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Example of a vintage, labeled, unused laboratory burner pad ("gauze") material on wire mesh support; indented label indicates: "E.H. Sargent & Co."
The unused asbestos insulation material in original condition is quite soft and fragile. Fluffy asbestos fiber bundles are visible around the material's edges and across its surfaces. Inset shows detail of the gauze's chrysotile asbestos content.
Current laboratory wire gauze materials often contain ceramic fiber replacement of asbestos.
Hand forged by Artist Blacksmith Adrian Stapleton at Trinity Forge for more examples of his work please see the gallery pages at Trinityforge.co.uk
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Barichara is considered to be the best example of a colonial village (at least according to one of the colombianas I met along the way…and Lonely Planet seems to speak very highly of the town as well.)
It’s a town in east-central Colombia, in the department of Santander, whose capital is Bucaramanga. To get there from where I’m living at the moment is about a 9 hour bus ride…even though it’s barely 300 km away. (Hello, winding mountain roads, and thank you for reintroducing me to nausea.) The ride over the mountain range is rather spectacular, but literally, with curves on average of every 15-30 seconds and few stops…it’s literally quite dizzying after a few hours. Also, since we didn’t make any stops along the way, there’s not a single picture in this set to represent the actual road trip.
My roommate and I struck out from Cúcuta around 3:00 on a Friday afternoon and spent one night in Bucaramanga, getting to the hotel there around 9:00 in the evening. Since I was nauseous, I didn’t make it out in Buca, unfortunately, though my roommate met one of his friends and they had a good time drinking and catching up.
Saturday morning, we left around 10:30 and had another bus ride – much shorter at about 2-3 hours and it wasn’t completely mountain road like the drive from Friday. That took us to the town of San Gil, about 100 km west of Bucaramanga.
San Gil is a good destination in its own right. It’s supposedly the adventure capital of Colombia (wholesome adventure, that is…or safe adventure). It’s the area to come if you’re interested in rafting, paragliding, etc. The town is pretty small and there’s some nice colonial architecture. We had lunch here since it looked to be an interesting enough place to spend an hour or two, then paid a taxi driver 37,000 pesos (about $12) to take us the 20 km from San Gil to Barichara. By that point, we’d had enough buses.
Finally, around 24 hours after we’d left Cúcuta, we arrived in the center of colonial Barichara. Our driver dropped us off at the northeast corner of the main square. Our guesthouse (and a rather comfortable guesthouse at that) was only a block away, half a block south from the southeast corner of the square. It was called Color de Hormiga and was at once comfortable, convenient, affordable ($30/night) and very hospitable. There’s no breakfast included in the stay – there’s no restaurant on site – but, they do provide coffee (for those who like it, which seems to be everyone in the world besides me) and the courtyard is very quiet and charming.
Saturday night’s sunset provided a very photogenic sky, though I was too tired (and, really, not thinking quickly enough) to ask about where to go to see it upon arriving after having traveled for that much time to get there. So, I saw the remains of the day from the main square and wondered what might have been.
We spent the better part of the evening just east of the northeast corner of the square; there were a few – at least three – decent bars in a row there and they were relaxing places to hang out. We had a few drinks, then wandered north of the square (uphill) for a few blocks towards one of the at least 4 chapels in this small town before cutting over a block and back down to the main cathedral on the square…before heading straight back to the bar – this time for a bite to eat. I wasn’t hungry, though, so just sat and enjoyed the music.
Sunday was the only full day we’d have here. I woke up early enough to catch the town before there were too many people wandering around. Barichara is really less than 10 blocks by 10 blocks (give or take) and it’s set on a ridge overlooking a gorgeous valley to the west.
Wandering alone in the morning, I started at the main square, including a few shots inside the main cathedral there before heading due west and slightly uphill towards the ridgeline. En route to the ridgeline, I passed another chapel (which I didn’t enter) that was attached to a cemetery (which I did enter). It was a nice cemetery with an unusually high number of fake floral arrangements. That struck me as a little odd considering Colombia is one of the highest exporters of flowers in the world. At any rate, it was a nice few minutes to reflect, especially since my mother (who also happens to be about the only one who would regularly look at any of this writing/posting that you’re reading) passed away only a few days before.
From the cemetery, I walked west the last black to Calle 1 (Calle del mirador) which is the one that crests the ridgeline overlooking the Cañón del Río Suárez (Saravita). When I got here, I realized this would’ve been a fabulous place to have seen the sunset the previous night – though I’m also certain it would have been VERY crowded, too.
At 9:00 in the morning, with the sun at my back, I just found myself overlooking a somewhat hazy valley…though not hazy enough to completely obscure the view. Walking along Viewpoint Road, I stopped at both pavilions and also at the Simón Bolivar statue which is at the head of El camino real (Royal Road) which connects Barichara to the much smaller colonial town of Guane about 5-6 km mostly downhill.
For the moment, I bypassed the trail and continued along Calle 1 to Santa Barbara Chapel and its attached art park (which left a lot to be desired). From there, it was a 6 block walk straight downhill to the guesthouse, with a stop next to the square for what I would consider an adequate (at best) breakfast.
After resting a few minutes at the guesthouse, my roommate showed up and we decided to walk to Guane via El camino real. (The heat wasn’t oppressive in the least and, since it was downhill…no big deal. Though my roommate is in much better shape than I, we still deliberated about whether or not to do this and, in the end, decided to go simply because there wasn’t much to see or do in Barichara.)
We left Color de Hormiga and made our way back to Calle 1 via San Antonio Chapel which was 2 blocks down the street and one block west on Carrera 4/Calle 5. It was the least imposing of the chapels, though still pleasant. (Like the Jesus Chapel next to the cemetery, we didn’t enter; I only entered the Church of the Immaculate Conception on the main square and the Santa Barbara Chapel at the top of the hill.)
Passing by, we just enjoyed walking the streets and eventually made our way to the trailhead next to our man Bolivar. The walk down to Guane, according to everything I read, was about “an hour walk.” It’s advertised as just under 5K, though one of the locals said it’s a little over 6. In my opinion, that’s a good walking/running pace…if you happen to be on flat ground or even pavement. This trail, however, was mostly rocks/boulders which would slow down most normal folks. The views of the valley were quite good, and we caught occasional glimpses of random lizards and birds (South American cardinals twice). We also stopped at Señor Esteban’s house on the way down for a few sodas and some fresh papaya. We hung out there for close to an hour, it seemed.
By that point, I was more interested in seeing the sunset and, as the day was getting long in the tooth, I talked my roomie into grabbing a taxi, bus, anything up the hill back to town. One of the other hikers at Esteban’s told us nothing really came by and it was easier to walk the last 40 minutes down to Guane (which was still about 3 km away) and just catch a bus there. Those 40 minutes turned out to be more than an hour.
As an aside, I’d like to mention the culinary delicacy of Barichara. They are quite proud of their hormigas culonas. (This literally translates to “fat-bottomed ants,” and yes…they eat them.) They’re considered to be an aphrodisiac. I mention this now because my roommate and I kept joking that we were stepping on someone’s dinner once in a while on the path.
When we arrived in Guane, we probably stayed less than 15 minutes. We walked to their main square, snapped a quick picture of the cathedral there, and then set to finding someone to negotiate a ride with to head back up to Barichara. We paid a guy (who seemed happier than a pig in slop) 25,000 to drive us the 9 km up the road to Barichara where he dropped us at Calle 1 and we watched what was a much cloudier and less-than-spectacular (compared with Saturday’s) sunset.
As I suspected, even with a “subpar” sunset, there were quite a few people at the pavilion. We didn’t stay until the end and just walked back down to our room for quick showers then dinner next to the main cathedral (underwhelming Italian) and a drink at the bar two doors down from where we’d been on Saturday night. (Of the three, this is the only one that was exclusively a bar; the others had limited menus.)
Monday morning brought an early start since we were doing the return trip all in one stretch. We were in a taxi by 7:30 and eventually got out at our apartment around 6:00 in the evening. For a first photo shoot in Colombia, I was pretty happy with how this turned out, though am looking forward to the next one in Cartagena in about 3 weeks.
**** THIS IS NOW OBSOLETE FUNCTIONALITY ****
screen 2 response opening to last place (or none).
Note the scale of the map may vary, (and can be varied to suit, even down to street level, by choosing the '+' and '-' signs).
Since the new Flickr Justified view layout, only examples 2 and 3 still apply.
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French postcard by EDUG, no. 58.
Some Hollywood stars were much more popular in Europe than at home. A fabulous example is sweet Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967), one of Hollywood's original platinum blonde bombshells. Although most of her American films did not do much at the European box offices, Jayne herself was a sensation whenever she came to Europe to promote her films. During the 1960s when Hollywood had lost its interest in her, Jayne continued to appear cheerfully in several European films.
