Art

Celebrate Drawing Day By Experimenting With Gel Pens

Drawing Day is dedicated to celebrating the art of drawing. By dedicating a day to the creation and admiration of this art form, the founders of Drawing Day hope that art enthusiasts worldwide... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Tags: Art, Parenting, Entertainment

Connecting Dance And Nursing

Devynn Emory, 40, sees nursing as “not so far away from dancing,” they said in a video interview. “It’s really just another understanding of how the body works.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Dance, 03.25.21, Devynn Emory

Can We Preserve Brains? Can We Preserve You?

The implications surrounding a human brain-preservation technique that can keep the entire connectome intact are profound. If indeed, you are your connectome, defined by all the memories and essences of you imprinted in its structure, then it’s essentially you that’s preserved. Your connectomic self. – Aeon
Tags: Art, Ideas, 03.24.21

UK Arts Organizations Have Bled Memberships During COVID. What To Do?

The decline in cultural memberships has undoubtedly been accelerated by Covid-19. Just this month, the Royal Academy (RA) reported a loss of 18,000 members since February 2020. Other organisations should prepare themselves for a similarly large exodus. – Arts Professional
Tags: Art, UK, Issues, 03.25.21, Royal Academy RA

NYC Mayor Orders Vaccinations For Theatre Workers

At a news conference, Mr. de Blasio said that in addition to the Broadway vaccination site, there would be a mobile vaccination unit to serve theater workers beyond Broadway. The sites will be staffed by theater workers, many of whom have been relying on unemployment insurance since Broadway shut down over a year ago. – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Theatre, Broadway, De Blasio, 03.25.21

Debates Are Roiling The Translation World — Who Gets To Translate?

Debates ensued about whether the choice of a translator should be only merit-based or whether identity should play a part. Another thread was about publisher practices and how translators are chosen. Some White translators who have spent their careers translating writers of color into other languages questioned their own pursuits. – Washington Post
Tags: Art, Words, 03.25.21

The STEEP Road Back

The many threats and threads around reopening social spaces for live performance can easily blur together. Focused problem-solving and readiness require that we tease them apart. One way to do so might be the age-old approach to environmental scanning: the acronym STEEP. – Andrew Taylor
Tags: Art, Ajblogs, 03.25.21

China’s Architects Turn Attention To Ailing Villages

After a couple of decades of enormous urban growth led to thousands of emptied-out villages, both Chinese government policy and the mood of ordinary people there have turned toward the countryside and its revitalization. Architects are joining the effort, using traditional building methods and materials to create less expensive structures that are easy and cheap to maintain. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, China, Visual, 03.24.21

Street Artist Creates an Optical Illusion That Lets People See the Art Inside a Shuttered Museum in Florence

JR concludes on a wan note of hopefulness: “we still have the freedom to dream, to create, to envision the future,” he writes. “Maybe it’s not much, but we have that!” Maybe we’ll also have more public art installations in place of indoor galleries and museums, and more artists bringing their work to the streets, “the largest art gallery in the world,” JR has said, and one that can’t be locked down or put out of business by a virus or the ravages of the market. via My Modern Met Related Co...
Tags: Google, Art, College, Life, Florence, Facebook Twitter, Josh Jones, Durham NC Follow, My Modern Met Related Content

Michigan Opera Theatre Charts A Bold New Course

“This is a moment for change. Casting singers of color is really easy, but my focus has been on composers, librettists, conductors. I’m thinking about this season as a statement of principles, and that’s what I hope for going forward.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Music, Michigan, 03.24.21

Literature Of Contagion: When Writers Tell Stories Of Plagues, How Do They End?

Edgar Allan Poe ended his short story with “Darkness and Decay and the Red Death [holding] illimitable dominion over all.” Others, from Daniel Defoe to Mary Shelley to Jack London, leave only a few survivors behind. José Saramago and Albert Camus handle things more subtly but perhaps more painfully. Jill Lepore gives us a look. – The New Yorker
Tags: Art, Edgar Allan Poe, Words, Albert Camus, Jack London, Jill Lepore, Daniel Defoe, Mary Shelley, José Saramago, 03.24.21

How The Meanings Of Words Flip From Negative To Positive

“Today innovation is one of the most hallowed words in the contemporary lexicon. That onetime pariah term is now revered. Linguists call this process one of “semantic shift,” a significant change in a word’s meaning. Examples of such shifts are no further than Google News: cookie, cancel, gay, pod.” – The American Scholar
Tags: Art, Words, Google News, 03.24.21

