How Freedom Shaped Ukrainian Art.

Silencing The Cacophony, 2015, Yulia Pinkusevich. Acrylic, spray paint, oil, vinyl, marker on linen. 69 x 161 inches. Photos courtesy of the artist.

Silencing The Cacophony, 2015, Yulia Pinkusevich. Acrylic, spray paint, oil, vinyl, marker on linen. 69 x 161 inches. Photos courtesy of the artist. (Click for full size, this is stunning.)

With Reality Check, exhibition curator and SAIC lecturer Adrienne Kochman seeks to explore the effect a quarter century of Ukrainian independence has had on artists both from the country and its wider diaspora. On display at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art (in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, of course) in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian independence, the works, including sculptures, paintings, and installations, demonstrate the dramatic impact of the nation’s sovereignty on the work of both its native born and émigré artist communities.

The immigrants who fled the Soviet Union were for the most part prohibited from returning to their home country. In their new homes, many were raised in communities that “worked very actively to keep Ukrainian culture and tradition alive,” Kochman says. “Including language, schooling, music, a lot of really cultural endeavors. Because those were the aspects of Ukrainian culture that were Sovietized and Russified, were forcibly changed.”

Communication with Ukraine was tightly policed; this, in combination with the vibrant but insular Ukrainian communities the immigrants raised in, created for artists a strong sense of place for a place they had never been.

“They had certain ideas about what is was like in Ukraine,” Kochman, whose mother was a Cold War Ukrainian immigrant, says. “Virtually immediately, [they] went to Ukraine once independence was declared, and wanted to witness it themselves. They were interested in different aspects of Ukrainian culture and what has changed, and maybe what was retained. It really was a reality check, which is why I named the exhibition the way I did, because you are testing your belief system. You are trying to ascertain, is it accurate? Has it changed? How do I reconnect to this culture that I’m very attached to, that kind of feels like home, but you never stepped on the land, because you couldn’t?”

Bear (T)hugs, 2015, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak. Felted bear, 5 painted wooden nesting dolls. 10 x 14 x 6 inches.

Bear (T)hugs, 2015, Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak. Felted bear, 5 painted wooden nesting dolls. 10 x 14 x 6 inches.

Émigré artists created works related to what they found when their idea of Ukraine met the real thing, incorporating traditional aspects of Ukrainian culture and addressing the impact of Russia and the Soviet Union. Cleveland-born Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak’s Bear (T)hugs features a plush bear—symbol of Russia—holding nesting dolls of Putin, Stalin, Lenin, Rasputin, and vermin, while her In The Nests series use animals to explore socio-political and economic themes, for example a baby bird being fed a Russian coin. New Jersey native Natalka Husar’s paintings of Ukrainian men dressing like Russian gangsters calls to question identity, both culturally, politically, and as it pertains to masculine gender roles.

The opening of borders and communication worked both ways, however. “The artists from Ukraine were interested in branching out into styles or developments that were developing in the West, and have gone with that in their careers,” Kochman says.

[…]

The 25th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence is a tense one; Reality Check is opening in a world wherein a great swath of the country have been invaded, and the dormant sabres of the Cold War are beginning to rattle again. Signs in the windows of the Ukrainian businesses around the UIMA, blue and yellow and declaring a stand for a united and free country, are a reminder of how fragile the freedom that inspired Reality Check can be; the art itself, a reminder of how important it is.

Full story and more artworks at The Creators Project. I really wish I could see these works in person, they are all amazing, beautiful pieces that tell an eloquent story.

Breaking Up Boredom.

Having a large area to fill can get very tedious and boring. You can always go the distraction route, by putting a movie on or playing an audio book. Audio books don’t work for me, I find them annoying. Movies are fine, but they either need to be ones you have seen 5,000 times and pretty much know by heart, or a bad movie that won’t engage your attention much. A good movie you don’t know or know well will slow you way down. If I do movies, I do the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. They basically provide background distraction, and are a good way to time yourself, as each movie is around 80 minutes. There are other little things you can do, even if you are working to a pattern. If there’s a large area, break it up with various shapes. By the time you’re done, you’ll have a nice, subtle pattern, which is especially nice in large areas done in one colour. You can also take a couple of seconds to randomly doodle, which gives you a goal (one doodle covered, two doodles covered, etc.) and can make the stitching area seem less formidable.

