Month: December 2021

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LEE WARD: Do hair styling, landscaping go hand-in-hand? | Lifestyles

A couple of weeks ago, we were still doing a little yard work. Well, I wasn’t. The guy I pay to do such things was doing my yard work. I called a friend who said he had been trimming shrubs at his house.

I continue to be surprised at him doing yard work. Normally, he’s not the outdoorsy type and he’s not crazy about manual labor, either. But for some reason, he takes to a little bit of yard work.

I told him I wouldn’t even know where to cut. He replied, “You just start cutting and you’ll see. It will reveal itself to you, like cutting hair. It’s mystical.”

That was the craziest explanation of gardening — and haircutting — I’ve ever heard.

But he cuts his own hair and it always looks the same to me. He also cuts his mother’s hair and, again, always looks the same. He studied botany in college, so maybe there is a link between haircutting and trimming shrubs.

I don’t pay a lot of attention to things like people’s haircuts. I give my full attention at work, so when I’m not working it’s difficult for me to muster the brain power to focus. My brain wants to relax.

Whereas I am terrible with plants, my husband wouldn’t allow me to tend his plants. Or the shrubbery. Or the yard. So I have little experience growing plants, except for the years I raised a vegetable garden with my grandmother and I suspect her extremely green thumb saved the harvest every year.

As for hair, I only dared to cut my own hair this year when I was concerned about going out and having a stranger breathe in my face. When I was a grade-schooler I cut my own bangs after getting bubble gum stuck in them and, of course, it was the week of school pictures.

In March, I just wanted the ends trimmed, and it was getting long. So I put my hair in a ponytail, held it out from my head and cut. It was fun, feeling the scissors crunch through the tendrils and seeing the final result: even ends. I was so excited, I decided I would start trimming my own hair, so every four to six weeks, I’d go through the same procedure, thinking I was getting spiffed up.

By late summer, I was more comfortable getting out, so I dared to get an actual professional haircut.

I told my stylist to take off whatever she need to jazz me up a bit. I never expect miracles.

She gasped when she began to cut. Just a little one, not meant to embarrass me, but to acknowledge that my hair looked like it was last trimmed wth pinking shears. (An aside: I used to beg my grandmother to cut my hair with pinking shears.)

My haircutting friend doubts this story, believing she was leading me to think it was worse than it was so I would spend money on haircuts.

I enjoy having someone fool with my hair. Plus, it’s good to get out and contribute to the local economy while also enjoying the company of other people. Finally, I can’t see the back of my head, and I have to trust someone.

(606) 326-2661 |

lward@dailyindependent.com

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Horizon, a new studio space and residency program, welcomes emerging and midcareer artists

Emerging artists, take note: There’s a bright spot peeking through the horizon for 2022.

Horizon, a new art space and residency program, will open its doors in downtown L.A. in February, the foundation announced on Friday. Former Whitney Museum of American Art curator Christopher Y. Lew will serve as chief artistic director of Horizon Art Foundation, traveling frequently to L.A. from his home in New York. L.A.-based May Xue, who previously steered Hong Kong’s K11 Art Foundation as general manager and director of education and institutional relations, is the initiative’s CEO.

The L.A.-based Chinese art patrons Jason Li and Harry Hu are the sole funders of the nonprofit.

Horizon’s mission? To provide emerging and midcareer artists from around the globe with resources to create experimental work in an environment unfettered by deadlines and the pressure to exhibit. Horizon will support one artist at a time for up to three months — four each year — and provide them with a place to live, studio space and a stipend for living expenses. The artists will retain sole ownership of work they create during the residency.

“We wanted to find a way to support artists that’s less goal-oriented, that’s much more open-ended where artists can take risks and experiment,” Lew says. Taking root in the city of Los Angeles, he adds, is key. Part of Horizon’s goal is “to help celebrate the real cultural richness of L.A.”

