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Maya Movie review & rating – Thrilling and engaging suspense drama!
Rating: 3/5
Story: We at Iluvcinema are here to say story of Maya film exclusively. This film will be purely scariest film ever. Film begins with a dark village ‘Mayavanam’ and one lady named Maya dies there due to failure of...
www.iluvcinema.in/tamil/maya-movie-review-rating-thrillin...
Item # 57009
Engaging
Elise Jolie Dressed Doll
Limited Edition of 300 Dolls
Suggested Retail: $175.00
Estimated Delivery: Spring 2011
NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan speaks at the Engaging Women and Girls in STEM through Data Science event on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The event was held as part of the White House's United State of Women Summit. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
This young woman asked me to do a portrait of her. With her parent's permission, I did an outdoor session in a local park. Here is the simple reflector lighting set-up I used.
I'm using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens (shooting wide open at f2.8). Isn't that why we buy these expense, big-aperture lenses -- to produce great out-of-focus backgrounds and cool bokeh?.
BTW, thanks to everyone for helping us get Explored on yesterday's 'BiG starry night sky' !!!
Engaging finance in its most recent and complex developments, RYBN.ORG has undertaken the construction of its own trading bot, designed to invest and speculate on the financial markets. Using an online broker service to directly access the markets, this autonomous program can trigger orders as well as buy and sell stocks. Its decisions are taken with the help of an internal algorithmic intelligence system, and can be influenced by a wide range of external, arbitrary parameters. The whole decision system allows the program to foresee the next moves in the markets, while it tries to identify and anticipate the relevant and effective patterns within the financial chaotic oscillations. The robot’s activity along with its computations and performances is monitored, recorded, and visualized within a dynamic cartography. A panopticon of information unfolds that is formally similar to the control rooms of the stock exchanges’ back offices.
The whole program is designed and distributed in opensource format, in contrast with the blackbox of the algorithmic and high frequency trading.
credit: RYBN
Collection of beggars' signs from all over the world by Jani Leinonen. Part of "the School of Disobedience" exhibition on Aros, using art as a means of political activisim. Thought provoking.
Jerelyn Rodriguez speaks at the Engaging Women and Girls in STEM through Data Science event on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Jerelyn is Co-Founder and CEO of The Knowledge House, a non-profit that engages youth and young adults in technology in the South Bronx. She participated in the Datanaut class of 2015. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
Lately, adding to my life list requires shenanigans… The news of a lesser jacana came through Trevor’s Rare Bird notification on Monday and immediately I started getting ailments that required a day off!
The morning trip to KNP turned into an epic battle with traffic between White River and Hazyview were I got caught behind one of those extra large abnormal loads and a 20 km stretch took as long as the rest of the trip. Where my plan was to pitch at the Skukuza golf club at around eight, it was a little past ten when I encountered one other “twitcher” sitting on his fold-up chair, scanning the pond habitat in front of the clubhouse.
Engaging the elderly birder in the usual birding banter, I gathered that the jacana had been seen earlier that morning, but that it had been two hours since it last showed… Just my luck! Anyhow, I planned to do a two-hour stint atlassing this pentad and set my departure time for 11:40. I walked around the golf course a little, listing the usual birds as I went. Around half an hour later I returned to the spot where the only other party of this particular twitch sat, only to find the spot vacated. I sat down right on the edge of the pond and started to scan the reeds.
Every now and then I heard soft chattering coming from the reed bed. Never actually having heard a lesser jacana, I thought I’d just refresh my memory of having listened to the Roberts sound byte the night before. A 5/5 reaction followed! The little jacana must have been keeping to the shady side of the reed bed away from us hopeful observers, but on hearing the hoot and chatter of kin, it immediately abandoned its cosy haunt and flew across to my side of the pond, giving wonderful photographic opportunity.
This is how I like my lifers…
The highly nomadic lesser jacanas are uncommon in South Africa and generally sightings of this species make the “news”. The immature African Jacana has the same general colour pattern as Lesser Jacana (white front, brown back, striped head pattern) and the two are easily confused in the field, although there is a substantial size difference between the two species; the lesser jacana being about the size of a three-banded plover. The surest way to discern the lesser jacana is to look for the presence of a white trailing edge to the wing or the rufous crown.
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.
