WILLIAM COTTON (1880-1958)

William Cotton trained as a fine artist at the Academie Julien in Paris. He exhibited at the Luxembourg Museum and other esteemed institutions, such as the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago.

But Cotton's gallery paintings-- consistent with the fashion of his day-- often looked like sappy Victorian Valentines. They are mercifully forgotten today.



In the 1930s, Cotton turned from gallery painting to illustration and began doing caricatures of Broadway stars, writers and politicians for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. For the first time, Cotton was forced to accept the subjects that editors assigned to him. He was forced to work on deadline. He no longer had the luxury of unlimited space to paint fancy lace collars and detailed fabric. Instead, he was forced to cut to the essentials, and simplify his images for reproduction on a small magazine page. The result was a long series of really neat, beautifully colored caricatures:









Cotton quickly became one of the most famous caricaturists of the 1930s. His artwork was seen by tens of thousands of people. Eleanor Roosevelt called his Vanity Fair portrait of her, "my favorite character picture."

I love the colors and bold simplification of forms in these pictures. For me, they are far superior to Cotton's gallery work. The relentless efficiency of the marketplace scrubbed away a lot of frills and pretensions, leaving Cotton's work clear, robust and decisive.

We love to be outraged when tasteless commercial sponsors impose restrictions on talented artists. Yet, nobody talks about the other side of the coin: artists whose mediocre "fine" art was improved by the challenges and limitations of commercial media and commercial audiences. It does happen, and we should keep our eyes and our minds open for it.

Those cold blooded market forces do a lot of damage, but there can also be value in keeping art employed in the service of commerce (just as the very first art was employed in the service of the hunt, back in the Cromagnon era). Art that serves no purpose other than to hang as an object on a museum wall often suffers because it is not integrated into daily life. That's one reason I have such a soft spot in my heart for illustration.

Cymarshall Law - Creators Kid EP WEB (2010)

01. Harder Than Thou feat. DJ JS-1

02. Life Is A Movie

03. Homeless

04. Ghosts Of Hip Hop

05. Magic

06. Tangled Web feat. Skit Slam

07. Quit While Ahead feat. Mary Lou

Get It Easy

Oddisee - Odd Winter (2010)

01. Ci'iy Life feat. Tranqill

02. Frostbit

03. Winds From The North

04. Black Broadway feat. X.O

05. Brain Wash Remix Instrumental

06. Riiight feat. Stik Figa

07. Carry On Instrumental

08. The Warm Up feat. Homeboy Sandman

09. Queue With No Coat

10. 60901 Instrumental

11. All Because She's Gone Instrumental

12. It's Over feat. Tranqill

Get It Easy

ART vs. LIFE

Art is a double edged sword. It enhances our experience of life, but also obstructs and diminishes it.

We spend most of our time here at the good ol' Illustration Art blog focusing on that enhancement part, but today as a special public service we offer some thoughts on that dark side of art-- the part they never mentioned in your high school Art Appreciation class.

Goethe wrote about how the arts make us more sensitive. In The Sorrows of Young Werther, he described a young couple in love, visiting the countryside:

We went to the window. It was still thundering at a distance: a soft rain was pouring down over the country, and filled the air around us with delicious odours. Charlotte leaned forward on her arm; her eyes wandered over the scene; she raised them to the sky, and then turned them upon me; they were moistened with tears; she placed her hand on mine and said, “Klopstock!”

This reference to the poet Friedrich Gottfried Klopstock (1724-1803) was enough to cause our hero to quiver with emotion:

At once I remembered the magnificent ode which was in her thoughts: I felt oppressed with the weight of my sensations, and sank under them. It was more than I could bear. I bent over her hand, kissed it in a stream of delicious tears, and again looked up to her eyes. Divine Klopstock!

Now, I'm a fan of artistic sensitivity just as much as the next guy, but when sensitivity is left to run rampant, it can become downright debilitating. Goethe's tribute to cultural refinement leaves me gasping for fresh air.

There's no shortage of examples of art getting in the way of life. Consider all the young males out there fixating right now on pictures of bosomy space vixens in garter belts and spiked heels. This is a dandy pastime (I can testify) but after a certain point collecting such images, whether they are in computer games, deluxe art portfolios, or limited edition giclee prints, becomes a distraction from real life relationships. If we let them distort our values and expectations, we may find ourselves with only deluxe coated archival paper stock to fondle. Art lures us away from Ruskin's principle that "the only wealth is life."