For more postcards, a bio and clips check out our blog European Film Star Postcards Already over 3 million views! Or follow us at Tumblr or Pinterest.
Tribal Carpets of Afghanistan
To write effectively and intelligently about carpets from the tribal areas of Afghanistan and the former central Asian States of the USSR would require many years of experience and personal knowledge of these carpet making regions. Unfortunately, we don't qualify in any of these areas, but I do have a number of reference books written by experts in the field- and the following is a compilation of observations from these volumes.
This clause will only serve to help put the background of the carpet making areas in central Asia in some perspective, and to help identify some of the more recognizable afghan rug designs and characteristics of carpets from these areas. When one considers the source of carpets from Afghanistan and the Former States of the USSR one must realize that the tribal peoples of the mountains really dont comprehend or honour modern geopolitical borders. Specific tribes exist on both sides and across the modern borders as if they didnt exist. The Baluchi tribes for example, extend from Eastern Iran through Western Afghanistan and into Pakistan. Similarly, the Turkoman tribes extend all across the northern borders.
Herat, in the Western part of Afghanistan, has a history of over two thousand five hundred years and was once occupied by Alexander the Great, and subsequently invaded by Mongols led by Genghis Khan and then Tamerlan in the 13th century. Herat was considered part of the Persian Empire, and the Persian influence in carpet making in Herat is still seen.
Types Of Carpets
There are many names for the type of weavings found in Afghanistan and Central Asia. For example, in Herat and the Northern Turkmen tribes an ensi (or engsi) is a rug designed to serve as an internal tent door. This same design is called a Hatchli (or Hatchlu) in Iran, and a purdah (or purdhu) in other parts of Afghanistan - all of them referring to a door curtain or closure.
A young tribal girl who has been taught the art of carpet weaving from a young age would probably have the following carpets and weavings in her dowry:
One Main Carpet (ghali) 9ft.10in. x 7ft.
Two small rugs (dip ghali) 6ft. x 3ft.
One engsi
One decoration for over the engsi (kapunuk)
12 small personal belonging bags 2ft.x1.5ft. and 4ft.x 1.5 ft. (mafrash & torba)
two large bedding bags (chuval or Juwal) always made in pairs
three decorated tent-bands (aq yup) 50 ft long and 2 inch to 1 ft wide
Materials: The material used for making tribal rugs are basically what these nomads have at their immediate disposal: wool from their sheep which is used in the warp and weft as well as the pile. Some tribes use goat hair for overbidding the sides (selvedges) or rugs. Camel hair is especially prized for the field areas of prayer carpets. When possible the sheep are driven into streams to wash them prior to shearing. The wool is then sorted by color and quality and then combed and spun. The wool is then dyed one person can generally can generally spin one kilo per day.
Dyes: Natural dyes are still used, but since the 1950s pre-dyed wool yarn (using synthetic dyes) readily found in the towns and villages are often substituted for or combined with the natural dyes. The wild colors (some almost iridescent) often found in many Afghan carpets are surely synthetics. In natural dying, the yarn is presoaked in a fixing bath of alum, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, tin or urine. The yarn is then transferred to a dye bath and soaked until the desired color is obtained. The yarn is then washed and hung out to dry. Dying was usually done by the men. Natural dyes fade beautifully and often show as uneven coloring (abrash). Abrash (meaning speckled or marbled) is commonly the result of a weaver running out of wool and having to dye another lot or buying a similar color from elsewhere. Abrash in no way detracts from the value of a tribal carpet, but is a desirable characteristic of a tribal weaving. Naturally dyed wool will fade right through whereas synthetic dyes will fade only on the tips where the light hits it. A newer tribal carpet can be "mellowed" by placing it in the direct sun for several days.
Natural dyes originate from the following materials:
Reds: Madder - Root of Madder Plant - (ranges from reds to orange and purple)
Cochineal: produced from the female shield louse (Blue /red tone)
Lac Deep purple: from the excretions of a scale insect native to India Kermes. From an insect which breeds on the Kermes oak
Blues: Indigo plant (Dyers Wood)
Black: Can be achieved by using a very dark blue or by use of a bath of tannic acid, acorn cups, pomegranate skin, oak galls, and then adding to a bath iron sulphate to make the color fast. This can produce a weakness in the black wool which in carpets 50 to 100 years old can be seen as worn black areas where the remaining pile is still OK.
Yellow: Many sources including; Dyers weed; Saffron; wild chamomile; tanners sumac; buckthorn; pomegranate tree; isperek (a flowering larkspur)
Green: Obtained from walnuts and olive leaves? Or by blending blue and yellow agents
Brown: Can be natural undyed wool or by dying with fresh or dried pods of the walnut, oak guls or acorn cups.
Looms: Tribal carpets are almost always done on the horizontal or ground loom. This is due to the fact that the nomads rarely remain in one location for more than two months. The horizontal loom can be easily dismantled and packed on an animal to the new location and then staked out on the ground again. A Turkoman woman will usually take at least six months to finish a carpet 6ft.6in. by 4ft. The loom therefore can be set up and taken down four to six times before a carpet or Kelim is finished. This often results in different tensions in the warp threads and is the reason why tribal rugs often have an irregular shape. While this irregularity is part of the charm of a tribal rug, carpets which do not lie flat should be avoided
At the end of World War II, the victorious Allies captured both German scientists and research papers in aerodynamics which had given the Germans a slight edge in technology during the war. Among this was research into swept wings, which promised better handling at high speeds, a feature used successfully in the Messerschmitt Me 262. All the combatant nations had been developing jet fighters at the end of the war, and the Soviet Union was no different: like the Western Allies, it found the swept wing concept to be a perfect solution to add speed without sacrificing stability; unlike the West, the Soviets could not take advantage of it due to a lack of adequate jet engines. Soviet metallurgy was simply not up to the task, and experimental jet fighters were severely underpowered. Engine designer Vladimir Klimov, however, came up with a novel idea: he asked the British in 1946 if they could provide a few examples of their latest engine. To the stunned surprise of Klimov, the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau, and Josef Stalin, the British complied, providing Klimov with the plans for the Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet, one of the most successful jet engines in history. Klimov quickly reverse engineered it as the VK-1, and just like that, the Soviets had the perfect engine for their planned jet interceptors.
MiG OKB already had a jet fighter in service, the MiG-9, but it was a poor performer. By modifying a MiG-9 into the I-310 prototype, with VK-1 propulsion and swept wings and tail surfaces, the resultant aircraft was superb: it was very manueverable and fast. It was placed into production as the MiG-15. This in turn was superseded by the more advanced and reliable MiG-15bis, which added airbrakes and a few minor avionics changes. Though pilots hated the cramped cockpit, which forced them to fly without heated or pressurized flight suits—a real concern in frigid Russian winters—they loved its responsiveness and speed. Though the MiG-15 was designed to intercept the B-29 Superfortress, hence its heavy cannon armament, it could quite easily hold its own in a dogfight. It rapidly replaced most propeller-driven fighters in the Soviet inventory, and was quickly supplied to Soviet client states.
The MiG-15 would get its first taste of action during the Chinese Civil War, when Russian-flown MiG-15s flew on behalf of the Communist Chinese against the Nationalists; a P-38L was shot down on 28 April 1950 for the type’s first victory. By far, however, it would be Korea where the MiG-15 would see the most action.
After starting out well, the North Korean armies were, by fall 1950, in full rout from South Korea, pursued by United Nations forces. The World War II-era North Korean People’s Air Force had been annihilated by UN aircraft, and though China intended to intervene on behalf of North Korea, it lacked trained pilots. Stalin agreed to secretly provide both MiG-15s and the pilots to fly them, operating from bases in China across the Yalu River from North Korea. The pilots, under command of Soviet top ace Ivan Kozhedub, were instructed to speak in what little Korean they knew, and never fly over territory where they might be captured. The former was rarely heeded in the heat of combat, while the short range of the MiG-15 limited pilots to flying in and around the Yalu valley in any case. This rapidly became known as “MiG Alley.” By November 1950, Russian-flown MiG-15s were in combat against American and British aircraft, both sides fielding pilots who had already flown combat in World War II. Both sides were to find they were close to evenly matched as well: the Russians claimed the first jet-to-jet victory on 1 November, when a MiG-15 shot down a USAF F-80C; four days later, they suffered their first loss, to a US Navy F9F Panther. Most engagements were to occur between the F-86 Sabre and the MiG-15.