A parent n humans, a parent is of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A biological parent consists of a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male through his sperm, and a woman through her ovum. Parents are first-degree relatives and have 50% genetic overlap. A woman can also become a parent through surrogacy. However, some parents may not be biologically related to their children. An adoptive parent is one who nurtures and raises the offspring of the biological parents but is not actually biologically related to the child. Children without adoptive parents can be raised by their grandparents or other family members. ~wikipedia.
Alternative viewpoint on a charming adult female lynx at the Minnesota Zoo - Apple Valley, MN. She bore a litter of four kittens in May of 2014.
Maria G is laudable. I love her eyes, smile, and her right dimple is lovely. I met her in NYC on the street as I was doing portrait photography. She was walking the other direction in green and black and had a special stand-out quality. I did a U turn, caught up with her and we started chatting. At first she said she didn't want her photo taken, but very nicely. We talked more. Something amazing happened. She let me inside. I took photos of her as we walked and talked. She's glorious, her personality shone like the noon day sun. She is so warm, so interesting, profound and full of life. I will be introducing more photos of Maria G soon. To this day she is a friend. She's an actress back in the Netherlands and will eventually come back to the US. I can correspond with her and learn so much from her. I wish everyone had a Maria G in there circle, she's everything you see here and more...a bona fide engaging beauty. Manhattan New York City, 19 August 2017,
This engaging species and the Ground Squirrels provide for my amusement when the birding gets slow at our bird oasis pond. These rodents know every nook and cranny of the jumbled rock border surrounding the pond, and can navigate through this maze with amazing dexterity and speed. It's their "jungle gym" and safe house! I have to constantly watch and pan them through my viewfinder to quickly capture a still moment like this... they're usually in frantic motion.
IMG_2680; Colorado Chipmunk
Simply, this is a chair that looks stellar from all angles, and I will not forget this shape anytime soon. All day. Every day.
And as usual the whole body shot ended up as (my favourite) - the portrait. It's the faces I love, I think I'll leave the full body shots to the experts!
Hat is Bogues Vogues red velvet, necklace belongs to RS Agnes.
Ok. I am fully engaged too. This is a visual treat, an amazing knock down Danish chair with an amazing scoop shape which floats above the frame and beautifully sculpted arms. Snow day,...schmo day...
Call me Snake offers an optimistic provocation – ‘imagine what could be here’ by Judy Millar. On a walk into the city October 3, 2015 Christchurch New Zealand.
The work is comprised of vibrant graphics of Millar’s looped paintings, which are adhered to five intersecting flat planes, and draws inspiration from the forms found in pop-up books. The colourful piece will add a dramatic and rhythmic counterpoint to the city’s current urban landscape — a mix of flattened sites, construction zones and defiant buildings that have stood through the quakes. The work employs theatricality, playfulness and visual trickery, whereby the viewer is unsure about the work’s flatness or three-dimensionality; and it has been designed to offer a different perspective from each angle. The bright colours interrupt the grey of the work’s surrounds, and as buildings pop up around it,
SCAPE 8, New Intimacies curated by Rob Garrett was a contemporary art event which mixed new artworks with existing legacy pieces, an education programme, and a public programme of events. The SCAPE 8 artworks were located around central Christchurch and linked via a public art walkway. All aspects of SCAPE 8 were free-to-view.
The title for the 2015 Biennial – New Intimacies – came from the idea that visually striking and emotionally engaging public art works can create new connections between people and places. Under the main theme of New Intimacies there are three other themes that artists responded to: Sight-Lines, Inner Depths and Shared Strengths.
For more Info: www.scapepublicart.org.nz/scape-8-judy-millar
She really is a cherished doll in my collection. Modeling stolen magic silkstone gown and my ooak jewelry, available on ebay www.ebay.com/sch/isajm75/m.html?item=111089768358&ssP...
Having fun with Leah and Lance on their engagement session in downtown Georgetown on Sunday evening. Photo by Steve Coyle Photography (www.stevecoylephotography.com)
Engaging Saturday evening performance of "Cargo" on Poole Quay.
I must say that this free festival has been very enjoyable and well organised.
20.05.2017
An engaging little church with much evidence of Saxon work in its nave walls which are rich in re-used Roman tiles. A double splayed window may be seen over the north door. The chancel was built in the Norman period and there is a good hagioscope from the end of the south aisle to the High Altar. Fittings include Royal Arms of Charles II and a delightfully carved Norman font with a picture of a priest literally `dunking` a baby into it! A parish room built onto the south side of the church in 1970 means that the building is used throughout the week.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Darenth
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DARENT.
EASTWARD from Sutton lies Darent, sometimes spelt Darenth, and usually called Darne.
The name of this parish is spelt, in some antient writings, Darente and Deorwent; and in Domesday, and some others, Tarent. It takes its name from the river Darent, which runs through it. This place was sometimes called North Darent, to distinguish it from the neighbouring parish or hamlet of South Darent.
This parish, as to its soil, is not very fertile; great part of it is light and chalky, and much covered with flint stones, and it may be said to be more healthy than it is pleasant. The river Darent takes its course in its antient and proper channel, along the western boundaries of it, but great part of the waters of it having been turned, for the sake of private interest, along another stream, through the adjoining parish of Sutton, the old river has been neglected, and at the passage across it here, is not only in a most silthy state, but is frequently dangerous to travellers. Near the eastern banks of it is situated the village of Da rent; at the northern part of which is a house, which was for some time possessed and inhabited by the family of Taylor, but it has been for some years occupied calico printers; a little higher up, on the side of a hill, having the church opposite to it, is a seat, which was rebuilt by William Lee, esq. surveyor of the navy in queen Anne's reign. He resided here, and having married Catharine, daughter of William Johnson, esq. died, s. p. in 1757; he devised this seat to his kinsman, rear admiral Ward, of Greenwich, whose daughter, some years ago, sold it to Edward Fowke, esq. and he sold it to Mr. Nathaniel Hodges, in whose assignees it is at present vested. Behind the church, southward, stands the court lodge, being a good old timbered farm house, occupied by the lessee of the manor. Hence, towards the east, the hill rises, extending quite across the parish; on it, southward, is the manor house of St. Margaret's, with the ruins of the chapel belonging to it. In the valley, on the opposite side of the hill, is a long common, called Green-street green, of more than a mile in length, having houses interspersed along the whole of it, especially at the south end, where they form a hamlet, in which there is a mansion, commonly called the Clock-HOUSE, which, at the latter end of the last century, was the property and residence of Edmund Davenport, esq who kept his shrievalty for the county here, in 1694, and was a good benefactor to the church of Darent, where he lies buried. He was succeeded here by a family of the name of Bedford, the last of whom, Joseph Bedford, esq. sold it to Sir Timothy Waldo, of London, since deceased; whose daughter married George Medley, esq. and his heirs are now intitled to it.
A little to the northward of the Clock-house, on the green, are the remains of several small barrows or tumuli, and near them the remains of several breastworks thrown up. Perhaps this might be the place where the battle was fought, near the banks of the Darent, by Vortimer and his Britons with his Saxon enemies; and there is a fortification thrown up, in the wood, about three quarters of a mile eastward from this place, where it is probable the Saxons lay, expecting this rencounter.
At the opposite or northern end of the green, towards Dartford brent, stands a house, called THE Gore, formerly a gentleman's residence, once belonging to William Lee, esq. above mentioned, who left it to rear admiral Ward, and it is now the property of his son, Edward Vernon Ward, esq. A little beyond is Trundle-down, or, more properly, Tyrling-down, which was formerly the estate of the Cobhams, as appears by the Escheat rolls of the 38th year of king Edward III. (fn. 1)
There was a younger branch of the family of Dixon of Hilden, in Tunbridge, for some generations, settled in this parish, as appears by the Heraldic Visitation, anno 1619; they held lands of St. Margaret's manor.
ATHELSTANE, king of England, gave the perpetual inheritance of Darent to duke Eadulf, who, in the year 940, with the king's consent, gave it to Christ church, Canterbury, in the presence of archbishop Wlselm, free from all secular service and regal tribute, excepting the trinoda necessitas, of repelling invasions, and the repair of castles and highways. (fn. 2) Soon after this, whilst Ælsstane was bishop of Rochester, who came to the see in 945, and died in 984, one Birtrick, a rich and potent man, who then resided at Meophum, devised his land at Darent, with the consent of Ælfswithe his wife, by his will and testament (a most curious record of the customs of those times,) to one Byrware, for his life, and afterwards to the priory of St. Andrew, in Rochester, for the good of himself and his ancestors. This estate seems to have been wrested from the church of Rochester, in the troublesome times which followed soon after. (fn. 3) But the manor of Darent remained, according to duke Eadulf's gift, among the possessions of Christ church at the consecration of archbishop Lanfranc, in the 4th year of the Conqueror's reign; who, among many other regulations which he made, after the custom of foreign churches, for the benefit of his monastery, separated the manors of his church (for before this, the archbishop and his monks lived together, as one family, and had their revenues in common) allotting one part for himself and his successors in the archbishopric, and the other to the monks, for their subsistance, cloathing, and other necessary uses of the monastery.
In this partition, Darent fell to the share of the archbishop, and it is accordingly thus entered in the record of Domesday, under the title of, Terra Archiepi' Cantuariensis, i.e. land of the archbishop of Canterbury.
In Achestan hundred the archbishop of Canterbury holds Tarent in demesne. It was taxed at two sulings. The arable land is In demesne there is one carucate, and 22 villeins, with 7 cottagers, having 7 carucates. There are six servants, and two mills of 50 shillings. To this manor belong five burgesses in Rochester, paying six shillings and eight-pence. There are eight acres of meadow, wood for the pannage of 20 hogs. In the whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth 14 pounds, when he received it, 10 pounds, now 15 pounds, and 10 shillings, nevertheless, he that holds this manor pays 18 pounds.
Archbishop Hubert, in the year 1195, anno 7th king Richard I. with that king's consent, and for the mutual benefit of the churches of Canterbury and Rochester, exchanged, for the manor of Lambeth, with its appurtenances there, in Southwark and in London, then belonging to the monks of St. Andrew's priory, in Rochester, his manor of Darent, with the church and the chapel of Helles, with all liberties and free customs, and all other things belonging to the manor, saving to the archbishop, and his successors, all spiritual jurisdiction in the church of Darent, until he or they should, of their mere bounty, grant it to the bishop of Rochester, so that the monks should possess it to the use of their refectory, in the same manner as they before had the manor and church of Lambeth, saving to the bishop of Rochester, in this exchange, the right he before had within the manor of Lambeth. And it was declared, that the manor of Lambeth should continue unalienable from the archbishopric, as well as the manor of Darent, and other premises so exchanged, from the church of Rochester. (fn. 4)
The manor of Darent after this appears to have been part of the possessions of the priory of Rochester; but bishop Gilbert de Glanvill, who came to the see in 1185, disputing with his monks for the recovery of several manors and possessions, formerly belonging to the see of Rochester, which bishop Gundulp, his predecessor, had given them, claimed this manor and church, with its appurtenances, as having been given in exchange for Lambeth; notwithstanding which, the prior and convent still continued in possession of them.
In the 15th year of king Edward I. this manor was valued at 16l. 8s. In the 21st year of king Edward I. a Quo warranto was brought against the prior, on account of certain liberties which he claimed, when he was allowed to have, in this manor, view of frank pledge, and all of right belonging to it; infangthefe; and in consequence of that, gallows, chattels of condemned persons and fugitives, and amerciaments of his tenants, a fair and toll, and weif, as appurtenances to it; he also claimed to have free warren here, but the jury did not allow it him.
King Edward I. in his 23d year, granted them free warren in their demesne lands of this manor, among others. (fn. 5)
The manor continued part of the possessions of the priory and convent of Rochester, till the dissolution of the priory, in the 32d year of king Henry VIII. when it was surrendered into the king's hands, and was two years afterwards settled by that king on his new erected dean and chapter of Rochester, part of whose possessions it remains at this time.
A court leet and court baron is held yearly for this manor.
In 1649, there was a survey taken, by order of the state of the manor of Darenth, with the rectory or parsonage appendant to it, belonging to the late dean and chapter; which latter, with the scite and demesnes of the manor, had been let, anno 16 king Charles I. by the dean and chapter, to Elizabeth and Helen Harvey, daughters of William lord Harvey, at the yearly rent of 20l. 8s. but were returned to be worth together, over and above that rent, 169l. 13s. 6d. per annum. (fn. 6) They continued many years in the family of Harvey, till George earl of Bristol, about thirty-five years ago, sold his interest in them to the occupier, Mr. William Farrant, since the death of whose son of the same name in 1788, Mr.Christopher Chapman is become the present lessee of them.
Jeffry Haddenham, about the year 1300, bought lands in Darent, and gave the rents of them to the use of the altar of St. Edmund in Criptis, which he had lately made in the church of Rochester. (fn. 7)
About a mile south-eastward from Darent church is the HAMLET of Helles St. Margaret, commonly called St. MARGARET HILLS. This appears by the court-rolls of it, to have been once a parish of itself, to which belonged the hamlets of Gills, Greensted-green, and South Darent. How it came to be annexed to Darent, will be mentioned in the ecclesiastical state of this parish. St. Margaret's, with the above mentioned hamlets appendant to it, are thus described in the general survey of Domesday, under the title of the lands of the bishop of Baieux, who was at that time owner of them.
Anschil de Ros holds Tarent of the bishop (of Baieux). It was taxed at half a suling. The arable land is one carucate and a half. In demesne there is one, and four villeins, with four borderers having one carucate. There are three acres of meadow, and two mills of 18 shillings. Wood for the pannage of three hogs. The king has from this manor, lately given him by the bishop, as much as is worth 10d. The whole manor was, and is worth 100 shillings. Aluric held it of king Edward.
And a little farther, in the same record, under the like title:
In the same parish, the same A. (viz. Anschitill de Ros) holds one manor of the bishop (of Baieux). It was taxed at half a suling. The arable land is one carucate and an half. There are 5 villeins, and 5 borderers, and one mill of 20 shillings. There are 3 acres of meadow, and 1 servant. The whole manor was worth 60 shillings, and now 70. Osurt held it of king Edward the Consessor.
This manor afterwards came into the possession of a family called Hells, who had much land besides at Dartford and Ash, near Sandwich; and from them this place acquired the additional name of Hells, or more vulgarly called Hilles. One of these, Thomas de Helles, had a charter of free warren granted to him and his heirs, for his lands here, and at Dartford, in the 17th year of king Edward I. (fn. 8) One of his descendants, Richard Hills, (fn. 9) for so the name was then spelt, about the beginning of king Henry VIII.'s reign, was possessed of this manor. He left one sole daughter and heir, Anne, who carried it in marriage to Henry Melhard, and he left two daughters and coheirs, Alice and Joane, who divided it between them.
These moieties having afterwards continued separated in the hands of different owners, for some length of time, became at last united in the person of Mr. Thomas Rolt, who was become possessed of the entire manor a few years before the restoration of king Charles II. He married Catharine, daughter of Thomas Perye, gent. and died in 1661, leaving her surviving, who sold the manor of St. Margaret's to George Gifford, of Fawkham, esq. on whose death, in 1704, it came to his son, Thomas Gifford, esq. whose three daughters and coheirs, viz. Margaret, married to Thomas Petley, esq. Mary to John Selby, esq. and Jane married first to Finch Umfrey, gent. and afterwards to Francis Leigh, esq. of Hawley, possessed this manor in undivided thirds, till 1718, when they agreed to a partition of this estate. About the year 1722, Francis Leigh and Jane his wife joined in the conveyance of their interest in it, in which was included the mansion house, to John Hayward, esq. of Woolwich, who next year purchased a second third part of Thomas Petley, and Ralph his only son.
In 1725, John Hayward, who was then possessed of two-thirds of this manor, and John Selby, and Mary his wife, who were the possessors of the other third part of it, joined in the conveyance of the whole of it to John Lane, leatherseller, of London, who resided here for several years; he left two sons, John and Richard, and a daughter, married to Richard Hamman, and at his death devised this manor, with the mansion and part of the demesne lands, to his two sons, and a small portion of the latter to his daughter and her husband; the former part became again divided, so that three fourths of it became vested in Mr. Richard Lane, son of Richard above mentioned, who in 1788, alienated his interest in it to Mr. Christopher Chapman, who having purchased the other fourth part, now possesses the whole of it, and resides in the manor house.
A court baron is held for this manor, and several lands in the hamlets of Hills, Greensted, Gills, and South Darent, are held of it. The manor is held of the manor of Darent, by the yearly rent of 1l. 18s.
There is an estate in Darent, which, though now of little account, was once reputed a manor, called Cleyndon; which, in early times, had proprietors of its own name, but in the reign of Edward III. (fn. 10) was owned by the family of Hastings. John de Hastings, earl of Pembroke, died possessed of it in the 49th of that reign, and was succeeded by John de Hastings, his son, who was unfortunately killed at a tournament at Woodstock, in the 13th of king Richard II. On his death, without issue, his wife, Philippa, daughter of Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, possessed Cleyndon, as she did at the time of her decease, which happened in the 2d year of king Henry IV. In the 11th year of king Edward IV. Roger Rothele, of Dartford, owned this estate; (fn. 11) who sold it to Thomas Crephedge, in the 22d year of that reign; and his grandson, John Crephege, conveyed it by sale to Sir Robert Blage, one of the barons of the exchequer; his widow carried it again in marriage to Sir Richard Walden; at her death, in the 35th of Henry VIII. her son, by her former husband, Robert Blage, esq. possessed it, as he did land in Darent and Dartford, late parcel of the chantry of Stampitts, and late in the tenure of John Rogers, of Dartford, holding it of the king, in capite, by knights service. (fn. 12) On his death, in the 5th year of king Edward VI. his son, Henry Blage, possessed both these estates, and sold them, in the 24th year of queen Elizabeth, to Richard Burden, yeoman; who, the next year, parted with the land, late belonging to Stampitt's chantry, to Thomas and Andrew Ashley, and afterwards conveyed Cleyndon to Robert Filmer, esq. who left it at his death, in 1585, to his son, Sir Edward Filmer, and he gave it to his second son, Edward Filmer, who possessed it in the reign of king Charles I. His heirs sold it to Mr. Leigh, (fn. 13) who was the owner of it in 1691; but I can find nothing of it since, who owns it, or where it is situated.
Charities.
SIR THOMAS SMITH, by will, in 1621, gave 4l. 6s. 8d. per annum, payable out of several tenements in London, devised to the Skinners company for divers charitable uses, to be distributed weekly in bread, by the minister and churchwardens, unto five poor resident housekeepers, and in the last clause of his will, he directed, that on the expiration of the leases and the increase of the revenues, the distribution among the poor should be increased likewise among the poor of those parishes so named, or of any other parish wherein he should have lands at the time of his death. Darent is one of those parishes expressly named in it.
..........Ellis gave by will 12s. per annum to the poor; and BERNARD ELLIS, esq. by his will, in 1713, confirmed his father's gift above mentioned, to be paid out of a messuage, called the Cock, in Dartford, and he added to it a further gift of 12s. to be annually paid to the vicar and churchwardens, for the benefit of the poor of this parish, in like manner as his father had directed his gift to be paid; the above messuage having since been converted into three private tenements belongs to the heirs of John Mumford, esq. who distribute in bread yearly both the above sums.
DARENT is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICION of the diocese of Rochester. It is a peculiar, of the archbishop of Canterbury, and as such is in the deanry of Shoreham.
The church, which is a small building, is dedicated to St. Margaret. It consists of two isles and a chancel, both which seem very antient, especially the latter, which terminates with three small lancet windows, and is with respect to its construction perhaps unique in this diocese. The steeple, which is pointed, stands at the west end of the south isle; there are three bells in it. The chancel is divided into two parts of different widths, by steps, the upper one is vaulted, and is paved with black marble of the gift of Mr. Edmund Davenport, in 1680, who gave some silver plate likewise for the altar. The lower chancel is not, but the two isles are ceiled, the church was new pewed in 1737. The font bears high marks of antiquity, it is a single stone rounded and excavated, composed of eight compartments, with columns alternately circular and angular, and semicircular arches, the figures and objects on the compartments are in high relief, and are rudely carved; some of the figures appear to be chimerical, and others symbols of the sacraments and other religious offices. (fn. 14)
Among other monuments and inscriptions in this church, are the following: On the south side, a monument and inscription, shewing, that in a vault underneath, lies Catherine, late wife of John Elliston, of London, merchant, obt. 1729; arms, per pale gules and azure, an eagle displayed argent, impaling gules, three salmons naiant, argent. In the chancel, on the south side, a small monument and inscription, shewing that in the church yard lies John Weaver, esq. of North Lussenham, in Rutlandshire, obt. 1728; on the north side, a mural monument for Catharine, wife of Wm. Lee, esq. ob. 1746, she was daughter of Wm. Johnson, esq. M. P. for Aldborough, in Suffolk; above the arms of Lee, Gules, a cross or, between four unicorns heads, erased of the se cond, impaling Johnson or, a water bouget sable, on a chief sable three torteauxes or. A memorial for Humphry Taylor, rector of Ifield and Nutsted, son of the Rev. Rich. Taylor, vicar of this parish, obt. Dec. 12, 1732, and for others of this family. A memorial for Mrs. Dorothy Johnson, one of the daughters of Wm. Johnson, esq. M.P. obt. 1763, æt. 78. Another for Mrs. Catharine Lee, for whom the monument mentioned above is erected; another for Wm. Lee, esq. of this parish, husband to Catharine above mentioned, surveyor of the navy, in the reign of queen Anne, ob. 1757, æt. 87, s.p. A stone within the rails for Rich. Taylor, vicar of this parish, obt. Aug. 29, 1712, æt. 57. On the upper stone step, next the rails, before the altar, which, together with the pavement, was the gift of Mr. Davenport, are these words, Ex dono Edmund Davenport, 1680. On the south wall is a brass plate and inscription for Mary, the wife of Andrew Bridges, parson of Nutsted fifteen years; sometime the wife of Henry Farbrace, vicar of Farmingham, and parson of Halsted, and first parson of Ightham, daughter of Simon Clarke, sometime parson of Murston, and one of the six preachers of the church of Canterbury, obt. 1617; another very antient brass plate, placed in the south isle against the wall, but formerly over the remains of John Crepehege, and Jane his wife, of this parish, who lived in the reign of king Edward III. (fn. 15)
The church of Darent was exchanged with the manor, as has been mentioned before, by Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, with the monks of Rochester, for the manor of Lambeth, in 1195. and was soon afterwards, by the archbishop, appropriated to their use, Nicholas, then parson of it, resigning it into the archbishop's hands for that purpose.
In the 15th year of king Edward I. the church of Darent was valued at ten marcs, and in the reign of king Richard II. at the same.
The prior and convent of Rochester, in the year 1290, augmented this vicarage by the donation of half an acre of land, called Muriel Land, formerly belonging to John, son of Edward le Bedle; eighteen days work of land, formerly Ancell de Snodland's; one rood of land, formerly Stacy the cook's; and five days work of land, called Cottland, which had escheated to the prior and convent on the death of Bartholomew Fitz Eastrilde, lying according to the bounds described in the instrument. After a long dispute between Elias, vicar of this church, and the prior and convent, concerning the portions with which this vicarage was endowed, and the burthens to be borne by it, both parties agreed to leave the decision of it to John Peckham, archbishop of Canterbury; who, in 1292, decreed, that the prior and convent should take for the future the tythe of all sheaves, as well of land dug with the spade, as ploughed, within this parish, and also the tythe of hay as their portion, and the tythe of lambs, pigs, calves, cheese, pidgeons, mills, fisheries, rushes, herbage, cheese, milk, flax, hemp, and all other tythes whatsoever, great and small, arising from their own de mesne lands, because they had possessed peaceably, and without interruption, all tythes of this kind in their demesnes in Derenth, and elsewhere, where they had lands in demesne for sixty years and more, as had legally been made to appear by the diligent enquiries of creditable persons, examined for that purpose, in the archbishop's visitations.
The archbishop decreed likewise, that the burthen of procurations due to the dean of Shoreham, and also the finding of ornaments, vestments, and books, which were not found by the parish, and the reparation of them, if it exceeded in one year the sum of two shillings, and the building and repairing of the chancel of the church, when necessary, should belong to the said religious, and that the tythes of lambs, calves, pigs, geese, pidgeons, fisheries, mills, rushes, herbage, cheese, milk, flax, hemp, and all other small tythes, except in the demesnes of the religious, the oblations and obventions belonging, or accruing in any kind whatsoever, to the said church, and not assigned as above to the religious, should belong to the vicar and his successors in future, and he decreed, that the small pieces of land, and the mansion, which then or before had been assigned by the religious to the use of the vicarage, and the whole burthen of the repair and maintenance of the houses and mansion of the vicarage, and of the books, vestments, and ornaments, to be maintained by the religious, so far as the repairing and maintaining them did not exceed the sum of two shillings, and also the providing bread and wine, and other necessaries for divine rites, such as were not provided by the parishioners of the church, or mentioned before, should belong to the vicar and his successors, and that the vicar for the time being should find two chaplains to celebrate, one in the church of Darent, and the other in the chapel of Helles,
In this state the church and vicarage of Darent continued, till the general dissolution of monasteries, in the reign of king Henry VIII. in the 32d year of which the priory of Rochester, and the possessions of it, were surrendered into the king's hands; who, two years after, settled the church with the vicarage of Darent on his new-erected dean and chapter of Rochester, whose inheritance it now remains.
¶In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the dean and chapter of Rochester, having refused the payment of the old accustomed stipend payable yearly by them to the vicar of this parish, he commenced a suit against them in the archbishop's consistorial court, in 1564, and had a decree prouounced in his favor. The dean and chapter made a pretence of appealing from this sentence, but did not prosecute it; on which the decree was confirmed two years afterwards, with 8l. 10s. costs, and the archbishop granted his letters testimonial of the same. (fn. 16)
The survey of this parsonage, by order of the state in 1649, has been already mentioned in the account of the manor of Darent. There was one made likewise of the vicarage, by virtue of the commission of enquiry, in 1650, out of chancery, in which it was returned, that Darenth was a vicarage, having an old house, and two acres of glebe land, worth thirty pounds per annum; that master Cockett then enjoyed it, who preached and taught every Lord's day, but to little edisication. (fn. 17)
Darent is a discharged living, of the clear yearly value, as returned, of forty-five pounds. The yearly tenths were 19s. 104d. (fn. 18)
THE HAMLET OF ST. MARGARET HILLES seems, from several antient evidences and court rolls, as to its temporal jurisdiction, to have been once a parish of itself, distinct from that of Darent, having, within its bounds, the several hamlets of Hilles, Grensted, South Darent, and Gills. However, as to its ecclesiastical jurisdiction, it was always accounted but as a chapel to Darent, having the above hamlets within its precinct. (fn. 19)
By the decree of archbishop Peckham, mentioned before, the vicar of Darent was to find one chaplain to celebrate divine offices in this chapel of Helles. In the reign of king Henry VIII. there was a composition entered into between the vicar of Darent, and the inhabitants of the precinct of this chapel, which was confirmed by archbishop Warham in 1522, in which it was decreed, that the vicar of Darent should celebrate divine offices, either himself or by substitute in it, at certain times, and in manner as is therein mentioned, the inhabitants nevertheless resorting to the parish church of Darent on certain days therein specified; that he should administer extreme unction, and the holy sacrament if desired, to the sick inhabitants of this precinct within it; that he should bury the bodies of the deceased inhabitants either in this chapel, or the yard belonging to it, and baptize the children, and church the mothers of them within the chapel, and to prevent the inconveniencies that might arise from carrying the sacrament so far to the sick, the archbishop decreed, that it should be kept for the future in a decent pyx, to be provided by the inhabitants for that purpose in this chapel; who should bear and sustain all the burthens of the chapel; and also the payment of the reparation and maintenance of the parish church of Darent, and all other burthens, ordinary and extraordinary, in common with the rest of the parishioners of Darent, according to their abilities; and lastly, that all the inhabitants of the precinct of this chapel should pay yearly to the vicar of Darent, for the time being, all tythes accruing, and howsoever arising, within the precinct of it, as well real as personal, and all oblations whatsoever due of right or of custom, and should acknowledge the parish church of Darent as their own parish church. (fn. 20)
Notwithstanding this decree, the chapel of St. Margaret soon afterwards became neglected, and fell to decay; insomuch, that cardinal Pole, archbishop of Canterbury, in the year 1557, united the precinct of St. Margaret to the parish of Darent. And the chapel of it being thus desecreated, fell into immediate ruin, the only remains of it at this time being part of the tower of the steeple, which stands amidst a large heap of rubbish and stones, on an eminence in a field a small distance south-westward from the mansion of the manor: in the remains of this building there are many Roman bricks, and part of an arch is turned entirely with them.