Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 08, 2017

Fearless Girl.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

The iconic bull statue on Wall Street may have met his match, and she's female. 

On the eve of International Women's Day, an asset management company placed a statue of a little girl in front of Manhattan’s iconic charging bull to highlight a lack of gender diversity and equality in the workplace. 

The State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) said in a statement that the statue is part of its call on the more than 3,500 companies that benefit from its clients' investments to make sure their governing boards are diverse.

 “A key contributor to effective independent board leadership is diversity of thought, which requires directors with different skills, backgrounds and expertise,’’ Ron O’Hanley, State Street Global Advisors' CEO said in a statement. “Today, we are calling on companies to take concrete steps to increase gender diversity on their boards and have issued clear guidance to help them begin to take action.”

The statue was created by a female artist named Kristen Visbel, and her little statue instantly attracted the attention of all who saw it, and from media around the world.

And some were even inspired. 

I have been saying for awhile that we are now witnessing a sea change and that in the coming years female leaders are going to take the stage and start asserting control over which direction this country is headed.

In fact the seeds have already been planted for this movement to grow for decades to come.


Personally I am looking forward to it.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

Still my favorite quote from this last week.

This was a crazy week by anyone's standards, and this unsung hero's hilarious response to the naked Trump statues gave all of us a much needed moment of zen.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Art critic calls Fox News "sexually sick" for blurring out breasts on famous Picasso painting.

Courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald:  

A leading US art critic has blasted a Fox news station for being "sexually sick" after the network blurred out the breasts on Pablo Picasso's The Women of Algiers (Version O) in a report about the masterpiece selling for a record-breaking $US179million ($227million) in New York on Monday. 

The New York magazine senior art critic Jerry Saltz took to Twitter to voice his disapproval, tweeting: "How sexually sick are conservatives & Fox News? They blurred parts of the Picasso painting #SickMinds." 

His consternation was echoed across various other Twitter users, who labelled the move "bizarre" and "pathetic", with one user including the hashtag #freethenipple, referencing the recent campaign against censorship of the female form. 

Here is the un-blurred versing of the painting.

Oh my god it's...it's...it's...well it's really nothing.

And remember this is the same network that regularly covers spring break so that they can show scantily clad women twerking, and once had a guest declare that women who are victimized by upskirt photos were asking for it.

Not only that but the female hosts on the various shows are famous for wearing short dresses and revealing enough decolletage to embarrass a Las Vegas showgirl.

Oh yeah Fox News should be the ones judging what is, or is not, prurient.

And what the hell is it about nipples that makes THEM the part of the breast that must not see the light of day?

This has bothered me for years.

It's just stupid.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Your Sunday morning moment of zen.

Now that is an enjoyable way to start the day.

P.S. You can visit the artist's Facebook page here.

Thursday, January 02, 2014

Powerful.

This is how I raised my daughter.

In my opinion it is how all girls should be raised, though I recognize that some may not agree.

Of course I am Daddy, and as the father my main concern was to keep her safe.

Keep her strong.

Empower her to stand up to adversity.

I did all of that.

However she is also smart, kind, and giving.

I think I may have helped with that as well. At least I hope so.

(Source)

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Shooting of Trayvon Martin becomes shocking piece of art.

Courtesy of Click Orlando:

An eye-grabbing mural showing a picture of a man shooting a likeness of Trayvon Martin was unveiled Friday at the state Capitol. 

The message of the 100-foot mural, created by Miami artist Huong, is "We are all Trayvon Martin." 

The mural shows a man who looks similar to George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch leader who shot and killed Martin in February 2012 and was later acquitted in the teen's death, shooting a person wearing a hoodie. There's a mirror in the mural where Martin's face would be so visitors can see themselves as the teen. 

The mural also contains blank spaces where the public can share their thoughts, and it also shows a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. with blood flowing down his head.

I think my opinion of the George Zimmerman's acquittal has been well documented, but I am not sure how I feel about this. 

What do you all think?

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Teabaggers NOT happy over Sarah Palin sculpture/smoker. Personally I don't see the problem, looks almost lifelike to me.

Courtesy of the Atlantic:  

News organizations have been rooting and snuffling around the immense Palin head, titled "We're Having a Tea Parody" (not "Pear-ody," as reported elsewhere), ever since mixed-media artist J. Taylor Wallace debuted it in 2011 at a Memphis public-art show. The anthropomorphic cooker hit the news again last week, when Wallace fashioned a meal with it to celebrate the opening of a new sculpture garden in Chicago. 

