View allAll Photos Tagged Is
The ‘newspaper stand’ is soon becoming a forgotten way to communicate with the public. With more online news subscriptions being made, newspaper companies are leaving these structures abandoned. I want to use this endangered specie as a new way to communicate with the public once more. This is achieved using the concept of ‘site specific’ in the real world as well as the online world, and also by introducing a different concept of ‘time specific’. This technique helps to create a story on the street as well as the webpage in which the images are added to. Each newspaper stand represents a single page in the story “The Story of How Things Came to Bee”. Once the newspaper stand is placed back in the location from which it was originally borrowed from, a picture is taken at the exact time in which the story takes place. By adding the images to the webpage it allows for a narrative to bee created by using ‘notes’ (these are viewed by scrolling over the image) which can not bee seen on the street. Lastly, a map showing the locations of the newspaper stand is sited as well, allowing the online viewer to travel to each location and view these scenes in real life.
"Telephone companies have been abandoning their public telephone booths by taking out the phones and leaving the structures beehind. (Probably due to the rise in cell phone users.) I want to reuse these structures as a way of communication with the public once more by replacing that empty space with paper-mache beehives. To me, this symbolizes the irony beehind the question, 'where have so many of the bees gone' and the theory that cell phone signals have been misguiding their normal patterns of migration"
Star trek III, The Search for Spock
There is a wisdom as old as time that says "There is no such thing as a good odd-numbered Star Trek movie." While we could get bogged down in arguing minutiae, I would rectify that statement and say that there is no great odd-numbered Trek film, but there are at least two good ones, and the best of the odd-numbered Treks is arguably Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Forming the middle portion of a trilogy with Wrath of Khan and The Voyage Home, Search for Spock picks up immediately after the events of Khan, with the Enterprise crew still mourning the loss of their former Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Upon returning to space dock, the crew is given a commendation and extended shore leave (except poor Scotty, who has to report to the new Excelsior engine room to help with their transwarp drive). The crew is resigned to the fact that the Enterprise, being over twenty years old, is going to be decommissioned, but a visit from Spock's father Sarek (Mark Lenard) leads Kirk (William Shatner) to believe that while Spock's body may be dead, his consciousness is alive in someone else... Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley).
Kirk and a skeleton crew (Scotty, Sulu, Chekov & Bones) set out in the Enterprise to return to the Genesis planet and retrieve Spock's body, in hopes of returning it to Vulcan. What they have yet to find out, however, is that Lt. Saavik (Robin Curtis) & Kirk's son David Marcus (the unfortunately named Merritt Butrick) have discovered, on Genesis, that Spock has been reborn as a child. Further complications arise when a Klingon ship, commanded by Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) gets wind of the failed Genesis project and travels there in hopes of stealing the technology for the Klingons.
Okay, we need to get this out of the way immediately; The Search for Spock is not a very good film, even by Star Trek standards. It suffers from horrendous budget restrictions which first time director Nimoy couldn't shoot around as well as his predecessor, Nicholas Meyer. A lot of the recycled sets & costumes look terrible, and really distract on the 2009 blu-ray high def transfer. It's likewise hindered by being sandwiched between arguably the two best Star Trek films ever made, and can't help but feel like a trifle compared to the other two. It's got more substance than I remember it having, but the stakes are relatively low from beginning to end, and the sense of danger imposed by Khan in the previous film is just not met by the Klingons in this film.
All that being said, the film is actually much better than I remember it being, if for no other reason than the script is actually surprisingly well written. The dialogue and interplay, particularly between the Enterprise crew is as good as it's been in any of the films, and the humor throughout (much of it by, or at the expense of, Bones) is pretty reliably funny. The two truly emotional moments in the film (Kirk learning of the death of David & Spock's recognition of Kirk at the end) still land incredibly well and make up for some of the more ridiculous acting choices made by the other actors throughout the entire film.
William Shatner, the actor, was never better than he was in these three films. His moment I mentioned a moment ago, learning of the death of his only son, is very powerful and as good as he's ever been on screen. He also appears to be having a good deal of fun in this film, which is odd considering he was unhappy at having to be directed by his co-star (all of which led to Shatner taking the helm of arguably the worst Star Trek film not directed by JJ Abrams, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier). The rest of the crew is good as well, of course all resigned to one or two bits (one of the few lessons Abrams & his writers wrongly incorporated from the original films).
Lloyd is also nowhere near as bad as I remember him to be. His casting is ridiculous, to be sure, but he's not quite as bad in actuality as I seemed to have thought he was. Curtis, taking over the role of Saavik from Kirstie Alley, though, doesn't fare as well. Granted she's not given much to do, but her line readings are spotty at best and she's not terribly convincing as a Vulcan. Beyond some ridiculous stunt work in the final fight between Kruge & Kirk on the dying Genesis planet, there's really not much else bad I can say about the film.
Star Trek III is a fairly lightweight effort in the Trek canon, but it still manages to have far more good moments than bad, and is ultimately a genuinely enjoyable entry in the series. It has its flaws, to be sure, and they are numerous, but it still manages to be solidly entertaining and never insulting in the way some of the other odd numbered Trek films were. It can't help but pale in comparison to the two films bookending it, but I wholeheartedly recommend checking it out, particularly if it's been a while since you've seen it. It holds up much better than you might remember.
Invitation to join our new group “Star Trek Forever” No Limits on uploads!
This is the infamous pole 69 on the Golden Gate Bridge -- almost exactly midway across the span, facing Alcatraz and the city of San Francisco. Pole 69 is apparently the most popular location for Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts.
This is Hoot, the Owl
I still need to color the body, but I couldn't wait to post photos :)
Please go to www.TheMushroomPeddler.com/store to order
Or contact me personally.
Layaway is also available. Please send me a note if you would like to inquire about the details.
Wonderling dolls are hand sculpted in clay by Sarah B. Seiter and then cast in resin.
I would like to invite you to join my new forum at www.TheChamberofDreams.com where
we can discuss and post photos of my Wonderling dolls as well as all other BJDs.
"Exuberance is Beauty" [William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell]
"Exuberance is better than taste" [Flaubert Sentimental Education]
Follow me on: Facebook - Flickriver - Tumblr. - Twitter
© Copyright Natalie Panga - All rights reserved.
* Lightbox: Best seen in larger size on black (click image above)
City Condos - Canon EOS M (2012) with Canon 18-55mm IS STM (EF-M Mount) - Photographer Russell McNeil PhD (Physics) lives on Vancouver Island, where he works as a writer.
"Is not this the fast that I choose [says the Lord]:
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house…"
- Isaiah 58:6a. 7a, which is part of today's first reading at Mass.
A delightful medieval fresco in San Lorenzo fuori le mura shows the Roman deacon saint, Lawrence, feeding the poor. One of the works of the deacons of Rome was to oversee the Church's charitable works and almsgiving. It was called 'diakonia', which is Greek for 'service'.
Boston Lodge at Penrhyn Isa, is the location of the railway's main engineering workshops, locomotive shed and carriage works for the Ffestiniog Narrow Gauge Railway.
The Boston Lodge address and postcode is shared by the works with four cottage dwellings (mostly occupied in connection with the railway) and with the former tollgate cottage at the end of the causeway. The original 'Penrhyn Isa' cottage (now the railway works office) was renamed 'Boston Lodge' after Boston, Lincolnshire, the parliamentary seat of William Madocks, the proprietor of the land reclamation venture.
Construction of the causeway, known locally as ‘The Cob’, linking Penrhyn Isa on the Merioneth shore with the small rocky island called Ynys Towyn (where Britannia Terrace now stands in Porthmadog) near the Caernarfonshire shore, started in 1807 and was completed in 1811 during which time large quantities of stone was quarried and extracted from both ends. The embankment, which was the final stage of the Traeth Mawr land reclamation scheme, was 24 feet (7.3 m) wide at the top (where the railway now runs), 180 feet (55 m) wide at the base, 21 feet (6.4 m) deep and about 1 mile (1.6 km) in length. The quarrying created both the Britannia Terrace site at Porthmadog and the railway workshops site at Boston Lodge.
The site at Boston Lodge first held barracks for many of the 150 men working from the Merioneth side on the embankment construction, together with stables and smithies for the horses and wagons used to carry the stone. Later with the coming of the horsedrawn Festiniog Railway, the stables and smithies were brought back into use from 1836 onwards and there has been almost continuous development of the site for railway purposes since that time.
In the years from 1847 to 1851 the Works was considerably developed by the construction of ferrous and non-ferrous foundries, a pattern making shop, a blacksmith's shop, a carpenter's shop, and an engine house in which a steam engine provided power for machinery in a sawmill, pattern shop and machine shops. In the 1870s further construction provided a paint shop, joiner's shop and erecting shop in which in 1879 and 1885 the double Fairlie engines Merddin Emrys and Livingston Thompson were built. Prior to 1915 the works employed about 30 men.
During World War I most of the works was used as a munitions factory (largely staffed by women) from 17 September 1915 until early in 1919. The fortunes of the railway and its works declined from the mid-1920s with total closure from March 1947 to September 1954.
The works reopened on 20 September 1954, since when many of the original buildings have been extensively repaired and their usage altered. Machinery has been updated and modern materials and techniques have been introduced. Additional workshops have been built as well as new locomotive servicing facilities and carriage storage depots. The works undertakes the restoration and preservation of the railway’s historic locomotives, carriages, wagons and features of all descriptions. It also builds new steam locomotives and passenger carriages, and undertakes the ongoing maintenance of the Ffestiniog Railway's expanding fleet of railway vehicles.
In 1977, Boston lodge works undertook the design and installation of oil-firing equipment on the British Railways locomotive "Owain Glyndwr" on the Vale of Rheidol Railway. This was probably the first of numerous outside contracts that the works has undertaken over the years. These outside contracts have included restoration work on steam engines and the complete construction of various replica narrow-gauge passenger coaches.
In December 1998, a £375,000 Heritage Lottery Fund Grant was awarded to the FR Trust and this provided, amongst other things, for the construction of an extension to the carriage workshop at Boston Lodge to form a ‘Heritage Centre’ that would be a permanent home for the restoration of historic vehicles in a secure environment. Restoration to a very high standard has included most of the surviving Ffestiniog Railway Victorian era passenger coaches and a carefully selected rake of about 50 slate wagons representing most of the variant types characteristic of the local slate operations.
From 1993 onwards Boston Lodge works has undertaken extensive locomotive restoration work for the Ffestiniog Railway owned Welsh Highland Railway (Caernarfon). Recently the works is undertaking the construction of new passenger carriages for service between Caernarfon and Porthmadog.
Note: John faced some cancer in 2015. Sondra is his wife...
How tardy and bizarrely uncharacteristic of me to "come up short" Carol, on the genealogical history of the deceased equine entity called Tony.
Actually the initial send had more text....in my whimpering inadequacies.... I encountered a road block that was insurmountable for my chemo-laced brain.....I cried until Sondra came to my mewling puddle of shameful "masculine-tech" whining on the floor.....she tried to solve the dilemma .....and had "lift-off" for only a portion of the rocket.....basically it was a cluster fuck, a message that was intended for one planet.....but the message splintered,........you received some of the text, and some of it will arrive on Saturn's second inner ring, around 2525. The video that I tried to include with the text....imploded, folding in-ward unto itself.....consuming its life and frames until it resembled a tiny black jube-jube lying on the sidewalk.........not even the slugs were interested.
Tony was 22 when he died.....born in Saskatchewan......had papers.....not the kind of papers that illegal refugees have....but papers that proved he was pure Percheron. Tony was and is the only papered horse we have ever owned. Both his parents....sire and brood mare were registered Percheron. Percheron is a French heavy horse breed.....that basically opened the west, plowed the soil and pulled the goods.
In my world, being papered and registered means nothing....what does matter .......do I like what I see. And with Tony ....it was all good.
I'n John R's world of horses, registered and papered has meaning.
Sondra and I bought Tony along with another horse named Spider.....they were a team.....had worked as a team, pulling wagons and sleighs and also as a logging team for a teamster/logger/farmer/truck-driver from the 100 Mile House area of BC's Caribou region. Spider was a giant of a horse, also Percheron, not registered and not papered. Spider weighted about a ton, Tony was around 1800 lbs......
Spider was tall, quite a bit taller than Tony, so they looked a bit mis-matched....both horses were black as coal..........Tony had one white sock, rear right, if you are looking up the dirt chute........and both had their tails docked.... I'm not a fan of docked tails, but that's the way they came.
The year was 2004, when we heard about these boys being available.....we already had a team.....two wonderful Belgian/Percheron crosses, both unpapered and un-registered, that were named Pat and Mike, that we bought in 1999.
We were thinking of easing up on using Pat and Mike, as we were logging quite a bit. We wanted a younger team.....and Tony and Spider were around 10 ......a little side bar to horse trading.....a horse trader if he's trying to sell a horse , when confronted with the question .....
"so, how old is this horse"......will almost always tell you, he's 9. (old enough to know better but young enough to be strong and eager)(keep that in mind Carol, when it comes time to trade the old boy in)
To really know how old a horse is.....you look at his teeth, and if you know how to read the markings on their teeth, you can come to within a year or two. Many a 9 year old has turned out to be 17 or even older.
Sondra and I heard about the big blacks being for sale.....made some time to come up from the farm to have a look.
Always an adventure....searching out horses.
So up to the 100 Mile House area.....it was early summer....this area, high in elevation, excels in showing its beauty during the summer. It's sparsely populated.....a few small towns dot the region, to offer commerce and alcohol......the area is home to ranches, lots of large acreages, raising and growing beef..... As well as the ubiquitous logging industry.......give us some trees to exploit.
It's a gorgeous part of the province Carol, a high plateau, spotted with numerous lakes, expansive lodge pole pine forests, and these old, well worn ranch settlements.
It was one of these ranches that Tony and Spider were residing ......log house, log out-buildings, log fences, log barn.........right on the edge of a good sized lake.
Tom the owner was ready for us when we arrived....horses were at the hitching rail....harnessed and ready to perform.
But you never jump right into the task at hand .....you have to have the BC chats first.....sort of like kicking the tires when you are looking to buy a "new to you" truck......so the three of us are walking around the horses, hands running over their bodies, asking questions that don't always pertain to horses, "do you know such and such, he has a logging team near Princeton"......." where did these boys come from"...."when did you last use them"....."any problems"....."how are their feet"........"do these boys come with the harness"..... "how long have you lived up here"......."no kidding, I know Ted Guisbrech, we logged together over near Rock Creek".........and so on.
Then .....you ask if it would be ok to see them walk around.........he may say sure, take the lines, or he may say....sure, let me walk them first and then you can have a go.
All this seemingly unimportant prater......registers...it is all telling us about his relationship with his horses.....does he want to make sure the horses are calmed down when it comes time for us to drive them, .......does he think they might be a bit spooky if we take the lines.....is he setting the standard by showing us how he handles them.....all part of the game.
