Supernova Collapse

"Researchers at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, US, used IBM's Blue Gene/P supercomputer to visualise a core collapse supernova - the violent death of a short-lived massive star." From BBC.

The Human Face of Death Row

"The Human Face of Death Row is an exhibition of portraits by artist Claire Phillips which brings the viewer face-to-face with individual experiences of the death penalty and reflects on the human face of death row. Organized by British charity Reprieve and by Arts Council England, the exhibition opens on 1 July at gallery@oxo". From the Guardian.

Click here for images and accompanying stories.

Nepal Horse Book

From the Royal Library in Denmark, Illustrated Work with Horses from Nepal.

Light-Sensitive Wallpaper & Coat Rack

The all-female Front Design group explores interactions between science, technology and nature.

Front Design.

Cardboard Cloud

"“Being that the exhibition is set to present brand new design objects, we decided to base the architectural concept on the thrill of unpacking,” explained the architects. Working off that idea, more than 3000 cardboard boxes were arranged as “a large pixilated cloud” that hovered over the exhibited material inside the 350m2 exhibition hall." Fantastic Norway

Click here for article.
Click here for Fantastic Norway Architects.

Hummingbirds make fighter pilots look like pansies

"Hummingbirds are the fastest animals on Earth, relative to their body size. They can cover more body lengths per second than any other vertebrate and for their size can even outpace fighter jets and the space shuttle – while withstanding g-forces that would make a fighter pilot black out." From the Guardian.

Click here for article.

Laura Barnard

From her blog: "I’m Laura Barnard , and I’m an illustrator, but with tendrils in the worlds of design, print and making things as well."

Click here for more.

Turner Prize Hopefuls

A shortlist of the contenders of this year's Turner Prize. Click here.

Satrun's Moons

"Mimas appears to hover above the colourful rings. The large crater seen on the right side of the moon is named after William Herschel, who discovered Mimas in 1789." From the Daily Mail.

See more images of Saturn and its moons.

Jim Romano: The Tabloid Photographer

"Since 1946, Mr. Romano, now 80, has chased news on Staten Island for The Daily News, The New York Post, and other papers." From the New York Times.

Audio slide show.

Cypriot Mother Goddess

"This simply formed and elaborately decorated nursing female probably represents a Cypriot mother goddess. Her facial features (including ears pierced for added earrings) and her limbs, breasts, and navel (?) are rudimentarily indicated. Bands of incisions suggest necklaces encircling her neck and patterns on her long, sheath-like garment. In her arms she holds an elaborate cradle containing an infant who suckles from her left breast." From The Oriental Institute.

The Oriental Institute.

John Coffer

"THERE are those who, on hearing that the tintype photographer John A. Coffer lives without car, phone or plumbing, might call him a Luddite. This, he insists, is not true — for one thing, he has a computer. He even has a computer room. The walls are bales of hay, the roof is tin, and the power source is a 75-watt solar panel outside in the pasture. Mr. Coffer, who lives on a 48-acre farm in the Finger Lakes, built his computer room in March. It’s lasted nicely through heavy rains and if it falls apart, Mr. Coffer says, no matter: He’s invested all of $15 in it." From the New York Times.

John Coffer's web site.
New York Times article.
YouTube video.

Seeds

"These strange alien structures are among the seeds and pollen conserved at the Kew Millennium Seed Bank. Seeds from more than 10% of the world's flowering plants – around 30,000 species – have been collected in the decade since the bank was established." From the Guardian.

Shown: Seed of Castilleja flower, popularly known as Indian paintbrush or prairie-fire.

More images from the Guardian.
Kew Millennium Seed Bank.

Precolumbian Serpent

"This ornament was probably worn on ceremonial occasions as a pectoral (an ornament worn on the chest). It is carved in wood and covered with turquoise mosaic. The eye sockets were probably inlaid with iron pyrites and shell. Red and white shell was used to add details to the nose and mouth of both serpent heads. The mosaic work covers both sides of the serpents' heads. " From Precolumbian Jade.