Once more, the two were closely matched. The MiG-15 had a better rate of climb, was superior above 33,000 feet, and had harder hitting cannon armament. The F-86’s six machine guns were often ineffective against the rugged MiG, but it was more manueverable, especially at low level, and if the machine guns did not cause as much damage, they fired at three times the rate of the MiG-15’s cannons, and usually hit what they aimed at, due to a superior radar-ranging gunsight. Both sides had to deal with instability at high speeds: if the MiG pilot got into trouble, he would climb out of danger, whereas the Sabre pilot would dive. The pilots were evenly matched, though the Russians would later admit that the Americans were better trained. Both sides overclaimed during the war, with both Soviet and American pilots claiming 12 to 1 kill ratios: the truth may never be known, though 40 Russians were awarded the title of ace during the war. The MiGs did succeed in one task, driving the B-29s into night attacks, after six were shot down or badly damaged on a single mission in October 1951.
Interestingly enough, the F-86 was as much a surprise to the Soviets as the MiG-15 was to the West, and both sides attempted to procure an example of the other. The United States’ Operation Moolah, offering $100,000 to any Eastern Bloc pilot who defected with a MiG-15, resulted in three MiG-15s, two flown by Polish pilots to Denmark and the third by North Korean pilot No Kum-Sok.
After the end of the Korean War, the MiG-15 remained in service, though it slowly began to be replaced by the MiG-17 and MiG-19. Nonetheless, MiG-15s were involved in eleven separate incidents during the Cold War, shooting down several US and British reconnaissance aircraft and an Israeli airliner. By the mid-1950s, however, the MiG-15 was beginning to show its age, and in combat with Sidewinder-equipped F-86s of Taiwan and Israeli Super Mysteres, it came off second best. Gradually, single-seat MiG-15s were retired from active service, though hundreds of two-seat MiG-15UTI “Midget” trainers remained in service; the MiG-15UTI is still flown by several air forces to this day. About 16,000 MiG-15s were produced in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechslovakia, and a good number remain in existence today in museums and numerous flyable examples, including 43 in the United States.
Though No Kum-Sok was not the first MiG-15 pilot to defect, he was the most famous, mainly because his MiG-15 was not returned to its previous owners. No took off from his base in North Korea on 21 September 1953 and landed at Kimpo, South Korea, where he asked for asylum. He had defected because his mother lived in South Korea, and was unaware of Operation Moolah--though he did not turn down the $100,000! No's MiG-15 was taken to Okinawa and flight tested, then was offered to its "rightful owners," either North Korea or the Soviet Union, to be returned. When neither country accepted, the MiG was taken to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and eventually placed on display at the National Museum of the USAF in 1957.
When I saw this aircraft as a kid in 1977, I don't recall if it had been repainted in North Korean DPRKAF colors, or was still in its "temporary" USAF registration. In any case, this is how No Kum-Sok's MiG-15 is displayed today, with its original markings and bare metal finish. The mannequin in the foreground is wearing No's actual flight gear. For many years, this was the only MiG-15 on display anywhere in the West, and it was good to see 2057 again.
As of this writing, No Kum-Sok is still alive and lives in the United States, though he has changed his name to Kenneth Rowe. EDIT (2023): No Kum-Sok passed away on January 6, 2023.
An example image from the five new illustrated Bible stories in the Genesis section of The Brick Testament website. See the full illustrated stories here.
The Ford Typewriter Company, New York, NY:
The striking Ford typewriter is a prime example of the late 19th century mechanical aesthetic, with its beautiful ornate grill and gracefully integrated keyboard.
It is a machine to grace the eyes but would not have endeared itself to the typist, as the keys are rather springy and wobbly when typing and the platen surprisingly does not have a line-by-line clicking action. Also the shift keys for capitals and figures require a solid push to operate, not a good design for fast typing. However, what the Ford did have was visible writing, allowing one to see the typed words on the platen as soon as they were typed. It was not the first to do this but most contemporary typewriters were still blind writers, requiring one to lift the carriage to see the last few typed lines.
The Ford was also innovative in being the first typewriter to use the new metal ‘aluminum’ in its construction.
The Martin Howard Collection
Baddesley Clinton is not one the grandest of houses, nor is it filled with rare works of art, but having been owned by one family, the Ferrers, since the 16th century and maintained largely intact and original, it is a rare example of the average early-modern home of the lesser gentry. Unlike such mansions as nearby Coughton Court, Baddesley Clinton is relatively small, even cozy, and one can easily imagine the life of the people who lived here. It is best known for being the home of the Jesuit Henry Garnet for almost 14 years, and the existence of several priest hides conceived and built by Nicholas Owen.
The Clintons settled here in the thirteenth century, when it was called just Baddesley, and added their name to the place. They were responsible for the digging of the moat that you see above. It was eventually sold in 1438 to John Brome, a wealthy lawyer, and the Bromes built most of the east and west sides of the house.
John Brome was the Under Treasurer of England but a Lancastrian, and when Henry VI was deposed in 1461 by the Yorkist claimant Edward IV, Brome lost all of his court appointments. He later quarreled with John Herthill, Steward to Richard "the Kingmaker", Earl of Warwick, and Herthill murdered him in 1468 on the porch of the Whitefriars Church in London. Brome's second son, Nicholas, who inherited the estate, eventually avenged his father's murder by killing Herthill in 1471.
Nicholas Brome seems to have had a taste for violence. According to Henry Ferrers, a later owner of the house, it was soon after inheriting Baddesley Clinton that Nicholas 'slew the minister of Baddesley Church findinge him in his plor (parlour) chockinge his wife under ye chinne, and to expiatt these bloody offenses and crimes he built the steeple and raysed the church body ten foote higher". He was pardoned for this killing by both the King and the Pope. Nicholas seems also to have developed a taste for building, and is thought to have been responsible for the building of much of the earliest part of the house. Baddesley Clinton passed into the hands of the Ferrers family in 1517, through the marriage of Nicholas Brome's daughter, Constance, to Sir Edward Ferrers.
The most interesting of the Ferrers is Henry Ferrers (1549-1633), the great-grandson of Sir Edward Ferrers, and contemporary with the times of the Gunpowder Plot. He inherited the property in 1564, and lived through the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I and James I, dying in the reign of Charles I. He carried out extensive building, including the wing that contains the Great Hall, as well as adding the Great Parlour above the existing entranceway. He also installed much oak paneling and mantels that are still there as well.
Henry Ferrers was an antiquarian, and spent a lifetime collecting historical information, much of which was later used by Sir William Dugdale in the 'Antiquities of Warwickshire'. This interest of his can be seen by the enormous amount of heraldic glass and devices throughout the house. He was trained in the law, and admitted to the Middle Temple in 1572. He may also have served a term as an MP for Cirencester in 1593.
After the death of Henry Ferrers, the fortunes of the Ferrers family fluctuated through periods of heavy taxation such as during the Civil War and in the early eighteenth century, followed by attempts by some generations to maintain and improve the property in better times. The last Ferrers in the direct male line, Marmion Edward Ferrers (1813-1884), was so poor that Lady Chatterton, the aunt of his wife Rebecca, and her husband, Edward Heneage Deering, had to come and live with him to share the expense. These two were only married because of a misunderstanding. It is said that Deering came to Lady Chatterly to ask permission to pay address to her niece, but she thought it was a proposal to her, and accepted. Deering, although she was old enough to be his mother, was too chivalrous to set the story straight!
The estate passed down through Marmion Edward Ferrer's nephew through several relatives, and it was Mr. Thomas Ferrers-Walker who eventually sold the house to the Government, after which it became part of the National Trust. The Ferrers Archive is kept at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Henry Ferrers was also a devout Catholic, but a cautious one and was never convicted for recusancy. He must have been aware of the activities of the Vaux sisters, who rented the house from him in the 1590's in order to secretly shelter Father Henry Garnet and other priests, and to be able to conduct catholic services. Soon after they rented the house, Anne Vaux had Nicholas Owen build secret hiding places, including one created out of the sewer and the moat.
A spectacular raid on Baddesley in October 1591 was recorded both by Father John Gerard in his Autobiography of an Elizabethan, and also by Father Henry Garnet in a letter to his Jesuit superior, Aquaviva. Several priests, including Garnet and Gerard, as well as lay assistants had risen early and were preparing to leave the house, when it was surrounded and all the approach roads blocked by pursuviants. The stable-boys, knowing that so many horses saddled and ready to go would be suspicious, armed themselves with farm implements and blocked the pursuviants attempt at violent entry. This bought some time for those inside the house, as the pursuviants had to resort to requests, and led them to believe that the lady of the house had not yet arisen. Those outside had to wait patiently, albeit not quietly, while those inside were quickly hiding away the priests, Catholic vestments, and all other signs of the presence of a Catholic priest, including the overturning of their mattresses so that the pursuviants could not feel the warmth.
