Conway Arbor Day 2010

 For a small festival, it went off pretty well. We weren't really prepared for the turnout. We were expecting about 400 and 700 or 800 showed. It was a little overwhelming but all of the 500 trees we had were adopted so quickly. The mayor handed out awards to a few local eco-enthusiasts, elementary school art contestants, and the City of Conway was recognized for its urban forestry initiatives. Many of the booths educated people about how to increase their local tree canopy, the different tree species that grow well in Arkansas, proper composting techniques, and caring for young trees.

It felt like I painted 1,000 kids faces. My booth was hoppin'. I still had a line at my table an hour after the festival had ended. Towards the end I knew I was in trouble because my hands were crazy-shaking and my horses were looking more like retarded ant-eaters. Seriously, I sat down, started painting on kids (and WAY too many adults) and looked up 3 hours later, having missed the whole thing, and it was time to go. I hear it was good time though!  Haha, and all I have to show for it is a cameo appearance made by part of my hand and a close-up of the messy bun-creature living on my head...which that other girl is clearly allergic to.... Hopefully they'll have enough sense to crop that mess, unlike myself, lol...in so many ways.

A few school choirs, some family string quartets, and many a Petit Jean hot dog later things were coming to a close. A tree was planted in Laurel Park in honor of this year's festival. I keep thinking about how many trees we distributed this year...I'm excited for them to grow and do their part improving our landscape and environment - social and physical.

Happy Trees - Friends of the Conway Tree Board

                        Hey there guys! I know I have been gone for a long ass time…but I’m back (mostly). I stopped posting around the time Bodhi disappeared because honestly I just didn’t care about anything else right at that moment. He never returned, but I’ve accepted that he’s gone, though I’ll undoubtedly miss him for years to come. After that things just got busy real quick. I’m graduating next month, got a business up and running, and I’ve started volunteering with the Conway Tree Board. Pictures from around the City of Conway. (excluding famous individuals)

Mission of the Conway Tree Board

• Increase public awareness of urban forestry issues in the City of Conway
• Develop comprehensive urban forestry policies for the City of Conway
• Develop educational workshops and materials on proper tree management
• Seek public and private funding for community forestry management
• Integrate natural resource issues into local and regional planning efforts
• Coordinate constructively with other natural resource organizations
• Increase the tree canopy of the City of Conway

Advantages of Urban Trees

Environmental

                 Trees benefit our urban environment by moderating climate, absorbing storm water, reducing erosion, improving water and air quality, and providing wildlife habitat. Temperature in the vicinity of trees is cooler than that away from trees. The larger a tree is, the greater it’s potential for cooling. Urban trees moderate the heat-island effect caused by pavement and buildings in commercial and residential areas. Trees and other woody vegetation absorb rainwater, thereby reducing storm water runoff and soil erosion. Storm water filtered by trees is less contaminated with pollutants and silt. Trees also absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, and other air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and ozone. Oxygen is released by trees, further enhancing the air we breathe. Wildlife such as birds and squirrels utilize urban tree habitats. By planting urban trees, a more natural, less artificial environment is created within the city.

Social

                We like trees around us because they make life more pleasant. Most of us respond to the presence of trees beyond simply observing their beauty. We feel peaceful, restful, and tranquil in a grove of trees. Hospital patients have been shown to recover from surgery more quickly when their hospital room offered a view of trees. Children and parents prefer playgrounds with trees, which offer shade and protection from harmful UV rays. City trees often serve several architectural and engineering functions. They provide privacy, emphasize views, or screen out objectionable views. They reduce glare and reflection. They direct pedestrian traffic. They provide background to and soften, complement, or enhance architecture. The stature, strength, and endurance of trees give them a cathedral-like quality. Because of their potential for long life, trees frequently are planted as living memorials.