Current Hours: 1,029. Skeins Used: 149. Click for full size.

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© C. Ford, all rights reserved.

The Good of the Hive.

Wow! I so love this, I love everything about it, because it breaks my heart to see people being so callous about bees, even here in farm country. Bees are vital, and we should all be working for healthy bees and a healthy environment.

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In an effort to raise awareness about the plight of the humble honey bee, New York-based artist Matt Willey founded the Good of the Hive Initiative, an ambitious project to personally paint 50,000 bees in murals around the world. The number itself isn’t arbitrary, it takes about that many bees to sustain a healthy beehive. So far Willey has completed 7 murals including a large piece at the Burt’s Bees headquarters, and he keeps meticulous notes about the number of bees in each piece which he shares on his website.

For more info you can read an interview with the artist at the Center for Humans and Nature website, and follow his progress on Instagram.

Via Colossal Art.

Looking at Police Brutality.

Police Cross Line 3, 2015.

Police Cross Line 3, 2015.

In works such as Nick Cave’s Soundsuits or David Hammons’ Untitled (Rock Head), material evokes the metaphorical and mythological meanings of the black body. Recently, some artists have chosen to symbolically explore its heft and value by emphasizing elevating materiality over the modernist privileging of form. In the artist Dáreece J. Walker’s Black is the giant exhibition of painting, sculpture and text, for instance, the artist’s use of cardboard examines the weight of the black body politic in the age of the Black Lives Matter movement.

[…]

“It’s about a conversation,” says Walker to The Creators Project. “A conversation about how myself and other black Americans that I’ve spoken with feel devalued or not considered in the overall societal structures.” He explains, “There’s a lot of stigma and media bias toward people with dark skin and particularly here in the United States there’s been a lot of police brutality.”

“The reason I used the medium cardboard is because the associations it has with being easily replaceable or disposable. It’s a sentiment that I feel that started to spread through the media representations of black men. It seemed that, through the coverage, black lives didn’t matter as much.”

The Saint, 2015.

The Saint, 2015.

The exhibition includes two wooden sculptures, The Martyr and The Saint, that speak to the portrayal and discrediting of black victims of police brutality in the media. The abstract works allude to the media coverage branding Trayvon Martin a “thug,” as well as the selection of imagery of black victims of police shootings that inspired the black Twitter hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown. A poem entitled “If They Gun Me Down” by Daniel J. Watts, a Walker collaborator and Hamilton star, presented alongside Walker’s objects, aims to capture the bleakness of the representation of black life by the media, even in death:

If they gunned me down

would the media paint a picture

of a poet

or would I be politically portrayed as a perilous person with potential to be a paraphernalia pushing pistol popping pilferer?

If they gunned me down, would you be shown the hopeless romantic mama’s boy who writes about how his grandmother taught him how to blow kisses or would you be presented with a production still of the anti-violent “This is how we shoot back” as I brandished a metaphor into the camera?

If they gunned me down

will the photos in which I hold some sort of stone cold pose as I throw two fingers into the air be recognized as peace when they land on judgmental eyes or will they be both misconstrued and inappropriately affiliated with gang culture

by the media vultures that will surely circle my dead carcass ready to feed without taking me or my deeds into consideration?

Full Story at The Creators Project.

Carpet Bombing

Detail of Jim Ricks’ Carpet Bombing. All images courtesy of the artist.

Detail of Jim Ricks’ Carpet Bombing. All images courtesy of the artist.

Carpets made in Afghanistan have a history of representing the imagery of war, but a recent work by artist Jim Ricks gives a conceptual perspective to this tradition. Carpet Bombing is a giant, handmade rug that depicts a “Drone Survival Guide” created by Amsterdam-based designer Ruben Pater. Pater’s diagram is a one-page illustration of various drone aircrafts, which references similar guides that were used to identify aircrafts in past wars. Ricks traveled to Afghanistan, where the drones on Pater’s survival guide are in use, to have a rug made by Kabul-based Haji Naseer and Sons Carpet Makers.

Carpet Bombing on display at Rue Red in Dublin. Photo: Andrew Hetherington.

Carpet Bombing on display at Rue Red in Dublin. Photo: Andrew Hetherington.

