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February 16, 2023
View: 256

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Stand in any metropolitan corridor and ask the art scene denizens there what they know about Aniekan Udofia. Some might list the 33-year-old among the most talented visual artists of his generation, with national attention on his work in hip hop magazines such as XXL, Vibe and The Source.

And on a local level, others might even christen the Nigerian artist as “the face of the D.C. art movement that mixes political themes with a hip-hop aesthetic.” But no matter what you hear, Aniekan will tell you himself they only scratch the surface of who he really is.

For starters, meet his parents, Dr. George and Edna Udofia. They came to the U.S. from Nigeria for school while Civil War raged back in their home country (the Nigeria-Biafra War lasted from July 6, 1967 to Jan. 15, 1970). Nigerians first came to the United States to attend American universities, intending to return home, writes Kalu Ogbaa in his book “The Nigerian Americans.” But for the first time in Nigeria history, the civil war “became the cause of immigration, and more students from the war-ravaged Eastern Nigeria easily made good cases for their immigration to the United States.” So George and Edna studied law and nursing, respectively, at universities in Washington, D.C. They settled down and started a family. Aniekan, the second of five children and the first son in the family, was born on Nov. 26, 1975.

Ogbaa, professor of English and Africana Studies at Southern Connecticut State University, continues: “The gloomy sociopolitical and economic conditions in Nigeria resulting from their civil war were so unbearable for Easterners that everybody wanted to flee the country.” By 1980, the number of Nigerian immigrants in the U.S. rose to 25,528. In addition, the emergence of military dictatorships, the abuse of power and denial of human rights also led to a mass exodus of trained personnel in university institutions from Nigeria. By 1990, the number of Nigerians in the U.S. more than doubled to 55,350. But instead of following the trend, George and Edna decided to whisk their children away from their birth place in Northwest D.C. to Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state in 1982.

Aniekan, who was 7 at the time of the trip, is of the Ibibio people, one of more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria – the three most popular being Yoruba, Ibo (or Igbo) and Hausa-Fulani. Located in southeastern Nigeria, mainly in the Cross River state, the Ibibio are rainforest cultivators of yams, taro, and cassava. They export mostly palm oil and palm kernels; they’re also noted for their skillful wood carving.

Back in Nigeria, George taught French in high school, and Edna was a health educator. They had high hopes for their first son, Aniekan. “As a patriarchal society, sons are trained to be strong and assertive and to develop leadership qualities that will enable them to inherit the leadership roles of their fathers at home, should such fathers die or become old, ill, or infirm,” Ogbaa writes. In addition, “They are supposed to be providers of their family members’ needs and to give them security as well as emotional and economic protection at all times.” According to Aniekan, his parents thought he was destined to go to college and major in something more practical than art, or pick up a trade and work with his hands. But instead, he embraced a movement from overseas.

Having grown up on highlife, a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s before eventually spreading to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920, Aniekan was familiar with legends such as Ibo highlife innovator Sonny Okosun and Victor Olaiya, a Yoruba singer and trumpeter. But hip hop captured the then-17-year-old in ways highlife couldn’t. “It was the expression of it…Even with Slick Rick, how he tells the story,” Aniekan recalls. “He’s rapping, but it’s like he’s singing…the art of twisting words.” (He likened listening to Kool G Rap, a precise wordsmith, to “playing Tetris at high-speed.”) Aniekan’s first encounter with the art form was through a friend, who passed him a Kid ‘N Play cassette tape in 1992. Other encounters came through friends who got VHS tapes of Yo! MTV Raps from their relatives in the U.S. “We didn’t have a VCR,” Aniekan says. “It was like one person in the hood had one, so we would all go 15 deep to that person’s crib, hang out, watch those videos and get all hype, trying to talk like the guys in the videos.”

At the same time, record shops started popping up all over Uyo, a city that became a capital of Akwa Ibom State on Sept. 23, 1987. “You had DJs who had spots like that and they put these big speakers outside,” Aniekan says. “That’s where we used to hang out.” Other hang-outs were barbershops, which usually consisted of a closet-sized space with a chair, a sign, a comb and some clippers. Some barbers were fortunate enough to turn their humble beginnings into a franchise. One such barber was “Big Stuff,” who had three shops in commercial areas throughout Uyo.

At the time, it was customary for barbers to commission local artists to create price lists and posters for their shops. Big Stuff commissioned an artist that completely changed Aniekan’s life. Through this artist, the budding hip hop head would understand the power of expression through illustrations. “It was a guy named Arabian…He would do shit and you would just look at the piece [amazed],” Aniekan says. “He had a lot of creativity.” He recalls Arabian incorporating hip hop styles, with guys dressed in hoodies and posing in the stylish rides of the time. “The style was so crazy the way he did it. Every last one he did was different.” There was a price list, where a guy had a finger over his mouth while another hand pointed to a price list painted in what looked like a hole in the wall. Another one was an illustration of three guys posted up outside a well – one guy on a cell phone, the other on look-out while the third pulled a price list out of the well. “His imagination was just something crazy,” Aniekan says. “Crazy!”

However, his hopes of finding a mentor in Arabian were dashed when they met in 1995. Until that point, Aniekan would walk around with a sketchbook, looking for work that Arabian illustrated. “I would go try to copy it and practice at home,” Aniekan says. Noticing the young artist’s interest, Big Stuff gave Aniekan an Arabian piece from his shop to take home and study. “So I went and studied it and tried to figure out how he used the color, what kind of color he was using.” (“Was it watercolor or crayons?” he wondered). This was between 1994 and 1997, what he called his “study era.”

It’s the era he practiced the “photo-realistic” style of drawing. He experimented until he came up with his own style of drawing faces with color pencils and ink, and then pasting them over a different background. He was anxious when Big Stuff took him to Arabian’s home in 1995. “When I finally met him, I was all groupie-fied,” Aniekan says. “I get to meet him and I’m all shy.” The magic soon wore off, when Aniekan said Arabian had promised to draw him something. “He never really got around to it. It just turned into me constantly going over there and him blowing me off.”

He turned that discouragement into determination and set out on a one-man mission to figure out how Arabian did it. In the process, Aniekan slowly made a name for himself by drawing various haircut styles and selling it to barbers. He started coming up with his own concepts for barbershop posters. In an earlier creation, he took a piece of board and drew a hand cutting hair with an arrow pointing in the direction of the barber’s chair. “People would see it from down the hill and they would know a barber was right there,” Aniekan recalls. In exchange, the barber gave him $50 for the poster. Aniekan’s aim was to get his name, like Arabian’s, all over Uyo. He soon became a sought-after artist among local barbers asking him, “Yo, could you draw me some haircuts or whatever.”

His popularity, however, wasn’t enough to impress his parents, nor quell their desires for him to fulfill his duties as first son. “I went to technical schools [and] vocational schools; they were trying to change my mind,” Aniekan says. But everywhere he went, he saw people as passionate about their fields as he was about art. During the 17-year battle with his parents, he wrote letters to an aunt that lives in D.C. After several correspondences, she granted his request by sending him a plane ticket to come and try his hand in the U.S. art industry. He came to D.C. in 1999, at the age of 24. Since he’s been here, he’s captured the national attention of clothing designers and magazines – no longer the new fish splashing around in the national art scene. He’s created designs for And 1, an urban athletic wear company, and was the premiere artist for the D.C.-based Native Tongue Urban Apparel line.

In addition, his works have been featured in various urban publications such as Rime, Elemental, DC Pulse and Frank 151. His illustrations also graced the album covers of hip hop artists such as Critically Acclaimed and Flex Mathew, as well as the covers of books and hip hop journals.

In 2004, Aniekan joined Artwork Mbilashaka (AM) Radio, a loose band of four to 10 visual artists and a DJ. They’re contracted by corporate clients to create a 7 x 5 artistic interpretation of their logo in front of a live audience. As a part of this group, Aniekan worked on projects for clients including Red Bull, Heineken, Honda, Current TV, Timberland and Adidas.

He uses hip hop themes as social commentary on issues he feel are left lingering such as religion, gender wars (“Is homosexuality right or wrong? Who’s to choose?”) and racism. They also focus on American consumerism. In one of his controversial pieces, former President George W. Bush is in several poses, holding machine guns. On his shirt: “Got Oil?”

Some of his work was controversial enough to draw criticism from viewers, and some galleries have even asked him to take down his paintings. Even still, his style of “telling the truth” is one most people can appreciate. In a June editorial review, Rhome Anderson (aka DJ Stylus) likened Aniekan to a local treasure. “From murals around town to his live improvised painting at musical events, Udofia is as much a fixture in the urban arts scene as the DJs, vocalists, producers and musicians,” Anderson writes on washingtonpost.com. “As part of the Words, Beats and Life’s ‘Remixing the Art of Social Change’ teach-in, Udofia was commissioned to craft a completely new series of pieces.”

On a Tuesday afternoon, Aniekan is hard at work on a new commission. His one-room apartment on 17th Street NW doubles as his ware house and art studio. Cross the threshold and you walk towards a stash of comic books neatly stacked alongside various hip hop and art magazines. Look around, and you’ll see a work-in-progress set on an easel in the middle of his kitchen – artwork lining the wall along the entrance, above his cabinets and into his bedroom. His most recent show, The Sickness 3, opened at Dissident Display on H Street NE in June. Aniekan wanted the show to be a departure from his popular hip hop-themed works. His peers’ reactions varied. “It was good and bad. There were some people who were like, ‘I’m not feeling this new, monochromatic, one-color-themed, crazy stuff,'” he recalls. “But then there were people who were like, ‘Wow! That’s actually dope.’ It’s a stretch and I feel I need to tend more towards that side.”

Looking around his kitchen, a reporter noticed a photo of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer. In the artwork, three different Felas take on different hues – a blue Fela looks up at a black and white Fela who’s playing a saxophone. In the background, a silver Fela raises his arms in a victory pose through an outline of Africa. When asked if Nigeria or elements of his Ibibio tribe ever work their way into his paintings, Aniekan looks up from a sketch to carefully consider his answer. “If I choose to do a specific back home kind of theme”-such as the EVOLUTION OF CULTURE show, which opened April 3 at Wisconsin Overlook on Wisconsin Avenue NW- “that’s when I usually bring out those traits of where I’m from,” Aniekan says. “It’s more of a choice.”

It’s a choice he feels that musicians and other artists should have the right to exercise without being labeled cultural sell-outs, or worst. Take Fela, the Afrobeat music pioneer and human rights activist. He didn’t start out as the political maverick he’s known as today. “He was into music…he started off with highlife, which he grew up into,” Aniekan says. When Fela noticed some social and economic issues went unaddressed, his music became his bullhorn – “where he started just banging on the presidents” and corrupt politicians. “That took him to another level,” Aniekan says. “He wasn’t writing just about Nigeria; what he wrote was pretty much Africa, itself, and the world.”

That connection with the world is what Aniekan is looking for with his art. He knows If he puts his art in a box labeled “African art,” it would narrow the scope of his work. The same thing if he only did “hip hop” paintings. So what does he do? He pushes himself with each painting. Aniekan says, “As a visual artist, it’s for people to see your progression.”

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Source by Alan W. King

February 1, 2023
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Who has heard the phrase there is never enough time in the day for all I need to accomplish? Not only have we all heard this saying many times but we have probably said it ourselves. In today’s world people seem to be obsessed with time. Our lives seem to be ruled by time and the keeper of that time is clocks.

From the beginning humans have searched for a reliable way to keep track of time, from monitoring the phases of the moon or keeping track of the sun and stars for the passing of time. Early on precise timekeeping devises included the hourglass, indexed candles that burned at a fixed rate and water powered devises.