A couple notes about its provenance are worth mentioning here. The sculpture includes an oven for smoking delicious meats because, in charming Southern fashion, that was a requirement for entry in the Memphis exhibit. The Palin element is there because Wallace wanted to make a statement about her rigid, some might say extremist ideology. 

"I know Alaskans have their own issues up there, but helicopter-wolf killing is not what I'm a big fan of," he explains. "A terrifying prospect to me is, what if she was in charge of the Department of Interior?"
Palin BEFORE reading IM.
Palin AFTER reading IM.

As you can imagine Mr. Wallace has received some rather interesting e-mails,  Here are a few of them: 

It is a matter of time till you are the pig, was it fun for you pig. 

Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame by insulting someone. Looks more like a morph of H Clinton and R Maddow, anyway. 

I noticed your work of art in the Chicago Tribune this morning. I am sure you are elated with the exposure you have received. Unfortunately, you obviously needed to accomplish this by using Sarah Palin (an easy target) as your inspiration. I hope the feminist groups in the United States take note of your efforts to humiliate a woman of intelligence, courage and leadership. The role model that these groups have promoted over the years to have the opportunity to become President or Vice President of our nation has been ridiculed by your "work of art". I work in the art field, totally enjoy creativity, am not a feminist, and am totally not impressed by your work. I feel sorry for the people of Bridgeport and visitors that will be exposed to your art.

Wow, looks like MY e-mail inbox!

They also have tried to insult Mr. Wallace by calling him "gay" which, as most of us have come to recognize, is the "go to" insult from those trying to defend Palin's honor. (Gee, now who has been getting called that recently?)

Now as if all of this were not entertaining enough (And you KNOW that it is), I was also sent a link to a site that has decided that this smoker is ripe for photoshopping. 

Enjoy!

Okay THAT is pretty damn imaginative!

Like I have said over and over again, THIS was always going to be the fate of the Lunatic from Lake Lucille, to be the butt of jokes for many years to come.

A gentle reminder about perspective from a 1st grade child.

From the mouths of babes.

It's been beautiful in Anchorage lately.

How is it where you live?

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Best artistic representation of big mouth hot head that I have ever seen!

Courtesy of NBC Chicago:

A couple years ago, Chicago artist J. Taylor Wallace immortalized Palin in the form of a large metal sculpture that doubles as a functional cooker as part of an exhibit for the National Ornamental Metal Museum in Memphis, TN. 

The sculpture now has a new home, taking up residence at the Bridgeport Art Center for the rest of the year. To commemorate the opening of the Bridgeport Sculpture Garden on April 20th, the sculpture will cook a suckling pig at the opening ceremony. 

And in case you're thinking there was a political message behind Wallace's inspiration for the project -- you'd be right. 

"It was kind of in response to the political climate at that time, when the health care debate was going on," Wallace says. "I thought she was a distraction from what was important, and it was cathartic to spend three months doing it... it helped me out a lot." 

It's also not a coincidence that the smoke comes out the top of the sculpture's head to make it look like she's fuming. 

I have never ONCE desired to have any kind of Palin inspired piece of artwork to call my own until now.

THAT is a beautifully rendered, and extremely accurate, creation in my opinion, that perfectly captures the very essence of Sarah Palin. (Well except for the fact that it actually does something useful of course.)

And the smoke coming out of the top of the head is the kicker as far as I'm concerned.

P.S. I just finished listening to Palin's participation on The Five yesterday, and there is really nothing of ANY interest included in the clip.  Essentially Palin is prostituting herself on behalf of the coal industry these days, and despite the President's recent speech on energy, in which he laid out his administration's successes as well as a very comprehensive approach for making this country energy independent, she refused to acknowledge any of it, even after some on the panel brought it up several different times.

All she could do was cling to her talking points ("Drill baby, drill," "Time tested truths," "An all of the above approach."), while viciously attacking the President's intelligence and patriotism, which I felt was beneath contempt and do not feel need to be shared.

In other words, fuck her.

If you are feeling especially masochistic you can click here to listen for yourself.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Wasilla High celebrates the "Warrior Within" with a sculpture of a..of a..well what do YOU think it is?

So anyhow Wasilla High had a piece of art commissioned to display in front of their building.

This according to the Frontiersman:

The $100,000 artwork was commissioned through the Percent for Art Program, a state law that requires the expenditure of 1 percent of capital construction costs of public buildings for permanent installation of artwork. A Percent for Art committee comprised of Wasilla High staff, students and administrators made a final recommendation, which was then approved by the Mat-Su Borough School District School Board.