I want him to walk the horses around, to see what kind of relationship he has with them.....how he holds the lines ......where he stands.....how he gets them to move, does he "kiss them up", or "click" them up .....(two very distinct sounds in the horse world)....or does he remain silent, and communicate through the lines.....do they move on their own, when he grabs the lines......does he say their names to get them to move.......does he hold the lines....firm.......loosely.....does he slap the horses rears with the lines to get them to walk.....all of this shows me how this guy gets along with his horses.....gentle, coarsely, frantic, lazy, attentive, casual, ....and this gives me some incite into what we might be buying.
It's such a dance.....you want it to fall into place....you've invested 6 hours of travel one way......you like the initial viewing.....you need a team .....you want it to work. The foot work, the rhythm, the music, the touch, all these "things" need to be right for the dance to feel good...the flow....and eventually the coupling.
Where was I. .....oh yea.... Tom is walking the boys around, they have their harness on, the harness is well worn, with some minor binder-twine fix-it's......binder-twine....the non-natural material they use to tie bales of hay with.....it is ubiquitous with the horse world.....binder-twine is the rural duct-tape....you use it everywhere to tie down, to tie up, to keep apart, to shorten and to lengthen, you use it for clothes lines, and dog leashes, you use it to mark the planting lines for lettuce and carrots.....It almost always comes in the colour orange.....but now they have introduced the colour blue. It the very old days they used wire to wrap bales.
Tom walks the boys around the corral.....whoa-ing them up then asking them to step up(move ahead).....making them "gee" and "haw".....right and left......I watch how his hands work the lines.....lightly.....aggressively.....does he verbally communicate or is it all done with touch (pressure with the lines)......so the lines are long strips of leather or polypropylene that are attached to the bridle, a sort of head set that has the bit, the metal bar that is inserted to the horses mouth, attached to......so every time you pull on the lines it activates the bit......in a good or bad way.....gentle with the lines equates to gentle with the bit......aggressive with the lines, equates to harsh rough bit movement..........I'm certain Carol you've experienced this with the Hun. To get his attention (his noodle buried in a Conan movie) you sometimes have to jerk his bit.
So what you want to see as a perspective buyer, is the owner driving the horses around in a calm atmosphere.....no rodeos.....using "soft" hands........you want the horses displaying a zen.......a zone where they are willing to do what you ask of them.
Think Pointer Sisters......."I want a man with a slow hand....I Want a lover with an easy touch. I want a lover who will take some time. Not come and go in a heated rush"
Now that's what makes a perfect teamster.......Sondra points out that in the equine world, every teamster thinks he has soft hands. Phew, was that air leaving my body!
Then we attach the horses to the double-tree......sometimes made from hard wood and now usually made from metal.....this is the devise that is attached to two big leather straps that are attached to the horses harness.....these straps are called tugs....and then the double tree is attached to the device you want the horses to pull....ie. a wagon, a sleigh, a rake, a mower, or for our purposes a log. The double tree drags on the ground, so sometimes does not drag smoothly, as it gets caught up on debris , small babies, stumps, empty beer cases, that sort of thing......logging horses get acclimatized to this irregular pull and constant clanging, and are not spooked by the sound or pull.....uninitiated horses go ballistic....as they can never run away from the ragged feel, and the scary sound.
Tony and Spider were great.....and after numerous manoeuvres and requests.....lots of backing up, going forward.....asking them to take one step forward and whoa......asking them to stand while putting the lines on the ground......some horses will creep forward....
hooking them up to a big log and pulling it around.....doing the same tasks that we asked of them without the log..... we put them back to the hitching rail......removed their harness.
I ask Tom how "they load"......how easily do they go in a trailer.....a very important feature.....especially for people who move their horses around....like horse loggers.....always going to different sites.......some horses react to trailers like a 9 year old boy going to the dentist.....it can be hell.....and I've participated in many "rodeos" trying to get unwilling horses in a trailer. Both hard on the horse and the handler. Feet stepped on, smashed around by hyper animals, and that's before you get them in the trailer..... Securing them in the trailer is even more ramped up in terms of activity. So having calm, easy going horses to load...can be the deal sealer or breaker.Tom assures me that they "load easy"
We let the horses cool down......and then I picked up every foot......you want a cooperative horse when trimming hooves.....looked in their mouths to check teeth......hands feeling all over their bodies.....feeling and looking for bumps, irregularities, sores.....seeing how the harness fits them, any rubs, buckle wear, .......you try and do a full inspection..........just like the 50 point checkup that your Audi receives every 6 months.
For me it's all fun.....a chance to visit with another teamster.....to check out his stock....see new country.... hear some new lies and stories.
All the while the test drive and chit-chat is happening, Sondra and I are communicating about what we think about the team.....likes and dislikes....this is all done without talking....it's done with eyes, eye brows, facial wrinkles, nostril flares, smiles, hands, and head nods.....we don't want to diss the owner about the abilities of his team, or challenge anything he says about them.....we just register silently the good and bad......we didn't drive 6 hours to tell someone they have a badly mannered team of horses. It's a sort of rural respect and politeness that seems to prevail in rural Canada.
More generalized talk takes place....we find out more about his place.....some of the jobs he did with the team.....his daughter comes out of the house and jumps up on a saddle horse and rides around.....learn that he's bought a truck and car wash in 100 Mile House.....very entrepreneurial ...... He wanders off to feed some animals.... And Sondra and I kick a few horse buns around and decide yes, we want the team......
The negotiations are straight forward....we pay $4000....
In most horse transactions you buy the horse and the seller provides you with a halter and a lead rope......usually the most worn out and manure stained ones he can find in the tack shed.....often repaired with binder-twine, that use to be orange.
We manage, through friendly haggling, to get the harness, a double tree, and some pieces of harness "thrown in" with the 4 grand. We are happy with the deal, he's happy with the deal.
He agrees to feed the horses for a week, and Sondra and I will return the following weekend with our horse trailer, pick them up and bring them to Trinity Valley.
This adventure was wonderful.....a great way to start a new relationship with a new team......we were anxious to play with them, learn more about them.......and see what they could do.
The boys turned out to be all we wished for.....great addition to our already mature and well behaved team of Pat and Mike.....
Spider as he got older developed a rear hip malfunction.....that eventually made it very difficult for him to get up, after he would lie down for a rest and or a roll. At the end I was having to lift him up with the tractor....too complicated to describe, believe me it was as hard on me as it was on Spider.....Spider learned not to lie down too much .....and when he did, he'd try to position himself strategically on a slope so when it was time for lift-off, gravity would help. One time Spider lay down in his corral....winter time....in a hollow and couldn't rise up......thrashed around for awhile, making his bed a skating rink....total ice, caused by his body heat, ..... and even more difficult for him......finally as darkness was settling in I managed to get him up......this was becoming a problem.
In spring time I had a chat with the big boy......I was tiring of the effort it took to get him back up on all "four"...... Eventually the time came and he had his final lie-down.......
After Spider died, Tony was confused and then sad.....no more mate.....these horses when they are teamed up.....often act as one......they eat side by side, they rest side by side......when one heads off in a direction, the other one will follow......when one decides to let it all out and race around the field, full throttle, the other one copies. They are often joined at the hip. So Tony was bummed when Spider passed on, ........and he got little sympathy from the other team......at this point on the calendar, our original team of Pat and Mike, had both died, and we had bought another team, Jackie and Star, younger than both Spider and Tony, and this new team became our "go to team".
Jackie and Star, also Percheron's, also black, but with un-cropped tails, dragging on the ground, beautiful, true warriors......Don Monjoy was so proud of us for staying black, and staying Perch......this team was young, bold, frisky, and dominating. So Tony went to the bottom of the pecking order, and just wasn't too sure where he fit in. Sondra and I continued to show love and attention his way.....and Sondra would harness him and drive him around, but we always felt he was somewhat confused.......and missing his mate. But through that wondering, he was always a treat to be around.....he was extremely handsome.....very curious.....enormously smart.........and we always said he had a great ass.... And we will miss him.
Well now he can rejoin Spider......they can be a team again.
I think I would like to restart this project, and I think this is the opportune time to do it. I never really meant to abandon it, but I just ran out of time while I was in the Philippines. I don't think that matters, really - I wrote enormous journal entries every day (I had to... although I didn't have to make them 1600+ words, haha, which is how long some were) and took a ton of photos anyway. I think I've covered that particular period of my life rather well :)
Today was the first day of my second Walkabout... just call it an internship if you want to - this one is a pretty traditional one. Four days a week I'll be going to the statehouse in Columbus and working with a reporter there. He does segments for Ohio Public Radio and sometimes for NPR as well (we did a 50-second segment on foreclosures for them today... a statistic that I tracked down was broadcast nationally!)
I sat in on a meeting with the governor, treasurer, and some other high-ups... I also got to do some sound editing and basically just learned a ton. It's not as exciting as the Philippines, but I think I'll enjoy it. Transportation is a little iffy - my dad's giving me a ride down to OSU's campus in the morning and I catch a bus from there to the statehouse, then do the same in the afternoon. But I like wandering around campus in the afternoon - I can pop into the arts center and just kind of enjoy being outside - and it's kind of funny to totally blend in with the student population there but SECRETLY NOT BE ONE OF THEM! hahaha.
I also really like being in the city. The suburbs feel eerily dead to me now.
That's my moleskine up there, which is my new little friend for government meeting note-taking. I have to dress up for "work," now, too, which is rather different than what I was doing before. The anchor earrings are from Bangkok, though, and it's nice to feel like I'm bringing a (tangible) part of that with me.
It's hard to see how much you've changed when you just examine your present state, since change is gradual. But I know I'm a different person now - when I think about the time before I left, back in January, it feels like years have passed.
PLEASE, NO invitations, graphics or self promotions, THEY WILL BE DELETED. My photos are FREE to use, just give me credit and it would be nice if you let me know, thanks.
Not sure what the object is but I assume it is used in the fishing industry, it marks Henneberry Point Road in East Pennant.
This is the w/b AEPML-10, which was due to arrive at Mira Loma, CA much sooner, and with four Ferromex units, but I guess one of the three GE techo-toasters had a traction motor fire and it was set-out in AZ. Good for me, as I wouldn't have got this shot if it had been on time, and "three amigos" is fine with me.
The Brocken Railway (German: Brockenbahn) is one of three tourist metre gauge railways which together with the Harz Railway and Selke Valley Railway form the Harz Narrow Gauge Railways railway network in the Harz mountain range of Germany.
As early as 1869 there was a design for the construction of a railway to the Brocken, but it was turned down. A resubmission in 1895 succeeded, however, and, on 30 May 1896, the construction permit was issued once Prince Otto of Stolberg-Wernigerode had allocated the requisite land. The first section of the Brocken Railway, from Drei Annen Hohne to Schierke, was opened on 20 June 1898 and construction work for the remaining section up to the Brocken was begun on 4 October 1898. Initially services to the Brocken only ran between 30 April to 15 October; during the winter trains terminated at Schierke station. At the end of the Second World War significant damage occurred to the track, mainly through bombs and grenades, in the course of fighting in the Harz, which had been declared a fortress. The section to the Brocken was only reopened, therefore, in 1949.
The operator of the Brocken Railway until 5 August 1948 was the Nordhausen-Wernigerode Railway Company (NWE), after which it belonged from the Association of Publicly-Owned Companies (VVB), part of Saxony-Anhalt's transport services, and, from 11 April 1949 to the Deutsche Reichsbahn in East Germany. Only after the German winter sports championships in 1950, which took place in Schierke, did winter trains run up to the Brocken summit. A railway station at Eckerloch was also built for the championships which was closed again after they had ended. The location of the former sidings at Eckerloch station can still be easily seen.
Goods trains continued to work the Brocken Railway right up to 1987, although since the construction of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 the Brocken and its station had been part of the out-of-bounds area and thus not accessible to the public. Up to that time the trains transported coal, oil and building materials up the mountain for the East German Border Troops and Soviet soldiers who were stationed there.
Passengers services on the Brocken Railway continued to run from Drei Annen Hohne to Schierke; usually only two pairs of passenger train pairs ran each day;[1] however they could only be used with a special pass, because Schierke lay in the border zone with West Germany.
This is a pretty large plush chimpanzee buried under a fallen tree. The log container is that reddish orange thing stuck firmly in its hand. This was pretty gruesome actually. It has a banana in the other hand.
~EROGENY~ is looking for DJ's and hosts as we build up our roster. If you are interested, please contact JoeC31 or Natalia Radinovic in-world or through our Discord server: discord.gg/95TS44gSDZ
Ledbury Park is a magnificent late Tudor house situated on the corner of Worcester Road and The Southend in the ancient township of Ledbury in Herefordshire, England.
The house dates back to 1590 and was built by the Biddulph family. It was once known as 'New House' but the name was changed in 1820.
During the English Civil War (1642–1651) the house was used by Prince Rupert, as his Headquarters. Queen Victoria is also said to have stayed there.
The grey squirrel is one of the most accessible animals to photograph in the UK, mainly due to their inquisitive nature and their acceptance of humans.
These little critters were original native only to North America but can now be found all over Europe, having become an invasive species here.
I managed to get a nice picture of this little guy during a recent trip to my local park. I like the contrasting shadow on half the squirrel's face and the small, solitary leaf - which I feel highlights the idea that autumn is well and truly over and winter has arrived.
Snapped by James.
This picture is currently available to purchase as a print from our Etsy store: www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CJPhotographyUK
At the rear of the coal loads was this surprise, a really clean SD70ACe. Such a rarity these days. Yes I was a little miffed this one turned up as a DPU but it was actually better positioned, relative to the light, than the head end was. It was nice enough that I gave serious consideration to chasing for another set or two. I did press on but this was one of the cleanest ACes I'd see all trip.
Benteen, MT, September 8, 2023.
It is hard to even tell there was a department store here in this "washed out" shot. This old Higbee's / Dillard's department store has been closed since 2003 yet the old garden now seems to be taking over this whole section of the store.
The Randall Park Mall was opened in 1976 and was briefly the largest shopping center in the world, topping in at 2 million square feet. JCPenney, Horne's, Sears, May Company, and Higbee's were the original anchor stores. Sadly, the mall had a decline which led to its closure in 2009. Burlington Coat Factory (former Horne's) is the only "anchor" at the site. The Power Sport institute and a furniture liquidation center are the only other remaining businesses here. The rest of the mall has been left to rot. I wish I could get to go inside of this mall for pictures especially since it is planned to be demolished for an industrial park soon.
Randall Park Mall - North Randall, Ohio
Newton Woods is classified by MSU as a "virtually undisturbed, mature oak-hickory forest."
In addition, the larger Fred Russ Forest and Park are noted for their black walnuts and tulip trees. One of the tulip trees has been identified as the largest tree of this type in Michigan,and is claimed to be 180 feet tall.
