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Creative industries have changed standards and best practices to adopt sustainable and environmental techniques in design and production. Architecture has adopted LEED Performance design into standard practice, and Industrial Design begins with thinking about the end of life of a product and how to leave the least amount of impact on the environment. Both of these industries fought for decades, since the 1970s, against changing habits, systems and academic content. Resistors during the transformation proclaimed they would all go out of business; it was impossible to get all stakeholders on board; and they didn’t want to be creatively strangled.
This shared history of transforming creative industry leads us to a problem we are facing within the Art world. Can artists change the way they create work to make a healthier planet? Personally, I believe so, however, with the inclusion of all key players from the art world, including: art institutions, art media, academia, retailer/manufacturers, collectors and artists. Art seeds culture and influences public behavior. If artists can change their standard of practice then the rest of the world will follow.
Art Inspector assessing quilters studio. Photo by Wendy Crockett.
How is this transformation possible? Incorporating a triangle approach to such transformation is The Art Inspector, a social practice artwork I founded during my candidacy for a Masters in Fine Arts at San Jose State University, uses a Healthy Art Program (education), Legislative Reform (advocacy) and Third Party Inspections (studio assessments). This project started a few years ago when I noticed fellow studio mates as well as the art school itself seemingly unconsciously teaching and using harmful applications and techniques, disposing of waste, and ineffectively ventilating rooms. I noticed piles of plastic thrown into dumpsters, studio lights left on for what seemed 24 hours at a time, and complete negligence when using harsh chemicals. In my studio, a rusty cabinet labeled “Store Harsh Chemicals Here,” written upon faded masking tape, hosted a dusty plastic binder labeled MSDS Sheets. Taking a closer look, I realized no one had taught me what Material Safety Data Sheets meant and how they might apply to what I do. I asked around to other artists what they might know about these sheets and what they thought about what they were using and how they were disposing of extra material. Many artists noted that they knew someone, or had experienced themselves, long term health problems from misuse of chemicals in the creation of artwork. Most artists intuitively believed that there was a better way to develop their work and acknowledge the harm of some of the materials, but did not know what to do about it or did not see change as a high priority.
Inspired by artworks using methods of Intervention Art which take on the roles and aesthetics of corporations and disrupt systems in unexpected ways, such as the Yes Men and Luther Thie, I decided to become an Art Inspector. Within construction and manufacturing, unaffiliated auditors determine if a building or product can be certified as sustainable. If deemed so, doors open for prospective buyers and subsidies. I wanted to take this method to the Art World.
But how does a third party inspection work? There are at least two inspections to take place. The initial inspection starts with an intake form that asks questions to each artist about their studio environment, materials they are using, and the type of machines or equipment that use power. During this process a series of tests are conducted using similar equipment used for energy audits in residential homes. The Art Inspector tests power outlets, lighting and occupancy, ventilation and Volatile Organic Compounds. Once the inspection process is finished, The Art Inspector will write up a report based on the data collected and make suggestions for alternatives and improvements to artists studios and the working process. If the artist makes the recommended modifications, The Art Inspector will return for a re-inspection and award a Healthy Art Certification if the artist passes.
Paint waste from inspection of painter’s studio. Photo by Wendy Crockett.
Artists who fail inspection or those who are interested in diving deeper into changing their habits can join the Healthy Art Program. Various workshops ranging from green materials, sustainable wood products, energy efficiency, lighting and safety are available to artists at varying partner institutions. If the artists are supplied with resources and knowledge, they will be empowered to change. The final part of The Art Inspector is to advocate for change in policy and curriculum on both an institutional and government level. Working with academic and museum institutions to adopt new values and requirements for artworks to be created sustainably will create a shift in the resources for production of art. If a major contemporary art museum such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art sets a standard for new works to be exhibited using a significant amount of low impact materials and works with third party agents such as The Art Inspector, then other practitioners will follow. With this same concept, Public Art Programs can adopt LEED standards into creation of artworks in the public realm.
Even today these concepts of change in the Art World are seen as radical and frightening to some. However, many artists are willing to do what they do best, experiment with new ideas. With the vision of The Art Inspector, we will open up the avenues to sustainable living, healthy living, and simultaneously, changing the way we make art.
By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 2007 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
Tyrus Wong, The ‘Bambi’ Artist Who Endured America’s Racism, Gets His Due
The late Tyrus Wong, whose paintings formed the basis of Disney’s iconic film, is finally receiving the recognition he deserves.
Bambi visual development, 1942, watercolor on paper
Even if you’ve never heard the name Tyrus Wong before, you’ve likely seen his work. Maybe not in a museum or gallery, but you’ve probably enjoyed the late artist’s fascinating brushstrokes ― or the films that they inspired ― in the comforts of your home.
Until his death last year at the age of 106, Wong was considered America’s oldest living Chinese-American artist and one of the last remaining icons of Disney’s golden age of animation. Few people outside of his studio could identify him during his lifetime, but his art was eerily ubiquitous. Handpicked by Walt Disney to guide one of his films, Wong’s watercolor sketches formed the basis of “Bambi” and, later, Warner Bros.′ live-action movies like “Rebel without a Cause.” His calligraphic imagery wound its way onto Hallmark Christmas cards, kites and hand-painted California dinnerware. He did show in galleries and museums, too ― with greats like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, no less.
