This weekend I found myself chatting with a lemur expert and learning about plans to save these unbelievably interesting critters. To find out more, see this press release, this report, and the Duke Lemur Center. Comic here.
Whether representational or non-representational, imaginary or abstracted from reality — visual art is about choices of what to show and what not to show.
So, for that matter, is writing, music and all other forms of communication and expression.
Ever since bottom-line mandates turned “news” into “infotainment”, and Justin Bieber’s latest pimple became more “newsworthy” than ongoing conflicts that affect millions, it’s been easy to forget how selective reporting can be, particularly within a cacophony of information sources.
Significant numbers of American and British soldiers remain stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Life goes on in these places — conflict continues, people die, other people live. Those who live, both native and from outside, get on with their daily lives — buying groceries, fixing cars, checking the electronics on a remote controlled flying bomb.
News organizations and individuals continue to report on what’s happening in these areas, but their information is often “selected” for the bottom of “what’s important”, because it’s not dramatic or new or exciting enough to attract a large viewership and thereby help sell Coke or Nexium or Dodge Durangos.
It’s all about selection.
Which brings me to the “reportage” art of Matthew Cook, who I profiled in 2013 here on Lines and Colors.
Cook has the unusual position of reporting on events in these areas of conflict, as well as at home in the U.K., by way of drawings and paintings in ink and watercolor. A rarity in the age of ubiquitous photography, reportage art, particularly when it is as accomplished as Cook’s, reminds us of the power of the visual artist to select and present only the essentials.
Yes, photographers select and compose, but their ability to do so is in some ways limited. A visual artist has absolute power of selection, everything but the essentials can be left out.
Cook does that — stripping his images of daily life among the British military, and the local residents, down to their most powerful and visually appealing essentials — with such aplomb that it’s astonishing to me that this kind of visual reporting isn’t more prevalent and appreciated.
That, I think, resonates with what I find most appealing in visual art — the power to make the ordinary extraordinary, to make what we pass by and ignore suddenly assume importance — the power to make us notice.
This 5 drawer dresser saved my life and after all we went through together, it pains me to think we have finally parted ways. It was recently sold to mountain of a man with dark stormy hair and chiseled features. A fellow adventurer, he had just finished trekking across the country on foot from Nashville to Colorado. He was excited to continue on the story of this remarkable dresser.
Back in 2003 we were exploring the many glaciers of Alaska. On one excursions we were low on supplies and in the middle of a white out. While searching for some form of shelter, we came upon this dresser laying in one of the crevasses. The opening of the crevasse wasn't more than 5 feet wide, but I could see that it continued down for hundreds of feet. The dresser itself was wedged 10 feet down at about 45 degrees and the middle drawer was open ever so slightly. Just enough to allow a tiny ray of light from our headlamps to reach inside and reflect off of something inside of it. It was the refection that really caught my attention. We quickly rigged up a safety line and I ventured down into the crevasse to see what had caused the reflection.
As i inched my way down the crevasse, I began to understand how the dresser got there. Below it were the littered remains of a small hunting shack. It looked as though the shack had been constructed using old pallets, and airplane parts. Most people may have been surprised to see such a thing, but it is actually quite common to find wreckages on these glaciers. Bush pilots and even world war bombers have been claimed by the mountains and glaciers of Alaska.
I began to look for signs that someone may have been in the shack when it was swallowed up by the glacier, but soon realized that the wreckage had been there for quite some time. As I got closer I was able to get a better look at the two tone dresser. The bulk of the dresser, along with the nobs were painted a dark chocolate brown and looked like a giant frozen hershey's bar. A small section of the top and the front of the drawers were a lighter brown, much like swiss miss hot chocolate. We had been in freezing temperatures for nearly 5 hours and the thought of a big cup of hot chocolate caused me to pause and imagine the warmth of it filling my body. After a what seemed like an eternity of asking myself just what the heck I was doing climbing into a crevasse in the middle of a snowstorm, I finally reached the dresser and using my ice axe, was able to pry it open.
Much to my amazement the drawer was filled with bottles of camping fuel and medical supplies. I grabbed a few bottles of fuel, and signaled to my team that I was ready to come up. By the time I reached the surface, the storm had lifted. I showed the bottles of fuel to the rest of the team and we finally decided to recover the dresser to see what else may be contained in it. We tied our spare climbing ropes around the dresser and slowly pulled it onto the surface of the glacier.
The entire dresser was covered in ice, and was in remarkably good shape considering what it had been through. We carefully chipped away the ice trying not to damage the painted wood. It had a few scratches and scrapes on it. It looked liked the kind of dresser that had been through a few owners, and few different coats of paint. I could tell it was built solid, although it was fairly simple construction. As we freed away the ice, we began opening the drawers. Some of them contained an old pair of socks and some underwear that had lasted long past its prime. The fabric was so worn out it was transparent and riddled with holes. As we opened the others we found food, water, blankets, and other supplies! We were just beyond belief that we had come across this dresser from heaven.
