

The Rev Peterson Feital, the Diocese of London’s “Missioner to the Creative Industries”, said many had been drawn to the “beautiful clothes” Jesus is often depicted wearing.

“Designers ask me about fashion,” said the Brazilian-born Rev Feital, who also runs “Haven+” a charity working with people in the fashion and entertainment industries.

“They are all so interested when they walk into a church building or a cathedral and they see the stained glass windows and what they see there are beautiful figures and Jesus wearing beautiful clothes – a cloak and all that kind of stuff.

“So right there in the centre of our worship there are so many elements in which fashion belongs in that conversation between church and culture.”

Simon Ward, a former chief operating officer of the British Fashion Council, said that despite questions about how aspects of the industry operate and the “image it conveys”, he was convinced fashion itself is divinely inspired.

“He’s a God of creativity, and fashion is just one of those areas that really focuses on creativity,” he said.

“And what did He do first? He created the seasons, so the idea that fashion changes a lot again I think reflects God’s heart.

“All the way through the Bible clothing and fashion imagery jump out of the pages at us. In the New Testament the first Christian in Europe was Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth … The image we get of Jesus in heaven is what he’s wearing, with a gold sash around his chest, and then the New Jerusalem comes down; what are we told about it? – ‘dressed as a bride’.

“So I think God and fashion really are closely linked and if we think that they’re not we’re getting it wrong.”

No. No, no, no, no, no. None of this has the slightest thing to do with Jesus, and it barely has a connection to any bible. What they are copying, and claiming to find inspiration in is the work of artists. As an artist myself, I can say that there was much exaggeration in stained glass art, and other art found in cathedrals. Artists love colour, we love textural things, luxuriant and rich things. It’s doubtful that Jesus, if he existed at all, wore any of the high status clothing depicted in stained glass windows. Rough cloth, rope sandals, and very dirty feet are probably closer to how any itinerant preacher would appear. There wouldn’t be much fun depicting that. The powers that commissioned cathedrals and similar expected artists to portray everything in an overwhelming way, one that would stir emotions along with stimulating the visual sense. For the olfactory, there is always incense burning, and the scent of flowers. For the aural, the echoing silence and wind of whispers. Not one bit of this artistic creation has so much as a single flake of paint in reality.

I don’t think it’s at all wrong to pull inspiration from the work of previous artists and the stained glass of cathedrals. I do take issue with the whole Fashion Jesus lie.

Via Telegraph.

Movies: NativeFlix and SkinsPlex.

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I was reading this article at ICTMN, which linked to two new and growing movie services, Nativeflix and SkinsPlex. I was blown away, browsing, making lists of all the things I want to see. I hope both these young companies grow and grow and grow. While I’m in the group of people whose internet access doesn’t allow for much streaming or video watching, we can break that now and then, and I have the perfect places to do that now.

Give NativeFlix and SkinsPlex a visit, browse around, and if you are able, start watching, they both have great lineups! NativeFlix. SkinsPlex.

Wenyi.

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Chinese artist Wenyi wanders the streets of his home in Dali, Yunnan Province, China, gathering bits of discarded cardboard to use as his canvas. Wenyi then takes the bits of trash he finds and draws the surroundings on each object. The small pieces range from quick black and white sketches to colorful drawings of entire homes, each a snapshot of his hometown. After sketching the scenery Wenyi places his completed works back into their original locations, imbuing the everyday refuse with art. “I want people to see art in our everyday life,” said Wenyi to Bored Panda, “even if it’s on wasted paper.”

What could I possibly say? This is beautiful, inspired work, which I am sure has large ripples which affect people in a very good way. Via Colossal Art.

Invisible 1 & 2.

In1Not too long ago, Jim C. Hines edited personal essays on representation in SF/F, and it was excellent and eye-opening. It was certainly uncomfortable at times, but that discomfort is just panicked relics of oblivious privilege trying to assert itself. I had more than a few stabs of serious guilt in reading this anthology, particularly the one about Albinism. (Having enjoyed that “evil Albino trope” more than a few times in the past, without ever thinking about actual people.) The essays in the first Invisible are:

Introduction by Alex Dally MacFarlane.

Parched, by Mark Oshiro.

Boys’s Books by Katharine Kerr.

Clicking by Susan Jane Bigelow.

The Princess Problem by Charlotte Ashley.

Autism, Representation, Success by Ada Hoffmann.

Gender in Genre by Kathryn Ryan.