And yet, it wasn’t until recently ― later in his life ― that he began receiving the recognition he deserved. It was in 1942 when he painted a minuscule buck leaping through a forest felled by blazing flames, an electric landscape that would heavily influence the World War II-era movie about a fawn who lost his mother. Seventy-five years after “Bambi,” Wong is the subject of an “American Masters” film on PBS, a documentary portrait that reveals how he overcame a harrowing immigration process and years of racism in the United States to become one of the most prolific artists in recent memory.
Courtesy of the Tyrus Wong family
Portrait of Tyrus Wong
“Tyrus Wong’s story is a prime example of one of the many gaping holes in our society’s narrative on art, cinema, and Western history,” Pamela Tom, the director behind “Tyrus,” set to air on PBS Sept. 8, explained in a statement. “By telling his story, I wanted to shine light on one of America’s unsung heroes, and raise awareness of the vital contributions he’s made to American culture.”
Her 90-minute documentary follows Wong from his birth in Canton (now Guangzhou), China, to his attempts to immigrate to the United States in 1919. Detained for a month, he, along with his father, endured extensive interrogation before being allowed to enter the country, only to live in poverty once they arrived. As multiple sources in the film point out, American society in the 1920s and ’30s was not kind to Chinese-American communities ― many immigrants saw only a few options for work, including acting as laundry men, house boys or restaurant staff. And the world of animation and film, a more than unlikely field Wong fought tooth and nail to enter, was not much kinder. Described as “an old boy’s club,” Wong recounts how he was called a racial slur on his first day with Republic Pictures.
Still, his sights were ultimately set on fine art. An eventual graduate of Otis Art Institute, the animator, designer, painter and kite maker rose to the coveted status of a Disney Legend by 2001. Beyond that, his work indeed hangs in museums, his name appearing in placards next to other greats. “He had a lot of dignity, but he also felt the pangs of racism,” Tom told HuffPost in an earlier interview. “I think Tyrus represents success. He represents someone who’s a survivor, who broke these racial barriers.”
Today, immigrants in the U.S. continue to face astounding obstacles. Just a few days before the premiere of “Tyrus,” President Donald Trump and his administration initiated the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections, putting nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation if members of Congress fail to strike a deal. Wong’s story illuminates just how difficult it is to succeed in a world that’s designed to test your limits at every turn.
“It’s so unlikely,” a voice in the film’s trailer declares of Wong’s biography, “and that’s what makes it so valuable.”
Ahead of the debut of “Tyrus,” HuffPost is premiering an exclusive clip from the “American Masters” film. For more information on the project, head to PBS.
“Tyrus” will air on PBS on Sept. 8 at 9 p.m ET. See more images of Wong’s artwork below.
Tyrus Wong
Bambi visual development, 1942, watercolor on paper
Tyrus Wong
Bambi visual development, 1942, watercolor on paper
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Tyrus Wong
Pre-production illustration, possibly from the Warner Bros film “Gypsy”
By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 2007 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
Ted Meyer, Scarred for Life: Meyer uses block-print ink to transform human scars into vibrant colorful abstractions in his “Scarred for Life” series, inviting others to share the physical remnants of their survival stories.
Ted Meyer is the guest artist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. If you weren’t aware that medical schools had guest artists, you’re not alone. But this initiative is very real, aiming to teach doctors about illness through the practice of art.
Yes, Meyer’s work brings artists together to help educate future physicians and epidemiologists on the more human aspects of disease. “The artists use their work to tell a story,” Los Angeles-based Meyer told The Huffington Post. “It helps the doctors look at people as more than something to cure.”
Daphne Hill, Avian Flu: “Daphne does work about germs and her fears of them sickening herself and her children. Her talk was interesting as she explained how her fears developed and how doctors might talk with someone like her who has already been checking the Internet and read the possible worst case scenarios.”
Meyer began his stay at the medical school in 2010, though the foundation of his ongoing project began much earlier — in fact, his inspiration dates back to his birth. “I was born with a very rare genetic condition,” said Meyer, who grew up with Gaucher’s disease, a disorder in which fatty substances accumulate in cells and organs. “There was no treatment for it. Starting at about age 6 I was in and out of the hospital all the time. I grew up thinking maybe I’d make it to thirty, maybe not.” Among other things, manifestations of the illness include bruising, fatigue, anemia and skeletal disorders.
During his time in the hospital, Meyer turned to art as a means of expression, release and inner healing. Creating imagery filled with skeletal bodies contorted in pain, Meyer’s resulting series was titled “Structural Abnormalities.” He often made use of the materials around him, incorporating bandages and IVs into his images, all revolving around the idea of, in Meyer’s words, “being in a body that didn’t work particularly well.”
Damienne Merlina, Bandaid
And then, something unexpected happened. Meyer’s health began to improve. “I really hit a point where, thanks to Western technology, there was a new treatment. Almost all of my symptoms disappeared,” he said. “I had my hip replaced so I could walk normally.” Although undoubtedly a miracle in terms of his life and wellbeing, the sudden shift left Meyer directionless as an artist.