Economic Benefits

                 The economic benefits of trees can be both direct and indirect. Direct economic benefits include lower air-conditioning costs in a tree-shaded building. Heating costs are also reduced when a home has a windbreak. Landscaped homes are more valuable than non-landscaped homes. The savings in energy costs and increase in property value directly benefit each home owner. The indirect economic benefits of trees are even greater. These benefits are available to the community or region. Lowered electricity bills are paid by customers when power companies are able to use less water in their cooling towers, build fewer new facilities to meet peak demands, use reduced amounts of fossil fuel in their furnaces, and use fewer measures to control air pollution. Communities also can save money if fewer facilities must be built to control storm water in the region. To the individual, these savings are small, but to the community, reductions in these expenses are often in the thousands of dollars.

Some famous tree enthusiasts.

                While living in a dry county for the entire college experience sucks something fierce, I'm proud to live in a city that values and aims to protect the beautiful foliage the Natural State is known for. Tree City USA status granted to the City of Conway in March 2007. The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters. It provides direction, technical assistance, public attention, and national recognition for urban and community forestry programs.

                Each year the Conway Tree Board hosts the Conway Arbor Day Festival on November 6. I know it is traditionally held in the spring but many people here like to plant their trees in the fall and thus a tradition was born. My next post will cover Conway Arbor Day 2010, at which I took part in a marathon face-painting session.

For more information about urban trees visit the links below:

What's keeping you from planting a tree?

Politicin'

I rarely get political but yesterday's elections, especially in Arkansas, have me rather perplexed.

Dear Voters:

If you really want change why do you keep voting for the same two parties? For decades people have been talking about how they want the political system to evolve, but all they do is TALK. If you want real change, vote differently in the future. Otherwise you are just living the definition of insanity.

Sincerely Concerned,

Maegan 

The Fibonacci in Lateralus

A Celeripedean Website Promo Featuring "The Phrontistery"

             I know I haven't been around to do the full on blogs with all the bells and whistles lately, but in the meantime I wanted to share one of my favorite websites in all of Netland with you guys. I've been going here for years, sometimes just perusing through all the unusual terms for hours as if I was stuck in some weird cycle of word-porn. So if you've got a literary sweet tooth then you'll love this site, I promise.

      The Phrontistery has a variety of sections with lots of interesting English odds and ends. Even after all this time, I still find it to be one of the most impressive and addictive sites out there, especially if you're interested in Etymology. The best, in my oh so humble opinion, are the International House of Logorrhea and The Compendium of Lost Words.

logorrhea log-uh-RI-uh, n an excessive flow of words, prolixity [Gr logos word + roia flow, stream]

   The International House of Logorrhea: 

a free online dictionary of weird and unusual words to help enhance your vocabulary. 

               "Did you ever have an English teacher who told you 'Whenever you read something, and find a word you don't know, look it up in the dictionary and write it down'? Well, I took that advice to heart. Of course, once you have a few hundred words down on your list, you think to yourself (if you are as obsessive as I am), 'Wouldn't it be a lot easier if I just read the whole dictionary, so that I could just do this word writing thing once and be done with it?' The result, after nearly a decade of conscientious word-collecting, is the International House of Logorrhea.

                I have compiled a list of 15,500 English words, ranging from the merely uncommon to the extremely rare, nearly obsolete and just plain nutty! Each word is listed along with a brief, one-line definition. You should be able to get the general sense of most words, without having to read through pages of dictionary definitions. Having said that, don't go out and discard your dictionary. "

The Compendium of Lost Words

              "The Compendium lists over 400 of the rarest modern English words - in fact, ones that have been entirely absent from the Internet, including all online dictionaries, until now. By revealing the existence of these words online, I do not necessarily promote their revival, but I do encourage an appreciation of the flexibility of English vocabulary. In theory, the Compendium will be the only web page on which each of these words occurs in its proper English context."

***All kinds of props to the wonderful Stephen Chrisomalis who runs the site. 


Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to be cosmogyral somewhere...

Image by ParkeHarrison

‎"Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life, but the ability to cope with it."

