REZILIENCE

rezilience

The REZILIENCE Indigenous Arts Experience will be an immersive, all-ages experience that focuses on modern Indigenous art processes. Artists include nationally and locally recognized entertainers, muralists, multimedia artists, poets and a contemporary Indigenous art market.

It is a grassroots effort tied into the airwaves of social media, and all generations of the entire community are welcome. Tickets can be bought for the on-campus events or just the music concert. This movement trends new generational events that compliment social gatherings like Pow Wows but are becoming their own thing in Indian Country.

The event takes place on April 30 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center near downtown Albuquerque.

Executive Director Warren Montoya said, “We aim to be inclusive, not exclusive, it is not a space for the most elite, but we are not aiming to provide all the answers either. We are building a community platform from which we can all have an opportunity to speak on the resilience of our peoples.”

“This event is a movement based in creativity. It is our creative practices that have facilitated cultural longevity, community building, knowledge growth and healing for generations. REZILIENCE will be the new model of unity for indigenous cultures worldwide.”

Full Story Here.

Cool Stuff Friday: Explosions and Weed

Cai Guo-Qiang’s Explosive Gunpowder Performance.

Cai Guo-Qiang igniting gunpowder drawing White Tone, in Brookhaven, New York, 2016. Photo: Wen-You Cai

Cai Guo-Qiang igniting gunpowder drawing White Tone, in Brookhaven, New York, 2016.
Photo: Wen-You Cai

Cai Guo-Qiang White Tone (2016). Photo: Photo: Wen-You Cai

Cai Guo-Qiang White Tone (2016).
Photo: Photo: Wen-You Cai

 

 

Museum Opens First Major Spliff Exhibition on National ‘Weed Day’.

A Lemon Kush cannabis plant. Photo: Flickr user eggrole, courtesy Oakland Museum of California.

A Lemon Kush cannabis plant.
Photo: Flickr user eggrole, courtesy Oakland Museum of California.

Both museums and graphic designers are jumping on the 4/20 bandwagon, taking a close look at marijuana on National Marijuana Day.

The Oakland Museum of California has opened the exhibition “Altered State: Marijuana in California,” which it claims is the first museum show to concentrate on the controversial plant. The show’s contents range from fine art to protest posters and multimedia displays exploring the scientific, recreational, medicinal, and even religious aspects of pot.

“The roles of museums in today’s world are shifting,” says museum director Lori Fogarty. “We are dedicated to being a place where people can come learn about complex topics and, more importantly, add their voices and stories to the dialogue.”

“Altered State: Marijuana in California” is on view at the Oakland Museum of California April 16–September 25, 2016.

Jesus Dartboard, Oh No!

Rutgers

An alleged “art display” at Rutgers University featuring a figure of Jesus Christ on a dartboard, with darts inserted where He was wounded on the Cross, is being held up as a contradiction of the school’s professed commitment to diversity.

Natalie Caruso, who describes herself as a former Rutgers student, posted a photo to a Facebook group for the Class of 2016 showing the display, which she claimed is currently hanging in the Art Library on College Ave.

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The post quickly gained traction on social media, inspiring numerous Campus Reform readers to share their own (uniformly disapproving) reactions.

“As a Catholic this is not tolerable and very disgusting,” one reader opined, adding, “I thought Rutgers was about embracing diversity?”

“I am a potential Rutgers student but I am largely considering not even APPLYING … because of what I’ve seen on social media,” said another. “Christians on campus must be ashamed of the school they go to after seeing this.”

Full Story Here.

Psycho meets the Met Museum

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s roof garden is perennially one of the most popular spots in New York City during the summer, in part because it’s a lovely venue, but also because of its fantastic, often-immersive outdoor exhibits. This year should be no exception: For the 2016 season, the roof garden commission is British artist Cornelia Parker’s “Transitional Object (PsychoBarn),” which is indeed a replica of the creepy home featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror classic Psycho.

Becky Schear, Instagram.

Becky Schear, Instagram.

Parker says she was inspired not just by Hitchcock’s iconic film, but also by the work of artist Edward Hopper, who was known for painting rural landscapes punctuated by the odd barn or rambling old house. In fact, the Bates home in Psycho was allegedly inspired by Hopper’s painting House By the Railroad, and Parker’s piece shares similar characteristics. It’s covered in reclaimed wood, which comes from an actual barn; she’s stated that she wanted to contrast the “wholesomeness” of that image with the creepiness of the Hitchcock film.

Cornelia Parker's "Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)" on the roof of the Met Fifth Avenue Photographed by Alex Fradkin, Photo courtesy Cornelia Parker

Cornelia Parker’s “Transitional Object (PsychoBarn)” on the roof of the Met Fifth Avenue. Photographed by Alex Fradkin, Photo courtesy Cornelia Parker

The exhibit opens today and runs through October 31st.  Curbed and Out have the story.