After a period of uncertainty, Meyer resolved to shift his artistic perspective entirely. While still focused on the body, his work shifted from its “singular and isolated” mode to one more “happy and sexual.” More importantly, instead of sharing his own story, he began inviting others to share theirs.
For this series, which Meyer dubbed “Scarred for Life,” he applies block-print ink to human scars and the skin surrounding them. He then proceeds to press paper to skin, and subsequently accents the images with paint and pencil, turning physical remnants of suffering into inimitable splashes of color and line. Although the project center around scars, the art is less about suffering and more about survival. “I make these prints that look like Rothkos — color field prints,” he said. “I don’t want [to emphasize] the shock value of, ‘Oh, look how disfigured they look.’ For me, it’s a story more like mine: let’s make the best out of this that we can from this point forward.”
Ted Meyer, Breast Cancer-Mastectomy
Meyer explained the intense reactions he received in response to the works, which toured everywhere from the United Nations to the Pasadena Armory; reactions of an intensity he never experienced when painting. “People would come look at my work and just sort of break down crying,” he said. “Others came up to me and said, ‘Look at my scar, let me tell you about my scar.'” He was receiving emails twice a week from people all around the world, all wanting to share their personal scar story.
This gave Meyer an idea. With so many people grappling with illness and using art as an outlet, perhaps their creative efforts could serve as a means of unorthodox education as well. “It became very apparent to me that all these people who do work about their illnesses, really have a lot to say,” Meyer said. “Maybe they could teach something to medical professionals. There has been art therapy designed to help patients, but I thought maybe there is something to teach the doctors here. Perhaps they can look at patients’ artworks and see something beyond the clinical. It’s not just ‘oh, they have multiple sclerosis’ or ‘it’s a broken neck.’ In a way, it’s like art therapy for doctors.”
As a result, for the past five years, Meyer has served as a guest artist at the UCLA’s medical school, a position he carved out and created for himself, curating artist talks and exhibitions that serve to educate the medical staff. In particular, Meyer’s programming is designed for first and second year medical students, most of whom have not yet had an opportunity to work with patients in person. To provide future doctors with more tangible understanding of living with certain afflictions, artists speak about their condition, their artworks, and the relationship between the two.
Susan Trachman, Order #2
Susan has MS and does work about organization and control as she has less control over her body. He media is all the old medical supplies used in her treatment
Mainly, his position entails recruiting and curating a network of artists exploring issues of illness and identity, inviting them to show their work and tell their stories. The conditions represented are as diverse as the artistic media explored. “There is a woman Susan who has multiple sclerosis,” Meyer said, “and for 25 years she’s been keeping all the bottles she’s used — all the saline and everything — she takes them and she organizes them in patterns. She explained to the medical students that when you have MS you have absolutely no control over your body. You can’t predict your own movements. But by organizing these bottles, she had found one area she could control.”
Meyer’s program caters to doctors who, though familiar with all the technicalities of medical proceedings, aren’t as well versed in the human aspects of the profession. “There are a number of doctors who are very smart but when they get on the floor and have to start dealing with patients they break down,” he said. Especially today, many doctors don’t have the proper time to truly get to know their patients, the ways their various struggles have shaped the people they are.
“There was another woman who had a headache for around four years. During that period she had lost her ability to name things, she couldn’t remember the nouns. When she finally got rid of her migraine, she went back and photographed all the things she couldn’t remember. For someone to tell their story to first year med students — it’s not just, ‘Oh, you have a headache, what medicine should I give you?’ It’s a new way to understand the life process of living with an illness.”
Meyer’s unorthodox merging of art and medicine proves that art therapy isn’t only helpful for patients, but doctors as well. “It’s a new way to connect,” Meyer said. “We are making positive things out of these horrible situations.”
By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 2007 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
Few things stir up childhood nostalgia as quickly as a fresh box of crayons. It’s easy to see what makes them an appealing collectors’ item. For Ed Welter, a former Nike project manager from Oregon, the allure went a step further.
No one, not even Crayola, had recorded a full history of crayons. So it became Welter’s challenge.
As a devoted collector, he began focusing on crayons around 2000, soon after selling off an extensive beer-can collection. Welter gathered box after box, with some dating back to the 1880s. Old catalogs from libraries around the country (and, later, on Google Books) allowed him to cobble together a timeline. By 2014, Welter had amassed over 3,000 boxes of colored wax, about half of which were Crayola. Then he sold everything (Crayola purchased its namesake boxes while the others went to various collectors) and retired to Spain.
What Welter had discovered in his 14 years of collecting is that Crayola’s color history is absurdly complicated. On his website, Crayon Collecting, Welter laments how singlehandedly piecing it all together was difficult not only “just from the sheer amount of detail, but also because of the convoluted swapping and renaming of colors.” For example, the crayon which the company named “Blue” when it got its start in 1903 was not the same “Blue” by the 1930s. It was given a new name, which no longer exists today, and “Blue” became a brighter shade of the color.
Confused? It’s okay. It took about eight whole months for Welter to piece together Crayola’s history, which he described to The Huffington Post as “complex” and, pun intended, “colorful.” There are crayon colors that no longer exist today, many of them coming from old painters’ palettes.
