Holla, Kidz— I’ve been released from my bunker and I emerge a bit bleary but surprisingly unscathed—nothing an excellent late of ziti and a good night’s sleep won’t fix. For not, I’ve found a few tidbits to entertain you so let’s get on with things, shall we?
First up, something deeply beautiful and visionary. Yes, the setups are gorgeous but the models themselves have searing, look-into-your-soul gazes.
AfroArt Photo Series Challenges Beauty Standards with Young Black Models
“Husband and wife photography duo Regis and Kahran Bethencourt of CreativeSoul Photography capture images of children that celebrate the beauty, culture, and heritage of afro hairstyles. Often dressed in ornate African-inspired garb, Black girl and boy models are crowned with afros, twists, and braids as symbols of strength and grace.”
……………………………
Krasner has been one of my favorites and I truly love this feature. Well, I love it when I don’t think of how cheated she was for her gender. Plus, she was married to Jackson Pollack and it was always ALWAYS about him.
Lee Krasner’s Early Prophecies
Krasner’s teacher, Hans Hofmann, told her that her work was so good, you would have never known it was done by a woman.
“Enhanced by video installations in which Krasner details her aesthetic practices and belief in painting as an instrument of revelation, Living Colour captures the artist as vividly as it does her art, charting her breakthroughs in the face of 20th-century America’s cultural intransigence and narrow-mindedness to become a leader in the development of abstract art, progressing through cycles of radical self-reinvention across six decades.”
Here’s a wiki entry of Lee Krasner to refresh your memory about her life.
……………………………
I had no idea that NASA sought artists’ reactions to the Space Program in the 1960s. Just when I think I can’t dig NASA more than I already do…
“Perhaps the wild popularity of space-related imagery is in part what motivated NASA administrator James Webb to create the NASA Art Program in 1962.”
“Although the program’s handpicked artists weren’t edited or censored in any way, they were briefed on how NASA hoped to be represented, and the emotions their creations were meant capture—the excitement and uncertainty of exploring these frontiers.”
My particular favorite:
“Jamie Wyeth’s 1964 watercolor Gemini Launch Pad includes a humble bicycle, the means by which technicians traveled back and forth from the launch pad to the concrete-reinforced blockhouse where they worked.”
……………………………
Isn’t it the best when you look forward to a show and it totally pays off? I count myself very lucky this happen occasionally, and that is exactly how I feel about the HBO series NASNASANA. You can read Emily Nussbaum’s take on Season 1 which I read with great interest, nodding my head throughout. She referred to the show as “satisfyingly nasty” and that’s just as perfect an encapsulation as you can get.
So I was pleased to see this on The Mary Sue:
A Love Letter to Siobhan “Shiv” Roy on HBO’s Succession
Here’s a quick explainer:
“Wealthy businessman Logan Roy (Brian Cox) is an evil man who would rather screw over his children than come off as “weak,” and he does so repeatedly throughout the first season of the show. But out of Connor (Alan Ruck), Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Sioban (Sarah Snook), and Roman (Kieran Culkin), Shiv (Sioban’s nickname), the only daughter, is the one who stands against her father the most, and in a good way. (Kendall makes an attempt but dear lord does it backfire.)”
I’m delighted that Shiv might get more screen time this season and if you follow the show, you might too.
……………………………
And now for a struggle that has been real for eons and the stats just might blow your mind in this excellent short.
The Fierce Ongoing War That Swarms of Unrelenting Nomadic Army Ants Have Waged For Millions of Years
“In a pismiric episode of their colorfully animated series, Munich design group Kurzgesagt explains the fiercely ongoing battlefront of nomadic army ants. While an individual army ant appears harmless, the sheer number of these nomadic social hunters can quickly overwhelm even the fiercest of enemies. These enemies include insects, spiders, and small vertebrates.”
……………………………
