Women in the Battle of Adwa

Adwa, the very first decisive victory of a black African power, is an important event in the shared memory of the entire African population. It demonstrated the spirit of unity, love and friendship among Ethiopians; but foremost, it showed the genuine role of women.

Women marched alongside men to the battle at Adwa 127 years ago not as “comfort women”, but to fight against the Italian army. Just like their men-folk, Ethiopian women were ready to sacrifice themselves to prevent colonialists from sneaking into their country, thus forcing their children to live in servitude.

Women were preparing food and water, providing medical care for the wounded and they were following the solders with a slogan of  ‘ freedom or death’.

Detail of the Battle of Adwa

Empress Taytu Bitul was clearly symbolic of the best patriotic qualities of women. Taytu was not only a diplomat and stateswoman with resolve, but also an ingenious commandant versed in the art of war, a tactician par excellence.

Taytu was a strong-willed woman who forged a powerful alliance with her husband, promoting his career and then replacing him when he was incapacitated. Taytu was a remarkable power in her own right: she had a private army and large land holding, she also held a dominant position in determining Ethiopian Orthodox Church policy. 

She opposed Menelik’s conciliatory attitude toward the Italians who had imperial designs on Ethiopia.  She scored a significant victory at an Italian-built fort in Mekelle, where she defeated the Italians by cutting off their water supply.  She then took part in their decisive defeat at Adwa in 1895.

Emperor and Empress of Ethiopia shown during the Battle of Atwa

Portrait of Empress Taytu Bitul

Awa Victory Day is a national holiday in Ethiopia, which is observed on March 2nd every year.  This day celebrates Ethiopia’s victory over Italy in the year 1896.  People pay tribute to their ancestors who helped present-day Ethiopians secure their independence from European rule. This day is an important milestone as it stands for the celebration of Ethiopian sovereignty. People dwa Victory Day is a national holiday in Ethiopia, which is observed on March 2 every year.  This day celebrates Ethiopia’s victory over Italy in the year 1896.  People pay tribute to their ancestors who helped present-day Ethiopians secure their independence from European rule. This day is an important milestone as it stands for the celebration of Ethiopian sovereignty. People come out into the streets, hold parades, and retell old tales. 

Celebrating Adwa Victory Day Photo Credit: Xinhua

TOXIC ART

Artists have the power to make environmentalism a priority. Here are a few creative people focusing on pollution and recycling.  

Detail painting by John Sabraw

John Sabraw is an engineer and an artist at Ohio University. Guy Riefler, is another professor at Ohio University, who is focusing his research on acid mine drainage. Together they have designed a way to create pigments made of sludge extracted from streams near abandoned coalmines.

Ultimately, they plan is to sell the paint commercially, with the proceeds going to cleaning up polluted streams in Ohio.

John Sabraw at work Photo courtesy Lee Cordray 

Artist Linda Gass creates art about land use and water issues in California and the American West. 

In stitched paintings she blends painting with textile techniques to create multi-layered birds-eye view landscapes and maps showing the human marks that affect our water resources. 

Portrait of Linda Gass by Jeff Rumans

Treatment? Quilt by Linda Gass  – aerial view of Palo Alto Regional Water Quality Control Plant and the adjacent living marsh. 

After the Gold Rush quilt by Linda Gass.  The landscape shows a major transportation artery crossing the man-made California Aqueduct.

“Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea” is a non-profit community art project founded by artist and educator, Angela Haseltine Pozzi in 2010. The project is based in Bandon, Oregon, where Angela first recognized the amount of plastic washing up on the beaches she loved and decided to take action. Since 2010, “o create monumental art that is awakening the hearts and minds of viewers to the global marine debris crisis.

Pozzi’s work is now on display at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo.  It is a massive exhibit made entirely of plastic pollution fished from the Pacific. “Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea,” features 17 sculptures, from jellyfish to shark. 