In essence, Crayola became such a hit because the company figured out a way to inexpensively combine paraffin wax with safe pigments, according to Welter. Colors in the early years drew from paints available from art suppliers at the time, and many of these shades have since dropped out of production.
Among the original shades that have been unceremoniously discontinued, according to Welter’s research: Burnt Umber, Celestial Blue, Charcoal Grey, Cobalt Blue, English Vermillion, Madder Lake, Ultramarine Blue, Van Dyke Brown and Venetian Red. Raw Sienna lives on in name, but as a different shade of brown than its predecessor. Crayola officially “retired” Raw Umber in 1990 along with seven other shades. Still others have dropped out without so much as a goodbye.
Original Crayola shades that have been discontinued. Courtesy Ed Welter.
“New” Crayola crayons aren’t often new, just renamed. By 2013, Welter had counted 755 color names that had ever been sold, but only 331 individual colors.
In 1903, the company used 54 names for 38 separate colors. By the end of 1958, the company had created 138 names for 108 colors sold at any point in time. By 2015, it had bestowed 759 names upon 331 colors.
Special crayon boxes with colors like Iron Man Blue and Liberty Blue are just the plain old Blue you’d find in any regular box. Sweet Georgia Peach is really just Melon. Tye Dye Lime is Green Yellow. (Crayola might be on to something, though, for wanting to keep things simple.)
Blue and red shades from Crayola’s early years, compared. Courtesy Ed Welter.
Crayola once issued a box with several crayons of the same color under different names.
In 1949, Crayola debuted a new 48-count box of crayons, filled with lies.
“They pulled a fast one on everybody,” Welter wrote on his site. Light Turquoise Blue and Turquoise Blue look identical, as do Dark Green and Green. And good luck figuring out the difference between Brilliant Rose, Medium Rose and Light Magenta. Or Medium Violet and Violet.
Courtesy Ed Welter.
Certain colors have been renamed for political reasons, like “Flesh.”
What color is flesh? According to Welter, it’s the lightly pigmented, roughly universal shade we see on our palms — like the Crayola crayon by that name. For most people, however, flesh refers to skin tone, and the problem with making one beige-y shade the only skin-tone crayon available is obvious. But until the early 1960s, Welter explained, the company hadn’t yet realized how the name could cause consternation. A social researcher noticed children using the shade to draw people, teasing darker-skinned classmates who didn’t match the crayon. Shortly after the researcher wrote a letter to the company in 1962, (after a couple back-and-forth years with the name Pink Beige, for some reason) the Crayola shade became known as Peach.
Indian Red was also renamed, though not until 1999. The name actually referred to a pigment from a plant found in India, Welter told HuffPost, and could have been tweaked to “India Red.” To avoid misconceptions, however, the company chose a completely new — and completely neutral — name: Chestnut.
“Flesh” or “Peach”? Courtesy Ed Welter.
The Macaroni and Cheese crayon was named by a pasta-loving 6-year-old.
For much of the company’s history, Crayola’s crayon names were plain. Then in 1983, a new line for small children with names like Birdie Blue and Kitty Cat Black was introduced. Metallics, like Tiger Eye and Moonstone, followed a few years later with other specialty crayons. And, in 1992, the company opened up naming rights to anyone. Fans of all ages got the chance to name sixteen brand-new colors — which Welter says were, indeed, not recycled from past boxes.
“I wrote a letter to Crayola (all by myself, a proud six-year-old), entering the contest,” a grown-up Adrienne Watral told The Huffington Post in an email. When she found out that her submission had won a month later, the crayon company flew Watral’s whole family out to Hollywood, showering them with “enough Crayola swag to last a lifetime.” And the new orange crayon had a name: Macaroni and Cheese. “I remember being interviewed for various news stations on television and being asked how I thought of the name,” she wrote. “This was the easiest question … I named the color of my favorite food!”
Another famous color was named by a 12-year-old Sam Marcus, who drew small facial expressions to correspond with each new crayon. His “laughter” face was colored pink because, Marcus told HuffPost in an email, he’d blush when someone tickled him as a kid. Hence Tickle Me Pink was born.
Adrienne Watral with her winning crayon. Courtesy photo.
Despite all the changes, Welter says the color quality has remained fairly consistent throughout the past century.
The biggest overall change, Welter explained, happened after World War II, when many of the pigment suppliers Crayola had been using for years could no longer sell to the company. Either the supply had been ruined or the business relationship had altered, putting the company in the odd position of finding new and ever-so-slightly-different sources.
“You know how people are with, ‘Oh, back in my day, colors were so much richer!'” Welter told HuffPost. “But I actually colored on paper with all of them.” By and large, there were only very gradual changes, like the new pigments and perhaps minor tweaks to different formulas. “Since the ’60s, they’ve kept pretty true to their basic colors.”
Click to view the complete color chart
As for Welter, he now spends his time “virtually collecting” crayons by digging up information and fixing inaccuracies around the Internet. He warns that Wikipedia is particularly inaccurate when it comes to Crayola, but since the site does not allow contributors to cite their own research, the false information remains unchecked. It bothers him, but not enough to stop his efforts.
“When you’re a collector,” he said, “you’re in it for the minutia.”
