#the human city

[brightlotusmoon]

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx ��back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

[zegalba]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Dog Meshi.

[kodasea]

Son of Gondor

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

URGENT UPDATE ON KOSA.

This is exactly how they were finally able to pass the tiktok ban after trying for 3 years. And this is exactly what I was worried about them trying as a result. Again, all info and resources for fighting KOSA are in the pinned post on my page. Plz spread the word. Even if you don't live in america, Share this with any american friends and mutuals you have. We can still fight this bill we still have a chance at stopping it just like we have in the past. The only reason it hasn't passed yet is because we keep fighting it. Don't forget that. make sure your reps and senators don't know a moment of peace

[kaapstadgirly]

Genocide before our eyes, and we can do nothing but depend on leaders who are proven to be useless and heartless 💔

[goosologist]

they have an exam in two days but they keep making out about it

[mwagneto]

sorry idk but the way the world is so fast and the people in it still want it to be faster is sooo annoying to me. people groaning while standing in line for 3 minutes people being mad the train ride is gonna take 2 hours people complaining that the bus is a few minutes late people being angry that construction work is taking months even though it used to take decades. don't you see the world is already so so so fast in every single aspect can't you understand that being mad will do nothing and just make your mood worse. enjoy the moments of stillness you're given. just stand in line and look at the people around you. sit on the train and watch the scenery. you'll get there.

[haveihitanerve]

“I’m human!” Batman protests when one of the JL members looks at him in shock after he survives a mission that technically should've been able to kill Superman.

“I’m human!” Nightwing argues to his fellow Young Justice members after completing a quadruple backflip twirl and knocked out three guards when not even Kori can do that. 

“I’m human!” Red Hood complains to one of his generals after they accuse him of being a ghost and/or zombie. (in all fairness to them he did die)

“I’m human!” Red Robin mutters to the Teen Titans after pulling four all nighters and surviving off of only three packets of sugar and eighty cups of coffee for seven weeks. 

“I’m human!” Robin insists to his Mother during one of their monthly visits, despite the fact that he arrived with several stab wounds and what is probably a concussion that should have landed him in the hospital but he still walks straight. 

“I’m human!” Orphan signs to the concerned police officer after he just watched her rip a mans shin out with only her fingernails. (he is fine. Orphan doesn't kill)

“I’m human!” Spoiler dismisses the other heroes(vigilantes) looks, seconds after having beat up eight goons with nothing more than a textbook, while telling each one a joke and hitting them in the face if they didn't laugh, laughing at each one she told, and having just landed a triple backflip onto a trashcan.

“I’m human!” Barbara assures her father at their weekly coffee meeting, although she did roll up with Scarecrow fear toxin wafting from her hair, Gothams harbor water covering her wheels. 

No, Batfamily, you are not human. Not anymore. That is a technically and you should not die on that hill. (you will not, despite the fact that a real human would) You were born human, and even that isn't scientifically provable.

"I'm a meta." Duke admits, the only reasonable one in the batfamily willing to admit he's different, although no less crazy.

[tizeline]

Sorry, he's an only child, he never learned how to share </3

[lilybug-02]

City of Tears. But Mini.

I wanted to make an atmospheric art piece with Dewi. And the City of Tears is one of the most sorrowing, beautiful, and grand places to do that. This is a lot of firsts for me regarding the architecture and lighting. The shadows cover a lot, and it may have been too much. I'm happy with how it turned out tho.

No idea how Dewi found his way into the City. Probably magic. Probably plot too :) But oh boy, he is experiencing childlike wonder in his raincoat!

This is a better show of the line detail I needlessly covered up in the final lol

[seaslugdisco]

I WILL BE PARTICIPATING IN THE GLOBAL STRIKE ON FRIDAY 10TH OF MAY. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL TOO.

IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE:

DO NOT ATTEND WORK OR SCHOOL

DO NOT PURCHASE GOODS OR SERVICES OF ANY KIND

DO NOT MAKE ANY TRANSACTIONS ON YOUR DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD

SPREAD THE MESSAGE ON ALL PLATFORMS YOU CAN, WITH A PHOTO OR VIDEO IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE

ISREALI FORCES ARE ENTERING RAFAH. ANY PEOPLE, EVEN THOSE WITH PERMISSION TO LEAVE FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION ARE NO LONGER ABLE TO GET OUT.

RAFAH IS TRAPPED.

WE MUST CALL FOR AN IMMIDIATE CEASEFIRE. RISE FOR RAFAH.

[spooksier]

happy juneteenth yall!! shout out to one of the great cradles of black culture and my hometown, the beautiful city of detroit <3

☆ prints | patreon | comics ☆

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 318

Danny is learning how to shapeshift. It’s fun, really, and he honestly thinks it’s more than a little cool. Plus it’s not a learn or you fully die sort of thing, which is pretty cool too. He just erm, might’ve also made a mistake. A little oopsie. An uh-oh. 

Erm. So. Apparently stuff stays when you go from ghost to human form. Just erm. More… permanent? Look he panicked, okay! And it wouldn’t have been that bad if not for the fact erm… his friends might’ve done it too…? 

Okay, okay, this is fine erm. Oh hi Mom, Dad I- O-oh yeah! D-definitely! Psst, Tucker, what’s a meta…? Oh. Okay yeah- wait can they use this to avoid the GIW thing? They definitely could, right? Like they definitely can- Sam we need the corkboard!

Er. And inform their parents too… even if it’s more than a little obvious. Maybe they shouldn’t have been trying to mix and match…

[art-is-kayos]

Checking up on his commission