Adjacent to the Fred Russ Forest and Park on the east is the site of the now-vanished hamlet of Volinia or Volina, which existed from 1834 until 1902. The hamlet was located where the Marcellus Highway crosses Gards Prairie Road.
The Newton Woods are named after George Newton, who represented Volinia and neighboring communities in the Michigan General Assembly. Newton's Victorian mansion (George Newton House) survives on the Marcellus Highway near the woods, and was named as a registered Michigan historic site in 1974 as Registered Site LO367. A historic marker was erected.
Cécile Brünner, the rose, is just about done for this season. Two days of high winds are forecast and they'll probably finish her off. Maybe then she'll get pruned. There's always something going on with Cécile. She's housed the wren's nest, is part of the cottage's windbreak, and climbs up and over the shade house where, despite the "monster who ate everything" frost, she kept the houseplants safe. While she was at it, three ginkgo seedlings arrived in the mail the other day and are in there too, recovering, getting used to their new home ahead of them heading off into the "wild wood" next year.
I picked the last few buds of Cécile on their skinny little stems. They don't make the best cut flowers. But they are pretty enough for a dressing table or vanity for a day or two; then this…
Fortuitously, this little vase and it's posey are roughly the size of the wren's nest, so I know the formula: 42 turns of the focussing rail, front to back. toddkeith533 favoured the notion of a small aperture for close-up photography over stacking. So, taking his advice to enhance my inherent "efficiency", or laziness, I've stopped down to f/11 and reduced the process to just seven exposures — hybridisation, if you like. While I was at it, I turned off the overhead lighting and swapped out the flash I used on the wren's nest for the less powerful 430 EXII. The results? No exposure compensation numbers were harmed, and computer time was far, far less than for however many photos I used at f/4.
What it all amounts to is a pretty little pink thing to insert among the green doom and gloom of a frozen landscape. Even wilted and drying roses are better than that!
Biennalist
Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.
About artist Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)
www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html
Biennalist :
Biennalist is an Art Format commenting on active biennials and managed cultural events through artworks.Biennalist takes the thematics of the biennales and similar events like festivals and conferences seriously, questioning the established structures of the staged art events in order to contribute to the debate, which they wish to generate.
-------------------------------------------
links about Biennalist :
Thierry Geoffroy/Colonel:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thierry_Geoffroy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Room_(art)
www.emergencyrooms.org/formats.html
—--Biennale from wikipedia —--
The Venice International Film Festival is part of the Venice Biennale. The famous Golden Lion is awarded to the best film screening at the competition.
Biennale (Italian: [bi.enˈnaːle]), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).[1] The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale (for the Berlin International Film Festival) and Viennale (for Vienna's international film festival).
Characteristics[edit]
According to author Federica Martini, what is at stake in contemporary biennales is the diplomatic/international relations potential as well as urban regeneration plans. Besides being mainly focused on the present (the “here and now” where the cultural event takes place and their effect of "spectacularisation of the everyday"), because of their site-specificity cultural events may refer back to,[who?] produce or frame the history of the site and communities' collective memory.[2]
The Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851, the first attempt to condense the representation of the world within a unitary exhibition space.
A strong and influent symbol of biennales and of large-scale international exhibitions in general is the Crystal Palace, the gigantic and futuristic London architecture that hosted the Great Exhibition in 1851. According to philosopher Peter Sloterdijk,[3][page needed] the Crystal Palace is the first attempt to condense the representation of the world in a unitary exhibition space, where the main exhibit is society itself in an a-historical, spectacular condition. The Crystal Palace main motives were the affirmation of British economic and national leadership and the creation of moments of spectacle. In this respect, 19th century World fairs provided a visual crystallization of colonial culture and were, at the same time, forerunners of contemporary theme parks.
The Venice Biennale as an archetype[edit]
The structure of the Venice Biennale in 2005 with an international exhibition and the national pavilions.
The Venice Biennale, a periodical large-scale cultural event founded in 1895, served as an archetype of the biennales. Meant to become a World Fair focused on contemporary art, the Venice Biennale used as a pretext the wedding anniversary of the Italian king and followed up to several national exhibitions organised after Italy unification in 1861. The Biennale immediately put forth issues of city marketing, cultural tourism and urban regeneration, as it was meant to reposition Venice on the international cultural map after the crisis due to the end of the Grand Tour model and the weakening of the Venetian school of painting. Furthermore, the Gardens where the Biennale takes place were an abandoned city area that needed to be re-functionalised. In cultural terms, the Biennale was meant to provide on a biennial basis a platform for discussing contemporary art practices that were not represented in fine arts museums at the time. The early Biennale model already included some key points that are still constitutive of large-scale international art exhibitions today: a mix of city marketing, internationalism, gentrification issues and destination culture, and the spectacular, large scale of the event.
Biennials after the 1990s[edit]
The situation of biennials has changed in the contemporary context: while at its origin in 1895 Venice was a unique cultural event, but since the 1990s hundreds of biennials have been organized across the globe. Given the ephemeral and irregular nature of some biennials, there is little consensus on the exact number of biennials in existence at any given time.[citation needed] Furthermore, while Venice was a unique agent in the presentation of contemporary art, since the 1960s several museums devoted to contemporary art are exhibiting the contemporary scene on a regular basis. Another point of difference concerns 19th century internationalism in the arts, that was brought into question by post-colonial debates and criticism of the contemporary art “ethnic marketing”, and also challenged the Venetian and World Fair’s national representation system. As a consequence of this, Eurocentric tendency to implode the whole word in an exhibition space, which characterises both the Crystal Palace and the Venice Biennale, is affected by the expansion of the artistic geographical map to scenes traditionally considered as marginal. The birth of the Havana Biennial in 1984 is widely considered an important counterpoint to the Venetian model for its prioritization of artists working in the Global South and curatorial rejection of the national pavilion model.
International biennales[edit]
In the term's most commonly used context of major recurrent art exhibitions:
Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, South Australia
Asian Art Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)
Athens Biennale, in Athens, Greece
Bienal de Arte Paiz, in Guatemala City, Guatemala[4]
Arts in Marrakech (AiM) International Biennale (Arts in Marrakech Festival)
Bamako Encounters, a biennale of photography in Mali
Bat-Yam International Biennale of Landscape Urbanism
Beijing Biennale
Berlin Biennale (contemporary art biennale, to be distinguished from Berlinale, which is a film festival)
Bergen Assembly (triennial for contemporary art in Bergen, Norway)www.bergenassembly.no
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture, in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China
Bienal de Arte de Ponce in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Biënnale van België, Biennial of Belgium, Belgium
BiennaleOnline Online biennial exhibition of contemporary art from the most promising emerging artists.
Biennial of Hawaii Artists
Biennale de la Biche, the smallest biennale in the world held at deserted island near Guadeloupe, French overseas region[5][6]
Biwako Biennale [ja], in Shiga, Japan
La Biennale de Montreal
Biennale of Luanda : Pan-African Forum for the Culture of Peace,[7] Angola
Boom Festival, international music and culture festival in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal
Bucharest Biennale in Bucharest, Romania
Bushwick Biennial, in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
Canakkale Biennial, in Canakkale, Turkey
Cerveira International Art Biennial, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Portugal [8]
Changwon Sculpture Biennale in Changwon, South Korea
Dakar Biennale, also called Dak'Art, biennale in Dakar, Senegal
Documenta, contemporary art exhibition held every five years in Kassel, Germany
Estuaire (biennale), biennale in Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, France
EVA International, biennial in Limerick, Republic of Ireland
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art, in Gothenburg, Sweden[9]
Greater Taipei Contemporary Art Biennial, in Taipei, Taiwan
Gwangju Biennale, Asia's first and most prestigious contemporary art biennale
Havana biennial, in Havana, Cuba
Helsinki Biennial, in Helsinki, Finland
Herzliya Biennial For Contemporary Art, in Herzliya, Israel
Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, in Incheon, South Korea
Iowa Biennial, in Iowa, USA
Istanbul Biennial, in Istanbul, Turkey
International Roaming Biennial of Tehran, in Tehran and Istanbul
Jakarta Biennale, in Jakarta, Indonesia
Jerusalem Biennale, in Jerusalem, Israel
Jogja Biennale, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Karachi Biennale, in Karachi, Pakistan
Keelung Harbor Biennale, in Keelung, Taiwan
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, largest art exhibition in India, in Kochi, Kerala, India
Kortrijk Design Biennale Interieur, in Kortrijk, Belgium
Kobe Biennale, in Japan
Kuandu Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan
Lagos Biennial, in Lagos, Nigeria[10]
Light Art Biennale Austria, in Austria
Liverpool Biennial, in Liverpool, UK
Lofoten International Art Festival [no] (LIAF), on the Lofoten archipelago, Norway[11]
Manifesta, European Biennale of contemporary art in different European cities
Mediations Biennale, in Poznań, Poland
Melbourne International Biennial 1999
Mediterranean Biennale in Sakhnin 2013
MOMENTA Biennale de l'image [fr] (formerly known as Le Mois de la Photo à Montréal), in Montreal, Canada
MOMENTUM [no], in Moss, Norway[12]
Moscow Biennale, in Moscow, Russia
Munich Biennale, new opera and music-theatre in even-numbered years
Mykonos Biennale
Nakanojo Biennale[13]
NGV Triennial, contemporary art exhibition held every three years at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
October Salon – Belgrade Biennale [sr], organised by the Cultural Center of Belgrade [sr], in Belgrade, Serbia[14]
OSTEN Biennial of Drawing Skopje, North Macedonia[15]
Biennale de Paris
Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA), in Riga, Latvia[16]
São Paulo Art Biennial, in São Paulo, Brazil
SCAPE Public Art Christchurch Biennial in Christchurch, New Zealand[17]
Prospect New Orleans
Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism
Sequences, in Reykjavík, Iceland[18]
Shanghai Biennale
Sharjah Biennale, in Sharjah, UAE
Singapore Biennale, held in various locations across the city-state island of Singapore
Screen City Biennial, in Stavanger, Norway
Biennale of Sydney
Taipei Biennale, in Taipei, Taiwan
Taiwan Arts Biennale, in Taichung, Taiwan (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts)
Taiwan Film Biennale, in Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, U.S.A.
Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art [el], in Thessaloniki, Greece[19]
Dream city, produced by ART Rue Association in Tunisia
Vancouver Biennale
Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference (VIVA ExCon) in the Philippines [20]
Venice Biennale, in Venice, Italy, which includes:
Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art
Venice Biennale of Architecture
Venice Film Festival
Vladivostok biennale of Visual Arts, in Vladivostok, Russia
Whitney Biennial, hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York City, NY, USA
Web Biennial, produced with teams from Athens, Berlin and Istanbul.
West Africa Architecture Biennale,[21] Virtual in Lagos, Nigeria.
WRO Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland[22]
Music Biennale Zagreb
[SHIFT:ibpcpa] The International Biennale of Performance, Collaborative and Participatory Arts, Nomadic, International, Scotland, UK.
—---Venice Biennale from wikipedia —
The Venice Biennale (/ˌbiːɛˈnɑːleɪ, -li/; Italian: La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation.[2][3][4] The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture (hence the name biennale; biennial).[5][6][7] The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.[8]
Organization[edit]
Art Biennale
Art Biennale
International Art Exhibition
1895
Even-numbered years (since 2022)
Venice Biennale of Architecture
International Architecture Exhibition
1980
Odd-numbered years (since 2021)
Biennale Musica
International Festival of Contemporary Music
1930
Annually (Sep/Oct)
Biennale Teatro
International Theatre Festival
1934
Annually (Jul/Aug)
Venice Film Festival
Venice International Film Festival
1932
Annually (Aug/Sep)
Venice Dance Biennale
International Festival of Contemporary Dance
1999
Annually (June; biennially 2010–16)
International Kids' Carnival
2009
Annually (during Carnevale)
History
1895–1947
On April 19, 1893, the Venetian City Council passed a resolution to set up an biennial exhibition of Italian Art ("Esposizione biennale artistica nazionale") to celebrate the silver anniversary of King Umberto I and Margherita of Savoy.[11]
A year later, the council decreed "to adopt a 'by invitation' system; to reserve a section of the Exhibition for foreign artists too; to admit works by uninvited Italian artists, as selected by a jury."[12]
The first Biennale, "I Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte della Città di Venezia (1st International Art Exhibition of the City of Venice)" (although originally scheduled for April 22, 1894) was opened on April 30, 1895, by the Italian King and Queen, Umberto I and Margherita di Savoia. The first exhibition was seen by 224,000 visitors.
The event became increasingly international in the first decades of the 20th century: from 1907 on, several countries installed national pavilions at the exhibition, with the first being from Belgium. In 1910 the first internationally well-known artists were displayed: a room dedicated to Gustav Klimt, a one-man show for Renoir, a retrospective of Courbet. A work by Picasso "Family of Saltimbanques" was removed from the Spanish salon in the central Palazzo because it was feared that its novelty might shock the public. By 1914 seven pavilions had been established: Belgium (1907), Hungary (1909), Germany (1909), Great Britain (1909), France (1912), and Russia (1914).
During World War I, the 1916 and 1918 events were cancelled.[13] In 1920 the post of mayor of Venice and president of the Biennale was split. The new secretary general, Vittorio Pica brought about the first presence of avant-garde art, notably Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.
1922 saw an exhibition of sculpture by African artists. Between the two World Wars, many important modern artists had their work exhibited there. In 1928 the Istituto Storico d'Arte Contemporanea (Historical Institute of Contemporary Art) opened, which was the first nucleus of archival collections of the Biennale. In 1930 its name was changed into Historical Archive of Contemporary Art.
In 1930, the Biennale was transformed into an Ente Autonomo (Autonomous Board) by Royal Decree with law no. 33 of 13-1-1930. Subsequently, the control of the Biennale passed from the Venice city council to the national Fascist government under Benito Mussolini. This brought on a restructuring, an associated financial boost, as well as a new president, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata. Three entirely new events were established, including the Biennale Musica in 1930, also referred to as International Festival of Contemporary Music; the Venice Film Festival in 1932, which they claim as the first film festival in history,[14] also referred to as Venice International Film Festival; and the Biennale Theatro in 1934, also referred to as International Theatre Festival.
In 1933 the Biennale organized an exhibition of Italian art abroad. From 1938, Grand Prizes were awarded in the art exhibition section.
During World War II, the activities of the Biennale were interrupted: 1942 saw the last edition of the events. The Film Festival restarted in 1946, the Music and Theatre festivals were resumed in 1947, and the Art Exhibition in 1948.[15]
1948–1973[edit]
The Art Biennale was resumed in 1948 with a major exhibition of a recapitulatory nature. The Secretary General, art historian Rodolfo Pallucchini, started with the Impressionists and many protagonists of contemporary art including Chagall, Klee, Braque, Delvaux, Ensor, and Magritte, as well as a retrospective of Picasso's work. Peggy Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her collection, later to be permanently housed at Ca' Venier dei Leoni.