Although the plots of many musicals have been built around love stories and comic devices, a growing number can be identified as “message” musicals. Whether commenting on religious persecution, racism, controversial medical issues, interfaith, interracial, and same-sex relationships, the creative teams for many shows have given their audiences new opportunities to discuss the political issues of the day. Here’s Rose Marie Jun (known primarily for her role as Sally Rogers on The Dick Van Dyke Show) performing Harold Rome’s “Sing Me A Song With Social Significance” from 1937’s Pins and Needles, a musical revue performed by members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU).
On August 1, 2001, the DREAM Act was introduced by Senators Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch. Since then, immigration reform has faced a rough and rocky uphill battle.
Less than six weeks after the bill’s introduction, the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon sent the nation into a tailspin of paranoia, xenophobia, and most particularly, Islamophobia.
As the United States launched wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States Armed Forces offered many immigrants a path to citizenship (according to Wikipedia, in 2009 an estimated 29,000 members of the military were foreign-born immigrants who were not yet American citizens).
On April 23, 2010, Governor Jan Brewer signed Arizona’s controversial SB1070 into law, making it a state misdemeanor for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying the necessary identification documents on his person.
Although the House of Representatives passed the DREAM Act on December 8, 2010, it failed in the Senate.
In July of 2011, the California DREAM Act provided access to private college scholarships for state schools to students who were illegal immigrants.
In August of 2011, the state of Illinois authorized a similar plan for legal as well as illegal children of immigrants.
During a Republican Presidential primary debate on January 23, 2012, Mitt Romney concisely described his plan for dealing with illegal immigration using the politically loaded term “self deportation.”
During 2012, Glenn Beck tried to stoke conservative outrage with frequent references to the phenomenon of anchor babies.
On June 15, 2012, President Obama made the following statement about immigration reform.
Barely six weeks into 2013, Bay area audiences witnessed the world premiere of a fascinating new musical that deals with immigration reform. How did the project come about?
Following passage of the California DREAM Act, the Marsh Youth Theatre in San Francisco embarked on creating a new piece of musical theatre which focused on undocumented students living in the Bay area who lived under the constant threat of deportation. Using the methodology and techniques of the Voice of Witness Education Program, members of MYT’s Teen Troupe gathered oral histories for In and Out of Shadows from people in their own social circles as well as those referred to them through community organizations such as:
AB540 Clubs at City College of San Francisco
SOMCAN (South of Market Community Action Network)
Leadership Public Schools in Richmond
ASPIRE (Asian Students Promoting Immigration Reform and Education)
J. Adan Ruiz as Juan in the Marsh Youth Theatre’s production
of In and Out of Shadows (Photo by: Katia Fuentes)
Backed by additional funding from NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts and Culture) and the Creative Work Fund, the show’s musical score (composed by MYT Director Emily Klion and George Brooks) was inspired by the sounds of jazz, hip hop, and Mexican mariachi music. As director Cliff Mayotte notes: “For many of the performers in this production, these stories are not disembodied tales, but accurate reflections of their day-to-day experiences. There is real power in being able to tell your own story and real power in bearing witness to the person telling it.”
Bianca Catalan and Angelina Orrelanos are two of the
teenagers in In and Out of Shadows (Photo by: Katia Fuentes)
Playwright/poet Gary Soto was tasked with transforming the oral histories collected by the students into a piece of theatre about the experiences of undocumented teens living in the East Bay communities of Richmond and Pinole. As he recalls:
“As a Mexican-American author of 40-plus books, I have a large readership among Latino youth (arguably the largest in the country) and have visited more than 400 schools during the last 20 years. Elementary through college, students know something about my writing. The focus of my visits has been schools in the San Joaquin Valley (which houses a large undocumented workforce in rural labor). I’ve also visited lots of schools in the Los Angeles basin and am aware of the struggles among urban youth. For several years I was a board member of the CHA House, an educational program that brings youth from their small hometowns (Coalinga, Huron, and Avenal) to study at UC Berkeley. I have never asked, but I suspect that about half of the parents of these children are undocumented.
In and Out of Shadows is not dumbed-down theatre; it’s really clever theatre. There’s music, there’s dance, we have a squirt gun incident, and we’ll be throwing candy into the audience. It was worrisome to me that some groups weren’t represented because they wouldn’t come forward (not one Chinese student was interviewed). There may be risk, but we don’t think La Migra (the border patrol) would show up to gather up some of the kids and parents in the audience.”
Playwright, poet, and author Gary Soto
In and Out of Shadows is filled with stories about kids who didn’t want to change their name when they snuck across the border, teens who went on vacation in Mexico and were stopped by immigration authorities when they tried to reenter the United States, and those whose families consist of documented and undocumented immigrants. From the hard-working Filipino-American mother who is arrested and threatened with deportation after her employer is investigated for failure to pay his taxes to the affable jock from British Columbia, the evening is peppered with Tagalog, Spanish, Spanglish and other languages commonly heard in the Bay area.
Louel Senores and Deanna Palaganas (Photo by: Katia Fuentes)
Whether one focuses on the young man with no skills (other than his abundant charm) or the girl who wants to become a doctor; whether one looks at the pair of boys who want to become DJs or the Indonesian girl who tells her friends about her native country, as the students struggle to prepare their personal statements for an AB 540 conference at UC Berkeley, they share what it was like to have to be sedated with cough syrup or crawl through sewers in order to enter the United States.
