Retired Baseball Player is Now a Full-Time Artist Specializing in Wood and Resin Sculptures

Lustrous and hard-wearing, epoxy resin has risen in popularity among contemporary artists. Its versatility comes from being able to be combined with other ingredients such as pigment powders or even other objects like flowers and sand. In the case of Blake McFarlands work, he prefers to pair resin with different wood varieties. Since retiring from baseball, he works full-time as an artist, creating stunning sculptures of animals like wolves, bears, and beyond.

His elegant approach merges the robust qualities of wood with the glass-like finish of resin. While the majority of these animal sculptures are composed of mixed woods, he leaves key areas like the head or back of the subject to be filled in by transparent resin. This adds a sparkly finish to the pieces.

In each work, McFarland begins with a block of wood and resin. He then uses various power tools to sand it down to the desired form, always with finesse. The wooden composites feature different varieties like Cherry, Curly Maple Buckeye Burl, and many more, adding to the intricate aesthetic. I love working with new materials and always challenging myself to learn something new, he says.

You can commission a sculpture and find available work for purchase via McFarland's website. Scroll down to see more amazing art and be sure to follow the artist on Instagram to keep up to date with his latest projects.

Retired baseball-player-turned-artist Blake McFarland creates sculptures of animals out of wood and resin.

Weepy Chrysanthemums. All images Felicia Chiao, shared with permission

Whether floating in pools of rainwater in the center of chrysanthemums or navigating the chaos of a fish tank, the characters in Felicia Chiaos drawings encounter surreal circumstances that tap into complex emotions. Her illustrations (previously) follow the experiences and interactions of solemn figures who search for the sun, become immersed in blossoms, and appear both curious about and overwhelmed by the huge world around them.

Chiao incorporates anthropomorphized elements of nature to represent moods, like in Try, which contrasts the cheerful, sunny top level of an apartment with a dim, melancholy lower level that gets little light. In Bloat, a dark, inner monstera recurring specteris dispelled by the shining sun. Peering past giant flower petals or surrounded by prying eyes, her figures express universal feelings of awe, anxiety, uncertainty, and joy.

Long using Copic markers for her drawings, Chiao recently switched to watercolor for gallery works, maintaining a similar style of washed hues while achieving better archival quality. She continues to use the markers for personal work, sharing with Colossal, The new medium, however, has enabled me to push the boundaries of scale and color application. Some of these pieces are part of New Normal, the artists solo exhibition at...

Gallery Walls Are Transformed Into Exquisitely Ornate Art Made of Cardboard

Galleria

Humble cardboard is transformed into spectacular artwork by French artist Eva Jospin. Using the ubiquitous paper material, she creates cave-like architectural elements and smaller sculptures that showcase its versatility. Now on view in her solo exhibition titled Folies, each piece gives cardboard a voice. Sawed, inlaid, and stacked, Jospin creates a permanence to an ephemeral material.

With its unexpected use of cardboard and other mixed media, Folies is meant to entice the viewer and make us rethink our notions of what were seeing. [Folies] was the name given to garden constructions in the 18th and 19th centuries that had a purely ornamental or decorative function, without any functional purpose, Jospin explains. I like the ambivalence it generates.

One of the standout pieces in Folies is called Galleria, which reimagines a hallway with Jospin's work. The gallery's outer walls greet us with tree-like forms punctuated with the classical structure of a coffered ceiling. Cardboard frames with ornate inlaid elements display more of Jospin's work as you walk down the hall. Some of the framed compositions are also made of cardboard while others are created with thread or drawings. Together, the experience is a rich look into Jospins creative mind and makes a transitional space one that feels like a destination.

Folies is at Mariane Ibrahim in Mexico City until September 9, 2023.

Humble cardboard is transformed into spectacular...

Who is Your Genius Persona? Discover Your Historical Counterpart [Quiz]

This quiz was generated with the help of ChatGPT. Content was then revised and fact-checked by My Modern Met.

We've all fancied ourselves geniuses from time to time, but what if you really were one? Do you belong in Mensa? This week's personality quiz takes a look at your analytical skills and the way you tackle problems in order to see which historical figure is your genius alter ego. Are you an Einstein or a Da Vinci? Find out with this short, eight-question quiz.

As always, if you decide to enter your email address, you'll get your results delivered straight to your inbox. But that's not all, we've also included some information about the scientific genius you paired with so you can get insight into their mind.

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READ: Who is Your Genius Persona? Discover Your Historical Counterpart [Quiz]

People are (or are trying to) redefine relationships. How they work, who gets to make the calls, how much work everyone puts in, all of it is up for discussion.

Now, people are thinking maybe expiration dates might solve some of the pressure we feel to make things work long term every single time.

