Melting the World

Sunga Park, South Korean designer and illustrator creates these lovely watercolor landscapes of various cities across the world including London, Paris, Busan, Istanbul, venice and Oxford.  These paintings are stunning in numerous manners; obviously aesthetically brilliant but also in a more resounding way.  One looks at each of these pieces and feels a lost memory, something everyone can relate to.  Something you wish you could remember perfectly, but is hazy with a few lines of details that you cannot shake.  The creation of a memory is a beautiful thing in and of it self, but I feel that Park truly captures these moments on paper.  I wish she could do a time-lapse of making these pieces, and truly save the movement and flow of a memory.

The Power of Empathy

This powerful short helps us understand the difference between "empathy" and "sympathy".  These words often get misused and miscommunicated in our daily lives.  The animation encompasses the two words in a simple, clear manner and allows the audience to truly understand (and enjoy) the power of empathy as opposed to sympathy. 

"Dr Brené Brown reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities." 

Voice: Dr Brené Brown

Animation: Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne) www.gobblynne.com

Floating Underwater

We all remember the glorious Japanese artist who painted photorealistic goldfish -- not on a canvas, but literally within the folds of their natural habitat.  

Well the impressive technique continues to thrive under Boston-based artist Jessica Dunegan's very talented hand.  "Working with epoxy resin, poured in layers with acrylic paint, the artist's creations are almost sculptural works of art as the pigments are encased within different levels of the translucent material." via MyModernMet

月

to the moon

Art thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,

And ever changing, like a Joyless eye

     That finds no object worth its constancy?

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 

Photography: Klaus Kampert

Obscure

Fabio Selvatici says the work features "the inner impulses of the human soul, the psyche, and the travails of inadequacy in relation to the same claustrophobic environment that oppresses [his subjects]."

Roméo et Juliette

For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Everyone is buzzing about it, and I guess it's time for me to fly into the conversation.  For those of you who know me well, it should not come as a surprise that I am utterly devoted and obsessed with Shakespeare and (some) of his plays.  Romeo and Juliet has always been a favorite of mine -- but not in the traditional sense.

"The greatest love story ever told" is not how I would describe the pathetic relationship between Romeo and his infatuated love Juliet.  True love?  I think not.  Yet Shakespeare (the genius that he is) is truly a poet and his writing is utterly breath-taking in this classic.  I read this play at least once a year, and don't think I will ever get sick of it.  I do not condone the behavior between the two "star-crossed lovers" nor do I believe in the dramatic unfolding of the play, but I cannot get enough of the words pushing out of the paper and into my head, creating these stunning portraits of scenes that can only be painted by a true artist.

That being said, there has been countless adaptations of this play, and below are the trailers for the most famous.  With my commentary on them; of course.

First of all we have the classic 1968 adaption by Franco Zeffirelli starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey.  A truly beautiful film.  They kept close to the original writing and cast the two leads flawlessly.  It is always hard to remember how young Romeo and Juliet were written as, so by casting a 17 and 15 year old, Zeffirelli succeeded in refreshing all of our minds.  Makes the silly love-aspect of the play a little more bearable.  Young love *sigh*.  The lines are delivered naturally and the story unfolds nicely.  Although the film does get a little dry and boring near the end, this will still be one of my favorite adaptations of this play.

Next we have arguably the worst film Leonardo DiCaprio has ever been in, if not the worst film ever made.  The horrendous adaptation by Baz Luhrmann starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes (1996).  Although many describe this film to be a masterpiece, I find it dreadful and just watching the trailer made me cringe.  It was a failed attempt to modernize Shakespeare's work, lacking the right flair it needed to make it a spectacle (a la The Great Gatsby), and also lacking the right translation from the original play to more "understandable English" *shivers*.  Let's just say I wasn't too keen on the whole idea of modernizing a vintage play.

But of course I judged too soon, because only two years later in 1998 John Madden along with the phenomenal Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes blew my mind with a (honestly hard to explain) adaption of the play.  Not a direct telling of the play, but a very well-written story with two plots woven into one seamlessly.  I cannot express my love for this movie through a simple blurb.  The way the characters came alive and naturally portrayed the making of Romeo and Juliet as a play just makes me clap my hands together in giddy joy.  All of the actors were superb, and the storyline was epic.  (The trailer doesn't nearly do it justice.)  If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it.

And finally, the one we've all been waiting for.  The most recent attempt at rekindling the original jewel in it's most basic glory.  I have not seen this film yet, so a review will be coming shortly but the trailer looks promising.  Although I must admit the gorgeous Ed Westwick may have nudged my opinion in one way over the other... (What can a girl do?)  I'm excited (and frightfully nervous) to see how this new piece will unfold.  

Tonight you belong to me

Okay.  So I usually don't post "cute" videos and "fad" youtube clips onto this blog.

But this video is an exception, due to the fact that I have pressed the replay button probably 89 times in the last two weeks.

This blog has become a treasure chest of things that I find beautiful, and this deserves to be on here.  God bless this 親子.

Enjoy The Lennon Sister's "Tonight You Belong To Me"

Covered by Benjamin J. Ames and his 4 year old daughter.

Human Shells

The body is the shell of the soul.

-Klaus Kampert

Germany based photographer Kampert makes the familiar, unknown.  He has the ability to see beyond the fundamentals of a body, and create these amazing structures using his subjects.  The shapes themselves, combined with the lighting and compositions, just blow my mind away.

http://www.klauskampert.com

Something different.

Don't date a girl who reads.

By Charles Warnke

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

 Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Although I don't agree with Mr Warnke's ideas, I can't help but love this passage.

Something about the way he writes.

The passion behind it.

How ironic that he writes against girls who love reading, yet girls like myself (as a girl who can't get enough of literature) find the passage intriguing and stimulating, thus attracting me to get to know him.

Nuance

Nuance / 2013

Travail sur l’image vivante musicale. 

Musique : “Ants” de EdIT / Planet Mu Records

Video: Marc-Antoine Locatell

Danse : Lucas B.

Utterly genius in regards to every aspect.

The digital

The Choreography

The dust, light and movement create an unforgettable experience for the viewer.
Reminds me of previous post on the finger-tutting genius's ad.

Stretch & Expand

"London-based artist Michael James Talbot creates beautiful sculptures of elongated women inspired by Greek mythology and Venetian masquerades."  

These statues are actually quite tall, some even taller than 6 feet!  I would love to see them in person, to really sense their weight and presence in the room.  The length combined with the slender frame of the structure adds an interesting contrast between delicacy and balance.  I also love the color and the murkiness of the pieces, making them seem antique, fragile and ancient.  

"Talbot creates his captivating pieces by molding clay and casting each sculpture in bronze. He then proceeds to finish with chemical patination, adding a new sense of character to the already expressive figures. The artist says, "The human form gives me an endless source of inspiration. The subtlest of movements and expressions can be captured in the sculpture to portray a myriad of emotions and convey tension, drama, fluidity and grace. No other subject has this richness of emotional and spiritual content or the capacity to convey such a broad and interesting narrative.""

via MyModernMet 

2020 東京

There is nothing I need to say.

I am so proud.

2020 Olympic Summer Games.

Wrapped up

Tomohide Ikeya is a Japanese photographer who has turned the his hobby of scuba diving into a conceptual body of work.

Here is a selection from her "MOON" collection

I love these photos because they incorporate three things I am absolutely infatuated with.
Water, hair & the moon.
The dark eeriness of the photographs combined with the stillness of the water creates a whole new dimension of reality for the viewer.  The photos seem to have a depth that you can't really explain.  The "moonlight" reflecting on the water just add to this, and give texture to the pieces.  

I would expect the birth of a mermaid to be something like this.

"I'm a photographer who has a concept of "Control" for my work.

Water is one of "uncontrolled" things which the human being never can to do.

I had a lot of opportunities to think about ‘water’ with doing scuba diving in several countries as a hobby.

The beauty of sunshine viewed from under water, daily life of aquatics and me as human just be able to see their world for a moment...

We thought human could control water if we had lots of equipments and cared for risks in water, but human never be able to live in water. And we also never be able to live without water.

Water doesn’t only give a life, but also takes a life. On the other hand, water is not the Mother of Creation or the Master of Destruction, it’s just be there as ‘water’.

Water is a philosophical existence very much even be as ’just water’.  I had been fascinated with water more and more and I had gotten a zeal for expression it.

It is one of reasons which I became a photographer, so I have been creating 

my works which has a relation with water.

I'm expressing "enthusiasm for life" by photography throughout the figure of Water and Human."

http://tomohide-ikeya.com