And what do these children look like when they become adults? Here’s the founder of Define American, Jose Antonio Vargas (who, in 2008, was part of the Washington Post’s team of Pulitzer prize-winning journalists who covered the shootings at Virginia Tech), as he recently testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
In an op-ed piece published in The New York Times, Vargas stressed that:
“There are no words to describe just how much stress and heartbreak my immigration status, and my choice to go public with it, has caused my grandmother. Because of her I almost did not speak out about being undocumented. But it was also because of her — and my grandfather, who died in 2007, and my mother, whom I have not seen in almost 20 years — because of all their sacrifices, that I will be able to speak in Congress. I am here because of them.”
In “The Bells of Saint John” prequel written by series showrunner Steven Moffat, the Doctor is still searching for Clara, the new companion he met in the Christmas special. However, it’s not going very well and the despondent Doctor takes a break on Earth. While there, he chats with a young girl about destiny and his search for Clara. His lost friend might be closer than he thinks.
Fans shouldn’t fret, because the Doctor will succeed — eventually — and reunite with Clara for a new series of “Doctor Who” adventures beginning Saturday, March 30 at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America with “The Bells of Saint John.”
Editor’s Note: Apparently the issue of the ownership of “Old Flo” and the prospect of its sale has been a topic of controversy for some time. Learn more about the background of this situation by reading some of the posts in this page of search results.
Draped Seated Woman, affectionately known as “Old Flo,” by Henry Moore. Image Credit: The Art Fund
LONDON — The massive bronze sculpture is formally known as “Draped Seated Woman,” a Henry Moore creation that evoked Londoners huddled in air raid shelters during the Blitz.
To the East Enders who lived nearby, the artwork was known as “Old Flo,” a stalwart symbol of people facing oppression with dignity and grace.
But now, Old Flo may have to go.
The cash-strapped London borough of Tower Hamlets, one of the poorest communities in Britain, plans to sell the statue – estimated to be worth as much as 20 million pounds ($30 million).
Art lovers fear the sale of such a famous sculpture would set a worrisome precedent, triggering the sell-off of hundreds of lesser works housed in parks, public buildings and little local museums as communities throughout Britain struggle to balance their budgets amid the longest and deepest economic slowdown since the Great Depression.
“If the sale of Old Flo goes through, it can open the flood gates,” said Sally Wrampling, head of policy at the Art Fund, the national fundraising charity for art and one of the groups campaigning to block the sale.
The proposal embodies a dilemma faced by many struggling households: Do you sell the family silver to get through tough times?
Tower Hamlets, where a recent study found that 42 percent of children live in poverty, is 100 million pounds in the red.
The sculpture hasn’t even been in the borough for 15 years. It was moved to a sculpture park in the north of England when authorities tore down the housing project where it had been placed. The council says just the insurance alone for the massive bronze would be a burden to taxpayers.
“We make this decision with a heavy heart,” said Rania Khan, a local councilor who focuses on culture issues. “We have to make tough decisions.”
Local authorities throughout the country are being hit by funding cuts as the central government seeks to balance the budget and reduce borrowing. Funding for local government will fall 33 percent in real terms between April 2011 and March 2015, according to the Local Government Association. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the cuts tend to hit poor, urban areas like Tower Hamlets hardest, because their spending was higher to begin with.
Some 2,000 museums in Britain are local affairs. Bury Council sold a painting by L.S. Lowry in 2006, and Southampton City Council backed down from plans to sell an Auguste Rodin bronze in the face of public protest. The Museums Association has advised the Northampton council to hold off on the sale of an Egyptian funerary monument estimated to be worth 2 million pounds until more consultation can be done.
The depth of the recession and the lack of hope that things will improve soon are fueling the debate.
The latest figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility, an independent agency created in 2010 to advise the government, show the economy is growing more slowly than previously forecast, reducing tax revenue and prolonging the government’s austerity program.
One thing is certain: Tower Hamlets, a community of 254,000 people, desperately needs the money.
Khan says she believes Moore, the son of a coal miner and lifelong socialist who died in 1986, would be moved by the plight of her constituents. She knows women who will be hard hit by proposed limits on benefit payments – people for whom as little as five pounds can make a huge difference – and families living in housing with mold growing on the walls.
“If he thought the sale of the sculpture would benefit the lives of thousands in Tower Hamlets … I think he would be in favor,” Khan said.
Moore attended art school on a scholarship for ex-servicemen. He became fascinated with the human form, creating works with undulating curves that reflect rolling hills and other features of nature. His most beloved motif was the reclining female figure, like that of Old Flo.
The statue features the graceful draping that Moore traced to his observation of people huddled in the Underground during the Blitz. In a 1966 interview with the BBC, Moore talked about the fear and exhilaration of Londoners sheltering against the Nazi barrage. He had concern for those he was drawing: He never sat sketching but waited until the following day and drew from memory – rather than capturing people in their makeshift bedrooms.
Alan Wilkinson, one of the foremost Moore scholars, said the artist would have been sympathetic about the hard times in Tower Hamlets, but would want his sculptures seen the way they were intended to be seen – in public spaces.