Youre typically going to see something like this if you and the other person dont live locally to each other or have plans to move, but many are thinking it might be a useful tool in other ways, too.

Sometimes, people dont even have their diplomas in their hands before theyre already hustlin and grindin for a job.

And that seems to be the case with a young woman who shared a video on TikTok showing her working on her phone during her own college graduation ceremony.

I guess she wasnt going to any crazy parties that night, huh?

Photo Credit: TikTok

The womans video had text overlay that says, when you already started working and you forgot to take PTO for your grad ceremony so you have to do work...

All images Vanessa Barrago, shared with permission

Sprawling tufts of looped, wound, and crocheted yarn scale walls and floors in Vanessa Barragos elaborate, nature-inspired textiles. The Portuguese artist (previously) draws inspiration from the textures of coral, rock pools, botanicals, and the cosmos to compose expansive fiber pieces.

Each piece can take upwards of three weeks to complete, as Barrago and a team of six studio assistantsincluding her mother and sister, with additional crocheted contributions from her grandmotherscollaboratively knot the yarn through every single hole in the jute canvas to create lush, biomorphic forms.

If youre near Lisbon, you can find Barragos work in Morphosis at the Museu das Artes de Sintra, Portugal, alongside ceramicist Catarina Nunes, which opens June 29 and runs through October 1. Find more on the artists website and Instagram.

...

The publishers of Artforum and The Nation are pleased to announce the continuation of Bookforum under the stewardship of The Nation beginning this summer. The first issue of the relaunched quarterly

In 1981, the philosopher Mary Midgley argued against cultural relativism in an article titled Trying Out Ones New Sword. In it, she makes reference to a verb in classical Japanese which means to try out ones new sword on a chance wayfarer. (The word is tsujigiri, literally crossroads-cut.) A samurai sword had to be tried out because, if it was to work properly, it had to slice through someone at a single blow, from the shoulder to the opposite flank. Otherwise, the warrior bungled his stroke. This could injure his honor, offend his ancestors, and even let down his emperor. Those of us who feel unable to condemn this practice due to cultural distance have fallen victim, in Midgleys view, to moral isolationism.

One could object to Midgleys use of this particular example: the historical record doesnt suggest that tsujigiri was ever common practice, and certainly not that it was approved of by the wider society of feudal Japan. About half a century after the abolition of the samurai class in the eighteen-seventies, however, it does seem to have become the stuff of comedy.

My brother told me he just bought a brand-new bed last week and let me tell you, those things aint cheap these days.

Especially if you want to get a good one that will last for a long time.

So its probably a good thing to know that you CAN haggle prices when youre out buying your next mattress.

And a couple of people have taken to TikTok recently to talk about this subject.

A woman named Fran shared a video where she simply stared at the screen but had some important information to share.

Frans video has a text overlay that says, Did you know you can negotiate mattress prices?

Photo Credit: TikTok

And she also wrote, Almost every bed has at least a 47% margin. They say this mattress is $1200, and you say Id lik...

Joseph Merrick, one of the most severely deformed individuals recorded in medical history, would hardly seem like the role David Bowie was born to play. The latter looked and acted as if destined for nineteen-seventies rock stardom; the former so horrified his fellow Victorians that he was exhibited under the name The Elephant Man. But whatever their outward differences, these Englishmen did both know fame, a condition Bowie rued alongside John Lennon in 1975. Yet in the following years he continued to expand his public profile, not least by turning to acting, and even came off as a viable movie star in Nicolas Roegs The Man Who Fell to Earth  not that playing a fragile but magnetic visitor from another world would have been much of a stretch.

In fact, it was The Man Who Fell to Earth that convinced theater director Jack Hofsiss to offer Bowie the lead in The Elephant Man, Bernard Pomerances play about the life of Joseph Merrick (referred to, in the script, as John Merrick). Hofsiss suspected that Bowie would understand Merricks sense of otherness and alienation, writes Louders Bill DeMain; he may or may not have known that Bowies experience studying mime, of which he made plenty of use in his concerts, would place him well to evoke the characters misshapen body.

Ive been a movie lover my whole life and there are certain ones that still stick in my mind when I think about the first time I got to see them.

One was the first time I saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at a friends sleepover in fourth grade. Im talking about the original 1974 version, people. The mother of all horror movies

And it completely BLEW MY MIND.

And I still love it all these years later!

What movie blew your mind the first time you saw it?

Check out what AskReddit users had to say.

Summer blockbuster.

Jurassic Park.

I loved how under wraps they kept the whole thing. You literally could not see what the dinosaurs looked like unless you paid for a ticket on release.

I remember a photo of Steven Spielberg in the paper posing with one of the dinosaurs and they completely blacked out the dinosaur. You only saw a tail for a brief second in the commercials.

And damn, when they show that first dinosaur and it rears up on its hind legs to get that high branch, I shrunk down in my seat a little. Had no idea what I was in for.

Was it a dream?

Spirited Away.

The feeling it left me with was like Id had an intense, vivid dream.

Id never seen such soulfully executed animation.

WTF?

Ill wear what I want, Grandma!

And your religion sucks!

Uh ohthat doesnt sound too good, does it?

But did this teenage girl go too far when she decided to put her grandmother in her place?

Read her story and see what you think.

AITA for refusing to allow my step grandmother dictate what I can or cant wear at her party and for telling her she can shove religion down her she-knows-where?

Im 16F. My dad comes from a Muslim background but hes not religious. My mum d...

Hiroyasu Tsuri is a Japanese (b. 1985 Yokohama) contemporary artist whose work stands out for its embodiment of hybridity. It blurs polarities such as East and West, studio practice and street art, representation and abstraction. He is also well known as TWOONE for his public mural practice.

Since 2014 Tsuri has been based in Europe where he continues to experiment with materials and mediums and push his art to new levels. His artworks have been acquired by The National Gallery of Victoria and by the City of Yarra, Australia as part of their permanent collections. Tsuri lives and works from SantElia a Pianisi, Italy.

...

I think my window to be a successful model and actor is dwindling pretty quickly

So there goes that fantasy!

Darn!

Oh well, thats life.

Lets hear from AskReddit users about fantasies of theirs that will never be fulfilled in life.

Prepare to be bummed out!

Bummer.

Winning the lottery and never having to work again.

Ive always wanted to win the lottery, pay off all my debts, pay off any debts my parents may have, set my sister up with some money, give all my coworkers some money, open a 24/7 free clinic in my area ( though the logistics of that seem iffy and too expensive), buy at least two more houses (somewhere warmer), donate a bunch to my favorite charities, and whatever I have left put in a high-rate retirement account.

Constant pain.

To not be in constant pain for the rest of my life. To not need to take like 20 pills a day just to function. To travel more.

Ive always wanted to goto Italy and Ireland. Also Alaska. Live in PNW and weve got gorgeous forests, mountains and desert but ive always wanted to see more. Yellowstone too.

Also for Sci-Fi, upload my consciousness to cloud storage connected to the internet and games.

Imagine

Living in a world where everything is united and working in harmony. It is hard for me to imagine wh...

Since 2021, Google has released a steady stream of online courses designed to help students earn a professional certificate in six months and land an entry-level job. Early on, Google developed certificate programs in five professional areas: User Experience (UX) Design, Data Analytics, Project Management, IT Support and IT Automation. In 2023, the tech company has added several new programs to its lineup, each offered through Courseras online education platform. The latest additions include Cybersecurity, Business Intelligence, and Advanced Data Analytics. On average, these certificate programs take 2-6 months to complete.

If you would like to receive a Google professional certificate, you will need to sign up for Coursera Plus, which usually runs $59 per month. (That means that a certificate generally costs about $120-$360 to complete overall.) However, right now, Coursera has a special promotionwhich ends soon on June 22where you can sign up for the first month of Coursera Plus for just $1. That gives you a very affordable way to try out Googles certificate programs and other programs offered on Coursera. Sin...

By now youve probably heard about the Titan, a 22-foot-long submersible (not a submarine more on that soon) thats carrying 5 brave souls who were attempting to view the wreckage of The Titanic.

On June 16, the crafts support ship, the Polar Prince, set out from St. Johns of Newfoundland. Then, on Sunday the 18th, the submersible launched and started the 12,500 foot descent to the oceans floor.

Roughly 2 hours after the launch, communication between the Titan and Polar Prince were cut off.

So what went wrong?

Submersibles vs Submarines

First, lets look at what the Titan actually is which is a submersible.

These crafts are built for relatively short journeys, are designed to protect passengers from the lethal pressures...

AS I WRITE, the search continues for the Titan, the submersible vessel that went missing off the coast of Newfoundland on a high-ticket tourist dive to view the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Operated by

Have you ever wanted to wear a work of art? Nows your chance: Hyperallergic is partnering with eco-friendly fashion label JCRT and artist Nayland Blake to help launch ATDM, a new line for limited-run capsule collections of clothing created in collaboration with contemporary artists.