1949 saw the beginning of renewed attention to avant-garde movements in European—and later worldwide—movements in contemporary art. Abstract expressionism was introduced in the 1950s, and the Biennale is credited with importing Pop Art into the canon of art history by awarding the top prize to Robert Rauschenberg in 1964.[16] From 1948 to 1972, Italian architect Carlo Scarpa did a series of remarkable interventions in the Biennale's exhibition spaces.
In 1954 the island San Giorgio Maggiore provided the venue for the first Japanese Noh theatre shows in Europe. 1956 saw the selection of films following an artistic selection and no longer based upon the designation of the participating country. The 1957 Golden Lion went to Satyajit Ray's Aparajito which introduced Indian cinema to the West.
1962 included Arte Informale at the Art Exhibition with Jean Fautrier, Hans Hartung, Emilio Vedova, and Pietro Consagra. The 1964 Art Exhibition introduced continental Europe to Pop Art (The Independent Group had been founded in Britain in 1952). The American Robert Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Gran Premio, and the youngest to date.
The student protests of 1968 also marked a crisis for the Biennale. Student protests hindered the opening of the Biennale. A resulting period of institutional changes opened and ending with a new Statute in 1973. In 1969, following the protests, the Grand Prizes were abandoned. These resumed in 1980 for the Mostra del Cinema and in 1986 for the Art Exhibition.[17]
In 1972, for the first time, a theme was adopted by the Biennale, called "Opera o comportamento" ("Work or Behaviour").
Starting from 1973 the Music Festival was no longer held annually. During the year in which the Mostra del Cinema was not held, there was a series of "Giornate del cinema italiano" (Days of Italian Cinema) promoted by sectorial bodies in campo Santa Margherita, in Venice.[18]
1974–1998[edit]
1974 saw the start of the four-year presidency of Carlo Ripa di Meana. The International Art Exhibition was not held (until it was resumed in 1976). Theatre and cinema events were held in October 1974 and 1975 under the title Libertà per il Cile (Freedom for Chile)—a major cultural protest against the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
On 15 November 1977, the so-called Dissident Biennale (in reference to the dissident movement in the USSR) opened. Because of the ensuing controversies within the Italian left wing parties, president Ripa di Meana resigned at the end of the year.[19]
In 1979 the new presidency of Giuseppe Galasso (1979-1982) began. The principle was laid down whereby each of the artistic sectors was to have a permanent director to organise its activity.
In 1980, the Architecture section of the Biennale was set up. The director, Paolo Portoghesi, opened the Corderie dell'Arsenale to the public for the first time. At the Mostra del Cinema, the awards were brought back into being (between 1969 and 1979, the editions were non-competitive). In 1980, Achille Bonito Oliva and Harald Szeemann introduced "Aperto", a section of the exhibition designed to explore emerging art. Italian art historian Giovanni Carandente directed the 1988 and 1990 editions. A three-year gap was left afterwards to make sure that the 1995 edition would coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Biennale.[13]
The 1993 edition was directed by Achille Bonito Oliva. In 1995, Jean Clair was appointed to be the Biennale's first non-Italian director of visual arts[20] while Germano Celant served as director in 1997.
For the Centenary in 1995, the Biennale promoted events in every sector of its activity: the 34th Festival del Teatro, the 46th art exhibition, the 46th Festival di Musica, the 52nd Mostra del Cinema.[21]
1999–present[edit]
In 1999 and 2001, Harald Szeemann directed two editions in a row (48th & 49th) bringing in a larger representation of artists from Asia and Eastern Europe and more young artists than usual and expanded the show into several newly restored spaces of the Arsenale.
In 1999 a new sector was created for live shows: DMT (Dance Music Theatre).
The 50th edition, 2003, directed by Francesco Bonami, had a record number of seven co-curators involved, including Hans Ulrich Obrist, Catherine David, Igor Zabel, Hou Hanru and Massimiliano Gioni.
The 51st edition of the Biennale opened in June 2005, curated, for the first time by two women, Maria de Corral and Rosa Martinez. De Corral organized "The Experience of Art" which included 41 artists, from past masters to younger figures. Rosa Martinez took over the Arsenale with "Always a Little Further." Drawing on "the myth of the romantic traveler" her exhibition involved 49 artists, ranging from the elegant to the profane.
In 2007, Robert Storr became the first director from the United States to curate the Biennale (the 52nd), with a show entitled Think with the Senses – Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense.
Swedish curator Daniel Birnbaum was artistic director of the 2009 edition entitled "Fare Mondi // Making Worlds".
The 2011 edition was curated by Swiss curator Bice Curiger entitled "ILLUMInazioni – ILLUMInations".
The Biennale in 2013 was curated by the Italian Massimiliano Gioni. His title and theme, Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, was adopted from an architectural model by the self-taught Italian-American artist Marino Auriti. Auriti's work, The Encyclopedic Palace of the World was lent by the American Folk Art Museum and exhibited in the first room of the Arsenale for the duration of the biennale. For Gioni, Auriti's work, "meant to house all worldly knowledge, bringing together the greatest discoveries of the human race, from the wheel to the satellite," provided an analogous figure for the "biennale model itself...based on the impossible desire to concentrate the infinite worlds of contemporary art in a single place: a task that now seems as dizzyingly absurd as Auriti's dream."[22]
Curator Okwui Enwezor was responsible for the 2015 edition.[23] He was the first African-born curator of the biennial. As a catalyst for imagining different ways of imagining multiple desires and futures Enwezor commissioned special projects and programs throughout the Biennale in the Giardini. This included a Creative Time Summit, e-flux journal's SUPERCOMMUNITY, Gulf Labor Coalition, The Invisible Borders Trans-African Project and Abounaddara.[24][25]
The 2017 Biennale, titled Viva Arte Viva, was directed by French curator Christine Macel who called it an "exhibition inspired by humanism".[26] German artist Franz Erhard Walter won the Golden Lion for best artist, while Carolee Schneemann was awarded a posthumous Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.[27]
The 2019 Biennale, titled May You Live In Interesting Times, was directed by American-born curator Ralph Rugoff.[28]
The 2022 edition was curated by Italian curator Cecilia Alemani entitled "The Milk of Dreams" after a book by British-born Mexican surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.[29]
The Biennale has an attendance today of over 500,000 visitors.[30][31][32]
Role in the art market[edit]
When the Venice Biennale was founded in 1895, one of its main goals was to establish a new market for contemporary art. Between 1942 and 1968 a sales office assisted artists in finding clients and selling their work,[33] a service for which it charged 10% commission. Sales remained an intrinsic part of the biennale until 1968, when a sales ban was enacted. An important practical reason why the focus on non-commodities has failed to decouple Venice from the market is that the biennale itself lacks the funds to produce, ship and install these large-scale works. Therefore, the financial involvement of dealers is widely regarded as indispensable;[16] as they regularly front the funding for production of ambitious projects.[34] Furthermore, every other year the Venice Biennale coincides with nearby Art Basel, the world's prime commercial fair for modern and contemporary art. Numerous galleries with artists on show in Venice usually bring work by the same artists to Basel.[35]
Central Pavilion and Arsenale[edit]
The formal Biennale is based at a park, the Giardini. The Giardini includes a large exhibition hall that houses a themed exhibition curated by the Biennale's director.
Initiated in 1980, the Aperto began as a fringe event for younger artists and artists of a national origin not represented by the permanent national pavilions. This is usually staged in the Arsenale and has become part of the formal biennale programme. In 1995 there was no Aperto so a number of participating countries hired venues to show exhibitions of emerging artists. From 1999, both the international exhibition and the Aperto were held as one exhibition, held both at the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. Also in 1999, a $1 million renovation transformed the Arsenale area into a cluster of renovated shipyards, sheds and warehouses, more than doubling the Arsenale's exhibition space of previous years.[36]
A special edition of the 54th Biennale was held at Padiglione Italia of Torino Esposizioni – Sala Nervi (December 2011 – February 2012) for the 150th Anniversary of Italian Unification. The event was directed by Vittorio Sgarbi
sldesignnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/11/sexy-is-as-sexy-doe...
Pixel Mode's Ophelia Bed available at ~Uber~
Italien / Lombardei - Monte Grona
Monte Grona is a mountain of Lombardy, Italy. It has an elevation of 1,736 metres and belongs to the province of Como.
SOIUSA classification
According to the SOIUSA (International Standardized Mountain Subdivision of the Alps) the mountain can be classified in the following way:
main part = Western Alps
major sector = North Western Alps
section = Lugano Prealps
subsection = Prealpi Comasche
supergroup = Catena Gino-Camoghè-Fiorina
group = Gruppo del Gino
code = I/B-11.I-A.1
(Wikipedia)
Der Monte Grona ist ein 1736 m s.l.m. hoher Berg in den südlichen Alpen (Tambogruppe bzw. Luganer Voralpen) zwischen dem Luganersee und dem Comer See in der Lombardei in Italien.
Routen zum Gipfel
Talort ist Breglia nördlich von Menaggio. Ein Bergweg beginnt an den Monti di Breglia (996 m). Er führt zunächst zu einer Schutzhütte (Rifugio Menaggio, 1.380 m). Von dort aus führen neben dem Normalanstieg noch zwei weitere Bergwege zum Gipfel: Ein direkter Steilanstieg („Direttissima“) und ein Aussichtsweg („Sentiero Panoramico“). Der vierte Weg auf den Gipfel ist ein Klettersteig („Ferrata del Centenario CAO“).
(Wikipedia)
Der Aufstieg zum Monte Grona gehört zum Pflichtprogramm eines Comer See-Aufenthalts. Auch die Bewohner der Gemeinde Menaggio besteigen zu Saisonbeginn, veranstaltet vom hiesigen Alpenverein, den Gipfel. Auf dem Weg nach oben gehört der Besuch des Rifugio Menaggio dazu.
Der Monte Grona hat eine Bomben-Hütte
Der Hüttenwirt bereitet bis auf einen kurzen Zeitraum von Januar bis Februar das ganze Jahr über einfache lokale Speisen und Getränke zu. Der Monte Grona ist 1 736 m hoch und bietet vom Gipfel einen Rundumblick über die gesamte Region bis zum Luganer See. Der Aufstieg beginnt in Breglia oder dem Parkplatz kurz oberhalb des Ortes, nach 2h ist der Gipfel erreicht.
Das Rifugio Menaggio, bis weit über den Comer See hinaus bekannt, wurde 1952 als Schutzhütte für Bergsteiger geplant und gebaut. 1960 folgte die feierliche Eröffnung und 1970 wurde die Schutzhütte dann zu ihrer heutigen Form erweitert. Die Hütte ist weitgehend autonom, bezieht das Wasser aus einer nahe gelegenen Quelle, Strom liefert die Sonne mit Hilfe einer Photovoltaik-Anlage.
Die Lebensmittelversorgung wird über eine Lastenseilbahn von einem Forstweg (ca. 150 m unterhalb der Hütte) organisiert. Das Rifugio verfügt über zwanzig Schlafmöglichkeiten, eine Küche, zwei Aufenthaltsräume und ein Bad mit Warmwasser.
Tourbeschreibung: Die äußerst attraktive Bergwanderung beginnt man sinnvollerweise oberhalb von Breglia an einem Parkplatz. Die Anfahrt dorthin ist im Gegensatz zu anderen Bergen eher angenehm, mehr als 10 min. sollte sie nicht dauern. Wer viel Power hat, parkt natürlich in Breglia selbst bei der Kirche, ca. 30 m. vom Platz beginnt der Wanderweg. Er führt allerdings anfangs immer wieder ein bisschen an der Straße entlang, sodass viele den oberen Startpunkt wählen. Vom (Berg-)Parkplatz aus geht es dann in ca. 1h durch zunächst niedrigen Wald, später auf offener Strecke zum Rifugio Menaggio auf 1 383 m. Höhe.
Die Strecke ist durchgehend ausgeschildert und eigentlich nicht zu verfehlen. Am Rifugio angekommen, erfrischt man sich mit Wasser aus dem Brunnen oder in der Berghütte. Neben Getränken gibt es auch kleinere einfache Speisen: Polenta mit Fleisch, Käse oder Würstchen und Spaghetti mit verschiedenen Soßen. Viel grüne Fläche in der Sonne und im Schatten lädt zum Verweilen ein, die Sicht ist grandios.
Der weitere Weg auf den Monte Grona führt rechts an der Hütte vorbei. Nach wenigen Schritten geht es ab zum nahe gelegenen Klettersteig (Ferrata), der aber nur für geübte Kletterer empfohlen wird. Folgen Sie lieber der Hauptstrecke, die sich nach einigen Metern erneut teilt: Sie haben nun die Wahl zwischen der sog. ‚Diretissima‘ und dem ‚Via normale‘. Letzterer ist 10 min. länger.
Beide Strecken liegen wunderschön im Gelände, am besten man begeht beide, eine beim Aufstieg, eine beim Abstieg. Der Via normale führt über viele enge und teils extrem ausgewaschene Pfade inmitten faszinierender Natur bis zum Sattel zwischen Monte Grona und Monte Santa Amata, einem kleineren Nachbarberg, in dessen Verlauf der Monte Bregagno schon zu sehen ist. Folgen Sie dem Weg zum Monte Grona links, auf dem Schild werden 30 min. ausgewiesen, und entdecken Sie die schönsten Seiten der Comenser Bergwelten.
Bald erreicht man über schmale teils auch felsige Strecken den Gipfel mit einer Traumaussicht in alle Himmelsrichtungen. Für die letzten zehn Meter ist zur Sicherheit noch ein Seil gespannt, das man aber eigentlich nicht benötigt. Im Westen der Luganer See, dahinter die Bergkette des Monte Rosa, dem höchsten Berg der Schweiz, gegenüber der Monte Legnone, mit 2 609 m., der höchste Berg am Lago di Como.
Im Süden die hohen Vertreter der Grigne-Gruppe von Lecco, unterhalb der Ort Menaggio. Für 2 h Anstrengung erhält man an diesem Berg eine ganze Menge hochalpiner Eindrücke. Zurück am Rifugio genießt man am besten die Abendstimmung bei einer Tasse Cappuccino. Ausklang: In Menaggio gibt es direkt an der Piazza Garibaldi (auch Tourist-Office) eine Gelateria mit gutem Eis und einige Cafés.
Tourvarianten 1. Kurz nach dem oberen Parkplatz führt bei der Abzweigung ein weiterer Weg unterhalb zum Rifugio (ausgeschildert). Der Weg ist zunächst etwas flacher und breiter, verjüngt sich aber später ebenfalls. Man erreicht das Rifugio im Gegensatz zur anderen Strecke von unten. 2. Während des Aufstiegs zum Monte Grona gibt es eine gut beschilderte Abzweigung zum Monte Bregagno, mit 2 143 m. ein stattlicher Berg der Region.
