Patiently Arranged Dandelion Works by Botanical Artist Duy Anh Nhan Duc All images via Duy Anh Nhan Duc Self-taught botanical artist Duy Anh Nhan Duc uses a steady hand to arrange dandelion blossoms in artful imitations of their flight through the air. His monochrome works are each reminiscent of a universal childhood urge to scatter a dandelion’s seedlings with a single blow, eager to watch the feathery pieces take flight in the wind. With this in mind he carefully dissects a dandelion’s fluff, placing the individual seeds in concentric patterns. In many works gold leaf is used to single out some of the miniature components, adding another layer of precision to his patiently executed fields of flora. His solo exhibition, The Imaginary Herbarium, is currently on view at Galerie Bettina in Paris through February 15, 2017.
Time to Ditch Our Profit-Hungry Corporate Economy: Here's What the Future Could Look Like Instead June 10, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The economy was bound to tank. Kelly, a fellow at the Tellus Institute and co-founder of Business Ethics magazine, wrote the just-released book, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution (Berrett-Koehler, 2012) that helps provide an antidote to the extractive, money-at-all-costs economy. "Our minds have been so colonized by the paradigm of industrial-age capitalism that we've lost the ability to imagine other ways of organizing an economy," she writes. "My sense is that there is an alternative, and that the reality of it is farther along than we suppose. Kelly's book takes readers across the U.S. and across the world to examine communities and businesses that have flipped the traditional corporate model on its head, providing us with working examples of the transformation we are headed toward if we want a sustainable economy. Marjorie Kelly: No, certainly not.
Understanding Camera Lenses Understanding camera lenses can help add more creative control to digital photography. Choosing the right lens for the task can become a complex trade-off between cost, size, weight, lens speed and image quality. This tutorial aims to improve understanding by providing an introductory overview of concepts relating to image quality, focal length, perspective, prime vs. zoom lenses and aperture or f-number. All but the simplest cameras contain lenses which are actually comprised of several "lens elements." Each of these elements directs the path of light rays to recreate the image as accurately as possible on the digital sensor. The goal is to minimize aberrations, while still utilizing the fewest and least expensive elements. Optical aberrations occur when points in the image do not translate back onto single points after passing through the lens — causing image blurring, reduced contrast or misalignment of colors (chromatic aberration). Original Image ZOOM LENSES vs.
Nicole Krauss’s Beautiful Letter to Van Gogh on How to Break the Loop of Our Destructive Patterns “Feeling helpless and confused in the face of random, unpatterned events, we seek to order them and, in so doing, gain a sense of control over them,” the great psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom wrote in his magnificent meditation on uncertainty and our search for meaning. But as our terror of losing control compels us to grasp for order and certainty, we all too often end up creating patterns that ultimately don’t serve us, then repeat those patterns under the illusion of control. These patterns of belief — about who we are, about who others are, about how the world works — come to shape our behavior, which in turn shapes our reality, creating a loop that calls to mind physicist David Bohm’s enduring wisdom: “Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe… What we believe determines what we take to be true.” Krauss writes: Many thanks to reader Carla Taylor for kindly bringing the Krauss letter to my attention.
5 DAY CREATIVE TEXTILE COURSE: FLAX PROCESSING, SPINNING, WEAVING AND NATURAL DYING « Selvedge Join textile artist Susie Gillespie and learn how to process, spin, weave and naturally dye linen. Susie will pick your flax from her orchard in August (2016) so it has time to dry. But don’t worry, she’ll talk you through the process of planting the seeds, rippling and retting the stems so they are ready to be spun. You’ll start by making preparations to the flax stems to prepare them for spinning, this will include revealing the flax fibres, removing the pith, combing them and finally winding them so you can tease off the fibre to produce the yarn. Once you have a hank of your own linen you can experiment with a range of natural dyes or keep the linen in its natural state. You can take the course at your own pace and we hope you’ll find time to enjoy the tradition of sitting together spinning and weaving linen. You’ll come away with your own linen cushion cover, or piece of artwork made from start to finish completely by you. 10-4, Sun-Thurs, 7-11 May 2017, 10-4, £775 per person
Bruder Klaus Field Chapel - Architecture of the World - WikiArquitectura Introduction A small concrete chapel built by local farmers on the edge of a field. Concrete is cast around a group of 120 tree trunks, cut at a local forest, and then slowly burned. The meticulous arrangement of the trees teardrop or leaf created the oculus that provides the only direct light to the small dark space. The field chapel is dedicated to Swiss Saint Nicholas von der Flue (1417-1487), known as Brother Klaus. Location The small chapel of concrete was built on the edge of a field in Mechernich on the way Rissdorfer Weg, in a low slope of the Eifel (Naturpark Nordeife) Natural Park, 55 km from Cologne in the west of Germany. Concept In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life , one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction. Floor On a sunny day, the oculus resembles the eruption of a star, a fact that can be attributed and refer to a vision of Brother Klaus in utero. Design Spaces Structure Constructive method Light • Oculus • Perforations walls
Pioneering Painter Alma Thomas Is Making a Comeback 30 Years after Her Last Major Retrospective In 1972, at age 80, Alma Thomas was the first African-American woman to receive a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum. Interviewed that same year by The New York Times, the artist, who grew up in Columbus, Georgia, before settling in Washington, D.C., said: “One of the things we couldn’t do was go into museums, let alone think of hanging our pictures there. My, times have changed. Just look at me now.” Thomas, who achieved widespread recognition late in her lifetime for her colorful, exuberant abstract paintings, is once again in the spotlight after slipping from the mainstream art-historical canon following her death in 1978. The first graduate of Howard University’s fledgling art department in 1924, Thomas taught art for 35 years in a segregated junior high school in Washington, D.C., while always making her own work.