So there you go, no problem.  Or was there?

Days after the "Warrior Within" was installed in front of the school Jan. 29, WHS Principal Amy Spargo had the 12.5-foot-high sculpture covered after fielding concerns from some students and parents that the work resembled female genitalia. 

Wait, what? Geez are these prudes in Wasilla seeing sexuality in EVERYTHING now?

I mean it is just a statue right? Here let's give it a look.
Well, uh...I mean it's...it doesn't necessarily look like...yep that's a cootchie alright!

Well so what?  I mean there is certainly nothing wrong with the a depiction of female genitalia...outside of a public school...in perhaps one of the most conservative parts of Alaska...where ex-VP nominee, and Queen of the Teabaggers, Sarah Palin once attended classes......okay seriously is anybody else loving this as much as I am?

Gee I wonder how long it will be before the Grizzled Mama speaks out against this? After all up until now the biggest, you know, associated with Wasilla High was Todd.

Or was that just mean?

By the way this reminds me of my absolute favorite "Everybody Loves Raymond" episode.

Here take a look.

And here I thought today might be kind of boring.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Art with salt: Another mental health break, because you know you can never really have enough.

Not only is this amazing, but considering how the Guy Fawkes mask has been adopted by Anonymous and the OWS protestors, it seems particularly appropriate.

Monday, August 22, 2011

The power of art.

I really like this guy.

I must confess that I am envious of people with this kind of talent.

Sunday, April 03, 2011

Sarah Palin as the crucified Christ?

Below is an example of an artist's vision of Jesus, reinterpreted using the image of the least Christ-like person on the planet. (More details concerning this exhibition can be found here.)


I am not sure WHO is supposed to respond to this particular piece of art (Though admittedly the Palin-bots DO seem to  often visualize Sister Sarah as being crucified by the media and her critics.) however to my mind it is in extremely poor taste.

It IS however yet another indication of how fully the Grizzled Mama has been absorbed into our popular culture.  She is the butt of jokes, the object of parody, and now the subject of blasphemous art.

One has to wonder if Sarah Palin views where she is today in the eyes of this country, and the world at large, as a success.  In other words, has Palin's goal all along simply to be noticed?

(BTW I looked back on today's posts and recognized an odd religious theme running through all of them.  I would like you all to know, that as far as I am aware, that is purely coincidental.  At least I think it is.)

Saturday, June 05, 2010

An Arizona school principal asks artists to "lighten the faces" of children represented in public mural. Apparently they looked too ethnic. But once again, and this is VERY important, Arizona is NOT racist! Okay?

From AZCental.com:

The "Go on Green" mural, which covers two walls outside Miller Valley Elementary School, was designed to advertise a campaign for environmentally friendly transportation. It features portraits of four children, with a Hispanic boy as the dominant figure.

R.E. Wall, director of Prescott's Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town's most prominent intersections.

"We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars," Wall said.

"We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics)."

Wall said school Principal Jeff Lane pressed him to make the children's faces appear happier and brighter.

"It is being lightened because of the controversy," Wall said, adding that "they want it to look like the children are coming into light."

Whoa!  Hold the phone here. Are we really supposed to believe that this school principal, this respected educator, would ACTUALLY cave into racism and demand that an artist change his vision?

Lane said that he received only three complaints about the mural and that his request for a touch-up had nothing to do with political pressure. "We asked them to fix the shading on the children's faces," he said. "We were looking at it from an artistic view. Nothing at all to do with race."

See?  The principal was JUST TRYING TO MAKE IT BETTER!  Because obviously an elementary school principal is much, much more knowledgeable about how a work of art should look than the artist who labored over it for two moths while being subjected to racist comments. Don't you think?

Perhaps if Principal Lane had been looking over Leonardo Da Vinci's shoulder back in the sixteenth century he could have advised him to improve the Mona Lisa as well.  "Hey Leo, don't you think she would look a lot better with less forehead and bigger jugs?  And why don't you put a smile on her face while you are at it?  She looks all constipated to me!"

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Chief Operating Officer Dan Beard enjoys poking Congressman Don Young with a big pointy stick. But then who doesn't?

So I am reading this fairly boring article on the greening of the Capitol building, and how the effort is being led by a Chief Operating Officer Dan Beard, a man I have never even heard of before. I am just about to click off of the page, when I see this little tidbit:

And he’s not afraid to tweak Republicans. (Oooh this guy might be worth a little more attention since he is playing my song.)