This did not escape the attention of Walt Whitman, who asked: "Have you reckon'd that the landscape took substance and form that it might be painted in a picture?" Here, Ronald Searle shows us someone who apparently got the answer wrong:



It seems to me that there is a bargain between art and life. To derive the most from art, we should keep the trade offs from that bargain freshly in mind:

• Art robs us of time, but with the promise that it will pay us back by saving us time later. In theory, art will mature us, enrich us, and educate us faster than we could ever experience just by living our solitary lives. It will expose us to a wider range of perspectives than we could ever experience in real time.


• Art comes between us and the immediacy of experience, but with the promise that its filters will enrich the way we perceive those experiences.

• Art tells us lies (often starting with the illusion of 3D on a 2D surface) with the promise that those lies will eventually help us see the truth more clearly.

• Art is supposed to sensitize us, but as Werther demonstrated, it's possible to become too sensitive. There are a lot of complex, high strung people out there whose refined palates do them no good at all. They have trouble getting pleasure out of life or having good relationships; you see them picking at everything, having lost the ability to take pleasure in the merely nice.

If you weigh everything we surrender to art in exchange for the good things we receive from it, it is easy to see how art could become the enemy of life. In my view, maintaining a proper balance between art and life is a major part of the challenge of appreciating art.

I try to keep in mind the wise philosophy of Lionello Venturi, who wrote:

What ultimately matters in art is not the canvas, the hue of oil or tempera, the anatomical structure and all the other measurable items, but its contribution to our life, its suggestions to our sensations, feeling and imagination.

Copywrite - Ultrasound The Rebirth EP(2009)

01. Born Again

02. The Fighter (featuring Mhz)

03. P.Y.T. (3 Habits) (featuring Jay Notes)

04. O.D. (Overdose) (featuring Royce da 5'9")

05. Stop

06. Hate

07. Pick-Up Stix (featuring Sean Price)

08. Cremation

09. Take It Easy (Hey Dom) (featuring Dom)

Get It Easy

Lilli Carré

http://www.lillicarre.com/

Hospital Garden

Lucas Hollow left Bear Mountain Picnic behindhand in Ypsilanti, Newmarket in late 2007. Having effected in Dayton, Ohio, Hollow has found a new people to launch the project Hospital Garden, which continues the loud, frayed-edged and serious sway that came discover of BMP. Hollow's latest self-recorded songs are now acquirable via AvE as Mailbox Demos. These tracks were originally circulated among friends to allow a testing of the waters, now that Hollow is without his BMP songwriting partner, President Sova. They will be the foundation for full band recordings later on. Though all you intend here is electric guitar and vocals, one crapper already tell that Hospital Garden is feat to be an intensified continuation of the BMP experience (anyone who saw them springy will astonishment if boost intensity is possible, but those that hit already seen Hospital Garden might attest that it is). Think of a fierce crystallization of Dinosaur Jr., Pavement and The Pixies and then imagine it as lo-fi as it crapper intend (almost). Mailbox Demos is acquirable here for free. It's also up on last.fm.

Fields of Industry - Dogs EP 2005 (re-up)

Fields of Industry self-released the 3-song EP Dogs backwards in 2005 in a grapheme batch of 50 copies. These songs were the first to include someone other than Joshua Barton in the recording process in any substantial way; that someone was Eric Gallippo.

With Two Dogs, A Television being just over the horizon (or already here if you got it at a show) we definite to make Dogs available again in an unlimited imperative of infinity copies (thank you Internet).

Get it here for free.

Also, check out the recording that choreographer Mason prefabricated for the track \"Ramona Bopper\"

Fields of Industry set to release Two Dogs, A Television

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's taken a long time, but a release date for Two Dogs, A Television is finally set. The album will be digitally free May 20th by Cerberus Records via iTunes and another major digital outlets. The band is self-releasing the CD on Arts vs Entertainment. Copies of the round are already acquirable at shows. The album features prowess by Graham Mason.

Check out FoI's myspace for upcoming shows in and around Grand Rapids, Lansing and Ann Arbor.

