Mating Dances

Victoria's Riflebird - bird of paradise. Juveniles display for adult females and each other. Stay to the end of the video because an adult male comes in to show how it is done. 

 

In the tropical forests of New Guinea, one male is dedicated to making an unforgettable first impression. 

Finding Kamau Bell

I love that they are researching history on normal people! I watch United Shades of America - comedian and political provocateur W. Kamau Bell as he explores communities across America to understand the unique challenges they face.

 

  

 

Pressing issue

I read the other day that water shortages were going to drastically effect the Tempe, AZ area so when talking to my sister I asked her about that. She didn't seems worried and said she had not heard that much about it local news. Colorado outlines its plan for how the state will deal with water shortages worsened by climate change and population growth  

The Southwest is bone dry. Now, a key water source is at risk. 

 Drought-hit Colorado River water supplies near "moment of reckoning" 

"Immediate action" is needed to avoid a water supply crisis next year because of the Colorado River's depleted reservoirs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's chief, Camille Calimlim Touton. Driving the news: The West's climate-change driven megadrought has plunged the nation's two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, to historic lows. "Between 2 million acre-feet and 4 million acre-feet of additional conservation is needed just to protect critical levels in 2023," Touton said Tuesday. 

The commissioner noted at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Capitol Hill that there "is so much to this that is unprecedented ... but unprecedented is now the reality and the normal in which Reclamation must manage our systems." "The challenges we are seeing today are unlike anything we have seen in our history," she said. 

Threat level: Per a report in April, the river that provides drinking water to 40 million people in seven states and 30 tribal nations is the most endangered waterway in the U.S. and "ground zero for the climate and water crisis" in the West. 

 Dry lakes and dry taps: Nuevo León faces its worst water crisis in decades  

"MONTERREY, Mexico (CN) — Patricia Palacios hasn’t had running water for nearly 50 days. Instead, she waits for the city water authority tanker that comes to her neighborhood two to three times a week to fill the array of tubs and buckets she now uses instead of plumbing. 

“It really is miserable,” said the 65-year-old retired biologist while chatting with a neighbor as they wait for their turn with the tanker. “I have them all labeled — this one for the bathroom, that one for [another room] — and as soon as they’re filled I take them straight to the part of the house where I’ll use them.” 

The Monterrey metropolitan area, which includes her city of General Escobedo, is suffering the worst water crisis it has seen in decades. And while most of its more than 5 million residents have running water at least a few hours a day due to restrictions imposed by the metropolitan water authority, the taps in her somewhat isolated neighborhood have been dry for nearly two months."

 

Letters Never Sent

Beverly Rayner constructions are often built around photographic imagery and take on a wide variety of formats, often sculptural. She freely uses any type of photographic process that serves my purpose for each piece, including her own traditional black and white photographs, tintypes, daguerreotypes, alternative processes, or digital images, as well as found photographs and negatives, even x-rays. Frequently alter or physically manipulate the images through painting, peeling, cutting, embedding in wax, etc. Her use of other materials (both cast-off and new) is even more diverse, including wood, metal, lenses, paper, beeswax, and a vast array of objects. The images are integrated into some combination of these materials, a process that culminates in the formulation of singular, hybrid image-objects.  

Modern landscape

I am off for a week yo watch my friend's dogs while she is on an Alaskan cruise. I am also going to be putting together another book for her. Watching a lot of crappy TV? We will see. Hoping to be able to post from there. Packing up more food then clothes because we have a completely taste in food. We had a get-together with friends and I have lots of leftover cheese, crackers, hummus, dips, olives .. snack food to go with my binge-watching?

I just love these. Swaths of color created by a palette knife? Rectangular clouds. Colorful little villages of charming cottages.

Donna Walker celebrate the land and rural life, interpreted in my own way with simplified shapes, abstractions, and unique color. I call my style Modern Americana; contemporary landscape with a bit of nostalgia and serenity mixed in. I work to capture what defines a place, a home, a dwelling…keeping my work bold, colorful. 

 

 

 

Loss of fellow blogger

I am so sorry to hear this, Mage at Postcards passed away from her battle with cancer.

Organic living space

The curves, shapes and angles of architect Robert Oshatz with the added natural rock and wood. If I owned a house that was this interesting, I might not ever venture outside of it.

 

Let the colorful chaos happen

Ashley Mary's studio work focuses on acrylic paintings, stained glass, and collage on paper. Thick textures, vibrant colors, graphic patterns, and organic and familiar shapes are her attempts to give attention to the unintentional and leave space to be surprised: exploring themes of play, emotions, collections, balance and curiosity. Her Instagram.

Fossil Garments

Amazing Diane Savona: In my Fossil Garments series, the work is presented as fossil specimens. The deconstructed garments – sometimes embedded in handmade felt – are offered for inspection on taut surfaces. By carefully cutting apart and arranging the garments, their human connection is emphasized. Crochet and lace, showing through the almost transparent garments, appear skeletal. I used mending techniques in overlapping layers, sometimes obscuring parts of the garments, sometimes cutting through them. The rigid framing exposes the somewhat sentimental clothing in an unemotional perspective, allowing the viewer to examine the clothing as archaeology.

Klee inspired

YOSHIRO TACHIBANA

Dreamer, observer, and admirer

I have blogged about Victoria Semykina before. I now follow her on Facebook and noticed she is giving a class. But the art from her sketchbook is so spontaneous and wonderful, I have to share her again. Her Instagram.

Unsuccessful Fishing