Man steigt zunächst diagonal zum Berg an, überquert dann, schon auf dem Bergkamm laufend, den kleinen Bruder des Bregagno und erreicht nach weiteren 1,5 h auf weichem Wiesenuntergrund den grünen Gipfel. Von hier führt auch ein Abstieg zur Via Monti Lariani (VML), an der Kreuzung liegt die Kirche San Bernardo, die zum Bergdorf Labbio gehört.
Dort befindet sich das Agriturismo Labbio, in dem man übernachten kann (www.agriturismolabbio.it). Allen anderen bleibt nur der beschwerliche Abstieg über unzählige Serpentinen nach Musso oder der Weitermarsch auf dem VML nach Dongo. 3. Auf halber Strecke zum Monte Bregagno liegt das Kirchlein Sant‘Amate, das von vielen als (Zwischen-)Ziel gewählt wird.
(comersee-info.de)
This is my new pullip: Shinku!!
She arrived 2 daays ago, but I was to busy to take her photos U__u
She is so beautiful!! *_*
But i don't like her wig... so bad quality... I think I will change it ¬¬u
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.
This is my very first star trail attempt. I know there's nothing interesting in the foreground, but I wanted to see how to make star trails with nothing else to contend with initially. For those more experienced with this, please let me know if there are things I should be doing differently or if I'm off on the right foot. I like the results, but if I can improve, that'd be great! 14mm (28mm in 35mm-format), f3.5, 30 seconds, ISO 800, 120 stacked images using StarStaX. I took this with a full moon, and didn't center at any one location in the sky, so it really was a "fly by the seat of your pants" first attempt.
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts.
The Mustang was conceived, designed and built by North American Aviation (NAA) in response to a specification issued directly to NAA by the British Purchasing Commission. The prototype NA-73X airframe was rolled out on 9 September 1940, 102 days after the contract was signed and, with an engine installed, first flew on 26 October.
The Mustang was originally designed to use the Allison V-1710 engine, which had limited high-altitude performance. It was first flown operationally by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as a tactical-reconnaissance aircraft and fighter-bomber (Mustang Mk I).
The addition of the Rolls-Royce Merlin to the P-51B/C (Mustang Mk III) model transformed the Mustang's performance at altitudes above 15,000 ft, giving it a much better performance that matched or bettered almost all of the Luftwaffe's fighters at altitude.
The definitive USAF version, which saw use in any late WWII theatre, the P-51D (Mustang Mk IV), was powered by the Packard V-1650-7, a license-built version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin 60 series two-stage two-speed supercharged engine, and armed with six .50 caliber (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns.
Anyway, the Mustang’s development was kept up by North American as well as in Great Britain. There, the Mustang was developed into the Mustang V (a lightweight fighter of which only one prototype reached England), the Mustang VI (a high altitude fighter version which was produced in small numbers and kept in RAF service until 1951) and the Mustang VII, a radical modification for the South East Asia Command.
The Mustang VII was intended as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricanes and early Spitfire variants deployed to India and Burma. One of these types’ biggest concerns had been the engine, or, more specifically, its cooling system. The Merlin’s liquid cooled system had been designed for the mild European climate, but, in the hot and humid Asian environment, the aircraft frequently faced engine problems. An air-cooled, radial engine was regarded as the more appropriate means of propulsion, and with the Bristol Centaurus a powerful option was readily available and earmarked for the Hawker Tempest.
Apart from the new engine and cowling, the Mustang VII prototypes were similar to the P-51D. The Centaurus engine was tightly cowled and the exhaust stacks were grouped behind and on either side of the engine. Behind these were air outlets with automatic sliding "gills".
New air intakes on the inner leading edges of both wings fed the carburetor and an oil cooler. The radial engine installation owed much to examinations of a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and was clean and effective. The bigger frontal area was partly compensated by the removal of the Mustang’s characteristic, ventral radiator tunnel.
This modification also kept the overall increment of weight to only ~90 lb (41 kg) – even though the aircraft became remarkably nose-heavy and handled much different from the Merlin-powered versions. Longitudinal stability also deteriorated slightly.
The first Mustang Mk. VIII, PE883, flew on 28 June 1944 powered by a Centaurus I (2,000 hp/1,490 kW) driving a four-blade propeller, followed by the second, PE884. From the start, the Mustang VII was "tropicalized" for service in the South-East Asian theatre.
Orders were placed in September 1944 for 300 Mustang VIIs, and they were directly deployed to India and Burma. There, the Mustang VII replaced the Spitfire II and Vs in the fighter role, relegating the new RAF Thunderbolts in the region to ground attack, a task for which that type was well suited.
Once the Mustang VIIs were cleared for use, they were used against the Japanese in Burma by four RAF squadrons of the South East Asia Command from India. Operations with army support (operating as "cab ranks" to be called in when needed), attacks on enemy airfields and lines of communication, and escort sorties.
They proved devastating in tandem with Thunderbolts during the Japanese breakout attempt at the Sittang Bend in the final months of the war. The Mustangs were armed with two 500 lb (227 kg) bombs or, in some cases, British RP-3 rocket projectiles. The Mustang VIIs also flew escort for RAF Liberators in the bombing of Rangoon.
The type remained in RAF service until October 1946. After that the RAF passed 60 machines to the Indian Air Force in 1947, together with other piston fighters.
General characteristics:
Crew: 1
Length: 32 ft 8 1/4 in (9.97 m)
Wingspan: 48 ft 9½ in (14.90 m)
Height: 14 ft 6 in (4.39 m)
Wing area: 235 sq ft (21.83 m²)
Airfoil: NAA/NACA 45-100 / NAA/NACA 45-100
Empty weight: 7,725 lb (3,505 kg)
Loaded weight: 9,290 lb (4,220 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 12,200 lb (5,515 kg)
Maximum fuel capacity: 419 US gal (349 imp gal; 1,590 l)
Powerplant:
1× Bristol Centaurus 1 18-cylinder twin-row radial engine, 2,000 hp (1,490 kW) at take-off
Performance:
Maximum speed: 432 mph (695 km/h) at 18,400 ft (5,608 m)
Cruise speed: 362 mph (315 kn, 580 km/h)
Range: 740 mi (1,190 km) on internal fuel
Service ceiling: 36,500 ft (11,125 m)
Rate of climb: 4,700 ft/min (23.9 m/s)
Armament:
4× 0.787 caliber (20mm) Hispano Mk. II cannons with 200 RPG in the outer wings
Underwing hardpoints for up to 2.000 lb (907 kg) of external ordnance,
including drop tanks, a pair of bombs of up to 1.000 lb (454 kg) caliber, or six unguided missiles
The kit and its assembly:
This conversion was based on the rather academic question: how could a Mustang with a radial engine look like? A weird idea, if you look at the sleek aircraft. But then there was the rather handsome Fw 190 A/F, the Hawker Tempest carried both liquid-cooled and air-cooled engines, and I saw a model of a Merlin Spitfire mated with a Fw 190 BMW engine some time ago. So, why not re-do the Mustang?
Working things out was complex, though. Initially I wanted to graft an R-2800 onto the Mustang’s nose – I had a spare fuselage from a late Italeri F4U at hand, as well as a Matchbox P-51D... After some measuring I was certain: yes, this transplant could work!
Said and done, the Corsair’s front section including the engine was cut out and tailored to fit over the shortened Mustang nose which lost its Merlin. At first I retained the original belly radiator, since it would be a convenient fairing for the oil coolers. The project made good progress, but… the result did not look good, because the R-2800 is rather wide. The aircraft looked very tadpole-like.
So, while in the middle of body sculpting, I decided to change the project, switching to a British Centaurus - a featureless piece from a PM Model Sea Fury with some more changes.
The Centaurus’ selling point was the more slender cowling, and it goes well onto a F4U’s nose section, proven by several conversions of this kind. In order to keep the aircraft as slender as possible I removed the belly tunnel and re-located the oil coolers and air intakes into the wing roots, closer to the engine and more like the installation on the Tempest or the Sea Fury. These extended wing root fairings were created from sprue pieces and putty.
It is amazing how this further modification changed the Mustang’s look – the thing reminds a lot of a La-9/11 now, even though wings, tail and most of the fuselage, including the canopy, were not modified at all? I am also reminded of the F8F Bearcat?
Furthermore, after the new propeller (cuffed blades from a P-47 Thunderbolt, IIRC, with trimmed tips) with a massive spinner from a Hawker Tempest was mounted on its metal axis, this mutant Mustang looked more and more like a Reno Unlimited Class racer? Weird, but sexy!
Otherwise, only minor things were changed, e. g. the landing gear covers were replaced through 0.5mm styrene sheet, a dashboard was added to the cockpit and the thick canopy cut into two pieces. The six 0.5” machine guns were replaced by four short Hispano cannons made from brass.
Painting and markings:
With the Centaurus implant the background story and the operator idea changed. I used this opportunity to paint the aircraft in a late/post WWII SEAC livery – inspired by P-47s operated in this region.
The bare metal finish with dark blue ID stripes and the SEAC roundels already looked nice, but as a twist I incorporated remnants of a former Dark Green/Dark Earth camouflage, on the fuselage and the wings’ leading edges, as anti-glare panels, while the area in front of the cockpit was painted in opaque dark olive drab – a practice to be found on several RAF aircraft of that time are area.
The interior surface were painted with USAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 224 and 150) and slightly dry-brushed, then the whole kit received a basic coat of Revell Acrylic Aluminum. Later, some panels were painted with different shades of Aluminum and Steel (including Metallizer and normal metallic paint). Some wet sanding blurred the outlines and enhanced the worn look.
Decals come from various SEAC sheets, including the blue ID stripes on wings and tail. The corresponding blue cowling ring was painted with a mix of Humbrol 15 and 104, and pretty flaky around the engine cowling.
As finishing touches some oil stains were added with Tamiya “Smoke” and some soot stains around the exhausts and the guns were added. Finally, the camouflaged areas were sealed under a matt varnish while the bare metal parts received a semi-gloss acrylic coat.
A weird project – one of the few of my models that somehow changed dramatically along the way, even though still true to the original idea of a radial engine Mustang. However, the result was envisioned differently, but I am still happy with the outcome. Even though there’s visually little Mustang breed left…
Parting is such sweet sorrow - guess I will have to sleep on the office building floor. The couches that I nap on (while waiting in vain to get paid) out front of the often locked Caribbean Carnival offices on Waterman in Toronto were thrown out yesterday. Checked under the cushions for money - found a dime (more than I got from Carnival) and then took this picture from the road. Street photography / Sidewalk photography / Trailer Trash - all with just one click of the trigger.
#AdventCalendar Day Seventeen
LoLo is helping out and thinks these little gifts of gift boxes are so tasty looking. They have tiny tiny sunglasses and bows which he thinks he'll give to the kittens (the tiny baby kittens not a BEEG Kitten like himself :) ) "Hey babies come get your prezzies" They loved them!
Here are links with gift ideas for the animal lover in your life
iheartdogs.com/top-16-gift-ideas-for-dog-lovers-in-2016/
This is from '15 but I checked most of the gifts are still being done this year too! These are gifts that give money to help shelters with their sale
iheartdogs.com/18-gifts-that-help-dogs-in-need/
More gift ideas to wrap up your holiday shopping and make it count toward the pets who need it most!
theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/store/ars/category/27...
theanimalrescuesite.greatergood.com/store/ars/category/25...
www.humanesociety.org/shop/?credit=web
Search the web for more gift ideas that benefit shelter pets.
Remember too your local shelters always need the gift of blankets and other things you may just throw away! Go to the site of your local shelter or stop by and ask them what their WISH LIST is :)
Check in on Wag Aware too!! Their Charm drive ends on the 19th :)
www.facebook.com/OscarMadisonNYC/videos/1216114835139663/
Oscar's LEGO Ideas page
ideas.lego.com/projects/131852
Oscar and Tiki are doing the LEGO Advent Calendar and sharing fun memories from the past as they do. Check out their Facebook page for all the fun
www.facebook.com/OscarMadisonNYC/
VIEW the whole fun set in the Advent Calendar Album
Palkhi is a 1000 — year old tradition which was started by some saints of Maharashtra (India). and is still continued by their followers called as Varkaris (people who follow a Vari, a fundamental ritual). People collectively go singing and dancing, chanting Dnyanba-Tukaram in what are called as Dindis (organised group of Varkaris) to the holy town of Pandharpur (a small town in the district of Solapur) in Hindu months of Ashadh (June-July) and Karthik (November-December).
The Palkhi starts in the month of Jyeshth (June) and the whole process lasts a total of 22 days. Every year on the eleventh day of the first half of the month of Ashadh, the Palkhi reaches Pandharpur. Every saint, right from Sant Dnyaneshwar to Sant Tukaram was following the Vari tradition.
In the year 1685, Narayan baba, the youngest son of Tukaram was a man of innovative spirit and decided to bring about a change in the dindi-wari tradition by introducing the Palkhi, which is a sign of social respect. He put the silver padukas (footsteps) of Tukaram in the Palkhi and proceeded with his dindi to Alandi where he put the padukas of Dnyaneshwar in the same Palkhi. This tradition of twin Palkhis went on every year, but in 1830 there were some disputes in the family of Tukaram, concerned with rights and privileges. Following this, some thoughtful persons decided to break-up the tradition of twin Palkhis and organise here after, two separate Palkhis Tukaram Palkhi from Dehu (Pune Maharashta) and the Dnyaneshwar Palkhi from Alandi (Pune Maharashta).
From that time till date, both the Palkhis meet in Pune for a brief halt and then diverge at Hadapsar to meet again at Wakhri, a village nearby to Pandharpur.
In course of time, this tradition is becoming popular day by day. A total of approximately 2 lakh devotees proceed along with the Sant Tukaram Palkhi from Dehu village, while a total of 4 lakh devotees march along with the Sant Dnyaneshwar Palkhi from alandi village. At present a total of 43 Palkhis including the above two visit Pandharpur village every year.
Thousands of people called ‘Varkari’ reach Pandharpur from Alandi or Dehu after walking for about 250kms in Aashad (a hindu month which coincides with June/ July) Ekadashi (11th day of the moon). They walk with palkhis (chariots) carrying paduka (sandals) of the saints singing sacred songs. Varkaris are a Hindu religion sect who workship Vithoba (or Vitthal), an incarnation of Krishna.
Devotee chants the name of “Mauli Vittal” all the way & completes the yatra by feet on Ashadi Ekadashi at Pandharpur. Around 8 lakhs of warkaris flocked the city and their chants of “Ram Krishna Hari, jai jai Ram Krishna Hari” and Dnyanba-Tukaram (the famous Maharashtrian saints, Dnyaneshwar and Tukaram) reverberated on the streets.
I am working on a huge new photo story..this is a sneak peak of the first costume of many, that i will be making! a Princess!
back to my sewing...