‘Crazy’ About Fiction by Gabriel Cuellar.

Evil Albino Trope is Evil by Nalini Haynes.

Options by Joie Young.

Non-binary and Not Represented by Morgan Dambergs.

Representation Without Understanding by Derek Handley.

Shards of Memory by Ithiliana.

I Don’t See Color by Michi Trota.

SFF Saved My Life by Nonny Blackthorne.

In2If you missed Invisible the first time around, I could not possibly recommend it enough. While happily slumbering away under my rock, I was unaware that Invisible 2 had been put together and published. That’s been remedied, and like the 1st, this is excellent reading. As Jim C. Hines notes in the afterword, “They help us to become better readers, better writers, and better human beings.”

So many of these essays resonated, and others were serious wake up calls to stop being so bloody blinkered. Like the first anthology, this one is littered with highlights, bookmarks, and notes. Too Niche, by Lauren Jankowski about the complete invisibility of asexual people in SF/F was one of those that was a good smack on the head. In her essay, she mentions that Stephen Moffat declared Sherlock Holmes can’t be asexual because he’s too interesting. That left me spluttering and outraged. That’s an incredibly wrong, stupid, thoughtless, and insulting thing to say. Other essays which really hit home were Breaking Mirrors, Fat Chicks in SFF, Not Your Mystical Indian, Exponentially Hoping, and Colonialism, Land, and Speculative Fiction: An Indigenous Perspective. 

The Essays in Invisible 2 are:

Introduction by Aliette de Bodard.

Breaking Mirrors by Diana M. Pho

I’m Not Broken by Annalee Flower Horne.

Next Year in Jerusalem by Gabrielle Harbowy.

I am Not Hispanic, I am Puerto Rican, by Isabel Schechter.

No More Dried Up Spinsters by Nancy Jane Moore.

False Expectations by Matthew Thyer.

Text, Subtext, and Pieced-Together Lives by Angelia Sparrow.

Parenting as a Fan of Color by Kat Tanaka Okopnik.

Alien of Extraordinary Ability? by Bogi Takács.

Accidental Representation by Chrysoula Tzavelas.

Discovering the Other by John Hartness.

Lost in the Margins by Sarah Chorn.

Too Niche by Lauen Jankowski.

Fat Chicks in SFF by Alis Franklin.

Not Your Mystical Indian by Jessica McDonald.

Exponentially Hoping by Merc Rustad.

Colonialism, Land, and Speculative Fiction: An Indigenous Perspective by Ambelin Kwaymullina.

Nobody’s Sidekick: Intersectionality in Protagonists by SL Huang.

The Danger of the False Narrative by LaShawn Wanak.

Both these anthologies are excellent, if often uncomfortable, reading. Seriously recommended if you haven’t read them.

Nevada’s Solar Reserve.

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Chicago-based photographer Reuben Wu recently photographed the Nevada SolarReserve, a grouping over 10,000 mirrors which power nearly 75,000 homes during its peak season. Wu photographed the mass of reflective panels during nightfall, allowing the brilliant colors of the sunset to be doubled into the shining surfaces below. Wu likens the energy facility to a topographic ocean, considering it one of the greatest land art installations ever built.

Stunning photos, and it’s always good to see alternate energy in the works, but I’d like a lot more information about these, so I’ll do some digging about. In the meantime, there are more of Reuben Wu’s photo’s at Colossal Art, and they are stunning!

Tribal Photography.

© Jimmy Nelson.

© Jimmy Nelson.

How often do you learn a valuable lesson from pissing yourself drunk, besides, “never drink that much again?” While traveling with a Central Mongolian tribe, photographer Jimmy Nelson learned lessons both in reindeer psychology and humor after downing too much vodka and wetting his tent. As the story goes, he woke up to reindeer charging into his bed (apparently they love human urine). Nelson tells this and more stories, accompanied by his majestic portraits of the customs and trappings of indigenous peoples from accross the world, in a new video from the Cooperative of Photography. Like Aesop’s fables, Nelson’s anecdotes have lessons touching on knowledge, vulnerability, and pride. Young photographers can also learn a lot about how to interact with subjects respectfully and purposefully.

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© Jimmy Nelson.

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© Jimmy Nelson.

 

Jimmy Nelson currently has a show at Gallery KNOKKE through September 18. See more of his work on his website. Visit the Cooperative of Photography for more tips, tricks, and interviews with photographers.

Via The Creators Project, where there are more photos.