Elin Thomas Makes Moldy Petri Dishes Look Cuddly Artist Elin Thomas makes moldy petri dishes look cute and cuddly. Using a combination of embroidery thread, crochet, and needle felting, she creates unique textile pieces. The fuzzy felt produces the effect of tiny hairs sprouting from the yarn spores. If something has mold on it, I’m usually grossed out. But not with Elin’s work! She’s able to make these science projects into appealing brooches, rings, and art for your home. Kazuhito Takadoi — ABOVE: 'Oeda' (Bough)BELOW: 'Shikaku' (Square) Having studied horticulture in Japan and the US before relocating to the UK, Takadoi enrolled on an Art and Garden Design degree at Leeds Metropolitan University. ‘I remember visiting National Trust gardens on a trip to England when I was 17,’ he recalls. ‘I was fascinated by plants and always wanted to study here. Citing his influences as a cross between the formality of Japanese floral art and landscape artists such as the UK's Andy Goldsworthy, Takadoi turned his creative skills to paper. In 2003, Takadoi set up his studio.
Patricia Swannell | jaggedart Patricia Swannell works predominantly with print, as well as creating fluid large scale abstract watercolours. Her works are inspired by the beauty of nature and the dark threats to the natural world. Patricia collects willow branches and leaves, ferns and grasses. These natural materials are used on the printing press so that the paper becomes embossed with their shapes and textures. From large trees, to tiny seeds and fragile grasses, Patricia’s transforms flotsam and jetsom into works of beauty and resonance. Her focus on environmental matters is also reflected in her work for The Royal Botanic Garden Kew at Wakehurst Place. Patricia Swannell’s works start from the idea of time, with the ever-moving present providing the only vantage point to the past and future. Canadian born, Patricia lives and works in London.
Download More than 2,500 Images of Vibrant Japanese Woodblock Prints and Drawings From the Library of Congress Thanks to the Library of Congress, you can browse and download high-resolution copies of more than 2,500 Japanese woodblock prints and drawings from the library’s online collection. The prints, most of which are dated before the 20th-century, were amassed from a large group of collectors, including notable donors such as President William Howard Taft and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. Despite the diversity of genres and traditions represented by the library’s large collection, the most prolific works are ones created in the tradition of the Japanese art form of Ukiyo-e or Yokohama-e. Ukiyo-e was developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) between 1600 and 1868 during a relatively peaceful period. The style of Yokohama-e was built on methods of production from Ukiyo-e around the time that American naval officer Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) led an expedition to Japan in the mid-1850’s.
Results - Visual Arts Data Service: the online resource for visual arts Collections Resources Services News Image search more search options Core Record | Search Results | New Search Bacteria from 300-year-old Ovid poetry volume inspires 'bio-artist' | Art and design There was more than poetry trapped between the leather covers of a 300-year-old volume of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: blood, sweat and snot feature in an art installation that displays the bacteria within its pages. The sweat and the droplets from an ancient sneeze that spattered one page were contributed by centuries of previous owners and readers of the book – but the blood was the artist’s own, donated by Sarah Craske as part of the medium for cultivating the organisms. Craske found the rare early English translation of Ovid’s epic Latin poem, published in London in 1735, in a junk shop in Margate. She paid just £3 for it. By the time her curiosity about its history, and Ovid’s theme of transformations of animals, objects and humans had suggested the project – “I intend to speak of forms changed into new entities”, the poem begins – she had discovered to her dismay that the book was actually worth £1,500.
Classical texts re-imagined/re-imaged… - AoB Blog Image: Stephen Hales, Vegetable Staticks. London, W. and J. Innys, 1727. Do you remember the good old days when students read for a degree? Accordingly, first mention goes to that great ‘plant physiology’ text of 1727, Stephen Hales’ Vegetable Staticks, made available by the Biodiversity History Library. Other classic texts can be accessed free courtesy of the USA’s National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) TTP (Turning The Page) Online initiative, which is itself a development of the UK’s British Library’s own TTP system. If ethnobotany is more your bag, then there’s Elizabeth Blackwell’s 1737 A Curious Herbal. Also containing a gallery of images for each text, this NLM initiative is a lovely resource. Finally, for some insight into the old-fashioned ‘world-at-your-fingertips-before-the-digital-age’, a recently completed project gives us a chance to explore the library that accompanied Charles Darwin as he travelled the world aboard the Beagle. Related Catch 'em while they're young(ish)