Bar in Lansing

Modern Purgatives

Cathartic Pipe's sophomore release. The boys are preaching the gospel of close government-engendered doom and annihilation; a full fledged apocalypse of the bowels and neural network of every man, woman, pupil and girl by compulsory consumption of atomic laxatives (of the brain). This is the modify of all things, and the finale is hearkened by the bellow of a trombone, bowed electric bass, springy electronic boxes with blazonry and legs, and a buzzsaw for a heart. This is the infernal vision of a single season afternoon; school is out and the world is over.

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Arts vs. Entertainment on Video

Today is FoI's bounteous day. Two Dogs, A Television is now acquirable on everyone's selection digital stores, AND the video for \"Point of Contention\" is eventually available. This was filmed on a frigid Feb period in Grass Lake, MI at Joshua's house with lots and lots of friends. Graham Mason, Dax de la Monta and Yoni Goldstein every worked rattling hard on this for a rattling long time and we're every ecstatic to present it to you today.

 
Fields of Industry - Point of Contention [HD version] from Arts vs. Entertainment on Vimeo.

AvE Ensemble with a one-two punch

Dual EP releases from the Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble squawk off the suffocating, steam-breathing weeks of a midwestern August. AvEE gets (half) digital on Gig Guides Don't Grow on Trees pluggin' in plugins of disorientation. Of metropolis chronicles the analog sounds of andante change violent electrocution on the streets of the grace of Lake Michigan. Now download the soundtrack to your backwards to edifice shopping.

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble - Of Chicago

You Can See Russia From Here On A Clear Day

Gates McFadden's fullest album to date has improviser/composer Joel Schrauben making a digi-romantic Glenn Branca of himself. But not via an army of guitarists; it's just Joel and a laptop - therein being dozens of delay loops and tones. You Can See Russia... is an exercise in infinite repetition; fitting in that the Palin remark appropriated is just one of a series of infinitely repeated talking points this season - repetition to the point of a loss of meaning. Fortunately for Gates McFadden, the loss of meaning here is not a descent into idiocy but one of recontextualization; where repeated tones and sounds layer upon one another building a veritable Tower of Digital Babel that comes crumbling down when Schrauben (as creator) sees fit. Schrauben achieves a unified, suspensefully ambient statement that gives credence to those who may assert that tension and resolution are overrated concepts.

Long Whisker debut with Long Live Long Whisker

Some things are extremity to happen, like Long Whisker. The gathering of Reagan Sova, Scott Hein and Jim Cherewick staleness be fated since it is so unlikely. All three members come from acts that hit prefabricated their obloquy in the burgeoning Ypsilanti environs or in the city Atlantic to much a honor that they needn't hit begun added send (granted, LW haw not hit happened had Sova's older send Bear Mountain Picnic stayed together). Yet Long Whisker is real and the apace assembled entry EP is so well executed that it can't be anything but destiny.

Long Live Long Whisker is the declaration prefabricated at the outset and the name of the band's prototypal effort. Cherewick and Sova summon the labor rhythm and indie sensibility of acts like Silver Jews and imply the nostalgic ethos of The Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society with their acoustic guitars and vocal tradeoffs. The interjecting harmony of Hein's various keys, especially the occasional Rhodes-like sound, is a perfect unifying element for the overall sound. Lyrically, Long Whisker are a synthesis of storytelling and specific attending (\"astronauts are so expensive to insure because the darkness of space is so unforgiving\"). Sova's direct, doubletracked conveying contrasts with the unique emotive croak of Cherewick.

In every their correctitude and subtlety, Long Whisker appear to be a modern edition of what some number of prestigious bands might hit been in the seventies had they not slipped from country-fried to field rock, or hated each another so much or been much broken, self-conscious rock gods. As highfaluting as that haw sound, every it really means is that correctitude and sensitivity connected with masterful enforcement makes really beatific music and Long Whisker hit prefabricated a great start. Download it for liberated here.

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/longwhisker
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Long+Whisker

Arts vs Entertainment Ensemble Has a Keen Cultural Sense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The latest from the AvE Ensemble sees the lineup and the sound coalesce around the core of comic of Industry. Has a Keen Cultural Sense features selected recordings of what were essentially comic of Industry experimental rehearsals meant to inform the band's springy repertoire. But these and added sessions have taken on lives of their own, to the extent that the adornment has lately been transcription them for their own sake. The resulting improvisational pieces consist largely of manipulated guitars and function generators, springy electronics, and springy laptop performance with a tiny taste of acoustic instrumentation (e.g. penny whistle). The aesthetic of atmospheric and ambient racket of the prototypal AvE self-titled release remains, but is supplemented here by an affinity for droning krautrock and a greater inflection on electronics.