Horizon wouldn’t yet reveal its inaugural artists for 2022, all of whom have been chosen. The selection process included drawing up a list of about two dozen artists; four were invited to partake in the first year of the residency. There isn’t necessarily a focus on L.A. artists, but bringing artists from around the world to Los Angeles to experience the city’s charged creative communities is part of the mission. The potential applicant list was created and reviewed by Lew and a two-person advisory board comprised of Pérez Art Museum Miami’s María Elena Ortiz and the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis’ Wassan Al-Khudhairi. The advisory board, Lew says, will change annually.

The residency is open to artists of all backgrounds, but Horizon is “giving some focus to artists of color,” Lew adds.

Creating community around artists and connecting them with patrons is key to Horizon, Xue says. As such, the space will host artist talks, open studio tours and other public programming in its 4,800-square-foot studio space in the Fashion District.

The hope is to spark an international dialogue through art to promote cultural understanding, says Xue, who ran a three-year, collaborative artist-in-residence exchange program between K11 Art Foundation and the U.K.’s Royal Academy of Arts from 2018 to 2020.

“That experience, it helped a lot of artists to discover more about the world and also themselves,” Xue says.

Drawing on Xue’s expertise in the area, Horizon plans to open an artist-in-residence exchange program in either Beijing or Shanghai, though there’s no timeline for that yet. “We’re thinking about an exchange that can happen between Los Angeles and China and Asia in general,” Lew says. “To really have artists between the two places in residence and go back and forth.”

The Horizon team is working together in other areas as well. Li is co-founder, with Xue, of the for-profit NFT editorial platform Outland, which launched earlier this month. Xue also serves as Outland’s artistic director for Asia, while Lew is chief artistic director of the company.

Lew says there is no connection between the two ventures. “They’re two distinct entities,” he notes.

Hu, who is financing Horizon along with Li, works with his family’s business, a production company in Hangzhou, China.

Horizon aims to host artists from around the world, but because of the pandemic — and uncertainty about what travel restrictions might be in place early next year — its four inaugural artists are from North America.

All of them, however, are at pivotal points in their careers.

“It was really important for us to be able to offer an opportunity to artists that would feel transformative,” Lew says. “Many artists at that early-to-midcareer point may still have day jobs or other things they depend upon to live. And here is a chance to focus on one’s art 24/7 for the length of the residency.”

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‘Extremely rare’ 17th-century painting of Black woman with White companion placed under export bar from UK

Written by By Sana Noor Haq, CNN

A 17th-century painting showing a Black woman with her White companion has been placed under a temporary export bar to reduce the risk of the artwork leaving the United Kingdom.
The anonymous painting, described in a statement by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) on Friday as “extremely rare,” is valued at £272,800 ($362,060). The block lasts until March 9, 2022 after when it could leave the country unless a UK buyer purchases the work.

Titled “Allegorical Painting of Two Ladies, English School,” the painting presents a Black female sitter and her White companion as counterparts, as they sport similar clothing, hair, jewelry and makeup.

It was uncommon for a Black female sitter to be portrayed in a painting in the 1650s, especially an adult, as opposed to a child in a position of subordination, sparking an “important debate about race and gender during the period,” according to the press statement.

The painting is also unique because both women are shown wearing similar “beauty patches,” a kind of facial cosmetic adornment which was in fashion in the 17th century. The patterns on their faces marked “a sin of pride,” according to the statement.

The style of the work correlates with popular woodcut prints at the time, meaning the composition is allegorical and is linked to satirical verse, sermons and pamphlets.

UK Arts Minister Stephen Parkinson, known as Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, decided on the export bar with the help of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) — an independent body that offers impartial advice on objects that are of national importance to the country.

“This fascinating painting has so much to teach us about England in the 17th century, including in the important areas of race and gender, which rightly continue to attract attention and research today,” Parkinson said.

“I hope a gallery or museum in the UK can be found to buy this painting for the nation, so that many more people can be part of the continuing research and discussion into it,” he added.

