#Blair Fine Arts

[cozylittleartblog]

was listening to her playlist yesterday

[insane-in-the-membranee]

Women? Women.

Cleopatra (John William Waterhouse) || A Stolen Glance (Eugene de Blaas) || The Accolade (Edmund Blair Leighton) || Unknown || The Reluctant Bride (August Toulmouche) || Head of a Young Girl 1777 (Jean Baptiste Greuze) || War Pieta (Max Ginsburg) || Lady Elizabeth Keppel (Joshua Reynolds) || Joan of Arc (John Everett Millais) ||

[fine-arts-gallery]

Qui M’aime Me Suit (1891) by Edmund Blair Leighton.

[disneyesque-dreams]

Wonderland Garden

Alice in Wonderland Concept Art by Mary Blair [via]

[larrycommitsarson]

I made some art of Sam and Blair last night

These two would probably talk a lot about cryptids (shared interest) and also ghosts, lost media, or both depending on the day

I love my funny little Cometkid

[averysillygoose]

accolade

[gluskincasual]

Fruity Loops

Part one of ??? of different Outlast characters dressed up in fun, fruity costumes just because. Jeremy is trapped in a coconut and Rick is having the time of his life as a banana. Thanks for looking!

[altpick]

March 17th - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day we would also like to celebrate the members on Altpick.com! Today we look back at the Member Focuses from this past week: Photographer Blair Bunting, Illustrators Barbara Kosoff, Tom Cocotos, and Urs Knobel. They specialize in all areas of the commercial art industry. Take a look at their work and show your love! Photographer Blair Bunting ©Blair…

[loudrats]

Loud Rats Book Club 2023

This year the rats became literate!

We suggested a number of books each month and then voted on one to read (somehow Fish managed to read all 12 of them… wild!). The ones in red are the winners, but there are some other really good books in there.

Hopefully you can find your next favourite read below! :)

January

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

The Butchering Art by Lindsay Fitzharris

Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy

Fledgling by Octavia Butler

Pirates and Prejudice by Kara Louise

If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

February

Adua by Igiaba Scego

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

March

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Humans by Matt Haig

Cane by Jean Toomer

Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin (#1 Broken Earth Trilogy)

Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart

April

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrel

Dubliners by James Joyce

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake

May

Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

Where You Come From by Saša Stanišić

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

June

Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

Our Hideous Progeny by C. E. McGill

Swimming in the dark by Tomasz Jędrowski

Girls like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko

Diary of a Wimpy Kid 17 by Jeff Kinney

Zami: A New Spelling of my Name by Audre Lorde

Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

July

Kid Youtuber 9: Everything is Fine by Marcus Emerson, Noah Child

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

Hit Parade Of Tears by Izumi Suzuki

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book by Naja Marie Aidt

Pandora's Jar by Natalie Haynes

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Mapping the Interior by Stephan Graham Jones

August

Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Small Game by Blair Braverman

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

September

Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

October

Linghun by Ai Jiang

Eyes Guts Throat Bones by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers

The Half Life of Valery K by Natasha Pulley

Catch the Rabbit by Lana Bastašić

Kindred by Octavia Butler

November

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

Liberation Day by George Saunders

Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

December

Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes by Maurice Leblanc

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy

[velvetvexations]

And I can absolutely guarantee you no one would give a single flying fuck if a trans woman replaced a trans guy in a meme comic with herself. Because it's no big deal, and it's simply about finding something to be mad at the evil "TMEs" about or whatever. Truly, we must fight transphobia at the front lines! (Other trans people parodying meme comics)

Absolutely not lmao. But then it's fine, because, like, trans men are privlaged, so stealing their memes is like pirating a Disney movie, whereas stealing a transfem meme is practically snatching the food right out of a Victorian orphan's hands.

Are you not excited for the future where art styles are trademarked?

I'm still not entirely sure if I identify as a kinna non-binary or if I just feel myself to be a very butch transfem who likes using certain terms for myself to emphasize the unique nature of my femininity.

But I don't know what else to call it except for exorsexism when I get the five millionth side-eye for "AMAB trans woman," especially since I know people would go off the edge accusing me of being a TERF twenty times more if I said "male" like I actually want to.* Like, dadgum, can people not handle a girl choosing to identify in some way with a term traditionally associated with her body-type because she likes it without assuming she's another Blaire White?

Like this is that soul-gender shit I get riled up about, the word "male" isn't real! The ♂ is not a magic rune that wards against femininity! I can choose to identify with that and still be a woman, and when I enter a women's space while identifying openly as a male woman, that's going to piss TERFs off more than any of them ever could.

*I also identify myself as an AMAB trans woman to support AFAB trans women and other transfem folk, but I think using 'male' would do that just as well too

I DIDN'T KNOW IT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH TRANS PEOPLE EITHER

Eyyup. The safest queers always pretend the world outside the community is completely hypothetical so they can get down to the crucial business of praising them for breathing.

The comparisons to acephobia at least gives me hope things will get better, but I hope it's fucking soon.

It's the closest people who're privileged enough to care about meme theft get to dealing with things like that, of course it's basically the same to them, if they stepped outside their gated community for a second they'd have a religious experience like the Great Renunciation of Siddhartha Gautama.

Some day we'll find out what number comes after one.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Why can't haired people make their own memes? Why must they consistently debald the memes of bald people?

It's different when it's transfems because, uh, well, radfems say so.

They really can't help themselves.

Apparently it's hypocritical of me to call that racist, though, because I once told a tankie to bark like a dog without even looking at their* profile. Like, I'm sorry I very generically insulted someone who turned out to be Black, I guess.

Also, I apparently harass Palestinian blogs, which is truly wild and I can only guess must come from me occasionally bringing up hypocrisy when I yell at tankies for being enthusiastically pro-genocide when they feel like it.

*I do not recall the pronouns this loser used

The issue you're noticing is that transfems don't get socially murdered nearly often enough for transradfems to sustain themselves, and they can't influence any real issues, so they have to make up problems to fuel the martrydom that places them above all other trans people.

Oh, that sounds spectacular! Kinna gross, but like, in a spectacular way!

They don't think it's possible for AFAB trans people to detransition, to them it's all just cis women pretending to be trans to rip them off and hurt them.

It's real fucking bad.

I'm very sorry anon, and I completely agree.

You'd be surprised by me not liking most modern art.

I'm really happy you have that, and that we can relate to each other. <3

Are Black people saying the "why this _ mad" meme is exclusive to Black people? Is that discourse that's happening?

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Mrs. Margaret Josephine Blair was a California woman of 70 who did stunts that a man with iron nerve would hesitate to do. At 55, when all indications pointed to her being an invalid for the rest of her life, Mrs. Blair started in on a system of her own to recuperate the health and strength she had lost. Here she is on the roof of the (old) Waldorf Astoria on April 6, 1922. Dr. Copeland, the city Health Commissioner, said after examining Mrs. Blair that she is the healthiest young woman of her age he has met. This picture shows her walking on the ledge of the hotel's roof.

Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Image/Fine Art America

[fine-arts-gallery]

In Time Of Peril (1853-1922) by Edmund Blair Leighton.

[roxannepolice]

What do you mean exactly by Saxon representing “Post Politics”?

Hi! First, a bit on post-politics:

Basically this is all bound up into the naive optimism of post-cold war "end of history" hopes, where liberal democratic free market fuelled welfare state becomes the total norm that can only spread throughout the world now that totalitarian centrally steered empire has fallen. Like, the idea for a world without politics understood as various ideologies opposing each other and replaced by state becoming a purely administrative institution has actually been seen as the utopian goal of history- except in practice it resulted in detached from reality technocrats fighting for power with equally but differently detached from reality populists.

But somewhere at the beginning of the 21st century there was this clash of democracy with politics-as-election-of-administrators becoming just straight up boring, leading to elections being less about ideologies and more about personal feelings for a party and even more glaringly - particular person. And that is not to assume that historically people have been very considerate of reading through the agenda of each official, but rather what becomes the norm that politicians rely on. Empty but passionate and eloquent statements about things being bad ("This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs right now, is a Doctor."), lifestyle of the politician (Harold Saxon's model wife, excellent background on a website, also sth sth would you rather vote for an art loving vegetarian from working class or a rude misogynistic chain smoking alcoholic aristocrat), or just freaking LOOKS ("I think Mister Saxon is exactly what this country needs. He's a very fine man. And he's handsome too.") become infinitely more important than actual policies or ideology ("Why do you say that? What was his policy? What did he stand for? I don't know. He always sounded good. Like you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about. I can't really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice.")*.

Yes, fandom has generally decided Harold Saxon was from a conservative party, but he's explicitly not from any party whatsoever. If anything, BBC really took advantage of having a talented actor that looks like Tony Blair, a LABOUR PM (though I'd say Harriet Jones is more of a Blair stand-in). It's a party whose only premise is the personal charisma of an individual. And that is NOT how you should elect politicians.

*Ngl, this is why I facepalm at Arachnids in the UK. If you think the problem with Donald Trump as one of the most powerful people in the world is that he has OCD and is generally a bad person, then no. No it's not.

[penny-hartzs]

Let's talk more fashion: who are your top ten fictional characters with the best style 🥰

Right off the bat I have to go with Carrie Bradshaw. She annoyed me to no end for most of the series (apart from that one episode where she went to a house party and someone stole her shoes and she insisted that the guests pay her back for them) but I'd be lying if I said that her outfits don't continue to be iconic and they are always going to be a huge chapter of costume design and fashion. Patricia Field really is THAT woman.

2. Rachel Green my forever girl has to be number 2. I love so many things about her style and how it evolves throughout the seasons. In the early days it was jeans, T-Shirts and overalls but in such a chic and 90's way and then as she starts working in fashion and growing more into a more grownup version of herself she has an amazing office wardrobe that I still take inspo from. I also love all her slip dresses.

3. Meave Maisel. I started watching The Marvelous Mrs Maisel mainly because of the clothes and the fact that it was written by Amy Sherman Palladino and I stayed for as long as I did for the clothes as well. I believe the plot got a bit tired and the creators got distracted by the fact that the budget kept getting bigger so therefore they thought the show should be getting flashier instead of more human and funny but you'll never catch me complaining about the costumes because, well look at them!

4. Lisa Fremont. LISTEN. The costumes in this movie (which is Rear Window, directed by Alfred Hitchcock) are my Roman Empire. Especially the black and white dress combined with Grace Kelly's incredible beauty makes it one of the most iconic fashion moments in cinema history and we should give Edith Head (the costume designer) her flowers.

5. Fran Fine. It took me a while to realize what an absolute fashion icon this woman is because I didn't watch The Nanny as a kid or teenager (I still haven't watched all of it and I plan on making it right eventually) but omg the absolute serve after serve after serve AFTER SERVE. Plus, that body is bodying. And a special mention to this particular outfit which is all of my dreams coming true:

6. Issa from Insecure

This show's entire costume department deserved all the Emmys, Oscars, Tonys, just everything but Issa's style was always my absolute favorite because it was so versatile and reflected on her character journey as well. Plus I loved the fact that even when she had a casual look on, there were still so many smart details about it. Argh I miss Insecure so much I need Issa Rae back on my screen immediately.

7. Daisy Jones. This character has had a tight grip on my heart ever since I read the book and I knew I'd love her when I watched the tv adaptation but I didn't expect to love her to the point I spent all of last spring trying to find pieces to recreate her entire cool girl hippy wardrobe. And also I just have to mention this "gold dust woman" moment because it was arguably the most iconic outfit of them all

8. Holly Golightly

I don't think I need to say too much about her to be honest do I? Audrey Hepburn is literally a work of art, in this movie and in general. My maybe somewhat unpopular opinion is that the pink outfit is my favorite one :')

Honourable mentions:

Monica Geller/ Blair Waldorf/ Cher Horowitz/ Zoe from Grownish (I hate the show though)/ Devi from Never Have I Ever/ Hilary Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

[depressedraisin]

Parklife (1994) and Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino (2018): What does it mean to be an album of the times?

At face value Blur’s third studio album Parklife, released in 1994, and Arctic Monkeys’ 2018 release Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, their sixth, are very very very different albums. One the Britpop classic, the other a widely divisive experimentation -- they don’t even seem like they could hang out in the same sentence together. Then what the fuck am I on about?

Both albums are individually iconic in the respective band’s discographies -- with Parklife Blur conquered the heights of the Britpop war and firmly cemented its place in British music history while TBH&C marked a pivotal turn in style for the Monkeys, which in my very humble non-musician opinion, will make it historic sometime in the future. If you have spent as much time as I have overthinking the lyrics and pondering over interviews of another British rock band you are hyperfixating on though, you might see something more connecting these two albums. Written about 20 years away from each other, in wildly different times,  the two weirdly enough, have these faint threads tying in their themes and subject matters. 

Damon Albarn, the principal author of Parklife, described the album to NME as, “a loosely linked concept album involving all these different stories. It's the travels of the mystical lager-eater, seeing what's going on in the world and commenting on it."  Rings a bell? That’s extremely TBH&C coded! That one has often been called a concept album based on a luxury hotel and casino on the moon with various eccentric characters and their stories, wryly commenting on issues plaguing life in the 2010s. 

Parklife was a kind of a study of middle class English life of the mid-90s. With an extremely catchy pop soundscape and cheeky-cockney-laced lyrics about London parks and bank holidays, it became a quintessential symbol of Cool Britannia. They say the album never took off in the States because it was so British. In the years since, however, the band has described it more as sarcastic critique rather than a celebration of Britishness. Going through the lyrics with a fine toothed comb  with that in mind then, you can feel the impatience a bunch of 20s somethings were feeling with the ideal 9-to-5 picket fence lifestyle as well as exhaustion with the hedonistic decadence of youth in the backdrop of an unpopular Conservative-led economy in decline. A similar, if updated for 30 year olds in 2018, sentiment can be sensed in the absurd surrealism of the lyrics of  TBH&C. What do you do when you are fed up with tribulations of life and the ghosts of mistakes you’ve made along the way-- you fuck off and escape into whimsy of science fiction. 

The political context of the time when Parklife and Tranquility Base were released does matter. Opens up another perspective to reading the album.  It’s quite a stretch but bear with me.  

 The 90s in the UK began with Thatcher resigning and the Conservative government which dominated the 80s, becoming increasingly unpopular. There was a recession plaguing the early years of the decade. Britpop happened smack dab in the middle of this, and it was all about reacting to grunge and shoegaze and bringing back what is essentially British back to its music scene. Oasis, Suede, Pulp, Elastica (Justine Frischmann is the queen of Britpop btw) -- and ofcourse, Blur, were reviving guitar pop, singing in working class accents and about working class life and bringing back memories of the Swinging Sixties. Though each drawing from a wide variety of influences, these bands were becoming the face of a wider movement in music, art and youth culture.  The political scene took note.

In the mid-90s, the Labour Party led by Tony Blair quickly aligned itself with Britpop and Cool Britannia. Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn were being courted by politicians , label execs getting party membership invites, headlines went like “What’s the Story? Don’t vote Tory”. Britpop soon acquired nationalist undertones --- never forget Brett Anderson showing off his twinky waist with Union Jack in the background and “Yanks go home!” headline. 

By the end of the 90s, when Britpop had begun crumbling, the economy had recovered and Tony Blair was in Downing Street.

TBH&C and the Monkeys in general, perhaps have less political currency. When they burst onto the scene with their Sheffield accents and garage rock riffs in the generally stable pre-2008 economic climate, the Arctic Monkeys did occupy the space in British pop culture left vacant by Blur and Oasis in the wake of post Britpop, at least for a time. Their debut broke the record of being the fastest selling one, which used to be held by Elastica previously. The Monkeys were indie rock darlings in the UK and with 2013’s AM, became darlings in the US (and Tumblr) as well. Tranquility Base though, came out in a whole different world. 

2018 was a fucking atrocious time, to put it mildly. The world was in total freefall inching rapidly towards disaster, which ultimately culminated in the pandemic of 2020. Trump had been elected in 2016 and 2018 was arguably one of the peaks of his shitshow. Over in the UK, Theresa May and her Conservative Cabinet were deep in the quagmire of Brexit negotiations. (Gotta note that Turner has said he voted against leaving in the referendum. Albarn is of course, a very vocal critic of Brexit.) Right wing governments were coming into power everywhere it seemed like, the climate crisis took on a new sense of alarm among the larger public - and things only spiralled in the years following. I can’t think of another album which could accurately capture the sheer fatigue of seeing outrageous headline after headline, how desensitised we had all become, how disillusioned with life- in a mason jar like TBH&C has.   

That’s what makes an album legendary doesn’t it? You listen to it and immediately remember what living at the time was like. Even if 1994 was 10 years before I was born. 

Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let’s look at the two albums a little more closely. 

Some lyrics which give me very similar vibes: 

sexual hedonism // start treatment (tbh&c) and girls & boys (parklife)

mundanity of relationships // four stars out of five (tbh&c) and end of century (parklife)

the performativeness of middle class activism/social work // tranquility base hotel and casino (tbh&c) and parklife (parklife)

losing friends and losing touch // the ultracheese (tbh&c) and badhead (parklife) - now these aren't really similar, but i feel a connection. in my bones trust me bro. the whole "i'll grin and bear with it" thing about badhead is very reminiscient of the sense of insouciance about life that haunts tbh&c....almost??

the myth of america // the ultracheese (tbh&c), golden trunks (tbh&) and magic america (parklife) - magic america is making fun of reagan era the american dream while a disillusionment with the glitz and glam of life in la is pretty much consistent throughout tbh&c

a pathological dependence on technology as escapism // jubilee (parklife) and start treatment (tbh&c) - digital cameras and the internet and tvs were taking baby steps into invading our daily lives back in 1994, and by 2018 we were all fully under the vice grip of tech addiction. this parallel i find particularly funny so.

astronomical references // far out (parklife) and star treatment (tbh&c) - alex james, the blur bassist wrote and sung far out about his love of space. it's a pretty nice parallel hey.

For the last one, let's talk about Tracy Jacks from parklife. I couldn't really draw a direct parallel with a song from the other album, but that song spiritually fits right in I feel. An average Joe in the throes of a midlife crisis, teethering so so close to the edge and one day just snaps - that's a character one would expect dwells in the lounge of the Tranquility Base Hotel to drown themselves in the decadence and escape from all their shit, when all is said and done.

Now what's the concluding point of all this rambling. I don't know lolz. Y'all just read a thousand words of nothing.

Just kidding. Actually I read somewhere Damon Albarn was inspired by the 1989 novel London Fields, a science-fiction adjacent black comedy set against the backdrop of an impending nuclear crisis, while writing Parklife. That kinda rung a bell. (Yes, I did wonder if Alex has read this)

I just wanted to see if we can find any interesting connections parrallels or references between Parklife and Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. I dunno if I've been successful in getting any point across, or it's just pointless waffling on. But one thing that did get confirmed to me once again, these two albums are really the Albums of Their Times. Captures the zeitgeist in such a specific but unique in their own ways, it's really wonderful.

And also studying the legacy and impact of AM with reference to other musical outfits is always fun. I think we can all safely say that AM is well on their way to capturing a seat in the pantheon of great British bands, where somewhere in a corner Blur also sits. Damon Albarn is a fucking legend of course -- from the pretty posh boy of Britpop he has gone to becoming one of the most versatile, experimental and prolific songwriter/composer in the contemporary music scene. He is apparently working on the music for an Goethe's fragmented libretto of Magic Flute Part 2. How many rockstars do you know have composed operas - how fucking dope. I wanna hope that we'll get to see Alex exploring crazy paths in music like this, he definitely has the potential. This whole exercise would probably have made more sense with one of Damon's post-Blur works, his first solo record Everyday Robots or even Blur's last album The Magic Whip, but I started this essay so had to finish it.

Maybe another day eh.

[sapphic-outlaw]

Blair • 28/F • Otherwise known as Your RDO GF

***This is a spoiler heavy blog! You have been warned***

Blog tags: My virtual photography My gifsets Charles & Blair (OC x CC ship) My art My RDO character's Snapchat The cabin I "built" in RDO Comments from weirdos on Insta/TikTok

Links: TikTok Carrd Instagram (reels) Instagram (virtual photography) YouTube

DNI: -Morston/Morbell/Vandermorgan (and similar) shippers -anyone that posts AI generated images as art -outwardly religious people (especially Christians, y'all make me uncomfortable) -minors (following and such is fine, just don't PM me please) (cishet men, you're on thin ice)