There is a timeless fascination with time keeping and clocks from ancient times. These clocks from long ago are still mimicked today, but use modern technologies for their working mechanism.

There is not a home in the U.S. today that a wall clock does not adorn the walls. Whether it be custom made or store bought, the wall clock livens up our spirits and surroundings. No matter what design theme you have, you will find a wall clock that suits your personality and decor. These clocks are functional, practical and extremely decorative.

Wall clocks are generally offered in two types of movement; a mechanical key wound or a quartz movement clock. The key wound wall clocks are mechanical timepieces that are powered or driven with either weights that hang or with springs. These types need to be wound with a key to operate. Quality wall clocks offer the attractiveness of a sophisticated timepiece. Many of the features, such as traditional chiming methods, are offered on the electronic versions. Quartz wall clocks require less maintenance and the enclosures are usually constructed with the same quality standards of traditional mechanical clocks.

Most wall clocks run on AA batteries, but most recently some are automatically set to adjust for daylight savings time. More technically advanced clocks receive radio signals from standard global clocks making these as precise and accurate as possible.

There are a variety of wall clocks available to suit every taste and style. They come in both modern and retro. They can feature different themes such as movies, music, sports, cartoons and celebrities. They also manufacture some clocks specifically for certain rooms of the house such as your kitchen and bathroom. Also available for your choosing is large and small clocks, floral, radio controlled, pendulum, classic, cuckoo, digital, children’s and outdoor wall clocks. They all bring warmth and elegance and come in an assortment of finishes and materials. Some have features that we would have never imagined possible. Depending on your personal taste and budget you can find wall clocks in wood, metal, acrylic, glass, turquoise, slate and stone.

One of the most important factors before purchasing the clock is to decide where you will place it. This will decide if the clock is an accent for the room or the main focal point when you enter the room. The wall clock can become a conversation piece with its visual beauty and sound. There are Grandfather clocks that can be wall mounted and are quartz driven. There are some that are key wound with chime silence options. You can also mount an alarm clock to your wall. I have one that tells the day of the week, month, date and temperature.

The most impressive model that I have found is called a rhythm wall clock. If you have not seen one you will be in for a real treat. These clocks display motion, lights and fantastic sound for your family’s entertainment. They are available in about a dozen different models from contemporary to traditional. This clock will be the talk of the neighborhood. They do have a special feature that is built in so that an automatic night time shut off activates.

Another benefit of the wall clock is they make great gifts. There is one for anybody you might know and for any occasion. They are stylish and functional and can be custom made to your specifications and even logo for that special person.

You can find wall clocks in furniture stores, home decor stores and specialty stores that just sell timepieces. Now you have all the answers and reasons why this is a great piece to place on your walls. So before the clock strikes the next hour don’t hesitate start your search immediately.

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Source by Barbara Tobiasz

January 17, 2023
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Welcome radio listeners and online article readers. In fact, welcome everyone not only to this program but also to the future. Technology is changing the way we live each and every day in very profound ways. It is also constantly rearranging the free-market with disruptive technologies causing challenges for status quo old companies, employment, and it’s difficult for the colleges and universities to keep up with this technology, as it seems they are always teaching and training people to do last year’s jobs.

Therefore, in the future these folks who have paid $100,000 in student loans may not even be working in those fields where they got their degrees. Statistically that has been the case, but it is going to be even more so in the future. Okay so, that’s what this program is about today on this 23rd day of October 2012 – how the future technologies will change everything.

The rules are simple; I talk, you listen. Then after 30 minutes I will open up the phone lines, or if you are reading this article online you may post a comment below. The first topic of the day is;

1.) Google’s Dominance and Disruption to the Newspaper Industry

Indeed, I believe it was Larry Page of Google who noted that the newspaper industry’s days are numbered. He stated that there won’t be newspapers in the future; that is printed words on paper being delivered to your doorstep. He was predicting the death of newspapers, and he did predict when it would happen, he said it could happen in a few years, or perhaps even a decade, but they wouldn’t exist in the future. Few could deny what he was saying, and when he made that common a few years ago the newspapers were laying off, merging, or simply going out of business.

Some newspapers have found that they can set up pay walls to make extra money, and perhaps the technology we talk about as tablet computers has at least help them in that regard where people can take their newspaper with them on the go, and read it online for a couple of dollars a month or week. This is worked well for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other well-known and well read newspapers. But it doesn’t seem to be working for all the local newspapers, although some who have a stranglehold on their local market are doing okay with pay walls as well.

Then again, why would anyone pay to view a newspaper online when they can go to Google News, surf the news and get information from all over the planet, perhaps even better information, or articles which have been downloaded from the Associated Press into regional newspapers. Often many of these stories we read on the other side of these pay walls is nothing more than regurgitated Associated Press news anyway. Thus, one should ask; why should we pay?

An article on ARS Technica titled; “Brazilian press to Google News: pay up or leave our content alone – Google says being told to pay is like, “taxing a taxi driver for taking tourists to eat.” By Megan Geuss on October 21, 2012 was curious. The same thing has been happening in France, and other places and it appears that they are trying to get Google tripped up in copyright law. You must realize that copyright law is different in Europe and perhaps in Brazil and other places. In the United States we have “Fair Use” case law on the books which seems to allow at least a paragraph and reference to a new story.

Google has been quite good at sending traffic based on this “fair use principle” with links to the actual article, that is if you want to read more. Sometimes people don’t, and perhaps this is what the Brazilian press is concerned about. People just read the first paragraph, and headline, and then they don’t need to read the newspaper, buy the newspaper, or pay to go beyond the pay wall of that organization online. These companies believe it is hurting sales, but in actuality Google is probably helping them much more than it is hurting them. Shouldn’t the newspapers all over the world get with the program and get into the 21st century?

The reality is that status quo industries die hard, and they fight to the end using their power to propel their political will onto the market. However, with no innovation everyone is left back in the Stone Age, and that means we may as well be reading our text on chiseled stone, or hard to get parchment paper. The printing press changed the world, and now it is changing again, it’s time to get up with the program, and enjoy the trillions of pages online from whatever new source they come from. If these Brazilian newspapers wish to limit what their readers read and be their sole source of information that is rather self-serving.

Further, the mass media has often tried to control the minds of the people, and therefore has absolute control over the politics of the society and civilization. Obviously they don’t wish to lose that, and who could blame them, power is addictive. We know that from our own politics, and we certainly know it from human history. There are no differences from what I can see. Of course, one could say that all of this Internet flow of information contains very few gems, and much of it is just a barrage of information pollution. Speaking of pollution let’s switch gears and talk about real pollution and some new technologies for moment shall we?

2.) Better Local Pollution Emissions Technology

Recently, the AQMD in Southern California had complained that pollution levels had increased. But where was all this pollution coming from? Well, it was coming from a number of sources, different types of pollution interacting. Some of that, 1% of the pollution in the atmosphere in California has blown across the entire Pacific ocean from China. China says it isn’t their pollution because they are making products to send to America, therefore it is actually America’s pollution, therefore the United States shouldn’t complain.

Indeed, China is using coal-fired plants to generate electricity often without the clean coal technology which they now have available to them if they wish to buy it from Germany, or in some cases they’ve already copied it and installed themselves. You have to love the Chinese when it comes to proprietary information, they don’t seem to have any ethical knowledge of how that works, perhaps because their society went for thousands of years copying each other, and they assume that if you were a friend, or a fellow farmer you would share your secrets and cultivation technology with them.

Indeed, during the Communist periods they also shared technology, and they didn’t have patent law or intellectual property rights. Their culture is much different this regard and it’s been difficult for them to grasp this concept, but then again there are also companies which know the rules, but flagrantly violate them to turn a huge profit. Now then, back to the pollution problem in Southern California. It was also noted by the University of Riverside that much of the pollution in the LA basin was coming from not only the aircraft at the airport at LAX, but also from the ships bringing products into port Los Angeles and Long Beach port.

These giant cargo ships would get in long lines bringing, and while waiting in line idle their smoky and sooty diesel engines, waiting to unload their containers from Asia, mostly China. Those big diesel engines do not have pollution control devices on them like our modern day trucks and automobiles. They spew pollution into the atmosphere and during those foggy days it would combine with water vapor and other pollution caused by local surface transportation, refineries, and factories. These combinations make a wicked ugly looking atmosphere blocking out the beautiful blue sky. To top it off, the trains which are often able to allow for more pollution (old rules for rail) would pick up those containers and take them across the country. Because many of these cargo ships could not get through the Panama Canal as they are so large, they drop off the containers and then they go by rail the rest of the country.

Containers going locally in California or nearby states will often jump on intermodal trucks for some of the distance, and those trucks add traffic to our freeways and smog to the atmosphere as well. Now then, Gizmag had an interesting article; “New software improves measurement of greenhouse gas emissions,” by Antonio Pasolini published on October 22, 2012. These new technologies along with the software can help us know where the smog is actually coming from. My question is what happens when the EPA gets a hold of this, and starts going after specific companies, and industries with this new knowledge?

It’s not that we don’t wish to reduce pollution, no one wishes to breathe dirty air, but this will throw new rules and regulations and rather staunch enforcement on industries which previously haven’t had to deal with it. One could say they’ve been polluting all long, it’s time they stop. Surely, but if we clamp down on them too quickly, we will disrupt the supply chain, raise consumer prices, and have to deal with increased wholesale inflation on everything that we buy. So this technology helps us understand our environment and the actual emissions into the atmosphere from human activity, but it is also quite disruptive because the regulatory authority, specifically the EPA knows no bounds.

Of course, then we will get into issues with union lobbyists, and big companies who do not wish to comply with onerous EPA rules and they will tell everyone that if the EPA doesn’t knock it off, they will lay off workers. That could hurt the economy as well, and therefore they may go after little companies rather than the big companies, therefore creating barriers to entry in various industries, or the EPA could require new pollution control devices which would be too expensive for small businesses, therefore the larger businesses will survive, and the small businesses which provide competition creating lower prices for consumers will go the way side.

Indeed everything is interrelated, the advection fog that we see during the “June Gloom” off the coast of California, that fog mixes with the pollution and it heats up in a temperature inversion challenge in the LA basin. Throw in a few X-flares and solar maximum with increased temperatures, and now we’ve got the pot cooking exacerbating the pollution problem. Speaking of X-flares they probably affect much more than we might realize. So let’s talk about that for a moment shall we?

3.) X-Flares Occurring and Days of Rage Considered

Not only do solar flares and the solar maximum cause faster polar ice melt issues and change the mixtures and re-combinations of pollution while causing temperature inversions carrying that pollutions higher and thus, across a greater region, but some surmise that it also effects human behavior, at least social scientists have been attempting to study these correlations although the data is hard to get ahold of and we are learning more and more each year about such anomalies, or even inverse relations to solar flares.

On October 23, 2012 there was an X-1 class solar flare, which will affect the upper atmosphere during daylight hours over Asia and Australia. It would indeed be interesting to see if things heat up there in those regions with regards to minor civil unrest, increase in crime, or greater tensions over the territorial waters off the coast of China. We might find some interesting things in the news if we were to put the puzzle pieces together? And what of the Middle East during solar flare events – as in what happens when the Arab Spring, or fall fighting season corresponds to already overblown tensions plus the proverbial religious holidays of either side while solar flares are occurring?

