Lilacs, because I say that this day, we all need flowers. From rq, click for full size!
© rq, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Lilacs, because I say that this day, we all need flowers. From rq, click for full size!
© rq, all rights reserved.
And covered in beautiful water. From rq, click for full size.
© rq, all rights reserved.
From rq, it’s all about the spines. Click for full size.
© rq, all rights reserved.
Blue Jay Whoooosh. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
© Laura Racero.
Oh, where to start. I guess we’ll start with “Hey, look, a tiny, Bane-full inauguration!
(Photo: Wikipedia commons and screen capture).
For all the boasting about the bigliest ever, the crowds at Trump’s inauguration were woefully scant. The Twitternet jumped all over this immediately, and you can see many of the tweets here. Also noted by the Twitternet, and most everyone else on the planet, Trump borrowed a bit of his speech from a fictional villain, which is terribly apropos, but he picked the wrong villain, Bane. Bane was more of a “eat the rich!” kind of villain. That didn’t stop Trump:
Fans of the Batman franchise film The Dark Knight Rises were startled to hear the words of the movie villain Bane coming out of Republican Pres. Donald Trump’s mouth as he made his inaugural address — purportedly written by Trump himself — on Friday.
“We’re giving the power back to you. The people,” Trump said Friday, a nearly verbatim quote from Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s screenplay for the 2012 film starring Christian Bale as Batman and Tom Hardy as Bane.
You can read all about this one, and see some of the tweets here.
The Twitternet also broke out in gales of laughter and comparisons over Kellyanne Conway’s outfit:
Kellyanne Conway attends President Trump’s inauguration (Screen cap).
Conway’s outfit, which TMZ claims she describes as “Trump Revolutionary Wear,” is a red-white-and-blue getup that is meant to be somewhat reminiscent of Revolutionary War-era military uniforms.
CNN’s Hunter Schwarz notes that her coat is actually a $3,600 Gucci wool a-line coat — and CNN’s Kate Bennett writes that the coat was originally designed to pay tribute to the city of London, which isn’t exactly a place to celebrate the American Revolution.
You can read all about that, and see tweets here. Oh, and the buttons on it are cat heads.
Then there’s a compilation of all the things that didn’t happen, didn’t come through, and weren’t bigly at all:
Women’s March bus permit requests outnumber inauguration requests by 3 times.
Most hotel bookings have been made by anti-Trump protesters.
Trump is wrong (again): dress shops still have plenty of available frocks.
“There’s never been less demand for inaugural ballgowns in my 38 years,” Peter Marx, who owns D.C. dress shop Saks Jandel, told People. “Never ever has it been less for the inaugural.”
Other shops expressed similar sentiments.
“We were expecting heavy traffic and it has not been that way,” a D.C. Bloomingdale’s representative told Elle. “The last inauguration was a lot more people shopping.”
A spokesperson from Intermix told the outlet, “Usually, it is really big for us, but this year we haven’t seen anything yet, surprisingly.”
Elle notes that “among others we called, White House Black Market and Cusp in Georgetown confirmed they have options in stock. So does Neiman Marcus. And Gucci. And Lord & Taylor. And Nordstrom.”
There’s more here.
And there were artists out, as well as all the marchers and protesters. FORCE put on a big show:
CREDIT: Nate Larson.
…For roughly 45 minutes, a slideshow of photos and quotes from survivors circulated on the front of the building, as passersby stopped to take it in. The organizers of the installation hoped their message reached at least a few visitors here for Trump’s inauguration.
“As a native woman, as a queer woman, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate parter violence, there’s so much that is traumatic about seeing my country support somebody that represents violence against all of those things,” said Rebecca Nagle, a co-director of FORCE. “The racism and the misogyny that [Trump] represents is bigger than just him as a person and a figurehead, but is something that is deeply embedded in American culture.”
Many victims of sexual assault were particularly traumatized by the election of Donald Trump, who bragged on tape about sexually abusing woman. Now, as he prepares to enter the White House, there are already signs that Trump won’t pursue policies aimed at preventing sexual violence. As part of his proposed plan to reduce government spending, Trump administration officials reportedly approached the Department of Justice with a plan to eliminate the federal grants used to combat violence against women.