An acronym for Artist, Title, Date, Medium, ATDM has an inaugural collection designed by Nayland Blake that is available now. It includes two t-shirts and two camp collar shirts featuring a graffiti-style rabbit, a motif commonly used by the artist in their work, and the phrase This is clothing of the opposite gender. With this twist on the language used in Arizonas Senate Bill 1026 targeting drag, Blake, who is nonbinary, intends these pieces to function as wearable messages of resistance and support for trans people and anyone caught wearing the wrong cloth...

Oh, boy, here we go again

Its another story from Reddits Am I the A**hole? page that deals with a heaping helping of FAMILY DRAMA.

Are yall ready to see whats going on here?

Read the story below to get all the details!

AITA for uninviting my parents to my wedding after my mom said I dont care about your f*cking wedding?

Im engaged to the love of my life. Well call her Sarah. Sarah doesnt have issues with my parents but there is a little tension on both sides and no one has attempted to be close, which is fine I guess. It makes me a little sad that they are not more excited about her.

Sarah asked my mom the other day if she would help make centerpieces. Sarah is into DIY but we are running out of time and she was asking around to see who would be willing to help.

She admitted to my mom that it was kind of grunt work and if she didnt want to, no pressure. My mom got offended and said of course she doesnt want to, we havent cared about her at all, so she doesnt care about our f*cking wedding. This hurt Sarah but she didnt fight back.

Sarah told me and I called my mom. Honestly I probably went into it a big aggressively, but I yelled at her for saying that to Sarah. My mom said that Sarah hasnt included her in any of the fun parts, or cared about her opinion on anything, so why would she help make centerpieces. I asked her to apologize...

By the time I reviewed Don Voisines work in 2013, he was a veteran painter of geometric abstractions who was working with a hard-edged vocabulary and compositional format that centered a black form (rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, and trapezoids). Looking back through his work, I learned that in 1992 he began surrounding the black form with a border. In 1999, he introduced the diagonal into his work, adding another layer of tension between containment and expansion. Since then, he has expanded upon these possibilities while remaining devoted to his use of a single or double overlaid black form, hemmed in by parallel rectangles pressing in from either the paintings sides or the top and bottom. 

Voisines paintings were precisely delineated compositions where everything was considered, from the use of matte and shiny paint to the direction of the brushstroke, the solidity or transparency of the overlaid planes, the interaction between the black forms and white spaces, and the relationship between the black and white interior and the colors and bands pressing in. Perh...

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation earlier this week announced its latest plans regarding its Monuments Project, intended to transform the nations commemorative landscape by 2025. The five-year $250

The Texas city of Leon Valley has apologized after local police detained street artist Lakey Hinson on May 15. Body camera footage posted on social media shows the 36-year-old San Antonio artist telling officers that his sidewalk design was made in chalk and would wash away with the rain right before he was handcuffed and brought back to the nearby police station.

Hinson, who also goes by Lakey360, has grown a social media following for the public chalk art he creates freehan...

Harrison Ford Fights Back Tears After Interviewer Thanks Him for 40 Years of Indiana Jones

Photo: shumovdenis/Depositphotos

Harrison Ford is known for playing no-nonsense, hard-faced action heroes in film sagas such as Indiana Jones and Star Wars. Off-screen, the actor himself is known for sharing an equally measured personality. That's why it almost came as a surprise when he nearly broke down during a recent interview with BBC Radio 1. The 80-year-old actor was talking about his latest film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, when a message from interviewer Ali Plumb pulled on Ford's heartstrings.

When asked about the legacy of Indiana Jones and why it meant so much to many people going into the fifth and final movie, Ford selflessly attributes it to the talents of screenwriters and directors and actors that have poured their hearts and souls into it. The actor went on to share his admiration for the saga's mixture of adventure, humor, and heart. This last one concerns age and frailty and changing nature of life, he says. It was especially compelling to me, because I am of that age, and I wanted it to feel real for the audience. I wanted them to see the complexity of that experience with someone they spent 40 years with.

Before the interview wraps up, Plumb takes a moment to thank Ford for his work. Can I just say, on behalf of all the fans, thank you, the interviewer tells the actor. It's been such an adventure. We love you so much. As Ford begins to look moved, Plumb adds, I don't mean to make you blush or anything, but you mean the world to us, and thank you. Thats all I had to say.

Ford is deeply touched, and he fights back tears as he looks for the words to reply to Plumb. And I must say to you, thank you, sincerely. It means the world to me.

The Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny release cycle has been full of heartfelt tributes to Fo...

Its always hard for kids to navigate the world after their parents get divorced.

Especially when you have to deal with new step siblings.

And that brings us to todays story!

Was this girl rude for what she decided to do with her belongings because her stepsister was driving her nuts?

Check out her story below

AITA for removing the fun stuff from my room at my moms and leaving it at my dads because my stepsister sleeps in there when Im with my dad?

My parents are divorced. I split my time 50/50 between both houses. My mom has been remarried for a number of years now and has three stepkids. Two boys who are younger and a girl the same age as me.

She and I got along so badly that the custody times were switched so we were not in the house at the same time because we could not get along. It all started with her taking my favorite plush animal without permission and ruining it (the eyes were gone and it got soaked which ruined the color).

When I told her she shouldnt have taken it she made it her mission to take my stuff without asking and rarely had any consequences for it because I was told to share. Some of the stuff was fine but other stuff got ruined too.

When my mom told me that she would...

Community Helps Buy a Car for Beloved School Custodian Who Walked Hours to Get to Work

Photo: GoFundMe

When a valued member of a community is in need, it's always inspiring to see people rally around them and come to their rescue. This is exactly what happened for Troy Henderson, a custodian at Fillmore Elementary in Oklahoma City. After his car broke down, he began walking to and from worka round trip of about five hours from his home in the city of Moore. When news of his situation got out, the school's principal started a fundraiser to get Henderson a new car.

Known for his positive attitude and for being a hard worker, the beloved custodian (often referred to as Mr. Troy) has been a favorite of both students and staff. When his car first broke down, he managed to get a ride for a week or so, but that quickly stopped. Not everybody wants to get up at five o'clock in the morning to bring you to work, Henderson told News9. I was like, I'm going to work, regardless. I got to be here for the kids.

Determined to not miss a single day at the school, he figured how to make it there on time each day. I did not wish to miss any work, I like what I do and so I wanted to make sure that I was here, he told FOX25. And so he began walking. It's probably about a two-hour, two-hour 15-minute walk, he explained.

After learning about what Henderson had to do to get there, Cindy Lang, the school principal launched a...

On Mexicos southern Gulf coast, a team of archaeologists uncovered an Ancient Maya city deep in the jungle of the Campeche State. The researchers think the site served as an important population center in the period from 250 CE until the Classic Maya civilizations decline around 900 CE. Mexicos National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the findings yesterday, June 20.

The ruins are dispersed throughout 125 acres of dense vegetation inside the Balamk ecological reserve, where other Ancient Maya settlements have been uncovered in the past. The University of Houstons National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping charted the thickly forested area in March with a LiDAR laser scan. A large cluster of ruins emerged on an extended hilltop surrounded by wetlands.

From May through June, archaeologists led by Ivan prajc of the Research Center of the...

Sci-fi and cyberpunk lovers should gear up for July 1, when a collection of films exploring the use of artificial intelligence over the last 50 years will debut on the streaming service Criterion Channel. With release years from 1974 to 2021, the 16 live-action and animated films in the collection peel back the layers of paranoia, mystification, and idealized futures that surround the integration of AI into both daily life and imagined superhuman universes.

These features are especially relevant as open-source AI programs quickly emerge across dozens of industries, often with limited regulations. From generative image tools like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney to the newly released text-generator ChatGPT, AI has become widely useful or at least entertaining to those with access. The concept...

The title of Ral Gmez Jattins poem collection Almost Obscene (2022) is already a provocation. If former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewarts 1964 maxim about obscenity (I know it when I see it) still holds, obscenity relies on literal or figurative visuality something (sex, filth) coming onto the scene which should be kept from view. Yet, Stewarts quip also reveals another important aspect of obscenity: It involves a when. Considered along this temporal axis, its difficult to think of obscenity as having a terminus, a place where it ends, a hard boundary beyond which it doesnt exist. In this sense, almostness seems constitutive of obscenity, the way it is on the verge of something of being seen, of being pushed f...

The thirteenth edition of the Berlin Biennale, originally slated to take place in 2024, has been postponed a full year over concerns that it would otherwise fall during what the German Cultural Foundation

Guess what?

Thats not cool anymore!

After you turn the big 3-0 you might hear that a lot more than you did in your younger years

Its just the way the world works, friends!

And these AskReddit users are here to tell you that these things just arent cool anymore after you enter your third decade of life.

Take a look!

Through being cool.

Being cool.

Actually for me it was around 35, because I like banging my head into a wall, but others started realizing earlier than me.

Everyone I knew started realizing that all of the things I thought were cool when we were 20 were actually really, really dumb and unimportant and werent interested in them anymore. And Im not even married or have kids, I cant imagine how stupid the s**t I was into would seem if I had a family.

...

All images Jennifer Esseiva, shared with permission

Steep cliffs, narrow passes, waterfalls, and wide, sloping hills are fixtures among the ocean bound landscapes of the Faroe Islands. The archipelago in the North Atlantic is a cluster of 18 individual islands, a few of which Swiss photographer Jennifer Esseiva (previously) visited last April. On Vgar and Kasloy, she documented the dramatic vistas, peering out from summits and across vast swaths of land and sea.

Esseiva shares that reaching her destinations required a significant amount of hiking, made extra difficult due to intense wind and rain. She explains:

The rain comes in whenever it wants, often accompanied by a strong wind! Were in a wild environment where the weather changes rapidlySuffering from vertigo, this trip was a real challenge for me, especially on the island of Kalsoy. On its northern tip is the small lighthouse of Kallur, nestled in a spicy setting and surrounded by sheer cliffs. The best photographic compositions require you to get close to the cliffs, which are battered by the wind.

In the coming weeks, Esseiva plans to share photos from Eysturoy and Streymoy islands, so keep an eye on Instagram for updates.  Prints are available on Etsy.

...

Taipei Biennial is pleased to unveil the full participating list of artists for its 13th edition, running from November 18, 2023, to March 24, 2024, at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TFAM). Curated by curator Freya Chou, writer and editor Brian Kuan Wood, and curator Reem Shadid, this years iteration will bring together over 50 international and local artists and musicians. Ten new works and commissions as well as installations, performances, and musical and cinematic experiences will transform the museum into a space for listening, gathering, improvising, and exploring.

The title Small World suggests both a promise and a threat: a promise of greater control over ones own life, and a threat of isolation from a larger community following a global pandemic. Our world can become smaller as we grow closer to one another, but also as we grow apart. This Small World takes place within such a susp...

Eric Garca is a New Mexico artist who uses history and a graphic style to create political art that confronts our understanding of the present. Utilizing a variety of mediums, his work intends to challenge viewers to question sources of power and the whitewashing of history. 

Aim High is an ongoing series that originated in Roswell, New Mexico, in which the artist explores sci-fi concepts such as space, aliens, and invasion through the historical lens of colonialism and expansionism. With two video game projections and a series of ink drawings, Garca draws connections between the westward expansion of the Americas, the exploration of outer space, and the occupation of other people...

Winners of the 2023 Audubon Photography Awards Celebrate the Beauty of Birds

Rock Pigeons by Liron Gertsman/Audubon Photography Awards/2023 Grand Prize Winner.
Location: White Rock, British Columbia, Canada
Two pigeons face left in profile, each with one orange eye in view against a black background. One bird is preening the other, its bill buried in gray, green, and purple iridescent feathers.

Now in its 14th year, the Audubon Photography Awards spotlights the professionals, amateurs, and youth that create incredible visuals of birds. The recently announced winners of the 2023 edition were selected from 2,200 entrants living in all 50 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces.

In the end, wildlife photographer Liron Gertsman took home the grand prize. The Canadian photographer, who has a biology degree and leads photography tours across Canada, won for his touching portrait of two rock pigeons. Gertsman is only 23, but he's already making a name for himself in the field. After winning the Professional category in the 2022 edition of the contest, he was able to rise to the top and nab the $5,000 cash prize.

Amateur photographer Karen Blackwood was singled out for her stunning photograph of a chinstrap penguin. Her image of the penguin diving from an iceberg into the cool waters of Cierva Cove in Antarctica won the Amateur category....

Inspiring Pair of Deaf Climbers Complete Historic Climb of Mount Everest

 

View this post on Instagram

...

Liron Gertsman, Rock Pigeons, White Rock, British Columbia, Canada. Audubon Photography Awards 2023 Grand Prize Winner. All images courtesy of Audubon Photography Awards, shared with permission

About two-thirds, or 389 species, of birds native to North America are at risk of extinction due to the effects of the climate crisis. Rising global temperatures are predicted to force adaption or migration to new territories, two consequences of human-caused change that imperil avian survival. Some of the most threatened species include the dunlin, shorteared owl, and Baltimore oriole, all of which are featured in this years Audubon Photography Awards.

Selected from 2,200 entries, the winners of the 2023 contest spotlight a mix of avian antics. A rock pigeon sweetly grooms a mate, a reddish egret snaps up a tiny fish, and a chinstrap penguin dive into frigid Antarctic waters. While not all species photographed are in immediate danger, the images together showcase birds vast diversity and its potential loss amid climate disaster.

The Audubon Photography Awards are now in the fourteenth year, and you can find all of the top entries from 2023, along with previous winners, on...

Inside Earths most alien vision.

The Eye altering alters all, William Blake wrote not long before Darwin extolled the eye as the crown jewel of evolution an organ of such wonderful structure and inimitable perfection that it magnetizes us to the mystery of life itself. In On the Origin of Species, he began a section titled Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication with a love letter to the eye:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree. Yet reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a perfect and complex eye to one very imperfect and simple, each grade being useful to its possessor, can be shown to exist; if further, the eye does vary ever so slightly, and the variations be inherited, which is certainly the case; and if any variation or modification in the organ be ever useful to an animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, can hardly be considered real. How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated.

But marvelous as our own human eyes may be, they are far from the crowning curio of the animal kingdom. The honor might belong to a creature much lower on the evolutionary ladder of sentience. (Never say higher or lower, Darwin exhorted himself in the margins of a book. Say more complicated.)

The bay scallop (Argopecten irradians), older than Homo sapiens by some 200 million years, sees with 200 eyes the color of Uranus bright blueberries bejeweling the ridges of its rippled shell, each equipped with not one but two retinae, containing threefold as many opsins the light-sensitive proteins in photoreceptor cells, tasked with converting light into electrochemical signals as ours.

Fourteen years in the making, Sammy Harkhams graphic novel Blood of the Virgin (Pantheon) follows a twentysomething father and his struggle to make a B-movie of the same title in 1970s Hollywood.

Thousands of Bees Work With Artist on Incredible Embroidery Art

Over the past decade, Toronto-based artist Ava Roth has been making art with some unusual helpersbees. While it sounds unconventional, this inter-species collaboration explores the relationship between humans and nature. Wooden frames with collages and embroidery are embellished with an abundance of golden honeycomb, highlighting the beauty that can come from this partnership.

Roth relies on organic and local materials for these unique pieces, such as foraged wood, birch bark, foliage, and horsehair. This work begins in my studio with the creation of encaustic collages which are suspended in embroidery hoops, Roth explains. The hoops are then fixed to custom-made Langstroth hive frames, and placed inside honeybee hives where thousands of bees embed the work in comb.

As her project has developed over the years, the designs of these frames have become more intricate. Sometimes, the bees fill circular spaces left in the wood, while other times they are given rectangles and even more abstract shapes. The natural look of the honeycombwhich sometimes spills over into Roth's handiwork or escapes the framemakes these works look alive, as though they are a part of the environment.

You can purchase Roth's mixed media art through her website and keep up to date with her via Instagram.

Canadian artist Ava Roth collaborates with bees to create unique mixed-media art.

Monumental Installation Uses 804 Trees To Create an Untenable Version of Home

Doris Salcedo, Uprooted, 20202022. 804 dead trees and steel; 3000 x 650 x 500 cm. Installation view: Sharjah Biennial 15, Kalba Ice Factory, Sharjah Art Foundation, 2023. Courtesy of the artist. (Photo: Juan Castro)

The phrase putting down roots is likely familiar to anyone looking for a permanent place to call home. In deciding to root ourselves in a location, we have the benefit of building a community and flourishing; home is one thing you dont have to search for anymore. Its just one reason why being displaced from where you live is so traumatic. Colombian artist Doris Salcedo explores this idea in her large-scale installation titled Uprooted.

In the monumental Uprooted, Salcedo built a house using 804 dead trees and steel. The trees comprise the exterior of the structure, their bare branches creating walls that lack doors, windows, and proper protection. We can see between them and into the interior, making it an uneven and untenable place to live.

Uprooted is meant to be uninhabitable. Salcedos use of withered trees, arranged in a recognizable structure, communicates an irreparable loss. This can be assigned in multiple ways, particularly through the invasion and continued assault on Ukraine by Russia. But it also speaks to the climate crisis and how devastating natural events are making some areas unlivable.

Uprooted was recently on view in Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present in the United Arab Emirates.

The phrase putting down roots is likely familiar to anyone looking for a permanent place to call home.

Doh!

Sorry about that

Well, sometimes saying sorry isnt always good enough

And sometimes a HUGE fail will cost you your job.

Check out these stories from on AskReddit about mistakes that cost them jobs.

LOL.

Called the HR lady the Angel of D**th to a coworker on chat.

HR was in a different state, so any time they came to town we all knew it was most likely to lay off people.

The Angel of D**th came to get me shortly after.

Thrown under the bus.

I was the assistant director at a summer camp. One of the very last nights was a sleepover night where all of the campers were there, but not all of the regular day staff.

Two of the counsellors were caught drinking beer, and in an attempt to weasel his way out, one of them told the head of the camp that I gave him permission to do so (I most definitely had not).

While I didnt get fired on the spot or have my year end bonus withheld like the other two, I was told I wouldnt be asked back again for next year where there had already been talks of me being a full director in the future.

Burnin up.

I worked in a fast food spot that didnt have any air conditioning, and theres a workers law where I live that states once it gets to a certain temp in the building they legally cant stay open.

I brought a thermometer to work

Sorry about that.

Built a castle out of Christmas chocolate b...

Learn How to Draw Your Favorite People in This Beginner-Friendly Online Class

There are some types of art that feel impossible to do, and portrait drawing is certainly one of them. The subject matter requires you to consider a lot of factors, from facial expressions to anatomical proportions. Plus, everything has to work together to capture a person's likeness. If youve always wanted to draw your favorite people (or your self-portrait), get a crash course in it with the help of illustrator Melissa de Nobrega.

De Nobrega teaches the online class Portrait Drawing for Beginners: Learn How to Draw Anyone Youd Like. It's a comprehensive look at how to draw one of the most complex subjectsthe human face. Over nearly two hours, she will break down general facial structure through bite-size lessons. De Nobrega will also show how to plot facial guidelines, sketch using contour lines, and then complete the portrait. Best of all, her instructions are universal to portrait drawing and can be applied to anyone.

Students love the class structure. The anatomy part was very instructive, one reviewer writes. I like how simple it remained, while giving a good understanding of the humans face features. Another excellent part was to be able to follow along with the teacher. I was trying on my own at first, and then comparing with what the teacher was doing. It helped me pinpoint what I was doing wrong.

Enroll in Portrait Drawing for Beginners: Learn How to Draw Anyone Youd Like only on My Modern Met Academy, our e-learning platform.

Have you ever wanted to learn portrait drawing?

All images Tatiana Cardona, shared with permission

Glistening glazes highlight voluptuous lips and cheeky grimaces in ceramics by Tatiana Cardona, who runs the shop Female Alchemy (previously). Based in Miami, the artist draws on a love for vibrant colors with an emphasis on pinks and reds, creating functional sculptures embellished with expressive facial features. Inspired by the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s when donning bright red lipstick was used as a form of protest, she focuses on creating lively objects that are as empowering as they are enjoyable.

Cardona regularly collaborates with well-known brands like Adidas and Fenty Beauty, and she tells Colossal that she is excited to begin exploring and experimenting with new themes. She occasionally releases batches of new work on her website, and you can follow updates on Instagram.

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Ali Boulala. Der Name ist Programm. All denjenigen, die selber skaten, ist der Name bekannt. Vermutlich sogar sehr bekannt. Allen anderen wird der Name sptestens dann nicht mehr aus dem Kopf gehen, wenn sie den Film The Scars of Ali Boulala im Kino gesehen haben. Und genau das knnen wir wrmstens empfehlen. Nach einer mehrjhrigen Produktionszeit kommt morgen der Film The Scars of Ali Boulala ber den schwedischen Profi-Skateboarder Ali Boulala in die Kinos. Geboren in Algerien, aufgewachsen in Stockholm, hat Ali Boulala die europische Skateboardszene in den 90er Jahren mageblich mitgeprgt als Skater und als Persnlichkeit. Ali Boulala gehrt ohne Frage zu einer der exzentrischsten Skateboarder seiner Zeit. Klingt alles so, wie fr einen Film gemacht ist. Und genau das ist es auch. Nur, dass das Leben von Ali Boulala bisher nur in filmischen Fragmenten und Zeitdokumenten festgehalten war und nicht in einem filmischen Gesamtwerk. Mit The Scars of Ali Boulala hat der schwedische Regisseur Regisseur Max Erikssons genau das getan und eine Hommage an die ikonische Skatefigur einer ra von Skate- und Popkultur auf die Leinwand gebracht. Das authentische Doku-Portrt erzhlt dabei einfhlsam und humorvoll zugleich die Geschichte seines Aufstiegs und Falls und seinem Weg zurck ...

Der Beitrag The Scars of Ali Boulala Film ber die Skaterlegende Ali Boulala erschien zuerst auf URBANSHIT.

The Tarot has long been a tool of charlatans. But it has also long been embraced by brilliant, unconventional thinkers, many of whom themselves have a touch of the charlatan about them (and who would just as likely admit it with a smile). William Butler Yeats was a fan, as is visionary Chilean filmmaker, artist, writer, and psychonaut Alejandro Jodorowsky, who has recorded his own Youtube series explaining his take on this classic mode of divination. With its archetypal symbolism, the Tarots appeal to artists should be obvious. Most of them, like Jodorowsky, find far more interesting uses for it than fortune-telling. You must not talk about the future, Jodorowsky tells us in his series, the future is a con. The tarot is a language that talks about the present.

What might another visionary artist, Salvador Dal, think of Jodorowskys Tarot interpretations? Well never know, but I suspect he would find them enchanting. Not only do the two seem like kindred spirits, but Dal devoted some part of his life to the Tarot, designing his own deck in the 70s.