The Metropolitan Opera Crashes Into Social Media

Either way, the Met’s tweet (sent out to an audience of over 243,500 followers, roughly 304 times Wu’s audience) drew more attention to Jennifer Wu’s original joke than it likely would have seen on its own merits. Even the most viral posts on Twitter have a relatively brief life cycle. Yet this public comment, combined with Wu’s suspension, gave her original tweet the shelf life of a Twinkie. – Van
Tags: Art, Music, Met, Wu, Jennifer Wu, 03.25.21

Modernist Architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen Dead At 91

“His residences had signature touches like 45-degree pitched roofs, clean lines, minimal ornamentation, masterful use of lighting and windows, and décor that included his own furniture and fabric designs — a body of work that earned him many honors, including induction into Architectural Digest‘s AD100 Hall of Fame in 2017. – The New York Times
Tags: Art, People, 03.21.21, Hugh Newell Jacobsen

How Architecture Reinforces Racism

“The logic of the ghetto is to limit you. It says you cannot go here, or do this. If freedom is about that ability to move, then a protest machine that is mobile is important.” – Bloomberg
Tags: Art, Visual, 03.25.21

She Took Over A Ballet Company In The Middle Of The Pandemic

Susan Jaffe was announced as the new artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre last April, near COVID’s first peak in the U.S., and she started July 1. Since then, she’s gotten her dancers back into the studio with safety protocols, presented live-streamed productions, and had the company purchase a mobile stage for outdoor performances. Here’s a Q&A on how she did it. – Dance Magazine
Tags: Art, Dance, Susan Jaffe, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, 03.23.21

Tim Kobe, CEO of Eight Inc. and designer of the original Apple Store, opens up about his approach to design and the importance of brand experience

Tim Kobe, founder of Eight Inc. Eight Inc Tim Kobe was the designer of the original Apple store and worked alongside Steve Jobs for over a decade In 2010, Kobe moved to Singapore, which is now headquarters for his design firm Eight Inc Eight's design philosophy puts the human experience up front, which in turn can drive better business outcomes Because of his work, Insider named Kobe to our annual list of the 10 leaders transforming media in Asia. Visit Insider's Tran...
Tags: Apple, Asia, Design, Media, Steve Jobs, China, Singapore, Trends, Asia Pacific, Philippines, User Experience, Michael O Neill, Lincoln, Apple Store, Brand Experience, Retail Design

Southern California students’ coronavirus artwork packs many emotions

They say art can express emotions, promote healing or offer a “window into the soul.” That also can be said of Southern California students who have illustrated the stress and constant changes of these pandemic times in their artwork. In February, Daniel Richter, a fourth-grade teacher in Wildomar in Riverside County, asked his students to express how they felt through digital art. Richter, who teaches at Sycamore Academy of Science and Cultural Arts — a charter arts school with campuses in Wild...
Tags: Art, News, Education, California, La, Los Angeles, Sport, Soccer, Italy, Alvin, Annie, Nikon, Riverside County, Matthew, Edward Hopper, Southern California

Spain’s Drive-In Movie Theaters Plead For Exemption From COVID Curfew

The country is already one time zone ahead of where it should be geographically (Spain is on Central European Time rather than GMT), so after clocks spring forward an hour this weekend, the sun won’t go down until almost 8:30 pm. That’s not enough time to show a movie and get the audience home before the 10 pm curfew, so the drive-ins will have to close unless the government makes an exception for them, and that has not (yet) been granted. – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Media, Spain, Audience, 03.25.21

March linkfest

On March 13, 2020, Merriam-Webster editor Peter Sokolowski noticed that all of the dictionary’s lookups were pandemic related: coronavirus, quarantine, draconian, lockdown, cancel. For the somber one-year anniversary this month, WGBH looked at how the pandemic has transformed the English language, and whether its impact will endure: Will people five years from now still say they are “zooming” when they conduct a video meeting online? Will slang terms like “doomscrolling” and “covidiot” make ...
Tags: Books, Maps, Wtf, Design, Washington, New York City, America, History, Britain, Italy, Linguistics, Words, Oxford University, Contests, Los Angeles Times, Donald Duck

Berlin Philharmonic Sells Out Tickets In Three Minutes For First Concert Back

At the Philharmonic’s concert, strict rules were in place to reduce the risk of contagion. Spectators were required to give their names when purchasing the tickets, which were not transferable. – The Local (Germany)
Tags: Art, Music, Berlin, 03.24.21

Ghent Altarpiece: 'most stolen' artwork has new €30m home in bulletproof glass

Masterpiece painted in 1432 in St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent reopens with display case described as ‘perfect’One of the world’s greatest masterpieces, and surely the most stolen piece of art of all time, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also known as the Ghent Altarpiece, has a new €30m (£26m) glass-case home.While remaining within St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, for which it was painted in 1432 by the Van Eyck brothers, the 12-panelled polyptych will be located in t...
Tags: Art, Europe, World news, Culture, Art and design, Belgium, Ghent, Hubert, Ghent Belgium, Van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, St Bavo, Mystic Lamb, Ghent Altarpiece

