self-styled character portraits

funny…just saw that in 2014, I’d said that the reason I didn’t attempt a lot of self-portraits was because I was the one person that I was least in a position to take a photo of. (in just a small note about a selfie.) now, the (improvement and fine-tuning of the) selfie camera on phones has not only made this no longer the case, but it’s almost made the opposite true – at least concerning head and shoulders portraits. we may now be our own most accessible subjects.

I’m the sea witch who stole a girl’s voice.

femininity will find you

The dead end of “culturally appropriate” art

These two things are important to remember. The logical conclusion of ‘cultural appropriation’ is solipsism. And talent isn’t fair.

Nick Cohen: Writing from London

Standpoint October 2016

Can there be a culturally appropriate art? There is no shortage of activists arguing for one, and they are arguing for something new and sinister, in free societies at least.

Let me be clear about the stakes. Artists reflect the ideas of their times, and nearly all Western novels and dramas now treat, say, gays and lesbians sympathetically. They are a world away from the thrillers of the 1970s in which the lisping homosexual was invariably the villain. Such stereotypes are not the issue today. Nor is the argument about whether a male novelist can create convincing female characters or vice versa or a white novelist create a convincing black character or vice versa. Readers have always been able to complain that a novelist has produced inauthentic work. Rather than an argument about what is said, we have an argument about what right artists have to speak…

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what a lovely list of locks

Wow – an awesome list painstakingly compiled by Kajzh Hamm (fb.me/brambleroots) of many examples of the cultural phenomenon of locked hair across all six inhabited continents of the world:

> Indians (called jata, seen on sadhu and sadhvi; also seen on fakirs)
> Rastas (called dreadlocks)
> Polish (called kołtun)
> English (Shakespeare called the early stages of freeform knotting fairylocks)
> Gaels (called glibbes)
> Cree (Chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin/Poundmaker, Chief Little Bear, Baby Jack, and He Who Shows His Blood had them; exact name for it unknown)
> Mojave (Chief Inétabe had them; they were called hair rolls)
> Himba (called ozondjise)
> Nazarite (as per the Nazarite Vow in the Bible)
> Egyptian (Tutankamun was discovered to have had them upon his exhuming; many wigs show locked hair)
> Tlingit (a shaman named Tek’ic was photographed with them)
> Mbalantu (called eembuvi)
> Hamar (called goscha)
> Contemporary diasporic Africans (called locs after the 1990s)
> Aztec (described in the Durán Codex, the Codex Tudela and the Codex Mendoza)
> Chilean Pre-Inca Waris (had no writing system, so we don’t know what they were historically called — though mummies survive)
> Nyamal (name unknown)
> Tibetans (called “ralpa changlocan,” part of tantric Vajrayana practice, seen on ngakpas)
> Pima-Maricopa (Chief Tashquinth “Sun Count”)
> Sicilian (Gna Vanna’s locks were indisposable to her witchcraft)
> Bishari (name unknown)
> Aboriginal Australians
> Mongolians (shamanic practice)
> Maori (loose freeform locks called “rino makawe”)
> Ethiopian Tsemays
> Papua natives
> Fiji natives
> Angolan Mwilas
> Rarotongas of the Cook Islands
> Ni-Vanuatu of Tanna Island
> Kwaaymii (Wa Amaay Kwakas aka Paints the Sky Yellow, aka Yellow Sky had them)
> Drokpa Nomads (located in Tibetan Plateau and Himalaya)

Mary Martin London Fashion Show – David Bowie tribute

A blog post by Elena Tun

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We were beyond excited when we were invited to Mary Martin’s fashion show in tribute to David Bowie. We were also curious to see how she would pull it off; few pop and fashion icons are adored and revered as much as Bowie, so it is a difficult inspiration to live up to.

DJ Red Viking of The Wasp Factory interviews Model, Photographer & Artist – Rebecca Tun

…a few months ago, someone asked me on Tumblr if there were any recording of my voice, and I said there was going to be an recorded interview coming up. Well, here it is! I’m not going to listen to it, but you can.

“Rebecca discusses acknowledging and embracing the sexual aspects of her imagery, nude and fetish modeling, collaborating with model Gestalta, wanting to be a character actor, short films and music videos as a revealing medium of self-expression, the unique perspective she brings to her photography, body awareness and modeling outdoors.”

On “Geek” Versus “Nerd”

Some good distinctions and a nice thorough bit of research.

Slackpropagation

To many people, “geek” and “nerd” are synonyms, but in fact they are a little different. Consider the phrase “sports geek” — an occasional substitute for “jock” and perhaps the arch-rival of a “nerd” in high-school folklore. If “geek” and “nerd” are synonyms, then “sports geek” might be an oxymoron. (Furthermore, “sports nerd” either doesn’t compute or means something else.)

In my mind, “geek” and “nerd” are related, but capture different dimensions of an intense dedication to a subject:

• geek – An enthusiast of a particular topic or field. Geeks are “collection” oriented, gathering facts and mementos related to their subject of interest. They are obsessed with the newest, coolest, trendiest things that their subject has to offer.
• nerd – A studious intellectual, although again of a particular topic or field. Nerds are “achievement” oriented, and focus their efforts on acquiring knowledge and skill over trivia and memorabilia.

Or, to…

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