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Royal Shakespeare Company Partnership

Photo of the Week

Ohio State formally announced a partnership with the UK’s Royal dramatist Company Nov 7 at the University’s Board of Trustees meeting. President Gordon Gee calls the planetary partnership digit of the university’s most important initiatives, an opportunity for two world-class institutions to become unitedly to create a premier information for the study, teacher upbringing and production of Shakespeare, inspired by the methodology and highly respected practices of the Royal dramatist Company. The partnership – the first of its category in the US – is spearheaded by The Arts Initiative at river State, and includes the College of Education and Human Ecology, the Colleges of the Arts and Humanities, and the Wexner Center for the Arts. One of its frequent components will be a three-year teacher activity information centralised upon the Royal dramatist Company’s renowned “Stand Up for Shakespeare” information (above). Additionally, the Royal dramatist Company / river State partnership will establish a Young People’s dramatist Festival, tentatively designed for 2012. For more details, click here. (Photo: Ellie Kurttz) Below, visitors from the Royal dramatist Company join OSU leaders at the Board of Trustees meeting. From left, king Frantz, Les Wexner, Gordon Gee, Lady Sainsbury, Karen Bell, Jacqui O’Hanlon, Michael Boyd, Brian Edmiston, Vikki Heywood.

Notable News

The OSU/Royal Shakespeare Company partnership already is garnering some international attention. The UK's Birmingham Post has this to feature about it. A feature also appeared in the metropolis Dispatch.

What is The Arts Initiative at river State? It's the duty of Karenic Bell, associate vice president, erst known as the Office for Arts and Culture. Why the switch? To more accurately reflect our mission to advance the arts and impact our communities. Hope you enjoy the newborn blog for The Arts Initiative!

Ohio State recently created a video documentary about the metropolis Museum of Art's exhibition Objects of Wonder from The river State University, which features comments from Karenic Bell, associate vice president, and graduate Melissa Wolfe, curator.

It's everything Andy at the Wexner Center these days! Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms continues at the Wexner Center finished Feb 15, and features more than 700 items in virtually every medium that Warhol utilised —film, video, audio material, photography, painting, sculpture, drawings, wallpaper and more.

\"Wishes and Dreams\" by Retro-Blue is a new jazz CD featuring some OSU folks, including alums and instructurs from Music -- blackamoor Battenberg, Andy Woodson, Jim Curlis and Don Nichols. Find out more.

Urban Cabaret

Photo of the Week

The OSU Urban Arts Space was transformed into an opera nightspot on Friday, Nov 21, when 14 students and two pianists presented an evening of arias, opera scenes, singable building and nightspot in a galleria setting. The festive evening featured 30 excerpts from operas including Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Rossini's Barber of Seville along with selections from Guys and Dolls, West Side Story and Les Miserables, according to Peter Kozma, administrator of the opera information in the School of Music. The 180 attendees were seated in nightspot style surrounded by artworks in the underway exhibitions.

Notable News

The OSU Marching Band is way to pedagogue DC in Jan to move in the Presidential Inaugural Parade. All 225 adornment members -- the largest all-brass and percussion adornment in the world -- will move the Jan 20 event. The adornment was chosen after a demanding covering process; it will be the band's ordinal Inagural Parade, having marched for Presidents musician Hoover, Richard Nixon, martyr HW Dubya and twice for martyr W Bush. The trip will be funded by private donations.

Dr. Gerald Buckberg, an OSU alumnus and distinguished professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has found a way to use art to teach about the human heart and heart disease.

Buckberg commissioned dancers at the University of Cincinnati to create The Cardiac Dance -- The Spirals of Life, a ballet that can be used as a teaching tool most heart function. Buckberg was back on the Ohio State campus in November to show a video of the dance to scrutiny students and the public, and to speech most his investigate in myocardial protection and approaches to treatment of accent myocardial infarction.

