Our beloved city of New York is actually a video game level /  by mirena

Take a subway ride at the front of a train through the guts of the city and come out in Brooklyn!

The R11 made history on July 30th, 2017, when it finally ran along the Second Avenue Subway. The R11 was built to operate on the Second Avenue Subway in 1949, more than half a century before the line opened.

The next "Nostalgia Trip" will occur on the 7 line on August 19th! Tickets are available here: http://www.nytransitmuseum.org/progra...

These vintage trains are notable for having passenger-accessible front windows that show the view ahead!

Ingredients of a Subway Car /  by mirena

Ingredients of a Subway Car won the 2017 Ivyside Juried Art Competition. Juried Solo Exhibition coming up for 9/14/17 through 11/18/2017. See the ingredients of the winning project /  by mirena

Ingredients of a Subway Car won the 2017 Ivyside Juried Art Competition. Juried Solo Exhibition coming up for 9/14/17 through 11/18/2017. Click image below to see the ingredients of the winning project.  

The significance of the Subway Car is in that it holds together in very close proximity, quite unique in the world, people of all walks of life, ages and positions in the world.  People that otherwise would not have each other in their personal space. In that the Subway Car is like a practical Buddha that is the focal point in the action of many hands.

 

Ingredients of a Subway Car won the 2017 Ivyside Juried Art Competition

 

This series of drawings and simulations arose from the realization that during simple and mundane daily activity, like holding onto the rails in the subway, the hands draw extraordinary three-dimensional shapes. As they move through space they create flowing, complex structures of hand trails - this body of work explores these ephemeral constructs.

The NYC subway has always been an endless animation, with hands of various sizes coming and going, getting strung firmly for a bit and then letting go. Also the great stories of the subway, sometimes you hear a life’s story by the time you get off. Often strange and sometimes with villains in various disguises.

The pen and ink drawings of hand structures are created using dip pen and ink on board. Drawing with dip pen and ink is an archaic technique of drawing dating back to the reed pens of 400 BC. The paper is an American board which is made with very heavy presses which compress the fibers of the paper into a unique smooth finish. The pen’s sharp point produces etching like effect and deposits tiny particles of pigments in the grooves of the paper and the drawing looks and feels like a one of a kind etching. Each video is created with one or several pen and ink drawings, scanned, animated or simulated on the computer.

These drawings and simulations follow the expansion in time and space of several hand drawings. They travel in a series of gestures, follow a think line and coalesce into three-dimensional structures. My own hands serve as the models and main building element of my work because they are present and available, constantly traversing and dominating my personal space.

Poet strolling by a marshy bank - ink on silk - and pretty much how I see the world /  by mirena

A very delicate painting I discovered and pretty much how I see the world except for me it is a clear lake, there are plants and living things in it and various wonders at various depths. Happy Thursday and Happy Memorial Day!

Poet strolling by a marshy bank. Artist:Liang Kai, Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), ink on silk

Imagine this very delicate piece, a kinda of a gentle sack almost - has outlived all the rulers of the world and all of their castles. People from all walks of life stroll by it and observe it and this simple act gives people joy and power on the inside. One of the themes I often emphasize is that ideal objects, like paintings, poetry, great books, have the power to transform our rational and predictable world. It is an illusion that positions of power and objects of power have power, it is ideal objects, delicate things of delicate stature and subtle meanings that carry the longest and greatest punches to the mind.

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http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/40090

 

 

南宋 梁楷 澤畔行吟圖 團扇 Poet strolling by a marshy bank

Artist:
Liang Kai (Chinese, active early 13th century)
Period:
Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279)
Date:
early 13th century
Culture:
China
Medium:
Fan mounted as an album leaf; ink on silk
Dimensions:
Image: 9 x 9 9/16 in. (22.9 x 24.3 cm)
Classification:
Paintings
Credit Line:
Bequest of John M. Crawford Jr., 1988
Accession Number:
1989.363.14
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 213
Liang Kai served as a painter-in-attendance at the Song Imperial Painting Academy in Hangzhou from about 1201 to 1204; he relinquished that prestigious position to live and paint at a Chan (Zen in Japanese) Buddhist temple. Like his best-known paintings, preserved mostly in Japanese collections, this small landscape conveys a spiritual intensity. Under the great cliff, in the stillness of the landscape, a solitary figure meditates on the illusory world before him.

Free Art Books From the Guggenheim and others /  by mirena

  Guggenheim collection online:

https://archive.org/details/guggenheimmuseum

The Guggenheim has one of the largest collections of Kandinsky’s works in the world:

https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/kandinsky-3

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has hundreds of books available online:

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/titles-with-full-text-online

The Getty’s virtual library:

http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/index.html

The meaning of a Flower /  by mirena

He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flowerIn my mind what is truly beautiful is not the beauty of the flower but our ability to comprehend it. Some time ago a visit to the Japanese Zen Gardens in Kyoto changed my life profoundly.. But it was because i brought my own meaning with me and it just blossomed there. "What is the meaning of a flower? Experience of life. The mind has to do with meaning. What's the meaning of a flower. There's the Zen story about a sermon of the Buddha in which he simply lifted a flower. There was only one man who gave him a sign with his eyes that he understood what was said. Now, the Buddha himself is called "the one thus come". There's no meaning. What's the meaning of the universe? What's the meaning of a flea? It's just there. We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it's all about." Joseph Campbell .

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