In the Beginning

In the beginning:

Kara Walker

Savant from an Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters/AKA The Full-On Mask

2020

It is fascinating to find this image. I wasn't looking for it, but rather found Kara Walker, whom I know as the "cut-out" artists, a black American women - married, by the way to two white men, one she divorced and with whom she has a daughter - who spent her artist's career finding ways to malign white America (and America in general).

Her masked black woman is of course a metaphor for the "muzzling" that whites have done to blacks - her own radical perspective, which she hypocritically holds as she lives her life with those muzzling white men, and as she finds prestige in those very same white-built and white-organized museums, who genuflect to her otherness induced by their centuries-induced guilt for an event that took several hundred years ago, and for which, for all practical purposes - including monetary - they have redeemed themselves.

Still, the unforgiving, and money-grabbing, Walker will have none of this.

The muzzling mask is prescient. This is now happening on a global scale, but through which her own black "brothers and sisters" are suffering the most.

Full-on is what we should expect, metaphorically or not.

Clockwise from bottom left: MacArthur Fellows Ta Nehisi Coates, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Jad Abumarad, Kara Walker, David C. Page, Angela Duckworth, Robert Axelrod and Junot Diaz.

[Image Source]

So. How exactly did Walker come up with this mask, an (almost) exact rendition of the mask the American, and Canadian, Sheep, are wearing? All that is left, and as we can conclude, is that the future of the mask is a la Walker. The Full-On.

Above, Kara Walker with daughter Octavia Brugel (image source) from around 2007. 

Brugel appears to be in her very early teens (she was born in 1997), 

and below Brugel with Walke in 2007.

Modern Men

Woods Cathedral, Detroit

War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]

I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.

Here is an article at VDare, where James Kirkpatrick discusses Lawrence Auster's recently published book Our Boarders, Our selves.

Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?

But the crunch of the article is here:

Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”

And a little later on:

Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”

In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.

But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:

Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.

No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:

Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.

I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization

Reclaiming Beauty will be the first book on beauty to make a comprehensive, historical, cultural and societal review of beauty. It will describe the moment (or moments) when beauty was not only undermined, but eventually abandoned, as a paradigm of civilized life. Rather than attributing beauty to a Godly goodness, philosophers, writers and artists began to view beauty as their enemy, and as their nemesis. They saw God as a judge who would not let them do as they wished. In order to pursue the image of beauty they desired, they began to look elsewhere. They began to abandon God, and by abandoning God, they began to change their world, filling it with horror and ugliness.

When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by

...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]

Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?

Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:

There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.

Modern Men

Woods Cathedral, Detroit

War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]

I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.

Here is an article at VDare, where James Kirkpatrick discusses Lawrence Auster's recently published book Our Boarders, Our selves.

Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?

But the crunch of the article is here:

Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”

And a little later on:

Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”

In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.

But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:

Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.

No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:

Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.

I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization

Reclaiming Beauty will be the first book on beauty to make a comprehensive, historical, cultural and societal review of beauty. It will describe the moment (or moments) when beauty was not only undermined, but eventually abandoned, as a paradigm of civilized life. Rather than attributing beauty to a Godly goodness, philosophers, writers and artists began to view beauty as their enemy, and as their nemesis. They saw God as a judge who would not let them do as they wished. In order to pursue the image of beauty they desired, they began to look elsewhere. They began to abandon God, and by abandoning God, they began to change their world, filling it with horror and ugliness.

When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by

...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]

Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?

Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:

There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.

The Pseudo-Saviors of the West: The Gifts that Keep Giving

I wrote here about Ilana Mercer's botox, and a not-so-subtle cleavage exposure.

Well, now she has competition. Here is Faith Goldy, a retweeter of Mercer's tweets. Goldy places a cross in front of her own whoppers (visible at her youtube, around the 4:55 point). And Malkin's Facebook page shows her bare naked thighs.

We are on a roll here. Con-Women LIKE to be looked at. And Social Media deviously obliges.