Want to check the record and recent history and get back to me on that one? The reason I ask is; I was talking to someone from Washington state up in the Seattle area, a social worker, who indicated to me that her large caseload allowed her to see the differences of when her clientele had fits of anger, or challenges with their behavior. I met her in the Starbucks, and she proposed that my hypothesis was real, and she convinced herself of that fact. I don’t believe we have enough empirical data or evidence to prove it, but I think more research is needed. Oh, and speaking of Starbucks and having conversations I think the world has changed a little bit and let me tell you why;

4.) Are Tablet Sales Helping Retail Sales at Starbucks?

It seems to me that more people come into Starbucks and they are busy playing on their iPhone, Android, or tablet computer. They are reading the news and minding their own business almost as if they are ignoring everyone else in the place. It used to be that people went to coffee shops to have a dialogue or discussion, or get social interaction. Today people are going and sitting down, plugging into the free outlet and using the free Wi-Fi. They don’t seem to be doing a lot of talking, albeit some of them get on their cell phones and disrupt everyone else.

So, is Starbucks the new place to go now not to have an intellectual discussion, but rather to use your personal tech devices so you don’t have to sit at home and you can be on the go? In other words, is it a destination point other than where you live to get out of the house and use your personal technology? Is that helping Starbucks sales? It could be, and they seem to be catering to that crowd, although they are catering to anyone who comes in to buy for dollar cup of coffee I suppose.

Indeed, I don’t think it is hurting sales, although it is difficult these days to get a decent conversation, thus, it may be limiting some of those folks from coming in as often, but then again many people are addicted to caffeine so they are going to go there and sit amongst the people with their tablet computers, perhaps sharing information with them in real-time. I’ve seen that happen too, where the debates and discussions are done in real time. Where someone will say; “did you hear about” such and such, and the other person will say; “yes” because they just got a news alert themselves.

Maybe these tablets are becoming a muse for coffee shop discourse? What I’m saying is this, technology is often disruptive and it changes the way we think, and live our lives. Have you ever wondered what will happen when 3-D printers are in every home? Let’s discuss that.

5.) 3-D Printers May Change Our Home Lives

Well, why go shopping at the store if you can buy the material you need, and merely print your furniture, silverware, cups, plates, houseplant pots, figurines, and other home decorations? Perhaps tools for the garage, picture frames, and all sorts of other things. That would be my guess, and I believe that’s happening in the future. Once you print something, depending on the type of material you use you may need to heat it up in an oven, or zap it in the microwave to get the material to fully fuse together, and harden the material so it never falls apart.

Does this mean people will be buying larger microwaves, and request larger ovens in their home? Will this spur on more home appliance sales for General Electric and other appliance makers? That would be my guess, and I wonder if Hewlett-Packard understands that future as well? Maybe they may have six-in-one printers instead of five-in-one (printer, fax, scanner, etc.) for the future? Likewise, the quality of 3-D printer you buy will determine the quality of the product you produce when you order the electronic file with the CADCAM design of exactly what you want.

Indeed, people will be able to tell if you created the object using a high-quality 3-D printer, or some cheap knockoff brand. Let’s say a figurine might be judged by its quality and by its attention to detail. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t take and X-Acto knife before you harden it to ensure the details are pristine. You may even decide to paint the figurine thus, painting over any flaws. Then you will throw it in the oven, before you put it on display in your home. Does this mean that hobby craft supplies may be a nice place to invest, or will it too be a victim of 3-D printing where people print those supplies as well?

In any case, because of this issue of quality and detail we may have more of our citizenry going for quality rather than quantity. Okay so, which manufactures will be hurt by 3-D printing in the future? It could cause a terrible challenge for the transportation industry because they will no longer be shipping products, and it could hurt the commercial real estate industry because big box retailers will not need to display items anymore, everyone will order it online, even use holographic displays to see the item before they order the file to print it at home.

China could be the big loser in this because they do so much in-country manufacturing. It could cause 100 million people to lose their jobs in China for instance. That could be enough to economically implode the country, causing an overthrow of the government. Sure, that is a speculative theory, but not so out of whack considering human history you see.

What about auto parts manufacturers? Many of those jobs have moved to Mexico from the United States, and we have a tremendous number of knockoff automotive parts being produced in China. This does an end run on China and the intellectual property and patents theft, which one could say is poetic justice, but we will be hurt here at home too. We make parts for all sorts of things; cars, trucks, airplanes, medical devices, hardware, and you name it. That will surely hurt manufacturing jobs.

Of course, it will spawn a new industry of 3-D printing material, and it really already has. There are several companies that think they have a lockdown on what type of material will be used in future, but I assure you that as these 3-D printers get better, and we get better at manipulating molecular assembly, and assimilation, that those pioneers of these 3-D printing materials will have to stay up with the game, or relinquish their market share to future innovation.

Now then, if folks are shopping less at retail stores, that will affect the retail industry as well, but people might also be driving less, therefore cutting down on the amount of fuel that that use. Still, this means that sales tax revenue for the cities, counties, and states will decline because they will be buying less fuel, and fewer things in the retail store. Also, you can expect that those items that they print in their own home will cost less than if they purchase them in a store, because the store has the supply chain which also adds to the cost of the product. Therefore all the things that they print will in fact be cheaper for that consumer. Lower costs mean lower sales tax revenue as a percentage.

Further, it is the materials which are sold in bulk where the consumer will be spending the most money, just as now people can almost get a free printer, but the big money is made in the price of the ink they have to buy to keep it recharged, just look at the prior decade of HP earnings as they are broken down in their annual shareholder’s reports.

What I’m saying is this will be a paradigm shift and affect every industry all at once. If you think that future isn’t coming, believe me it’s already in the pipeline and we already have 3-D printers in many high schools throughout the nation. Students are getting the idea of exactly what this technology can do for the future, and they are creating new applications for it.

Anyone who stops and thinks about it can see how it will affect whatever industry they are in – just think of the construction industry. If you need more nails, you don’t have to go down to the hardware store, you just make them on the job site. A plumber would not need to bring any pipes on his truck, all he’d need to do is take his portable 3-D printer, and do a 3-D scan of the pipe fitting that broke, and then print it and use it, job done, here’s your bill. No need to run to the hardware store to buy a part, and then come back later. He will be much more efficient.

Each entrepreneur in every single industry will consider what they need, and how they can use a 3-D printer to solve those problems. Once the technology exists, and it is workable, it will be everywhere. Humans seem to love things, they collect trinkets, objects, and they display them in their homes and domiciles. That is human nature. That is how human culture has evolved in society. It hardly matters which civilization you go to, they all have their knickknacks, statues, and artwork for display. Now they can display it all to their heart’s content.

There will be even greater abundance of choices. Perhaps people’s homes will become almost like museums of their own interests. Someone who likes aviation might have every model of every airplane ever built all over their home. Maybe this will replace bookshelves because books are all going to be electronic. Perhaps you have friends like I do who collect things. Once they get a hold of a catalog, or go online and see what’s available, they will be printing away like mad. Indeed I bet the professional psychiatry and psychology associations will come up with new mental addiction disorders to explain all this – it’s much like hoarding in a way – and we’ve all seen those crazy TV show examples.

That wouldn’t surprise me at all, nor should it surprise you. After all, we now realize that people get addicted to video games, and that our personal technologies are causing a lack of attention. Modern technology causes such things, and we should be ready for the next wave of 3-D printing challenges on our society and civilization. Perhaps all this is nothing more than the modern version of cave paintings. So, has mankind really changed all that much?

Many folks claim that people are too materialistic in our modern society, sure that’s true enough – these same folks will tell us that consumerism has ruined society, okay maybe to some extent that too might be the case, still, when 3-D printers are in every home, let’s just see what all those detractors of human innate characteristics happen to say when they themselves start printing away!

Tell you what, why not walk around your home for 15-minutes – right now and start writing down all the things you see, the smaller items perhaps under 2-foot by 2-foot. If you will note your home is filled with such items, just look in your kitchen, living room, home office, bedroom, and your bathrooms. See what I mean. Nearly all of it could be 3-D printed. Plus, if you don’t like something, let’s say that ugly cable TV box, you could order the e-design for a faƧade cover, one which let in airflow, but one which would allow that cable box to become a nice shape of something you like instead, or the base for an object.

Maybe you like model sailing ships from the Spanish Armada? Your cable TV box becomes the base of the model ship which covers up the ugly design and hides it in an art form for instance. Please realize I just made this up, but it could be whatever you want. Use your creativity, maybe you could become a designer and find folks willing to buy your designs for common things like this online and you receive a royalty from the online catalog.

Perhaps Amazon will get into the scene, or maybe this will be a new venue for Google, Microsoft, Apple, HP, or some new brilliant start-up entrepreneur who starts this business out of their dorm room at Harvard and also gets the money connections he needs to nearly unlimited capital to make it happen – and then goes public – think about how many times that scenario has happened and how it’s changed our world forever – and it hardly has to be Harvard for an optimal start-up.

Indeed, I hope you are beginning to see the glimpse into this future, the future of 3-D printing, because like the social networks, Internet, search engines, computer, and mobile tech this changes everything in every industry. The world will never be the same, the cat is out of the box, and it is alive – and it has been eating catnip, so look out.

Okay, well, my 30-minutes of talking are up, and you don’t have to listen to me anymore, it’s your turn to talk, and thus, I will open the phone lines. If you are reading this as a radio transcript turned into an online article, well, go ahead and leave a message below.

“Welcome caller number 4, you are on the air, what say you?”

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Source by Lance Winslow

January 2, 2023
View: 353

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We have all seen contemporary artists in action. We have seen them splash paint on giant canvases. But there is another way to make great art. And that is through the rigor of practice and the perfect control over one’s fingers. In the world of traditional artists – practice marks out the best from the rest. Through eyes that can barely see, and through the strength of their frail fingers – the older generation of indigenous artists, create art that simply tantalizes the perfectionists.

Patachitra art has been around for a long time. However the alienation of indigenous art forms has made it difficult for the enthusiast to find out the techniques and methods which produce a great Patachitra. Conversely some of the traditional techniques require upgrading to the latest available materials and tools. With the intention to understand how authentic Patachitra is made, I traveled to Raghurajpur in Orissa to get a first hand view of some of the best Patachitra artists.

So how is good Patachitra made? There a number of steps in the traditional style. The first is of course the preparation of the materials required for the painting. Tamarind seeds are soaked in water in an earthen pot and then boiled to get a gummy solution. Rice powder may be added to give a stiffer feel to the canvas. This process knows as ‘Niryas Kalpa’ takes a few days.

After this, two course cotton cloth pieces of the same dimensions are selected and pasted together using this solution. This forms the ‘Pata’ or the base canvas for the painting. Chalk, clay or stone powder is then mixed with the tamarind solution and applied on both sides of the canvas to give it a semi-absorbent surface coat. After canvas has dried it is burnished first with coarse grain, and then with polished stones to give it a smooth surface. The process of polishing involves many hours of careful work. The result is a canvas with high tensile strength and an excellent surface coat for the intricate lines that are to be made on it.

‘Chitrakarita’ or the process of painting begins once the canvas has been polished. The first step called ‘pahili ranga bhara’, involves painting a red background and the borders and outlines of the composition. The central solid colors are then painted in. The main colors used are red, brick red, yellow, white and lamp black. Many different types of brushes are used to make the different details on the painting. For fine lines, brushes made of the hair of a rat or mongoose is used. For thicker lines buffalo hair is the traditional choice. Kiya plants have been used to make the bolder lines, in the past. However in the last few years some of the artists have started using standard painting brushes made of synthetic materials.