We could tell that another storm system was heading our way of the mountains to the east. So before the storm enveloped us, we quickly constructed a shelter around the dresser and climbed inside. The dresser was not very large at just over 3 ft wide and 3 and half feet tall, The shelter wasn't very spacious, but it certainly got the job done. In the shelter we used the fuel we found to thaw some of the food and water. I don't remember a time that food has ever tasted so good.
The storm battered us all night and not a single one of us slept a wink.
When morning came, we were blessed by blue skies and a calm wind. The storm had left a fresh blanket of snow across the top of the glacier. It was beautiful and haunting at the same time. After much deliberation, we made the irrational decision to take the dresser with us as we finished out journey.
Using our ladders and climbing rope, we tied the dresser to the ladders using them as skis to help up move the ladder across the ice. It worked beautifully! A few of us were even able to ride the dresser down the glacier the last 3500 yards, until we reached the bottom of the glacier.
We had grown so attached to this amazing dresser that we hoisted it onto our shoulders and continued to carry it back to our base camp a few miles away.
Long story short, we eventually got the dresser all the way home where it has stood as a reminder of that incredible trip and the dresser that gave us life and shelter, and until recently sheltered the clean and folded clothes of our 3 year old.
We are now selling this cherished item of furniture which has truly withstood the test of time. We are asking $50, mostly due to sentimental reasons, but will entertain reasonable offers.
Location: NW Denver
do NOT contact me with unsolicited services or offers
Teachers should know that “I’m giving you until the count of three…” isn’t an effective threat anymore. To punish your unruly students, what with their iPads and dragons, you have to think like your unruly students, get all Yo, Teach on them. With that in mind, meet the George R.R. Martin of Belgium teachers.
When his disciples were chatting a whole lesson, the [mathematics] teacher asked who watched Game of Thrones. Nearly everyone raised his hand. “Well, I’ve read all the books,” the teacher replied. “If there is another too much noise, I write the name of the dead on the board. They are there enough to fill the whole year and I can even describe how they die.”
When some students took the threat seriously, the teacher wrote the prompt killing of the third season on the board. Then it was quiet. (Via)
That last sentence, via Google Translate, even sounds like something Martin would write. Hopefully this idea doesn’t catch on here in America, though — high school would have been that much worse if my history teacher had spoiled what happened to Abe Lincoln before I finished reading The Death of Abe Lincoln.
Using a black Isograph 0.10mm pen, French illustrator Xavier Casalta draws a cluster of dots the size of a speck of dust and follows with a few hundred thousand more to create swooping letterforms, shadows, and gradients. Only 21 years of age the artist already possesses a commendable sense of typography and composition as is exemplified in his ‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’ project that involves a visual interpretation of the phrase in 10 different designs. You can see more of Casalta’s work on his website and pickup limited edition prints in his shop. (via Fubiz)
Our favorite photographer of everything creepy and crawly under the sea, Alexander Semenov, recently released a number of incredible new photographs of worms, several of which may be completely unknown to science. Half of the photos were taken at the Lizard Island Research Station near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia during a 2-week conference on marine worms called polychaetes. Semenov photographed 222 different worm species which are now in the process of being studied and documented by scientists.
The other half of the photos were taken during Semenov’s normal course of work at the White Sea Biological Station in northern Russia where he’s head of the scientific divers team. We’ve previously featured the intrepid photographer’s work with jellyfish (part 2, part 3), and starfish.
"…Rialto’s randomised controlled study has seized attention because it offers scientific – and encouraging – findings: after cameras were introduced in February 2012, public complaints against officers plunged 88% compared with the previous 12 months. Officers’ use of force fell by 60%.”
(I work in a call center handling technical issues for a rather large international PC manufacturer. One of my coworkers is new and has gotten a call he can’t handle. I am listening in on my coworker sitting next to me, who offers to take the call. The company policy is that we don’t handle software issues, only hardware issues.)
Coworker: “Hello and welcome to [Company]. My name is [Name]. How can I help you?”
Customer: “Hi. I think my PC has gotten a virus. Could you please help me?”
Coworker: “No problem. What I need you to do is place your PC directly at the center of the room it is located in, unplug all cables and leave it for 24 hours. Then the virus will go away.”
(At this point, I can’t believe my ears.)
Customer: “Okay, I will do that. Thanks!”
Coworker: “If you have any further questions, please call back. My name is [Name]. Just ask for me.”
Customer: “Thank you!”
(The call ends. Two days later, my coworker gets a callback from the same customer.)
Coworker: “Hello and welcome to [Company]. My name is [Name]. How can I help you?”
Customer: “Hi. We spoke two days ago. My PC had a virus. You asked me to place it in the middle of the room, unplug it and wait 24 hours. I did, and the virus is still there.”
Coworker: “Did you place it in the middle of the room?”
Customer: “Yes!”
Coworker: “Did you measure?”
Customer: “Er… no?”
Coworker: “It needs to be exactly in the middle of the room. Please measure and try again.”
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