Launch Lake Wallis at completion of the hull (1940/41); she was brought around from the beach on a cradle and launched near the main Tuncurry wharf. The tug assisting is believed to be the Forster; Henry Miles (with hat) on deck and Harry Avery (braces) assisting.
Other images of the Lake Wallis can be found in the Album Lake Wallis
The ferry Lake Wallis operated out of Forster for a long period and was well-known to both holidaymakers and schoolchildren as she plied the waters of Wallis Lake.
UPDATED OCTOBER 2018
Lake Wallis built by Harry Avery
Recent information supplied by Peter Emmerson, son of Albert CARL Emmerson, indicates that his father had the Lake Wallis built specifically for use on Wallis Lake by John Wright & Co. Ltd's chief shipwright, Harry Avery. Commenced circa 1940 and launched circa 1941/2 she was built prior to the time when Wright's shipyard was contracted to building a large number of vessels for the US Army and the Australian Army. While the timbers used in construction are unknown, the planking was of White Beech (Gmelina leichhardtii) sourced from the Comboyne Plateau.
From the images provided by Peter Emmerson it is clear that the hull was completed with timber frame to allow later finishing as a ferry; she was taken by cradle further upstream to an area adjacent to the Tuncurry coal-loader.
Albert CARL Emmerson fits out the Lake Wallis
It appears likely that Carl Emmerson bought the hull only and fitted her with steering gear and a 2 cyl. J2 Kelvin Diesel with petrol assist start. Petrol and spark plugs was used ignite the chamber and thus assist the flywheel to turn; this was an essential component of the starting procedure in cold weather. Carl fitted out the launch with anything that was available. In 1943, equipment and components were unavailable with invasion by Japanese forces appearing almost inevitable. Carl's innovative approach included using the steering wheel of an old Dodge truck. The new launch, named the Lake Wallis replaced his previous launch the ex-cream boat Dorrie May.
Carl Emmerson obtained a Special Lease to build a wharf on Wallis Lake and operated the Lake Wallis as the official mail boat, passenger ferry, delivery launch and later for excursionists. Carl operated his launch service at 9 am Monday, Wednesday and Friday (3h return trip). From Forster the launch travelled to Green Point (Lach Fraser’s dairy); then South to Charlotte Bay Creek then NW to Whoota; then to Coomba Park (Beddington’s) then to Sointu's wharf (John Sointu and Ida Niemi) on the SW side of Wallis Island and finally back to Forster. On the other days he operated his bus service to Elizabeth Beach, Booti Booti, Charlottte Bay and back to Forster. Carl also delivered boxes of butter from the Cape Hawke Co-operative Butter factory in Tuncurry to stores in Forster, three days a week.
Carl Emmerson starts tourist trips around Wallis lake
After the War, when people were again able to travel, Carl commenced a tourist operation taking visitors around the extensive Wallis Lake. His wife, Mollie, acted as deckhand and morning tea maker - pleasing everyone with her home-made shortbread biscuits.
In 1967 Carl sold his entire operation (including the Lake Wallis, the Special Lease, the established tourist route and wharf facilities to Stan Croad.
Stan Croad
The Master of the Lake Wallis from 1967 was Stan Croad, both a ferryman and film operator at the Regent Theatre in Forster. Stanley Osbourne Croad was born in Kempsey in 1912 and moved to Forster around 1937 when the Regent Theatre opened and he commenced work as film operator.
Prior to purchase of the Lake Wallis he operated a launch - name unknown. In 1944, newspaper reports show that Stan had secured a contract to transport schoolchildren from areas around Wallis Lake to Forster. In 1946 he sought a Special Lease from the Lands Board Office to operate his launch service, “carrying school children to and from school per motor launch, and conducting scenic tours of Wallis Lakes” - as indicated by this notice in the Northern Champion.
“It is notified in the Government Gazette of 19th and 26th September and 3rd and 10th October, 1947, that application has been made by Stanley Osbourne Croad, for Special Lease No. 47/37, Land District of Taree, for Jetty, containing about 2 perches below high water mark of Wallis Lake at Forster, between portions 297 and 343 and south of and adjoining the area applied for as Special Lease 46/62 (The Northern Champion (Taree, NSW: 1913 - 1954 Sat 11 Oct 1947).
Croad operated from Emmerson's Lease 38/21 post 1967 but the precise details of his earlier operation is unknown: According to Carl's son, Peter, the relationship between Carl Emmerson and Stan Croad was not a happy one. It was Stan Croad who replaced the Kelvin J2 diesel with the more powerful Lister diesel motor.
In 1975 the Wallis Lake was registered to carry 39 persons and provide life-saving devices for 18 persons. She was described only as 29 ft 3 inches long and only licenced to travel on CAPE HAWKE HARBOUR – Smooth Water only. Graeme Andrews recorded her dimensions as 9 ft 10 inches breadth and 5.3 tonnes.
AFLOAT MAGAZINE ARTICLE
The best description of Stan’s operation was published in the magazine AFLOAT. It was written by Graeme and Winsome Andrews in 1976. Excerpts are included below:
“Stan Croad of Forster is a throw-back. In 1976 he is probably the last of the travelling storemen who once could be seen on most of Australia’s waterways. These water-borne carriers could be found on any river. They brought stores and religion. They collected produce outbound and replaced it with passengers inbound.
Stan still does something like that. Along with his tourist passengers he carries beer, bread, mail and vegetables and at various wharves around the lake he is met by the locals. Meanwhile his passengers watch the process with interest, probably unaware of just what they are watching.
Stan’s small well-deck ferry Lake Wallis is one of the last of the small working craft of the Forster area, her lineage goes back to the time when Forster was a thriving coastal shipping port. The days of the small ferry are numbered as Forster’s population is increasing and new waterfront businesses are growing, along with bigger, faster and more obvious cruise boats. Stan reckons he will not be able to compete but he and his little boat might last long enough, particularly as her shallow draft allows her to reach places out of bounds to bigger craft.
In 1976 only one other boat competed with Stan for the tourist trade. The ex-river milk boat Sun with her liquor license and great size carried a different load to Stan and their paths rarely crossed. [In 2016 Sun is based in Brooklyn on the Hawkesbury River and services Dangar Island and the settlements such as Little Wobby.]
Stan collects his goods and passengers from almost the heart of Forster. The trip is advertised as starting at 0900hrs but Lake Wallis and her amiable Master are no longer young and not in any hurry. The ferry seems to have been built about 1944. She carries up to 38 passengers with a crew of one. A Lister diesel can give her about eight knots but six or seven will do her unless the wind and the lake look like whipping up. When we travelled with Stan he was contemplating buying a newer and bigger boat but was bothered that this would mean he would have to increase his prices.
At about 0920 the Lister rumbles into life and Lake Wallis moves away from her berth with perhaps 20 adults with a dozen or so kids. Passengers and crew are seated low in the hull. She is like an old private launch with the engine covered by a large flat-topped box, slap in the middle of the boat.
Nearing the Forster - Tuncurry Bridge the launch swings sharply to port and skirts a steep sand island where kids are sliding down the sand dune to end up with a great splash. The launch crosses the next channel past low-lying Cockatoo Island towards the ‘Cut’ which is the entrance to the Wallamba River. A considerable tidal outflow can be felt there and the Lister picks up a few revs to cope. Stan has done this many times but he still keeps his ship’s head lined up on the various official and local knowledge navigation markers and piles.
Along the top of Wallis Island the ferry plods. In the area between Regatta Island and Wallis Island the local people once held picnic regattas. Paddle steamers, early motor launches and sail craft of all types – private and commercial- competed in picnic races while the families ashore tucked into the goodies and egged on the contestants.
At Coomba, a hamlet on the western shores of Wallis Lake, a small jetty pokes out from the shore. Here a cluster of people await their purchases. A run-down public toilet attracts some sighs of relief from some of the intrepid passengers. Coomba was to be a glamour development but something went wrong and the 20 or so homes house retirees in considerable peace. Stores and money change hands and Lake Wallis backs carefully out into the channel and heads onwards.
On the south-western end of Wallis Island is a grand and remarkable two-storey house. It is obviously old and apparently houses a Finnish family who have crops, cattle and the obligatory sauna. Their ‘wharf’ consists of the remains of the steam paddle lighter, or ‘drogher’ Queen. About 40 m long by 10 or 12 m wide, this craft is a wooden boat enthusiast’s dream. Much of the exposed timber remains showing grown timbers and adzed wood working. Stores and monies change hands and off we go again.
Out in the middle of the lake the Lister’s muted growl suddenly fades into silence. Skipper Croad puts down his microphone, takes off his Captain’s hat and replaces it with a chef’s hat. A white apron mysteriously appears, while from a large white locker, good china cups and saucers appear. Within a few minutes Stan is passing around, via the ladies, cups of very hot tea or coffee, biscuits for those that want them and scones for those who prefer. The children get cold soft drinks and or cordial.
As the boat drifts Stan tells us more about the lake, his boat and of the locals. Fifteen minutes after ‘Tea-Oh!’ the diesel awakes, tea remnants disappear into the locker, the tablecloth leaves the top of the engine box and we press on somewhat refreshed and impressed.
The homeward, northward run takes us into shallows. Clumps of weeds slide past close to the hull and Stan keeps his eyes on his marks. He tells us about ‘The Step’. Between the mainland at Wallis Point and Wallis Island is a sand bank known as ‘The Step’. Here the incoming tide rolls over the edge of the Stockyards Channel and forms a sand ‘lip’. Here it is that deeper-draft vessels baulk but the little launch slides up and over, the Lister going flat out. All aboard feel the bow then the rest of the boat lift and then drop as we bump into deeper water. Lake Wallis has nearly completed her run.
She swings to starboard off the rarely-used airfield on Wallis Island and heads down Breckenridge Channel. Past Godwin Island Stan swings to starboard and eases in towards his pile berth. Lake Wallis’s stem settles into the low-tide shore-line mud as Stan secures his berthing lines before waving us ashore over a plank that is strong enough but makes one wonder anyway. Stan makes his personal farewell to every person leaving and then, as we straggle away, turns to and cleans up his place of work.
Stan Croad and his comfortable little launch provided one of the best-value tourist dollars the Grey Wanderers have ever had. More than 30 years later we sometimes talk of him, wondering what became of him. Perhaps one of Afloat’s amazing knowledgeable readers can complete the tale?
A more recent publication by the Coomba Progress Association describes Stan as follows:
“For many years people in Coomba had relied for mail delivery on the services of men like Stan Croad, who had operated excellent ferry services, and delivered so cheerfully and willingly not only their basic needs, but would even shop and bring back a grocery order without charging for this extra service.
Stan Croad sold his operation in 1978 to William and Noni Coombe who only ran the Lake Wallis for a couple of times when they replaced her with the younger and larger vessel - Amaroo. Matt Coombe, William Coombe's son noted "This paved the way for bigger and better vessels, all given the prestigious name of ‘Amaroo’" Manning-Great Lakes Focus BLOG 1st June 2010
Stan died in 1994.
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Graeme and Winsome Andrews for their contribution and AFLOAT magazine for allowing us to extract a large part of the material in Tea and Scones on Lake Wallis in 1976
Image Source: Peter Emmerson
All Images in this photostream are Copyright - Great Lakes Manning River Shipping and/or their individual owners as may be stated above and may not be downloaded, reproduced, or used in any way without prior written approval.
GREAT LAKES MANNING RIVER SHIPPING, NSW - Flick Group --> Alphabetical Boat Index --> Boat builders Index --> Tags List
Queen Anne’s Lace.
The Wild Carrot, Daucus carota, whose common names include wild carrot, bird's nest, bishop's lace, and Queen Anne's lace (North America), is a white, flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native to temperate regions of Europe and southwest Asia, and naturalized to North America and Australia. Domesticated carrots are cultivars of a subspecies, Daucus carota subsp. sativus.
The plant is a herbaceous, somewhat variable biennial plant that grows between 30 and 60 cm (1 and 2 ft) tall, and is roughly hairy, with a stiff, solid stem. The leaves are tripinnate, finely divided and lacy, and overall triangular in shape. The leaves are bristly and alternate in a pinnate pattern that separates into thin segments. The flowers are small and dull white, clustered in flat, dense umbels. The main identifier is the hairy stem of the wild carrot.
Scientific name: Daucus carota subsp. L.
Taxonomy -
Class: Equisetopsida Subclass: Magnoliidae Superorder: Asteranae
Order: Apiales Family:Apiaceae Genus: Daucus
Common name( s): wild carrot, carrot, Queen Anne’s lace, bird’s nest, devil’s plague
Synonym (s): Carota sylvestr is (Mill.) Rupr., Caucalis carnosa Roth more here
Conservation status: Widespread and not considered to be threatened.
Habitat: Rough grassland, coastal cliffs and dunes.
Key uses: Food and drink.
Known hazards: Wild carrot has some medical properties and is similar in appearance to poisonous species such as poison hemlock (Conium maculatum), water hemlock (Cicuta maculata) and fool's parsley (Aethusa cynapium).
Taxonomy Class: Equisetopsida
Subclass: Magnoliidae Super or der : Asteranae
Order : Apiales Family: Apiaceae
Genus: Daucus (source for the above - Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, London UK - more information - www.kew.org/plants-fungi/Daucus-carota.htm) picture - Deutschlands Flora in Abbildungen, Jacob Sturm und Johann Georg Sturm (1796) Original Description Echte Möhre, Daucus carota.
The Wild Carrot (Daucus Carota) (a.k.a.Queen Anne's Lace) is thought to have originated on the Iranian Plateau (an area which now includes Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran). It is abundant in temperate regions across the globe, particularly Western Asia and Europe, and is widely distributed across much of the United States whereCarrot Now and then - wild and domestic it is often found along roadsides, abandoned fields, and pastures.
Cultivated plant species and their sexually-compatible wild relatives often overlap in terms of geographic proximity and phenology. This overlap provides the opportunity for gene flow between crops and their wild relatives. Farmers and breeders are often concerned with the potential for wild allelic contamination into agricultural fields, which can hinder production efficiency.
In many carrot producing regions throughout the world, wild carrot populations can be found growing in close proximity to cultivated carrot fields.
Wild carrot is the progenitor of the cultivated carrot, D. carota subsp. sativus, and the two subspecies are sexually compatible. The cultivated carrot was likely domesticated in Central Asia roughly 1,100 yr ago and is grown worldwide from both open pollinated and hybrid seed.
Wild Carrot mainly occurs in free-draining and slightly acidic soils on rough grassland, coastal cliffs and dunes. It frequently naturalises in fields and gardens.
It is one of many umbelliferous plants to be found growing around the world. Wild carrot appears in many temperate regions of the world, far beyond its Mediterranean and Asian centres of origin where this plant displays great diversity. It is quite possible that ancient cultures in those regions used wild carrot as a herb, and it is also quite likely that the seeds were used medicinally in the Mediterranean region since antiquity (Banga 1958).
Almost certainly the wild and early forms of the domesticated carrot were first used as a medicine before they were used as a root vegetable in the conventional sense of that term today. There is good genetic evidence that wild carrot is the direct progenitor of the cultivated carrot (Simon 2000). Selection for a swollen rooted type suitable for domestic consumption undoubtedly took many centuries.
Both the wild and the cultivated carrots belong to the species Daucus carota. Wild carrot is distinguished by the name Daucus carota, Carota, whereas domesticated carrot belongs to Daucus carota, sativus. As a member of the carrot family it has a long taproot and lacy leaves. Dig up and crush a Wild Carrot root and you will find that it smells just like a carrot.
It is yellowish or ivory in colour, spindle-shaped, slender, firm and woody; a pernicious weed in some areas. It is edible when young but the root (especially the centre) soon gets tough and woody due to the high content of xylem tissue. The domestic carrot is a relative that lacks most of this tissue. The wild carrot has finely divided leaves like that of the domesticated carrot. The leaves, petioles and flower stems may be densely hairy or have no hair. The leaves on the stem are arranged alternately. Flowering wild carrot may grow four feet tall. At the end of the stem is a primary umbel (seed head) made up of numerous individual white flowers and possibly a purple flower in the center together with drooping, narrow bracts on the underside . Plants also may have many secondary umbels produced at any node on the stem below the primary umbel.
Each flower on the umbel produces two seeds. After seed set, the umbel closes upward. Once the seeds have turned brown, they are mature. The roots of wild carrot are typically white. The characteristic odour of carrot is present when any part of the plant is crushed. Spent umbels curl inwards forming a depressed cup. The fruits are covered in hooked spines, which aid dispersal by clinging to the fur of passing animals. Flowering period (in England) is from June to August and the native biennial can reach a height of 90 centimetres.
Wild Carrot is also known as Queen Anne's Lace, Birds Nest Weed, Bees Nest, Devils Plague, garden carrot, Bird's Nest Root, Fools Parsley, Lace Flower, Rantipole, Herbe a dinde and Yarkuki. Herbe a dinde derives from its use as a feed for young turkeys-dinde.
"Daucus" comes from daukos, name given by the Greeks to some members of the Umbelliferae family and it seems to derive from "daîo" : I overheat . Carota means carrot in Latin.
Can you eat carrot flowers? - Yes at your won risk! - Your best bet is to read up on survival or self sufficiency foods, a good source from people who have tried and lived to tell the tale!
As I recall from reading such a survival book, wild carrot flowers (and many others ) are edible. The big caveat is, and I cannot emphasise this too much - be absolutely sure it is Wild Carrot as it is very similar to poison hemlock (which killed Socrates!).
Deep fried carrot flower is supposed to be a delicacy - www.altnature.com/gallery/Wild_Carrot.htm
So on that basis domestic carrot flowers should be edible too.
My friend from What's Cooking America has a useful guide for you - whatscookingamerica.net/EdibleFlowers/EdibleFlowersMain.htm
And another guide for you - www.herbsarespecial.com.au/self-sufficiency/edible-flower...
The Mystery of the Purple Floret
Queen Anne’s Lace is common in North America, Europe and Asia. In the summer it produces beautiful compound flowers that form a carpet of hundreds of tiny white florets. Strangely, quite often you will find a single darkly coloured floret just off center, standing tall above the rest. No one knows why.
Botanists have debated the mystery of the coloured floret in Daucas carota (also known as “Queen Anne’s Lace,” “Wild Carrot,” “Bishop’s Lace,” and “Bird’s Nest”) for at least the last 150 years. Back then some of the most learned botanists believed that the floret was a genetic oddity that provided no service to the plant. Many modern botanists disagree. Some suspect that the coloured floret tricks flying insects into thinking that a bug is already sitting on the flower.
Perhaps this attracts predatory wasps to land hoping to snatch a quick meal. Perhaps the presence of one insect is a signal to others that there is something on this flower worth having. If so, then the floret might entice flying insects to land and thereby help pollinate the plant.
The research that’s been done so far on this question has produced contradictory results. Some naturalists argue that they have found evidence that favours the idea that the dark floret is an insect mimic. Others have presented data that suggests that the floret does nothing to help the plant increase the number of viable seeds it produces, and therefore does nothing to help it propagate its species.
By solving the great debate of its function, new knowledge about the central dark spot and its possible role as an insect attractant could lead to future developments in cultivation as well as in methods for improving agricultural processes in cultivated carrots.
The wild carrot is an aromatic herb that acts as a diuretic, soothes the digestive tract and stimulates the uterus. A wonderfully cleansing medicine, it supports the liver, stimulates the flow of urine and the removal of waste by the kidneys. An infusion is used in the treatment of various complaints including digestive disorders, kidney and bladder diseases and in the treatment of dropsy.
An infusion of the leaves has been used to counter cystitis and kidney stone formation, and to diminish stones that have already formed. Carrot leaves contain significant amounts of porphyrins, which stimulate the pituitary gland and lead to the release of increased levels of sex hormones.
The plant is harvested in July and dried for later use. A warm water infusion of the flowers has been used in the treatment of diabetes. The grated raw root, especially of the cultivated forms, is used as a remedy for threadworms. The root is also used to encourage delayed menstruation.
The root of the wild plant can induce uterine contractions and so should not be used by pregnant women. A tea made from the roots is diuretic and has been used in the treatment of urinary stones.
An infusion is used in the treatment of oedema, flatulent indigestion and menstrual problems. The seed is a traditional 'morning after' contraceptive and there is some evidence to uphold this belief. It requires further investigation. Carrot seeds can be abortifacient and so should not be used by pregnant women.
Ancient folk lore said that to cure epileptic seizures you should eat the dark coloured middle flower of Queen Annes Lace. The flower is also used in ancient rituals an spells, for women to increase fertility and for men to increase potency and sexual desire!
A warm water infusion of the flowers has been used in the treatment of diabetes. The grated raw root, especially of the cultivated forms, is used as a remedy for threadworms.
The root is also used to encourage delayed menstruation. The root of the wild plant can induce uterine contractions and so should not be used by pregnant women.
A tea made from the roots is diuretic and has been used in the treatment of urinary stones. The seeds are diuretic, carminative, emmenagogue and anthelmintic.
An infusion is used in the treatment of oedema, flatulent indigestion and menstrual problems. The seed is a traditional ‘morning after’ contraceptive and there is some evidence to uphold this belief. It requires further investigation. Carrot seeds can be abortifacient and so should not be used by pregnant women.
Queen Annes Lace is the wild progenitor of the domesticated carrot. Although native to the Old World, these white lacy umbels are a familiar sight in the United States and Canada. The medicinal properties of Queen Annes Lace are many. More detail is given below. Its seeds may be collected, dried and used for tea. It is interesting to note that this plant is the closest living relative (on the basis of family and medicinal activity) to Silphion, which was picked and used by the Romans as a culinary spice and contraceptive until it became extinct in the first century AD. Apparently it was extremely effective. Supposedly Nero was given the last remaining root.
In the late 1980s scientists began studying Queen Annes Lace and found that (in mice at least) it blocked the production of progesterone and inhibited fetal and ovarian growth. Check out thecontraception page of the Museum.
Queen Anne's Lace is quite an aggressive plant. It is a biennial, so lives only 2 years, thus never forms a big root mass like daisies or other perennial wildflowers. However, it is such a prolific seeder, it does spread rapidly, and is almost impossible to eradicate. It is an alien, but one of the ones that's been in the US since colonial times. It came across the ocean in sacks of grain, probably with the Pilgrims. It's now established in every State. It's beautiful in the wildflower meadow I am not so sure in the garden.
If you want to plant it, easiest way is to gather a handful of the seeds from a plant dying down in the fall. They seem to be everywhere. But there is also another option. Try an annual named Ammi majus. It's the flower common in the cut flower trade as "Queen Anne's Lace", and is also sometimes called "Bishop's Flower." The two look very similar, but the latter doesn't last in your soil forever as Daucus does.
Today, in some parts of rural United States, this herb is used as a sort of morning-after contraceptive by women who drink a teaspoonful of the seeds with a glass of water immediately after sex. The seeds are also used for the prevention and washing out of gravel and urinary stones. As they are high in volatile oil, some find them soothing to the digestive system, useful for colic and flatulence. Be very, very sure that if you do decide to harvest any part of Queen Annes Lace for consumption that you have the correct plant. It is similar to Hemlock (Conium maculatum), a herb which was used medicinally but is now seldom used because of its high toxicity.
The Wild Carrot is still very much prevalent, particularly in the US where it was introduced from Europe and is the genetic source of edible carrots. Wild Carrot is found in sandy or gravelly soils and in wets areas. It is abundant west of the Cascades in Oregon and Washington where it is classed as a Class C noxious weed. Wild Carrot causes problems in pastures, hay fields, Christmas tree farms, grass seed fields and most other open areas that are not tilled annually. It is an especially serious threat in areas where carrot seed is produced because it hybridizes with the crop and ruins the seed.
Washington state has gone so far as to quarantine the plants to prevent any further escapes into its wildlands and agricultural regions. It is illegal to transport, buy, sell or distribute seed there. The penalty is a $5,000 fine.
Wild Cwild carrot and rosettearrot is easy to grow, it prefers a sunny position and a well-drained neutral to alkaline soil. Considered an obnoxious weed by some, it can spread very quickly. Its root is small and spindle shaped, whitish, slender and hard, (tender when young), but soon gets tough, with a strong aromatic smell. Harvest entire plant in July or when flowers bloom, and dry for later herb use. Collect edible roots and shoots in spring when tender. Gather seed in autumn (the fall).
There is no record of wild carrot toxicity in the US but in Europe wild carrot has been known to be mildly toxic to horses and cattle. A high concentration of wild carrot in hay is potentially a problem because livestock eat hay less selectively than green forage. Sheep appear to graze wild carrot without any harmful effect. Find out about some of the myths as to why Queen Annes Lace is so called click here.
wild carrot plantThis plant is a biennial which grows, in its second year, from a taproot (the carrot) to a height of two to four feet. The stems are erect and branched; both stems and leaves are covered with short coarse hairs.
The leaves are very finely divided; the botanical term is tri-pinnate. When a leaf is composed of a number of lateral leaflets, it is said to be pinnate or feather-like; and when these lateral divisions are themselves pinnated, it is said to be bi-pinnate, or twice-feathered. The leaves of this plant are like that but some of the lower leaves are still more divided and become tri-pinnate. The lower leaves are considerably larger than the upper ones, and their arrangement on the main stem is alternate. All of these leaves embrace the stem with a sheathing base.
wild carrot flowerThe attractive two to four inch "flower" is actually a compound inflorescence made up of many small flowers. The umbels of the flowers are terminal and composed of many rays. The flowers themselves are very small, but from their whiteness and number, present a very conspicuous appearance. The central flower of each umbel is often purple.
During the flowering period the head is nearly flat or slightly convex, but as the seeds ripen the form becomes very cup-like; hence one of the popular names for this plant is "bird's nest." The seeds are covered with numerous little bristles arranged in five rows. For more photos click here.
Like their domestic cousins, wild carrot roots can be eaten. However, they are only edible when very young. After that, they are too tough and woody. The flowers are also edible. Flower clusters can be french fried for a carrot-flavoured, quite attractive dish.
.
The Museum of Tomorrow (Portuguese: Museu do Amanhã) is a science museum in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was designed by Spanish neofuturistic architect Santiago Calatrava, and built next to the waterfront at Pier Maua. Its construction was supported by the Roberto Marinho Foundation
The building attempts to set new standards of sustainability in the municipality. Compared with conventional buildings, designers say it uses 40% less energy (including the 9% of its power it derives from the sun), and the cooling system taps deep water from nearby Guanabara Bay. The structure looks set to be one of Rio’s most famous tourist sights. Its solar spines and fan-like skylight have been designed so that the building can adapt to changing environmental conditions.
The museum has partnerships with Brazil’s leading universities, global science institutions and collects real-time data on climate and population from space agencies and the United Nations. It has also hired consultants from a range of related fields, including astronauts, social scientists and climate experts. It sits waterside in a port area that was left abandoned for decades, and is now being renovated with new office blocks, apartments and restaurants. The museum is part of the city's port area renewal for the 2016 Summer Olympics. (wikipedia)
Watch a video of Tomorrow Museum by clicking HERE
.
There are 205 days until the Olympics Rio 2016
Faltam 205 dias para a Rio 2016
Foto: Museu do Amanhã - Praça Mauá - Rio de Janeiro
Conforme a Lei 9.610/98, é proibida a reprodução total ou parcial ou divulgação comercial ou não sem a autorização prévia e expressa do autor (artigo 29). ® Todos os direitos reservados.
According to Law 9.610/98, it is prohibited the partial or total commercial reproduction without the previous written authorization of the author (article 29). ® All rights are reserved.
Day 109/365
Shane is getting ready for the spring
___________________________________________________________
Thanks for your views & faves! and your comments are always welcome! ;-)
Follow me
My Blog
Sandal Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Sandal Magna, a suburb of the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, overlooking the River Calder. It was the site of royal intrigue and the setting for a scene in one of William Shakespeare's plays.
History
The Warennes
William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (1081–1138) was granted the Sandal estates in 1107. The 2nd earl built the first Sandal Castle of timber. He supported Robert Curthose against Henry I and was banished from the kingdom for two years. Later he was given the Wakefield manor. William de Warenne, 3rd Earl of Surrey (1119–1148) spent little time at Sandal, having taken crusading vows and joined the Second Crusade. He had one daughter, Isabel de Warenne (1137–1199), who married William of Blois, son of King Stephen, who became the 4th earl. He died in 1159, leaving no children. Isabel, his widow, next married Hamelin (1129–1202), the 5th earl. He was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and assumed the Warrene name on his marriage in 1164. Hamelin is thought to have built the early Norman stone fortifications at Conisbrough Castle and also begun to replace the wooden fortifications at Sandal with stone.
William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey (1166–1240) married Maud Marshal in 1225. He was loyal to his cousin, King John and is one of the four nobles whose name appears in the Magna Carta for John. On King John's death in 1216 he supported Henry III. Maud de Warenne, William's widow, held the Wakefield Manor from 1240 until their son John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey (1231–1304) came of age in 1252. John married Alice de Lusignan in 1247. In 1296 the 6th Earl was appointed warden for Scotland by Edward I and in 1299, the Earl and his royal master were triumphant over the Scots at the Battle of Falkirk.
