Enough!

[Click image to enlarge: bottom image is updated version, can you see the difference ?]

These days I've been stressing about all sorts of things and it is time to put the breaks down on all this irritation and anxiety. I feel like a locomotive with too much steam barreling through the landscape. At times like this, I feel that the only way to relax, is to do yoga breathing exercises or just going for a long walk or a bike ride. Simple, yet I forget so often.

Pack rats or the dynamics of hoarding

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The "Collyer Death Chair" has an unnerving feel to it and a dark history that will bring chills to anyone’s bones. The Collyer brothers were famous examples of hoarding and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Even today, if the fire brigade comes to your house and you hear them report a Collyer Mansion call back to the firehouse, you’ll know its time to start tidying up. The term has become synonymous with pack rats and homes that are chucked full of garbage. On March 21, 1947, New York police received an anonymous tip-off that there was a dead body in the house. Breaking down the front door, they were unable to pass the wall of rubbish. Gaining access through a second floor window, they found the body of Homer. An autopsy established he had not eaten for several days and had died of a heart attack. No one knew where Langley was.The whole place was a maze of warrens and nests and tunnels. Everything was booby-trapped. The tunnels were full of trip wires that would bring debris showering down on any intruder.Workers had to cut through the roof and lift out 136 tons of junk, floor by floor: the grand pianos, two organs, and a clavichord; human medical specimens preserved in glass jars; the chassis of a Model-T Ford; a library of thousands of medical and engineering books; an armory of weapons; gas chandeliers; the folding top of a horse drawn carriage; a rusted bicycle; three dressmaking dummies; a saw horse; a doll carriage; a rusted bed spring; a kerosene stove; a checkerboard; a child's chair; countless old newspapers; pinup girl photos; 6 U.S. flags and one Union Jack; a primitive X-Ray machine; and 34 bank deposit books with the balance totaling $3,007.18.

Two American brothers, Homer Lusk Collyer [Novemer 6, 1881 -March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer [October 3rd, 1885 – March 1947] became famous because of their snobbish nature, filth in their homes, and compulsive hoarding. The brothers are often cited as an example of compulsive hoarding associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as disposophobia or 'Collyer brothers syndrome', a fear of throwing anything away.

For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items. Both were found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over 100 tons of rubbish that they had amassed over several decades..!

Reversing punching dots on a line..

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The obvious solution, I know, would've been to continue the series with the inventor as the main subject matter. The reason I chose to depict these two boxers, was for 1, to put more action into the invention/fish series, for 2, to reverse, somewhat, the weekly subject to an absurd one and to make it a bit of a baffling combination and there is a 3rd reason, perhaps the most obvious one, to let out some steam... and for those of you who are still puzzled: "What does the imagery have to do with the text ??!?" Little, but yes, there is some reference to the text..
;D

The braille system, devised in 1821 by Frenchman Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Each braille character or cell is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form sixty-four (2⁶) permutations, including the arrangement in which no dots are raised. For reference purposes, a particular permutation may be described by naming the positions where dots are raised, the positions being universally numbered 1 to 3, from top to bottom, on the left, and 4 to 6, from top to bottom, on the right. For example, dots 1-3-4 would describe a cell with three dots raised, at the top and bottom in the left column and on top of the right column, i.e., the letter m. The lines of horizontal braille text are separated by a space, much like visible printed text, so that the dots of one line can be differentiated from the braille text above and below. Punctuation is represented by its own unique set of characters. The braille system was based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon's demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night called night writing. Barbier's system was too complex for soldiers to learn, and was rejected by the military; in 1821 he visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, where he met Louis Braille. Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving, and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a 6 dot cell — the braille system — which revolutionized written communication for the blind.

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A little while ago, I started with a series about inventions and famous people. Most of the inventions are things we take for granted without thinking twice about it. There are times I like to know just a little more about a mixer, radio-waves, a peddle of a garbage can or even consider the layout of an ergonomic kitchen.. and maybe some of you like to know too. So here is another installment
;D


Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, German physicist, born in Hamburg, and educated at the University of Berlin. From 1885 to 1889 he was a professor of physics at the technical school in Karlsruhe and after 1889 a professor of physics at the University in Bonn. Hertz clarified and expanded the electromagnetic theory of light that had been put forth by the British physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1884. Hertz proved that electricity can be transmitted in electromagnetic waves, which travel at the speed of light and which possess many other properties of light. His experiments with these electromagnetic waves led to the development of the wireless telegraph and the radio. His name also became the term used for radio and electrical frequencies: hertz (Hz), as in kilohertz (kHz) or megahertz (MHz). The hertz designation has been an official part of the international metric system since 1933. Before Hertz gained professorships in Karlsruhe and Bonn, he had studied under the famous scientist Hermann von Helmholtz in Bonn, and it was Helmholtz who encouraged Hertz to attempt to win the science prize that led to some of Hertz's most important discoveries. From 1885 to 1889 Hertz became the first person to broadcast and receive radio waves, and to establish the fact that light was a form of electromagnetic radiation. (The Italian Marconi didn't begin his own wireless experiments until 1894, based on the earlier work of Hertz, Maxwell, and others.) Hertz probably would have gone on to make many more scientific contributions, but he died quite young, less than a month before his 37th birthday.