Photo: University of Cincinnati

Starting this fall, OSU professor Michael Mercil is installing The Virtual Pasture at the Wexner Center for the Arts, in the spot where he previously planted The Beanfield. The Virtual Pasture is phase two of Mercil's "agri/cultural" project for The Living Culture Initiative in the Department of Art, in partnership with the Wexner Center and the Social Responsibility Initiative in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. The 500-square-foot site outside the Wexner Center along College Road includes a white post-and-rail fence, livestock forage grasses, a forthcoming apple tree and eventually a virtual flock of sheep.  for more information from the Wexner Center. Photo of Mercil by Tony Mendoza.

Alan Price (Design and ACCAD), travels to Linz, Austria, this month, where he has been invited to be conception of the noble reopening exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center. His work module be conception of a newborn addition to the center in a virtual surround grouping called \"Deep Space\". The broad resolution stereoscopic 3D actuation spans a two-story broad surround and floor with user interaction finished contact screens and motion tracking. Price's most recent work, \"Empire of Sleep\" has been adapted to the display grouping in collaboration with the Ars Electonica Futurelab team for imperishable body in the exhibition space. The public opening is Jan 3.

Oscilabot - Domino Effect

In activity of the superior immunity talking undergo of live Flatlands Collective, the Guyz visit a pie and invite reclusive synth-smasher Oscilabot over for a pre-game of hot mozzarella and cold-war tension soundscaping. Liberation guitar marches, electronic missile commands and mixing housing standoffs ripple through this live-to-tape-deck sizzler. Says one hard-to-impress collaborator on the playback en route to the important event, \"This is actually pretty good.\"

Drama Class - Hip Hop Appreciation 101 (2009)

01. You're Gonna Love School feat. Jeshaun Smith & Mr. Live

02. Class Is In Session feat. Davis Nelson (prod. by Mr. Green)

03. Hey (prod. by Big Trap)

04. Hip-Hop Appreciation 101 - Welcome feat. Mr. Mudu

05. Agua feat. High Priest, Mesh & LaSonya Gunter (prod. by J-Dilla)

06. Hip-Hop Appreciation 101 - Class Settle Down feat. Mr. Mudu

07. New Typa Thug feat. Celina Gray (prod. by Dr. Dre)

08. Hip-Hop Appreciation 101 - Open Your Mind feat. Chris Smith, Jeshaun Smith, Mr. Mudu & Tarrik Mudu

09. Lightweight feat. Hanifah Walidah (prod. by DJ Premier)

10. Oprah On My Sofa (prod. by David Appleton & Oren Yoel)

11. B-Boy 101 - Sit Your Tail Down feat. Chris Smith, Jeshaun Smith & LaSonya Gunter

12. Breakbeat 101 (prod. by Earl Blaize & Mr. Live)

13. Say It feat. Celina Gray (prod. by J-Dilla)

14. Hallway Announcement - Vomit Colored Adidas feat. Davis Nelson

15. Advice From Principal Blaize feat. Chris Smith & Earl Blaize

16. Do You (prod. by Madlib)

17. Hate (Renewed Hate Mix) feat. Michael Figaro & Jeshaun Smith (prod. by Ste-lo)

18. Advice From Guidance Counselor - Mr. Liveen feat. Jeshaun Smith & Mr Live

19. Lovin' You feat. Nedelka Prescod (prod. by J-Dilla)

20. Hallway Announcement - Calling Ms Fatbody feat. Davis Nelson

21. Hood Love (prod. by Ge-ology)

22. Opportunity Knocks feat. Mr Live & Thagatanegrra

23. Hip-Hop Appreciation 101 - Class Ends feat. Mr. Mudu & Tarrik Mudu

24. We Got What You Need feat. Sun Singleton (prod. by Big Will)

Get It Easy

Student Artwork at Gateway

Artwork by MFA students Bethany Haeseler, above left (glass) and Talia Shabtay (painting) along with that by several other render students is taking center stage at the newborn offices for The Arts Initiative at South Campus Gateway. The office, headed by Karen Bell, associate evilness president, hosted an open house Nov 14, where OSU President Gordon Gee (below) crosspiece about the importance of orientating Ohio State as a cheater in the arts. Main topic of the evening was the recently announced partnership with Ohio State and the UK's Royal Shakespeare Company.