“Public sculpture was incredibly important for him,” Wilkinson said. “He was very fussy about where it was placed.”
Moore sold Old Flo at discount to the London County Council, a forerunner of the city’s current administration, in 1962 on condition the statue would be displayed publicly. It was placed at a public housing project.
The East End was one of the areas hardest hit by Nazi bombs, and its residents were directly connected to the work.
Now war memories have faded. The median age of people in Tower Hamlets is 29, the lowest in London, and 43 percent of the population was born outside the U.K., according to the latest census figures.
Old Flo’s story hasn’t been told to the current generation, said Patrick Brill, an artist who uses the pseudonym Bob and Roberta Smith.
“If we don’t cherish these things, we lose a bit of our history,” he said. “If you lose your history, you lose a bit of yourself, really.”
Still, Old Flo has a fan club. Danny Boyle, director of films such as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Trainspotting,” signed an open letter asking the council to reverse its decision. A flash mob of people dressed as Old Flo appeared at the Tower Hamlets offices in November to protest the sale. Another London borough has laid claim to the statue.
Critics believe money raised by the sale would quickly vanish_ and Old Flo would disappear into the private collection of a foreign hedge fund owner or Russian oligarch, taking Moore’s message into hiding
Rushanara Ali, a member of Parliament who represents part of Tower Hamlets, raised the issue during a December debate, suggesting the proposal was more the result of “profligacy and extraordinary waste,” than tough economic times.
“This bonfire of public art is not the answer,” Ali said. “One has to ask, where does this end? What precedents will be set for other areas that may wish to make such sales to deal with financial challenges?”
Noting Moore’s interest in the work of Pablo Picasso, Brill said Old Flo was influenced by “Guernica,” the 1937 painting that shows the suffering inflicted by war. As such, she still has resonance for the people of Tower Hamlets, an area that has been home to generations of immigrants, including the Bangladeshis who today account for 32 percent of the population.
“Old Flo … is a very British `keep calm carry on’ image of the same thing as `Guernica,'” he said. “Old Flo is East London’s monument to people seeking sanctuary. She is our `Guernica.'”
The Huffington Post interviewed Pete Dyer about his cover art design for Charles Fernyhough’s book Pieces of Light for our ongoing series Under the Covers.
In your own words, what is this book about?
Pieces of Light is a fascinating guide around human memory, blending beautifully told stories and case studies with findings from the new science of memory. Charles Fernyhough shines light on how we reconstruct our memories like a collage, each time we recall them – and how easily they can be contaminated by the present. He makes the point that memory is made up of sounds, smells, images, colours, and describes how any one of these things can trigger a vivid memory or bring the past into the present. It made me rethink the way in which I remember.
What was the mood, theme or specific moment from the text you depicted with this cover?
The title made me think of light and how it fragments, and how that relates really well to the abstract idea of memory.
The author talks about memory as a collage, coming from lots of different places in the brain. I liked the idea of using silver foil to illuminate some of the dots on the cover design – it gets across the idea that some memories burn really bright in our heads, while others are more blurred. As the book catches the light, the dots either shine or fall back – just like memories at certain points in our lives.
What inspires your design?
I find most of my inspiration comes from contemporary art.
The vibrant area of London where I live is in walking distance of the Tate Modern and other major galleries which are a constant source of visual stimulation.
If I was asked to name designers that have inspired me – two of my favorites are Alvin Lustig and Paul Rand. Both worked in the 1950s and 60s. Their work looks as fresh and relevant now as it was then.
What is your previous design experience, with books and otherwise?
I’ve been designing book covers for over 20 years as Art Director of various literary publishing houses. I was in a design partnership called React that undertook publishing and other art based projects including film, opera, theatre and dance. I now work as art director of Profile Books which includes the imprints, Serpent’s Tail and Clerkenwell Press.
What was the biggest challenge in designing this cover?
Depicting memory is almost impossible because the subject is so wide and subjective. Photographic approaches could have started to look clichéd or give a wrong message about the content. We didn’t want it to look like a book about regret or bereavement. It was also important that it didn’t start to look like a novel.
Did you consider different ideas or directions for this cover? IF SO: Why were these rejected? Do you have a favorite amongst them? Are you happy with the final decisions as it ran?
Initially I explored many photographic approaches – nostalgic pictures of childhood, people slightly blurred by bright sunlight, family photograph albums. I drew some inspiration from David Hockney’s polaroid compositions. I liked the idea of photographs being pieced together like memory. We rejected this idea because it felt too specific to reflect the range of the book.
I was very happy with the impact of the final cover and the response to it. I don’t think there is necessarily any one particular element that makes a successful cover, rather than how all the elements hang together – the composition and the balance. It needs to draw you in. That can be as simple as some hand-drawn lettering. I tend to believe less is more.
Of course, as a book cover designer it would be a bit crazy if I didn’t judge a book by its cover. It’s the designer’s responsibility to entice/intrigue you to pick the book up amongst what can be a sea of books all fighting for your attention. After that it’s all down to the writing. Because of the challenge of e-books it’s more important than ever that book cover designers keep exploring new ways to make the physical book a desirable, collectable object you want to own.
