Will Ryman lives and works in New York City. Ryman's recent work challenges the viewer to alter his perspective through distortions of scale, compelling empathy and also pointing to the hazards of humanity, as the natural world succumbs to our ever larger foot print. Ryman created over one hundred massive roses for a gallery show in New York called A New Beginning. The six foot flower sculptures are littered with detritus like cigarettes and empty chip bags. Occasionally, an equally large lady-bug or aphid joins the clump. Ryman described the work as a NYC garden from the point of view of a rat.
The image above is of Ryman setting up his piece "The Bed" at a gallery in London. "The Bed" is a 26 foot-long papier mâché sculpture of a chap that looks uncannily like the BFG. In his artist’s statement, Ryman said that ‘The Bed’ originated with his childhood impression of his parents’ bed being much bigger than it actually was, and is an exploration of one’s distorted perspective of one’s place in the world and relationship to surroundings.
This poem once touched me (how could it not?). It still does, but with each read it feels more and more harrowing. Here is a video of Sylvia Plath reading her own work:
You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time-- Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene
An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--
Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two-- The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
Watch out for these boys! Straight out of the utopia that is Stoke-On-Trent, England, The Novellos are making waves nationwide and even internationally. The boys have been together for a while now and met while at school but they gained a critical following after their first single reached #3 in the UK indie chart in March 2008. They're currently touring around England and you can find a list of their gigs at their my space page.
Common Names: Pomegranate, Granada (Spanish), Grenade (French).
Origin: The pomegranate is native from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and was cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region since ancient times. It is widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies and tropical Africa. The tree was introduced into California by Spanish settlers in 1769. In this country it is grown for its fruits mainly in the drier parts of California and Arizona.
Foliage: The pomegranate has glossy, leathery leaves that are narrow and lance-shaped.
Harvest: The fruits are ripe when they have developed a distinctive color and make a metallic sound when tapped. The fruits must be picked before over maturity when they tend to crack open, particularly when rained on. The pomegranate is equal to the apple in having a long storage life. It is best maintained at a temperature of 32° to 41° F. and can be kept for a period of 7 months within this temperature range and at 80 to 85% relative humidity without shrinking or spoiling. The fruits improve in storage, becoming juicier and more flavorful.
Symbolism: * Some Jewish scholars believe that it was the pomegranate that was the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden.[36] * Pomegranate is one of the Seven Species (Hebrew: שבעת המינים, Shiv'at Ha-Minim), the types of fruits and grains enumerated in the Hebrew Bible (Deuteronomy 8:8) as being special products of the Land of Israel. * Jewish tradition teaches that the pomegranate is a symbol for righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds which corresponds with the 613 mitzvot or commandments of the Torah. For this reason and others, many Jews eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah. However, the actual number of seeds varies with individual fruits. * The myth of Persephone, the chthonic goddess of the Underworld, also prominently features the pomegranate. In one version of Greek mythology, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken off to live in the underworld as his wife. Her mother, Demeter (goddess of the Harvest), went into mourning for her lost daughter and thus all green things ceased to grow. Zeus, the highest ranking of the Greek gods, could not leave the Earth to die, so he commanded Hades to return Persephone. It was the rule of the Fates that anyone who consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persephone had no food, but Hades tricked her into eating four pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner and so, because of this, she was condemned to spend four months in the Underworld every year. * In Hinduism, one of Lord Ganesha's names is "Bijapuraphalasakta," which means "He who is fond of the many-seeded fruit (the pomegranate)." * In Vietnam, the pomegranate is called thạch lựu and the pomegranate flower is the symbol of summer. The famous Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Du wrote in "The Tale of Kieu":
Đầu tường lửa lựu lập lòe đơm bông. (Over the wall, the flames of pomegranate flicker in blossom.)
Making pomegranate juice at a stall in Turkey
* Pomegranate is one of the symbols of Armenia, representing fertility, abundance and marriage.
* In Mexico, pomegranate seeds are an essential ingredient of chiles en nogada, a favored food symbolizing the red component of the national flag.
* The pomegranate fruit was an emblem in the coat of arms of Catherine of Aragon (1485 - 1536). She was the widow of Arthur, Prince of Wales but, more memorably, was King Henry VIII's first wife. However, when Queen Catherine didn't produce a male heir, His Majesty cast a furtive glance around the court for younger and more promising breeding stock, finally settling on Anne Boleyn. With a new queen ensconced in the Palace, her first decree was a new coat of arms, showing a white falcon pecking at a pomegranate.
Culinary Uses: * After opening the pomegranate by scoring it with a knife and breaking it open, the arils (seed casings) are separated from the peel and internal white pulp membranes. Separating the red arils is simplified by performing this task in a bowl of water, wherein arils sink and pulp floats. It is also possible to freeze the whole fruit in the freezer, making the red arils easy to separate from the white pulp membranes. The entire seed is consumed raw, though the watery, tasty aril is the desired part. The taste differs depending on subspecies of pomegranate and its ripeness. * Grenadine syrup is thickened and sweetened pomegranate juice used in cocktail mixing. Before tomato arrived in the Middle East, grenadine was widely used in many Iranian foods and is still found in traditional recipes such as fesenjan, a thick sauce made from pomegranate juice and ground walnuts, usually spooned over duck or other poultry and rice, and in ash-e anar (pomegranate soup).[11]
Feathers and poof seem to be two consistent themes in Icelandic female songstress fashion.
Exhibit A: Bjork (born Björk Guðmundsdóttirin Reykjavík, Iceland). I truly believe that Bjork could be the most eccentric person alive today...maybe that's ever lived.
Exhibit B: Emiliana Torrini (born Emilíana Torrini Davíðsdóttir in Kópavogur, Iceland). She is of both Italian and Icelandic parentage; her father owns and operates a well-known Italian restaurant in Iceland, and many Icelanders first remember her as a young waitress. She currently resides in Brighton, England.
Check out the orange frisbee dress and the feather & gem drenched rainbow gown in this video:
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Ryman created over one hundred massive roses for a gallery show in New York called A New Beginning. The six foot flower sculptures are littered with detritus like cigarettes and empty chip bags. Occasionally, an equally large lady-bug or aphid joins the clump. Ryman described the work as a NYC garden from the point of view of a rat.
The image above is of Ryman setting up his piece "The Bed" at a gallery in London. "The Bed" is a 26 foot-long papier mâché sculpture of a chap that looks uncannily like the BFG. In his artist’s statement, Ryman said that ‘The Bed’ originated with his childhood impression of his parents’ bed being much bigger than it actually was, and is an exploration of one’s distorted perspective of one’s place in the world and relationship to surroundings.