“This anonymous painting is a great rarity in British art, as a mid-seventeenth-century work that depicts a black woman and a white woman with equal status. It is not a portrait of real people, as far as we know, but the inscription reveals that it is in fact a sternly moralising picture that condemns the use of cosmetics, and specifically elaborate beauty patches, which were in vogue at the time,” RCEWA members Pippa Shirley and Christopher Baker said in the DCMS statement.

“Although not distinguished artistically, its imagery relates in fascinating ways to contemporary stereotypes of women, fashion, and, through the juxtaposition of the figures, race.

“The fact that it has only recently emerged, and only one other related painting is known so far, and that it could be used to explore important aspects of black culture in seventeenth-century Britain, makes it particularly important that it remains in this country so that its meaning can be widely studied and understood.”

Further research could show how the picture connected with contemporary artwork and texts and the purposes for which it might have been created and used, Shirley and Baker added.

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Best 3D landscape design software for 2021 (for PC, Mac and online)

If you’re looking do some virtual 3D landscape design, there are many software packages out there to help you do just that. Some are PC only, a handful are multiplatform, and we’ve even found an online service (as long as your goals are modest).

Best 3D landscape design software

As you might expect, an app dedicated solely to landscaping (as opposed to offering indoor house design as well), will likely have more of the features that you’d expect and need in your creation process. However, you will find in our list a couple of titles which are more renaissance men than jacks of all trades, offering an all round package with excellent features, from house design to garden landscaping, for a reasonable price.

Depending on your needs, and chosen platform, we’ve selected five of what we feel are the best applications to help you create the garden of your (or your client’s) dreams from the comfort of your computer.

Space Designer 3D Review Listing

(Image credit: Asynth)

Best for novices

Reasons to buy

+Works fluidly+Full customisation available

Reasons to avoid

–No free plan–Cannot edit or customise in 3D

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Fremont Brewing Is Still Using Concrete Blocks to Prevent RV Parking. So Are the City of Seattle and the US Postal Service.

Ecology blocks outside Seattle City Light's substation in Ballard
Ecology blocks outside Seattle City Light’s substation in Ballard

By Erica C. Barnett

After at least one formal complaint, the Seattle Department of Transportation has issued a warning—but no penalty—to Fremont Brewing, the company co-owned by city council member-elect Sara Nelson, for obstructing the public right-of-way around its Ballard brewing facility with massive concrete “ecology blocks.”

As PubliCola reported last summer, eco blocks—so called because they are a byproduct of concrete production that uses waste that would otherwise occupy landfills—are an inexpensive way for business owners to prevent people living in their vehicles from parking on the street next to their properties.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, when the city stopped enforcing a law requiring people to move their vehicles every three days, the blocks have proliferated throughout Seattle’s industrial areas, which are the only places where people living in oversized vehicles can legally park. Business owners say that the presence of RVs and other types of large vehicles, such as box trucks, discourages patrons, and that large concentrations of RVs can lead to health and safety problems that impact their customers and employees.

Obstructing public streets is illegal, but SDOT has treated eco-blocks differently than other street obstructions; instead of penalizing business owners for taking over public space that belongs to everyone, as they might if a random person set up a tire fort or craft fair in the middle of the street, the department has responded to the proliferation of eco-blocks by essentially throwing up its hands.

Eco-blocks line the street next to Fremont Brewing's production facility in Ballard.
Eco-blocks line the street next to Fremont Brewing’s production facility in Ballard.

This is true not just of Fremont Brewing, which received a written warning, but of many other businesses around the city’s industrial areas as well as the US Postal Service, which surrounded its Ballard sorting facility with eco blocks way back in August 2020.

At the time, USPS spokesman Ernie Swanson told PubliCola that “USPS got the OK from the city to put in the concrete barriers” in response to a proliferation of RVs in the area. The Seattle Department of Transportation disputed this, calling the road-blocking barricades “unpermitted,” but took no action. They’re still there today, graffiti-covered and looking dingy compared to their more recently installed counterparts in front of a Bevmo!-anchored strip mall across the street. 

Contacted for information about why the blocks are still in place more than a year later, Swanson said, “The concrete blocks were placed in front of the Ballard PO as well as other neighboring businesses as a response to a proliferation of needles, human waste and other hazardous materials being discarded on the property. As of this date, the blocks remain not only in front of the PO but also other businesses in the area. We have no knowledge that a permit was ever required.”

"Eco-blox matta": Graffiti on an ecology block in Ballard.

The city’s process for dealing with Fremont Brewing’s ecology blocks was typical. After someone filed an anonymous complaint about the blocks in September, SDOT performed an inspection “and observed ecology blocks” in the street around Fremont Brewing, according to a notice SDOT sent to the company September 17. “We do not allow this type of use in public right-of-way due to traffic safety concerns as well as transportation and utility access needs. Please remove these unpermitted encroachments from public right-of-way by the compliance date indicated below”—November 10.

November 10 came and went; the blocks remained. About a week later, the case was closed.

SDOT spokesman Ethan Bergerson told PubliCola the department followed “standard procedure” in responding to the complaint. “The first step in the enforcement process is to mail a letter to the adjacent businesses or property owners notifying them of their responsibilities to remove the concrete blocks,” Bergerson said. “The purpose of this letter is to initiate a conversation with the responsible party so that we can find a path forward leading to their removal of the unpermitted concrete blocks. To date, we have sent letters of this nature to property owners and businesses adjacent to concrete blocks left in about a dozen locations around Ballard, SoDo, and Georgetown. … Our approach [with Fremont Brewing] has been consistent with the other locations.”

A reminder for dog walkers is visible behind a fence that blocks sidewalk access next to City Light's Canal substation.
A reminder for dog walkers is visible behind a fence that blocks sidewalk access next to City Light’s Canal substation.

Fremont Brewing owner (and Nelson’s husband) Matt Lincecum, who runs the company day to day, declined to comment for this story, as did Nelson.

SDOT has the authority to take enforcement action against any business (or government entity) that obstructs the public street with eco blocks or other objects that make it impossible for the public to access streets, sidewalks, or parking strips. To date, it has not done so, beyond warnings like the one it issued to Fremont Brewing.

As if to emphasize the city’s lackadaisical approach to enforcement, Seattle City Light has installed its own anti-RV fortifications at its Canal Substation, located two blocks away from Fremont Brewing and the rest of the eco-block-littered Ballard brewery district. In addition to eco-blocks in the street, the north side of the substation is walled off by two layers of fencing that completely obstruct the public sidewalk. A review of historical Google Maps reveals that the eco-blocks were installed sometime after this past August, when several RVs were parked along the south side of the substation. The fence, too, is new; as of June 2021, per Google Maps, several RVs were parked on that side of the substation, too. Since then, the RVs appear to have moved around the corner, to a narrower residential street on the east side of the building.

We’ve reached out to City Light as well as SDOT about the obstructions around the Canal Substation and will update this post when we hear back.

Old and new ecology blocks next to the Ballard postal sorting facility, which installed blocks on parking strips and (around the corner) on the street itself last year.
Old and newer ecology blocks next to the Ballard postal sorting facility, which installed blocks on parking strips and (around the corner) on the street itself last year.

From the point of view of a property owner, ecology blocks solve an immediate problem—people living in RVs or parking large vehicles indefinitely in front of their business—that the city has failed to address. But the fact remains that even if the city continues to turn a blind eye to vigilante street obstructions, nothing will really change until the region stops ignoring the needs of people living in vehicles, who make up as much as half of King County’s homeless population. In the absence of “safe lots,” social services, and affordable, permanent housing, people sleeping in their vehicles will continue to take up space in public,

But no amount of semi-sanctioned street and sidewalk obstruction will fix the underlying problem: The city and county have dedicated virtually no resources to people living in vehicles, who make up as much as half of the region’s unsheltered homeless population.