More Precolumbian masks and artifacts.

Miyako Festivals

The Miyako Nenju Gyoji Gajo (Picture Album of Annual Festivals in the Miyako) is a 2-volume work, delicately hand-painted on silk by Nakajima Soyo in 1928 and available online [thumbnails] among the Nichibunken databases at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto.

View images.

Andy Goldsworthy

"Goldsworthy regards all his creations as transient, or ephemeral. He photographs each piece once right after he makes it. His goal is to understand nature by directly participating in nature as intimately as he can. He generally works with whatever comes to hand: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds and thorns." From morning-earth.org.

Images and artist quotes.

Butrint

"Inhabited since prehistoric times, Butrint has been the site of a Greek colony, a Roman city and a bishopric. Following a period of prosperity under Byzantine administration, then a brief occupation by the Venetians, the city was abandoned in the late Middle Ages after marshes formed in the area. The present archaeological site is a repository of ruins representing each period in the city’s development." From UNESCO.

UNESCO website of Butrint.
BBC article on Butrnt.
Albanian Archaeological website.

Alastair Heseltine

"I am a sculptor working with mixed media relating to the environment. Imagery is guided by the inherent nature of material and by construction systems evolved through mindful observation and play. I also draw from the full spectrum of routines and activities that support my practice: Design, craft production, farming and rural life. " Artist statement.

Click here for Heseltine's website.

Carol Hummel, "Tree Cozy"

"The focus of my work in recent years has been on personal awareness, potential and choice as well as the forces and situations that attempt to demean, control, manipulate and destroy. Contradictions -- comfort vs. confinement, pain vs. pleasure, freedom vs. restriction – dwell within my pieces as reminders that things are not always as they appear to be and making choices independently of external determining forces is essential to living." Artist statement.

Click here for Hummel's website.

Jim Flora

James (Jim) Flora is best-known for his wild jazz and classical album covers for Columbia Records (late 1940s) and RCA Victor (1950s). He authored and illustrated 17 popular children's books and flourished for decades as a magazine illustrator. Few realize, however, that Flora was also a prolific fine artist with a devilish sense of humor and a flair for juxtaposing playfulness, absurdity and violence. From jimflora.com.

Click here to visit his web site.

The Bicycle Thief

New York Times' A. O. Scott reviews Vittorio De Sica's masterpiece of Neorealism, The Bicycle Thief.

Click here for video.

Carlo Van de Roer

Originally from New Zealand, Carlo currently works and lives in NYC.

Click here for his website.

Hopi Snake Priest

Photograph of Honovi-Walpi, a Hopi Snake Priest, with Totkya Day painting. Image by Edward S. Curtis, 1910. Library of Congress.

Edward Burtynsky

"Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis." Artist statement.

Click here for Burtynsky's website.

Christian Faur

"The things that inspire me to create, I find, are buried deep within the structures and systems that form the underpinning of our natural world. My studies in the natural sciences have made me aware of these hidden layers of complexity present in even the simplest objects. These invisible layers are seen most clearly through the lens of logic, which is used to decipher the underlying rules and laws that govern the physical world." From Faur's artist statement.

Click here for Faur's website.

Deep Blue Sea

"The undersea world contains thousands of beautiful creatures and plants. Perhaps the most stunning of all of them is the humble Nudibranch which means ‘naked gill’. There are over 3,000 different kinds of nudibranchs all over the world." From nudibranch.com.

Flabellina Exopata (above)
Location: Old Woman Island, Mudjimba, Queensland, Australia
Size: 35 mm
Depth: 14 m

Click here for more images.

Clouds

"'Clouds is an innovative, sophisticated and courful new tile concept for the home, designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in collaboration with Kvadrat. The tiles can be used as an installation or be hung from a wall or ceiling". From kvadratclouds.com.