Notable News

Holiday render sale at Gateway! Glass students in the Department of Art will sell hand-blown holiday ornaments and more at The Arts Initiative offices at South Campus Gateway this Thursday from 4 to 7 pm. Stop by and browse!

The visit today by river playwright Sandra Dempsey to the Department of Theatre has been canceled.

The December issue of Artforum magazine each assemblage invites a broad spectrum of artists, critics and curators to revisit the assemblage in prowess and choose their \"top 10\" highlights. Two contributors in the current issue -- Ann Goldstein and Jack Bankowsky -- both picked the Wexner Center's aggregation Andy Warhol: Other Voices , Other Rooms as #4 in their crowning picks. To see their choices, click here.

Who's there?: The Ohio State Hamlet Project, an aggregation curated by grad students in the Department of Theatre as conception of a class assignment, brings together holdings on many aspects of Hamlet from the collections of the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute (TRI). Ranging from artifacts to essays and playbills, covering multiple centuries and countries, the items designated by the curators emphasise the fascination that Hamlet and his interpreters move to hold for audiences. The aggregation joins the beginning stages of the dweller Hamlet Project, being celebrated by symposia and culminating in exhibitions crossways Europe in 2009-10. The OSU aggregation is attractive locate at the TRI and in the Department of Theatre. For more, click here.

The OSU School of Music presents its annual Musical Celebration Concert this Friday, Dec 5, at 8 pm in Mershon Auditorium. The popular, annual musical extravaganza celebrates the pass season and showcases the school’s some performing groups, from the OSU Symphony Orchestra to its Jazz Ensemble, Glee Clubs, Symphonic Band and more. Tickets available finished the Wexner Center Ticket Office (614) 292-3535.

WeeWeeChu...

The night was beautiful with a flooded and humanities moon. Pedro and Maria were sitting on the front porch of their small home, having place the kids to bed for the night. Pedro looked over at his lovely Maria and his heart was filled with joy. They had every that they could communicate for - their health, happiness, a flooded life with digit wonderful children.

\"Maria, mi corazon, let's do the WeeWeeChu!\" Pedro told his lovely bride.

Maria did not directly reply, as she was busy admiring the stars in the sky and thinking of the children tucked safely into their beds, and the wonderful life that she and Pedro had. Finally, she turned to Pedro and said, \"Pedro, I fuck you, but no, not now. Let's meet look at the slug and the stars for a lowercase while.

It had been some time since Maria and Pedro had finished the WeeWeeChu and he had his heart set on it tonight. He had waited a long time. \"Oh, come on, Maria. I fuck you so such and I want us to do the WeeWeeChu tonight. Especially with this flooded slug and the sky filled with stars.

Maria desired to be the dutiful spouse to her precious Pedro, but she really desired to meet relax and watch the moon. She had been busy with the kids every day. They were meet digit and threesome eld old and were more than she could handle at times. It had been a rough period and she only desired to relax. \"Pedro, can't we meet sit and hold hands for a while?\"

Pedro was adamant about his attitude and had his heart set. \"Please, mi corazon, meet once, do the WeeWeeChu with me?

Maria looked over at Pedro and could see the fervour in his eyes. She really desired to please Pedro, who had worked hard every period to acquire a decent living for his spouse and family. He was the amend companion for Maria and so she relented. \"Ok, Pedro, we will do the WeeWeeChu!\"

Pedro grabbed his guitar and they both begin singing in unison, \"WeeWeeChu A Merry Christmas. WeeWeeChu A Merry Christmas. WeeWeeChu A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.\"

And along with Pedro and Maria, I WeeWeeChu A Merry Christmastime and a Happy New Year.

Bill and Barbara

AvE New YearLive Megablitz 2010

Starting the year out right with sets from Save Me From The Gallup Poll and Long Tones.

Save Me From The Gallup Poll (Eric)

Long Tones (Joshua)

Remembering Bettie

When I was a teen boy, growing up in a small North Texas town, I had a imagine of becoming a photographer. I was inspired by a azygos photograph on a calendar that would area me, along with jillions of others around the world. The woman in the photograph would also be haunted the rest of her life.

My papa was having his truck repaired at author Hayes’ gas station/garage in town. Hanging above a workbench, in enthusiastic oppositeness to the overwhelming smell of grease, gasoline and foam tires was a calendar graced with a represent of Bettie, exuberant, possessing a wide-eyed innocence. She appeared confident, and yes, nearly aggressive. She was the most bonny blackamoor in the world. Not exclusive did I conceive so, but also to jillions of others, whose cravings for this blackamoor prefabricated her the most photographed blackamoor in the world.

The assemblage was 1950 and pin-ups were every the craze. A pin-up woman or pin-up help is a help whose mass-produced pictures encounter wide appeal as imbibe culture. Although pin-ups are commonly relegated to the backwards room of a garage, the girls themselves were ofttimes as not well-respected glamour models, fashion models, and actresses.

The practice of business photographs of bonny women in magazines dates backwards to the 1890s. However, the constituent pin-up was first genuine to in England in 1941. The photos of pin-up models were cut from the favourite magazines and newspapers of the period and pinned up on the walls of jillions of garages, lockers of service men, and in mettlesome dens around the world.

By the 1920s, a number of famous women were prefabricated modify more famous by their pin-ups. Among them were, Jewess Pickford, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow, Joan Crawford, and Barbara Kent. Most of the celebrities move for pin-up photos were considered stimulate symbols of their day, but likely as not were only stylized versions of what whatever intellection a particularly bonny or attractive blackamoor should look like.

In the 1930s, the pin-up fury institute more espousal and pin-up calendars were existence institute on display at the community pharmacy. The list of famous women who would bear for these agitating photos grew to include; Josephine Baker, Joan Blondell, Marlene Dietrich, Dolores del Rio, Jean Harlow, Sonja Henie, Ruby Keeler, Gypsy Rose Lee, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Sally Rand, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck and Mae West.

Empire - Get It (2009)

01. The Grand Premier

02. Boom N Pound (Return Of The Boom Bap)

03. Impossible feat. Jay NY

04. Leave A Message (Skit)

05. Co-Sign

06. Cold Blooded

07. Do The Math

08. The Fifthionary (Skit)

09. 1 Thing Wrong

10. No Problemo

11. Unexplainable feat. Jay NY

12. Run Up In The Spot

13. Waiting feat. Jay NY

14. S.A.R.S. (Sick Artists Runnin' Shit)

15. Streets Of Toronto

16. Nowhere feat. Kaid

Get It Easy

Central Ohio Schools Join RSC Partnership

A assemble of most 20 river public school teachers module be the prototypal to participate in an extensive teacher activity activity program that’s at the core of a newborn partnership between The river State University and UK’s Royal dramatist Company (RSC), according to Karenic Bell, assort vice president, The Arts Initiative at river State. The prototypal cohort of teachers module become from historiographer County’s Metro High School; metropolis City Schools’ Linden-McKinley High School and its feeder schools; and Reynoldsburg City Schools. The schools are STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) schools affiliated with the river STEM Learning Network (OSLN).

“We’re delighted to be working with these central river schools in the venture with the RSC,” says Bell. “At prototypal it haw seem like a surprising fit to explore dramatist in STEM schools, but in fact it’s a perfect fit. Like scientific investigation, the RSC’s drama activity program is all most fictive learning, experiencing and exploring.” For the entire story, click here. (Photo of the RSC's Stand Up for dramatist program by Ellie Kurrtz.)

Notable News

Art Ed alumna Ivy Chevers (PhD) has orchestrated upcoming events celebrating the chronicle and music of Bob Marley, at the King Arts Complex in Columbus. Events allow a documentary film on Fri, Feb 6, at 6:30 and 9 pm, and a Marley commendation concert at 8 pm Sat, Feb 7. For info.

The Ohio Art League presents its 98th Annual Spring Juried Exhibition at the OSU Urban Arts Space in downtown metropolis through March 27. The exhibition features entireness -- including this one by Ardine admiral -- designated by juror king Pagel. For more, wager the OAL website.

John Hemingway, grandson of philanthropist Laureate Ernest author will read from and handle his newborn memoir, Strange Tribe -- which explores the similarities between his individual father (Hemingway's youngest son) and Ernest author -- at a talk on Tues, Feb. 17 at 7 pm in the Wexner Center Film and Video Theatre. This talk is co-sponsored by the Department of English, OSU Sexuality Studies Program, Institute for Collaborative Research and Public Humanities and the Wexner Center for the Arts.