Though Fort Myers, Florida, is a hub for neither creativity — on an art world map it would like sit beneath the words “Here Be Watercolors” — nor athletics, the newest museum in town pays tribute to both and, it certainly could be argued, neither. It may be both America’s strangest museum and, at the same time, the most American museum imaginable. It is a damn confusing place.
The Art of the Olympians sits at the end of a yacht basin pier near where endless sedans with tinted windows and outdated campaign stickers climb the Calloosahatchee Bridge toward Cape Coral. The building is bland yet inviting in the way that so many Floridian buildings are bland but inviting, all stucco and whitewash. What sits inside is harder to describe because the museum isn’t devoted to Olympic posters or paintings or even uniforms for that matter — though it has all those things. Instead, the museum is designed as a tribute to the artistic endeavors of former Olympians.
If that seems arbitrary it is precisely because it is incredibly arbitrary. There exists no museum expressly devoted to the artistic endeavors of any other group of people whose shared characteristic was prior employment outside the arts. There is no Art of the Plumbers nor Art of the Relief Pitchers nor Art of the Pool Cleaners nor Art of the Hairdressers. This is not because employment in any one of these professions indicates a lack of artistic ability — Gauguin sold tarpaulins — but because there is no apparent correlation betweens these careers and more avant garde endeavors.
The hypothesis offered by the museum’s mere existence is that Olympians are simply better at everything. Unfortunately, the evidence inside the museum doesn’t support this conclusion.
To describe the collection as uneven would be charitable. There are sculptures and paintings, a smidge of graphic design and even engravings. The vast majority of the work is abstract, presumably because the athletes-cum-artists couldn’t achieve verisimilitude, and the common preoccupation is the human form, which makes a great deal of sense.
Unfortunately, there are really only two artists on display worth much consideration. One, Marco Pantani, has contributed a self portrait that seems to capture the spirit of competition. The other, Bob Beamon, has hung simple but engaging graphic work. Beamon, who won gold in the long jump at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, runs the museum. He inherited the idea from the great discus thrower and lesser-known abstract painter Al Oerter, who is depicted in a video installation combining his two talents by throwing a paint-dipped disc at a canvas.
This is all very silly, but also very interesting when one listens to the voiceover in the video installation explaining that what is great about Olympians is that they give whatever they’re doing their all; regardless of whether they are racing or sculpting, they leave it on the field.
Here’s the thing: Sports and the Arts aren’t actually about trying hard, at least not at a high level. They are both about actual excellence. The striving part — think about savants like Pablo Picasso or Usain Bolt — is hardly mandatory.
Which means that Art of the Olympians is probably the only art museum in America, perhaps the world, that is devoted to a group of artists less notable for their art than for giving it their all. It is both a tribute to the way we lionize our athletes and an actual incarnation of the fictional, effort-based meritocracy we like to describe to children. Like every other museum, Art of the Olympians shows the work of people who have achieved great things. Unlike other museums, it doesn’t show great things. It is basically just a random cross-section of art by a group of people that isn’t particularly artistically talented.
And that is why everyone should go see Art of the Olympians — everyone in this part of Florida, anyway. This is the museum by which all other museums should be measured. It is so perfectly average that it ought to be used as a unit of measurement for better collections. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 10 AOTOs. The National Portrait Gallery: 8 AOTOs. So on and so forth.
Though it doesn’t achieve kitsch, Art of the Olympians does achieve something unique: uniqueness. There is no other place like it, no other athlete running in this particular race.
Today is the birthday of American artist and drip paint extraordinaire, Jackson Pollock. The abstract expressionist, known for his figureless murals created on the floor of his studio, would turn 101 years old if he were still magically alive today.
In this 1949 photo provided by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, artists Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock are shown in their garden at their East Hampton, N.Y., home. Pollock, who would have turned 100 in 2012, will have the anniversary of his birth observed with exhibitions, fundraisers and other events throughout the year. (AP Photo/Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center)
Pollock, born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1912, began his career as an art student, first at Los Angeles’ Manual Arts High School and later at the Art Students League of New York. After working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project in the late 1930s and early ’40s, Pollock was signed by famed gallerist, Peggy Guggenheim, in 1943, launching his career with the commissioned work, “Mural,” an eight-foot by twenty canvas covered in the artist’s signature drip style. The piece caused art critic Clement Greenberg to pronounce Pollock “the greatest painter this country had produced.”
Throughout his career, Pollock challenged the Western conception of brush-and-easel art making, choosing instead to use his whole body in a unique form of action painting. His most famous paintings, such as “One: Number 31“, were made in the late ’40s and ’50s. Constantly seeking to transcend the viewer’s need for figures in art, he began numbering his works during this time, avoiding concrete titles and any allusions to subject matter.
Sadly, the great artist painted his last work in 1955, nearly one year before he passed away in a tragic car accident at the age of 44. He was survived by his wife, fellow painter Lee Krasner, as well as his mistress, Ruth Kligman, who was in the car with Pollock at the time of his death.
To celebrate the great painter’s birthday, we’ve put together a slideshow of 10 things you might not have known about Mr. Pollock. Scroll through the slides below and let us know how you are celebrating the Jack the Dripper’s life in the comments section.
See the photo galleries that accompany the original post at Huffington Post Arts:
