Meeting at the Egg Market.

Quick flash shot. I know it’s an odd title, but…it all started with a quick sketch of a stream gushing forth from a bunch of suspended eggs, then forming a bi-directional waterfall. Then I went to sleep. This kind of thing happens when I stick my head out from under my rock and read things like this.

© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

Obama Portraitists Chosen.

Kehinde Wiley speaking in a video created by the Brooklyn Museum for their New Republic exhibition. He is seated in a gallery surrounded by his paintings. (via Brooklyn Museum’s YouTube channel).

 

Artist Amy Sherald, left, with one of her paintings, right, “The Make Believer (Monet’s Garden)” (2016), oil on canvas, 54 x 43 inches. (Private Collection, Chicago). (all images courtesy the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago).

Next year two Obama portraits will be unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Today the Wall Street Journal announced who the artists responsible for those official images will be: Brooklyn-based Kehinde Wiley, and Baltimore-based Amy Sherald. Both American artists are known for their portraits of African-American individuals, and both demonstrate an emotional sensitivity to their subjects in their work.

Hyperallergic has the full story.

White Spots App.

Visualization of networks in Brooklyn, and a map to escape them, on the White Spots app (screenshots by the author for Hyperallergic).

White Spots: A Journey to the Edge of the Internet was launched last year as an app for iPhone and Google Play. It visualizes the digital networks around us, mapping those “white spots” where there is no network connection.

[…]

The multimedia project involves a VR experience where you can use Google Cardboard to scan local digital signals in real-time, as well as a smartphone world map pinned with short documentaries on living with and without the internet. If you visit a white spot, you can add a pin with the story of your experience.

On launching White Spots, my screen was immediately swarmed with cellphone networks and a jarring digital noise. You can click the text “get me out!” to map directions to the nearest white spot. From my apartment in Brooklyn, I am 156 km (97 miles) to the nearest one, a quiet corner of Lake Waramaug State Park in Connecticut. However, for me, and potentially most White Spots users, disconnecting would be a choice. The app’s world map shows much of North America and Europe in the black, while large sections of South America and Africa are white voids.

Documentary stories on the White Spots app (screenshots by the author for Hyperallergic).

White Spots is free to download for iPhone and Google Play.

You can read and see much more about this app at Hyperallergic.

RatWorks.™

The Chemical Crew has a great love of oil paints, which are kept seriously locked up most of the time. The other day, I squeezed the last out of a tube of black, and left that and a piece I was meh about on the drawing table, for the girls to have fun with. There was just a tiny bit of the tube left, and the girls left their imprimatur on the piece too, vastly improving it, I think. Look at all those lovely scrapes and scratches!

© Vala & The Chemical Crew.

Sunday Facepalm.

Amdusias has 29 legions of demons and spirits under his command. He is depicted as a human with claws instead of hands and feet, the head of a unicorn, and a trumpet to symbolize his powerful voice. Amdusias is associated with thunder and it has been said that his voice is heard during storms. In other sources, he is accompanied by the sound of trumpets when he comes and will give concerts if commanded, but while all his types of musical instruments can be heard they cannot be seen. He is regarded as being the demon in charge of the cacophonous music that is played in Hell. He can make trees bend at will.

A short while back, Eminem did a bit of rapping, all over the Tiny Tyrant.  Tony Perkins, prez of the Family Research Council, aka “We wanna be the inquisition!” was duly alarmed, and called…demons! What else?

During yesterday’s edition of “Washington Watch,” Perkins discussed a freestyle acapella rap released by hip-hop artist Marshall Mathers, who uses the name Eminem while performing, that was critical of President Trump. Perkins expressed shock over the video.

“I was watching this tirade he went on—what they call rap,” Perkins said. “I don’t know how they call that a talent. But it was demonic, he was demonic on his attack on President Trump.”

No, it wasn’t demonic, and as someone who is generally happy under their rock, I think you have to be in different universe to be unaware of rap. Been around a long time. That said, it wasn’t saying anything that millions of people aren’t saying every day, and have been saying since the election.

Perkins said that criticism like Eminem’s stemmed from the fact that Trump has had the “courage” not only for “stopping the bad stuff that Barack Obama did” but also “undoing it,” adding that it is “amazing” that Trump can withstand such criticism.

But the Tiny Tyrant doesn’t withstand criticism, does he? No, he runs off to Twitter every five minutes to whine, moan, bully, and threaten. He can’t stand any criticism. And yes, the fucking idiot has undone many good things, sending us back to the regressive past. That’s a bad thing. A very bad fucking thing.

“I was at the White House today, and it’s like they’re under siege by the left,” Perkins told listeners. “Folks, you need to pray for him.”

Oh, good. Yes, you pray. On your knees, squinch those little eyes shut, and pray. I’ll stay with lefty siege team.

The full mess is at RWW.

Is that supposed to be comforting?

“Tillerson says Trump wants diplomacy in North Korea: “Diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops””

Uh…is that supposed to be comforting? Reassuring? Because I’m not finding that warm and fuzzy in any way. Fuuuuuuck.