The priests stood in the hiding place in the moat, ankle-deep in cold water for over four hours while the pursuviants tore through the house, although their attempts at intimidation seemed to have far outweighed their skills in searching. Anne Vaux said "here was a searcher pounding the walls in unbelievable fury, there another shifting side-tables, turning over beds. Yet, when any of them touched with their hand or foot the actual place where some sacred object was hidden, he paid not the slightest attention to the most obvious evidence of a contrivance."
The searchers turned up nothing, and eventually left after being paid off by Anne Vaux with twelve gold pieces. As Gerard later said, "Yes, that is the pitiful lot of Catholics when men come with a warrant ... it is the Catholics, not the men who send them, who have to pay. As if it were not enough to suffer, they have to pay for their suffering."
You can still inspect these hiding places today, and we must say they are not for those who are claustrophobic or faint of heart. Until you actually see them, it is hard to imagine the cramped, damp, dark and tomb-like conditions these priests endured.
The first of these is a lath and plaster hutch in the roof above a closet off the bedroom in the gatehouse block. It measures six feet three inches by four feet, and is three feet nine inches high. It contains two wooden benches and is lined with fine hair-plaster.
In the corner of the kitchen, where a garderobe once existed, you can see through to the medieval drain where the hiding place used by Father Gerard and Father Garnet was located. At the time, this could only be accessed through the garderobe shaft in the floor of the Sacristy above. A hiding space beneath the floor of the Library was accessed through the fireplace in the Great Parlour, and can now be viewed from the Moat Room. It was in the Library Room that Nicholas Brome was said to have murdered the priest, and it is reputed to be haunted.
For an excellent account of the priest holes and the work of Nicholas Owen at Baddesley Clinton, the article Elizabethan Priest Holes : III - East Anglia, Baddesley Clinton, Hindlip by Michael Hodgetts, and published in Recusant History, is a must read.
The house itself consists almost entirely of building done by either the Bromes in the fifteenth century or by Henry Ferrers in the sixteenth, and although much repair and alteration work has been carried out inside the house, the panelling, fireplaces and heraldic glass throughout the house all date from the work of Henry Ferrers.
Originally quadrangular in shape, the property today consists of only three blocks, the east including the gatehouse and the Great Parlour, the south containing the Hall, and the west containing the kitchen. The gatehouse and kitchen wing are of grey sandstone, whereas the Hall, which was reconstructed in the 18th century, is of brick.
The crenellated gatehouse is one of the house's most interesting features. The lower part with the gun ports was built by Nicholas Brome in the late fifteenth century, and is thought originally to have had a drawbridge. The upper part was re-formed by Henry Ferrers to accommodate the Great Parlour. The brick bridge was built in the early eighteenth century, and the crenelations added in the nineteenth century. The massive carved oak door in the gatehouse leading through to the courtyard dates from Nicholas Brome.
The present owners are still undertaking restoration work to enable all the documented priest hides and trapdoors to be made available for viewing, this work includes part of the moat tunnel complex that is presently plugged in order to prevent midges from penetrating into the Sacristy and bedrooms
Baddesley Clinton, although still a private dwelling was sold to the Government and passed to the National Trust in 1980 and opened to the public in 1982.
The above was copied from "The gunpowder plot" website.
Great to place to visit. If only there had been some sun!
Some examples of projects using conductive thread and LEDs. More information at tinkering.exploratorium.edu/sewn-circuits
In 1957, Piene and Heinz Mack founded the group ZERO. In 1961, Günther Uecker joined the group. In 1957 he developed the Grid Picture, a type of stencilled painting made from half-tone screens with regularly arranged points in single colours (yellow, silver, white or gold), for example Pure Energy (1958; New York, MOMA). Piene's work then developed in a variety of forms. The Lichtballette ("light ballet") (from 1959) were a development of the Grid Pictures: light from moving torches was projected through grids, thus extending and stimulating the viewer's perception of space. This series of works is inspired by László Moholy-Nagy's Light Space Modulator (1930) and Fernand Léger's Ballet Mécanique (1924).
Also in 1959, the combination of these grids with sources of fire (candles, gas-burners) produced smoke-traces and fire paintings, in which the paint was burnt. Piene created these Rauchbilder ("smoke pictures") as a reference to elementary natural energies. In the "fire paintings", he lightly burns a layer of solvent on pigmented paper, developing organic forms from the remnant, or the soot. He continues the practice of "smoke pictures" through today. Fire and smoke (their traces) are important elements in these pictures. Silver Fire from 1973, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, is an example of a "smoke picture". He experimented also with multimedia combinations. In 1963, together with Günther Uecker and Heinz Mack, he became spokesman of Neuen Idealismus ("the new idealism"). Piene is also noted for exploring new uses for broadcast television. In 1968, along with Aldo Tambellini, he produced Black Gate Cologne, which is cited as one of the first television programs produced by experimental visual artists.
1967 marks Piene's involvement with Sky art, a term he coined in 1969 and which allowed him to use landscape and cities themselves as the focal point of his work. For the closing of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Piene created the sky work Olympic Rainbow, made up of five differently coloured helium-filled polythene tubes, each one 600 m long. Between 1981 and 1986 Piene organized four Sky art conferences in the USA and Europe.
He took a stab at industrial design in the 1970s with a 500-piece run of the upscale Suomi tableware by Timo Sarpaneva that Piene decorated for the German Rosenthal porcelain maker's Studio Linie.
Working as the director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (C.A.V.S.) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Piene collaborated in the design of the kinetic sculpture performance Centerbeam first exhibited in Kassel, Germany in 1977. The C.A.V.S. allowed artists to work using sophisticated techniques and scientific partnership, promoting a highly collaborative environment.
In 1978, Piene was commissioned by the Smithsonian Art Collectors Program to create a print to benefit the educational and cultural programs of the Smithsonian Associates. The print was to commemorate a Washington, D.C. festival much like the 1977 exhibition in Kassel. Three lithographs resulted, all titled, Centerbeam, one of which hangs in the ongoing exhibition, Graphic Eloquence, in the S. Dillon Ripley Center in the National Mall.
In 1999, Piene presented his idea of a statue called Das Geleucht in the Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen for the first time. That monument in the form of a mining lamp ought to be built on the spoil tip Halde Rheinpreußen in Moers, with illumation at night. That project enthused the publicity but as recently as 2006 sponsors were found. Until 2007, the 30 metres (98 ft) high monument lightened the spoil tip every night.
Some examples of projects using conductive thread and LEDs. More information at tinkering.exploratorium.edu/sewn-circuits
The Black Ferns is New Zealand's national women's rugby union team.
The team's nickname combines the colour black and the silver fern, which are iconic New Zealand sporting symbols. For example, the All Blacks is New Zealand's famous men's rugby team, the Black Caps is the men's cricket team, the White Ferns is the women's cricket team, while the Silver Ferns is the national women's netball team.
The Black Ferns are the current Women's Rugby World Cup champions. They have won four consecutive World Cups, winning the first International Rugby Board (IRB)-sponsored Cup in 1998, the 2002 World Cup in Barcelona, the 2006 World Cup in Edmonton, Canada, and the 2010 World Cup in London, England. The Black Ferns have participated in most WRWC events since its inauguration in 1991, only missing the 1994 championship in Scotland. They also won the Canada Cup in 1996, 2000, and 2005, and the Churchill Cup in 2004.
Farah Palmer, who had been captain since 1997, lost her captaincy in 2005 due to a shoulder injury. However, she was honoured as International Women's (Rugby) Personality of the Year at the IRB Awards. During that year, Rochelle Martin and Anna Richards led the team in the 2005 test series against England, which the Black Ferns won 2-0. For the 5th Women's Rugby World Cup in Canada, Farah Palmer fought her way back into the Black Ferns team. After again leading the team to World Cup victory, Palmer announced her retirement from the Black Ferns in September 2006.[1]
While rugby is the most popular spectator game in New Zealand, the Black Ferns have suffered in the past from similar problems to any women's sport—under-funding, lack of support and lack of publicity. The New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) and IRB have been criticised for not doing more to promote women's rugby, although support is beginning to build in those organisations. The NZRU started funding the Black Ferns in 1995, thus giving a great boost to their game. Accordingly the Black Ferns have benefitted from being included in NZRU High Performance initiatives. Along with professional coaches the team has had access to professional development resources such as analysis. The Black Ferns have used Verusco Technologies TryMaker video analysis system, as used by the All Blacks. In more recent times, the team's profile has risen greatly at a grassroots level, due in great part to their string of successes, and it is increasingly seen to be a national team on the same basis as any other.
In January 2010 NZRU announced that the National Provincial Competition (NPC) will have to go due to budget cuts. This has been a shock for many women players especially since it is a World Cup year. Former captain Farah Palmer was one of the women who commented on that.[2] NZRU said women's domestic rugby is one of many victims of the tight financial times. They have faced a barrage of criticism for their decision. General manager of provincial rugby Neil Sorenson said NZRU is going to replace the competition with camps and trials for the Black Ferns.