23 glorious years

Here's to me, and the late Michael Jackson (is was never okay to admit that before but his coolness seems to have multiplied on itself since he bought the farm). Don't worry your little departed self, MJ, I'll keep moonwalking all over this birthday for the both of us. : )

Donald Lipski

      

            Donald Lipski is an American sculptor, born in Chicago in 1947. He received a BA from University of Wisconsin in 1970, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI, in 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was Assistant Professor of Art at The University of Oklahoma in Tulsa. While his first interests were in the video and behavioural art of the 1970s, he became known in the early 1980s for large installations of sculptures made from objects found discarded in the street. 

                                    "Eternal Journey"                                "Good as Gold"

"Leaves of Grass"

                                              "Psyche"                                     "Psyche" - close up

Artist Statement:

Through the 1970s and 1980s, I plumbed the possibilities of objects I came across in the rapidly changing world of Lower Manhattan, industrial New Jersey, and Brooklyn, with forays into industrial sites, scrap yards, and other arcana.

When my son was born sixteen years ago, I left New York. I lived and worked in Sag Harbor, a charming town. Lacking art-making materials much beyond trees and sand, I was, in a way, liberated--anything I imagined could become material for my use. The process was more cerebral and conceptual, fostering a body of public works largely conceived on the computer.

Two years ago, I moved to Philadelphia, a city rich with the relics of a decaying industrial base. This change has sparked a new round of hands-on sculpture making--physical, free-wheeling, and unguarded.

"Tent" - this sculpture is wind activated.

                                                    "The Doors"                        "The Doors" - interior

            When Lipski gets in the groove of a certain medium or idea, he will expand on that and play with it many times before he lets it go. This can be illustrated by comparing “Tent” to “The Doors” or his many book sculptures (a few pictured above). Much like those, he continued the circle theme into other works using anything from wine bottles to bikes to guitars. He isn't fickle about his ideas. He doesn't make a piece and then move on to the next concept. Lipski pushes a thought to the limits of his ability. Below you can see one idea in many different forms. Here he is examining the properties of organic materials and the operation of ecological systems.  He searches out thick-walled industrial and scientific glass containers, such as tanks, spheres, and tubing, that are rated to hold highly toxic acids. Instead of using these vessels for dangerous materials, he encloses delicate and ephemeral substances, such as plants, in order to protect them from an increasingly toxic environment. The objects float in acid-resistant glass tubing that has been hermetically sealed with a heavy steel clamp. The preservative solution keeps the items in suspended animation, but since most of them are organic, they are gradually fading and decomposing. This is a kind of still life that is not in stasis, but changes over time. Eventually, all that will be left of the preserved material is debris at the bottom of the tubing, with only a photograph to show what the sculpture originally looked like.

                  "Waterlily with Two Red Glasses"                     "Red Apples" 

                                       "Water Lilies # 52"                      "Water Lilies #2"

"Sirshasana"          

             His chandeliers are probably my favorite out of all of his work. I would love to own one at some point, but I'll probably have better luck just trying to make one myself. The one shown here is displayed at Grand Central Station in New York, but there are others out there in vineyard cellars, museums and the such. It was made with the help of the artificial tree guru, Jonquil LaMaster. The roots system is covered in gold leaf and meets the trunk in a flourish of acanthus leaves. The branches are made of polymer resin imprinted with real olive branches for texture and then adorned with over 5,000 Austrian crystals.

"Tubbs!"

 This last picture is a computer generated image of an upcoming piece.

Book Review - Comic Book Tattoo

(This post inspired by Tori Amos, but dedicated to Lysdexicuss)

There is an interesting article here about how the cover art was made. 

            Its Tori Amos' 47th birthday today, so I'll be reviewing a book that is pretty much one of my favorite possessions. It is a 500 page graphic novel anthology inspired by her lyrics. If my house were burning down and I could only pick 5 books out of the hundreds in my library to save, this would be among them. I was mildly into comics before this came out, but to be honest it gave me an appreciation for them which I never knew was in me. It likely has something to do with Amos being one of my favorite musicians since I was 11 (although her last few albums haven't really been my cuppa, the first 7 are enough to make my devotion eternal). Also, I'm an art major so obviously visual wonderment has a direct line to my heart. You'll have to forgive me if I start fandoming, comics and Tori Amos together is almost enough to make me orgasm. However since this is a book review, I'll do my best to stay focused.