A common complaint

A common cause for complaint among artists is the high cost of supplies. It’s not unusual to spend thousands of dollars a year on supplies. It’s this cost that leads a lot of artists to abandon art as a career. It’s this cost which also makes a lot of people complain about the cost of art works. While most artists can recoup the cost of materials in selling a piece, they often have to cut the price of their labour down to the bone. A good example of supply cost is turpentine – both of these cost $10.00:

Complaint

The small bottle is Winsor & Newton distilled turpentine, 2.5 ounces / 75 ml. Ten bucks. Is it better? Yes. At least it used to be, it has become increasingly suspect (mostly detected by smell. It no longer smells pine-y fresh). What it has is a name, one established enough that they can stick any price on their products, and people will buy it. (Obviously, I’m included there – I bought it.) I don’t use turpentine a great deal, so it’s easier for me to go with the cheap stuff. The temptation to cheap out is always there, but that is problematic too, because you do get what you pay for. An example:

Complaint1

Prismacolor coloured pencils, and Derwent blender and burnisher. Prismacolor is my preferred colour pencil, and they cost $2.00 a piece. That might get a shrug from most people, and if all you needed was one pencil, that might be an appropriate response. When you need 5, 10, 20, or more pencils, well…it adds up quickly. What about a set? I should mention that I don’t shop at Amazon or Walmart, but even at Walmart, a set of 150 Prismacolor Premier pencils costs $163.50. (The list price is $312.00). Online art supply – Dick Blick, the set is $151.00 + shipping. Same with Jerry’s Artarama. Prismacolor is far from the most expensive in coloured pencils, too. I won’t even look at Caran D’Ache ($292.00 for a set of 76 luminance). The pricing is the same when it comes to drawing pencils. I have an assortment of pencils, Staedtler, Koh-i-noor, Faber Castell, Derwent, and Sanford to name a few. And yes, all those pencils have specific attributes and effects, so going cheap on pencils isn’t an answer either. The price of good quality markers is very high, for a limited amount of colours, usually in the neighbourhood of $40.00 to $50.00 for 24 markers. I don’t want to even discuss the cost of brushes – that alone can utterly break you, along with the cost of canvas and, oh, paper. I love paper, and a lot of it I just dream about. The cost is prohibitive, especially for things like large size, single sheet Arches 300 lb cold press.

Quality matters, so the next time you’re contemplating buying an art work, please keep in mind that artists aren’t just mindlessly putting an ‘outrageous’ price on their work. We should be able to earn a living wage and be able to continue buying supplies.

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“No Soy Tu Chiste ( I Am Not Your Joke).”

arzola-2

© Daniel Arzola.

Out: What prompted you to create the “No Soy Tu Chiste” campaign?

Daniel Arzola: Since I was a teenager I had been creating art with a purpose, with a social voice, a cry in a universal language. I started with poems, then photography, and finally illustration. For me art has always been a social expression. I called it “Artivism.” But, my story is not very different than the stories of so many gay and trans Venezuelan people. I had a difficult adolescence where I was constantly chased and bothered. When I was about 15 years old, neighbors tied me to an electrical post, took off my shoes and tried to burn me alive. They destroyed all my drawings.

I escaped. But, so many people don’t have the chance to escape from something like that. There was one guy who couldn’t run away—he was gay—his name was Angelo Prado. I saw it on the news. What struck me was that, even in this century, when you turn on the TV in Venezuela, if they talk about LGBT people, there is mockery. They are laughing about the pain of others. Making us a joke.

Full Article Here.

Birch Bark Biting

Birch Bark Biting poem by Denise Lajimodiere from her book of poems “Dragonfly Dance." (Mary Annette Pember)

Birch Bark Biting poem by Denise Lajimodiere from her book of poems “Dragonfly Dance.” (Mary Annette Pember)

“I see the design through my eye teeth,” said Denise Lajimodiere, Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe.

“I keep my eyes closed when I work because I see the design in the darkness,” said Lajimodiere of her work in birch bark biting or mazinibakajige, which means “marks upon the bark.” […]

Birch bark biting was a pre-contact method of creating designs for beading or quillwork according to Lajimodiere. “Mazinibakajige died out in my tribe until I began doing it about eight years ago,” she said. […]

Lajimodiere was recently selected for a six-month Minnesota Historical Society Native Artist-in-Residence. With the award funds she plans on visiting the National Museum of the American Indian NMAI’s Archive Center in Suitland, Maryland to see the ancient mazinibakajige held there.

Full Story Here.

Algae-Based Water Bottle Biodegrades When It’s Empty.

Very cool, this. More people need to work on the plastic problem. It seems as much as I try to eliminate plastic products from my life, I end up surrounded anyway.

Photo credit: Ari Jónsson

Photo credit: Ari Jónsson

Plastic bottles can lay around in landfill sites or the ocean for centuries. While our planet struggles to cope with our ever-increasing appetite for plastic, an Icelandic product design student was inspired to create a little something to address the issue.

Ari Jónsson, from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, has harnessed the properties of red algae to create a biodegradable bottle for drinking water. He unveiled his invention at Reykjavik design festival DesignMarch last month. The bottles are made out of agar powder, which derives from the supporting structure in the cell walls of certain species of algae. If this is added to water and allowed to cool, it will eventually set and mould into a jelly-like substance.

The bottle retains its shape when it’s full of fluid but will start to decompose as soon as it’s empty it.

Full Story at IFLSCIENCE!