Take the painting in Beard’s office, which depicts a Native American standing over the body of a white man. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), an avid outdoorsman, wants the painting for his office. (Oh boy! One of the Republicans he likes to tweak is our very own Don Young, a man that I have a deep and abiding dislike for, now Congressman Beard has moved up my list from "Don't know the guy" to "One of my favorite Congressmen.) The piece, which originally hung in what was then called the House Interior Committee, was taken down at the request of then-Colorado Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who is part Northern Cheyenne Indian. Young took it out of storage in 1995 and put it up in the committee room.

When Democrats took control in 2007, the painting was taken down again, and Beard grabbed it for himself.
(Aha! A caper!)

“Mr. Young has been looking for it; he hasn’t found it yet,” Beard said, joking that it would be removed from his “cold, dead hand.” (Okay this is just priceless! Congressman Beard has taken an offensive painting that Don Young covets, probably for no other reason then he knows it will irritate the shit out of the congressman from Alaska. I love it!)

Beard had not talked publicly about his possession of the painting, and he hesitated to say whether he would hand over the painting to the congressman. (Anybody want to lay any bets on the chances he will return it to Congressman Young? Not a chance my friends.)

Now to be honest I have no way of knowing if the above painting is the one that is driving Representative Young crazy, but it was the only one that I could find on Google that seemed to match the description in the article.

Besides considering what Congressman Young's office looks like it would be just tacky enough to fit right in.


Oh yeah, that painting should blend right in with this "ornaments of death" motif.

I wonder if this guy ever met an animal he did not try to assassinate?

Well I just hope that Dan Beard keeps a hold on that painting, and then in 2012 when Don Young gets his ass handed to him (Or earlier if the Feds will get off their asses and finally indict the guy!) and has to leave the Congress, he can offer it to him as a consolation prize that he can proudly hang in his PRIVATE residence.

P.S. Regina, one of my very frequent visitors, has located an actual link to the picture in question. A little less ferocious then the image I found but still in poor taste.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Here is a non-political, self indulgent, post about art for this Sunday afternoon.

I recently found myself part of an audience listening an elderly gentleman reading a lovely poem. The gentlemen had a nice voice and clearly a mastery of the material, but something interfered with my enjoyment of the poem.

He kept stopping to explain what it meant. Every time he did that he interrupted the cadence of the poem and took the listener out of the world created by the poet into the reality of the auditorium in which we sat.

And instead of simply enjoying a well written poem, my mind started to reflect on one of my own strongly held prejudices concerning art.

You see I have a somewhat eclectic and flexible definition for "art". I believe that art is essentially anything that creates an emotional response in its audience. Under that definition I can fit almost any medium, music, dance, poetry, film, oil painting, watercolor painting, house painting, the spoken word, comic strips, martial arts, just to name a few. And what's more art NEVER needs to be explained. Nobody can explain what you are feeling, because your experience is uniqely your own.

Did some of what I included give you pause? Do you think perhaps my definitions too broad? Bear with me.

Below I have provided examples of what I consider "art". Please just look, listen, and feel them, but try NOT to think about them. Just allow whatever emotional response they inspire wash over you.




Does it really make any difference WHO she is, or WHAT she is smiling about? Or is how you feel when you see it all that matters?



Does the fact that this was for a television show somehow diminish its beauty?

Or perhaps poetry is more your cup of tea. Here is one of my favorites.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Right around the third stanza I always start to mist up. Darn that Kipling!

Now open your mind just a little bit more watch this.




It is after all referred to as a Martial "art".

Now one more example, perhaps one of the most powerful.



I cannot think of a better example of a modern piece of art which had an almsot incalculable emotional impact on those that were exposed to it. I sent this to everybody I knew who was still sitting on the fence about Barack Obama. All but one decided to support his candidacy, and FOUR of them went to work for his campaign. As an example of art creating an "emotional response" this was pretty hard to beat.

The point of this post is nothing more then to share my own personal perceptions of what constitutes "art". I sometimes get static from my more "cultured" friends for watching television, or going to the moves, or listening to pop music, and I always think to myself "are you insinuating that art can only be found in a museum or art gallery?" Let's not forget that even the great Mozart was at one point considered "lowbrow peasant music".

Art should never be defined by elitist or snobs. It should be defined by those who view it. Whether it be country music, driftwood carvings, or painted seashells, if it brings joy, sadness, or excitement to your heart then who is to say it is not art.

If you read this far, then thank you for indulging me as I went on my little rant this afternoon. Sometimes my posts are just an opportunity for me to get something off of my chest. This was one of those. However if you saw something new that you liked, or saw something you thought you knew in a different light, then mores the better.

Namaste