After the Black Ferns won the World Cup in 2010 and due to efforts of many rugby players in New Zealand the NPC was re-installed. The Auckland Storm with Emma Jensen captaining the side, won the final against Canterbury 38-12 in Christchurch. It was the Auckland Storm 5th consecutive title.
Les Néo-Zélandaises se présentent comme les favorites naturelles du Mondial dames de rugby qui s'ouvre vendredi près de Paris, après avoir remporté les quatre dernières éditions, mais les hôtes françaises et les grandes rivales anglaises se tiennent en embuscade.
Les "Black Ferns" (Fougères noires) règnent sans partage sur le monde depuis 1998 et ont pris l'habitude, lors des trois dernières éditions, de contrarier les rêves anglais en finale. Victorieuses de leurs quatre matches de préparation contre l'Australie, les Samoa et le Canada (deux fois), les Néo-Zélandaises, dont les meilleures sont sous contrat fédéral et sont également championnes du monde à VII, semblent posséder un temps d'avance sur le plan technique et physique. Versées dans une poule B plutôt facile (avec l'Irlande, les États-Unis et le Kazakhstan), les Black Ferns devraient se roder lors de leurs trois premières rencontres disputées à Marcoussis, siège de la Fédération française de rugby à une trentaine de kilomètres au sud de Paris.
Parmi les douze équipes en lice pour cette septième édition, les Françaises font figure de sérieuses prétendantes après avoir remporté le Grand Chelem dans le Tournoi des six nations. Invaincues en 2014, les Bleues ont l'avantage du terrain, à condition de gérer la pression de l'événement. Elles devraient en théorie franchir l'obstacle d'une poule C comprenant le pays de Galles, l'Afrique du Sud et l'Australie. Les "Wallaroos" et les "Bleues" n'ont guère de repères les unes contre les autres, leur dernière opposition remontant au Mondial-2010 et au match pour la 3e place perdu par la France.
Les Anglaises (poule A) voudront, elles, chasser l'amertume du dernier Mondial: elles s'étaient inclinées au Twickenham Stoop d'un cheveu contre les Néo-Zélandaises (13-10) au terme d'une finale à fort suspense. Mais leurs Tournois des six nations 2013 (3e place) (...)
The Ajanta Caves (Ajiṇṭhā leni; Marathi: अजिंठा लेणी) in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, India are about 30 rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments which date from the 2nd century BCE to about 480 or 650 CE. The caves include paintings and sculptures described by the government Archaeological Survey of India as "the finest surviving examples of Indian art, particularly painting", which are masterpieces of Buddhist religious art, with figures of the Buddha and depictions of the Jataka tales. The caves were built in two phases starting around the 2nd century BCE, with the second group of caves built around 400–650 CE according to older accounts, or all in a brief period of 460 to 480 according to the recent proposals of Walter M. Spink. The site is a protected monument in the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, and since 1983, the Ajanta Caves have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The caves are located in the Indian state of Maharashtra, near Jalgaon and just outside the village of Ajinṭhā 20°31′56″N 75°44′44″E), about 59 kilometres from Jalgaon railway station on the Delhi – Mumbai line and Howrah-Nagpur-Mumbai line of the Central Railway zone, and 104 kilometres from the city of Aurangabad. They are 100 kilometres from the Ellora Caves, which contain Hindu and Jain temples as well as Buddhist caves, the last dating from a period similar to Ajanta. The Ajanta caves are cut into the side of a cliff that is on the south side of a U-shaped gorge on the small river Waghur, and although they are now along and above a modern pathway running across the cliff they were originally reached by individual stairs or ladders from the side of the river 35 to 110 feet below.
The area was previously heavily forested, and after the site ceased to be used the caves were covered by jungle until accidentally rediscovered in 1819 by a British officer on a hunting party. They are Buddhist monastic buildings, apparently representing a number of distinct "monasteries" or colleges. The caves are numbered 1 to 28 according to their place along the path, beginning at the entrance. Several are unfinished and some barely begun and others are small shrines, included in the traditional numbering as e.g. "9A"; "Cave 15A" was still hidden under rubble when the numbering was done. Further round the gorge are a number of waterfalls, which when the river is high are audible from outside the caves.
The caves form the largest corpus of early Indian wall-painting; other survivals from the area of modern India are very few, though they are related to 5th-century paintings at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka. The elaborate architectural carving in many caves is also very rare, and the style of the many figure sculptures is highly local, found only at a few nearby contemporary sites, although the Ajanta tradition can be related to the later Hindu Ellora Caves and other sites.
HISTORY
Like the other ancient Buddhist monasteries, Ajanta had a large emphasis on teaching, and was divided into several different caves for living, education and worship, under a central direction. Monks were probably assigned to specific caves for living. The layout reflects this organizational structure, with most of the caves only connected through the exterior. The 7th-century travelling Chinese scholar Xuanzang informs us that Dignaga, a celebrated Buddhist philosopher and controversialist, author of well-known books on logic, lived at Ajanta in the 5th century. In its prime the settlement would have accommodated several hundred teachers and pupils. Many monks who had finished their first training may have returned to Ajanta during the monsoon season from an itinerant lifestyle.
The caves are generally agreed to have been made in two distinct periods, separated by several centuries.
CAVES OF THE FIRST (SATAVAHANA) PERIOD
The earliest group of caves consists of caves 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15A. According to Walter Spink, they were made during the period 100 BCE to 100 CE, probably under the patronage of the Satavahana dynasty (230 BCE – c. 220 CE) who ruled the region. Other datings prefer the period 300 BCE to 100 BCE, though the grouping of the earlier caves is generally agreed. More early caves may have vanished through later excavations. Of these, caves 9 and 10 are stupa halls of chaitya-griha form, and caves 12, 13, and 15A are vihāras (see the architecture section below for descriptions of these types). The first phase is still often called the Hinayāna phase, as it originated when, using traditional terminology, the Hinayāna or Lesser Vehicle tradition of Buddhism was dominant, when the Buddha was revered symbolically. However the use of the term Hinayana for this period of Buddhism is now deprecated by historians; equally the caves of the second period are now mostly dated too early to be properly called Mahayana, and do not yet show the full expanded cast of supernatural beings characteristic of that phase of Buddhist art. The first Satavahana period caves lacked figurative sculpture, emphasizing the stupa instead, and in the caves of the second period the overwhelming majority of images represent the Buddha alone, or narrative scenes of his lives.
Spink believes that some time after the Satavahana period caves were made the site was abandoned for a considerable period until the mid-5th century, probably because the region had turned mainly Hindu
CAVES OF THE LATER OR VAKATAKA PERIOD
The second phase began in the 5th century. For a long time it was thought that the later caves were made over a long period from the 4th to the 7th centuries CE, but in recent decades a series of studies by the leading expert on the caves, Walter M. Spink, have argued that most of the work took place over the very brief period from 460 to 480 CE, during the reign of Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka dynasty. This view has been criticized by some scholars, but is now broadly accepted by most authors of general books on Indian art, for example Huntington and Harle.
The second phase is still often called the Mahāyāna or Greater Vehicle phase, but scholars now tend to avoid this nomenclature because of the problems that have surfaced regarding our understanding of Mahāyāna.
Some 20 cave temples were simultaneously created, for the most part viharas with a sanctuary at the back. The most elaborate caves were produced in this period, which included some "modernization" of earlier caves. Spink claims that it is possible to establish dating for this period with a very high level of precision; a fuller account of his chronology is given below. Although debate continues, Spink's ideas are increasingly widely accepted, at least in their broad conclusions. The Archaeological Survey of India website still presents the traditional dating: "The second phase of paintings started around 5th – 6th centuries A.D. and continued for the next two centuries". Caves of the second period are 1–8, 11, 14–29, some possibly extensions of earlier caves. Caves 19, 26, and 29 are chaitya-grihas, the rest viharas.
According to Spink, the Ajanta Caves appear to have been abandoned by wealthy patrons shortly after the fall of Harishena, in about 480 CE. They were then gradually abandoned and forgotten. During the intervening centuries, the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed, although the local population were aware of at least some of them.
