Good Bye to Brian Sholes

     I belong to a Buddhist support group for seriously ill people.  It is like a type of family, in that I am able to discuss anything within the group and know that I will continue to be supported and loved.  Although I don't attend the meetings on a weekly basis with any degree of regularity, I try to make it to the group's quarterly potlucks when I can.  They are celebrations of each of us, our creative sides and our bonds.

     Brian Sholes was a long time member of the group.  Like Ann Emerson, a former member of the group, Brian was diagnosed with leukemia.  Also like Ann, he suffered over a prolonged period of time.  It seemed like one part of his body would be particularly impacted, an approach would be found that resulted in improvements, then something else would go wrong. It was a drawn-out, repetitive cycle and certainly not pain free.  Yet Brian would show up, when he could, to play his bagpipes......with the band that he played with, for us at potlucks.  He might be tired, painfully thin but it obviously gave him joy.  It gave us joy to listen to him play.  I will miss Brian very much.  I will miss his upbeat demeanor and his spirit.

     Brian is the fifteenth member to die within our group.  I wish Mick, our group leader (and former psychologist) could have been at Brian's bedside with him, as he was at Ann's.  But, somehow, I have the feeling that Brian is ok now.  Tomorrow, the group will hold a memorial for him and we will celebrate the moments that we shared with him.

Choreography - Ohad Naharin

Mr. Gaga - A film by Tomer Heymann - Trailer from Heymann Brothers Films on Vimeo.


Below is a link to a NY Times article on Ohad Naharin and his dance language "Gaga."

http://nyti.ms/1KtdOXB

Free Form Sculpture

Janet Echelman builds living, breathing sculpture environments that respond to the forces of nature — wind, water and light— and become inviting focal points for civic life.

Exploring the potential of unlikely materials, from fishing net to atomized water particles, Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create her permanent sculpture at the scale of buildings. Experiential in nature, the result is sculpture that shifts from being an object you look at, to something you can get lost in.

Recent prominent works include “Her Secret is Patience”, which spans two city blocks in downtown Phoenix,  “Water Sky Garden”, which premiered for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and “She Changes”, which transformed a waterfront plaza in Porto, Portugal.  Her newest commission creates a “Zone of Recomposure” in the new Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport. Upcoming projects include the remaking of Dilworth Plaza in front of Philadelphia City Hall -- turning it into a garden of dry-mist.

Below is a video which further explores Janet Echelman's sculpture:

Also, see Janet Echelman's website at www.echelman.com for more stunningly beautiful examples of her sculptures.

Architectural Photography

Copied from CNN.com, Style, 1/5/2016

 (Article written by T. Wrigley):

From Stonehenge and royal palaces to the skyscrapers that define a modern city's skyline, great buildings can encapsulate their eras. 

"Every great architect is -- necessarily -- a great poet", said legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. "He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age." 

But unlike poetry, buildings struggle to travel. When the work is many stories high and forged from concrete and glass, disseminating its era-defining genius requires something a little more lightweight.

The annual Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards champion artists who "translate the sophistication of architecture into a readable and understandable two dimensions, to explain and extol the character, detail and environment of the project". 

The Portuguese photographer Fernando Guerra was this year's overall winner with his image of Richter Dahl Rocha & Associés' EPFL Quartier Nord in Ecublens, Switzerland. Shot at dusk, the picture is a mesmerizing collation of color, light and people -- portraying a structure alive and in motion. 

Fernando Guerra's award-winning shot 

"I was waiting all day," Guerra remembers. "Five minutes before I took it, the place was completely empty because everyone was inside their quarters watching the football and I was just cursing the silence. But then suddenly the match ended and everybody came out and I got it. I didn't think about the photo for some time, it was only after I edited the work that I saw I had something special." 

Over the years, important partnerships have sprung up between architect and photographer, such as that of Le Corbusier and Lucien Hervé. Inspired by avant-garde artists like Mondrian, Hervé rejected the tradition of taking wide shots of a building, instead fashioning flowing, yet abstracted, series that focused on the details. The results were cinematic: an emotional journey through a building, rather than simply a standpoint outside it. Le Corbusier was rapt -- he described Hervé as having the soul of an architect, and often changed his plans in response to his work.

California's Julius Schulman was undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the field. His images of houses by Frank Lloyd Wright, John Lautner, Richard Neutra and, perhaps most famously, Case Study House #22 by Pierre Koenig, not only helped forge those architect's careers, but became the visual language for the post-war resurgence of the American dream. His photograph of Koenig's house created an instant mythology that lasts to this day -- it was 1959 in Los Angeles, the city of angels, the future, opportunity, hope. But it was also a cause of conflict. Koenig believed the picture had transcended the architecture it portrayed, his reputation as an architect being subsumed by Shulman's as an artist.  

To see all of the photographs & read the entire article, please follow this link:

Read More

To see some of Julius Schulman's photos of Case Study House #22, please follow this link:
Julius Shulman (1910-2009) http://www.archdaily.com/29457/julius-schulman-1910-2009
or consider watching the documentary, "Visual Acoustics" available from Netflix or for rent on YouTube.

Pastel Portraits - Capturing A Piece of the Soul

     This week's topic is focused on art -- capturing a piece of the spirit ......in a portrait, or a landscape or even in an abstract painting.  As this video states, the artist may obtain a photographic likeness of the subject but the real point is to try to convey some of the feelings within.

Living Beyond Limits

As this is one of the best talks I've encountered, I am re-posting it.






After bacterial meningitis took her legs, Amy Purdy struggled with depression, and only beat it when she learned to accept her new reality, but not any limitations.  After being unable to find prosthetics that would allow her to snowboard, she built her own. Today, she is a world champion female adaptive snowboarder. In 2005, she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, a non-profit dedicated to introducing people with physical challenges to action sports.

TED Talk - Before I die.......

      I have decided to pick a theme for each week's blog.  As it happens, last week's theme was downhill skiing/poetry.  This week's theme is "purpose" (i.e. life purpose).

     Candy Chang creates art that prompts people to think about their secrets, wishes and hopes — and then share them.

Candy Chang is an artist, designer, and urban planner who explores making cities more comfortable and contemplative places. She believes in the potential of introspection and collective wisdom in public space to improve our communities and help us lead better lives. 

Recent projects include Before I Die, where she transformed an abandoned house in her neighborhood in New Orleans into an interactive wall for people to share their hopes and dreams -- a project The Atlantic called “one of the most creative community projects ever.” Other projects include I Wish This Was, a street art project that invites people to voice what they want in vacant storefronts, and Neighborland, an online tool that helps people self-organize and shape the development of their communities. She is a TED Senior Fellow, an Urban Innovation Fellow, and was named a “Live Your Best Life” Local Hero by Oprah magazine. By combining street art with urban planning and social activism, she has been recognized as a leader in developing new strategies for the design of our cities. She is co-founder of Civic Center, an art and design studio in New Orleans. See more at candychang.com.

Before I die, I want to find my own unique way to help the world be a better place.  I also want to learn to smile more.