Patricia Johanson landscape architect, artist, designer and ecologist

'For over twenty years Patricia Johanson has patiently insisted that art can help to heal the earth. For the last ten years she has been creating large-scale projects that posit a radical, yet utterly practical vision. She works with engineers, city planners, scientists and citizens' groups to create her art as functioning infrastructure for modern cities'. you can borrow the book by Kelley from Howard Gardens Library.

Here is a Youtube interview with Patricia Johanson  discussing her recently completed biosculpture installation in Finland and talking about her approach to what she does. The video was created for Remediate/Re-vision at Wave Hill in New York, an exhibition curated by Jennifer McGregor in August 2010. Follow the Wave Hill  link for a downloadable catalogue of the exhibition so that you may read about  the work of 15 major art & ecology artists . I met Patricia in Turkey many years ago at an art and ecology conference. She is articulate and pioneering. She describes her position as 'working at the cutting edge of what is known and what is just hoped for'.

Ffotogallery Forum -TONIGHT!!!

FORUM
Thurs 27 Jan AND Thurs 24 Feb 2011, from 6.30pmFREE, drop-in
FORUM is an informal, monthly event aiming to develop a core group of emerging artists in South Wales together with students and graduates. It is a platform for practitioners from various disciplines to exchange ideas, experience and opinions on visual culture.

This month photographer Tim Freeman (Welsh Artist of the year 2009) will talk about some of his recent projects. As usual they will have an open floor, for artists who bring recent work or work in progress to discuss on the night.

 

Refreshments will be available throughout the evening. There are no booking requirements. If you have any questions please call (029) 2070 8870 or email turnerhouse@ffotogallery.org

The Design and Artists Copyright Society want to hear your views on artists' rights

The survey below was sent out yesterday by DACS

and is publicised on their website. It seeks the views of artists to

help DACS decide on their response to the UK government's independent

review of copyright.

DACS is currently participating in two important consultations which

affect visual artists: the UK government's independent review of

copyright and the European Commission's consultation on the

implementation and impact of the Artist's Resale Right.

To help inform our response to these consultations we are surveying

artists on these issues.

It is important that the voices of individual artists are heard!

We would really appreciate your help by completing this survey yourself,

and forwarding the link to other artists (and estates of artists) you know.

The survey can be found here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VZ9HLKL

Royal Academy Winter loan Exhibition catalogues 1870 to 1913

The Royal Academy Winter loan Exhibition catalogues (1870-1913 ) have been digitised and are now available online via the RA Collections section of the Royal Academy Website. http://www.racollection.org.uk/

In 1870, coinciding with its move to Burlington House, the RA began organising an annual loan exhibition of Old Masters and works by recently deceased British artists, known from its inception and for many years as the Winter Exhibition.

Go to the  RA Collections page  . This website contains images of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, historic books, archives, historic photographs and plaster casts owned by the Royal Academy. A special section on Constable includes a video on his treatment of weather and light.

For the Winter Loan catalogues click on the Exhibition Catalogue  link (in a list top right) to view thumbnail images of the title pages of each catalogue. Click on a thumbnail image to display a large image of the title-page. Use the Next & Previous buttons to browse through the catalogue. You can also enter search terms in the Search within the catalogue box to search for artists, titles and lenders within the catalogue. This will display a list of the pages on which your search terms were found.

Below the catalogue pages you will also find thumbnail images of some of the works that were exhibited in the exhibitions. Clicking on a thumbnail image will take you to a page displaying a larger image and more information about that work.

Is the CD dying?

PITMAN, N.J

(Credit: Sony Corp.)

Pitman, which has 9,365 residents and is about 17 miles southeast of Philadelphia, is home to one of Sony's two remaining U.S.-based CD-manufacturing plants--until it closes on March 31. A longtime employee said  "The CD is dying." The first album released on CD and offered to the public was Billy Joel's "52nd Street" in October 1982.
The compact disc--the dominant music-distribution format for nearly three decades can compete no longer  with the portability of the ipod and similar devices that can store 2000 discs worth of  and after a decade of rampant illegal file sharing, , the plant closure is a also sign that the CD just couldn't compete with free music. (when)"they stopped putting CD players in cars I knew things were bad," the worker said. The CD was once a staple of a car's dashboard but the past several years, car manufacturers have searched for ways to tap into Web-distributed music.

Images of Nature

Images of Nature is a new permanent gallery at the Natural History Museum in London showcasing its world-famous collection of natural history artworks. The Gallery contains 110 images that span 350 years to the present.
Prints, watercolours and paintings from eminent natural history artists such as the prolific bird illustrator, John Gerrard Keulemans and accomplished botanical artist, Georg Ehret, feature in the collection.
Alongside this historic body of work are modern images created by scientists, imaging specialists, photographers and micro-CT scanners.
The gallery includes a temporary display of works that changes annually. This year's theme is Chinese watercolours featuring botanical and zoological watercolours from the collection of 19th-century amateur naturalist, John Reeves.
The BBC has producd an audio slideshow showcasing some of the works  here (thanks Helen!)
 Entrance to the gallery is free.
Also on show in the Museum until 11th March 'Wildlife Photographer of the Year'

Fashion Doll Guide (yes it's Barbie)

This work should not go unacknowledged. Suzanne Prochaska the website owner says "My goal is to provide a comprehensive resource to vintage Barbie dolls, clothing, accessories and other collectible fashion dolls, beginning with Barbie's debut in 1959".
http://blog.fashion-doll-guide.com/

Siobhan Davies-Dance -'Rotor' at the Whitworth Art Gallery

This spring Siobhan Davies Dance presents ROTOR, an inter-disciplinary ensemble of installations and live works by award-winning artists based on ideas generated by dance, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester on from 28th January to 6th February-entrance is free.

There will be live performances including  A Series of Appointments by Siobhan Davies plus Installations including  Stuck by Angela de la Cruz and I’m Going to Show You by E V Crowe .ROTOR has also prompted a selection from the Whitworth’s own art collection, including works by artists such as Barbara Hepworth and Albrecht Dürer, which will be presented in dialogue with live, dynamic performance.

UWIC Library subscribes to a huge image database called Bridgeman Education. UWIC staff and students can access the images via the Learning Portal's Electronic Library.

There is now an iphone app allowing you to search the database, view images and their metadata, and to create and view slide shows on your phone, Simply log in as usual with your UWIC username and password. The app requires iOS or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

For those who like to read-Granta magazine online

 Since 1979 Granta has published many of the world’s finest writers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects, from intimate human experiences to the large public and political events that have shaped our lives. Its contributors have included Martin Amis, Julian Barnes, Saul Bellow, Peter Carey, Raymond Carver, Angela Carter, Bruce Chatwin, James Fenton, Richard Ford, Martha Gellhorn, Nadine Gordimer, Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, Ian McEwan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jayne Anne Phillips, Salman Rushdie, George Steiner, Graham Swift, Paul Theroux, Edmund White, Jeanette Winterson and Tobias Wolff.

Every issue since 1979 is still in print and can be bought from the online shop.
Granta.com publishes a wealth of material that you won’t find in the print magazine – including video interviews, brand-new short stories and essays, audio recordings from our events and photography slideshows. You can sign up to their monthly newsletter – or follow them on Twitter or Facebook.

new resource for African art and its influence on Modern Art

The James J. Ross Archive of African Images, 1590-1920 (RAAI), has been launched at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. This unique archive, accessible at  http://raai.library.yale.edu/, contains approximately 5,000 illustrations of African art published before 1921.  RAAI is a work in progress, aspiring to include every African object that has appeared in a book, periodical, catalogue, newspaper, or other source published in or before 1920. The majority of entries date between 1800 and 1920, a period of heightened international presence in Africa. As trade increased between Africa and the West in the early 19th century, voyagers from the West began intensively recording and collecting the material culture of the African coastline. After 1920, an enormous profusion of collecting, exhibiting, and publishing created a flood of images and a whole new regard for African art. 

RAAI is a collection of rich historical data and extensively catalogued and annotated images. Images include prints, drawings, paintings, and photographs of objects from a range of contexts: in situ in the original performance context, in exhibitions, in casual snapshots, and in studio photography. Its historical sources afford exceptional insight into early European and American views-both literal and figurative-of Africa's art.

The last roll of Kodachrome

Kodachrome II had incredible color, National Geographic insisted its photographers all used it. McCurry is one of the all-time great photojournalists. He shot the last roll of Kodachrome ever processed (on December 30th 2010). Here are some of the images from that roll which he published on his blog. This is what he wrote on December 30th
Today is the day that Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas, the last lab on the planet to process Kodachrome,  stops developing the iconic film forever.  When Kodak stopped producing the film last year, they gave me the last roll.   When I finished shooting the final frames, I hand-delivered  it to Parsons.   Here are a few of those last 36 frames