REDISCOVERY
On 28 April 1819, a British officer for the Madras Presidency, John Smith, of the 28th Cavalry, while hunting tiger, accidentally discovered the entrance to Cave No. 10 deep within the tangled undergrowth. There were local people already using the caves for prayers with a small fire, when he arrived. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other larger animals, Captain Smith vandalized the wall by scratching his name and the date, April 1819. Since he stood on a five-foot high pile of rubble collected over the years, the inscription is well above the eye-level gaze of an adult today. A paper on the caves by William Erskine was read to the Bombay Literary Society in 1822. Within a few decades, the caves became famous for their exotic setting, impressive architecture, and above all their exceptional, all but unique paintings. A number of large projects to copy the paintings were made in the century after rediscovery, covered below. In 1848 the Royal Asiatic Society established the "Bombay Cave Temple Commission" to clear, tidy and record the most important rock-cut sites in the Bombay Presidency, with John Wilson, as president. In 1861 this became the nucleus of the new Archaeological Survey of India. Until the Nizam of Hyderabad built the modern path between the caves, among other efforts to make the site easy to visit, a trip to Ajanta was a considerable adventure, and contemporary accounts dwell with relish on the dangers from falls off narrow ledges, animals and the Bhil people, who were armed with bows and arrows and had a fearsome reputation.
Today, fairly easily combined with Ellora in a single trip, the caves are the most popular tourist destination in Mahrashtra, and are often crowded at holiday times, increasing the threat to the caves, especially the paintings. In 2012, the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation announced plans to add to the ASI visitor centre at the entrance complete replicas of caves 1, 2, 16 & 17 to reduce crowding in the originals, and enable visitors to receive a better visual idea of the paintings, which are dimly-lit and hard to read in the caves. Figures for the year to March 2010 showed a total of 390,000 visitors to the site, divided into 362,000 domestic and 27,000 foreign. The trends over the previous few years show a considerable growth in domestic visitors, but a decline in foreign ones; the year to 2010 was the first in which foreign visitors to Ellora exceeded those to Ajanta.
PAINTINGS
Mural paintings survive from both the earlier and later groups of caves. Several fragments of murals preserved from the earlier caves (Caves 9 and 11) are effectively unique survivals of court-led painting in India from this period, and "show that by Sātavāhana times, if not earlier, the Indian painter had mastered an easy and fluent naturalistic style, dealing with large groups of people in a manner comparable to the reliefs of the Sāñcī toraņa crossbars".
Four of the later caves have large and relatively well-preserved mural paintings which "have come to represent Indian mural painting to the non-specialist", and fall into two stylistic groups, with the most famous in Caves 16 and 17, and apparently later paintings in Caves 1 and 2. The latter group were thought to be a century or more later than the others, but the revised chronology proposed by Spink would place them much closer to the earlier group, perhaps contemporary with it in a more progressive style, or one reflecting a team from a different region. The paintings are in "dry fresco", painted on top of a dry plaster surface rather than into wet plaster.
All the paintings appear to be the work of painters at least as used to decorating palaces as temples, and show a familiarity with and interest in details of the life of a wealthy court. We know from literary sources that painting was widely practised and appreciated in the courts of the Gupta period. Unlike much Indian painting, compositions are not laid out in horizontal compartments like a frieze, but show large scenes spreading in all directions from a single figure or group at the centre. The ceilings are also painted with sophisticated and elaborate decorative motifs, many derived from sculpture. The paintings in cave 1, which according to Spink was commissioned by Harisena himself, concentrate on those Jataka tales which show previous lives of the Buddha as a king, rather than as an animal or human commoner, and so show settings from contemporary palace life.
In general the later caves seem to have been painted on finished areas as excavating work continued elsewhere in the cave, as shown in caves 2 and 16 in particular. According to Spink's account of the chronology of the caves, the abandonment of work in 478 after a brief busy period accounts for the absence of painting in caves such as 4 and 17, the later being plastered in preparation for paintings that were never done.
COPIES
The paintings have deteriorated significantly since they were rediscovered, and a number of 19th-century copies and drawings are important for a complete understanding of the works. However, the earliest projects to copy the paintings were plagued by bad fortune. In 1846, Major Robert Gill, an Army officer from Madras presidency and a painter, was appointed by the Royal Asiatic Society to replicate the frescoes on the cave walls to exhibit these paintings in England. Gill worked on his painting at the site from 1844 to 1863 (though he continued to be based there until his death in 1875, writing books and photographing) and made 27 copies of large sections of murals, but all but four were destroyed in a fire at the Crystal Palace in London in 1866, where they were on display.
Another attempt was made in 1872 when the Bombay Presidency commissioned John Griffiths, then principal of the Bombay School of Art, to work with his students to make new copies, again for shipping to England. They worked on this for thirteen years and some 300 canvases were produced, many of which were displayed at the Imperial Institute on Exhibition Road in London, one of the forerunners of the Victoria and Albert Museum. But in 1885 another fire destroyed over a hundred paintings that were in storage. The V&A still has 166 paintings surviving from both sets, though none have been on permanent display since 1955. The largest are some 3 × 6 metres. A conservation project was undertaken on about half of them in 2006, also involving the University of Northumbria. Griffith and his students had unfortunately painted many of the paintings with "cheap varnish" in order to make them easier to see, which has added to the deterioration of the originals, as has, according to Spink and others, recent cleaning by the ASI.
A further set of copies were made between 1909 and 1911 by Christiana Herringham (Lady Herringham) and a group of students from the Calcutta School of Art that included the future Indian Modernist painter Nandalal Bose. The copies were published in full colour as the first publication of London's fledgling India Society. More than the earlier copies, these aimed to fill in holes and damage to recreate the original condition rather than record the state of the paintings as she was seeing them. According to one writer, unlike the paintings created by her predecessors Griffiths and Gill, whose copies were influenced by British Victorian styles of painting, those of the Herringham expedition preferred an 'Indian Renascence' aesthetic of the type pioneered by Abanindranath Tagore.
Early photographic surveys were made by Robert Gill, who learnt to use a camera from about 1856, and whose photos, including some using stereoscopy, were used in books by him and Fergusson (many are available online from the British Library), then Victor Goloubew in 1911 and E.L. Vassey, who took the photos in the four volume study of the caves by Ghulam Yazdani (published 1930–1955).
ARCHITECTURE
The monasteries mostly consist of vihara halls for prayer and living, which are typically rectangular with small square dormitory cells cut into the walls, and by the second period a shrine or sanctuary at the rear centred on a large statue of the Buddha, also carved from the living rock. This change reflects the movement from Hinayana to Mahāyāna Buddhism. The other type of main hall is the narrower and higher chaitya hall with a stupa as the focus at the far end, and a narrow aisle around the walls, behind a range of pillars placed close together. Other plainer rooms were for sleeping and other activities. Some of the caves have elaborate carved entrances, some with large windows over the door to admit light. There is often a colonnaded porch or verandah, with another space inside the doors running the width of the cave.
The central square space of the interior of the viharas is defined by square columns forming a more or less square open area. Outside this are long rectangular aisles on each side, forming a kind of cloister. Along the side and rear walls are a number of small cells entered by a narrow doorway; these are roughly square, and have small niches on their back walls. Originally they had wooden doors. The centre of the rear wall has a larger shrine-room behind, containing a large Buddha statue. The viharas of the earlier period are much simpler, and lack shrines. Spink in fact places the change to a design with a shrine to the middle of the second period, with many caves being adapted to add a shrine in mid-excavation, or after the original phase.
The plan of Cave 1 shows one of the largest viharas, but is fairly typical of the later group. Many others, such as Cave 16, lack the vestibule to the shrine, which leads straight off the main hall. Cave 6 is two viharas, one above the other, connected by internal stairs, with sanctuaries on both levels.
The four completed chaitya halls are caves 9 and 10 from the early period, and caves 19 and 26 from the later period of construction. All follow the typical form found elsewhere, with high ceilings and a central "nave" leading to the stupa, which is near the back, but allows walking behind it, as walking around stupas was (and remains) a common element of Buddhist worship (pradakshina). The later two have high ribbed roofs, which reflect timber forms, and the earlier two are thought to have used actual timber ribs, which have now perished. The two later halls have a rather unusual arrangement (also found in Cave 10 at Ellora) where the stupa is fronted by a large relief sculpture of the Buddha, standing in Cave 19 and seated in Cave 26. Cave 29 is a late and very incomplete chaitya hall.
The form of columns in the work of the first period is very plain and un-embellished, with both chaitya halls using simple octagonal columns, which were painted with figures. In the second period columns were far more varied and inventive, often changing profile over their height, and with elaborate carved capitals, often spreading wide. Many columns are carved over all their surface, some fluted and others carved with decoration all over, as in cave 1.
The flood basalt rock of the cliff, part of the Deccan Traps formed by successive volcanic eruptions at the end of the Cretaceous, is layered horizontally, and somewhat variable in quality, so the excavators had to amend their plans in places, and in places there have been collapses in the intervening centuries, as with the lost portico to cave 1. Excavation began by cutting a narrow tunnel at roof level, which was expanded downwards and outwards; the half-built vihara cave 24 shows the method. Spink believes that for the first caves of the second period the excavators had to relearn skills and techniques that had been lost in the centuries since the first period, which were then transmitted to be used at later rock-cut sites in the region, such as Ellora, and the Elephanta, Bagh, Badami and Aurangabad Caves.
