Month: June 2017

Stanley Stellar

Top Image: Stanley Stellar, “Chad and Bruce No. 2”, 1995, Edition of 5, Gelatin Silver Print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Image: Stanley Stellar, “Concentration”, 1992, Edition of 25, Gelatin Silver Print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945, Stanley Stellar is an American photographer whose five decades of work captured the beauty and vitality of the LBGTQ community of New York City. His work followed its life through the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the first Gay Pride Parades and evolving Gay Liberation Movement, as well as the realities of the HIV/AIDs epidemic. As a participant and a documenter, Stellar produced works that have become historic and cultural references for both the young and old.

More images and an extenxive biography can be found at this site’s October 2023 article on Sanley Stellar.

The Elm’s Fountain

The Marble and Bronze Fountain at The Elms, Newport, Rhode Island

Located at 367 Bellevue Avenue, The Elms was completed in 1901 for the coal baron Edward Julius Berwind. The steel-framed, brick-partitioned $1.5m estate with a limestone facade was built to the design of Horace Trumbauer, whose design was based on the Château d’Asnières in Asnieres, France.

The property is a National Historic Landmark with one of the great classical revival gardens in America, containing almost 40 species of trees.  It is also one of a few remaining examples in America of an estate with a Classical French Revival style carriage house set in a period garden accented by elaborate Italian bronze and marble fountains.

Jared Muralt

Jared Muralt, “Godzilla” and “Godzilla (Variant)”, Silk Screen Prints, 2015

These silk screen prints were released by Mondo, a gallery and printing house in Austin, Texas. The artist Jared Muralt resides and works in Bern, Switzerland. Though he attended art school for one year in Bern, Muralt is primarily self-taught, and he developed his precision and skill through the careful study of books as diverse as those pertaining to anatomy, art history and comics. Muralt is also co-founder of BlackYard studio, a Swiss illustration and graphic design agency that was honored with Bern’s Advancement Award for Design in 2009.

Pablo Neruda: “Only with Kisses and Red Poppies Can I Love You”

Photographer Unknown, (We Have Red Poppies and More…)

“Only with kisses and red poppies can I love you,
with rain-soaked wreaths,
contemplating ashen horses and yellow dogs.
Only with waves at my back can I love you,
between dull explosions of brimstone and reflective waters,
swimming against cemeteries that circulate in certain rivers,
drowned pasture flooding the sad, chalky tombstones,
swimming across submerged hearts
and faded lists of unburied children.”

—Pablo Neruda, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems

The Marble Boxer

Boxer, Marble, Stadio dei Marmi, Rome, Italy

Located in the Foro Italico, an Italian sports complex that was created under the direction of Benito Mussolini, the Stadio dei Marmi is covered in faux Greco-Roman statues that owe more to fascism than to the classical period.

Construction of the open air stadium was completed in 1928 as a training center for the students of the nearby Academy of Physical Education. The central grass field is ringed by a short stack of cascading stadium seats on the top level of which is a corresponding row of classical athletic statues holding modern sports equipment.

As was the classical style the figures stand naked and posed each one holding an implement of their sport, from a cricket bat, to a soccer ball, to a tennis racket, to the more traditional discus. Fifty-nine figures in all stand around the top of the playing field giving the overall appearance of a contemporary Greek stadium. Up close however, the figures belie the angular features and severe facial characteristics of more traditional brutalist fascist statuary.

Wurlitzer

The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853 by German immigrant Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company originally imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments from Germany for resale in the U.S. Wurlitzer enjoyed initial success largely due to defense contracts to provide musical instruments to the U.S. military. In 1880 the company began manufacturing pianos. The company quickly expanded to make band organs, orchestrions, nickelodeons and theatre organs which were popular in theatres during the days of silent movies.

Over time, Wurlitzer acquired a number of other companies which made a variety of loosely related products including kitchen appliances, carnival rides, player piano rolls, and radios. Wurlitzer also operated a chain of retail stores where the company’s products were sold.

As technology evolved, Wurlitzer began producing electric pianos, electronic organs, and jukeboxes and eventually became known more for jukeboxes and vending machines, which are still made by Wurlitzer, rather than for actual musical instruments.

Fred Kaemmer

Glasswork by Fred Kaemmer,

Glass artist Fred Kaemmer likes to use the traditional decorative elements of glassblowing–frit, glass cane, metal leaf–in unorthodox ways. He often uses these elements on a piece’s interior surface to create unusual textures or patterns, rather than adding them to the surface or sandwiching them between layers of glass.

Kaemmer’s approach to glassblowing works against the grain of conventional glass decoration. By working on the interior surface, Kaemmer creates unusual vessels that fully engage the viewer, and the results edge the piece away from its utilitarian and traditional foundation toward a more sculptural work of art.

After graduating from college, Fred Kaemmer began working with glass as a distraction from the nagging question of “what now?” He took several summer workshops and eventually enrolled at The University of Wisconsin-River Falls to further explore hot glass. This was over ten years ago, and he now works full-time with hot glass in a studio that he built in St. Paul, MN.

The Afghan Whigs, “Algiers”

The Afghan Whigs, “Algiers”

The Afghan Whigs are an American rock band from Cincinnati, Ohio. Originally active from 1986 to 2001, they have since reformed. The group – with core members Greg Dulli (vocals, rhythm guitar), Rick McCollum (lead guitar), and John Curley (bass) – rose up around the grunge movement, evolving from a garage band  in the vein of the Replacements to incorporate more R & B and soul influences into their sound and image. After releasing their first album independently in 1988, the band signed to the Seattle-based label Sub Pop. They released their major-label debut and fourth album, “Gentlemen”, in 1993.

A great song that is now stuck in my mind.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)