“The goal of the piece is really to uplift survivors voices at a time that a lot of people are normalizing Trump’s behavior,” said Nagle.
Full story at Think Progress. A great work by FORCE!
And because there’s always bad news:
President Donald Trump’s whitehouse.gov page omitted references to a number of policy issues championed by his predecessor, including climate change, civil rights and healthcare, providing a blueprint for the new administration’s priorities over the next four years.
Full story here.
I definitely want to build a large scarecrow come Springtime, but in the meanwhile, I want to make a small one, using swarf for the head. So, time to play a bit and decide what I want to do…
And a better shot of the swarf, because it’s so pretty:
And Trashcrow – this would be for a full size only, too much of a pain to do small. Doing a Trashcrow would give me a chance to play around with plastic bag molding, and playing with fire and other fun stuff. :D
Clickety for full size. © C. Ford.
Walker’s moth (credit: Thomas Shahan).
A planthopper (credit: Thomas Shahan).
Amazing, awesome, wonder-filled macro photos of some of the beauties living in Belize. There’s much more to see at BBC Earth.
THE RED TURTLE – an animated fantasy movie | Official Trailer [HD].
La Tortue Rouge at Rotten Tomatoes.
Katherine Johnson, NASA Physicist.
All of these are from Seeing Science, and there’s so much there! They also have a marvelous timeline, which starts in 1021:
1021
Alhazan (965–1040), an Arab physicist, publishes the 7-volume Book of Optics, in which the pinhole camera and camera obscura are described. Leonardo da Vinci doesn’t show up until 1508.
There’s so much to explore! Seeing Science. * Seeing Science at Hyperallergic.
Cover for Batman #48. Cover illustrated by Greg Capullo, Danny Miki, and Francisco Perez. Photo courtesy of DC Entertainment.
Written by Scott Snyder, pencils by Greg Capullo, ink by Danny Miki, colors by Francisco Perez.
Everyone thinks Bruce Wayne died (gasp!) with the Joker (double gasp!) a few years back, so the mantle of Batman is held by Commissioner Gordon. With this wildly striking cover by Greg Capullo, Danny Miki, and Francisco Perez, issue #48 revolves around a new villain named Mr. Bloom. Mr. Bloom is a giant plant-creature whose seeds are churning up the bodies in Gotham. As he snatches Commissioner Gordon in his titan grasp, Bruce has to decide if it’s finally time to come out of hiding. The artwork in this issue is unsettling, with Mr. Bloom portrayed as a garden variety “Slenderman,” and the writing (though monologue-heavy) does a good job of asking hard questions about equality among citizens.
Cover for Captain Marvel #1. Cover illustrated by Kris Anka. Photo courtesy of Marvel Entertainment.
Written by Michele Fazekas and Tara Butters, art by Kris Anka, colors by Matthew Wilson
Carol Danvers, a.k.a., Captain Marvel, got supernatural powers after an alien ship explosion. Now she’s a tough-as-hell badass who talks smack and punches things very hard. In this first issue of her new series, Captain Marvel takes a job with an intergalactic defense force. Her first order of business? Punching asteroids. The writing by Fazekas and Butters (showrunners and writers for Marvel’s Agent Carter on ABC) is snappy, crisp, and playful. The art by Anka showcases characters of all different shapes and sizes, and shows them all as equally capable. And Wilson’s coloring takes a cue from Guardians of the Galaxy, with glowing neons contrasting against solid primaries. Captain Marvel #1 is firmly set in the sci-fi world, but it’s a great jumping-in point for new fans.
Also new in comics this week, Copra #1 and Immolation #1. Read all about them at The Creators Project!
In a new artistic statement against censorship, this time in response to Facebook’s anti-nipple legislation, the Madrid-based artistic group Luzinterruptus lit 400 plastic breastfeeding nipples with LEDs at the entrance of Facebook’s Madrid headquarters. For an hour, the 400 nipples shone brightly outside of the office, beautifully illuminating the sidewalk and reminding passersby of just how harmless nipples are.