The painting is finished with a coat of lacquer, applied using a soft cloth. After the lacquer has dried completely, the edges are clipped down to the decorative border. The lacquer layer is called ‘jausala’, and is glazed in the final step. In earlier times the lacquer layer was made by sprinkling resin powder on the painting and then holding it down with a hot bag of sand. Synthetic varnish has been used as a substitute in recent times with mixed results. A fallout of the varnish is the brown tinge to the painting.

In the past the themes of the Patachitra paintings belonged to a few major categories

  • Pictures of the god Jagannath
  • Hindu epics and episodes especially “Krishna Leela”
  • Stories from Folklore
  • Worship of various gods and goddesses
  • Animal and bird themes
  • Erotic themes

In recent times modern themes have started appearing on these paintings, even including themes from other religions. However the newer themes are mostly secular and center around modern day events and stories. The depictions however are not uniform and the structure of the paintings can vary from circular paintings to long rectangular panels.

The Patachitra artist also paints on a variety of mediums other than the ‘Pata’. ‘Talapatachitra’ is a variation of the style done on dried palm leaves stitched together to make a canvas. The design in this technique are primarily made with a needle head and etched on to the surface of the dried leaves. This is an extremely difficult and time-consuming process requiring many hours concentration at a time. The older artists develop eye problems mainly due to the extremely detailed designs they make using this technique.

Other mediums that have been used are wooden boxes, tassar silk apparel, coconut shells, wooden doors and panels and even traditional playing cards called ‘Ganjifa’. Compendiums of mythological stories called ‘Chitra-pothies’ are made from many palm leaf paintings stacked together between decorated wooden covers and held by strings or silk threads. These form interesting and memorable gifts, especially desired by the discerning tourists visiting the state of Orissa.

In a following article we are going to examine what differentiates a good painting from an average one. Also on the cards is a an indepth look at the life of a Patachitra artists and the hardships which have made most of them abandon this most delectable art form.

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Source by Surajit Ray

December 16, 2022
View: 296

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The mass marketing of fine art reproductions and art prints directed at multiple collectors has been a heavily debated topic since its inception in the late Nineteenth Century. The development of lithography in 1798 by Alois Senefelder created the potential for making duplicate art creations; however, it took another one hundred years of extensive technical developments before quality reproductions could be produced.

These advancements in lithography merged with a growing awareness by art dealers that an untapped (and highly profitable) new art market had opened up, whereas a piece of fine art could be sold over and over, exponentially inflating both dealer & artist profits and exposure, which drew in even more collectors from across America and Europe.

The intrinsic value of an art print, and its subsequent appreciation in financial value, was a happenstance occurrence that came with the almost immediate induction of limited edition prints: I am sure the dealers would have been tickled to create endless runs of art prints based on each popular original in their possession, but technical limitations (the copper and zinc printing plates gradually wore down) forced a production limit, as eventually the quality of each print deteriorated.

Except in rare cases, an art print never has and never will have the high collectible value of an original painting and the use of limited editions (typically a run of 1,000 prints or less and each individually numbered) offsets this problem to a degree by creating inflated value using the age-old marketing strategy of supply versus demand. There is a segment of the population who will buy an art print simply because they enjoy the look of that particular piece and want to hang it on their wall for personal enjoyment. The rest consider themselves modest or serious art collectors and desire a piece that they not only visually appreciate, but has investment potential.

It is human nature to strive to possess something your neighbors do not, and this desire can only be filled by offering your clients objects of exclusivity and scarcity: In this case, ending a print run at a certain point and selling those numbered prints as limited editions. It should go without saying that the smaller the edition, the more valuable the series: Less is more in this case. It is up to the individual artist to weigh potential financial gain against distribution numbers and decide on a reasonable & appealing total number of prints to release in each edition.

Modern Twenty-First Century technology has muddied the waters a bit, merging the once distinct lithographic quality art print into the realm of art reproduction. Originally balked at by purists, artwork recreated using high-end ink-jet printers has finally come into its own, now widely accepted by both the public and art dealers because of its understood practicality and the extreme level of artistic detail rendered. Again, to maintain its appeal and create intrinsic value & investment potential, the artists rely on the practice of limited editions.

The modern world offers a bright future for the advancement and distribution of art prints, something that previous generations could never have predicted. Telecommunications is the artist’s best friend, opening up wide international consumer markets previously unavailable to their predecessors in the late Nineteenth Century.

Following non-traditional routes, there is an ever-increasing market for limited edition art prints in public areas such as lobbies & executive offices and as high-end gifts, where the gift-giver wants to make an impression at specific milestone events, passing on their sophisticated taste & knowledge of viability for investment growth to the receiver.

This may all seem appealing to the fledgling artist, but it must be stressed that, when dealing with limited edition prints, the artwork does not stand alone to be judged strictly on its own merit. The artist is just as important (maybe more-so) than the art print, as an art print is only as valuable as the reputation that precedes the name scrawled in the corner of the canvas.

A limited edition art print produced by a highly regarded & successful artist is vastly more valuable than an original painting by an obscure talent or up-and-comer. You may have great potential as a painter, but in this day and age, marketing yourself successfully is the key to adding long-term value to your work and creating the opportunity for your limited edition pieces to be sought after, not only for their obvious beauty & the technical application rendered by the artist, but for consumer investment opportunities presented years into the future.

You need to develop an attitude of full disclosure, exposing your process and thereby enabling art buyers and dealers to understand you are completely involved in the preparation of each piece (the more hands-on the better) and enmeshed in the final artistic result. Being privy to the technical involvement of the artist gives the art buyer the confidence to invest his time and money in you, with the added advantage that an ongoing artist/collector relationship will develop and spread to other parties in the buyer’s circles.

If you, as an artist, are seriously considering making artwork a self-sustaining and long-term occupation, you will need to reflect on the advantages of art print creation and then cement a plan of action that will enable you to compete on both a national and global scale. You are an artist, but also a salesperson. Gone are the days of the tortured & penniless painter, creating great artworks in obscurity and lamenting a cold, cruel world which does not yet fully comprehend his/her genius. You have the tools and opportunities: Time to get to work.

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Source by RJ Wattenhofer

December 1, 2022
View: 287

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Ludmilla TĆ¼ting is a robust, well-read, emancipated, bespectacled Teutonic woman who makes no secret of the fact that she lives in a Berlin Hinterhof (backyard) in Kreuzberg (West Berlin) and yearns to see a horizon, especially with pagoda-silhouettes in the distance. It almost sounds as though Berlin is a city with the lost horizon.

She oscillates between Kathmandu and Berlin, and is very much active in the field of ‘sanfte’ (soft)-tourism, which means tourism with insight. She spent her 50th Birthday on 27th of May 1996 with her Nepalese friends in the monastery of Thangpoche. She is concerned about the negative aspects of tourism and write the information-service ‘Tourism Watch’. To potential tourists in the German-speaking world, she’s a Nepal-specialist, who cares about Nepal’s cultural and natural heritage, as is evident through her travel books.

I met her at the Volkerkunde Museum in Freiburg, the metropolis of the south-west Black Forest, and the occasion was one of a series of talks held under the aegis of ‘Contemporary Painting from Nepal’ to promote cultural and religious development in Nepal.

Ludmilla TĆ¼ting talked about ‘Fascinating Nepal, the Sunny and Shady Sides’ and belted out slides and information and described Nepal as a wonderful country.

And the other theme was: ‘Tourism with Insight isn’t in Demand: the Ecological Damage through Tourism in Nepal’ which was more or less what the interested Nepal-fan will find in ‘Bikas-Binas’, a thought-provoking book on Nepal’s ecological aspects, especially environmental pollution in the Himalayas, published by Ms.TĆ¼ting and my college-friend Kunda Dixit, a reputed Nepali journalist, who is the executive director of International Press Service since decades and also the chief editor and publisher of The Nepali Times.

Ms. TĆ¼ting’s talk, delivered with what the Germans are wont to call the Berlin-lip (Berlinerschnauze) has a pedagogic and practical value, and she tried not only to show what a tourist from abroad does wrong in Nepal, but also suggested how a tourist should behave and dress in Nepal. All in all, it sounded like the German book of etiquette called ‘Knigge’ for potential travellers to Nepal.

In the past there have been a good many transparency slide-shows and talks under the aegis of the Badische Zeitung, the Freiburger University and the Volkshochschule with jet-set gurus, rimpoches, meditations, experts on ‘boksas and boksis’, shamanism, Tibetan lamaism, tai-chi, taoism, yen-oriented-zen and what-have-yous. It is a fact that every Hans-Rudi-and-Fritz who’s been to Nepal or the Himalayas struts around as an expert on matters pertaining to the Home of the Snows.

Some bother to do a bit of background research and some don’t, and the result is a series of howlers. Like the bloke who’d written a thesis on traditions in Nepal and held a slide-show at the University’s eye-clinic auditorium maximum. The pictures of the Nepalese countryside were, as usual, breathtaking. Pokhara, Kathmandu, Jomsom, the Khumbu area and then a slide of Bhimsen’s pillar was shown and our expert quipped, ‘that’s the only mosque in Nepal.’

Or the time a Swabian expedition physician from Stuttgart held a vortrag (talk) at the university’s audi-max (auditorium maximum). A colour-slide of a big group of Nepalese porters flashed across the screen. The porters were shown watching the alpine expedition members eating their sumptuous supper, with every imaginable European dish and the comment was: ‘The Nepalese are used to eating once a day, so they just looked at us while we ate’ (sic). A decent German sitting near me named Dr. Petersen, who was a professor of microbiology, remarked, “Solche Geschmacklosigkeit!” (lack of taste or finesse), but it didn’t seem to disturb our Swabian Himalayan hero. Most Nepalese eat two big meals: at lunch and dinnertime, with quite a few snacks thrown in-between. And when you visit a Nepalese household you’re offered hot tea and snacks too, depending upon the wealth and status of the family.

Every time I heard such unkind, thoughtless remarks I’d groan and my blood pressure would shoot up and my ECG registered tachycardie and I’d probably developed ulcers. Oh, my mucosa. The remedy would be to avoid such stressors in the form of slide-shows, but I couldn’t. I had to tell myself: simmer down, old boy, the scenery is beautiful. And it is. If it weren’t for the ravishing beauty of rural Nepal and Kathmandu Valley’s artistic and cultural treasures… You just had to use ear-plugs (Oxopax) and relish the vistas of Nepal’s splendour: its uniqueness, its smiling people always with what the British call, a stiff upper lip, and what the Germans call ‘sich nie runter kriegen lassen,’ despite the decade old war between the government troops and the Maoists in the past.

Another time a European couple came to my apartment with a thick album full of photoĀ¬graphs of images of Gods and Goddesses and the ‘experts’ wanted me to identify what, and where, they’d photographed in Nepal, for it was to be published as a pictorial book on the temples of Nepal. Some experts, I thought. The pair looked like the junkies in the Freak Street in the early seventies. Like the legendary Nepalese, one helped where one could, though I had to shake my head after they left.

Ludmilla has been going to Nepal since 1974. However, when you remind her of her ‘globe-trotter’ image in those days, she likes to forget it all, because she’d apparently made some mistakes and has learned from the mistakes of the past. And now ecology seems to be her passion. She wishes to ‘sensitise’ the potential tourists through her slide-shows, TV appearances and bring attention to the Nepalese rules of etiquette so as to feel at home in Nepal, despite the cultural shock and change.