Click here for Clouds web site.
Click here for designers' web site.

Kiel Mead

"Mead's jewelry stands out in stark contrast to the expected use of precious stones, gems and metals. Where most people see finite use for a common object, Mead sees vast potential. Examples of pendants include a gleaming drill bit, a single matchstick or even a brassy dental retainer, each cast or plated in silver or gold and strung on a fine chain. Mead even used a wad of worn-out bubble gum to model a bright pink gob pendant complete with teeth marks." From kielmead.com.

Birdie Light is made of goose feathers, rubber and cork.

Click here for Mead's website.
Click here to purchase this light.

William Eggleston

"In 1939, William Eggleston was born in Memphis, Tennessee and later raised in Sumner, Mississippi, a small town in the Delta region. Eggleston became a bit of what northerners still call a southern gentleman. (It is said he takes pride in never having worn jeans in public.) He attended three colleges and graduated from none of them, landed in the middle of the hard-living Memphis music scene and, in the mid-1970s, helped reinvent fine-art photography." From Culturekiosque.

Click here for article and image samples.

Deception Takes Wing

Its always interesting to see how our perception of things change. The above image is a "lozenge" camouflage pattern used during WWI and below is the the new "pixel" version which has been recently introduced. They're always finding new uses for PhotoShop.

Click image for larger view.

Off My Shelf

Women of the Orient: An Account of the Religious, Intellectual, and Social Condition of Women in Japan, China, India, Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. by Rev. Ross C. Houghton, A.M. 1877

It's quite a long title, but an interesting read. This is a first hand account of a missionary and his wife traveling through Asia during the mid-nineteenth century. And for being such a dated book, the topics covered are remarkable. There are chapters on education, foot binding, betrothal, marriage, polygamy, divorce, seclusion, chastity and hard labor.

Click here to read it.

For a lengthy, but fascinating, description of the "Egg Dance", shown in the lower image, go to page 343 of chapter XVI. Find it here.

Takashi Murakami

"Often compared to Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami is Japan's most prolific and commercially successful contemporary artist.

Having started his artistic career studying Nihonga, a 19th century painting form, Murakami rejected the notion of an artistic divide between high and low culture, drawing inspiration from Japanese anime cartoons and Manga comics and grounding his work in "otaku," or "nerd," culture.

In 2000, Murakami founded the "Superflat" movement, a post-modern response to the levelling of Japanese society, both in economic and culture terms, and the aesthetics of mass-produced entertainment conveyed via LCD screens." From CNN.

Click here for NPR interview.

Solar Eclipse from Space

"Here is what the Earth looks like during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2,000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon." From NASA.

Spring is Here

"Students smeared each other with color powder during Holi celebrations in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta. The tradition of Holi heralds the beginning of spring and is celebrated across India." From the New York Times.

Click here for more images of the festival.

What Would a Real Barbie Look Like?

For the 50th anniversary of the Barbie doll, the BBC did some math to come up with what an actual woman would look like with Barbie's dimensions.

Click here for link.

Under the Skin

Back in the day, not too long ago, the only people who had tattoos were ex-cons and sailors. The former was an outward expression of internal aggression, depicted with skulls, snakes, etc. And the mariners used a fairly uniform set of usual suspects. This ranged from anchors to hula girls on the forearm that would dance by flexing your muscles. The use of tattoos on sailors actually goes back centuries. They would get a new one every time they accomplished something like crossing the Equator or completing a lengthy journey. There was also a small amount of superstition involved. It was common to have a pig or rooster inked on the leg to prevent drowning. Apparently, when a ship went down, these animals often survived because they were stored in wooden crates which floated.

Recently, the Guardian ran a picture essay on a tattoo-centered festival in Thailand in which "The devotees are in fact undergoing what they believe to be a form of possession by the animal spirits inculcated into their tattoos".

Click here for link.