There’s more to Carpet Bombing than the illustration of a poignant pun, as Ricks tells The Creators Project, “I think there is a tendency to ‘read’ the carpet like a poster and stop there. What I think is important about the piece is that not only is the graphic appropriated, it is always shown horizontal and flat in the gallery, as a carpet should be, thus reversing the observer from drone back to human again, and that it can be sat or walked on, activating the work in the way that is in keeping with the Persian carpet as a social space.”

The Creators Project has the full story.

This Time, Acceptance Takes the Cake.

KenCake

A trans Ken doll cake created by Freeport Bakery in Sacramento. (KTXL-TV).

SACRAMENTO — A local bakery is getting a flood of support after one of its custom cakes caught quite a bit of flack on social media. The cake was baked and molded into a transgender Ken doll.

“It wasn’t that unusual, we do doll cakes all the time.”

Eggs, milk, butter and a dash of controversy, the recipe at Freeport Bakery for the unorthodox custom cake.

A Ken doll wore a pink dress made of frosting, a sash, a tiara and jewelry.

“Naively, I guess I just thought this is a really cool cake, and look at how great they did with the butter cream,” said Marlene Goetzeler, co-owner of the bakery. “What’s wrong with a Ken cake?”

Baked at 350 degrees, but the real heat didn’t come until Goetzeler posted a picture of the dolled up delicacy on Facebook.

“I started getting some negative comments … Then a couple days later I noticed there was a big dip in unlikes. I was kind of surprised,” said Goetzeler.

An LGBT debate ensued. After a few hundred comments, and more than a thousand reactions, the bakery’s page lost dozens of Facebook likes and potential business, all because of the post.

“I was shocked that somebody would be offended,” said Goetzeler.

“Oh, I thought it was fantastic,” said Chad Graham, who attended the party where the cake was served.

Graham says it was at the birthday party for a member of a group that meets once a month for a dice game. He says the cake’s recipient is not transgender nor was he trying to make a political statement whatsoever. The cake’s recipient didn’t wish to speak to FOX40. The backlash took the group by surprise.

“I thought it was a little ridiculous. It was just cake,” said Graham.

But when word of the confection controversy began to spread, hundreds of people came to the bakery’s defense, both on social media and at the storefront.

“In the beginning, I thought ‘What’s the big deal?’ but now I realize how important it is to take a stand if you believe in something,” said Goetzeler.

A small gesture with a big impact. Goetzeler says this time acceptance takes the cake.

I think that’s a great cake, and I’m really happy that so many people took a stand and supported the Bakery.

Via Fox40.

GOOOOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!!!! WE DID IT!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYBODY!!!

Schef

On Monday, I posted about The Sioux Chef, happily begging people to help the kickstarter over that final hurdle, and this was in an email I just received:

GOOOOOOAAAALLLLLL!!!!!! WE DID IT!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH EVERYBODY!!!

There’s some excitement, can you tell? We have some great food on the way, and thank you so much, everyone who saw fit to signal boost or kick a few dollars to the Indigenous Kitchen. Pilamayaye.

Update:

As you know, we hit our first goal today at 10:54 AM (CST) two weeks ahead of the end of our campaign. Our team has been screaming, texting, high-fiving, fainting,laugh-crying, and group hugging ever since. We couldn’t post an update for two hours because we are in a state of disbelief and euphoria!!

When Chef Sean had this idea ten years ago he knew that there could be true Native American restaurants, and he slowly started working on educating himself on what the fundamentals of an Indigenous food system are. Two years ago, he formally started the company The Sioux Chef, and Dana came on one month later. Our team has grown and now we have seven team members, and each one of these wonderful humans are completely committed to propelling the concept of bringing the awareness of these foods to as many people as possible.

Hopefully we can bring people in from tribal regions to learn about these foods, and then bring that knowledge back to their communities. You helped us get closer to these goals! You are coming along with us on that path, too! Each one of you has invested in us… That humbles us! Thank you! We are so happy to have you in our Kickstarter tribe!

We have two more weeks of fundraising. The more we raise, the less funds we will need in traditional financing options, and the less risk there will be for us. Two more weeks to get the word out, two more weeks to make new friends and to raise awareness of the importance of these foods that are beautiful, delicious medicine.

In other words, we are going to keep sprinting on this thing.

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