‘Tourists are terrorists’ flashes across the screen, and Ludmilla explains that she’d photoĀ¬graphed a graffiti on the Berlin Wall in Kreuzberg. Every time a tourist visits another country, they get a culture shock: the language barrier, the question of mentality, alien customs, and as a result they return to their countries loaded with a lot of prejudices. Then she shows a bus-load of tourists pottering about the Hanuman Dhoka Palace. She says that some of the tourists were angry at her when she photographed them. The tourists seem to reserve the right to photograph every country and its people as something normal, without bothering to ask them for permission. “Wir haben schon bezahlt!” is their line of argument. Doesn’t it smell of cultural imperialism, after the motto: I’ve paid in dollars, marks, francs and yen for the trip, so you natives have to oblige and pose for me. The point is the tourists have paid their travel agencies back in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart or Kathmandu, and not the persons and objects they’re photographing. The payment allows one to land in a country, but how one behaves in a foreign country is another matter.

‘Today it’s possible to go around the world in 18 days’ she says, ‘and everywhere you have people perpetually in a big hurry. She talks about globe-trotters who travel around the on their own, and write books with secret insider tips on how to get the maximum out of a land with the minimum of your money. A poor porter with a mountain of load comprising cooking-utensils appears and that brings Ludmilla to talk about a certain expedition leader’s successful climb to the summit of a Himalayan peak, ‘we’d didn’t have any losses. Only a porter died’. Then she reminds the listeners that the porters don’t have any health-insurance or accident-insurance or pension in the German sense.

‘Funeral-pyres at Pashupatinath are an eternal theme for tourists’, says Ludmilla with a groan, and she describes tourists with camcorders at the ghats. ‘You wouldn’t want a foreign visitor to take the burial ceremony of your near and dear ones, would you?’ asks Ludmilla.

It was interesting to know that there’s a makeshift video-hut at Tatopani along the Jomsom trail for the benefit of the local Nepalese, the trekking-tourists and their porters. ‘I saw ‘Gandhi’ on this trek’ she said, thereby meaning Sir Attenborough’s film. You might even get to see the newest Hollywood and Bollywood films up there. Pico Iyer’s ‘Video Night in Kathmandu’ might still be interesting-reading for the Nepalophile, for he has ‘the knack of recording every shimmy’. A poster advertising ‘Thrilling Animal Sacrifices at Dakshinkali’ apparently from ‘Bikas-Binas’ (development-destruction) made one wonder about the so-called ‘sizzling, romantic, thrilling, action-packed’ box-office cocktails produced in Bollywood’s celluloid, DVD factories.

‘If you want to meet people and get to know them, you have to travel slowly’ says Ludmilla TĆ¼ting. Then she talks about the wonders of the polaroid camera at the Nepalese customs office. Men are ruled by toys. She says, ‘If you take a snapshot of a customs officer and hand him the photograph, you’ll pass the barrier with no difficulty.’

Does tourism mean foreign exchange for Nepal? Apparently not, according to her, with imported food from Australia, lighting from Holland, whisky from Scotland, air-conditioĀ¬ning from Canada. She shows Pokhara in 1974. Corrugated iron-sheets are being transported on the backs of porters along the Jomsom trail for the construction of small mountain restaurants.

A Gurung woman in her traditional dress, frying tasty circular sel-rotis in her tea-shop in the open-air, appears and good old Ludmilla advises the audience about the advantages of acquiring immunity or fortifying it through gamma-globulin and the advantages of tetanus-shots prior to a trip to the Himalayas.

After the show I went with Ludmilla to a Freiburger tavern named Zum Stƶrchen for a drink and a chat. Toni Hagen, a geologist-turned development-worker from Lenzerheide, who held a double Ph.D. and was billed to talk about the development of Nepal from 1950 to 1987 and the role of developmental-cooperation, also accompanied us. Toni Hagen was a celebrity in Nepal due to his geological pioneer work and publication. Alas, Hagen passed away sometime back after starring in an autobiographical film. Ingrid Kreide, who was in a hurry to return to Cologne, held a lecture on the history of Thanka-painters and the freedom of art in the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal, and expressed her deep concern regarding the theft of Nepalese temple and ritual objects.

Ludmilla is a name to be reckoned with as a globetrotter, journalist, Nepal-expert in the German speaking world, and she criticises the alternative travel-scene. And she still fights for the rights of the underdogs in South Asia. She was for the Chipko-movement in India and decried the deforestation, ecological damage, fought for human rights of the Tibetans and Nepalese alike, wrote about development and destruction of so-called Third World countries. She once told Edith Kresta, the travel editor of the Tageszeitung (TAZ, Berlin): “My heart is Nepali, the rest is German.” Her base-camp in Catmandu is hotel Vajra run by Sabine Lehmann, a hotel with a theatre flair, and she’s working on a novel on climbing this time. She wants to emulate the characters of James Hilton’s novel The Lost Horizon, wherein people get very old and are not bothered with gerontological problems. She wants to live at least 108 years in this planet. One can only admire and wish her well in her endeavours and pedagogical critique.

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Source by Satis Shroff

November 16, 2022
View: 316

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A great popularity, as a variant of interior decoration, have acquired modular paintings. They can consist of two parts – a diptych, three – a triptych, and more – a polyptych.

Of course, today they can be purchased in many stores, but will not it be more pleasant to make a modular picture with your own hands? That’s why your attention is given a master class on creating such an element of decor. And for this you will need:

1. Fabric with a beautiful pattern (choose a pattern so that it harmoniously combined with the style of the room, which will decorate the picture). The pattern can be the same ornament, and maybe the plot. If you take as a basis the plot, then you will need to take measurements from the canvas, so that the divided parts are coordinated together on different parts of the modular picture.

2. Basis 1 – wooden slats and pieces of plywood.

3. Basis 2 – fiberboard or foam (even foam with a ceiling tile is suitable).

4. Glue PVA.

5. Scissors, hooks, furniture stapler, centimeter.

6. Pencil or chalk (for markings on the fabric).

It is quite easy to make a modular picture with your own hands and therefore we will consider this process step by step:

1. Finished base

It can be purchased in the store in the required quantity for your modular picture. They are sold with a fabric already stretched on the base. And then having studied in detail how to draw a modular picture yourself, you can use the ready-made framework. If you want to make a modular picture with your own hands, using the fabric or print you like, then you need to carefully remove the fabric from the stretchers.

2. Do the foundation yourself

And you can make your own base for a modular picture. The first option – the creation of stretchers using wooden racks. Here you will need to take the slats for stretchers of the same length in pairs, cut the ends and join them together using glue or a furniture stapler. In each corner from the wrong side you can fix pieces of plywood in the form of triangles, so you strengthen the frame for your picture. For a greater density on the stretcher, as an additional base, you can pull the fabric, also securing it with a furniture stapler.

The second option is that you can take the whole base – a piece of fiberboard or polystyrene, but then do not forget to process the edges. This is the simplest version of the basics, if you decide to make a modular picture with your own hands, and spend a minimum amount of time on this. Of course, making modular paintings with your own hands in any case will cost a certain amount of effort and time, but this option is especially recommended for female masters, because there is less work with tools.

3. Fixing the cloth

Further, we cut out and fix the sheet itself on the stretchers. Be sure to measure the size of the canvas on the base, taking into account the location for fixing on the back of the image with the help of furniture staples.

Distribute the web evenly, stretch it to avoid crumpling and wrinkling. Special attention and accuracy will require corners. First, fasten the long opposite sides, then short.

4. Decorate the interior!

As a result, you get an excellent decor element for your room. Now you can fantasize with placing the pictures relative to each other. Making your own modular paintings yourself can also bring you income if you achieve a certain level of skill.

If you are interested in how to draw a modular picture, then everything is simple. Everyone who did not miss drawing lessons at school will be able to do it themselves. Your final result does not need to be a work of art of the highest class – you can find pictures of patterns or colors and redraw them by distributing to the modules of your picture.

At the same time, remember that the arrangement of parts among themselves can depend on how you draw a modular picture. For example, the elements may not be located horizontally, but diagonally or even vertically or the middle part may be higher than the rest. The combination of the pattern will determine the location of the modular picture. An even easier option is to secure already printed images.

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Source by Alex Kimeev

November 1, 2022
View: 372

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Tapestries are becoming more and more popular as a home interior design component. Their versatility and many different sizes and styles mean that they can fit almost any décor. All you have to do is choose a tapestry that pulls your existing room together, or decide on a style you wish to build a whole new room together.

Remnants of tapestries have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs, the deserts of Greece and the frozen land of Norway. They depict historical events, mythological beings and royal families. The ancients used pictorial evidence to document great events and daily matters and founded an art that would endure for centuries.

Tapestries are weavings, strictly speaking, although there are some famous panels of embroidery and others of painting on cotton that have been referred to as tapestries. A true tapestry is woven on a loom, with colored warp and weft treads interlocking to form a pattern. Most ancient tapestries served a twofold purpose – to lend warmth to a cold room and to educate or remind people of certain events or deeds.

Tapestries Through The Ages

For some, the early Gothic designs of the medieval era are the most appealing. These look at home in almost any sumptuously decorated setting. They accent heavy dark furniture pieces and rich upholstery by adding height to the room. A large tapestry done in early medieval style can invite the viewer in and make a room seem even larger.

The Renaissance tapestries shifted focus from the darker royal hues to the softer richness of blue, gold and rose tints. Almost impressionist in nature, many of these portray riotous flowers, soothing landscapes and idealistic romantic portraitures. Knights in armor and ladies in waiting are common themes, with dragons and unicorns sprinkled in with a liberal hand.

The Orient has documented famous palaces of emperors and raging battlefields with equal fervor. Asian tapestries are woven with careful attention to detail, making birds seem extraordinarily lifelike and flowers seem ready to burst off of the wall. Depictions’ of royal princesses mingle with those of common farmers, and every fold in every garment is meticulously recorded.

Next to the exotic yet lifelike characteristics of Asian tapestries, those from India have a rounded, lavish appearance. Costuming again is handled with great detail, and historic events recorded for posterity. Famous places are skillfully rendered, and the use of color is precise. These tapestries go well in bright, colorful rooms; the fruit and flower themes are perfect for bedrooms and living areas alike.

In the New World and the Old

For homes with a southwestern flavor, Native American tapestries can lend that authentic touch. Traditionally woven by hand from a variety of materials, these tapestries are often fashioned from dyed wool yarn and have a heavier texture than that of finer European samples.

American Indian tapestries focus on symmetrical designs with an even amount of patterned and blank background space. The artist may use bold colors or muted earth tones, so the choices are nearly endless. You can pick a nearly square blanket style, or a long narrow tapestry suitable for hanging horizontally to break up a large wall.

French and English tapestries dated after the Renaissance tend to portray hunting scenes and coats of arms. Red hunting coats contrast sharply with the deep greens and browns of the forest, as the hounds give chase after deer, fox or hare. These portrayals of the wealthy at sport often hung over mantles or opposite fireplaces, and are perfect for homes with wood paneling.

Personal Tapestries

Coats of arms with the family motto were often commissioned for families of note in Europe, and many were brought to the Colonies later with their descendants. They are still popular among families who can trace their lineage back through generation after generation. These feature shields and backgrounds according to the family colors, sometimes with the addition of a lion or other animal as needed.

Many people prefer religious themes as subjects for their tapestries – biblical scenes abound, as well as angelic depictions of every imaginable style. Old Testament pictures such as Moses and the tablets or Daniel in the lion pit are common, as are New Testament ones of Christ knocking at the door or rising to the heavens. These are often hung in bedrooms as well as living rooms.

The common idea behind many tapestries is simply to tell a story through pictures; the color, texture and imagery are designed for maximum impact. These works of art are the perfect interior decorating solution, making a room go from boring to impressive in a matter of minutes. Find one that speaks to you, and it will give you enjoyment for years to come!