This is the only image of Amos herself in the book.

             The project was put together by Rantz Hoseley, an old friend Tori wrote (Flying Dutchman) one of her earliest songs for. It starts with an introduction by the increasingly prominent writer Neil Gaiman, another close friend whom she met through Rantz. The book includes 51 stories which correspond to as many songs from across Tori's unimaginably gargantuan repertoire of music. Each story would start with a black page including the song title and lyrics, then the following pages would show the story. There are 80 contributing artists, boasting an assortment of techniques and styles. One of the best things about this book is the variety of visual appeal. It ranges from modern cartoon to detailed illustrations to paintings to collages and everything in between. As an artist, I use this like an inspiration scrap book. I can go back to the stories over and over again to find stimulation to which can help me break through any artistic barriers I might be experiencing in my work. Throughout this post I'll include some single pages from a few of the stories to give you an idea of the diversity in the genres. It might seem like I'm giving away a lot but trust me, this doesn't even begin to scratch at the surface of this iceberg, and I've not included the best ones.

 

             The very best thing about this book is that its not just meant for Amos fans. When the artists were presented with the songs they would be working with, it was made clear that they were not to create comic book "music videos" out of them. They were told to focus their creative energy on making visual representations of how the songs make them feel, rather than designing literal translations of them. Amos asked the artists to present their own interpretations of what the songs mean to them, instead of trying to imagine what they meant for her. Therefore, if her music hasn't been something you've really been into, it wouldn't really effect your enjoyment of the comics themselves. As a fan (or an Ear with Feet, if you're down like that) I really enjoy seeing these alternate realizations of the songs which I've seen in the light of my own thinking for so long. These stories make me see things in the songs I somehow missed before, and I'm always interested in looking at things from a different perspective. 

 

Full list of contributors: David Mack, Josh Hechinger, Matthew Humphreys, Jonathan Tsuei, Eric Canete, Jason Horn, Dean Trippe, Sara Ryan, Jonathan Case, Rantz A. Hoseley, James Stokoe, Tristan Crane, Atticus Wolrab, Kako, Nikki Cook, Drew Bell, Kevin Mellon, Jeff Carroll, Mike May, Jeremy Haun, Amber Stone, Leif Jones, Elizabeth Genco, Carla Speed Mcneil, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Andy Macdonald, Nick Filardi, Cat Mihos, Andre Szymanowicz, Gabe Bautista, C.B. Cebulksi, Ethan Young, Joey Weltjens & Lee Duhig, Omaha Perez, Irma Page, Mark Buckingham, Rantz A. Hoseley, Ming Doyle, Mike Maihack, John Ney Reiber, Ryan Kelly, Alice Hunt, Trudy Cooper, Jonathan Hickman, Matthew S. Armstrong, Neil Kleid, Christopher Mitten, Kristyn Ferretti, Stephanie Leong, Sonia Leong, Peov, Kelly Sue Deconnick, Laurenn Mccubbin, John Bivens, Hope Larson, Emma Vieceli, Faye Yong, Chris Arrant, Star St.Germain, Mike Dringenberg, Paul Maybury, Jim Bricker, Craig Taillefer, Dame Darcy, G. Willow Wilson, Steve Sampson, Neal Shaffer, Daniel Krall, Adisakdi Tantimedh, Ken Meyer Jr., Mark Sable, Salgood Sam, Tom Williams, James Owen, Seth Peck, Daniel Heard, Ivan Brandon, Callum Alexander Watt, Leah Moore, John Reppion, Pia Guerra, Mark Sweeney, Kristyn Ferretti, Jessica Staley, Shane White, Ted Mckeever, Chris Chuckry, Jimmie Robinson, Lea Hernandez Derek Mcculloch, Colleen Doran and Jason Hanley.

"I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring. It shows you thought is a powerful, formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect." - Tori Amos, 2008