... and how the invention progressed in today's world : ultra-wide radio waves [ which pass through wood and concrete..]

Domesticating efficiency : Lillian Moller Gilbreth

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Lillian Moller Gilbreth [1878-1972] is perhaps best remembered for motherhood. Her children wrote the popular books Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes about their experiences growing up with such a large and famous family. But Lillian Moller Gilbreth was not only a mother; she was also a scholar, inventor, author, industrial engineer, industrial psychologist and a recipient of many honorary mentions/awards.

A pioneer in ergonomics, Dr. Gilbreth patented many kitchen appliances including an electric food mixer, shelves inside refrigerator doors, and the famous trash can with a foot-pedal lid-opener. She is best known for work simplification and industrial efficiency, to help workers in industry, which she shows in her classic Time & Motion Studies. She is one of the first scientists who recognized the effects of stress and lack of sleep [fatigue] on the worker.

Together with her husband , she pioneered industrial management techniques still in use today. She was one of the first 'superwomen" to combine a career with her home life.

After the death of her husband, Frank Gilbreth, with whom she partnered in the management consulting firm of Gilbreth Inc. and co-authored many of the worker studies, Lillian Gilbreth continued their work and extended the work into the home in an effort to find the 'one best way' to perform household chores. She also did studies to assist the physically challenged : for example, she designed an ideal kitchen layout for a person afflicted with heart disease.

Lillian Gilbreth was an industrial engineer for General Electric and worked on improving kitchen designs. Gilbreth interviewed over 4,000 women to design the proper height for stoves, sinks, and other kitchen fixtures. In 1966, she became the first women to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

More here:

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The seed of growth and development or Helen Keller's "Aha!"

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“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”
--Helen Keller--

From the moment early humans created words, the seed of the library was there, in the beginning, with the word.

The Miracle Worker, the classic play [and film] of Helen Keller's life, depicts this seed at the moment of sprouting. The six-year-old Helen, deaf, blind and locked for years in a silence of darkness and almost wild with frustration, stands at the pump, her hand under the running water. Her teacher Annie Sullivan is spelling "water" in sign letters repeatedly into Helen's little palm - - probably for the hundredth time.

Then there is that stark moment of epiphany when the child, for years bereft of any way to communicate, makes the sudden connection between the cold water and the fingers insistently making shapes in her palm. In that moment, a human child skips over eons of human history, leaping from the inchoate and languageless state of man's prehistory into the world of signs.
Later, Helen Keller wrote that she wasn't fully conscious until she had language:

"It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. The morning after my teacher came she gave me a doll. ... As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. .."

Source : here

Surrealism meets elderly lady

[Click image to enlarge] [watercolor paper, collage, gouache, aquarelle, pencil..]

Look carefully, and you see the tiny wrinkly waves the fish produces while she knits..
This collage-sketch is absurd, strange and perhaps somewhat disturbing. Does it come close to surrealism ? Does it have anything to do with symbolism ? Or any -isms aside, what does it convey ?

A group of artists, the Surrealists sought to explore an inner reality beyond the rational world. They often used symbols to portray bizarre, dreamlike landscapes and were influenced by the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud.

The Surrealists were interested in more distinct forms than the Impressionists, who often depicted objects dissolved in bright sunlight. Like Dada artists, they experimented with new subjects. Unlike Dada artists, the Surrealists were not in favor of anarchy as a way of protesting politics and war. Andre Breton, poet and critic was known as one of the founding fathers of the Surrealist movement. In his treatise of 1924, First Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton defined the doctrines of the movement. In it, Breton emphasized the importance of an "automatic" approach and a dream state for creativity.

One of the most controversial and key figure of the Surrealist movement was Salvador Dali. He was intrigued by Freud's ideas of the unconscious mind, and the symbolic significance these ideas held, inspired most of his art. Dali, more than many other Surrealists, combined realism into his strange landscapes, giving them a startling, familiar quality. His goal was "to record unconscious objects as precisely as possible."

Neo-primitivism

"Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning." Igor Stravinsky

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A Russian art movement originated from the book Neo-primitivizm (1913) written by A. Schevchenko.

This book introduces a new style in painting with elements of cubism, futurism and traditional Russian folk art. The work Neo-primitivism in the West is also used as a wider term to describe the work of artists who aspire to the aesthetic of primitivism. One of these artists is Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky [June 17th, 1882 - April 6th, 1971], who was a Russian composer. He is considered by both the West and his native Russia to be the most influential composer of the 20th century. An example of primitivism in music is Stravinsky's third ballet, The rite of Spring. When it first premiered in Paris, a riot erupted in the audience — spectators were shocked and outraged by its pagan primitive sound, its harsh dissonance and percussions and the pounding rhythms — but but it too was recognized as a masterpiece and influenced composers all over the world.

Wired

She wades through the landscape of history, attached to an umbilical cord,..
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Illustration Friday_Phoenix

I guess Phoenix has gone to town, party and all [after all it is new year's eve].
I wanted to create an illustration that is more editorial and artsy [and yes, a little twisted], this time less children's book.

Happy new year every one!!