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Source by Angela Dawson-Field

October 17, 2022
View: 430

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Monday, September 10, 2001

It was mid-afternoon when I drove out to visit my friend, Ed Cain, on his five-acre parcel of land near Port Townsend, Washington. In a clearing of Douglas fir and white cedar, he’d built a modest two-room house and studio, a sizable vegetable garden, and several large pens in which he kept his prized chickens.

Ed had been married twice, with children from both marriages and even though his second family lived on the opposite corner of the acreage in a house he’d built for them, he preferred his solitude. He lived alone.

He greeted me at the door with his usual good-nature. “Get on in here,” he said, sweeping his right arm down and out into the room as if to say, “OK, you found me.” Ten feet into the room, we stopped and stood before one of his newest paintings, a large silver and black abstraction that nearly filled one wall. I smiled and nodded appreciatively. Then he led me across the room, around an old platen press, through his kitchen, and out the back door to a small porch where we settled down to a lengthy conversation. Trees towered above us on all sides.

We hadn’t seen each other in several weeks and, as usual, were soon discussing our inescapable, irresistible tether to art, the joy we found in making it, and the various ways in which it entered and affected our lives. Our newest topic, however, was Ed’s participation in several of my film projects.

Some months earlier, I had interviewed him for “Cadmium Red Light,” a documentary profile of Lennie Kesl, an eccentric painter and jazz singer and who had been my friend and mentor for nearly forty years. In the mid-1980s, I’d introduced both men and they too were quickly bonded by their creative worlds; it seemed fitting that Ed should add his two cents to the project’s already rich collection of interviews.

Ed was happy to do so. But what he ultimately offered surprised me. A different person emerged-not the gentle Ed I’d expected but an off-the-wall, slightly cantankerous character with sharp-edged humor. I was fascinated with what whirled out of his imagination and I immediately sensed another project blossoming. I asked him if he would be willing to let me continue the interviews, not about Lennie, but about himself or whichever “self” happened to appear.

What developed in this new project was a delightful fable. Ed, or Edward, split himself into fictitious identical twins: Edward and Edwin. In the reeling out of his enchanting yarn, Edward was serious and artistic, Edwin cranky and countrified, a man who loved his chickens.

Being interviewed first, Edward explained that family tradition dictated the first-born son be named Edward. When twin boys arrived, their parents decided to call one Edward and the other Edwin. Until they were older, they were simply known as the little ‘Eddys.’

“OK,” I said, smiling, “I’m game. Let’s see where the story drifts.”

Edward continued. He explained that Edwin had fallen off a horse while trying to jump over a feed trough, landing on his head. He was a bit slow. After their mother died, Edward took his brother in, allowing him to help around the yard; he tended the chickens and weeded the garden, just to keep him busy and out of trouble.

When I interviewed Edwin, however, the story changed. In this slant, it was Edwin who took care of Edward.

“Edward,” Edwin complained, “ain’t good for much. He can’t make a living. He don’t do nothing but write poetry. He never did. And those pictures? Hell, nobody can understand them things. If he’d get himself a decent job, he might do OK. I’ve been taking care of him since Mom passed.”

On the surface, this unfolding invention seemed like a delightful comedy, but there was also something unsettling in its ‘believability.’ I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

After four or five interviews, the title of the film, conjured up by Edwin, asserted itself. It would be called “Ed and Ed.”

The Ed Cain I had known for eighteen years, of course, had no twin. He had grown up in the American West, part cowboy, part farmer, and eventually he tried his hand as a chef, a landscaper, and at general construction. He was a competent plumber and electrician-a true jack-of-all-trades. He even dug his own well with body and shovel.

He also was a remarkable poet and painter. He designed and handset the type for his own limited edition books, and printed them on that old printing press he had dragged around for years. His poetry is spare and elegant. His paintings are figurative abstractions of birds-mostly loons and crows-or the human female, often expressed in bold, child-like strokes of black and white.

A big, tall man, Ed was quiet spoken and possessed of a gentle, generous heart. He loved to tease his way through conversations. He made you feel comfortable.

Our conversation migrated from art in general to the specifics of setting up our next interview session.

As the afternoon passed, the sun had moved beyond the clearing and the air grew colder. Ed’s light bantering slowed, his usual bright disposition darkened. He seemed to slowly collapse in on himself as he leaned both arms on the table, clearing his throat as one might do when wanting to change the subject. He paused, looked over the table at me, and softly asked, “What do you think I should do with my work… with my paintings?”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Well, I don’t think anyone much cares about them one way or the other,” he said, looking down at his large hands clasped together, fingers twisting in fingers as if in agitated prayer. “I thought you might have some ideas.”

I looked at my friend, still unsure of what he was asking. I didn’t take his question too seriously, however, because, while generous to a fault with his friends, Ed was perhaps the most independent, self-reliant person I’d ever met. Returning a favor always required subtle ingenuity. I stuttered for an appropriate response until my awkwardness left a lengthy gap in our conversation. He felt my discomfort and quickly lightened the mood.

We stood and wandered back inside, through the kitchen, back around the press, toward the front door.

I explained that I would be leaving within a week for Thailand, to resume work on my elephant documentary. I told him I would think about his question and offer the best advice I could before leaving the country. I suggested I come back in a few days to get more material for “Ed and Ed.” I was excited by what we had, but we both agreed it wasn’t nearly enough.

He smiled broadly beneath his thick mustache and walked me to the door, switching on his ‘Edwinesque’ humor. We laughed and shook hands. I got into my car and drove home.

* * * * *

On Wednesday, like most every other person in the world, I was still staggering from Tuesday’s unimaginable destruction: planes crashing into the World Trade Center, bodies burning or falling from those iconic buildings, another plane crashing into the Pentagon, and yet another plunging into the wooded fields near ‘Shanksville,’ Pennsylvania.

No one had ever witnessed anything like it on American soil since the bombing of Pearl Harbor. 9/11 was a catastrophic event that irrevocably changed the way we think and feel and act as a culture; it spawned a completely new matrix of fear-technology, governmental invasion of privacy, unreasonable wars, and systemic hatred.

That early evening, I received a phone call from Ed’s estranged wife. She was in Oregon, traveling up to Port Townsend. She had been trying to reach Ed but without success. When she returned the next morning, having to go directly to her office, she phoned me again, still concerned, and asked if I would go check on him.

“OK,” I told her, “I’ll drive out.”

I tried his phone. No answer. So I drove the five miles back out Hastings Avenue, down Jolie Way onto his long, unpaved driveway through the trees, until I reached his house.

On the way out, I found myself crafting a rather dark what-if scenario. I don’t believe my turn of thoughts came from any feeling I left with after seeing him on Monday, but rather from being emotionally troubled from the disaster of 9/11.

If Ed were planning to do something to himself, he would first destroy all of his chickens. It was an odd thing to imagine but that’s the direction in which my mind was turning. If I heard his chickens as I approached the house, everything would be fine. If I heard nothing, I should worry.

When I arrived, his van was parked in its usual place. The front door to his house was open. I rolled down my window and listened. Silence. My heart raced a bit. Then I heard a few hens and the squabble of a rooster. I felt reassured. I got out, stood by my car, and called his name several times. No response. I called a bit louder. Still nothing. It was a lovely September morning, clear and sunny, with a slight breeze.

I walked up and stood at the bottom of his front porch. “Hey, Ed, are you there… are you inside?” The chickens started fussing the way they do when hungry.

I heard a voice coming from the interior. But it wasn’t Ed’s. It sounded as if it were coming from a TV. Then it hit me. I suddenly realized what I was about to walk into.

Though reluctant to step inside, I entered because I had no choice. “Just go in,” I said to myself, praying I wouldn’t find what I was afraid I might.

Entering, I could see dead leaves had blown into the room and were scattered about in small drifts across the floor. Between his front door and kitchen, the printing press stood in quiet obstinacy, waiting for the next book project to begin.

Little clay sculptures of diving birds lined the shelf beneath the windows. The large painting I’d seen on Monday loomed more intensely, its black and silver piercing the room’s dark interior from sunlight flooding through the open door.

I turned slowly to the right. Ed’s body lay on what seemed too small of a bed, his shoulders propped up on several pillows. He was wearing only a white undershirt that had gathered and risen above his stomach. A rifle lay near his side, his right hand curled over the stock.

A small portable TV sat on a crate next to his bed; it seemed like some strange intensive care device noisily attending the body that lay before it. The bullet had entered through his mouth, exiting the upper back of his head. The force of the projectile had exploded the skull’s parietal bone and left a large, irregular pattern of blood and flesh against the wall. Yet his face was strangely tranquil, as if he were merely in repose, eyes shut, calmly listening to the newscast. I stood transfixed in the aftermath of mayhem-the strange juxtaposition between Ed’s lifeless body and the television’s low droning, its constant spooling out of tragedy into the world.

I had entered into a wholly new kind of experience and seemed to be operating, almost autonomously, as if by script. I found his phone. It was on a table beneath the window that looked out into the yard. I knew I needed to dial 911, but first I called a friend, another artist. It seemed crucial I speak to someone I knew. I asked her to call a friend.

“Call Stephen,” I said. “Please ask him to come over.”

Then I dialed the emergency operator. I looked out of the window into the yard. I remember thinking how beautiful and green was his vegetable garden. I could hear the clucking and crooning of chickens. “I need to report a suicide.” I said to the operator.

“Are you certain he’s dead?”

“Yes, I’m sure of it. He’s dead.”

“How far are you from the body?”

“I’m close… maybe fifteen feet. It’s… it’s a small room.”

“Can you take the phone into another room?”

“No, I can’t.”

“OK. But I need you to stay on the line. Keep talking to me. Stay on the line. The sheriff is on his way. He should be there momentarily.”

“This is very difficult.”

“I know it is, sir, but I need you to stay on the line.”

After the initial shock-the mind’s processing of death, a friend’s death, of seeing what the force of a bullet does to flesh and bone, and of seeing his nearly naked body slumped against the wall on which his last creative expression was painted in blood-I turned away.

I suppose my being overwhelmed released some chemical that helped me defy my own frailty. The body mercifully does that. In fact, I felt somewhat emotionally disconnected to what lay before me. As I waited for the sheriff to arrive, I held the phone to my ear, my eyes wandering everywhere but to the bed.

“Yes, I’m still here,” I kept repeating, assuring the voice on the other end of the line.

On the windowsills and tables, lottery tickets had been scratched and tossed. Bills lay unopened. On a bedside table, a large wine bottle stood empty. Between the bed and a nearby closet, a dark-red upholstered chair lay on its side. Just beyond the chair, a closet door stood open.

I doubt an autopsy was ever performed on Ed’s body. There is no way to be sure exactly when he pulled the trigger. But during my wait and to help me refrain from bolting, which I literally had thought I might, I began to imagine his final moments.

I set the scene: A man is lying on a small bed, trying to swim out of his own darkness, desperate to ease a sorrow he cannot name. His entire world is sinking and a voice on TV confirms it. He makes a final decision. End it all. He must do it. No hesitating. He rises, stumbles toward the closet where he keeps his gun. He trips and, in his wobbling, drunken haste, knocks over the chair. He reaches into the closet, grabs the rifle, returns to his bed. Don’t think. He pulls the trigger.

“Are you still with me?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“The sheriff is heading up to the house now.”

“I’m here.”

“OK, now listen very carefully… what I need you to do, sir, is slowly put the phone down. Just place it on the table, OK? Then I want you to calmly and slowly walk outside with your hands-both hands-above your head. Do you understand?”

I did. I got it. Completely. Instantly. There was never a moment of indignant disbelief. I knew uncertainty surrounded me. I could have been the shooter.