 
Angela Haseltine Pozzi Artistic Director of Washed Ashore Project Photo by Angela Zoro

Washed Ashore shark sculpture 

The Colonization of Space

In the 1970’s Princeton physicist and space activist Gerard O’Neill developed a plan to build human settlements in outer space, including a space habitat design known as the O’Neil cylinder.  

Exterior view of O’Neill’s Cylinder from O’Neill’s popular science book The High Frontier:  Human Colonies in Space, 1977  Painting by Rick Guidice courtesy of NASA

The O’Neill cylinder, made of modules, would have differing environments.  Each self-sustaining space colony could support people, animals and greenery.  

This year, US vice president Mike Pence unveiled a goal of returning American astronauts to the Moon as soon as 2024.

Amazon’s entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos, not only wants to improve access to the Moon, but he also plan to create the infrastructure for millions of people to live and work in space. 

Bezos’ company Blue Origin plans to build a lunar lander which can reportedly land multiple metric tons of payload onto the Moon’s surface. Powered by liquid hydrogen, the lander can navigate in space and uses a gigabit internet to communicate back to earth using a laser. 

The plan is to send the lunar lander to Shackleton crater, a 13 mile area in the moon’s south pole, where ice deposits have been found. The water from the ice can be broken down to produce the hydrogen needed to fuel up the spacecraft. 

Jeff Bezos, with mock-up of a new lunar lander spacecraft, that aims to take equipment and humans to the Moon by 2024.  Photo courtesy Blue Origin

Artist’s concept of Blue Origin’s Luna lander on surface of moon    Photo courtesy of Blue Origin

Both O’Neill and Bezos envision a mission to save the Earth by extracting the mineral resources of the Moon to create much needed sources of energy for planet Earth. 

Like O’Neill, Bezos imagines habitats replicating historical Earth cities or creating artificial climates – “Maui on it’s best day, all year long.” 

O’Neill’s cylinder Endcap based on San Francisco. Painting by Rick Guidice courtesy of NASA

Did You Miss It?

At opposition the planet Uranus is opposite the sun and at its most visible from Earth. This year October 19^th was the night to see Uranus make its debut.

Uranus at Opposition October 19, 2017 viewed from Brazil

Uranus position inside the constellation Pisces

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. Uranus’s atmosphere is similar to Jupiter’s and Saturn’s in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium, but it contains more “ices” such as water, ammonia, and methane, along with traces of other hydrocarbons. It is the coldest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System, with a minimum temperature of 49 K (−224 °C; −371 °F), and has a complex, layered cloud structure with water thought to make up the lowest clouds and methane the uppermost layer of clouds. The interior of Uranus is mainly composed of ices and rock.

Planet Uranus with its major moons, photo taken from Al Sadeem Observatory by Aldrin Gabuya.

NASA Hubble photo from 2005 showing rings around Uranus

Uranus will remain close by, those with a telescope will be able to see it throughout the entire month of October.

Beautiful Bugs

 

Small white butterfly by Robert Brocksmith

Award winning close-up of wasp Credit: Icy Ho/National Pictures

SmugMug

Spider by Gary Grossman

Flame skimmer dragonfly by Pieter van Dokkum

Madagascan moon butterfly (c) Magic of Life Trust

Cotton harlequin nymphs by Geoff Ronalds

Singapore butterflies by Bob Rzynski/Flickr

Photo by Melville Osborne/Flickr

What is a Flixel?

Photography has always evolved along with advancements in technology. From plates to film, from black & white to color, from analog to digital and now from still to motion. Living Photos called Flixels evolve the art of photography by adding a seamless element of motion. The effect is simply mesmerizing.

 To see more Flixels, view their online gallery of cinemagraphs that can be shared and embedded into your own websites for free.

Here are some of my favorites Flixels:

Sports Series

https://media.flixel.com/cinemagraph/2fhaec3vhrwu8e1j645z

Here’s the still of the my favorite cat – to watch him move go to this link:

https://media.flixel.com/cinemagraph/crmoqzfoajbuq0uwubiz

Aurora Borealis Timelapse

https://media.flixel.com/cinemagraph/wj2vip6r5mgg86nqbqkh

Here’s the still of ducks:

To watch them move go here:  https://media.flixel.com/cinemagraph/175pumocapduetdjtgn2

Award Winning Portraits

This year the 25^th anniversary BP Portrait Awards Show was held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.   The judges filtered through over 2,000 pictures from all over the world selecting the ones that came complete with a compelling narrative.

Photographs of those attending the show are just as compelling…

Photo of the exhibit © Jorge Herrera

Photo of the exhibit © Jorge Herrera The portrait is “Astrid” by Robin L. Muller.

“Henrietta and Ollie” by Tim Hall

Photo of the exhibit © Jorge Herrera . The portrait on the left is “Edward Lucie-Smith” by John Williams, 2014

Taking first place was Thomas Ganter for “Man with a Plain Blanket”.  Ganter is shown below with his award.

Ganter says, “‘After being in a museum, I saw a homeless man and was stunned by a similarity: the clothes, the pose, and other details resembled what I just saw in various paintings. However, this time I was looking at a homeless person wrapped in a blanket. By portraying a homeless man in a manner reserved for nobles or saints, I tried to emphasize that everyone deserves respect and care. Human dignity shouldn’t be relative or dependent on socio-economic status.”

Second prize went to Richard Twose for his portrait of Jean Woods. He was impressed not only by her striking looks and style, but also by the depth of character in her face. Twose wanted to capture that sense of someone who has learnt to be almost fearless, looking forward to life still but with a great richness of experience behind her.

“Jean Woods” by Richard Twose

I like this casual portrait called “Eddy in the Morning” by Geoffrey Beasley. The portrait is of the artist’s son who was living with his parents at the time of creation:

“Eddy in the Morning” by Geoffrey Beasley.

 Another family portrait is “My Boy Adam” by Melissa Scott Miller:

Melissa Scott Miller shown with her portrait of her son Adam.

It was painted in the Christmas holidays allowing for a series of sittings. Mother and son enjoyed the opportunity to chat without interruptions and Scott-Miller included many items of importance from Adam’s life, and a self-portrait in the mirror.

Just as interesting are those by a self-taught Chinese art who calls herself Lantian D. These portraits of passengers on the London Underground began as sketches made to pass the time. The artist says: ‘The more I watched and observed, the more I became interested in their subtle dramas and relationships.  In her series called “Passerby” she beautifully captures the sometimes glazed, sometimes meditative, melancholy and exhausted faces that we all know from public transportation.

Passersby by D. Lantian

Passersby by D. Lantian

Passerby by Lantian D.

And just one more favorite:

“Engels” © Patrik Graham 2013

The portrait is of the artist Engels Souffrant, who became a friend of Graham when the two rented adjacent studios in Brooklyn, New York.

Warning: Optical Tricks

This posting contains some works of motion illusion, which might make sensitive observers dizzy or sick. Should you feel dizzy, you had better leave this page immediately.   It helps if you don’t look straight at it.

Vega-Nor by VictorVasaely © Albright-Knox Art Gallery/Corbis

Victor Vasarely is widely regarded as the father of Op-Art. During the 1960s and 1970s his optical images became part of the popular culture having a deep impact on architecture, computer science, fashion and the way we now look at things in general.

CH651612 Eclypse, 1972 (acrylic on board) by Vasarely, Victor Private Collection; Photo © Christie’s Images;

Enter Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, who has spent more than a decade creating his collection of moving optical illusions.

Rotating Snakes by Akiyoshi Kitaoka – the circular snakes appear to rotate spontaneously in your peripheral vision as a result of the peripheral drift illusion. Notice how the movement stops when you look directly at a collection of concentric circles. The illusion is probably caused by unconscious rapid eye movements and blinking. Image: CATERS NEWS AGENCY

 

Snake Conveyors by Akiyoshi Kitaoka is another peripheral drift illusion. Blinking may enhance the effect. Image: Caters News Agency

 

Autumn Color Swamp by Akiyoshi Kitaoka. Image: Caters New Agency

Try moving your browser window rapidly up and down on this page to enhance the effect of the moving square in Autumn Color Swamp.

Swimming Rings appear to approach each other and move apart
Image: Caters News Agency

Irrigation by Akiyoshi Kitaoka Credit: Caters News Agency

Rotating Rings of Fluorescent Color by Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s Construction of a Subway by Rabbits: the inner circle seems to rotate clockwise while the outer circle rotates anti-clockwise. Image: Caters News Agency

Professor Kitaoka has written ten books on visual illusions or illusion designs. His designs have been used by the likes of Lady Gaga, who ran the Kitaokas work, entitled Gangaze, as the CD cover for her album Art Pop, in 2013. To see more of his work go to:

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

More X-Ray Magic

X-ray by Arie Van’t Riet

As a physicist Arie Van’t Riet specializes in radiation physics…..especially low energy x-rays. 

Van’t Riet uses this amazing kind of type of black and white photography to look at nature with “x-ray eyes”. The x-ray of ordinary scenes like a butterfly near a flower, a fish in the ocean, a mouse in the field, a heron along the riverside, etc. are then hand-colored.    Each photograph excites our curiosity.

Tulips in the field – x-ray by Arie Van’t Riet

Cameleon x-ray by Arie Van’t Riet

To see more of these amazing photos go to http://www.xrart.nl

Cephalopod Awareness

International Cephalopod Awareness Days are from October 8-12 of any year. So it’s an excellent time to celebrate “the most intelligent invertebrates in the world”.

Cephalopod are marine animals with bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, and a set of arms or tentacles. They all have the ability to squirt ink to confuse predators like a smokescreen. They are regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates with well-developed senses and large brains.   They are also the fastest marine invertebrates and can easily out-accelerate most fish by the use of jet-propulsion or water jet.

Squid

Squid Photo from TONMO

Squid are cephalopods with 8 arms and 2 tentacles. Their shells have been internalized as a gladius, which is a slender sword. Squid are cone or torpedo-shaped with two fins on either side of their heads.   They propel themselves through the water using siphons.

Squid by Andrey Narchuk/flickr.com

Cuttlefish

Cuttlefish are another member of class cephalopoda – able to change color and texture in a flash – making them a deadly predator.   They eat small mollusks, crabs, shrimp, fish, octopus, worms and other cuttlefish.  They are restricted by water temperatures so in the years when the seas warm up, their range will increase.   ‘Cuttle’ is a reference to their unique internal shell, the cuttlebone.

Pair of cuttlefish. Credit: TONMO

Cuttlefish Photo: Tennessee Aquarium

Octopus 

Octopus Credit: Werner & Kerstin Layer/ Getty Images

The coconut octopus tip-toes across the seafloor while carrying, and hiding, two stacked halves of a coconut shell under its body. They reassemble the halves to create a sheltered hide-away.

Coconut Octopus tucking into coconut shell. Photo by Massimo Capodicasa flickr.com

Nautilus

Nautiluses are much closer to the first cephalopods that appeared about 500 million years ago than the early modern cephalopods that appeared maybe 100 million years later. Nautiluses are the sole living cephalopods whose bony body structure is externalized as a shell. The animal can withdraw completely into its shell and close the opening with a leathery hood. Unlike the large complex brains of octopus, cuttlefish and squid, nautilus have a seemingly simple brain.  They typically have more tentacles than other cephalopods – up to 90 – but they lack suckers.  To swim, the nautilus draws water into and out of the living chamber with its siphon which uses jet propulsion.

The chambered nautilus can be found along the slopes of coral reefs of the tropical Indo-Pacific.  It movers to deeper waters (600–2,000 feet deep) during the day to avoid predators. At night it ascends up to the coral reefs (300 feet deep) to hunt for prey.

Nautilus. Photo by Wendy Capili-Wilkie

Two nautilus Credit: National Aquarium