Fifty years ago, Jerry Gretzinger began to draw a map. He’s still drawing it, having let it grow in the intervening decades to an astounding 2,600 panels covering 2,000 square feet. Current population of the map: 16,304,885 in 27 parishes and 416 cities.
Gretzinger talks about his work in an excellent short documentary. Source.
“I enter the surface of the canvas almost explosively.”
About Verdier’s work:
“Verdier paints on sheets of paper or canvases spread out on the floor. Her painting is vertical, playing with gravity, the weight of the paintbrush, the load of the ink and her body. Suspended between heaven and earth, the paintbrush is guided by spirit and hand, its handle at times hanging from over 10 meters of rope and held in place by a pair of bicycle handlebars. Her physical engagement is key: together with preparatory ascetic practice and “suchness” (the path of spontaneous expression), it forms the basis of Verdier’s work. Beyond this spontaneity of the stroke, the ink flow is also guided in producing the work, in particular in her very large formats. Verdier thus disengages from the rules of Chinese painting: she can go on. add to and rework the matter until she finds just the right form.”
Tamara Staples was a shy young woman with a camera when her Uncle Ron invited her to come with him to a chicken show.
The Fancy, as chicken breeders call such gatherings, are the pinnacle events for breeders looking to show off their prize poultry.
Staples, taken by the elevation of the common bird to runway supermodel, hatched an idea that day to return with her camera to another show and photograph what she’d seen.
Twenty-some-odd years later she is still consumed by the birds and explores them in her new book, The Magnificent Chicken: Portraits of the Fairest Fowl.
In an era when chickens are celebrated in pop culture, hipster hot-sauce bottles, and backyard farming, Staples describes her project as unique in showing how chickens can be more than just food.
The bearded Belgium D’uccle Mille Fleur Bantam Cock in the first image and the others that follow, seen here through Staples’s camera lens, appear proud and aware.
Undersea creature (ningyo or mermaid)
Author: Kawahara Keiga (Japanese, ca. 1786-1860)
Date: ca. 1828
Medium: Ink and color on Dutch paper
Location: Freer and Sackler Galleries, The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian ArtNingyo (人魚, “human fish,” often translated as “mermaid”) is a fish-like creature from Japanese folklore. Anciently, it was described as having a monkey’s mouth with small teeth like a fish’s, shining golden scales, and a quiet voice like a skylark or a flute. Its flesh is pleasant-tasting, and anyone who eats it will attain remarkable longevity. However, catching a ningyo was believed to bring storms and misfortune, so fishermen who caught these creatures were said to throw them back into the sea. A ningyo washed onto a beach was considered an omen of war or calamity.
— Wikipedia川原慶賀
Much cooler than the Disney version, don’t you think?