I walked out calmly with arms raised. The sheriff approached warily, quite obviously trying to get a read on any possible and unpredictable move I might make. I thought I heard him say, “It’s OK.” I relaxed and let my hands down. Quickly he reached for his holstered weapon. Back up went my arms.

A moment later the county prosecuting attorney arrived; we’d known each for a few years. “He’s OK,” she said, moving between the sheriff and me, on into the house. The sheriff followed her inside and after a few more minutes, an emergency vehicle arrived. Two paramedics rolled out a gurney and they too went inside.

Ed’s wife and son suddenly appeared from behind me. I turned to see utter horror and disbelief on their faces.

They wanted to see Ed. I knew this could have devastating consequences, especially for the boy, so I absolutely forbade them.

“Go home,” I said. “You do not want to see this. You must not.”

Reluctantly they turned and left.

After a few minutes, the sheriff and county prosecutor reappeared, got into their cars and drove off. The medics soon followed with Ed’s remains encased in a black body bag on the silver gurney. They placed him inside the emergency vehicle and slowly drove away.

No bright yellow tapes cordoned off the house. The sheriff had given me no instructions of what to do and what not to do, and I stood in the yard stunned from the unfolding scenario, wondering what to do next. I assumed the county officials considered Ed’s death self-inflicted and that I was expected to simply depart as everyone else had. But how could I? How could I simply leave the house open and unattended?

I went back inside. Ed was gone, the rifle gone, the television switched off, the house silent.

I knew I couldn’t leave this place of pain and loss for the family to discover, so I searched around Ed’s kitchen for rags and cleaning supplies and set about scrubbing the floor and the wall behind the bed. I drug the mattress out into yard, searched through Ed’s studio and found paint thinner to pour over it; I set it aflame.

Very soon Stephen arrived and we did our best to put the place back into some kind of order, as if Ed were merely out for the afternoon. Stephen washed the dishes. I put the empty wine bottle and the stained towels and bedding in plastic bags. We set the dark red chair upright, shut the closet, and swept the dead leaves back out into the yard. We closed the front door and left.

A week later, I headed back to Asia.

* * * * *

In November 2006, I had finished “Cadmium Red Light” and had nearly completed the elephant documentary. I began to think about the scant video footage I had for “Ed and Ed.”

The mini-tapes had lain undisturbed in their tiny, plastic box on a shelf in my office, gathering dust. I had not looked at any of the material since before Ed took his life.

But those three one-hour tapes never let me forget them.

As winter drove on, each time I went into my office, I began to feel like a six-penny nail orbiting Jupiter. I was rapidly being pulled in; it was time to edit the twins.

Admittedly, I had somewhat helped define the two characters by shaping my interviews to accommodate either Edward or Edwin.

Nonetheless, as I began to study the raw material, I wondered to what extent I had actually participated. Ed had orchestrated the entire scenario. It was his invention, his fable. “Ed and Ed” was his. I was simply shadowing his imagination.

I began to assemble what material I had. There wasn’t much. I wanted to stay close to Ed’s Ed but I needed to understand why. I needed to know how. My job was to make sure the story would ultimately pass the honesty test. It did, after all, happen.

There’s a scene in which Edward talks about bringing his brother to live with him after their parents died. He talks about going to ‘Cenex,’ a local garden store, to buy fertilizer for his vegetables, and he takes Edwin with him.

When they have finished shopping and are back in the van, Edwin has a box of baby chicks on his lap. Edward says, “What do you have there?”

“Baby ‘Bafarmingtons,'” answers Edwin.

Now, as far as I know, Ed never studied the art of acting, yet he tells this simple fabrication with such conviction, his voice breaking, tears welling up in his eyes, that one cannot help but feel his brotherly love. It’s a remarkable scene. Is he recalling some distant childhood memory?

As I struggled to develop a narrative, it soon became clear that Edwin represented, in the real world of Ed Cain, everyone who couldn’t understand him, his paintings, his poetry-his need to make art. Edward suffered, in an inseparable way, the world of Edwin.

The challenge for me was weaving together a story with such limited material, achieving the necessary balance. It needed a beginning and an ending, and I wanted to make sure the purpose was clearly felt. And it also needed to be collaborative, to be what I imagined Ed would have wanted. For the viewer and the integrity of documentary, I had to finally stitch the brothers back together as one person, as Ed Cain, to resolve it as history. Getting it there needed the right questions and the right answers.

After completing a first draft, I showed the film to several test groups. I needed feedback. I wanted to know not only whether I had created the illusion of actual twins but, more importantly, whether the fable transcended itself to become reality. Would the film offer some lesson the viewer could grasp-a parable’s gift?

Of the ten viewers, only one was uncertain while the others fully believed they were actually watching identical twins until the ending, when the two Ed’s were made one.

In the film’s beginning, before Edwin appears, Edward reads one of his poems:

In winter one loon stays

just short of the farthest old piers.

Perhaps it is not always the same loon

The light in this sun-diminished season

seems continual and it makes

little difference if its dawn or evening.

In reflection, the loon seems not so cold.

The window mirrors my eyes against haze.

The loon stills the air between us.

In the final scene, Edward is sitting on a metal stool in front of his platen press. As interviewer, I explain that his brother Edwin has completely dismissed his version of their life together. That Edwin, in fact, had been taking care of him. Edward quietly laughs and says, “That’s amazing. I’m surprised you got that much out of him. He usually doesn’t talk that much. I don’t know whether I want to dispute what he says or not.”

He slowly stands, walks toward the viewer and disappears. We are left alone in the room with the printing press and the little clay sculptures in the window. We see a message scrolling up and over the final scene. From these few words we learn there was only Ed. The viewer now understands the truth in the fable’s revelation and the tragedy that befell Ed Cain.

In all probability, I was the last person to have seen him alive and the first to find what he’d left us. I would later ask myself, “Was I not listening well enough on that Monday afternoon? Was I overly concerned with my own projects, or with my preparations for travel?” Whatever clues he might have given me on that Monday, I missed them.

Eight years later, however, going back through my last day of filming, I discovered in one sequence, Edwin talking about their life together, his and Edward’s. He says, “We don’t have a desire to get involved with one another now.” He adds, “It’s almost ‘door-shuttin’ time.'” Does this unusual colloquialism refer merely to getting old and dying, or does it reveal darker thoughts? Ed was only sixty-six.

And was it possible, as Ed lay crippled in hopelessness, the news spewing out of the little TV became the proverbial straw that broke him beyond repair, another victim of 9/11?

It’s been fourteen years since he asked me about his art-what should he do with it? The question continues to haunt me. What can such a question mean?

I think he understood that durability of art as artifact is determined only by human capriciousness and the passage of time. But naturally, and rightfully, he was concerned with what might become of his paintings and poems. Perhaps, for him, they tethered one world to another.

Ed and I often talked about the communion of art, and how it nourishes and sustains generosity. We felt that the vitality of art is indelible and processional: conceiving, doing, and giving. We believed it then and I believe it now.

When I think back on that Monday afternoon, as we sat across from one another, beneath those magnificent trees, Ed wasn’t asking me a question at all, but rather offering an awkward and oblique farewell.

In the end, Ed left this world, Edwin’s world, in solitude, and as he did so, like his beautiful loon, he stilled the air between us.

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Source by Galen Garwood

October 2, 2022
View: 413

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Dear reader, this Ezine article has been written for perusal by over 6000 nano-scientists. Its theme suggests to the general public that ethical nanotechnology has an important role to play in bringing about a new age of global liberty and freedom. It can be argued that this can come about if nanotechnology is developed in liaison with a medical science, to guide ennobling government for the betterment of the global human condition. While the article is about the fractal nature of Mesopotamian mythological mathematics, it is fully realised that other ancient cultures, including Indian and Chinese civilisations, contributed infinite fractal mathematical concepts into the formation of the ancient 3rd Century BC Platonic tradition of Greek science.

Discussions about politics, sex and religion tend to provoke intense controversy. However, this paper is about a broad generalisation of all three of these contentious issues. They are so complex that only a supercomputer, given thousands of years of data could adequately explain their functioning in the great game of life, which is related to healthy human evolution.

During the 1990s, the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia had its supercomputer papers about seashell life-form energies reprinted by the world’s leading technological research institute, IEEE., and an American Institute for Basic Research. These papers were internationally acclaimed for the discovery of new mathematical and physics laws governing optimum biological growth and development through space-time. The aim of this article is to help in the construction of a second supercomputer program, which can be referred to as the Fuller-Snow ‘World Game Cooperative Theory’ for human survival.

China’s most highly awarded physicist, Kun Huang, provided the research methodology used to make the discovery of the new physics laws possible. He argued personally with Albert Einstein over the issue. Now, nanotechnology has confirmed that his seashell advice in 1979 applies directly to the human condition.

The ancient Egyptians used the sacred geometries of life to give an intuitive expression of the working of an infinite universe. Mainstream science now realises that they were using aspects of fractal geometrical logic extending to infinity. However, our present global science and technology forbids that geometrical logic to belong to any living evolutionary process. Einstein’s genius can now be truly immortalised by modifying it so that his universal energies of chaos are shown to entangle with these long lost ancient infinite life energies.

The 20th Century Einsteinian world-view was governed by a law of universal chaos that demands that all life in the universe must become extinct. Therefore, under these circumstances the living process cannot possibly extend to infinity. However, nanotechnology has demonstrated that the ancient Greek science was correct.

The human molecule of emotion, discovered in 1972, now part of quantum biology’s entanglement with Einstein’s quantum mechanics, is, in fact, an infinite fractal expression. Our emotions function in complete contradiction to the laws governing our present destructively imbalanced science and technology.

This means that, as was discovered only last century, emotions belong to Sir Isaac Newton’s more profound natural philosophy to balance his mechanical description of the universe. It is important that his world-view is freed from any further Christian classification of this being a criminally insane heresy. Newton held to his more profound concepts of an infinite universe, when he wrote his great theories of science. This is evident in his personal letters to Richard Bentley, in which he linked gravity with light, to provide evolutionary instruction to the human metabolism. It is unreasonable to insist that mercurial fumes from his alchemy laboratory resulted in a criminally insane mind, at the same time when he was accomplishing such things.

The modern day unbalanced scientific world-view constitutes a political nightmare of global proportions. With modification, this can be adequately addressed in the form of a medical supercomputer program, functioning to guide ennobling governments throughout the world. The resultant technology, for the betterment of the human condition, is beyond the conception of present unbalanced mainstream science. However, given the opportunity, there are enough learned scholars to compose the computer program, thanks to the scientist Kun Huang. It is now possible to extend the seashell research in order to obtain the quantum biological blueprint for human survival.

During the 6th Century BC the Greek geometer, Thales, travelled to Egypt to study political ethics. Following him in the 5th Century BC, the mathematician, Pythagoras, also studied political ethics in Egypt. They brought back to Greece the mathematical structure of Western Democracy. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras had derived a theory of creation from the mythological-mathematical theories of the Egyptian creator god Atum (Atom), mentioned in the ‘Pyramids Texts’. Then, for over two hundred years the Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy fused ethics into Anaxagoras’ theory of creation. This was in order to invent science so that civilisation would not become extinct, as had other life forms discovered as fossils.

Aspects of nano-science show that the resultant science had successfully linked mathematics to the living process, in line with the workings of an infinite universe. This is contrary to the ethos of Einstein’s theory of relativity, which he derived from Babylonian mythological mathematics.