[…]
The project took five hours to set up and was removed completely after the exhibition was finished. Luzinterruptus wrote on their website that they now have 400 nipples available for any artists who would like to install a related project. And, it is possible that this project will morph into related anti-censorship statements, just as Luzinterruptus’ environmentalist projects have continued to make powerful statements about global warming in different incarnations, filling the fountain in Trafalgar Square with glowing garbage and raining condoms.
In addition to protesting the censorship of Facebook policies, Luzinterruptus wants to call attention to other elements of the restrictive policies. Specifically, they are reacting to what they see as a hypocritical stance on potentially disturbing images. While Facebook removes photographs of breastfeeding women, they allow violence, racism, and misogynistic content to roam free. Finally, Luzinterruptus wants to make viewers aware of the third-world workers who they believe are exploited by Facebook to as they work for very low wages to censor Facebook content. Even in reactions to the installation, Luzinterruptus has seen backlash. “Many magazines commented that they couldn’t publish articles [about the installation] because of editorial politics,” Luzinterruptus tells the Creators Project. The reactions to the installation have shown the artistic group just how much influence Facebook has. Will 2017 be the year we finally #freethenipple? We’ll have to wait and see.
All images © Hengki Koentjoro.
Born in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, fine art photographer Hengki Koentjoro is best known for his breathtaking landscape photography of Indonesia amidst the shades of black and white.
Through his work, Koentjoro discusses his true purpose in life’s journey of expression, exploring along the borderlines of light and shadow, such as yin and yang. His focus lies on complexity in the minimalist, diving into the spiritual and the physical.
Koentjoro exerts Miksang, a special form of photography in which the artist uses the camera to express his visual perceptions exactly as he experiences them. Translated from the Tibetan, Miksang means “good eye”, asking the beholder to see the world in a new way, without overlays of meaning and value, pleasure, dislike, or disinterest. Miksang photography tends to bring the observer back into the original contemplation state of the artist’s picture. By bringing our mind’s attention, our awareness, in our sense of sight, it is possible for us to see vivid and mind stopping insights fully and completely without distraction. If this state is reached, the beholder connects with what he sees deeply and intimately.
A helmet from the 1961 Mercury spacesuit. The space helmet wouldn’t be the same had it not been for Alice King Chatham’s contributions. NASA.
Who is the real Alice King Chatham, sculptor of helmets worn by monkey astronauts?
That was the question posed to a panel of four celebrities—one of whom was Betty White—in the August 31, 1964 episode of the game show To Tell The Truth. The host, Bud Collyer, presented three people to the panel, all of whom claimed to be King Chatham.
Straight out of the past, here’s that episode of To Tell the Truth. I remember watching that show when I was a sproglet. King Chatham is the last contestant.
During the height of 1960s space and flight exploration in the United States, Alice King Chatham worked behind the scenes creating partial-pressure pilot suits, test dummies, oxygen masks, space beds, and helmets for NASA and the U.S. Air Force. She even helped design suits for the television show Star Trek.
In the early 1940s, King Chatham was working as an artist and sculptor when she was recruited by the Air Force to help make the first successful oxygen breathing masks worn by all American World War II pilots. She was involved in an array of major experiments, studies, and projects, from creating space helmets for the 1963 first man-in-space program Project Mercury to designing prototype suits for monkeys that flew in the Aerobee sub-orbital rocket tests during the 1940s.
It was not uncommon for female artists to be recruited into the U.S. Army for their skills during wartime. Around 1943, King Chatham had been sculpting ducks, dogs, and horses at the Art Institute in Dayton, Ohio, when she received a request from the head of the anthropology unit at Wright Field’s Aero-Medical Laboratory, Francis Randall. “As an artist and sculptress she understood the human body,” reported Lee Street for The Baltimore Sun in 1953.
[…]
King Chatham became an expert of the flight helmet and the lab’s equipment specialist for personal protective gear. She is credited with developing a new pressure helmet that improved an iteration of the 1946 S-1 pressure flight suits, and special ear counter-pressure devices.
Scientists came to King Chatham with a list of different criteria for different kinds of helmets—one with a breathing tube, a microphone, and an opening for liquid feeding. She would, over several months, fashion experimental models out of rubber, plastics, and fabrics.
“The professional men at the Laboratory admit they don’t know how she does it,” Street wrote.
The full story of King Chatham’s contributions is at Atlas Obscura.