William de Warrene (1256–1286) was killed at a tournament in Croydon pre-deceasing his father. His son John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey (1286–1347) was born in the year of his death. John married Joan of Bar but lived adulterously with Maud de Nereford from a village near Castle Acre in Norfolk. In 1347, the 7th Earl died. His sons John and Thomas became Knights Hospitaller in the Holy Land, predeceasing their mother. The lands passed to Edward III. The Warennes had castles at Lewes in Sussex and Reigate in Surrey, Castle Acre Castle in Norfolk and Conisbrough in Yorkshire.
The Dukes of York
In 1347, Edward III granted Sandal to his fifth son Edmund of Langley who was six years old at the time. His elder brother John of Gaunt held Pontefract and Knaresborough Castles, Edmund was granted Wark Castle near Coldstream in the Scottish Borders, and in 1377 Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire which was to become his home, and for the next 75 years the family seems to have spent little time at Sandal, leaving it to the management of constables or stewards.
In 1385 Edmund was made Duke of York as a reward for his support for his nephew, Richard II of England. He was succeeded by his son, also Edward who campaigned in Ireland and died at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Edward was succeeded by his nephew, Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York.
The Battle of Wakefield
Early in 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, Richard Plantagenet made a bid for the throne. He was initially not well-received, but an Act of Accord made in October 1460 recognised him as heir to the throne and named him Protector of the Realm. In December Richard went to Sandal Castle, either to consolidate his position or to counter Lancastrian dissent. He had an army of 3,000–8,000 men but on 30 December in the Battle of Wakefield, he was outnumbered and outmaneuvered by Queen Margaret's army, coming from nearby Pontefract. Richard suffered a crushing defeat and both he and his younger son Edmund, Earl of Rutland were killed (although only two months later Richard's eldest son Edward became king).
Richard III
The castle's last brush with royalty came in 1483 when Richard's eighth son (and twelfth child) Richard III chose it as a northern base and ordered significant investments. This hope was short lived however as Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. After this the castle was maintained a little, but gradually declined, with the building of Wakefield Prison in the 1590s leaving it even less useful.
The English Civil War
During the English Civil War Sandal Castle was Royalist, although its neglected state left it out of the major conflicts. In 1645 however it was besieged at least three times by Parliamentarian troops. Butler recounts: Having been assured that they would receive a safe passage to Welbeck House in north Nottinghamshire they surrendered the castle at 10 o'clock on 1 October 1645. The garrison was then 10 officers and 90 men with two of the men called "seniors" implying that they were professional soldiers rather than just non-commissioned officers. They also surrendered 100 muskets, 50 pikes, 20 halberds, 150 swords and two barrels of gunpowder: no pieces of artillery are mentioned.
As a result of this capitulation, only Bolton Castle in Wensleydale and Skipton Castle remained in Royalist hands in Yorkshire, but Sandal "was the most resolute of all the three northern garrisons" and its fall caused great rejoicing among the parliamentarian forces. By the siege's end, it was a ruin. The following year, Parliament ordered that it be made untenable.
The castle
The motte at Sandal Castle
The castles built by William the Conqueror's followers were self-sufficient strongholds, some of which were tax-gathering points, some controlled the larger towns, river crossings or passes through hills. Two castles were built near Wakefield, one at Lowe Hill on the north bank of the Calder and Sandal on the south bank. The first castles were probably started and completed in the early 12th century by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey after he had been granted the manor of Wakefield by Henry I.
Sandal and Lowe Hill were motte-and-bailey earthwork castles with wooden towers on the mound and baileys with timber palisades and deep ditches. Sandal is built on a natural sandstone ridge, the Oaks Rock. The motte was raised to 10 metres (33 ft) with the 7 metres (23 ft) deep moat surrounding it. Only Sandal survived and during the 13th century the keep, curtain wall and other buildings were rebuilt in stone, probably started by either the sixth or seventh Earls Warenne.[Timber motte and bailey castles were often converted into stone if they were in use for long periods; Sandal is a particularly good example of this.
The stone keep was circular with four towers each four storeys high; two of them close together formed a gatehouse, and the east tower contained a well, 37 metres (121 ft) deep. The double-walled keep would have had guardrooms, storerooms and servants' quarters on the ground floor, the main hall above and private apartments on the second floor. The tower rooms had garderobes, (lavatories) that discharged on the outer walls of the keep. The curtain wall was 6 metres (20 ft) high with a wall walk along its length, it enclosed the bailey and crossed the moat twice to reach the keep.
The barbican at Sandal was inside the bailey; it was a three-storey tower with a moat opposite two drum towers at the entrance to the keep, all of which were constructed in the early 1270s. The barbican with its own gate and portcullis added an extra line of defence between the main entrance gate and the keep. Attackers entering the barbican had to make a right-angled turn to enter the keep, which was protected by a drawbridge between the drum towers. A stairway from the barbican led to a sally port.
The bailey lay to the south-east of the keep with the main gatehouse on the north-east side. It was crescent shaped, about 71 metres (233 ft) long and 52 metres (171 ft) wide. Inside the bailey there was a 12 metres (39 ft) deep well and two privy shafts, one of which is 8 metres (26 ft) deep.
The ruins
The ruins were a source of stone for local building and became a place for locals to relax. They were depicted in the foreground of a drawing of Wakefield from the south by Samuel Buck in 1719 or 1722, and in 1753 an engraving was published of an Elizabethan survey drawing.
The ruins were first excavated by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in 1893. A more detailed project began in the summer of 1964 and was a partnership between Wakefield Corporation, Wakefield Historical Society and the University of Leeds. This project started as an experiment in adult education, but with the help of over a hundred local volunteers it grew into a complete and rigorous excavation that continued for nine years. Whilst excavating the bailey, archaeologists found remains of flint tools suggesting a Mesolithic encampment was there in about 5,000 BC.
In 2003, a wooden walkway was provided to allow access to the summit of the motte without causing erosion: it was subsequently closed as unsafe. A visitor centre was constructed about 110 yards (100 m) from the castle. There have been historical re-enactments and "living history" days, including commemoration of the Battle of Wakefield and the deaths of Richard Duke of York and his son Edmund. In February 2015 Wakefield Council announced that due to budget constraints they were considering plans to either close the visitor centre or reduce its opening hours. The centre has since closed.
The castle is a Scheduled Monument, which means it is a "nationally important" historic building and archaeological site which has been given protection against unauthorised change. It is also a Grade II* listed building.
“To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind”
~Theophile Gautier
Rules of Composition: Rule of Thirds
This is one my assignments that I have to submit to my photography class at the moment. I use the rules of thirds to capture this shot. BTW, I haven't found a name for this toy, any suggestions?
Fan Page Count the Cost Photography
Tramonto -
L’atmosfera
È un’armonia
di colori
che colpisce il mio sguardo.
E mi avvolge
con delicatezza
nella sua scia dorata.
Momenti magici
seguiti
da mille emozioni
che svaniscono
nel chiarore
del buio.
Olbia is a town and comune of 56,231 inhabitants (2010) in northeastern Sardinia (Italy), in the Gallura sub-region. Called Olbia in the Roman age, Civita in the Middle Ages (Giudicati period) and Terranova Pausania before the 1940s, Olbia was again the official name of the town after the period of Fascism.Location of Olbia in northern Sardinia.It is the economic centre of this part of the island (commercial centres, food industry) and is very close to the famous Costa Smeralda tourist area. It is an administrative capital (together with Tempio Pausania) of the province of Olbia-Tempio, operative since 2005. A dynamic city, which presents itself as a tourist destination, for the beauty sea and beaches and also for the large number of places of cultural interest to visit.Olbia (the name is of Greek origin) is very ancient and was possibly founded by the Punics, according to the archaeological findings. It contains ruins from Phoenician and Carthaginian settlement to the Roman Era, when it was an important port, and the Middle Ages, when it was the capital of the Giudicato of Gallura, one of the four independent states of Sardinia.
Olbia è un comune italiano di 56.583 abitanti, capoluogo, con Tempio Pausania, della provincia di Olbia-Tempio in Sardegna.È stata l'antica capitale del Giudicato di Gallura e la prima sede vescovile della Gallura (Diocesi di Civita – Ampurias sino al 1839). La città, una delle principali della Sardegna, è una realtà industriale e commerciale in piena espansione. Ha conosciuto negli ultimi decenni un rilevante aumento demografico ed uno sviluppo assai rapido della sua economia con il numero degli abitanti raddoppiato tra gli anni 1951 ed il 1981. Attualmente ne conta oltre 56.000, (nel 1964 erano 18.800). Il territorio comunale, con una superficie di 376,10 km², si pone al 24º posto tra i Comuni italiani per estensione.Ricca di insediamenti turistici molto conosciuti, tra i quali Porto Rotondo e Portisco, è dotata di infrastrutture che ne fanno un polo turistico molto importante per l'intera Isola. Olbia è il motore economico della provincia e uno dei più importanti della regione. A partire dal nucleo storico del corso Umberto I, la città con il notevole incremento demografico degli anni sessanta si è notevolmente espansa in ogni direzione. I problemi di viabilità sono stati contrastatati con la creazione di una circonvallazione e delle sue relative sopraelevate, di un tunnel sottostante l'area del porto vecchio e di numerose rotatorie all'interno e fuori del centro urbano.
Font : Wikipedia
The Basilica is dedicated to the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism, especially in Germany at the time of the Black Death. The late Baroque, Rococo basilica is located near the town of Bad Staffelstein near Bamberg, in Bavaria, Germany. The structure, designed by Balthasar Neumann, was constructed between 1743 and 1772.
On 24 September 1445, Hermann Leicht, the young shepherd of a nearby Franciscan monastery, saw a crying child in a field that belonged to the nearby Cistercian monastery of Langheim. As he bent down to pick up the child, it abruptly disappeared. A short time later, the child reappeared in the same spot. This time, two candles were burning next to it. In June 1446, Leicht saw the child a third time. This time, the child bore a red cross on its chest and was accompanied by thirteen other children. The child said: "We are the fourteen helpers and wish to erect a chapel here, where we can rest. If you will be our servant, we will be yours!" Shortly after, Leicht saw two burning candles descending to this spot. It is alleged that miraculous healings soon began, through the intervention of the fourteen saints.
(c) Wikipedia
This is the original building at Knox Presbyterian Church, built in 1909.
From Wikipedia:
In 1820 the first Presbyterian congregation in Toronto (then the Town of York) was formed, and after the donation of land from Jessie Ketchum, built a church on Richmond Street. This church was known as First Presbyterian Congregation of York, Upper Canada, and James Harris (later to be Ketchum’s son in law) became minister.
In 1830, the larger St. Andrew’s Church was founded, and it quickly became the city's primary Presbyterian Church. St. Andrew's was aligned with the Church of Scotland; the Canadian Synod was formed in 1831.
This Richmond Street church was more evangelical, and had become independent of the United Synod of the Canadas in 1834, and remained apart from any other group (including the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland who started their Toronto congregation in 1838) until 1844.
In 1843, the Church of Scotland split, when many of the evangelicals led by Thomas Chalmers, withdrew to form the Free Church of Scotland, in a dispute called the Disruption of 1843. This dispute hit the Canadas the following year at the respective Synod Meetings in Kingston and Nova Scotia; a faction broke off from St. Andrew’s, who remained in the “Auld” Kirk.
This group was approached by the York congregation, and the two groups decided to join and become a stronger and united Free Church congregation presence in Toronto that they named Knox’s Church, after the Scottish Church reformer John Knox; they called an experienced minister from Paisley, Scotland, Rev. Dr. Robert Burns, to become their first minister. Burns was the former Secretary of the Glasgow Missionary Society, a friend of Chalmers, and uncle of another well-known minister and missionary, William Chalmers Burns. Burns was initially a lecturer, then later full-time professor, in the nearby Knox Free Church Theological College. Mr. Harris retired from the York congregation, and remained connected with the congregation until his death in 1874.
In 1847 the old York Church was destroyed by a fire. The congregation built a new larger church on the same lot, this time facing Queen Street West between Yonge and Bay. Knox quickly became the leading Free Church congregation in Canada, helping to spread the movement throughout the colony. One of the most prominent members of this church was George Brown founder of the Toronto Globe and also the Banner, and an eventual member of the Fathers of Confederation, upon formation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
From the split (“the disruption”) in the Church of Scotland and in the Canadas, Knox took an active role in the reunion of all the Presbyterian groups in Canada. In 1861, the Free Church of which Knox belonged to, and the Canada Synod of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland joined; and in 1875, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, uniting the “Auld Kirk” and “Free Kirk”.
Over time, Knox’s location had become more commercial with fewer residents in the area. At the time Toronto had strict Lord’s Day laws that prevented public transit from running on Sundays, making it imperative that churches be located near to the population.
In 1895, the church was severely damaged by a fire that began at the Robert Simpson Building next door. This fire destroyed the steeple, which was never fully rebuilt. It was eventually decided to move the church in 1906, and in January 1909, the church officially moved into its present home at 630 Spadina Avenue just west of the University of Toronto, at Harbord Street; the memorial stones cited in the enclosed article (1886 Profile), were also moved into the new building.
The mixed Romanesque Revival and Gothic Revival building was designed by congregation member James Wilson Gray.
In June 1925, Knox was instrumental in maintaining the continuity of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, as it was from this building, that the midnight vigil was held, led by the 79 Ministers and Elders who voted against the consummation of the union (in nearby College Street Church) that formed the United Church of Canada, as they maintained continuity with their General Assembly. As a congregation, Knox had voted against Union earlier that year, by a vote of 20-788. There were gains to the congregation from some of those in the surrounding congregations that went into the Union.
In the 1950s, the congregation was challenged to leave the community, as post World War II suburban expansion greatly affected Toronto, and the Spadina Expressway (later abandoned) was proposed to run along Spadina Avenue. Under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William Fitch, who arrived in early 1955 from the Springburn area of Glasgow, Scotland, the congregation built an adjoining hall (Knox Fellowship Centre) in 1961, and expanded its ministries into the inner city (Evangel Hall at 573 Queen Street West had been run by Knox since 1913), the Universities (including Ryerson and York, and community colleges such as nearby George Brown College), and during the summer months, began the weekly Knox Summer Fellowship, Wednesday Evening Services that brought (or introduced) renowned speakers from around the world.
The congregation is reflective of a changing demographic in a multicultural community; ESL classes are offered, and has also developed a broad support group with many Christian missionaries under their support and care. There is an “Out of the Cold” programme for street youth in the winter, and continues to be blessed with well-attended Sunday Morning and Evening worship services.
There is also a great support and tradition for missionaries, both on the home and International scenes. There is a current roster of 46 (19 couples), as well as 17 “Phase 2” Missionaries (4 couples) who are supported in their retirement years; along with others who have been linked through liaisons with other recognized organizations including the Presbyterian Church.
This High Dynamic Range 360° panorama was stitched from 100 bracketed photographs with PTGUI Pro, tone-mapped with Photomatix, processed with Color Efex, and finally touched up in Aperture.
Original size: 20000 × 10000 (200.0 MP; 1006.56 MB).
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada