#Knight Foundation grant to connect people to the arts

[ausetkmt]

Projects | Dabls' MBAD African Bead Museum: Townhouse Renovation | Patronicity

Dabls' MBAD African Bead Museum : Townhouse Renovation

Detroit-based artist and community activist Olayami Dabls is partnering with Los Angeles/Detroit-based design firm Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects [LOHA] and Allied Media Projects, on the renovation of townhouses at the African Bead Museum project on Detroit’s West Side.

This renovation will allow for free rotating exhibitions of African material culture from Dabls' extensive collection of beads and artifacts, as well as immersive public spaces for gathering and events.This space will further foster African-based arts education for local children through partnerships with schools and museums.

HISTORY OF THE BEAD MUSEUM

Here, ancient cultural artifacts are found in a mirrored townhouse next to a freeway. 

Here, beads are for sale that serve as a connection point to another culture.

Here, stories are told in sculptures outside using everyday objects, where any person can walk up and experience them. 

These elements create an environment of approachability - an essential asset to a culturally diverse city. 

A Place for Local Community

MBAD African Bead Museum began in 1994 as the culmination of the ideas of one man known as Olayami Dabls. Occupying almost an entire city block, the MBAD African Bead Museum houses 18 outdoor installations as well as the African Bead Gallery, N'kisi House and African Language Wall. 

Born of his own visual cosmology, Dabls' MBAD African Bead Museum is a quiet revolution that sparks a vital conversation with global and local audiences. Recently designated as a "jewel" of Michigan, the bead gallery, mirrored buildings and massive outdoor sculptural installations bring 35,000 visitors a year of astounding diversity, from all over the world. It's uniqueness is its strength!

Set in a neighborhood in Detroit's West Side, Dabls' MBAD African Bead Museum encourages local community access to cultural artifacts. The museum exists within three townhouses, and includes large outdoor sculptural installations and the N'Kisi House, which holds the African Languages Wall on its exterior. One townhouse holds the active Bead Gallery, while the other two are currently storage space for the collection of African Material Culture. The three townhouses were donated in 2001 by Detroiter Ardie Riddick who believed in Dabls’ vision to educate the public about the vast numbers of artifacts and ornamentation reflecting African life and our story. 

LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING!This Campaign

Thanks to a generous grant from the Knight Foundation and the support of Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA], a Los Angeles/Detroit based architectural design firm, we were able to put a new roof on the houses and make repairs to structural damage incurred over the years.

Now, LOHA is engaged in revitalizing the museum and in securing Dabls' artwork as well as his significant collection of African artifacts. Through this Patronicity campaign, we will complete the renovation to the interiors of the three townhouses, making way for an exhibition space, multi-use community space, an artist-in-residence, and a remodeled bead store.

Through partnership with Allied Media Projects, the museum will also become a primary site for the local and national audiences that convene in Detroit each June as part of the Allied Media Conference, or AMC. Approaching its 20th year, the AMC brings together a vibrant community of people using media to incite change and celebrate diverse and inclusive identities. The renovation of the iconic Dabls' MBAD African Bead Museum and the 20th anniversary of the AMC offer an opportunity to solidify and connect Detroit’s unique spaces for creative exchange and cultivating our understanding of one another.

Together, the museum, Allied Media Projects, and LOHA will continue to uplift local culture and artistry, and reinforce national and local exchanges of creativity.

The Renovation of the Townhouses

The funding raised in this campaign will complete the renovation process that will include:

Repair and refinish interiors (including bead store, bathroom, and kitchen)

Build out new gallery spaces

Install ADA access ramp

Create accessible shelves in basement for collection storage

Create gathering spaces and flex spaces for community engagement and programming

This campaign will allow the museum to complete the renovations of the townhouse interiors and make possible the first Museum exhibit, Kuba textiles from the Democratic Republic of Congo, by Spring 2018.

COMMUNITY IMPACT: 

Access to Culture is the Mission

The Museum weaves together the immense power and complexity of African heritage into a vital contemporary context that has engaged and attracted local and global audiences for years. A large portion of that audience are local students of all ages who enjoy learning about the arts in an accessible and dynamic manner. This campaign will provide much needed space to continue and broaden these arts educational programs for the local community.

Dabls creates artwork with traditional African imagery and storytelling, telling the stories of our present through a lens of cultural awareness. Synthesizing the past into the present, the Bead Museum creates a stirring and harmonious space of self-discovery and healing, empowering us to use our imagination, and teaching us about African culture through the language of beads. Exposure to the Museum via this new exhibition space for the African Material Collection will afford visitors an opportunity to see, talk, reflect upon and feel the past.

HERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SUPPORT! If you help us reach our goal , the Michigan Economic Development Corporation will match that funding essentially DOUBLING YOUR DONATION.Your gift of $10, $100 or $1,000 will become $20, $200, or $2,000. 

Support us by donating here or simply sharing the campaign with friends and family on social media,in person, or via email (our share buttons at the top of the page make this easy).

[x----tine]

Pérez Art Museum Miami Launches PAMMTV,

Museum’s First On-Demand Streaming Service for Video Art Generously Supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, PAMM’s Latest Digital Initiative Provides Free Access to World-Class Films and Video Artworks

(Miami, FL — August 31, 2023) — Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is pleased to announce the launch of PAMMTV—a first-of-its-kind streaming service that delivers video art from our museum to the walls of your home. PAMMTV offers a free array of cutting-edge, international video art from the museum’s collection, alongside selections from film festivals, guest curators, and regional filmmakers. With a focus on boundary-pushing artists across South Florida, Latin America, the Caribbean, and African Diaspora, PAMMTV showcases the dynamic media ecosystem throughout the Global South. All videos on PAMMTV are free to access and only require an account to login; the streaming service is available on web browsers, mobile phones, and tablets, as well as Apple TV.

“Digital Engagement at PAMM means scaling the mission of the museum beyond the walls of the building. One way we are doing this is extending the museum’s galleries into virtual spaces,” said PAMM Director of Digital Engagement Jay Mollica. “With PAMMTV, we are granting unprecedented access to selections from our world class video art collection by fusing the familiar user experience of Netflix with the intimacy of a museum gallery.”

Viewers around the world will be able to access PAMMTV through their web browsers or mobile browsers, and Apple TV. The inaugural selections focus on video art from the museum’s permanent collection—including pieces by artists Wangechi Mutu, Youssef Nabil—as well as works from the region of South Florida, and films curated by Third Horizon showcasing cinema from the Caribbean and its Diaspora.

“In recent years, there have been substantial shifts in how people engage with art, underscoring the notion that art should be readily available and accessible beyond the confines of a museum’s physical space,” said PAMM Director Franklin Sirmans. “With the generous support from the Knight Foundation, we are able to extend the reach of PAMM’s ambitious programs to a global audience while growing the infrastructure for media arts across the Global South, expanding on the at-times forgotten original promise of more connectivity in a global world via the internet.”

In addition to artwork from the museum’s permanent collection, PAMMTV features works by South Florida artists including Keisha Rae Witherspoon, Faren Humes, Monica Sorelle, Cristine Brache, and Kevin Contento. The South Florida works selected for PAMMTV seek to illustrate the multifaceted character of the region. Selected works from Third Horizon span documentary and fiction shorts celebrating formally radical and politically-focused cinema from the Caribbean and its Diaspora. Spanning Cuba, Antigua, the Dominican Republic, and beyond, featured artists include Miryam Charles, Dalissa Montes de Oca, Everlane Moraes, Amir Aether Valen, and Shabier Kirchner.

The launch of PAMMTV comes on the heels of various digital initiatives including a renovation of the museum’s website and virtual reality gallery, generously supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Digital Engagement Initiatives Grant. Launched in May 2022, all website content—including the entirety of the museum’s collection—is available in both English and Spanish, alongside visual descriptions to improve accessibility for visually impaired users. PAMM’s New Realities gallery, launched last year during Miami Art Week, showcases rotating commissions in augmented reality, accessible wherever the PAMM logo exists. With interaction at the core, this virtual reality gallery catalyzes participation in art rather than merely viewing it.

Anyone can access PAMMTV streaming service on web browsers, mobile phones, and tablets, by visiting https://pamm.tv or searching for it on Apple TV.

To commemorate the launch of PAMMTV the museum will host an event on September 14, 2023 from 6–10pm which will feature a special film screening of works from PAMM’s new service displayed on Ballyhoo Media’s 60-foot floating screen.

LINKS

PAMMTV: https://www.pamm.tv Apple TV: https://apps.apple.com/app/pammtv/id6463186701 More info: https://www.pamm.org/en/pammtv/

Launch event: https://www.pamm.org/en/event/pamm-tv-launch-event

PAMMTV LAUNCH PROGRAM

All videos on PAMMTV are free to access and only require an account, with films in each capsule available on a rotating basis for 4–9 months.

Curated videos from PAMM's permanent collection

● Wangechi Mutu, "Amazing Grace" ● Los Carpinteros, "Conga Irreversible" ● Sandra Ramos, "Acuarium" ● Luis Gispert, "Block Watching" ● Youssef Nabil, "I Saved My Belly Dancer"

Intertidal: Moving Images from South Florida

● Keisha Rae Witherspoon, "1968<2018>2068" ● Monica Sorelle, “Reeds/Wozo: Movement Study I” ● Cristine Brache, "CARMEN" ● Faren Humes, “Liberty” ● Kevin Contento, "From Fish to Moon"

Third Horizon Presents: A Celebration Cinema from the Caribbean and its Ever-expanding Diaspora

● Miryam Charles, "Song for the New World" ● Amir Aether Valen, "The Whisper of the Leaves" ● Everlane Moraes, "Pattaki" ● Dalissa Montes de Oca, "Pacaman" ● Shabier Kirchner, "Dadli"

PAMMTV Launch Event | September 14 | 5–10pm

Join us on the waterfront terrace for the launch of Pérez Art Museum Miami’s (PAMM) new video-on-demand gallery—PAMM TV. Enjoy video works from PAMM's permanent collection, selections by Third Horizon Film Festival, and films by South Florida filmmakers on Ballyhoo Media’s 60-foot floating screen. Prior to the video works, audiences can enjoy tours in the galleries, live music on the terrace, tables by community organizations, and happy hour drinks and specials at Verde.

Full Schedule

5–7pm | Live music and happy hour at Verde 7–8pm | PAMMTV screening 8–10pm | Afterparty and live music

This event is free with RSVP. Ongoing support for PAMM TV and PAMM’s other digital efforts is generously provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

[anjaniedringhaus]

Fatima Shbair wins the Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award

© photo: Fatima Shbair / text: IWMF

Brazilian and Iranian-Canadian women photographers also recognized

[September 29, 2021 – WASHINGTON, DC] – Today, the International Women’s Media Foundation presented Palestinian freelance photojournalist Fatima Shbair with the seventh annual Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award. Since 2015, the international award has honored women photojournalists who take risks to capture humanity in dire circumstances, illuminating underreported and sometimes silenced stories. The prestigious award was created in honor of German Associated Press photojournalist Anja Niedringhaus, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014.

Shbair’s portfolio rose above more than 100 applications that represented women photojournalists from more than 40 countries. At 24 years old, Shbair is the youngest winner of the ‘Anja Award’ to-date and is a self-taught, freelance photojournalist. Her portfolio, “11 Days of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” includes unique moments of tension, violence, devastation, and hope all captured from Gaza City in May 2021.

“Life here is different, and I had to find a way to [show] what was happening,” says Shbair from Gaza. “Despite successive wars and tragedies, people here dig deep in search of hope, and their lives matter – it’s my responsibility to convey their voices to the world.” Shbair continued: “Anja’s work gives us the determination to continue on the path despite the difficulties. I can’t find the words to describe how honored I feel to receive this award.”

The IWMF also recognized two other women photojournalists with honorable mentions in the competition: Brazilian photojournalist Adriana Zehbrauskas, currently working in Phoenix, Arizona, and Iranian-Canadian photographer Kiana Hayeri, who is based in Kabul, Afghanistan. Zehbrauskas’ portfolio included energetic yet sensitive portrayals of migration and the toll of COVID-19 in Latin America, while Hayeri’s work spotlighted the rising conflict and looming crisis in Afghanistan from an alternative perspective.

“Within the past two years so many communities worldwide have been pushed to the brink in order to survive,” says the IWMF’s Executive Director Elisa Lees Muñoz. “Anja’s focus on resilience, hope and the intimate struggles people face in times of crisis is a legacy we turn to now more than ever. The IWMF is thrilled to recognize this year’s winner, Fatima Shbair, as well as Kiana Hayeri and Adriana Zehbrauskas in Anja’s name.”

This year’s jury included Corinne Dufka, Jacqueline Larma, Robert Nickelsberg, Tara Pixley, and Bernadette Tuazon. Together, the committee issued the following statement on this year’s Anja Award selection: “The portfolios from this year’s winner and honorees draw in the viewer and continue to grow with impact and intimacy. Each photojournalist demonstrated remarkable tenacity and developed clear and close bonds with her subject, accessing what few photographers can convey. We congratulate Fatima, Adriana and Kiana on their remarkable work; Anja would be proud to recognize each of you.”

Anja Niedringhaus was a recipient of the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2005. The winner’s $20,000 prize is made possible by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation. Honorees’ images and captions, biographies and headshots are available for media use with proper attribution; to inquire further, please contact Charlotte Fox (cfox@iwmf.org).

Courage in Photojournalism Award Winner

This year’s winner, Fatima Shbair, is a Palestinian freelance photojournalist from Gaza City.

After studying business administration for three years at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, Shbair switched to study journalism and began concentrating on photojournalism in 2019 through independent study and working in the field.

In 2020, Shbair began to receive assignments from several international agencies, including Getty Images and The New York Times, to cover her hometown as tensions continued between Israel and Palestine. Her assignments increased in 2021 but came with the challenge of working during a global pandemic, which also strained and ravaged her own community. Shbair is currently a contributor to Everyday Middle East and continues her work with Getty Images. Her work has been exhibited in Palestine, the UAE, London, and Paris.

As a women photojournalist, Shbair’s gender and line of work are challenged daily, due to the conservative nature of society in Gaza, and the prevenance of male photojournalists in the industry.

Juror Dufka noted, “Fatima’s stunning photo essay is one of the strongest entries the jury had the pleasure of reviewing these past several years. Her work with light, angles, and composition is remarkable as she weaves through a forest of destruction in her own backyard.”

Juror Larma continued, “She clearly spent a great deal of time with her subjects and pursued what’s beyond obvious for most photojournalists. Within these 11 days, Fatima took the time to pursue intimate storytelling, showing us both the physical and emotional toll on her subjects while operating in extreme danger.”

From Gaza, Shbair further remarked: “Courage is not just about taking risks; being human first is the true courage of a photojournalist. It is a great honor to receive this award, especially in Anja’s image, as we are all still learning from her creativity, journey, and pursuit of the truth.”

Twitter: @FatimaMshbair, Instagram: @fatimashbair

Courage in Photojournalism Honorees

Honoree Kiana Hayeri was born and partially raised in Iran and was first introduced to photography in high school after her family moved to Canada. Hayeri left Toronto during her final year of university and traveled to Afghanistan on assignment in 2013, where she’s remained.

In 2021, Hayeri received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for her photographic series, “Where Prison is Kind of a Freedom,” documenting the lives of Afghan women in Herat Prison. In 2020, she received the Tim Hetherington Visionary award and was named as the 6th recipient of the James Foley Award for Conflict Reporting.

Hayeri was an IAAB fellow in 2011 and completed a CIS artist residency at MIT University in 2012. In 2014, she was named as one of the emerging photographers by PDN 30 Under 30. In 2016, she was selected for the IWMF’s cross-border reporting fellowship to work on her proposed story in Rwanda and DRC and was selected as the recipient of Chris Hondros Fund Award as an emerging photographer. In 2017, Hayeri received a grant from European Journalism Center to do a series of reporting on gender equality out of Afghanistan and received Stern Grant in 2018 to continue her work on the state of mental health among Afghan women.

Hayeri is a Senior TED fellow, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Le Monde, Harper’s Magazine, Washington Post, NPR, Monocle Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Marie Clare, Glamour, The Globe and Mail, Al Jazeera America, and CBC, among others.

When reviewing Hayeri’s portfolio, Tuazon noted that, “These images can only be captured by a woman with her specific access and lens. Every single day in this portfolio demonstrates unbelievable courage as the women and children she illuminates convey a harrowing narrative.”

Twitter: @kianahayeri, Instagram: @kianahayeri

Adriana Zehbrauskas is a Brazilian documentary photographer based in Phoenix, Arizona. Her work is largely focused on issues related to migration, religion, human rights, underrepresented communities, and the violence resulting from the drug trade in Mexico, Central and South America.

Zehbrauskas contributes regularly to The New York Times, UNICEF and BuzzFeed News and her work has been widely published in outlets such as The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Stern, Le Monde and El País, among others.

She is the recipient of a 2021 Maria Moors Cabot Prize, a New York Press Club Award in Feature-Science Medicine and Technology in the Newspaper category for the article “Zika’s Legacy: Catastrophic Consequences of a Continuing Crisis (NY-2018) and a POY International (2019). She was a finalist for the Premio Gabo (2018) and received two Honorable Mentions at the Julia Margaret Cameron Award (2018).

Zehbrauskas is one of the three photographers profiled in the documentary “Beyond Assignment” (USA, 2011, produced by The Knight Center for International Media and the University of Miami. She’s a recipient of the first Getty Images Instagram Grant and was awarded Best Female Photojournalist -Troféu Mulher Imprensa (Brazil). Her mobile photography work was selected by Time Magazine for the “29 Instagrams That Defined the World in 2014″ and her project on Faith in Brazil and Mexico was awarded an Art & Worship World Prize by the Niavaran Artistic Creation Foundation.

She’s an instructor with the International Center of Photography (ICP- NY), the World Press Photo Foundation, Gabriel García Márquez’s Fundación Gabo, the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop and serves as a jury member to dozens of grants and awards worldwide.

Commenting on Zehbrauskas’ portfolio, juror Pixley said, “The strength of her images is indicative of a lengthy time occupying difficult spaces despite both health and safety concerns. Her consistency across countries, issues and movements reveals the same, unique human connection.”

Twitter: @AZehbrauskas, Instagram: @adrianazehbrauskas

[madamhatter]

act 0. observer’s notes your name is….. occult, the remnants of antiquated ‘ichor’ theory meta.

Rugged and torn leather cover, its moss green color held a title that most eyes wouldn’t be able to translate; if anything, the words read more like markings as opposed to a formal and recognizable alphabet.

- ACT. ????, outlandish occultic occupancy. 

*For clarity purposes: Read ichor as having two forms: its material concentration (used primary by machinery nowadays) and its emitted energy emitted that has flow and connection to living matter and reality. 

At pivot of magical ingenuity was the equally technologically breaking and devastatingly powerful Order and ichor-infused knights. While the prestige of the Order’s influence has long since dissipated from dominant culture of Topaxi alliance, and the fallout of the empire it originated from, they remain the most commonly recognized basis and symbol of the empire’s advancements into the future. 

However, the development of ichor manipulation and human subjects is one that rests upon a foundation of modern and scientific findings and research into the stability, security, and utility of ichor. expanded much into the golden era of the Empire. Though, what is imperative is to realize that all foundations to greatness once preceded another that would soon be lost to time. It is the larger bank underneath the modernity of the times. A long since recognized and theoretical unbound.

This time period we will formally refer to as the “antes de mecanism” or AM for short.

During AM, salvaging and refining ichor wasn’t a conquest but a partnership between both unrivaled and untouchable power and humans. The usefulness and depth of ichor to be a human enhancer  hadn’t been recognized during this time; it was seen an untapped and respected entity of sorts, only those capable of respecting and devoting time, blood, sweat, and every mortal fiber of their person to it would be able to be ‘granted permission’ to use it. 

Most of what can be harnessed wasn’t completely possible without the creations of a language. Just in the way that humans have created speech and scripture, accumulating each utterance and reference to have meaning in a common symbol, humans developed a language around magic. This will be referred to as raíz.  Just like common languages differed, as did raíz, as the concentration, nature, and flow of ichor varies differently throughout the world and has more specifics to how it must be used.

However, the bridge between ichor and humans wasn’t completely raíz, as it was only a human equivalence of translating the true nature of ichor and how to conduct it. Under raíz is the universal laws of ichor, all of which cannot be given phonetics and cannot be pronounced normally like how a human would practice their common language. 

Understanding this true nature meant to coast around the immaterial, uncontrollable reality that existed between planes ; it is paper-thin and invisible to humankind. It exists between the boundaries of all life forms and the planet they inhabit. It is the subspace that ichor naturally travels and the same space that ichor, at its core, can be channeled through.  

This language does exist by human hands, but it was written by ichor itself. Devotees of acquiring knowledge, known as magi, were able to create writing instruments that could temporarily channel ichor at its raw state. Onto paper, the instrument would begin writing and creating shapes for whatever object, person, other material forms were nearby. Each material form is known to have a glyph. There are variations of glyphs that exist to indicate actions, movement, and change too. One can then create a unique sigil through combining glyphs that behaves like a pre-coded command. 

Access to glyphs and knowing of its existence was very far and few in-between. Most populations relied on raíz and were only aware of the secondary language. 

As a sword to its knight, as too was a grimoire/tome, scroll, and tablet were to the magi. These were the tools necessary to exchange knowledge and glyphs, as well as use them. It is required for them to use these tools. Other variations existed but they weren’t as safe. In current times, and MUCH earlier in this age, most of these artifacts were destroyed. As to why they were, well, it was considered mainly ‘unsafe practice’ and ordered to be destroyed by major empires. However, this can very well be a ploy to remove knowledge and power from civilians and keep such power available only for the elite and wealthy. 

Only very few ancient writings remain and all are written in these dead languages (sometimes all in regional raíz , glyphs, or a combination of the two) that a normal person would find useless/unable to be understood. It’s basically the equivalent of them seeing chicken scratch and nonsensical scribbles.. 

In the time before mechanical ichor handling was possible, there were several forms created that were attempts to harbor its power. These would be the ‘lost arts’ that varied by culture, location, etc. 

Lost arts would include, but are not limited to: 

Possession of a cemi on the person, acting as a concentration and anchor for ichor. This used either raíz or glyphs -- sometimes both (which is possible to mix in order to cast magic). Considered one that has greatest outcome for the type of spell casting. However, it is the most demanding on the subject and tends to greatly reduce their life expectancy. Lost texts have also described a personality shift in the person and distinct change in features like having a ‘glassy look’ in their eyes. It is almost as if the original life had been sapped out of the body in place of the magic. 

Sundials that have raíz inscribed around the round base, all of which are related to the unique function and purpose of its wielder. It is one, however, that isn’t transportable and has to be fixed into the ground. Depending on the time and weather, and where it shadows landed, was considered the most opportune time to partake in particular magical spells that is heightened by ichor. This method was popular mostly for artisans, blacksmiths, and other careers that had a ‘home base’ for work from. 

Tattooing transmuted ichor into one’s body, allowing them a range of casting possibility and ability to bend elements around them. This technique used glyphs. The particular ‘hot spots’ to tattoo would be centered around the five senses (face, hands and feet). This one fell out of fashion as quickly as it was introduced due to the horrific ramifications of overexerting ichor through an unprepared and unfit subject. It ended with human combustion, sudden suffocation/collapse of the lungs, spontaneous and rapid growth and decaying of limbs, etc. 

Ichor, as previously mentioned, was portrayed by most to have its distinct characteristics that placed emphasis on the the power it has over people, rather than the people having power over it. Alluded to in the ‘lost arts,’ there were many effects for those who tried to overwhelm themselves with power and tried to exploit the capability with ichor. It is by the fact that ichor carries an immaterial presence and its energy exists the spaces of reality and acts as a conduit between living matter and magic. A space that not humans do not naturally exist in, but only around it. Avarice can lead to negative consequence, especially for beings not made to survive in that plane. 

Miasma refers to the repercussions of ichor usage/magic casting. Back in AM, the term specifically referred to the repercussions of unregulated and overabundant that ichor would do to the ‘soul’ of a being. It’s commonly depicted in tales and art as a seed; it is a corruption that slowly reveals itself like a plant growing inside the person’s body that takes a toll on their physical form. Miasma does not appear the same for everyone during that time, but there will always be the fact that the affected areas revolve around where the magic is concentrated (hands, eyes, ears, mouth, chest, etc). In the case of which ichor was used for internal improvements, for example,  the flesh could have discoloration over vital organs.

"Depues de mecanism” (DM) finds that miasma can be referred to any repercussion that ichor has on a subject. This extends away from only being about ichor usage/magic casting. . 

There isn’t a supernatural element or ‘corruption’ theme surrounding it anymore, as science theorize it as the body reacting to overexposure to ichor. Instead of corruption, however,  it is now referred to as ‘rot’ by common people and not all supernatural connections were cut from it.  

Modern medicine has helped those who suffer from miasma with things like sedatives, pain relievers,  psycho-pharmaceuticals, or any other drugs to specifically alleviate symptoms. Miasma, in this case, isn’t seen as permanent for those generally exposed to it .

However, not all miasma can be handled with drugs. Those capable of ichor usage/magic casting* still suffer permanent psychological and physical scarring and alterations to their psyche/body. Thankfully, these cases aren’t as extreme and deadly as they were back in the day. 

( *coming up soon w/ explanation )

In the current state of the world, most countries under the Topaxi alliance have forgotten. Most instead look towards more updated and published works, a great amount unaware of the antiquated groundwork. One would find that in reference to ichor, most would only reference creations and discoveries made during DM and only a handful of AM creations (ie: sundial) that existed at the end of AM/beginning of DM. 

Current countries under the Topaxi alliance long have forgotten these customs and practices. However, it is commonly found in smaller countries that pose no militant threat but get ichor concentrations. Similarly, however, a lot of the theories and practices have long since out-of-fashion and magic casting isn’t as typical or sought-out anymore (unless in cases of specializations, academics, and high-ranking officials).

However, in both the Topaxi alliance and remaining countries, there are still remnants.  Language integration has happened in Topaxi that has combined raíz into local dialect.  The same could be applied for glyphs, but they are only used as symbols to refer to particular buildings, and guilds. These languages do not possess any power unless if they’re being used by the trained magi or certain people.

These ‘certain people’ were once the subject of debates for scholars and researchers during AM. The future that was theorized for them, however, was lost to history. 

The innate, those who were adept in ichor channeling without needing to dedicate themselves to academics or use glyphs and raiz to use magic. Innates were considered the ‘path of the future’ as their bodies are naturally possessing abilities to have ichor flow through them (not that they are born with it, but think of them as prisms). This, in itself, is a mutation; they transcend the need to use the magic languages to cast spells, do not need spells to use ichor, and their ability is usually naturally occurring and always active.  

This ability is extremely rare and the chances of having it if there’s an extended family history of ichor exposure (or genetics, give or take). The innate usually have one of these senses altered by the ichor and provides them a unique ability to interact with living matter and reality. Sometimes, the ichor allows them enter/see/hear/talk in ways humanly impossible. The innate, as well, can naturally translate/read/understand glyphs.  Raíz is a different case, given that it varies per region and still functions in the sanctions of human languages. It has to be learned just like any other language. 

Tose who are innate are often not aware of such a mutation or even the title they possess. All information are kept by magi and made exclusive to them. It is without saying, however, that these gifts are often kept quiet about and are not usually shared with anyone. Tales of those naturally controlling ichor are usually ones that end with disappearances, short lives, and worse fates. These are stories that not all know, but it is the risk of standing out that would usually keep others on the alert and secretive.  

The innate, versus the acquired (anyone else who can channel ichor/cast magic), have uncharted possibilities and growth available to them. And it is the fact that they’re unbound that makes them terrifying, even profitable. 

However, in the rise of new history awaiting to be made, the remainders of the past have not always slumbered peacefully in its death. The innate still linger in a society that will soon be met with tides of great change in the city of Topaxi. 

A once ancient civilization, perched upon a sky-breaking mountain, is now home to another presence. But the spirit of the ancestors have never left. All are bound to the past and all are as capable to be subjected to meet the phantoms past in present day. 

“I felt that..” A shiver down their spine, a phantom sensation embracing their mortal coil. They turn their cheek, locks of silver dancing in the autumn breeze, eyes wide and intent on discovering the source.

“Whatever that was.” 

The phantasm arts, will it make its undead return? 

NOTES:  This only one school of practice (and theory) used to understand and channel ichor. Not all countries and cultures would have the same developments surrounding ichor. (This is basically me saying this isn’t cemented and more pathways are available and you can write your own interpretation.) 

Topaxi residents will not be aware of this extensive history. This should be considered something entirely scholarly and academic that is branched from others. Those from smaller countries (as described before) would have familiarity with the customs, but not the complete story. 

Yon mentioned this before, but magic is STILL not at all common with people. It is completely rare and the same can be said for ye ol’ days. It was just more accessible to the lower classes and was vastly present in conversation (but not practiced). 

[hiraeth-wayfarer]

Hiraeth Creature #1000 - Vesailia 

Aesalith, City of Ghosts; Fierfohen, City of Beasts, and Empyrean, City of Blasphemies. The bones of a transient golden age sit stark and wilted in the furthest reaches of Hiraeth's northern wilds. Beyond beautiful fields and ancient forests, kissed by snow and embraced by flowing sunlight, a curse festers and squirms under its heaving weight. The cursed forest guards the way to the kingdoms, its breath haggard by toxins and its voice strained by the calls of malformed and otherworldly creatures that spirits watch from afar, lest the forest take them as well. This place was once a sprawling, radiant paradise, built with unprecedented magic.

Those who crafted this utopia were three Summerfolk siblings: youngest brother Ezia, cunning and tricksy with words; middle sister Tevenka, strong and brave until the end, and eldest sister Vesailia, kind and compassionate to all. Though Vesailia was eldest, she was meek, but her fragility came with a blessing. As a child, she had stumbled upon a beautiful staff, but when she touched it, celestial magic coursed through her body, scaring and burning her inside and out. Her siblings took care of her always, well after they were left as orphaned nomads in the desert. Wherever they went, they helped those they could and survived by the good will of others. Ezia fought for the rights of peasants and workers, Tevenka fought bandits and monsters who tormented them, and Vesailia fought to keep them alive as they struggled to make a life in the wastes. Vesailia's blessing was that she could use celestial magic with Hiraeth's innate magic in tandem, and though it pained her tremendously, she saved many with her miraculous gift.

Word of the siblings changing each town they passed went far and wide, and soon they had caravans following them, seeking their aid and teachings. Their once aimless wandering was taken over by a great pilgrimage of lost people, looking for salvation. Kingdoms from all over had been devoured by the Earthen Maiden, mother of Hiraeth's balance. Those who grew too quick or practiced forbidden arts were swallowed into the abyss and the survivors sought out hope, finding it in the three siblings. They planned to head north to the great City of Myths, home of legendary spirits, to beg for sanctuary. They braved the northern winds as far as they could, before Vesailia could walk no more. They built a town around her resting spot, and people from all over came to pray for her health. Eventually the town grew into a city, as Ezia and Tevenka used their strengths to bind folk together and give them purpose. Once wanderers, they become citizens, workers, and knights, strung together by focus and determination.

While her siblings eked out a new life, Vesailia was plunged into a deep, dark dream-- visions billowed like storm clouds and overwhelmed her senses. She sunk into a sea of conscience and found another her-- a her that wasn't her, but had the same soul. She saw a soul connected to countless souls, coalescing into a great winged form, each silver feather a veil, the silhouette of far-off lands behind each one. She awoke from this dream to the joyful tears of her siblings and the unending devotion of friend and stranger alike. She felt the hands that weren't hers clutch together against her beating heart, and found the magic she needed to save her people.

---------------------------------

With unfathomable power, the grandest city Hiraeth had ever seen was built. Separated into thirds, they became knowns as Aesalith, City of Riches, Fierfohen, City of Steel, and Empyrean, City of Wonders. Vesailia wished to make the people of Hiraeth their City of Myth, so that their journeys would not end in the deathly pale like theirs had almost done. She met with the spirits of the wilds and begged them for their blessings, which they granted after seeing that their lands had been undamaged by the miracle Vesailia performed, and the land became saturated in fertility. The Earthen Maiden was not keen with the choice the spirits of the north had made, but found that the grand city was protected by wards never seen before, as if pulled from another world entirely. The foundation was changed, and the Earthen Maiden's judgement could not be passed.

Together, the siblings ruled wisely over their kingdoms, meeting often in council. Ezia brought the kingdoms prosperity, Tevenka brought safety, and Vesailia brought miracles. She poured over old and new teachings, and her knowledge lead Empyrean to be capital of magical studies. They welcomed travellers and refuges from across the world, but Vesailia began to feel a great unease when she would see caravans of the needy and the sickly enter their walls. Years were passing, and all the magic she had burned within her was taking its toll-- she wanted more power to keep everyone safe, but the more she gained, the weaker she felt. Her whims changed over time-- she stopped appearing at council, and her royal ministers took her place in greeting the people and walking the streets. Vesailia saw the other her when she closed her eyes, and wanted to join with her at all costs, seeing the strength in her that she needed. Her eyes for the people shifted away to the ethereal reflection always in front of her, but just out of reach. She toiled in her castle, forming a new council of her own, made up of bright and twisted minds-- those who had lost themselves to magic, willing to do anything to reach and become higher beings. Maleficorum once shunned by the world now whispered in the queen's ear, telling her of ancient secrets long left behind.

Vesailia, once healer and weaver of blessings, put her foot forward down a foreboding road-- a road she would walk alone for now, she thought. If the people of Hiraeth were to be saved, she would need to save herself first. Many had to be taken to the castle to learn this royal vow and were never seen again. Witches, druids, shamans, soothsayers, arcane beasts, spirits, demons, Fae, and many others with powerful magic were gathered in the gloom of the castle, and joined with the queen's soul to help her continue making miracles. Even members of her family weren't immune to the castle's cold shadow. Vesailia wanted souls to flourish and join with her's to make her wings, just as she saw in her dream years ago. The souls she embraced warped her body in odd ways, but she could feel her wings sprouting along her back, and continued bringing more and more souls into her caress. Her devotees called upon creatures far away to aid her, but many of them began fleeing their queen and escaped into the wilds, changing the land slowly, to the dismay of both folk and spirit. Vesailia cared little if a few got away, as her metamorphosis was almost complete.

She needed two more things to finish her decree: magic in its purest form and a fitting symbol of her change. Her ministers recovered the staff in the south that blessed her long ago-- a great metal horn, which kept a colossal, consuming flame at bay until she had it brought to her side. She looked to the Land of Giants, where forbidden stories told of a Ravenous Beast made from the chaos of the celestial sea was left to rot away. She took the pure blood of the beast, awakening it in the process. The paradise she had been tending had descended into wild madness, but once her other self was here and once they shared the same pair of wings, she could right all the wrongs of the world. Monsters howled in the night and realms tore apart at the seams, but in her throne room, Vesailia stood proudly and unflinchingly as her attendants performed the ritual to call upon her other self. Before they could finish, the spirits she had imprisoned let loose the light of the Niveous Moon. The queen's eyes were blinded by the moonlight, no longer seeing her other self, she fell back into her old dreams to try and find her again. Some say she still stands in her throne room, waiting for her other self. Her machinations brought calamity to the world, destroying everything she understood, and yet she still lives in the depths of the cursed forest. Like a statue she endures, a monument to the Mother of Blasphemies, the Blight of the North, and the Queen of Nothing.

[biglisbonnews]

Knight Foundation Funds the Future of Art With Grants for South Florida Artists Digital transformation has become the language we use to challenge the status quo, experiment, and reach new audiences. For artists and art organizations, it’s the next frontier. That’s why Knight Foundation awarded a total of $500,000 to winners of the Knight New Work challenge. It’s an effort to accelerate the integration of technology with the arts to offer communities greater access and foster meaningful connections between people and place. Knight New Work (KNW) 2022 supports South Florida-area artists working in all genres who use technology in their practices to create, disseminate, and enhance the way art is experienced. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Knight Foundation Funds the Future of Art With Grants for South Florida Artists appeared first on Colossal. https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/02/knight-foundation-grants/

[bouldertreeopp-blog]

Creativity, Community and the TreeOpp Project

“Once I found myself in BLDG 61, I felt instant captivation by the technology at our disposal. 3D printers, a laser cutter, and a shop dedicated to nothing more than creative inspiration of those who enter.” – Bryce, TreeOpp crew member. 

TreeOpp 

TreeOpp has been a difficult project to describe because there are so many components: trees, homelessness, woodworking skills, technology skills, selling products, holding workshops, and the list goes on. 

Above: Bryce learning as part of the TreeOpp crew.

While the TreeOpp project addresses dying public trees and homelessness, the real focus is on the future: new skills learned, opportunities, usable products, art, and ultimately creative ideas producing the tangible. 

When the Knight Foundation announced the City of Boulder won a Knight Cities Challenge grant for the TreeOpp project, there was excitement, along with unanswered and open-ended questions. 

We didn’t know if anyone who was transitioning out of homelessness wanted to learn woodworking. We didn’t know if anyone would want to buy art and products the crew created. We didn’t know how multiple city departments, local businesses and nonprofits would work together on this project. 

Creativity and community were the answers.

Community Connections 

Emily Messina, development director at the Bridge House, says people who are homeless don’t feel a part of the community – that the housed community doesn’t see them, and if they do, they see a homeless person, defining the person by his or her current circumstance. 

Art and creativity act as a connection for people who are transitioning out of homelessness to re-enter the community and connect in a way beyond the homeless/housed dichotomy. 

Above: TreeOpp community workshop

One unanticipated consequence of the TreeOpp program is how the crew joined the BLDG 61 maker community. Janet Hollingsworth, creative technologist at the Boulder Public Library’s BLDG 61 and TreeOpp instructor, said she was surprised to see TreeOpp crew members coming in on their own time to use the makerspace and interact with community members as collaborators – helping each other with projects. 

While this is a great benefit to the TreeOpp crew, it also adds social and economic diversity to the makerspace, which is a benefit to all. 

The TreeOpp crew interacted with the public outside of the makerspace as well. At the most recent Boulder County Farmers Market Artisan Show, the crew talked with the public all day about products created, using local, reclaimed wood, and the problems the community is facing with the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) infestation. These interactions focus on the future and showcase the crews’ abilities, talents and worth. 

Work and Creativity 

It takes a lot of work just to be accepted into the Boulder Bridge House’s Ready to Work Program. Applicants must first show a commitment to sobriety, have all their paperwork in order so they can be hired, and be ready to gain experience in the working world by being able to show up for work on time, follow directions and work as part of a team. 

While this is quite an endeavor in itself – especially considering the backgrounds many participants have experienced – their job prospects are slim after being incarcerated, homeless, or whatever challenges they have recently faced. 

Above: First TreeOpp crew working together

Many choose either picking up trash in parks or food service – necessary jobs that give them solid experience for future work. But, in addition to these jobs, a creative outlet is an integral part of the transition back to the housed and working community. 

Emily, at the Bridge House, says that while creative expression won’t solve homelessness on its own, it helps bring out participants’ talents, skills and interests and demonstrates them to the community – even if the participant isn’t a natural artist. 

Creativity and the TreeOpp Project 

TreeOpp crew members have showed up for the TreeOpp project enthusiastically and put their creativity to use immediately, encouraged by instructors and staff. Many crew members contributed their creativity towards the project – beyond building the products. 

One crew member, Shannon, came up with the idea of creating a butterfly to symbolize sobriety and new life and opportunities. 

Above: TreeOpp butterflies

Rico, another TreeOpp crew member, is a talented illustrator and has donated his drawings to the TreeOpp outreach efforts and used them for laser cutting projects. 

John, TreeOpp crew member and gifted photographer and videographer, created a video slideshow about the project from his perspective. 

Contributing to the Community 

Another benefit of the project is the opportunity for the crew to give back to the community by turning downed lumber into art and usable products. 

Crew member Dan said, “I'm a Boulder native looking to help the trees and learn a new trade.” After learning about the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) infestation, the crew was also in a position to educate the community and help address this community problem, while rejoining the community as a contributing member.

Above: TreeOpp May sale

Bryce, who once lived in a park in Longmont, been hired for some contracting work at BLDG 61 and continues to be a contributing member of the BLDG 61 team. 

He wrote a letter about his experience with Ready to Work, BLDG 61 and Treeopp, and stated, “When I got to participate in the activities and discussions held by staff, and felt my ideas were just as important as anyone else’s, I felt welcome; not as a student, or even a guest, but a member, things begin to turn around. I am so blessed to have had this intervening factor brought to me. If everyone were given this chance, I feel I’m not the only one who would be making this claim.” 

[thesoapfactory-art]

Rethinking Public Spaces Throughout Minnesota

The Soap Factory’s public space program invites artists to submit proposals for projects outside of The Soap Factory that re-think public spaces, and/or utilize spaces that are often neglected or overlooked.

The following artists and collaboratives have been chosen to present their projects as part of Rethinking Public Spaces Throughout Minnesota:

JESS HIRSCH

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to accurately identify an emotion and react appropriately through awareness. This may seem simple, however, emotions convolute our behavior, making us react quickly without recognizing our motivations. Emotional Platings is a series of picnic kits made from trees that heal specific emotions. Two people will check out a kit and have a series of prompts to explore the emotion together. Emotional Platings will take place throughout rural Minnesota.

Jess Hirsch is a conceptual artist investigating the healing world through installation and sculpture. She received her MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and is the recipient of the Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship, MN State Arts Board Grant, and the Jerome Emerging Artist Project Grant. Her art practice focuses on educating the public on alternative health practices through everyday experiences such as bathing, eating, and sleeping.

AARON DYSART

Produced for specific purposes, data sets’ accuracy tends to limit their audience, as long lists of numbers need to be interpreted for non-specialists. Dysart’s project will turn over the aesthetics of a large colorful public spectacle in the Twin Cities to data in order to tell the story of place, highlighting the role interpretation and orientation plays in our understanding of different environments and how we process knowledge. The quantifiable will become qualitative as aesthetics mingles with interpretation allowing people to see place in a new light.

Aaron Dysart is a sculptor whose objects and environmental interventions push ideas of propriety, gift giving, and reciprocity, while showcasing his love of material’s ability to carry content. He has received awards from Franconia Sculpture Park, Forecast Public Art, The Knight Foundation, and The Minnesota State Arts Board and his work has been in Art in America, Hyperallergic, Berlin Art Link along with other publications He has shown nationally and is currently a City Artist through Public Art Saint Paul, embedded in the city of St. Paul.

Juxtaposition Arts

Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA) will build on the momentum they’ve created over the last 3 years around the celebration of Black August by combining the respective placemaking and art-based engagement skill sets of JXTA’s Public Arts, Tactical, and Environmental Design studios to bring 2017 Black August programming outdoors and onto the intersection of Emerson and West Broadway Avenues in North Minneapolis. This will include the creation and execution of Black August programming, the design and construction of a flatpak parklet, and the extension of Public Art’s 2016 mural, ​‘Who We Are​.’ The extension will ​use the aesthetic style of Chicago’s 1967 mural, ‘​The Wall of Respect​.’

Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA) is a youth development organization and a social enterprise located in North Minneapolis. JXTA envisions the youth of North Minneapolis entering the creative workforce as dynamic innovators and problem solvers with the confidence, skills and connections they need to accomplish their educational and professional goals, and to contribute to the revitalization of the communities where they live and work.

MARIA CAMERON

“Is Your Rebellion Sitting Still?” is a project by Maria Cameron that will transform public spaces in Rochester, MN into spaces of contemplation, self-reflection, and conversation. By installing a series of large-scale thought bubbles on buildings and in community spaces that are considered works in progress, this project highlights the present flux this city is currently in as it grows and expands. The questions aim to create dialogues about renovation and renewal inviting conversation about the meditative and often healing act of finding art in the every day. The viewer is given the opportunity to focus on some of the complicated questions that come with living, thriving, hurting, and healing.

Maria Cameron’s work examines the relationship between traditional techniques and modern methods by dissecting contemporary social behaviors and activities and reconstructing them into visual experiences. Her work is an extension and expansion of her experiences in Alzheimer’s research and memory care which she uses to reevaluate memory and personal experience. She has most recently been featured in Moon Magazine, at Coe College (Cedar Rapids, IA), and in collaborations for Northern Spark (Twin Cities).

ANDY STURDEVANT AND SERGIO VUCCI

Common Room is a series of artist-led tours of Twin Cities sites, with each tour themed around a specific concept that the group uses as a lens to explore facets of the urban geography — in the past, these themes have included cats, alleys, skyways, fishing, freeway construction, weather, community kitchens, personal memory, and many more. Common Room is the work by Sergio Vucci and Andy Sturdevant, along with a rotating lineup of contributors. Now in its eighth year, is using the occasion of the Rethinking Public Spaces project to expand the scope of its programming for this summer to travel beyond The Soap Factory, and various neighborhoods of the Twin Cities by foot, bicycle and bus. Common Room’s themes in 2017 will include silence, sacredness, islands, neighborhood music, and more.

Sergio Vucci is a Minneapolis-based artist. He is a graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his work focuses primarily on engaging his surroundings outside of gallery spaces and on relational interactions, co-authoring ephemeral creative experiences with participants in response to place.

Andy Sturdevant is an artist and writer living in Minneapolis. He is the author of two books of nonfiction, and his artistic projects have been exhibited at venues in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle and elsewhere.

LAMIA ABUKHADRA AND LEILA AWADALLAH

In the wake of an election that has left us facing such xenophobic rhetoric as “Build the Wall” and establishing a “Muslim Ban,” many activists have said we must build bridges in order to make human connections and provide people with sanctuary, not walls. As Palestinian Americans witnessing the destruction of communities and diverse ethnic and ecological landscapes both in the U.S. and internationally, Lamia Abukhadra and Leila Awadallah are interested in breaking down walls that should never have existed. With the support of The Soap Factory, they will build a physical wall in an outdoor or easily accessible indoor space, where it can be easily discovered and interacted with.The installation piece will culminate in a final interactive performance in which the lead artists will invite the community to break down “The Wall.” Lamia and Leila hope to ultimately convey that a concrete or metal facade is just that: a facade. A wall can divide and negatively define communities, landscapes, ecologies and livelihoods, but it can and will be dismantled by the subversive acts of our community.

Lamia Abukhadra is a Palestinian American artist based in Minneapolis. She is interested in the idea of art as a vessel of expression, communication, identity, and culture for and between the disenfranchised communities. Her art aims to dismantle harmful dominant narratives that cultivate and celebrate acts of colonialism, occupation, and genocide in Palestine and the Arab world through personal stories and historical events. Her work has been featured by Altered Aesthetics, the University of Minnesota T.R. Anderson Gallery, and the Quarter Gallery.

Leila Awadallah is a Palestinian-American dance artist and creator located in the Twin Cities. She explores movement by imaging where sensations moving from deep within the body begin and then how they move through the body in order to release energy. She crafts work built with the intention of nuancing, complicating and working to subvert narratives about Palestine. Her work has been presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. (2016) and in the Moultaqa Leymoun international dance festival in Beirut, Lebanon (2017). Her movement film reflections on ice received a SAGE Award (2016). She is in her fourth year as a company member of Ananya Dance Theatre.

PETE DRIESSEN

Pete Driessen will be orchestrating a large scale, abstract trestle sculpture and installation reflecting contemporary culture in the Blacksmith Shop building at the Northern Pacific Railway Yard, Brainerd, MN for The Soap Factory ReThinking Public Space in Minnesota program during June-October of 2017. A trestle is often defined as a complex of braced framework serving as a vertical support structure, created with wooden timbers, rock piles, and iron or steelwork for carrying a horizontal traversed beam, such as a table-like road or railroad over a lower geographic depression. Trestle language, semiotics and symbolism are synonymous with current self-help trends of scaffolding, bootstrapping, sustainability and empowerment.

The Northern Pacific Railroad yard is a large historic grouping of 12 brick and wood beam buildings that sit on a massive 47-acre plot of land in Brainerd, MN. The massive industrial site contains the aesthetic atmosphere and former physical workings of the past turn-of-the-century railroad era. The old railroad Blacksmith Shop building is 50,000 square feet, with 20-foot high sidewalls, an 80-foot wide cross span, and concrete floors. Listed on National Register of Historic Places, the NP site is centrally located near the geographic center of the state. Both the industrial rawness and the monumental scale of the Northern Pacific site and its Blacksmith Shop space are reflective of The Soap Factory’s artistic history and its current ReThinking Public Space in MN programming goals.

Driessen envisions an interior, site-specific abstract trestle installation based in found object sculpture and its connection to the physicality of train tracks, rail ties and site detritus. The main trestle sculpture will be a conceptual fallen train track “spur” that reflects a trestle bridge. The NP Blacksmith Shop trestle installation will physically explore the typical rail transportation form, the trestle as figural representation, and expand sculptural and public art vocabulary and personal spatial vernacular.

Pete Driessen is a Minneapolis based multipractice visual artist, curator and cultural producer who creates abstract and sociopolitical paintings, mixed media ship fleets, found object installations, conceptual art statements, interdisciplinary public art, and performative participatory projects.

Driessen received his MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier, VT, and BA from the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul. Pete was recently named Minneapolis City Pages 2015 Artist of the Year, and has been awarded numerous regional grants and awards, including a 2015 Jerome/FSP Fellowship at Franconia Sculpture Park for his Franconia Boat Tower project, a 2014 MRAC Next Step grant for his Silverwood Park sculpture project, and two MSAB Artist Initiative grants (2017, 2013). Pete’s exhibition record includes national and regional solo and group exhibitions at a wide range of venues. He currently directs and curates a hybridic, experimental garage-based gallery known as TuckUnder Projects that specializes in emerging and midcareer artists focusing on conceptual visual arts practice, curatorial projects, and institutional critique.

[thewebofslime]

Kenyon Gibson is the author of Awkar al-sharr (Nest of Evil), which is an Arabic translation of his book Common Sense: A Study of the Bushes, the CIA, and the Suspicions Regarding 9/11. He is also coauthor of Hemp for Victory. [Woody Harrelson is a co-author]. Gibson has worked undercover for years, as an investigative reporter and in intelligence for the US Navy. By Ken Gibson The phone rang and I knew who it was even before I looked at the screen, which flashed the words IZMO MARINE; Mark Epstein’s former company. Earlier in the day, he had lost his only brother: Jeffrey. For weeks, I had been predicting Jeffrey’s demise. Mark, I reasoned, would be safe as long as Jeffrey lived. Certain people wanted Jeffrey cold in earth, and they wanted this done quietly. Getting rid of Mark would only make noise, making it harder to eliminate their main target: prisoner #76318-054 in the Manhattan Correctional Center. Mark Epstein is said to be concerned he might wind up dead like his brother, Jeffrey. According to Ken Gibson, Mark does not think his brother committed suicide but believes his brother is definitely deceased. [Photo Jan Benda.] Once that was accomplished, the secrets that Jeffrey had expressed a willingness to divulge in return for leniency, would be left to very few. His younger sibling, for instance. Those who secured Jeffrey’s omerta would have no qualms about ensuring their own liberty while creating a little business for undertakers. Mark claims to be an honest businessman; on the phone, he insisted that he had not spoken to his brother in 10 years. Mark Epstein claimed he had not spoken to brother Jeffrey in 10 years. Not only are there questions about that statement, but also questions about Mark’s financial empire. Questions which could lead Mark to occupy the same facility his brother did. He, too, could be faced with decisions about turning state’s evidence. These questions had been in my mind since the Spring of 2012. That was when we met, and at first, it looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He would listen to my stories of infiltrating neo-Nazis in London and New York, allowing me into his Vandam Street apartment. For years I kept a file on him, updating it on occasion, as when he hosted a teacher from Horace Mann school who had sexually abused his students. This he did at an event at Cooper Union, his Alma-mater. Cooper Union is a school in lower Manhattan, known for its free tuition. Both brothers attended, benefiting from this policy, which Mark, as a director, tried to do away with. The students saw fit to do away with him; he is no longer a director. Tuition remains free. While Mark did not pay for his education, he thought it right that others pay for theirs. The same might be said of his housing. In 1992, he acquired, from Leslie Wexner, a close associate of Jeffrey’s, a large residential building at 301 East 66th Street. While some of the 220 apartments are privately owned, the majority are his. Documents relating to the transfer of the property show the amount paid: $0.00. Somehow Mark Epstein acquired property from Leslie Wexner – just like his brother Jeffrey did. What is the connection between Wexner and Mark Epstein? Mark Epstein owns most of the apartments at 301 East 66th Street It is not the only building he owns. 515 Greenwich Street belongs to him, where I rented an art studio he had listed in the Village Voice. As payment, he wanted the sum of $666 a month, which I amended to $667 – for obvious reasons. I stayed but seven weeks, as that is how long it took for me to make the mistake of letting him know that, in addition to investigating racist groups, I also worked on cases involving politicians and child sex abusers. The moment I did, I sensed a strange look on his face and a lull in the conversation. I tried not to let him see me looking at the playpens in his apartment, which had always seemed a bit out of place with the grand pianos in the home of a bachelor. That night, I heard a loud bang on the door. Mark was on the other side, yelling at me that I had to leave at that moment. He is not above performing an illegal eviction, for which a previous tenant challenged him in court and won substantial damages. Not wishing to spend long hours in a courtroom, I agreed to leave in a fortnight. We parted company at the end of April 2012. Until the day of Jeffrey’s death, I had not spoken to Mark. I resolved, however, to know just what Mark was up to, as I was not quite sure that his wealth was really generated from the silkscreen business. I took that story to be a smokescreen. It is oft-repeated on the internet, the name Izmo appearing in articles about him, but I have yet to see any credible record of it generating serious revenues. Did Mark Epstein really amass a fortune from the silkscreen business? Press Has Tread Lightly on Mark Epstein – Maybe That Will Change The press has been kind to Mark over the years; few questions of his source of income ever get into print. I contacted people at the New York Times whom I knew, having been a source of information to the Gray Lady for over a decade, but to no avail. James Stewart, its head financial reporter, heard me out but did nothing with the information I provided. Stewart had been privy to Jeffrey’s lifestyle, going so far as to visit him at his East 71st Street townhouse. Another of the NYT’s financial reporters, Landon Thomas Jr., had actually taken a $30,000 donation from Jeffrey. Then there is the inconvenient fact that the president of the NYT, Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, is in Jeffrey’s ‘black book’, the list of contacts that ended up published on the internet. And yet another, perhaps more inconvenient fact, is that Joicho Ito, who sat on the board at the Gray Lady, accepted $1.7 million from the felon. Joicho Ito is a Japanese activist, entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is the former director of the MIT Media Lab, and a former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT. Ito has received recognition for his role as an entrepreneur focused on Internet and technology companies and has founded PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan. Ito is a strategic advisor to Sony Corporation and general partner of Neoteny Labs. Ito resigned from his roles at MIT, Harvard, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, PureTech Health and The New York Times Company on September 7, 2019, following allegations of financial ties to sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. My hopes of getting the press to take the story on Mark Epstein were slim. The Wall Street Journal seemed rabidly enthusiastic, calling me from their London offices and begging for an exclusive. Which I tried to grant, but on the condition that freelance writer Davis Richardson be involved. My contact at the WSJ sent me long texts and emails disapproving of his involvement. When they did do a story on him, I was not impressed. Freelance journalist Davis Richardson has written for the Observer, Vice, The Daily Beast, The Daily Caller and Wired. Gibson wanted him to help with the Mark Epstein story. But I was impressed with Richardson, a young journalist up from the Beltway area, who was then working for the Observer and contributing to both Daily Beast and Daily Caller. I took him with me to talk to people who knew the Epsteins, including Stuart Pivar, a founder of the New York Academy of Art. He, along with Andy Warhol, started that in 1982. Pivar talked at length about them to Richardson and me, stating: “I’ve seen Jeffrey do lots of bad things to lots of people.” I told Pivar that Jeffrey was not long for this world and that Mark would be a target as well. Pivar took it in stride, while his entourage looked happy to end the conversation. Richardson and I went to Mark’s downtown buildings and took notes, finding Mark’s car with Pennsylvania plates. A week later, Richardson called me, telling me to show up at the East 66th Street location [Epstein’s building], to which he was being granted inside access. We came, we saw, and we were overwhelmed. Mark Epstein’s apartments were fit for kings, with a doorman and a spacious entrance hall adorned with murals. From the roof, a view of the East Side commanded respect and demanded we take pictures. The residences were well worth the king’s ransom that neither of us could afford. Richardson continued to dig. In early August, he called me to ask me what I knew about the Humpty Dumpty Institute. “The what”?, I replied. The Humpty Dumpty Institute [HDI], with offices located on West 46th Street, was founded in 1988 by Constance Milstein, heiress to the Emigrant Savings Bank fortune and a major Clinton donor. On their website, Mark is listed as a director. The HDI Congressional Advisory Board lists some 30 or more Congress members. Affiliates had ties to Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey’s partner-in-deeds, and to her now-defunct charity, Terra Mar. On 5 August, I started to call some of the congressmen named on the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ list, telling their aides that I would like to pose some questions. Each time, I was given an email to follow up with, and I did so. I resumed this task on 9 August, but found that I was getting hostile receptions, and having to answer lots of questions from the aides about why I was asking questions. They seemed very sensitive to questions. I told them I was preparing a report for the Senate, which they did not like to hear. US Rep. Barbara Lee’s aide refused to give her name or that of anyone in Lee’s office. US Rep. Gregory Meeks’ staff asked lots of questions but gave no answers. Unbeknownst to me, Davis Richardson had published an article about the Humpty Dumpty Institute on the Daily Caller site. It went up on 7 August, and I was getting the fallout. To make matters worse, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was calling for an investigation about Mark. However, when I called her office and left my contact details, I got no response. I did get excellent response from both her challenger, Miguel Hernandez in New York’s 14th congressional district, and a candidate in the 13th, Henry Grullon. Their support lifted my spirits, made low after hours of performing this unpleasant task with dozens of lawmakers’ staff. I expected that at least a few would answer the three simple questions: When did they join Humpty Dumpty’s advisory board, who introduced them, and how well did they know Mark Epstein? None did answer any of the questions. But the press seemed to be waking up. From England, I got a call from Tony Gosling, a controversial journalist with a weekly radio show. When he asked about what ‘Humpty Dumpty’ might be up to, I bluntly replied that it might be a front for child rapists going to Third World countries to find victims. Gosling touched on the suspicions that Jeffrey might have been an intel agent, possibly for Mossad, and I gave a dissenting opinion, pointing out that while the logic of associating a Jew with the Mossad was to a degree logical, it was illogical to conclude that he was an Israeli spy when it was found that most of the people he would be presumed to have spied on were Jews and Israelis. I did bring up a new angle to it all when I mentioned that I had information that China might be behind it. Could China Be Involved? Years ago, shortly before I met Mark, I had been introduced to a Chinese agent – or former agent, as he had fallen out with his handlers in Beijing over his relationship with an Uyghur woman. He had told me many things that I did not understand at the time about Chinese involvement in US politics, and their ability to use patsies to carry out their projects, thus hiding their hand. Spy uses spy. The great game can be quite deceptive. And it can be dangerous. In fact, I had been stabbed while arresting a drug dealer in 1994. I too could have been cold in earth, and this reality was not lost on me. Quite recently, a contact at the Department of Homeland Security reminded me to watch my back. The former Marine with this concern for my safety was also my confidante, privy to my infiltration of neo-Nazis for over a decade. While most in this neo-Nazi crowd do not have a lot going for them, some do, including a character recently named in the press as ‘X’. Based in London, ‘X’ had recently gotten in contact with Jason Jorjani, an Iranian dissident based in New York. Jorjani was told that he would be assisted in making changes in Iran if he joined forces with Michael Bagley, then head of Jellyfish. The two met a number of times, and Jorjani was told that Bagley had presented Donald Trump with a plan to make a revolution in Iran. Not only was Trump supposed to be involved, but so was Michael Flynn. Jorjani may have doubted the veracity of all this or realized that he was in over his head. He went to the press with his stories of Bagley, Flynn, and ‘X’, saying that there may have also been a ‘Y’ and a ‘Z’. It is possible that he was alluding to me in the latter references, as Jorjani had been put in touch with me by ‘X’, who wanted me to get Richard Spencer a place in the Trump victory party. Richard Bertrand Spencer is an American neo-Nazi and white supremacist. He is president of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank, as well as Washington Summit Publishers. Gibson went undercover to investigate and report on neo-Nazis. The Trump people wanted nothing to do with Spencer, and neither did I in reality. Far from being the right-wing, quasi-criminal that they took me for, I was feeding information on all of them to the press and to government agencies. And I did the latter as a precaution so that any misunderstandings that could result from my interactions with foreign governments and the flow of classified information that found its way into my hands might be quickly resolved with a phone call to people with top security clearances who knew what I was up to. ‘X’ had introduced me to a lot of people over the years – Rui Gabirro, Gary Krupp, and a former US Navy nuke with top security clearance who was working on a classified deal to give Egypt nuclear power: Robert Abtey. I was getting involved with government actors, and there were sometimes questions as to which government they might be acting for. People are not always who they say they are. Which could be the case in the press, where I met with strange resistance. One NYT reporter was initially enthusiastic about all the emails I had from Operations Intelligence and Jellyfish regarding Bagley, but then suddenly backed off. It was left to UK radio host Gosling to out some of my secret information, which he did a few days before the 2016 US election, hosting me on the air in the United Kingdom. I made public information about ‘X’ – aka Jonothon Boulter – and Bagley. At that time, Bagley was involved in Syria, having been granted secret US State Department waivers (which he showed to me a year earlier) to arm rebels and set up refugee camps, that he said would be used as cover. Enter Hillary Clinton The Hillary Clinton State Department had no objections. No surprise, I was also able to tell the listener, as she was well liked by the Iranians, whose agents I had access to in London. I got close to enough to them to be on Iran TV and Press TV with Yvonne Ridley, before the powers that be shut down their operations. Hillary was their woman in the US in 2012, backed by agents from Tehran, who hoped she would win the party nomination for president. Obama took that hope away from them, but she ended up as Secretary of State, and they were happy. With her there, and later with Kerry in as her replacement, Bagley’s escapades were kept under the radar. Boulter developed a plan to make more money from the camps, for which he expected to have UN backing. Hillary Clinton seems to have been favored by certain parties in Iran. Wars are good business, and Bagley went on tour with his ideas, going on the radio in NYC at one point. Bagley, rather than come off as a spook, looked more like a Wall Street executive and Jellyfish was presented more as a PR firm than an outfit with black ops in the Congo and Mexico. What I did not understand were the ties to Clinton and her democrats. I assumed, given the fact that Boulter worked with the New Right (aka the London Forum), that they would support the right-wing, and Trump along with it. Had I known more about Bagley’s background as an aide to senator Patty Murray, I would have known better. Not until Boulter told me that he was not concerned about Trump, and that he had Clinton support for his deals, did I revise my perception. Bagley, after my tip to the officer at the DHS, came under investigation. Shortly before Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest, Bagley was taken in by undercover FBI men for money laundering. Caught red-handed with the greenbacks, he was deemed a flight risk by prosecutors. Of concern to them was the allegation that he had told undercover agents: “I wanna let you know that I’m also moving for [Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada] in Mexico City as well, with his number one guy.” El Mayo is El Chapo’s replacement. It is not the first time that Bagley did not know who he was really talking to. He may have learned by now that people are not always who they say they are. Which brings me to some people who have been mentioned a number of times: The Clintons. Who are they really? Lawyers, governor and first lady, president and first lady… or spies? Drug dealers? Sexual predators? Murderers? I would say yes to all four and more. Not only would I suspect that Bill’s act of giving American technology to China in his White House days was espionage, or that he was a drug dealer in Arkansas or a sexual predator with many more flights on the Lolita Express than he or the Clinton friendly press want to admit, but that he personally gave the order to murder Jeffrey. Somehow, I doubt that Mrs. Clinton is unaware of his activities, making her in my mind an accomplice. Ghislaine Maxwell attends the wedding of Chelsea Clinton. Several weeks ago, Mr. Clinton had lunch at Nello’s on Madison Avenue. Joining him at this uptown eatery was one of the guests at his daughter’s wedding – Ghislaine Maxwell. Not with them was their mutual friend, Jeffrey. He was dining that day downtown, at the MCC. So just what did Clinton and Maxwell discuss? That was the last record of a sighting of Maxwell in the Big Apple, and quite possibly the last sighting of her in public since. Reports of her in Paris, London, Tribeca and Los Angeles all seem to be deliberately planted red herrings, the latter of which was debunked by the Frank Report and the Daily Mail. Both publications tied the Los Angeles pictures to Maxwell’s friend Leah Saffian, an American born lawyer who plies her trade in England, Wales and California. Frank Report broke the story that Leah Saffian may have been responsible for leaking the photoshopped pictures of Ghislaine Maxwell at the In-N-Out fast food restaurant in Los Angeles in August Saffian’s association with Maxwell may have begun in England, when working for the law firm Peters & Peters, which represented one of Maxwell’s brothers in a serious fraud case relating to the embezzlement of the pension funds that occurred when their father, Robert owned the Daily Mirror. Robert was never brought to trial, as he was found dead in the water before the crown prosecution services could make their case. His daughter might be on the run from process servers; one female plaintiff alleges that she acted like a ‘Nazi guard’ in her zeal to serve Jeffrey, and the entire #MeToo movement is on the lookout for her. But despite her zeal in her service to Jeffrey, her loyalty may well be more with Clinton, especially after it was reported that Jeffrey, in a bid to make a deal, was willing to name names. She also might not want her next meal to be in prison, where bad things happen to lots of people. Was Jeffrey Epstein really suicidal? Or was he looking to make a deal that would limit his prison time in return for a candid and robust disclosure of his co-conspirators? So, just who made a bad thing happen to her man? In naming a suspect, motive and opportunity must be examined. Motive here is strong. Suffice it to say that William and Hillary would rather lunch at Nello’s than lunch in the Big House. But the Clintons are not alone as suspects. An examination of opportunity narrows it down to a much shorter list, which still does not exclude a number of other parties, but does place them at the top. Robert Maxwell had an untimely death. Opportunity would only present itself to someone with friends in low places. The New York City prison and justice systems could well be described as low places, and one might say that they are not without people friendly to the Clintons. Given the history of corruption in New York, both city and state, it is not surprising that a prisoner might not make it to the courtroom. Curious Justice System in New York On top of which are the circumstances that surround Jeffrey’s demise; which, being so well known, are not necessary to repeat in this discourse. It might be more of interest to look at the wickedness in high places that supports the thesis that a Clinton might be able to get certain dirty jobs done, perhaps at a dirt-cheap rate. Starting at the top, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, was himself recently under investigation, which led to the arrest and conviction of eight of his friends; and then stopped short. Andrew Cuomo, New York governor. This governor had nine lives – and eight of them were used up by the arrest of his eight top cronies. Somehow, the investigation stopped short of him. A previous governor, Elliot Spitzer, who was once Attorney General, had to resign in disgrace over his proclivities with prostitutes. Some say he liked to wear a dog collar, crawl on all fours and be whipped by his charges. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office might be expected to be stand above that, were it not for the ties between Cyrus Vance Jr., the DA, and one of Jeffrey’s business associates: Harvey Weinstein, whose prosecution seems to lag. Could it have something to do with the fact that one of the prosecutors on the case, Jennifer Gaffney, resigned her post from the sexual crimes division, taking a job in the private sector, as the Weinstein case made its way to her office? Taken by itself, this is not so suspicious; but taken along with the fact that Gaffney also consented, in 2016, to convicted sex offender Robert Hadden registering as a level 1 sex offender without having to serve any jail time; and that in 2011, she was willing to have another sex offender reduce his offender level from a level 3, the highest, to a level 1, the lowest. Who just happened to be Jeffrey. At the time, the judge, Justice Ruth Pickholz, denied Gaffney’s request and expressed bewilderment at such a motion. Jeffrey, although registered as a top-level sex offender under obligation to check in with the police regularly, never did so, and the DA’s office did not enforce the stipulations even when reminded of them by the police. The justice system here may be full of play-for-pay con artists posing as public servants, waiting to get kickbacks, either in the form of donations or as jobs in the private sector. Viewed from that perspective, it is not hard to see how a rich and powerful person could get a man dead. A counter-argument to that might be that the facility in which Jeffrey was held is under federal jurisdiction; the Justice Department. But that argument holds little weight, and, in fact, could add to the perception that the Clintons could have meddled in the case. It does not in the least ease suspicion, but rather exacerbates it, when it is remembered that the Justice Department once granted a sweetheart deal for a felon with the largest stash of child pornography and bestiality in American history which allowed him to stay out of jail. The prosecutors in New York are not the only ones with a soft spot for serious sex offenders. The one involving child pornography, which occurred in Los Angeles in 1998, was signed off on by Robert Mueller. For unknown reasons, Robert Mueller helped arrange the sweetest plea deal imaginable for David Asimov – son of the late author Isaac Asimov. David Asimov was the lucky perpetrator. But no surprise, as this same Justice Department kept four innocent men in jail for decades for crimes that Whitey Bulger was responsible for. One of these innocents was a WWII hero. Did Bill Clinton Order the Murder of Jeffrey Epstein? Having named the Clintons as suspects, the next step is to apply pressure, or, to use a better word, tension, to get this case cracked. This is not so easy to do with a slack press. But maybe I ought not to expect any support, given the historical record. Did the NYT put any pressure on Hitler back in the day when presented with reports of concentration camps? Did it put any on Stalin when reports of Ukrainians being starved emerged? Did it put any on the State Department when I gave them the inside scoop on Bagley? No, no, and no. In fact, the reporter that denied the Ukrainian starvation reports got a Pulitzer Prize. More recently, the Ed Buck case, which finally made it to the front page – was ignored for years as this wealthy donor to the Democrats was allowed to party on as young black men ended up dead at his house. Edward Bernard Peter Buck is an American businessman, LGBTQ political activist, and Democratic political fundraiser. Two African American men have been discovered dead in Buck’s West Hollywood home since 2017 due to drug overdoses. On September 17, 2019, Buck was arrested and charged with three counts of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house. Buck is awaiting trial. Outraged, one young man’s mother publicly lobbied the Democrat Los Angeles DA to have him arrested but was rudely ignored. A similar case in the 1980s is even more harrowing: that of John Wayne Gacy. Then the parents of a victim made 100 attempts to get the police to investigate. They did so only when the stench of his victims seeped out from under the floorboards, by which time, he had tortured dozens to death. He laughed about it, wearing a clown costume that he used for fundraising. He, too, was a donor to the Democrat party, a candidate for the same, and a ward leader in Illinois. By saying all this, and naming the Clintons as suspects in Jeffrey’s death, it might seem that I am taking aim at that party. I am not, I am in no political party, and am not paid by any party. I would hope that Democrats join me, though I am sure that party loyalists will refuse, just as they did with Buck and Gacy. I would hope that ALL Americans would join me. I would hope that ALL Democrats see through Clinton and his allies, and investigate the Humpty Dumpty congressmen. It is not that I have concern for either of the Epsteins, but that what is going on is of national concern. Everyone needs not just to take a look at it, but to apply real pressure – again – tension is a better word. That word was once used as the title of a film made in 1949, in which Barry Sullivan played Police Lieutenant Collier Bonnabel, who explains that he only knows one way to solve a case: by applying pressure to all the suspects, playing on their strengths and weaknesses, until one of them snaps under the tension. Quite recently, this tactic was proven a success when Frank Parlato exposed Keith Raniere and his NXIVM sex cult. Not surprisingly, its members were donors to Hillary Clinton. It was not easy to get the investigation to go forward. Parlato ended up writing thousands of articles and contacting both major press and government agencies. Tension worked, and now Raniere is in prison and Allison Mack and others are headed there soon. And soon to join them, I hope, will be the Clintons, Mark Epstein, and the Humpty Dumpty congress members.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.8

617 – Battle of Huoyi: Li Yuan defeats a Sui dynasty army, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang dynasty. 1100 – Election of Antipope Theodoric. 1198 – Philip of Swabia, Prince of Hohenstaufen, is crowned King of Germany (King of the Romans) 1253 – Pope Innocent IV canonises Stanislaus of Szczepanów, killed by king Bolesław II. 1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland. 1276 – Pope John XXI is chosen. 1331 – Stefan Dušan declares himself king of Serbia. 1380 – Battle of Kulikovo: Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance. 1504 – Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. 1514 – Battle of Orsha: In one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army. 1522 – Magellan–Elcano circumnavigation: Victoria arrives at Seville, technically completing the first circumnavigation. 1551 – The foundation day in Vitória, Brazil. 1565 – St. Augustine, Florida is founded by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. 1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Ottoman siege of Malta that began on May 18. 1612 – The foundation day in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. 1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign army. 1727 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children. 1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George. 1756 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition. 1761 – Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. 1775 – The unsuccessful Rising of the Priests in Malta. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war's last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory. 1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote. 1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano: French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa. 1810 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon. 1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1831 – November uprising: The Battle of Warsaw effectively ends the Polish insurrection. 1860 – The steamship PS Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives. 1862 – Millennium of Russia monument is unveiled in Novgorod. 1863 – American Civil War: In the Second Battle of Sabine Pass, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas. 1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries. 1888 – Isaac Peral's submarine is first tested. 1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found. 1888 – In England, the first six Football League matches are played. 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited. 1900 – Galveston hurricane: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people. 1905 – The 7.2 Mw  Calabria earthquake shakes southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 557 and 2,500 people. 1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war. 1916 – In a bid to prove that women were capable of serving as military dispatch riders, Augusta and Adeline Van Buren arrive in Los Angeles, completing a 60-day, 5,500 mile cross-country trip on motorcycles. 1921 – Margaret Gorman, a 16-year-old, wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America. 1923 – Honda Point disaster: Nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed. 1925 – Rif War: Spanish forces including troops from the Foreign Legion under Colonel Francisco Franco landing at Al Hoceima, Morocco. 1926 – Germany is admitted to the League of Nations. 1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape. 1933 – Ghazi bin Faisal became King of Iraq. 1934 – Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 137 people. 1935 – US Senator from Louisiana Huey Long is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building. 1941 – World War II: German forces begin the Siege of Leningrad. 1943 – World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) is attacked in an air raid on Frascati. 1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the armistice with Italy. 1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time. 1945 – The division of Korea begins when United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier. 1946 – The referendum abolishes the monarchy in Bulgaria. 1952 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang. 1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established. 1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1). 1962 – Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, BR Standard Class 9F 92220 Evening Star. 1966 – The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, "The Man Trap". 1970 – Trans International Airlines Flight 863 crashes during take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, killing all 11 aboard.[1] 1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. 1974 – Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford signs the pardon of Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office. 1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, later upgraded to honorable. 1978 – Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, results in 700–3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran. 1988 – Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires. 1989 – Partnair Flight 394 dives into the North Sea, killing 55 people. The investigation showed that the tail of the plane vibrated loose in flight due to sub-standard connecting bolts that had been fraudulently sold as aircraft-grade. 1991 – The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent. 1994 – USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard, resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history and altering manufacturing practices in the industry. 2004 – NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open. 2005 – Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft from EMERCOM land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America. 2016 – NASA launches OSIRIS-REx, its first asteroid sample return mission. The probe will visit 101955 Bennu and is expected to return with samples in 2023.

[caveartfair]

Knight Foundation awards $600,000 to projects seeking to make culture more accessible through technology.

After the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation launched an open call in February prompting institutions with the question, “how might cultural institutions use technology to connect people to the arts?”, it received a flood of innovative answers. On July 12, the Foundation announced that 12 of those ideas would be granted $50,000 each for development and early-stage testing.

The chosen institutions span a wide range of spaces––performing art venues, design studios, research groups, museums, and more—but each winner put forth an idea that could be adopted by a variety of arts organizations. For example, many projects focus on improving visitor engagement with mobile apps, interactive wall labels, and digital tools for soliciting visitor input. Others seek to make more data available through the use of business planning software, improved Wikipedia information, and an app for gathering visitor demographic data. Grant recipients range from major art institutions like the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art to a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution and Wikimedia D.C. and a project by Temple University’s Institute on Disabilitie.

For the Knight Foundation, this $600,000 project is vital for the arts. As digital technology becomes more personalized, more interactive, and more accessible, art audiences expect similarly engaging and dynamic experiences from cultural organizations. As Victoria Rogers, the Knight Foundation’s vice president for arts, puts it:

While the importance of arts institutions in building community remains unchanged, the preferences and expectations of audiences have transformed in the age of technology. Museum-goers increasingly demand personalized, interactive and shareable experiences. These projects help pave a way forward for cultural organizations to expand and command their use of technology to connect with and inspire audiences.

Each recipient has nine months to develop and refine a prototype of its idea, before all the grant-winners convene for a demo day in April 2019.

from Artsy News

[akashamichelleblog]

15 Things They Didn't Teach You at Design School

Design school is great. It gives you the opportunity to mature as a designer, illustrator, website builder or artist, prepares you for your future career, and helps you develop the beginnings of a design portfolio. But it can't teach you everything.

With that in mind, I've researched some successful creative professionals and found out what they wished they had known when they were in art school – so you get a head-start on your course mates.

01. How to Actually Find Work

 “The one key thing I don't remember being taught was how to actually find work,” says seasoned pro Ben the Illustrator. “How to market ourselves, approach potential clients and so on. Whether we were going for full-time jobs or freelancing from the outset, nobody really knew what to do once we left college. 

"The upside of this is that I learnt it all myself, and due to naivety actually had original ideas, but when the chips are down and the workflow is unstable, it would have been good to feel like I'd been taught some kind of foundation in self-promotion. This was late 90s, so slightly pre-internet. I know there are good colleges now that have students putting together amazing portfolio sites before they graduate, but I still hear from students who have a killer folio, and yet don't know what to do with it.” 

02. How to Accept Commissions

“For me, I would say there is a major void in higher education,” explains illustrator Aaron Miller. “You are taught about unrealistic deadlines and creative outputs from the start. But a huge part of the job that was never explained to me was the ins and out of accepting a new client. Do I send an acceptance of commission doc, do I ask for a percentage of payment upfront? What do I do if it all goes wrong? Does the client really need that editorial illustration at 5:30pm on a Friday night?” 

03. How to Manage Clients

"I wish they'd taught us about clients,” says creative director of Knight Studios Christian Day in now what’s becoming a common theme. “How to identify them, how to connect with them. Granted, this has changed wildly since I was at university, but networking is networking!” 

He continues: “How to get in front of them, how to get them interested in you and your ideas, how to present and sell your ideas, how to service clients and build those relationships... you can go on and on. Having the skills and ideas is one thing, but if you can't get them in front of those clients, you'll be sat alone in a dark room.” 

04. Why Associations are Important

Illustrator and designer at Empire magazine Olly Gibbs joined the Association of Illustrators to help boost his career and client list. At art school, he feels he missed out on advice for turning yourself into a product that could actually sell. 

“It was great for helping people refine their ideas and find out which pathway of design they wanted to follow, but it didn’t give enough of an understanding of the real world," Gibbs explains. "I was lucky enough to have done a lot of freelance previously and during my time at art school so that helped. It just would have been great to find out more about the money side.” 

The moral here? Join an association that can help you sell yourself! 

05. That Personality Counts (Maybe More Than Your Diploma)

"Despite what your teachers or parents tell you, your diploma won’t necessarily get you a job," says Toronto-based web designer Janna Hagan. "Proving what kind of work you are capable of producing through your portfolio, or demonstrating passion and potential will more likely catch a potential employer's eye; compared to a student who has more formal education. Having a killer portfolio and personality will land you a job anywhere."

06. Software Skills

Jeffrey Bowman is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer based in the mountains of Hemsedal, Norway. Formerly of Studio Output and a lecturer at Shillington College, Bowman has worked for numerous clients around the globe. So what does he know now that he wished he'd learned at art school?

"Software skills," he says. "This is probably the most important thing to really focus on when you're at college." When Bowman was at university, this was something he had to teach himself, because there was no real help available. 

"Being software-savvy is only going to help when you get out into the industry, because the way the industry is, these kind of skills will set you apart from the next person applying for an internship or junior job."

07. Real-World Processes

T3 magazine's art editor Jo Gulliver has been working in magazines for 15 years, during which time she's worked with the world's top illustration talent, photographers and designers. When she was at college she knew she wanted to be involved in magazines, but was never taught the process of putting together a magazine to be printed and exported across the globe.

"It would be good to explore the industry you want to go into in depth," she says. The best way to do this is through seeking out work experience while you're studying. "Also consider visiting printers, agencies, photoshoots and so on," is her top advice. "Make the most of your work experience placement and ask to see all processes of the business. It will make you much more employable when you come to get a job."

08. Commercial Knowledge

"The main thing I know now, that I never realised at college, is that there is a market for good quality drawing," says Abigail Daker – a freelance illustrator known for her stunning perspective cityscape pencil drawings.

"There was a lot of theorising about drawing on my course and plenty of discussion about the merits of drawing and its place within the contemporary fine art world, but nothing about it as a commercial product, and no advice about how to tailor your artwork to be better suited to commercial projects." Daker's advice is to scope out the latter – no matter what your intended specialism.

09. How to Stay Creative

Ian Wharton, creative director at AKQA and an advocate of young talent (he's regularly involved in judging, seminars and publications promoting young creativity). So what does he know know that he wishes he knew at art school?

"How difficult, yet entirely necessary it is to hang onto the innate creative spirit of youth," he says. "It's something I took for granted." And his advice? "Explore endlessly. Every facet of creativity that excites you – dive in and don't worry about right answers. You have the time, agility and resources to do so. When you leave school, never stop learning and waste zero time making things you don't want to be known for."

10. How to find your niche

Wildlife artist Jonathan Woodward's beautiful, textured animal illustrations have led him to commissions from the likes of Penguin, Transworld Publishing and Random House. What did he wish he knew?

"I'm probably the same as most other illustrators in that the biggest gap in my art college education was the business and marketing side of things. I've had to learn all of this as I've gone along.

"One of the most important lessons I've learned is to find a niche rather than trying to be all things to all people. It was only when I really focused on combining my two main passions for nature and illustration, specialising in being a wildlife illustrator, that things started to move forwards and the right type of commissions started come in."

11. Not to be Precious

James Wignall is an animator and motion graphics artist working in London. He wishes he'd learned not to be too precious with his designs.

"Inevitably the client will want changes, and inevitably you'll think they are for the worse. Your job is to do the best you can for your client, not for your portfolio. There are occasions that you and the client will be on the same wavelength and you'll end up with a project that will take pride of place on your website, but these jobs are few and far between.

"Behind every amazing project you've seen on a designer's website, there's probably 10 more that you don't see that pay the bills. Once you've given it all and appeased your client, boss or bill payer, you can always rework it to a state that you're happy and call it a 'directors cut'!"

12. How to Take a Step Back

Freelance art director, illustrator and graphic designer Radim Malinic has been responsible for some stunning campaigns.

"Education encourages you to be good at one thing only," he says. "When you get out into the sharp-toothed world of client work, it's easy to get consumed by focusing on small detail in your designs and not worrying about any other essential parts of the commission.

"Whether you are a freelancer or part of a bigger team with the additional beady eyes of account managers or creative directors, it is about projecting your voice through the project. By taking a little bit of extra time and stepping back for short moment to oversee what has been done, you can not only scrutinise all aspects and find any errors, you can also discover potential ways of making the project go further.

"Clients can have a limited vision and creative teams can play it safe to keep them happy. Great work just does not happen by accident, it is the ever-present hunger to create fresh work which makes it succeed."

13. How to be Humble

James Wignall didn't take the traditional route into the creative industries – he's a Bachelor of Science rather than of the Arts. However, there is some advice that applies to everyone. 

"The first thing you should learn when going into the work place is a little humility – seriously it goes a long way!" he says. "A number of people from my course assumed that because they achieved a first class honours they were God's gift to the industry. Wrong! There is always somebody who's better than you and employers have no time for that kind of arrogant attitude. A workplace needs people who are easy to work with, to collaborate and bounce ideas back and forth with."

14. That It's Not All Self-Indulgent

"At college most of the projects are pretty self-indulgent," says Jo Gulliver. "You don't really experience what it's like working for a client. It would have been good to get some live client work while I was at college – working for someone would give you an insight into how the industry works.

"It would also have been useful as a learning experience on how to manage a project – pricing it, time management and so on. These are real-world things that you often discover when you're in the real world – not before!"

15. How to Choose Your Career Carefully

"My main advice for art college students today would be to really think about the type of work they want to be doing," says Jonathan Woodward. "To think about the type of commissions they really want – rather than what they think they should be doing – and then create a career and portfolio that reflects this.

"If you show the type of work in your folio that you don't want, you can be sure that is the type of work you'll get," he adds. It's an interesting point – make sure only your best and most relevant work (if you're going for an interview) is in your portfolio.

[c-hevaliers-blog]

For Honor Hack

For Honor Hack

at the beginning look, you may be forgiven for thinking for honor is a easy hack-and-curb recreation in a comparable vein to ryse: son of rome, however after you're in the back of the controller you will fast realize that there is so much extra to be located in ubisoft's new "artwork of battle" control machine. behind the movement-adventure aesthetics lies a deep and complicated fight device that feels specific.

the "art of struggle" fight machine in for honor is the muse upon which the sport is built, and for that reason it has far more in commonplace with traditional combating games like avenue fighter and mortal kombat than hack-and-slash video games like ryse or action-adventure games that its 1/3-person, over the shoulder angle and medieval putting may advocate.

when facing off towards an enemy opponent, keeping the left trigger places you into "guard mode," wherein you may regulate your stance among the proper, left and top positions. to dam incoming assaults, you should read which route your opponent is the use of after which mirror their stance, and to inflict your very own damage you may need to interchange to one of the two directions that they aren’t presently defensive to land correctly using the available light and heavy assaults.

it sounds like honest stuff till you leave the tutorial and the enemies start to combat again in earnest. nothing will really prepare you for the multiplayer recreation modes wherein you'll quickly discover that underlying those primary principles there are stamina stages you may need to hold an eye fixed on, dodges, parries, defend breaks, counters, feints, combos, unique attacks that can not be interrupted, environmental hazards, unlockable talents known as feats, and a roster of 12 exceptional heroes you may face who all use them in one-of-a-kind ways and to varying ranges of effectiveness.

it could be brutal and unforgiving at the start, but as your capabilities improve and also you find a playable hero that enhances your combating fashion, you will get that eureka moment in which it all makes feel and you begin to experience comfortable in struggle. you'll nonetheless locate that your hero's head rolls around at the ground pretty frequently, but encounters grow to be a dance of timing, strategy, and ability as opposed to a one-sided slaughter that leaves you pressured.

making use of the fight system are 12 heroes which can be equally divided among the three warring factions of knights, vikings, and samurai. each faction gives its own variation on four one of a kind instructions of hero. a nicely-rounded vanguard, a slower however tough hitter heavy, an agile and rapid murderer, and a hybrid that is a stability between the others and is suit with a long variety weapon. there may be a actual difference among each of the 12 available heroes thanks to the one-of-a-kind ability sets, guns and feats to be had because of this that if one class didn't work for you with one faction, you would possibly find that it does in a extraordinary one. learning every of them is one of the highlights of for honor's fight.

there may be a extensive variety of customisation options available for each character, inclusive of some which let you change the intercourse of your warriors. new objects can be presented through development, even as a few may be bought the usage of in-sport forex known as metallic. the real difficulty here is that steel is presented so carefully for competing in fits. with some items costing 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 steel, being rewarded 20 for fit manner you’re either going to ought to do quite a few grinding for that bright new outfit you really want or spend real existence cash.

before each suit, you can select from any of the available characters to fight with, even though some are first of all locked at the back of a paywall as a way to require in-recreation currency to liberate. early on, every hero feels well balanced presenting you could study the nuances of their robust and susceptible points. that does begin to trade as you development, but, as in three of the to be had 5 multiplayer game mode gear stats come into play.

every of the heroes has his or her very own unbiased rank with a view to rise thru use in video games. at degree 20 your popularity level will boom — think of it like prestige tiers in call of responsibility — however in contrast to activision's shooter, which resets all of your guns and calls for you to unlock them once more, for honor rewards these characters with higher tiers of gear that immediately have an effect on attributes along with attack damage, protection and stamina charges. this coupled with a matchmaking machine that at times unfairly puts all of the better-degree characters on one crew can make for some fits where the chances are stacked in opposition to the alternative team from the start. higher stats don’t necessarily guarantee victory, of route, but it usually offers them a bonus that feels like it may effortlessly be corrected throughout matchmaking.

the intricacies of for honor's combat system absolutely come to play inside the duel (1 v. 1) and brawl (2 v. 2) sport modes where gear stats aren't taken under consideration. it basically comes all the way down to the ability of the fighter or duo to win the day. each suit is fought over 5 rounds, meaning which you get the opportunity to research your combatants' strategies and devise an answer even if you lose the early lead.

some of the finer points of for honor's combat are misplaced within the four vs. 4 sport modes of dominion, elimination and skirmish where you may pretty often be outnumbered with heavy attacks dropping rain on you from more than one guidelines. fortuitously, this is countered with revenge mode — a meter that slowly fills on every occasion you block an opponent's assault --and when brought about offers you an offensive and shielding buff that may be used to swing the struggle again on your favour. it's no longer assured to work, but when it does there's no higher feeling than seeing  or extra attackers lay lifeless on the ground whilst you're nevertheless status to inform the story.

the four vs. four modes also allow gamers to use unlockable abilties referred to as feats that are assigned to the d-pad. every man or woman has four to be had and that they function abilities like second wind, to be able to get better some of your lost fitness, to being able to fireplace projectiles into a focused place.

the whole multiplayer experience is wrapped in a metagame called the faction conflict. as you begin the game you may be asked to pick one of the three factions to name your very own. after every suit, you'll be able to set up war assets onto a territorial map where an ongoing conflict is being fought. you could pick to protect your personal territory or assault a neighbouring one. every six hours the consequences are mentioned and the territories controlled are shuffled. it's an interesting idea, and even though it might sound useless you'll be granted in-recreation rewards if your faction does well over a  week round or 10 week season. the consequences of a season will alter the advent of multiplayer maps as time progresses and allows to build the tale of the game.

as precise as the multiplayer is, for honor does be afflicted by some connection troubles that may variety from mildly demanding to infuriating. i have been disconnected as i've loaded into video games, been eliminated midway through video games, had bots update each other participant and the unusual occasion in which lag has been so awful that fighters seem to teleport from location to location in front of me. the troubles feel like they've stepped forward slightly during the last week of playing, however they're nonetheless there, that's much less than best for this type of multiplayer targeted game.

even as for honor is unashamedly a multiplayer focused recreation, it does encompass a 4 to 6-hour unmarried-participant campaign that tells the records of the faction war and acts as an instructional to a few of the nuances of the game’s fight device. even as it absolutely doesn't experience like a "tacked-on" experience way to its cutscenes, setpieces and a large amount of additional talk, it does experience like a neglected possibility to tell a memorable tale about those historic factions. as an alternative, we're left with hole and forgettable characters a good way to depart you questioning how properly it may had been instead of playing it for what it's miles.

if you do revel in the campaign, there's a separate rank that is earned as you progress as a way to provide you with a few customisation unlocks for multiplayer, and with three various problem stages and masses of collectibles to discover, there is a reason to replay if you want to look and do the whole lot to be had.

for honor's success list isn't always specially hard, however it's going to take a few willpower in case you're looking for the completion. the campaign has achievements for completing every faction's bankruptcy, finding all of the collectibles, and three based totally on problem. most of the people of the achievements are provided within the pvp multiplayer recreation modes that allows you to require some skill and practice however should not be a trouble in case you're gambling the sport on a everyday foundation. there also are achievements for taking element inside the faction battle, because of this you're going to need to preserve coming returned and gambling the game to make certain you area property in 5 exceptional two week rounds, come again to peer the results of a 10 week season in that you have participated, and also place property at the map in 50 of the exceptional six-hour long turns.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.8

617 – Battle of Huoyi: Li Yuan defeats a Sui dynasty army, opening the path to his capture of the imperial capital Chang'an and the eventual establishment of the Tang dynasty. 1100 – Election of Antipope Theodoric. 1253 – Pope Innocent IV canonised Stanislaus of Szczepanów, killed by king Bolesław II. 1264 – The Statute of Kalisz, guaranteeing Jews safety and personal liberties and giving battei din jurisdiction over Jewish matters, is promulgated by Bolesław the Pious, Duke of Greater Poland. 1276 – Pope John XXI is chosen. 1331 – Stefan Dušan declares himself king of Serbia 1380 – Battle of Kulikovo: Russian forces defeat a mixed army of Tatars and Mongols, stopping their advance. 1504 – Michelangelo's David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence. 1514 – Battle of Orsha: In one of the biggest battles of the century, Lithuanians and Poles defeat the Russian army. 1551 – The foundation day in Vitória, Brazil. 1565 – St. Augustine, Florida was founded by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. 1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Ottoman siege of Malta that began on May 18. 1612 – The foundation day in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. 1655 – Warsaw falls without resistance to a small force under the command of Charles X Gustav of Sweden during The Deluge, making it the first time the city is captured by a foreign army. 1727 – A barn fire during a puppet show in the village of Burwell in Cambridgeshire, England kills 78 people, many of whom are children. 1755 – French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George. 1756 – French and Indian War: Kittanning Expedition. 1761 – Marriage of King George III of the United Kingdom to Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. 1775 – The unsuccessful Rising of the Priests in Malta. 1781 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Eutaw Springs in South Carolina, the war's last significant battle in the Southern theater, ends in a narrow British tactical victory. 1793 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Hondschoote. 1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Bassano: French forces defeat Austrian troops at Bassano del Grappa. 1810 – The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon. 1831 – William IV and Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 1831 – November Uprising: Battle of Warsaw ends, effectively ending the Insurrection. 1860 – The steamship PS Lady Elgin sinks on Lake Michigan, with the loss of around 300 lives. 1862 – Millennium of Russia monument unveiled in Novgorod. 1863 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Sabine Pass: On the Texas-Louisiana border at the mouth of the Sabine River, a small Confederate force thwarts a Union invasion of Texas. 1883 – The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was completed in a ceremony at Gold Creek, Montana. Former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in an event attended by rail and political luminaries. 1888 – In Spain, the first travel of Isaac Peral's submarine, was the first practical submarine ever made. 1888 – In London, the body of Jack the Ripper's second murder victim, Annie Chapman, is found. 1888 – In England the first six Football League matches are played. 1892 – The Pledge of Allegiance is first recited. 1900 – Galveston hurricane: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people. 1905 – The 7.2 Mw Calabria earthquake shakes Southern Italy with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), killing between 557 and 2,500 people. 1914 – World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war. 1921 – Margaret Gorman, a 16-year-old, wins the Atlantic City Pageant's Golden Mermaid trophy; pageant officials later dubbed her the first Miss America. 1923 – Honda Point disaster: Nine US Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast. Seven are lost, and twenty-three sailors killed. 1925 – Rif War: Spanish forces including troops from the Foreign Legion under Colonel Francisco Franco landing at Al Hoceima, Morocco. 1926 – Germany is admitted to the League of Nations. 1930 – 3M begins marketing Scotch transparent tape. 1933 – Ghazi bin Faisal became King of Iraq. 1934 – Off the New Jersey coast, a fire aboard the passenger liner SS Morro Castle kills 137 people. 1935 – US Senator from Louisiana Huey Long is fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building. 1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins. German forces begin the siege of Leningrad. 1943 – World War II: The O.B.S. (German General Headquarters for the Mediterranean zone) in Frascati is bombed by USAAF. 1943 – World War II: United States General Dwight D. Eisenhower publicly announces the Allied armistice with Italy. 1944 – World War II: London is hit by a V-2 rocket for the first time. 1945 – Cold War: United States troops arrive to partition the southern part of Korea in response to Soviet troops occupying the northern part of the peninsula a month earlier. 1946 – A 95.6% vote in favor of abolishing the monarchy in Bulgaria. 1951 – Treaty of San Francisco: In San Francisco, 48 nations sign a peace treaty with Japan in formal recognition of the end of the Pacific War. 1952 – The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang. 1954 – The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) is established. 1960 – In Huntsville, Alabama, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA had already activated the facility on July 1). 1962 – Newly independent Algeria, by referendum, adopts a constitution. 1962 – Last run of the famous Pines Express over the Somerset and Dorset Railway line (UK) fittingly using the last steam locomotive built by British Railways, 9F locomotive 92220 Evening Star. 1966 – The landmark American science fiction television series Star Trek premieres with its first-aired episode, "The Man Trap". 1971 – In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is inaugurated, with the opening feature being the premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass. 1974 – Watergate scandal: US President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office. 1975 – Gays in the military: US Air Force Tech Sergeant Leonard Matlovich, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, appears in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "I Am A Homosexual". He is given a general discharge, later upgraded to honorable. 1978 – Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, provoked 700-3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran. 1988 – Yellowstone National Park is closed for the first time in U.S. history due to ongoing fires. 1989 – Partnair Flight 394 dived into the North Sea, killing 55 people. The investigation showed that the tail of the plane vibrated loose in flight due to sub-standard connecting bolts that had been fraudulently sold as aircraft-grade. 1991 – The Republic of Macedonia becomes independent. 1994 – USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard; resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history and altering manufacturing practices in the industry. 2004 – NASA's unmanned spacecraft Genesis crash-lands when its parachute fails to open. 2005 – Two Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft from EMERCOM land at a disaster aid staging area at Little Rock Air Force Base; the first time Russia has flown such a mission to North America.