Category: art

picturing some numbers

Want to see some really amazing photos? Check out this link, sent to me by a friend.

Here are a couple of numbers learned from this site:

  • 60,000 (The number of plastic shopping bags used in the U.S. every 5 seconds)
  • 1,140,000 (The number of brown paper grocery bags used in the U.S. every hour)

The numbers are staggering, but abstract.

Photographer Chris Jordan has taken numbers like these, and created large-scale works of art that really show the numbers. To give us the sense of the scale of 60,000 plastic bags.

You really need to see the photos to get a sense of them. So, come on. Click on the link…

You think you know someone…

As I mentioned recently, John and I have been together for quite a while. Over 15 years, to be specific. So you’d think I’d know John pretty well. But he does find ways to surprise me.

John has a background in math and computer science. He’s been working in the computer industry since before we met, and in the years since I’ve known him, has become an expert in his subfield of the industry. John also is a technophile. He likes the cool toys, and has a weakness for electronics. So when John bought his first impressive digital camera, it didn’t surprise me. And when John started learning the ropes of photography technique and digital image processing, that didn’t surprise me, either. What did surprise me is that over the last couple of years, John has been taking some really beautiful photos. I didn’t know I’d married an artist.

Anyhow, I’m happy to say that John has started posting some of his photos on his blog. Three posts so far. Hopefully more to come.

I’ve been thinking that one of my new resolutions in the realm of blogging, once I get around to acknowledging the new year and writing them, should be to post more pictures on my blog. So I’ll take this opportunity to post some pictures. Below is one of John’s, of an abandoned mill in the town next to ours.

millshackfront.jpg

The lines of the structure actually reminded me a bit of a Shinto shrine. The vertical supports of the wall and the slightly curving horizontal edge of the roof suggest the shape of a gate to me. I was particularly reminded of a picture I took of a street-corner shrine I came across in Nara, Japan when I was there for a conference in 2004. Here’s a photo of it.

shrine1

And here’s another one, showing a bit more of the street.

shrine2

Coronation

Art has been important in my life as far back as I can remember. My mother was always taking my sister and me to art museums and exhibits. I didn’t realize it wasn’t a rather standard childhood activity. Some families made trips to the zoo. We went to the Louvre. (We were also a travelling family.)

When I was 9 years old, our little family moved to France for a year. It was a very influential time in my life. Especially in terms of art exposure. My taste in art has changed a lot since then. (I’m now partial to contemporary, abstract and surrealist art.) But when I was 9 years old, I was quite taken with the painting “The Coronation of Napoleon,” by Jacques-Louis David. (I see that it’s in the Louvre now, but I don’t remember where it was when I first met it. I’m quite sure I saw at the Palace of Versailles at some point, but that may have been years later.) It was a huge painting, over 20 by 30 feet.

The Coronation of Napoleon
I was taken in by the luscious colors and incredibly rich detail, particularly of the lavish clothing and jewelry. I bought an oversized postcard-type reproduction of the painting, and would enjoy looking at the details, perhaps imagining myself there. On the back of the card, there was an index to many of the participants of the ceremony depicted, and I was intrigued by the fact that the artist had painted himself in the audience.

Le Chateau d'Hennemont I’m also remembering that I was generally quite fascinated by royalty at that time. My friends and I would play “royalty” at school. That is, we’d pretend to be various members of a royal family, and act out various scenarios. We may well have been, in part, inspired by the fact that one of our school buildings was, I kid you not, a castle. For some reason, and I’m quite proud of my childhood self about this now, I wasn’t interested in being a princess. I always wanted to play the queen mother. Or as I called her, The Elderly. I didn’t have a crown at that time, though.

I’ve been reflecting on these things because tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., I get a crown. At the dentist’s office, that is. I’m not expecting too much ceremony for the occasion.