While wandering through the old town last week, I happened upon an art class in progress, and was invited inside to take pictures.

Gently backlit window + glass table + beaded candleholders = yes.

Last week I was invited to participate in a photo project by Wrong Studio entitled Mediterranean Quilt. The ideas is for photographers living in seaside cities and towns in the 23 countries all along the Mediterranean coast to send in four “patches” (i.e. four square photographs) to contribute to the quilt. The project is open to anyone living on the Med, and the deadline for submissions isn’t until April, so there’s plenty of time for you to get something together and submit it. I put my submission in a couple of days ago and I’m pretty excited to see how this project turns out. Link

Great photo, right? Except it’s not. It’s a painting. As in oil on canvas.

Check out the work of Gregory Thielker, it’s well worth your time.

IMAGINE PEACE
TUFIKIRIENI AMANI
平和な世界を想像してごらん
HUGSA SÉR FRIÐ
평화를 꿈꾸자
BARIŞI DÜŞLE
想像和平
رویای صلح
احلم سلام
ILARAWAN ANG MUNDONG MAPAYAPA
חלום שלום
சமாதானத்தை நினையுங்கள்
ПРЕДСТАВЬТЕ СЕБЕ МИР
KÉPZELD EL A BÉKÉT
शािन्त की कल्पना करें
KUVITTELE RAUHA
STELL DIR VOR ES IST FRIEDEN
წარძოიდგინეთ ძშკიდობა
IMMAGINA LA PACE
ཞི་བ་སྒོམས་
IMAGINEZ LA PAIX
IMAGINA A PAZ
IMAGINA LA PAZ
ᓴᐃᒪᖃᑎᒌᑦᑕ

A single message engraved in 24 languages on the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavik. Yoko Ono will be re-lighting the tower on Saturday, 9 October in honour of John Lennon’s 70th birthday. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Imagine Peace Tower web site, be there or be square.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Tower, here’s a short mini-documentary explaining how it all came about:

I know you people love free stuff, as do I, and I know you love books as well, so here you have the chance to get the best of both worlds: a free book! As you’re already aware, I’m totally into independent creative endeavours no matter what the medium, and because of where I live, getting paper books in English can often be a challenge.

Memoirs of an Antihero was brought to my attention last week, so of course I had to download it. I’m just getting started on it, but so far I’m finding it amazingly well-written. It’s not particularly reminiscent of anything (Blank seems to have quite a distinct style), but I’d say that if you like the artistry and raw power of Palahniuk, you and Memoirs of an Antihero will get along well. I’m enjoying it greatly. Link

I ran across the Huebner Family Photos Flickr account quite by accident; it was one of those things where I was so deep into a trail of searching for things that I have no idea how I ended up where I did. But I’m so glad I found this account— if you have some spare time (and if you don’t, make some), their photo collections are well worth a look or three. Basically it seems they’re going through all their old family photos from the past half-century or so, many of which appear to be slides, and they’re converting them all to digital uploads. While that in itself might not be so interesting to anyone who isn’t in their family, where it becomes of interest is the fact that these people travel a lot, and they were traveling fifty years ago, too. They have nearly 4,000 photos up there at the moment, many of which are from Europe in the late 1950s, stretching all the way through to the present day. Also, they appear to be a family of very skilled photographers, which helps.

I can’t even describe how many different kinds of photos are there— you just have to go see it for yourself. The above photo was taken from my favourite set, Czechoslovakia 1988-89. I find that set particularly interesting because I was dating a Czech guy at that time, and it’s amazing to see that his descriptions of his homeland were so incredibly accurate.

I’ve been told by a very reliable source that this is just the beginning, and there are more sets of photos coming soon, including a set from Europe, dated 1961. Can’t wait to see those.

I’m kind of fussy about visual art, drawing and painting and such. I have a few artists I really love, but mostly I’m hard to please.

Albert Cerriteño’s work, however, is simply amazing. He has an incredible eye for detail, and his sense of quirk is more than admirable. I’d love to own one of his pieces someday.

I recently downloaded the pilot of Pioneer One, the first-ever made-for-torrent dramatic series. Given the paltry budget and the fact that it was just some random people making it, I thought it probably had the potential to be total crap, but I felt like I needed to give it a chance and support the ideas behind it. Governments and media companies need to understand that p2p is not the enemy— it’s a powerful tool that benefits everyone. And even if they insist on telling themselves p2p is the enemy, they need to know that we’re not going to stop doing it, end of story, and they either need to find a way to play along and be a part of the game, or get used to disappointment. You would have thought they would have learned this lesson after the now-hilarious incident where they shut down Napster ten years ago, dusted their hands off with satisfaction and said, “there, that’ll stop those pesky file-sharers.”

Anyway, I shocked myself by absolutely loving Pioneer One. Okay, yes, it’s low-budget. I’m prepared for growing pains, that’s not a problem. The important thing is that the storyline is there. It’s an unbelievably magnetic plot, and the twist at the end of the pilot sent chills down my spine. I donated to the project so that the rest of the first season’s episodes can get made, and in return I got a great mp3 of the Pioneer One theme music, which was one of my favourite aspects of the show. Consider me a fan of Bracey Smith’s and Josh Bernhard’s work. If you haven’t already seen the show, go and download it now. Free is my favourite price. Link

Tonic.com has published a fantastic story about the merits of crowdfunding sites like RocketHub, and Hidden Anatolia is one of the featured projects. It gives me a lot of confidence to know that major web hubs are picking up on the importance of crowdfunding, and thereby acknowledging the importance of independent art. It’s a great article, and it’ll only take you a minute or two to read it (I’ve heard you’re a pretty fast reader). Link