The caves from the first period seem to have been paid for by a number of different patrons, with several inscriptions recording the donation of particular portions of a single cave, but according to Spink the later caves were each commissioned as a complete unit by a single patron from the local rulers or their court elites. After the death of Harisena smaller donors got their chance to add small "shrinelets" between the caves or add statues to existing caves, and some two hundred of these "intrusive" additions were made in sculpture, with a further number of intrusive paintings, up to three hundred in cave 10 alone.
A grand gateway to the site, at the apex of the gorge's horsehoe between caves 15 and 16, was approached from the river, and is decorated with elephants on either side and a nāga, or protective snake deity.
ICONOGRAPHY OF THE CAVES
In the pre-Christian era, the Buddha was represented symbolically, in the form of the stupa. Thus, halls were made with stupas to venerate the Buddha. In later periods the images of the Buddha started to be made in coins, relic caskets, relief or loose sculptural forms, etc. However, it took a while for the human representation of the Buddha to appear in Buddhist art. One of the earliest evidences of the Buddha's human representations are found at Buddhist archaeological sites, such as Goli, Nagarjunakonda, and Amaravati. The monasteries of those sites were built in less durable media, such as wood, brick, and stone. As far as the genre of rock-cut architecture is concerned it took many centuries for the Buddha image to be depicted. Nobody knows for sure at which rock-cut cave site the first image of the Buddha was depicted. Current research indicates that Buddha images in a portable form, made of wood or stone, were introduced, for the first time, at Kanheri, to be followed soon at Ajanta Cave 8 (Dhavalikar, Jadhav, Spink, Singh). While the Kanheri example dates to 4th or 5th century CE, the Ajanta example has been dated to c. 462–478 CE (Spink). None of the rock-cut monasteries prior to these dates, and other than these examples, show any Buddha image although hundreds of rock-cut caves were made throughout India during the first few centuries CE. And, in those caves, it is the stupa that is the object of veneration, not the image. Images of the Buddha are not found in Buddhist sailagrhas (rock-cut complexes) until the times of the Kanheri (4th–5th century CE) and Ajanta examples (c. 462–478 CE).
The caves of the second period, now all dated to the 5th century, were typically described as "Mahayana", but do not show the features associated with later Mahayana Buddhism. Although the beginnings of Mahāyāna teachings go back to the 1st century there is little art and archaeological evidence to suggest that it became a mainstream cult for several centuries. In Mahayana it is not Gautama Buddha but the Bodhisattva who is important, including "deity" Bodhisattva like Manjushri and Tara, as well as aspects of the Buddha such as Aksobhya, and Amitabha. Except for a few Bodhisattva, these are not depicted at Ajanta, where the Buddha remains the dominant figure. Even the Bodhisattva images of Ajanta are never central objects of worship, but are always shown as attendants of the Buddha in the shrine. If a Bodhisattva is shown in isolation, as in the Astabhaya scenes, these were done in the very last years of activities at Ajanta, and are mostly 'intrusive' in nature, meaning that they were not planned by the original patrons, and were added by new donors after the original patrons had suddenly abandoned the region in the wake of Emperor Harisena's death.
The contrast between iconic and aniconic representations, that is, the stupa on one hand and the image of the Buddha on the other, is now being seen as a construct of the modern scholar rather than a reality of the past. The second phase of Ajanta shows that the stupa and image coincided together. If the entire corpus of the art of Ajanta including sculpture, iconography, architecture, epigraphy, and painting are analysed afresh it will become clear that there was no duality between the symbolic and human forms of the Buddha, as far as the 5th-century phase of Ajanta is concerned. That is why most current scholars tend to avoid the terms 'Hinayana' and 'Mahayana' in the context of Ajanta. They now prefer to call the second phase by the ruling dynasty, as the Vākāţaka phase.
CAVES
CAVE 1
Cave 1 was built on the eastern end of the horse-shoe shaped scarp, and is now the first cave the visitor encounters. This would when first made have been a less prominent position, right at the end of the row. According to Spink, it is one of the latest caves to have been excavated, when the best sites had been taken, and was never fully inaugurated for worship by the dedication of the Buddha image in the central shrine. This is shown by the absence of sooty deposits from butter lamps on the base of the shrine image, and the lack of damage to the paintings that would have been happened if the garland-hooks around the shrine had been in use for any period of time. Although there is no epigraphic evidence, Spink believes that the Vākāţaka Emperor Harishena was the benefactor of the work, and this is reflected in the emphasis on imagery of royalty in the cave, with those Jakata tales being selected that tell of those previous lives of the Buddha in which he was royal.
The cliff has a more steep slope here than at other caves, so to achieve a tall grand facade it was necessary to cut far back into the slope, giving a large courtyard in front of the facade. There was originally a columned portico in front of the present facade, which can be seen "half-intact in the 1880s" in pictures of the site, but this fell down completely and the remains, despite containing fine carving, were carelessly thrown down the slope into the river, from where they have been lost, presumably carried away in monsoon torrents.
This cave has one of the most elaborate carved façades, with relief sculptures on entablature and ridges, and most surfaces embellished with decorative carving. There are scenes carved from the life of the Buddha as well as a number of decorative motifs. A two pillared portico, visible in the 19th-century photographs, has since perished. The cave has a front-court with cells fronted by pillared vestibules on either side. These have a high plinth level. The cave has a porch with simple cells on both ends. The absence of pillared vestibules on the ends suggest that the porch was not excavated in the latest phase of Ajanta when pillared vestibules had become a necessity and norm. Most areas of the porch were once covered with murals, of which many fragments remain, especially on the ceiling. There are three doorways: a central doorway and two side doorways. Two square windows were carved between the doorways to brighten the interiors.
Each wall of the hall inside is nearly 12 m long and 6.1 m high. Twelve pillars make a square colonnade inside supporting the ceiling, and creating spacious aisles along the walls. There is a shrine carved on the rear wall to house an impressive seated image of the Buddha, his hands being in the dharmachakrapravartana mudra. There are four cells on each of the left, rear, and the right walls, though due to rock fault there are none at the ends of the rear aisle. The walls are covered with paintings in a fair state of preservation, though the full scheme was never completed. The scenes depicted are mostly didactic, devotional, and ornamental, with scenes from the Jataka stories of the Buddha's former existences as a bodhisattva), the life of the Gautama Buddha, and those of his veneration. The two most famous individual painted images at Ajanta are the two over-life size figures of the protective bodhisattvas Padmapani and Vajrapani on either side of the entrance to the Buddha shrine on the wall of the rear aisle (see illustrations above). According to Spink, the original dating of the paintings to about 625 arose largely or entirely because James Fegusson, a 19th-century architectural historian, had decided that a scene showing an ambassador being received, with figures in Persian dress, represented a recorded embassy to Persia (from a Hindu monarch at that) around that date.
CAVE 2
Cave 2, adjacent to Cave 1, is known for the paintings that have been preserved on its walls, ceilings, and pillars. It looks similar to Cave 1 and is in a better state of preservation.
Cave 2 has a porch quite different from Cave one. Even the façade carvings seem to be different. The cave is supported by robust pillars, ornamented with designs. The front porch consists of cells supported by pillared vestibules on both ends. The cells on the previously "wasted areas" were needed to meet the greater housing requirements in later years. Porch-end cells became a trend in all later Vakataka excavations. The simple single cells on porch-ends were converted into CPVs or were planned to provide more room, symmetry, and beauty.
The paintings on the ceilings and walls of this porch have been widely published. They depict the Jataka tales that are stories of the Buddha's life in former existences as Bodhisattva. Just as the stories illustrated in cave 1 emphasize kingship, those in cave 2 show many "noble and powerful" women in prominent roles, leading to suggestions that the patron was an unknown woman. The porch's rear wall has a doorway in the center, which allows entrance to the hall. On either side of the door is a square-shaped window to brighten the interior.
The hall has four colonnades which are supporting the ceiling and surrounding a square in the center of the hall. Each arm or colonnade of the square is parallel to the respective walls of the hall, making an aisle in between. The colonnades have rock-beams above and below them. The capitals are carved and painted with various decorative themes that include ornamental, human, animal, vegetative, and semi-divine forms.
