I first met her a few years ago hanging out at her apartment in Chicago and saw her again a couple weeks ago at a group show.  She’s a great artist and uses soft strokes and amazing colors in this piece

sitting girl (daydream)   2004

watercolor and oil on canvas board – 9 x 12 inch

Nearly two pounds of still-green plant material found in a 2,700-year-old grave in the Gobi Desert has just been identified as the world’s oldest marijuana stash, according to a paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany.

A barrage of tests proves the marijuana possessed potent psychoactive properties and casts doubt on the theory that the ancients only grew the plant for hemp in order to make clothing, rope and other objects.

They apparently were getting high too.  full article

Sit back, relax and inhale the vibe of “Oboe”

So preposterously amazing, i started laughing during the ping-pong video out of sheer pleasure.  Just enjoy the possibility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKvof8H2A6E

S T A T E M E N T

We believe in the following ideas:

    * Darkroom is an indispensable part for photographers.

    * Appreciation of photography can be taught.

    * Photography can make us see in a new way.

    * Photography can project “I/eye” of photographers.

    * Photographers can grow together by sharing ideas and images.

    * Photography can change our lives as well as others.

    * Photography is the interrelation between the seer and the seen.

    * Photography encompasses more than photography.

Project Basho Gallery

Sweet restaurant with comfy vibe in the very cool Jordaan neighborhood. I had a few glasses of fresh, cold, delicious Amstel.

http://www.daaldercafe.nl/

Born in the former Soviet Union he lived and worked for several decades in his hometown Kharkov, Ukraine. He received an education as an engineer and started to teach himself the practice of photography. Today he is one of the most successful and well-known photographers, who already was actively working in soviet times. His work very much is influenced in the means of Concept-Art and Social-Documentary-Photography. At the end of the 1960s he had his first exhibition. After the KGB found nude-pictures of his wife he was set off his job as an engineer and started to full-time work with photography. He shot a series of everyday-life scenes-documentation. His most famous work during this period (1968-1975) was the “Red Serie”. In these photographs he mainly used the colour red, to picture people, groups and city-life. Red is the color standing for October Revolution, political Party and the social system of soviet society. It is often said, that within those works critical elements toward the existing political circumstances can be found.

Case History – A set of 400 photographs (1999)

examines the consequences of the break down of the Soviet Union for the people living there. Therefore he systematically took pictures of homeless people, who soon started trusting him. More than 500 photographs show the situation of people, who after the break down of the Soviet Union were not able to catch hold in a secured social system. In a very direct way Mikhailov points out his critique against the “mask of beauty” of the uprising post-soviet capitalistic way of life. It’s one of the best works found within social documentary photography.

An important film that gives a real look into how globalization and the unyielding power of international institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank adversely affect Jamaica’s economy and shows the devastating impact that the “white collars” have on its people, farms and ability to live freely.

watch the trailer

Selected as Iran’s submission in the Best Foreign Film category for the 2000 Oscars, The Color of Paradise (Rang-e khoda) is about Mohammed, a blind boy who sees with clarity and his sighted father who is blind to the beauty in his own family. It is a film made from a deeply spiritual point of view, but it never proselytizes, it never preaches. It tells with sophisticated simplicity a not so simple story of faith and unconditional love and the sadness that comes to one who falls short in both.
Storyline

My thoughts: I totally connected with Mohammed and his independent connection to the world around him, his fascination with sounds, smells and the touch of everything, yet there exists his fragile dependence on others. I was blown away by his presence on the screen, just being himself in front of a camera…just a powerful film.