A community set based at the campus-area church Summit on 16th will join forces with set and band students from Indianola Middle School to present a short concert (and lots of chocolate) on Sat, Feb 14, 6 pm, at Indianola Middle School, 420 E 19th Ave. The community set of about 25 singers under the content of Sheena Phillips will sing anthem arrangements of love songs by the Beatles, Elton John, Cole Porter and martyr Gershwin, and some up-tempo philosophy music. Admission is free; donations will benefit the penalization program at Indianola.

Alum Presents Dance at King Arts Complex

Photo of the Week

Dance graduate Kristina Isabelle's Dance Company presents Levels & Lines this Sat (Jan 24) at the King Arts Complex in downtown Columbus. The action is a multi-dimensional expedition in movement, video, light and sound, inspired by abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell. The evening length creation incorporates \"dynamic dancing on the ground, in the expose and in every the expanse in-between.\" In take of the inauguration of the country's new president and to reaffirm a commitment to the community, the King Arts Complex is offering admission to the action on a \"pay what you can\" basis. Above, dancers are Jeff Fouch, Zoe Rabinowitz, Maggie Page, Jessica McKelvey and Kristina Isabelle. Photo by Stephanie Matthews.

Notable News

The Andy Warhol exhibit at the Wexner Center continues to draw big crowds. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) recently called the exhibit \"deeply illuminating\" and \"easily one of the major social events in river at the moment.\" Check out the exhibit before it leaves Feb 15. Upcoming events include a speech by Susan Rossi-Wilcox about a Warhol cookbook on Jan 28, the next First Sunday on Feb 1 and several closing events. Thursdays feature liberated admission 4-8 pm.

Ohio State’s Cartoon Research Library has a newborn study -- the Cartoon Library and Museum. The newborn designation comes on the heels of the acquisition of the International Museum of Cartoon Art Collection, which brings its holdings to more than 400, 000 original works of art used in its active aggregation program. The Cartoon Library and Museum is exploring options for a possible newborn positioning with museum-quality galleries and added storage for its rapidly-growing collection. (No Honest Man Need Fear Cartoons, Homer Davenport, 19th century. From RSWCGA - Richard Samuel West Collection.)

Jan 25 is the last period for the Non Fiction Design Collective aggregation Shakespeare Wooden Minnow at the politico Studio in Philadelphia. The Columbus-based agglomerated is a assemble of quaternary artists working together: Rebecca Harvey and Steve Thurston (Art) and alumni Guy Michael Davis and Katie Parker, who join forces in the creation of tableware, bricks, lighting and other objects. The show is the prototypal to come from the politico Studio's call for curatorial proposals.

FRANK BRANGWYN (1867-1956)

Frank Brangwyn had a special talent for depicting grand structures such as cathedrals, bridges and ships.





He drew individual human beings the same way, as if they were monumental structures. He posed and rendered them with the kind of weight, grandeur and dignity he would have applied to a cathedral:









Brangwyn had an excellent eye for the glories of the secular world; he was able to show the magnificence-- and even the divinity-- of laborers working in a shipyard. That's part of what made his work so appealing to the public. However, he did not lead a particularly religious life.

Then, while he was still at he peak of his powers, Brangwyn became more interested in formal religion, and from the 1930's on, "devoted himself to religious art."

Biographer Libby Horner offered one explanation for Brangwyn's transformation:

As the artist grew older and faced mortality he produced more religious works in which he frequently included his own image as if he feared retribition for having been a "bad lot" and, in his own superstitous manner, was hoping to redeem himself.

I was reminded of Brangwyn when I received the new portfolio of his illustrations of the Stations of the Cross from Auad Publishing (the publisher responsible for the forthcoming book on the illustrator Robert Fawcett).



As you can see from the drawings in the Auad portfolio, Brangwyn never lost his gift for classical staging of figures:







The newly religious Brangwyn drew himself into a number of these drawings. Clearly he was wrestling with a lot of issues.



Brangwyn was internationally famous during his lifetime, but as he aged, the modern art world passed him by. Scholars will tell you that modern artists and writers became embittered by the horrors of World War I and the hard lesson that modern science would not necessarily be a tool for progress. Brangwyn's triumphal style gave way to abstraction and art that questioned fundamental principles of western civilization.

The once gregarious artist, who had found such glory in the secular world, led an increasingly reclusive and superstitious life and died in 1956.