During the 3rd Century BC two Greek life-sciences came into existence. one was called the ‘Science for ethical ends’ incorporating atomic Platonic love and the other was the ‘Science of universal love’, based upon Epicurean emotional atomic theory. These sciences came about to guide ennobling government, so that humans could play their part within an infinite ethical universal purpose, thus avoiding extinction. Nearby, in the Mystery Schools of Babylon, worship of the sacred geometries was motivated by the teachings of Ishtar, the Goddess of sexual prostitution and warfare.

Plato understood that once a physical atomic science totally ruled civilisation, as it does today, the prehistoric arms race legacy would one day accelerate, triggering the emergence of the destructive properties of ancient Egypt’s understanding of primordial universal chaos. Plato’s concept ‘evil’ was about the anti-life properties of nuclear unformed matter spreading as an obsession into the psyche of civilisations. Various national governments, powerless to stop the nuclear arms race because of governmental national security laws, would eventually bring about the chaos of total destruction upon civilisation. Nanotechnology on the other hand, could step in to provide a medical science, free energy, food and water, across the globe, in order to prevent this nightmare situation from happening.

Harvard University Press advises that the rebirth of the lost Greek atomic sciences was instigated by Marcilio Ficino, during the 15th Century. He used the book, ‘Plato’s Theology’ to create what is now called the Great Italian Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, contrary to popular belief, was not a central figure to that Renaissance.

The mathematician, Fibonacci, taught Leonardo the sacred geometrical mathematical ethos belonging to the Mystery Schools of Babylon, which worshipped warfare. On the other hand, the inclusion of Platonic love as a property of the atoms of the soul (the molecule of emotion discovered by Candace Pert in 1972) had placed atomic ethics into the mathematical equations that Fibonacci obtained from the Babylonian Mystery Schools.

The American engineer, Buckminster Fuller, who wrote the book ‘Utopia or Oblivion’ fully understood the nature of Plato’s grim warning and realised that we must modify the Einsteinian understanding of universal energy, or perish. Harvard University’s Novartis Professor Amy Edmondson, in her on-line biography entitled ‘A Fuller Explanation’, wrote that in his excitement to write his theories, Fuller neglected to explain to the public that his ideas for humanity’s survival were derived directly from Plato’s mathematical research.

The molecular biologist, Sir C P Snow, also wrote a book about the need to save civilisation from collapse, due to the prevailing Einsteinian understanding of universal energy. He considered it imperative to link modern science back to the culture of the Platonic Humanities. In 2008 the Times Literary Supplement published that it considered Snow’s book to be among the 100 most important books written since World War II.

The Christian Church, during the 5th Century AD, destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria and murdered its custodian, the mathematician, Hypatia. Saint Augustine then banished Plato’s mathematics as being the work of the Devil, mistaking it for the mathematics associated with the teachings of Ishtar, the Babylonian Goddess of war and prostitution. Augustine had translated the evil of unformed matter in the atom as the evil of female sexuality, later used as an excuse for the horrific sexual rites that the Christian Church lather condoned.

The sadistic torturing and burning alive of countless numbers of women and girl children as witches was practised for three hundred years until the mid 17th Century. In the 18th Century the Church’s fanatical opposition to ancient Greek mathematical atomic science, as the work of the Devil, was transferred into the very fabric of the Constitution of the United States of America, without the American people realising what had happened.

Giordano Bruno, considered to be the father of modern science, taught about the science of universal love, at Oxford University. For doing this, upon returning to Rome he was imprisoned, tortured and burnt alive by the Roman Church in 1600. During the 20th Century, the unpublished papers of Sir Isaac Newton were discovered, in which Newton expressed his conviction that a more profound natural philosophy existed to complete the mechanical description of the universe. Newton’s model of the universe was infinite and its functioning was upheld by the same physics principles that upheld the ancient Greek science for ethical ends and the science of universal love. Newton’s balancing physics principles were exactly those used by the philosopher Schelling when he corrected Immanuel Kant’s electromagnetic ethic for perpetual peace on earth.

Isaac Newton, a contemporary of Bruno, aware of his fate, dared not publish those same ideas. As it was, his infinite universe theories remain classified today as Newton’s Heresy Papers. This may help explain why a 50 million pound research program at Cambridge University, to look for its associated technology, was cancelled outright by the British Government. Nonetheless, nanotechnology has revealed the incredible magnitude of that technology’s capacity to benefit the global human condition, well beyond the scope of entropic science.

The Constitution of the United States of America came into existence in 1787, based upon the ancient Platonic tradition of Greek philosophy. Within the Christian culture, Sir Isaac Newton’s banished heresy physics principles were completely omitted. Alexander Hamilton, during the framing of the Constitution, defined ‘Liberty’ as being ensured by the design of government based upon physics and geometrical principles. The physics principles used to construct the American Constitution belonged to the published physics of Sir Isaac Newton and the geometrical principles belonged to the geometry of Euclid. The current blockbuster film, ‘Lincoln ‘ depicts the President of America explaining that the abolishment of slavery was fused into Euclidean geometrical logic. In fact it was tied into the infinite geometrical logic upholding the functioning of the Platonic universe. If the will of the people wish it so, the American Constitution can now be amended to become the true symbol of liberty for all the world.

The ancient Greek intuitive understanding about the anti-life properties of nuclear chaos predicted the way our state of emotion interacts with physical reality. In 2011 two Chinese scientists used mathematics to prove how the Fullerene dance of life of protein enfolding in DNA, functioned outside the laws governing Einstein’s world-view. This was pre-empted ten years earlier when the Science-Art Research Centre published a lecture delivered at Yangzhou University in China. The paper stated that this protein dance of life in DNA caused Fullerene carbon-signalling to generate the geometrical construction of emotion-forming substances influencing mental functioning.

The Centre reasoned that because Einsteinian mathematics was unable to generate healthy seashell growth through space-time, it was innately carcinogenic. The 1937 Nobel Laureate in medicine, Szent-Gyorgyi, also argued that the scientific refusal to allow any interaction of consciousness with Einstein’s chaos energies, brought about an unnatural conflict between emotional intuition and unbalanced scientific rationalism, considered to be associated with cancer. In 1998, cancer researchers in America associated Szent-Gyorgyi’s theories to carbon signalling within DNA.

Be this as it may, the anti-life conflict within the human biological system, where natural emotional intuition is forced to conform to the dictates of our unbalanced science, does prevent healthy evolution from occurring. People at present are virtually powerless to prevent the effects of what Plato described as uncensored art, where mind pleasing forms along with irresponsible music, provides an illusionary belief in reality, while the entropic engineering mindset prepares for continual warfare.

Nanotechnology can provide us all with water, food, energy and raw materials from virtually nothing. Instead, we are contented to maintain a stock-market job enslavement obsession, in order to pollute the planet and the energy system belonging to the living process. The entropic dictatorship of global economic rationalism, obeying total chaos logic, might be considered rational for those controlling the money system, but it is certainly not based upon ethical scientific principles. If nanotechnology directs the function of artificial intelligence to wage war, then the deployment of invisible undetectable nano weapons of mass destruction will become humanity’s common enemy.

The mathematical sacred geometrical concepts of mercy, compassion and justice, can be found depicted in wall paintings of the Egyptian 1st Kingdom. These mythological-mathematics became political law in the 2nd Kingdom, explaining the origins of such things as modern hospitals and old age pensions. The ancient Greeks used these mathematical virtues to develop an infinite science for human survival, which we are forbidden to debate within the fixed confines of 20th Century science and technology.

The seriousness of a hidden fanatical religious act contaminating Newton’s physics principles during the framing of the American Constitution is easy to demonstrate. It prevented the Platonic spiritual (now holographic) optical human survival engineering technology from being developed.

Although Plato’s spiritual optical engineering principles were later corrected by ‘History’s Father of Optics’, Al Haitham, during the Golden Age of Islamic Science, the issue is quite obvious. Plato, Al Haitham, and other philosophers such as Philo, Plotinus and Hesoid, had warned that by using the senses, in particular the eye, as the source of cosmic knowledge, the destructive properties of unformed matter would emerge from the atom to destroycivilisation. Da Vinci, Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon, pivotal figures in bringing in the mechanistic industrial age, used the eye as the source of all knowledge.

Albert Einstein made exactly the same mistake. During 1924 to 1927 the world-view of quantum mechanics was that visual observation affects reality. Einstein’s E=Mc squared did indeed allow the ancient unformed matter to emerge from the atom. We are approaching the point where Humanity’s common enemy will be the anti-life ethos of artificial intelligence, masquerading as a benevolent Diabolis, the God of Chaos, that we now worship globally via the stock market.

The Science-Art Research Centre’s book ‘The 21st Century Renaissance’, points out that Einstein developed his world-view from the use of the sacred geometries associated with the mythological-mathematics used in the worship of ancient Babylon’s Goddess, Ishtar. Her sexual mathematics are very complex, but it appears that Einstein’s colleague, the Nobel Prize winner and mathematician Lord Bertrand Russell, was influenced by Ishtar’s teachings. During the 20th Century Russell became Britain’s best known advocate of free love and sex. His first three marriages became sordid sexual dramas in the British courts and in 1940 his professorial position at the College of New York was annulled by a police court order, as being immoral.

Bertand Russell’s most famous essay was entitled ‘A Freeman’s Worship’ in which Russell insisted that we have no other choice but to worship Einstein’s entropic death sentence upon all of life in the universe. In 1957 the New York University Library of Science, published a book entitled, ‘Babylonian Myth and Modern Science’, in which Einstein is shown to have developed his theory of relativity from the mythological-mathematics of ancient Babylon. Plato, on the other hand, had developed mythological mathematics from the Mystery Schools of ancient Egypt, which were about preventing the universe from reverting back into its original chaos. Nanotechnology proved that the Platonic atomic science was correct and the engineer Buckminster Fuller had adequately upgraded it. It is now possible to upgrade Fullers solution to the human survival theories of Sir C P Snow.

The solution to the global energy crisis is simple. Buckminster Fuller alluded to it with his ‘Cooperative World Game Theory’ for the betterment of the global human condition. In Fuller’s own words, ‘Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone’.

IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue, beat the world’s chess champions and their supercomputer Watson, beat America’s players of the more complex game Jeopardy. Such a computer game, based upon medical science ethics, will bring into human consciousness the methodology advocated by the Fuller-Snow cooperative world game of life.

The Science-Art Research Centre of Australia is now only interested in helping to create the Fuller-Snow super computer program. The new game containing thousands of years of relevant negentropic speculations, will instantly and collectively raise our chaotic consciousness into a comprehension of Fuller’s infinite synergistic universe. People can then play the game of life unimpeded with conflicting religious dogmas, in order to upgrade human survival consciousness. The governing Platonic Fullerene Chemistry medical science, given legal status, can then guide ennobling government based on the issue of global security and nanotechnology supra-wealth for all.

The three 1996 Nobel Laureates in Medicine, established a new medical chemistry based upon the negentropic properties of Fullerene carbon molecules. As Buckminster Fuller had derived his balanced model of universal reality upon the mathematics of Plato, the Science-Art Research Centre of Australia renamed it as Platonic Fullerene Chemistry, now influencing the education of chemistry throughout the world.

All revenue from Science-Art Paintings, sold through the Centre’s non-profit research organisation, goes to the project, to help bring the Fuller-Snow supercomputer into existence. This funding model of ethical science through the arts was published in 1993 by LEONARDO, the ‘International journal for the Arts,Sciences and Technology.

© Professor Robert Pope, Advisor to the President Oceania and Australasia of the Institute for Theoretical Physics and Advanced Mathematics (IFM) Einstein-Galilei

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Source by Robert Pope

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