 

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Rodney L. Cooper Obituary – TheTimesNews.com

Rod Cooper passed into the mysteries of the universe on November 29, 2021. He was proceeded in death by the love of his life, his wife, B. J. Brantley Cooper. Devoted father to daughter Brantley Elliott Cooper, life mate Ryan M. Fitzgerald, and proud grandfather to his “buddy” Peyton Cooper Splawski, all of Greensboro. He is preceded in death by his parents and bother Gary Cooper. He is survived by his brother-in-law James Brantley, wife Kathryn, and nieces Allison and Meredith, all of Wendell.

A true southern gentleman, throughout his life Rod maintained the highest standards for himself. From hosting guests to reaching out to friends and family, he believed in making the world a better place through beauty, excellence and giving. His dry wit, sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself and at life, will leave a void in all who knew him well.

Rod was born April 12, 1951, in Burlington, North Carolina to Ellen Forbis Cooper and Wayne Harris Cooper. From the time he was able to hold a pencil Rod drew pictures and planned spaces. On his eleventh birthday, he began formal painting classes with his first box of oil paints. Rod’s mother was an artist and teacher. Her love of art and design affected and informed his life’s passions. She loved decorative arts, and he was weaned on antique stores and art galleries. Rod’s father supported his efforts from the time he held his first crayon.

Rod’s art and design education began with a summer session at The NC School of the Arts in high school. In 1973 he received a BFA from UNC Chapel Hill with a double major in Studio Art and Art History. He did graduate studies in Art History at UNC Chapel Hill and then lived in NYC and Washington, D.C. where he furthered his career. He continued his education in Washington with graduate studies at American University, classes at the Smithsonian Museum, and classes with Clement Conger, former Director of the State Department public rooms and collections.

Upon his return to North Carolina, he became Director of The Firehouse Gallery in Alamance County, served on the Board of directors for the Alamance County Arts Association and taught drawing and painting classes at Alamance County Community College. His first adult exhibition of art was at Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art in 1975. Rod’s work in the home furnishings industry and the decorative arts began at The Alderman Company in High Point as a set designer, graphic designer and finally Creative Director. He wrote copy, designed photo shoots, and was an award-winning art director of hundreds of catalogs and ads. He also restored homes and interiors for clients and himself.

In 1987 Rod co-founded Cooper and Cockerham, Inc., a marketing group doing branding, design, art direction, production, advertising, printing, data services and fulfillment. He was President and Creative Director until 2002 when he became Creative Director Emeritus. Rod created office interiors and did showroom design for many furniture and fabric manufacturing clients. He designed furniture, wallpaper patterns and fabrics. During his time as art director, Rod designed over 1000 room settings. Today, Cooper Cockerham, Inc. successfully does business as C2.

In 2010, he retired to be caregiver for his wife who was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. Upon retirement, Rod began painting again. In 2012 he had a one-man exhibit at The Shop at Green Hill coming full circle from the show in 1975. In 2016 he had a show of large works at The Center for Visual Arts and in 2018 he exhibited at the View on Elm Gallery. His paintings hang in the collections of Wells Fargo, BB&T, Lloyds of London, and many private collections.

He continuously gave generously of his time and funds to various organizations in the community. Rod gave his paintings freely to support charity auctions. He was a volunteer for Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art and served on the board of trustees for six years. Rod also served as a volunteer for Weatherspoon Art Gallery at UNC-G and was on the Association Board of Weatherspoon. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church where he was a Sunday school teacher and usher. Rod was designer of the Governor’s Guest house during the Hunt Administration and a volunteer for The Barnabas Network, did reading assistance at Jones Elementary school and Our Children’s House.

The family wishes to thank Constance Garner and Diane Quillen with At Home Care for the amazing care they provided. We would also like to thank Dr. Clarence Owen for being an advocate for our dad, especially the past few months.

A celebration of his life will be held on Sunday, January 09th, at five o’clock, 2022, at Undercurrent Restaurant, 327 Battleground Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27401. Services provided by Triad Cremation and Funeral Service.

Rod always surrounded himself with flowers, planting, gardening, so the family requests no flowers but rather donations to Weatherspoon Art Museum or Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art.

Posted online on December 11, 2021

Published in Burlington Times News