Occupy Wall St.

....a Tea Party for the rest of us.  The spirit of William Morris, tireless crusader for the working class, is in Zuccotti Park this month.

 tried to fact-check this but couldn't find the data....

Jalani, 16 yr old with a 4.0 GPA, sleeps in park with his grandma (click here).

RIP Steve Jobs

Neue Galerie, NYC

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907, 138 cm x 138 cm (54 in x 54 in)

A few yards from the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the Neue Galerie, a house museum that showcases Austrian and German art and design from the early 20th century.  I made the pilgrimage to see this Gustav Klimt painting which sold in 2006 to the Neue Galerie for 135 million dollars....basking in its gold glow, I was not disappointed.  Can there be a more gloriously beautiful portrait of a woman?  Of course there are many, but this one is right up there.

I found this somewhat sad passage on the museum website....one of the few written statements (undated) ever left by Klimt:

Linger over a cappuccino in the museum's Cafe Sabarsky, surrounded by Josef Hoffman period lighting fixtures, Adolf Loos furniture, and Otto Wagner fabrics, and ponder how excellent it would be if we could travel back and time and tell people like Klimt and Morris what an amazing influence they are having on people a century later.

A Quilt from the Met

Pieced wool quilt, ca. 1900, probably from Ontario, wool front, cotton back.  What a great design....would be so easy to replicate.

Heather MacCrimmon's Project Runway

I've always loved Project Runway, the reality show that searches for the next fab fashion designer ("One day you're in, the next you're out").  If you don't know it, each week presents a new competitive sewing challenge where the contestants have, let's say, 5 hours to shop for fabric and make 3 outfits that can be worn to a ball by Serina Williams (or some such).   When I saw an article about costume designer Heather MacCrimmon I couldn't help but think what a great PR challenge this would be.....namely, she takes the fantasy drawings of children too young to be influenced by the fashion industry and turns them into real clothes.  How utterly adorable!  Check it out....

Artist and model: Anne Marie Perlewitz, age 7

 Artist: Ella Ottersbach (photograph by M. Luder)

You are awesome Heather!!  (read the full article here).  I'm thinking I should fire up the old sewing machine and make the William Morris outfits my aunt Anne designed for me last year!

Yup!  It is fashion week in NYC again....

Camille Paglia on Pre-Raphaelite Art

The Golden Stairs, Edward Burne-Jones, 1876-1880, Tate Gallery

 

The Wheel of Fortune, Edward Burne-Jones, 1863, Musée d'Orsay

"Burne-Jones' transsexual world is populated by one incestuously self-propagating being. We are in another Late Romantic bower, shadowless under a grey sky. The ritual limitation on his sexual personae is a Decadent closure, denying our eye right of access to other human types.  The Golden Stairs (1880) expands Rossetti's triplets and quadruplets. We drown in a shower of identical women, eighteen in all, cloning themselves and assaulting the eye. Beauty in excess makes Decadent dyspepsia. The sadomasochistic tableau of The Wheel of Fortune multiplies the male. Giant Fortuna turns her torture wheel, chaining a row of beautiful young men, male odalisques in Michelangelo's troubled late style. Each seems languid twin of the next, limbs stretched in sensual suffering.

   "Burne-Jones' embowered nature begat Art Nouveau, which flourished from the 1880s to World War I. Then modern machine culture geometrized Art Nouveau's organic patterns into Art Deco. So Spenser's dynasty, extending through High and Late Romanticism, unexpectedly ends in the Chrysler Building and Radio City Music Hall. Burne-Jones' serpentine line comes from Blake, whose rapacious flamelike flowers reveal the covert sexual meaning of Art Nouveau's arabesques. The copious histories of Art Nouveau lack psychological insight. Twenty years ago, I was struck by Art Nouveau's popularity among male homosexual aesthetes, for whom neither it nor Beardsley had to be revived, since they had never been forgotten. In every star, style, or art work celebrated by these Alexandrine homosexuals, there is always a secret hermaphroditism. So with Art Nouveau, the most epicene style since Mannerism."

.....read the rest by Camille Paglia.

 

Chant d'Amour, Edward Burne-Jones, 1866-1873, Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

The Depths of the Sea, Edward Burne-Jones, 1887, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University

The Perseus Series, The Doom Fulfilled, Edward Burne-Jones, 1884-1885

 The Tree of Forgiveness, Edward Burne-Jones, 1881-1882, Liverpool Museum

Hogweed Bonking Beetles....

...in local parlance.  Officially known as common red soldier beetles who like to hang out and bonk on the hogweed in the Irish hedgerows (click to enlarge, parental guidance suggested).  I wonder why Morris never included insects in his wallpaper or fabric designs--they have a certain repetitive geometry and beauty.

Makes me proud to be a scientist...

If you have a few minutes to be inspired, this video, part of the Periodic Table of the Videos series, exemplifies everything that is wonderful and good in science.

 William Morris would be a great supporter of the narrator Dr. Poliakoff who is a leader in the field of green chemistry, which designs products and chemical processes that avoid introducing hazardous substances into our environment and lives.

The Dingle Races, Co. Kerry, Ireland

This past weekend saw the annual Dingle horse races in Ireland. A few dozen races over three days with the largest purse being 6000 euros. Most of the jockeys are kids that look to be around thirteen to fifteen years old. It's not hard to get right in the thick of it...stand at the rail and be showered by the dirt clods thrown up by hooves as the horses thunder by. For the first time this year the bookies are using electronic betting boards instead of the usual chalkboard method.

bookie alley behind the rail....

The grandstand and the stragglers at the end of the Dingle Derby "grand finale" race. The spectators were already spilling onto the track as the winners crossed the line.

p.s. blogger has been hugely problematic lately. I can't get my pics to post at their full resolution (among other things). I apologize.

Beautiful and useful...

A perfect product just got better for me....zebra duck tape.

A William Morris berry

My son took me on a sweet and challenging hike along a rocky ridge in the rolling Pennsylvania hills. A wild berry patch reminded me of this Bradbury & Bradbury "Morris Tradition" wallpaper.

Down and dirty, artist Robert Burden

Yup, why clean your car when rogue artist Robert Burden can turn your dirty wheels into a work of art!? You can see more of his work here. Robert, we could use you in New York City!

Vignettes of Bern, Switzerland

The milky teal River Aar...the color typical of the glacial mountain streams....

A painted stone arch...looks perfect....

A painted shutter reminds me of Red House....

There are tons of street fountains in Bern but what the heck is this???

How many cities have their own bear pit?

I'll hold your shutter....

A simple window box of rosemary....I'm inspired...

Europe always does the plain green plant in the pot so well....

The Swiss and their amazing clocks....

The Bellevue Palace Hotel

May Morris would approve...

Jillian Tamaki, embroiderer extraordinaire, has been commissioned to embroider the cover designs for three Penguin Classics. Yummy! They will be available in bookstores in October.

the artist at work...