Paintings appear on almost every surface of the cave except for the floor. At various places the art work has become eroded due to decay and human interference. Therefore, many areas of the painted walls, ceilings, and pillars are fragmentary. The painted narratives of the Jataka tales are depicted only on the walls, which demanded the special attention of the devotee. They are didactic in nature, meant to inform the community about the Buddha's teachings and life through successive rebirths. Their placement on the walls required the devotee to walk through the aisles and 'read' the narratives depicted in various episodes. The narrative episodes are depicted one after another although not in a linear order. Their identification has been a core area of research since the site's rediscovery in 1819. Dieter Schlingloff's identifications have updated our knowledge on the subject.
CAVE 4
The Archeological Survey of India board outside the caves gives the following detail about cave 4: "This is the largest monastery planned on a grandiose scale but was never finished. An inscription on the pedestal of the buddha's image mentions that it was a gift from a person named Mathura and paleographically belongs to 6th century A.D. It consists of a verandah, a hypostylar hall, sanctum with an antechamber and a series of unfinished cells. The rear wall of the verandah contains the panel of Litany of Avalokiteśvara".
The sanctuary houses a colossal image of the Buddha in preaching pose flanked by bodhisattvas and celestial nymphs hovering above.
CAVES 9-10
Caves 9 and 10 are the two chaitya halls from the first period of construction, though both were also undergoing an uncompleted reworking at the end of the second period. Cave 10 was perhaps originally of the 1st century BCE, and cave 9 about a hundred years later. The small "shrinelets" called caves 9A to 9D and 10A also date from the second period, and were commissioned by individuals.
The paintings in cave 10 include some surviving from the early period, many from an incomplete programme of modernization in the second period, and a very large number of smaller late intrusive images, nearly all Buddhas and many with donor inscriptions from individuals. These mostly avoided over-painting the "official" programme and after the best positions were used up are tucked away in less prominent positions not yet painted; the total of these (including those now lost) was probably over 300, and the hands of many different artists are visible.
OTHER CAVES
Cave 3 is merely a start of an excavation; according to Spink it was begun right at the end of the final period of work and soon abandoned. Caves 5 and 6 are viharas, the latter on two floors, that were late works of which only the lower floor of cave 6 was ever finished. The upper floor of cave 6 has many private votive sculptures, and a shrine Buddha, but is otherwise unfinished. Cave 7 has a grand facade with two porticos but, perhaps because of faults in the rock, which posed problems in many caves, was never taken very deep into the cliff, and consists only of the two porticos and a shrine room with antechamber, with no central hall. Some cells were fitted in.
Cave 8 was long thought to date to the first period of construction, but Spink sees it as perhaps the earliest cave from the second period, its shrine an "afterthought". The statue may have been loose rather than carved from the living rock, as it has now vanished. The cave was painted, but only traces remain.
SPINK´S DETAILED CHRONOLOGY
Walter M. Spink has over recent decades developed a very precise and circumstantial chronology for the second period of work on the site, which unlike earlier scholars, he places entirely in the 5th century. This is based on evidence such as the inscriptions and artistic style, combined with the many uncompleted elements of the caves. He believes the earlier group of caves, which like other scholars he dates only approximately, to the period "between 100 BCE – 100 CE", were at some later point completely abandoned and remained so "for over three centuries", as the local population had turned mainly Hindu. This changed with the accession of the Emperor Harishena of the Vakataka Dynasty, who reigned from 460 to his death in 477. Harisena extended the Central Indian Vakataka Empire to include a stretch of the east coast of India; the Gupta Empire ruled northern India at the same period, and the Pallava dynasty much of the south.
According to Spink, Harisena encouraged a group of associates, including his prime minister Varahadeva and Upendragupta, the sub-king in whose territory Ajanta was, to dig out new caves, which were individually commissioned, some containing inscriptions recording the donation. This activity began in 462 but was mostly suspended in 468 because of threats from the neighbouring Asmaka kings. Work continued on only caves 1, Harisena's own commission, and 17–20, commissioned by Upendragupta. In 472 the situation was such that work was suspended completely, in a period that Spink calls "the Hiatus", which lasted until about 475, by which time the Asmakas had replaced Upendragupta as the local rulers.
Work was then resumed, but again disrupted by Harisena's death in 477, soon after which major excavation ceased, except at cave 26, which the Asmakas were sponsoring themselves. The Asmakas launched a revolt against Harisena's son, which brought about the end of the Vakataka Dynasty. In the years 478–480 major excavation by important patrons was replaced by a rash of "intrusions" – statues added to existing caves, and small shrines dotted about where there was space between them. These were commissioned by less powerful individuals, some monks, who had not previously been able to make additions to the large excavations of the rulers and courtiers. They were added to the facades, the return sides of the entrances, and to walls inside the caves. According to Spink, "After 480, not a single image was ever made again at the site", and as Hinduism again dominated the region, the site was again abandoned, this time for over a millennium.
Spink does not use "circa" in his dates, but says that "one should allow a margin of error of one year or perhaps even two in all cases".
IMPACT ON MODERN INDIAN PAINTINGS
The Ajanta paintings, or more likely the general style they come from, influenced painting in Tibet and Sri Lanka.
The rediscovery of ancient Indian paintings at Ajanta provided Indian artists examples from ancient India to follow. Nandlal Bose experimented with techniques to follow the ancient style which allowed him to develop his unique style. Abanindranath Tagore also used the Ajanta paintings for inspiration.
WIKIPEDIA
Drug treatment courts are an excellent example of a successful deviation from established practice. They were created by sitting criminal court judges, overwhelmed and appalled by the real world they saw before them each day. Not only do drug treatment courts introduce new concepts and practices to the legal community, but they do so while protecting the defendant’s procedural and substantive rights.
Judge Peggy Hora retired from the California Superior Court after serving 21 years. She had a criminal assignment that included presiding over the Drug Treatment Court. She is a former dean of the B.E. Witkin Judicial College of California and has been on the faculty of the National Judicial College over 15 years. She is a recipient of the Bernard S. Jefferson Judicial Education Award from the California Judges’ Association and winner of the Rose Bird Award from California Women Lawyers. Judge Hora is a Senior Judicial Fellow for the National Drug Court Institute. She has lectured nationally and internationally and has written extensively on justice issues. The appellate court and over 100 journals and law reviews have cited her work. She is a 2009 Thinker in Residence appointed by the Premier of South Australia, where she is currently working on therapeutic jurisprudence and restorative justice issues for the government in Adelaide. Her most recent article, “Courting New Solutions Using Problem-Solving Justice: Key Components, Guiding Principles, Strategies, Responses, Models, Approaches, Blueprints and Tool Kits” will be published by the Chapman Law Review this spring.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
Another example of design # 56 B published in the pattern book "New Model Dwellings" by George F. Barber, architect.
When EVR ordered 16 DF7G-E type locos from China Northern, this represented the first order for the company from an EU country. Subsequently only two were ever delivered when EVR cancelled the order for the other 14 examples. The pair are seen at Ülemiste, on the outskirts of Tallinn, 06/10/16
"Either be a good example or a horrible warning"
Latest sign on the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. This is hard to photograph from the bus -it has to stop at a light behind some cars to be in the right place.
The sign is in Portland, Oregon. (On the Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, between Portland and Beaverton). I have no affiliation - I just drive or ride the bus past the sign most days. The sign is located here (via mapquest).
Example of noise reduction using multiple exposures.
These are crops at 800% from the sky of a photo taken in daylight with CirPol, ND and ND Grad filters giving a 1.3 second exposure.
A digicam owner would no doubt be pleased with the result in frame one, but the result from averaging 4 frames from a DSLR is quite remarkably smooth! Reducing the noise effectively increases the dynamic range, giving more scope for post-processing.
See Sean McHugh's wonderful tutorials for more information.
DR7483
This is a rare example of BMC Australia's six-cylinder 24/80! I wasn't actually aware of a six-cylinder Wolseley, and I simply thought this was a British version, like all other Wolseleys on display.
This one was in superb condition, and would be a fairly swift vehicle with a 2.4-litre motor in it!
The two-tone paintwork looks particularly nice indeed...
I've had my GX7 for a week tomorrow, and have stumbled on a rather interesting problem. In semi dark conditions I sometime get a strong stripy pattern in my pictures, especially when shot with a high ISO. An example is seen in this picture It was shot with an ISO 800 and f2 at 1/200.
These stripes where not there, though there were patterns of light and dark than might have been accentuated. I had the same problem yesterday, when taking pictures indoors during a lecture: Strong stripes that clearly was not there from the beginning. It looks like a moiré problem to me, probably due to the lack of a anti aliasing filter.
If you have a name that others have you will get options as you type it in - you can drop down & select it. (as you will see in Example 2) Also the SEO will show the top choices in popularity to that search. Welsh soprano Gwyneth Jones the soprano has had a LONG career (& she's amazing!) - then the English Novelist Gwyneth Jones comes up #2 --#3 is another author (not me!)....and finally, 4 &5 are my Twitter name & blog.
More on SEO -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization