Shadow Shot Sunday

This week's Pagan Sphinx Shadow Shot Sunday entry features my photographs of the works of Robert Taplin taken at an exhibition of his work at Mass MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams.
 Everything Real Is Imagined (After Dante) consists of nine sculptures or dioramas (a sampling of which are depicted here, each referencing scenes from Dante's Inferno as modern allegories of political strife. Taplin's story begins as Dante's does with the uncertain sense of whether or not we are in a dream or reality

Everything Real Is Imagined is part of the larger group exhibition These Days: Elegies for Modern Times 

From ArtsBoston:

George Bolster, Chris Doyle, Micah Silver, Robert Taplin, Sam Taylor-Wood and Pawel Wojtasik In 1967 Jackson Browne penned the lyric: "These days I seem to think about/ How all the changes came about my ways/ And I wonder if I'll see another highway." As the world shifts around us in ways that are profoundly disorienting, Browne's song resonates. Bringing together six artists whose work is infused with that lyric's sense of wonderment, and with the poetic and musical tradition of the elegy, These Days: Elegies for Modern Times responds to today's changing world with installations, photographs, painting, sculpture and video. The exhibition is at once an extended lamentation, but also full of a revelatory sense of possibility and hope. Opening Saturday, April 4, 2009 the exhibition features work by George Bolster, Chris Doyle, Micah Silver, Robert Taplin, Sam Taylor-Wood, and Pawel Wojtasik. Two of the artists will exhibit works from the past year while the other four have created new installations specifically for the exhibition including two room-size works: a 12' tall, 36' diameter video panorama and a full-size chapel-like environment.

 Robert Taplin 

Everything Real Is Imagined (After Dante)

(click on photos to enlarge to a better viewing size)

 

Thus My Soul Which Was Still In Flight 

(The Dark Wood)

 

Across The Dark Waters 

(The River Acheron)

 

Shadow Shot Sunday is hosted by Tracy at Hey, Harriet in Brisbane

Blogging 'Round the Globe

 Dennis the Menace blog from Kent, England gave me the heads-up on this event at Trafalgar Square today. I'm not sure which is worse - terrorism itself of the fear of it.  What else are free-minded people expected to do but take it to the streets?

 Mass Gathering in defence of street photography

I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! invite all Photographers to a mass photo gathering in defence of street photography.
Following a series of high profile detentions under s44 of the terrorism act including 7 armed police detaining an award winning architectural photographer in the City of London, the arrest of a press photographer covering campaigning santas at City Airport and the stop and search of a BBC photographer at St Pauls Cathedral and many others. PHNAT feels now is the time for a mass turnout of Photographers, professional and amateur to defend our rights and stop the abuse of the terror laws.

Read the whole thing at:

I'm a Photographer Not a Terrorist.org

The Friday Evening Nudes

Alberta Barton
image originally uploaded by Figuration Féminine

Julio Romerode de Torres

 Carmen de Cordoba Baja

Guillaume-Romain Fouace

 Guy Cambier

 

Bernard Hall

Pecado

(artist unattributed)

Note:  I've posted this Andrew Wyeth nude in the past but in light of the recent controversy over Manet's Olympia, I couldn't resist. This nude conveys a very different message than Manet's, doesn't it?

This is NOT My Beautiful State

A Random Hodge-Podge

It's almost Friday, groovy people, and I'm out to create a mood or two. Or three. I may even start demanding that you solve some riddles before you leave a comment. Nah. That's way too much work.  ;-)

I remain your,

Pagan Sphinx

 The Republicans want what on health-care??

"Toto, I have the feeling we're not in Massachusetts anymore." 

 

 

I wish there was some damned yellow brick road we could walk...

oh, well, there's always rock and roll.

 

On scratchy vinyl, yet.

Artist of the Week: Marc Chagall

1887-1985

Click images for extra voluptuousness

Marc Chagall

Self-Portrait

1914

Russian Wedding

1909

 

The Village Store

1911

Paris Through the Window

1913

Birthday

1915

Double-Portrait

1917

Bella with White Collar

1918

The Three Acrobats

1926

1931

Madonna of the Village

1942

The Juggler
1943

Bouquet with Flying Lovers
1947

The Bridges of the Seine
1954

1975


(I could not find dates for these last three images)

Fragments of Fairytales (an occasional feature)

"That which thou has promised

must thou perform"

~ Brothers Grimm

The Frog King

 click to enlarge

 The king's daughter was overjoyed when she beheld her pretty
plaything again, picked up, and ran away with it.
- Illustration by Warwick Goble to The Frog Prince

Ruby Tuesday

 Reading Room Only

The chair is yellow! But there is plenty of red in the background and quite artsy to explore if you click on it!

Dusty Typwriters

Bench

 Taken last week at The Book Mill, Montague Massachusetts

Ruby Tuesday   features photo entries containing a little or a lot of red and today Mary is featuring a tribute to Dr. King

Martin Luther King, Jr. / Digital Poladroids / My World Tuesday

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Portrait of MLK

Robert Shetterly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An Eleventh-Hour sign-up for the amazing international photo tag game which is

THAT'S MY WORLD 

A second version

The photo above, in two versions, was taken in Greenfield on a very cold day last week, around 3:15. I was caught trespassing on a farmer's land as he was driving his truck up the icy driveway. I stuck around to introduce myself, even though my fingers were numb and I was ready to head home. The farmer was suspicious and not at all sure he liked the fact that I was taking pictures of his barn, his house and his land. Then, he smoothed out a bit and told me that the barn below had been moved from the pasture across the road to where it stands today. He raises happy, pasture-fed cows who become dinner for the local health and environmentally conscious folk of western Massachusetts. He talked to me about a lot of things, in fact. Each topic delivered in five-words or less. Then it was time to shake hands and say so long.

The one below was taken just outside of Amherst, Massachusetts, yesterday, near the Friends' Meeting House on route 63, heading north to Montague

The Secret Life of Sheep

Snow Waves


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Credit Card Companies Profitting From Haitian Tragedy

If you're considering a donation to help the people of Haiti, please take a look at this first:

Dear MoveOn member,

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, Americans are generously donating millions of dollars to aid organizations.

But when Americans donate to charity with their credit cards, the credit card companies get rich. In some cases they keep 3% of the donation as a "transaction fee," even though that's far more than it costs them to process the donation.

It's outrageous and wrong—and it needs to stop.

Can you sign this petition to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding that they waive their processing fees for all charitable donations? Clicking here will add your name:

The petition says: "Credit card companies shouldn't be getting rich off of Americans' generosity. They should waive all fees on charitable contributions from today on."

The credit card companies are trying to get ahead of this story, announcing they will temporarily waive the fees they charge on some Haiti-related charitable contributions for the next 6 weeks. But that's nowhere near enough. Many emergency donations to Haiti will still get hit with hefty bank fees. (To give a sense of how limited the exemption is, Doctors Without Borders isn't on any of the publicly available lists of charities that won't be charged fees.)²

All American credit card companies should announce that they will waive ALL fees on charitable contributions, starting today, and going forward for good. This isn't about helping political organizations like MoveOn, just helping true charitable organizations.  

It's the right thing to do, and honestly, it's the least they could do after the role they played in crashing the entire global economy last year.

But they won't do it unless they know how angry Americans are that they're profiting off of this terrible tragedy. Click here to sign the petition, which we'll deliver to the heads of the major credit card companies:

Sign the petition

Credit Card Companies Profitting From Haitian Tragedy

If you're considering a donation to help the people of Haiti, please take a look at this first:

Dear MoveOn member,

As the tragedy in Haiti unfolds, Americans are generously donating millions of dollars to aid organizations.

But when Americans donate to charity with their credit cards, the credit card companies get rich. In some cases they keep 3% of the donation as a "transaction fee," even though that's far more than it costs them to process the donation.

It's outrageous and wrong—and it needs to stop.

Can you sign this petition to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding that they waive their processing fees for all charitable donations? Clicking here will add your name:

The petition says: "Credit card companies shouldn't be getting rich off of Americans' generosity. They should waive all fees on charitable contributions from today on."

The credit card companies are trying to get ahead of this story, announcing they will temporarily waive the fees they charge on some Haiti-related charitable contributions for the next 6 weeks. But that's nowhere near enough. Many emergency donations to Haiti will still get hit with hefty bank fees. (To give a sense of how limited the exemption is, Doctors Without Borders isn't on any of the publicly available lists of charities that won't be charged fees.)²

All American credit card companies should announce that they will waive ALL fees on charitable contributions, starting today, and going forward for good. This isn't about helping political organizations like MoveOn, just helping true charitable organizations.  

It's the right thing to do, and honestly, it's the least they could do after the role they played in crashing the entire global economy last year.

But they won't do it unless they know how angry Americans are that they're profiting off of this terrible tragedy. Click here to sign the petition, which we'll deliver to the heads of the major credit card companies:

Sign the petition