Ghent Altarpiece: 'most stolen' artwork gets €30m glass case

Masterpiece painted in 1432 in St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent reopens in new home described as ‘perfect’One of the world’s greatest masterpieces, and surely the most stolen piece of art of all time, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, also known as the Ghent Altarpiece, has a new €30m (£26m) glass-case home.While remaining within St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, for which it was painted in 1432 by the Van Eyck brothers, the 12-panelled polyptych will be located in the Sac...
Tags: Art, Europe, World news, Culture, Art and design, Belgium, Ghent, Hubert, Ghent Belgium, Van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, St Bavo, Mystic Lamb, Ghent Altarpiece

Britain’s Biggest Theatre Owner Buys Three Venues In San Francisco And Detroit

Ambassador Theatre Group is purchasing from the Nederlander Co. the Orpheum and Golden Gate Theatres in San Francisco and the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, as well as taking over the presentation of Broadway tours at the Detroit Opera House and Music Hall. – Deadline
Tags: Art, Theatre, San Francisco, Britain, Broadway, Detroit, Detroit Opera House, 03.22.21, Nederlander Co

3,000-Year-Old Bronze Bull Unearthed By Rainstorms At Site Of Ancient Olympic Games

An archaeologist working at Olympia noticed what turned out to be one of the horns of the bull figurine sticking up out of the mud following a heavy downpour. The bronze is estimated to date from about 900 to 700 BC; because it has burn marks, scientists believe it was part of an offering to Zeus, to whom there was a temple at the site. – Smithsonian Magazine
Tags: Art, Visual, Olympia, 03.23.21

Digital Art Frames

I have a Samsung Frame in my home office. I think I posted a photo of it here at AVC once before. But for those who did not see that post, here it is: I’ve had it for something like three years and I change the digital art on it from time to time. Digital Art has been tricky to purchase and own and the business models around it are a bit challenging. I think NFTs might change that. If artists can get paid for the “original” or a “limited edition” and then make copies free or near ...
Tags: Art, Samsung, Trends, Crypto, Albert, AVC, Digital Art, Albert Wenger, Non Fungible Tokens, CrisisNick Grossman

Australia Promises More Arts Relief Money, But Still Hasn’t Given Out Most Of What It Promised Before

“Australia’s arts and entertainment industry will receive an additional $135m in the next federal budget to ease the pain in one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic. But of the federal government’s earlier $250m rescue package for the sector, budgeted for the 2020/2021 financial year, three-quarters is yet to be spent.” – The Guardian
Tags: Art, Australia, Issues, 03.25.21

Under Pressure, Chair Promises That Hong Kong’s Big New Contemporary Art Museum Will Obey China’s National Security Law

The chairman of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, the Lincoln Center-like complex under construction on the harbor, publicly pledged that curators at the District’s flagship museum, M+, will see to it that all exhibitions comply with the law, which prohibits “acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers.” The statement comes after a week of attacks from pro-Beijing newspapers and politicians on the museum, which does not open until later this year. – S...
Tags: Art, Hong Kong, Beijing, Lincoln Center, Visual, District, South China Morning Post, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, 03.23.21

Black Composer Says Tulsa Opera “Decommissioned’ Him Over Line ‘God Damn America’

For a program commemorating the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (the one in which the area known as “Black Wall Street” was destroyed), the company commissioned composer Daniel Bernard Roumain to write a piece, including his own text, for mezzo Denyce Graves. Roumain submitted a work titled They Still Want to Kill Us, with the final line “God Bless America, God Damn America.” Company artistic director Tobias Picker asked that the word “damn” be changed, and when Roumain refused, Pick...
Tags: Art, Music, Tulsa, Tobias Picker, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Tulsa Opera, Picker, Roumain, 03.21.21, Bless America God Damn America Company

A COVID-Safe Mask Opera Singers Can Really Sing In

Dr. Sanziana Roman, an endocrine surgeon at UCSF who was once a voice major at Cornell (and who can sew as well), worked with San Francisco Opera to develop a two-ply mask, made of cotton muslin and polyester corset boning, that allows a full range of facial and jaw motion. The company is already using the masks to rehearse for its outdoor production of The Barber of Seville next month. – San Francisco Chronicle
Tags: Art, Music, Cornell, Seville, UCSF, San Francisco Opera, 03.24.21, Sanziana Roman