New Looks for the New Woman

I wonder if Ilana Mercer, about whom I have written here, in numerous posts (as well as numerous posts some ten years back at my Camera Lucida blog (2005-2013), has had a face lift, is botoxed, whatever?


Left: From a 2019 Video
Right: From a 2016 Video

It follows the Libertarian's "the individual can do whatever he wants, as long as he's doing 'no harm,'" as well as the inherent (closeted) feminists that are most women in our modern age.

Sources:
2019:



2016:



Both from Mercer's Youtube Channel.

Steven Heinemann and Scorched Earth

Steven Heinemann
Ceramics
Terra Ruba, 2004
Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam
69cmX42X34

For a potter working with pots, Steven Heinemann seems obsessed with closing them off. No flower will adorn his creations, nor will water pour from his jugs. Heinemann is not interested in function, but

prioritizes process, material, and the non-functionalobject to create autonomous sculpture

writes Rachel Gotlieb in Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature, an exhibition he held in 2017 at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto. And a footnote to this phrase, Gotlieb directs us:

For discussions on the autonomy of the art object within the realm of craft see Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, trans. and ed. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Athlone Press, 1997); Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft (Oxford: Berg, 2007); and Bruce Metcalf, “Replacing the Myth of Modernism,” First published in American Craft, February/
March 1993, 53, no. 1, accessed March 1, 2017, http://lib.znate.ru/docs/ index-53911.html.

I discuss Adolf Loos, the anti-ornament modernist here in Throwing Out Ornament, asking (rhetorically) if

architecture hadn't regressed. "Think about the medieval cathedrals, or the renaissance palaces. All we do now is glass boxes. Lego for grown ups. We're back to simple squares and circle, just a little above the line in the sand drawn with a piece of stick."

I could add for pottery: simple curved shapes.

And simple curved shapes is what Heinemann produces, however asymmetrical, and therefore (falsely) complex shapes they may be. Although asymmetry is a more natural, inartistic, tendency, and a circle far harder to reproduce. Heinemann thus desires to work with asymmetry, imperfection, and ultimately, the non-aesthetic.

And this leads to my final point. Heinemann's vessels. An article on Heinemann at the Canadian Encyclopedia describes one of Heinemann's techniques as:

"controlled crazing" (fine cracks on the surface of a glaze layer) during firing as his primary method to investigate issues of containment, volume and decoration.

Thermal stress weathering, in nature,

...results from the expansion and contraction of rock, caused by temperature changes. For example, heating of rocks by sunlight or fires can cause expansion of their constituent minerals. As some minerals expand more than others, temperature changes set up differential stresses that eventually cause the rock to crack apart.

This is the impression I got when viewing his ceramic objects, with their cracked interiors, and which clearly will not be vessels for water. The first word that came to mind was "scorched." And indeed they are scorched, resembling the barren, empty, and lifeless desert regions which bear this description.

For an art form which has functionality as its primary goal, these objects close themselves off to any form of human use, and instead become aesthetic objects. And they don't succeed even in that goal, their aesthetics having been compromised by Heinemann's relentless pursuit of the anti-aesthetic.

Heinemann's intent all along is to give us a dystopian scorched earth, where we will live in the extremes of "Climate Change" as we are destined to according to our postmodern spiritual guides - our scientists, activists, and artists - as we struggle with pots that wont even carry the droplets of water we may find.

Heinemaan, who lives in this current world, and who needs to pay his bills (ask Van Gogh how living for "art" alone worked out for him), sells his pieces ranging from $7,000 to the $11,000. And people are ready to buy dystopia and hang it in their living rooms. Wealthy art collectors, that is. And his works are available in museum collections across the globe, who purchase his scorched clay, and as no acts of charity.

Art and dytopia generate money!

Heinemann is the husband of textile designer, Chung-Im Kim, about whom I wrote here:

Here are her fungal-like growths which she designs with felt, and which she sells for over $6,000 each. She categorizes them on her website as: Living Geometry.

Crawling fungi might be the only vegetation that grows on scorched earth.

Chung-Im Kim and Her Textile Designs' Korean Ancestral Loyalties

Here are the most current designs from Chung-Im Kim, textile designer, and associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

I believe that Kim has nothing to emulate, nothing to draw inspiration from, in the Canadian landscape, but rather looks back thousands of miles, and cultures, away to her Korean background.

As I wrote in my August 2018 article:

Kim's designs are a combination of..."deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

Kim writes about her textiles and her inspirations:

...the familiar Korean textile never fail to encourage my search --- perhaps it is a consolation that I look for unconsciously living so far away from Korea.

Chung-Im Kim
Bow
2005
8" x 9.5"
Ramie, Hemp, Natural Dyes, Silkscreen Printing, Machine & Hand Stitching
[Source]

About her felt work, she writes:

Searching for a personal vocabulary of images that can speak as a universal language was my core concern when I resumed my art career in Canada after a long break since arrival. This often took the form of a repetition of a few basic essential shapes, adding interest through the use of relief, appliqué, inherent dyed colour and many related techniques. At the same time, I continued to be inspired by traditional Korean textiles --- in both a technical and spiritual sense.

Here are her fungal-like growths which she designs with felt, and which she sells for over $6,000 each. She categorizes them on her website as: Living Geometry


Chung-Im Kim
Mutation III
From the Living Geometry series: No. 5
2015
23.5" x 12" x 3"
Industrial felt, thread, dyed with (Natural Dye) lac, hand stitched
David Kaye Gallery

Post-modern, abstract textile design is a lucrative business, along with associate professorship in leading universities.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is my post, from August 2018 on Kim, her designs, and her loyalties:

At the end of the article, I write;

Their ethnic references are too far away, and they are too alienated from their current country, and all that is left is the "structure" of the image: its shape, its empty outline.

I should add to that:

...its empty outline, ready to fill up with foreign, alien forces.

After all, Kim's fungal protrusions are titled" Mutations."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I've always, since my Ontario College of Art Design days, tried to master textile art and design. My instructor was a Korean woman. It was then that I intuitively realized that "Asians" had an inherent dislike of whites. I went to "night school" and took only one course for four consecutive sessions. This course was open to the public and not just OCAD students. It became an issue for her after the second course, but I was paying the $200/course fee. If she had any sympathy for me and my ideas, I would have told her that I was there to use the equipment.

By the third session I had developed many of my ideas. I had briefly started doing the geometric border patterns found in Ethiopian dress, but my models for my work were the historical textiles of the Western World up to the early 20th century. Anything beyond that took on the modernists' "destruction of the image" ideology.

The textile instructor, Chung-Im Kim, who I believe didn't have the rigorous "image-making" background required of textile design - including drawing and painting - vociferously pushed me to "design something Ethiopian." Eventually I came to the course randomly and spent my time - evenings and weekends - in the textile workroom, mixing paints, cutting cloth and printing. I did the blueprints at home on a makeshift IKEA work table.

I wondered later why she never introduced us to the endless list of "white" designers. All artists, however limited their education, at some point come across some textiles which are too breathtaking to ignore. I don't think she was intellectually limited. Nor can she use the "excuse" that she is an immigrant. She had lived in Canada by then too many years to not even have casually wandered across some of these works.

I believe it was (is) this inherent dislike of whites. Perhaps not individual whites, and certainly not the leftist whites which now make up Canada and America who hate "whites" or white civilization themselves, but the white people as a collective, the white civilization, the white mind.

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

ALL non-whites at some point begin to refer to their ancestral lands for inspiration, artistic or otherwise. And the constant, daily reminder that art created by whites has always been SUPERIOR to their art, from their specific non-European or North American region or country (Asia, South America, Africa, the Caribbeans) must ignite their fury.

I believe, though, that I am the exception.

As I write in an unpublished article:

My family and I left Ethiopia in 1973, a year before the “Ethiopian Revolution” which occurred in 1974, when Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed and a communist regime ran the country for almost two decades. I was ten years old. My father secured a post in UNESCO in Paris. My brothers and I initially attended school in Paris, but our parents sent us to England to boarding school a year later.

That dramatic, but fortuitous exit sent me across the globe from France to England and America to Canada. Our first landing point in Paris separated us from the usual flow of Ethiopian emigrants and refugees who set sail for America (and fewer to Canada). We were alone in our havens. My eleven years in France and as a student in boarding schools in England gave me the unique vantage point of discovering the West without the biases and interpretations of other Ethiopians and Africans. I was able to discover them on my own terms. I learned to love the West through the beautiful city of Paris and the paradisaical countryside of southern Kent.

My informal education had taken a Western orientation, but...I eventually obtained Bachelor and Masters degrees in the Biological and Health sciences in the United States. While pursuing my PhD, I lived in Mexico for two years working on my research work in clinical nutrition. The results of my PhD research eventually produced a unique testing method which was published in various academic science and medical journals.

By the end of my doctoral studies [we] obtained residency...in Canada [where] I was finally stable and able to make decisions about my activities without affecting my residency status. In Toronto, I obtained various certificates and qualifications in film and photography. I also studied textile design, and painting and drawing. I was determined to become an artist.

My constant displacement, my rigorous science education, and my artistic training allows me to ask: What is art? What is beauty? And why is Western beauty and art so singular? I have tried to answer these questions over the years.

---------------------------------------------------------------------


Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace
Textile Design
Kidist Paulos Asrat

All About the Print

Faux fur leopard prints that are all over the place right now.

You cannot, of course, get the real deal anymore (as far as I know), but from designer labels to Walmart's Everyman's clothing line, we are graced with the presence of these winter warmers.

Perhaps it is the "inner feline" that is awakened. Or it is simply something undecipherabley attractive, innate and instinctive, about these prints, that has lured women to take out their pocket books and spend their dollars on a faux fur craze which has now lasted for several decades. And there's no risk of red paint to tarnish your respectability by (crazed) faux fur advocates (with whom you have NO allegiance, since you never know when they might turn).

Here is Walmart's $70 faux fur coat, soft and warm (I've tried it on!).


CAN$77 (US$60)

Walmart tells us:

Get coverage and style when you pull on George women's AOP faux fur car coat. Knit from soft, patterned faux fur, it’s styled with a revere collar [What is a revere collar - my link], jetted pockets and concealed snap closure. Fully lined, the shiny coat on this box-cut jacket will add an element of chic to any outfit you throw it over.

• 100% Polyester
• Faux fur knit
• All over pattern
• Full lining
• Revere collar
• Full snap button closure
• Jetted pockets
• Soft hand feel
• Dry clean only

Holt Renfriew, The Bay, Simons, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Saks, Bergdorf Goodman, all have their variations (all at least $100 more than what Walmart offers).

Everyman wins, hands down.

Below is a fascinating, and I think very good, article on the "history" of the leopard print.

Beauty and Aesthetics Matter Quite a Bit

Church of the Holy Innocents
128 West 37th Street
New York

---

Ms. Asrat,

I really enjoy your blog. It’s changed how I think and that doesn’t happen
every day. I’ve begun drawing and pl[a]ying music again after a long hiatus
because you’ve convinced me that beauty and aesthetics do matter, and they
matter quite a bit. I’ve been back in school for civil engineering for a
year now, I was hoping to find out what makes these people tick, these
people who make these hideous things, and to see if there was anything I
could do about it.

[...]

Have you been to a traditional Latin high mass at the Church of the Holy
Innocents in Midtown Manhattan?

Thanks for making so much grist for the mill,

D...

------------

Dear D...

Thanks so much for your encouraging words. Yes beauty and aesthetics matter quite a bit!

[...]

I haven't been to the Church of the Holy Innocents, although I am sure I have walked past it. I'm sure I remember seeing the beautiful exterior and walking up to have a closer look. And the name sounds very familiar.

[...]

Keep up the studies. Despite all the ugly buildings, there is a wealth of information available through schools and libraries, and we can make our own creations. Don't be discouraged by the direction your professors will undoubtedly take, which is to teach you how to build those ugly buildings (you might even get some Fs!). But once you're done, you can forge ahead and build those beautiful buildings.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kidist

Out

@AGMengage Sep 12

Hooray for Fay + Fluffy! Excitement is building for their visit to AGM Tot Spot on Fri. Sept. 21! Thanks @insauga f/ spreading the word. #mississauga #mississaugaarts #community #storytelling #reading #storytime #communityarts #LGBTQ #agmfirstnewnext #dragqueenstorytime 😍🌈⚡️

---

The nefarious Art Gallery of Mississauga is holding full-fisted to its "transgender" themed activities. Here are two that have been given the seat of honor at the "Tot Spot" storytelling program.

On Sunday (I believe this is significant, and I am getting subtle pointers these days showing me the spiritual significance of these episodes) at the Duke of York Boulevard (also significant, commemorating the British, Western heritage of Mississauga), just in front of the AGM (read below for more on this), I saw a tall "darkish" "person" (Indian - "East"?) wht grey-purple dyed hair styled in a short bob, with a long dark gray/black dress without much of a style (it looked khaki) and very flat ballet slippers (and the feet looked unusually small for the height hmmmm.....).

I found the whole get-up odd: partly the very tall height of the person; the very long masculine-looking hands (albeit skinny); the unattractive clothing (even contemporary legging-wearing overweight women attempt at some aesthetics: e.g. the leggings are from some trendy store); the stiffness of the person's walk (women walk with a bouncy gait even if they're tall and skinny); and the lack of communication between the person and "her" companion - an older woman who looked like she could have been the mother, and who seemed more to be more guiding "her" than walking with "her."

I walked around a bus stop to appear to be waiting for a bus, and stood before them to have a better look. I was right, this indeed was a "transgendered." "She" had a pained expression, perhaps due to illness. And was caked in makeup.

So now that the word is out that the AGM is a "gender friendly" "safe place," and also a multicultured h[e]aven for "transgendered of color," we will probably be seeing more of the Mississauga's so-inclined making their pilgrimage to the shrine. After all the AGM is now becoming a center for alternative religions, where Christianity is out (and maligned) and all others are in.

Out

@AGMengage Sep 12

Hooray for Fay + Fluffy! Excitement is building for their visit to AGM Tot Spot on Fri. Sept. 21! Thanks @insauga f/ spreading the word. #mississauga #mississaugaarts #community #storytelling #reading #storytime #communityarts #LGBTQ #agmfirstnewnext #dragqueenstorytime 😍🌈⚡️

---

The nefarious Art Gallery of Mississauga is holding full-fisted to its "transgender" themed activities. Here are two that have been given the seat of honor at the "Tot Spot" storytelling program.

Yesterday at the Duke of York Boulevard, just in front of the AGM, I saw a tall "darkish" "person" in a long greyish dress and black pumps, with hair dyed purple/grey and styled in a short bob. Something struck me as odd, partly the height of the person, the very long masculine-looking hands (albeit pretty skinny), the stiffness of the person's walk (women walk with a more bouncy gait even if they're tall and skinny) and the lack of communication between the person and "her" companion - an older woman who looked like she could have been a the mother, and who seemed more to be more guiding "her" than walking with "her."

I walked around a bus stop to appear to be waiting for a bus, and stood before them to have a better look. I was right, this indeed was a "transgendered."

So now that the word is out that the AGM is a "gender friendly" "place," and we will probably be seeing more of the Mississauga's so-inclined population making its pilgrimage to the shrine. After all the AGM is now becoming a center for alternative religions, where Christianity is out (and maligned) and all others are on.

Incremental Shifts of Paradigm

Left: Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud, wish, 2016, digital illustration
Right: Harmeet Rehal, khaar, 2017, digital still

Images above from the current exhibition at the Art Gallery of Mississauga
UNRULY: Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud | Harmeet Rehal
Curated by Anu Radha Verma | XIT-RM Project Space
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 28, 6 - 9 PM
Exhibition on view: June 28 - August 26, 2018

About UNRULY:
UNRULY is a conversation between two local queer and trans artists of colour, a creative intervention that contends with the (dis)embodied ways of moving through home, space, belonging, community, binaries and boundaries. Jasmine Noseworthy Persaud and Harmeet Rehal’s bodies of work coalesce in the XIT-RM, inviting the visitor to see, feel, experience and question. Each artist examines and confronts the way ‘being,’ surviving and thriving is (im)possible for the queer, trans, disabled, racialized individual, in the suburbs, in ‘community,’ and in the season(s) when they are expected to be ‘proud.’ What could an inquiry into the said/unsaid rules look like? What would disrupting the traditional feel like? Let’s imagine, produce and nurture these possibilities.

---

I was going to post on Sarah Jeong but Kristor over at the Orthosphere had already done so and so much better.

"I am the most pacific, equable person I know. I have reason to understand myself as competent at combat – as fairly lethal, should I need to be. But I abhor fighting. I have studied fighting, and have trained in martial arts. But I never think about it. Fighting – as distinct from the martial arts – is just not an item of my psychic furniture," writes Kristor, then continues to tell us about his dream of war.

You see he (the collective) is the wrath of Jeong.

I was going to post on Jeong's personal life (her childhood, her formaton, her education, etc...) but Kristor had written a poetic anc prophetic essay. (Kristor had a tendency to over-dramatize but in this case he has used his talent exceptionally.)

I have amply documented the iniquities of Mississauga, where I live for now. I have best described it by looking at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, about which I have amply written, as the canary in the coalmine; as a reference for what we are to expect incrementally, point by point, exhibition by exhibition, in our cultural climate.

In my own way I have also fought: asking difficult questions at gallery panels; writing on Reclaiming Beauty with well-documented, referenced articles about the wrong direction that art has committed to taking; about the complete absence of a Christian worldview (as the majority of Western art has had over the centuries) in the AGM's exhibitions; and finally how pagan and anti-God elements have entered the gallery's exhibitions and members.

Satan doesn't go easily and I have been tarnished in the city of Mississauga. My name is plastered all over the Peel Region Police's "wanted" list, certainly provided by the AGM staff (I got a warning from them to "be careful" when I enter their "premises."). I know this because the mall security (who are part of the Peel Police) watch me and some even follow me. Just the other day, after I entered a store and asked the woman for information which she thoroughly ignored being on some call (my retail experience, and I have had some, is that you drop the call with "Could you hold a minute?" or tell the live customer in front of you "Could you just give me a minute?" rather than let her stand for minutes (on end). I was about to leave but had already spent 15 minutes waiting and what's another 15? By the time she got to me I was angry. I just waived my hand and walked out. No "service." A couple of minutes later a security guard with the Sikh turban that is now part of the Canadian police force landscape, walks towards me and says "Hello."

I looked up and said nothing. Then I turned and walked off to finish the business that I came to do.

Unbelievable! "Hello!"

If police want a conversation with you it simply means that they wish to diffuse what they see as a problem.

So Mississauga is slowly turning into a fascist state where mall retailer etiquette has been thrown out the window and any reaction to that becomes a criminalizable offence!

Welcome to the Brave New World. Or better yet to The New 1984!

But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 1 Corinthians 15:10

Hate Crimes

Via Kevin Michael Grace:


Source

I've always, since my Ontario College of Art Design days, tried to master textile art and design. My instructor was a Korean woman. It was then that I intuitively realized that "Asians" had an inherent dislike of whites. I went to "night school" and took only one course for four consecutive sessions. This course was open to the public and not just OCAD students. It became an issue for her after the second course, but I was paying the $200/course fee. If she had any sympathy for me and my ideas, I would have told her that I was there to use the equipment.

By the third session I had developed many of my ideas. I had briefly started doing the geometric border patterns found in Ethiopian dress, but my models for my work were the historical textiles of the Western World up to the early 20th century. Anything beyond that took on the modernists' "destruction of the image" ideology.

The textile instructor, Chung-Im Kim, who I believe didn't have the rigorous "image-making" background required of textile design - including drawing and painting - vociferously pushed me to "design something Ethiopian." Eventually I came to the course randomly and spent my time - evenings and weekends - in the textile workroom, mixing paints, cutting cloth and printing. I did the blueprints at home on a makeshift IKEA work table.

I wondered later why she never introduced us to the endless list of "white" designers. All artists, however limited their education, at some point come across some textiles which are too breathtaking to ignore. I don't think she was intellectually limited. Nor can she use the "excuse" that she is an immigrant. She had lived in Canada by then too many years to not even have casually wandered across some of these works.

I believe it was (is) this inherent dislike of whites. Perhaps not individual whites, and certainly not the leftist whites which now make up Canada and America who hate "whites" or white civilization themselves, but the white people as a collective, the white civilization, the white mind.

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

ALL non-whites at some point begin to refer to their ancestral lands for inspiration, artistic or otherwise. And the constant, daily reminder that art created by whites has always been SUPERIOR to their art, from their specific non-European or North American region or country (Asia, South America, Africa, the Caribbeans) must ignite their fury.

And as an antidote to continue "creating" they start to refer to abstractions - geometry, shape and some color (although very few use color and often bland and muted colors) to produce works. Their ethnic references are too far away, and they are too alienated from their current country, and all that is left is the "structure" of the image: its shape, its empty outline.

At Urban Decay We're Made Involuntary Accomplices

The Urban Decay cosmetics store poster on its main window
At the "Luxury Wing" in the Square One Mall
[Photo By: KPA - July 2018]

This poster is in full view of shoppers and strollers, including families and young children, in the Square One, Mississauga, Shopping Centre.

What is a young girl (or boy) to make of this image of a white face (full face not visible) and a black face in such close proximity?

A Multicultural friendship?

Adults should realize that this is a sexualized image with the women's lips half open, which are, of course, "publicizing" Urban Decay's lip products.

And the ad makes us, the shoppers, involuntary accomplices in this behaviour, with the black model pointedly looking out at us.



Product Description:
Lips from the Lo-Fi lip mousse collection

Ready for modern matte lipstick that’s as chill as an afternoon record-shopping sesh? Whipped to airy perfection, Lo-Fi Lip Mousse is a weightless, buildable, waterproof lip color.

This matte lisptick provides high-impact waterproof lip color with a velvety soft finish that feels like you’re wearing nothing...[Source: Urban Decay Website]

Product Description:
Eyes from the Naked 4Some limited edition



From the Urban Decay website:

If you missed out on Naked: The Perfect 3Some Vault, you’re in luck. Naked 4Some ups the ante with FOUR of our coveted neutral palettes.

With a range of shades and finishes this huge, you’ll never run out of options. Go bronze with Naked (the palette that started it all). Channel a more taupe vibe with Naked2...[T]urn up the heat with the scorched neutrals in our newest Naked palette, Naked Heat...so you can get Naked whenever the urge strikes.

The Starving Artist Myth

On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 7:48 AM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

To whom it may concern;

Please can you inform me where I can purchase the Ink Movement's Mississauga Youth Anthology VI online or through your website.

Thank you,

Kay A.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 8:45 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Kay!

We are very sorry for the late response - we are flooded by emails during this time of the year and accidentally missed this one! Also, the anthology does have a cost ($20) unless you're published, in which case you can get a free copy. This is why we do not have an online document. Hope that helps!

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused. Let us know if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 11:35 PM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

It is surprising that you took 10 days to respond to my email. Also that you have no way to purchase the document online, or to download it if has no cost.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, Jul 18, 2018, at 11:45 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Kay!

We are very sorry for the late response - we are flooded by emails during this time of the year and accidentally missed this one! Also, the anthology does have a cost ($20) unless you're published, in which case you can get a free copy. This is why we do not have an online document. Hope that helps!

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused. Let us know if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 12:16 AM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for your reply. It is a trek for me to get to the Art Gallery. Can I send a $20 check to your organization and have you send me a copy?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 9:15 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Kay!

We will get back to you soon on that one!

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, July 20, 2018 at 9:29 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Kay!

Unfortunately, we are unable to ship you a copy - you would have to come to the AGM to get one. You can call them in advance and ask them if they have copies left as there are a limited number of them.

Let us know if you were able to get a copy or if you have any questions and/or concerns!

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, July 27, 2018 at 7:46 AM eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

Cc:reclaimbeauty@gmail.com

Thanks for your reply.

There is really nothing further for me to ask you since you were unable to assist me with a simple request: That you mail me a copy of you latest anthology (or find me an online point of sales) for a copy.

I would only add that artists are also salesmen. A gallery that doesn't even promote your book to your benefit is not assisting you.

To further your cause, which is to distribute Massasauga writers' talents across the country (and beyond) you need to take your own actions. For example:
- Self publish and have Amazon distribute your book
- Self publish and distribute your book on your own website
- Have a business contract with agencies like the Art Gallery of Mississauga where you books can be obtained both in the gallery and through online purchase.

I wish you all the best. The starving artist image (and ideal) went out a couple of centuries. It has made a come-back in our era of "government funds" promises. But promises come with strings attached. And your independence, and your words, will eventually be required to fall in line with these agencies' mandates in order that their "promises" to you get to be fulfilled.

If you disagree with their mandates, then you will be well on the way toward the unpleasant life of a "starving artist." Ask Van Gogh what that's like.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat
Artist, Designer, Writer
Email: reclaimbeauty@gmail.com
At: Reclaiming Beauty

The Fate of the Queer

When I started to write this post, I misspelled "faith." The title should have read "The Faith of the Queer," instead of The Fath of the Queer." Although technically it wasn't my spelling error but the (now) limited functions of my keyboard.

Disclosure: my "i" and "k" on my keyboard don't work so I have to rely on my spellcheck to catch the errors. My spellcheck has filed as correct certain words like "wth" (perhaps because of frequent use and misspelling), and there's no red squiggly line to show that I've made a mistake.

Fortunately, I have a "screen keyboard" where I can just click in the missing letters. But when I rush through proofreading, I tend to pass over "wth" (and other words).

So.

When I titled this blog post as "The Fath of the Queer," meaning to write "The Faith of the Queer" I got of course a red squiggly line under "Fath." And when I resorted to spellcheck, I got "Fate."

And that makes for a perfect title for this post!

---

The Fate of the Queer

The Art Gallery of Mississauga is co-hosting an event in a neighborhood cafe. Here is what they have publicized on their "Facebook Events" page:

You’re Invited! Join us for a Critical Conversation on the intersections of faith and sexual and gender identities on Saturday, July 21st from 6:30-9:00pm at Studio.89, a barrier-free space with all-gendered washrooms. We’re proud to co-host this month’s Critical Conversation night with the Art Gallery of Misssauga and Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (QTBIPOC) Sauga. Our moderator will be no other than Anu Radha Verma.

[Note: the misspelling of "Mississauga" (highlighted in red above) was NOT my computer's error. The AGM with close to 1/2 a million in various (1, 2, 3) government government funds still cannot get its information up to par. I have a budget of ... ZERO]

Critical Conversations is one of Studio 89's FREE monthly events that engages the community and raises consciousness about critical issues that affect us locally and globally. We invite a panel of super knowledgeable folks to offer insight and facilitate our discussion. We want to celebrate Pride for our July Critical Conversation.

We’ve invited Panelists to share their stories about their religious, sexual, and gender identities. We can’t wait to see you! Please don't hesitate to email beawesome@studio89.org if you have any questions.

QUEERS of Fate: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan - COME ON OVER!

The ever-accommodating AGM, with its Barrier-Free Space | All Gender Washroom is inviting you all to come to a discussion on your FATE.

NOT TO BE MISSED!!!!

Of Zombie Witches and Desolate Forests

J. S. Smith at The Orthosphere writes:

As a sixteenth-century witch hunter put it, when hags convene to invoke evil spirits, the place

“to be chosen [is] melancholy, doleful, dark and lonely; either in woods or deserts, or in a place where three ways meet, or among ruins of castles, abbeys, monasteries, or upon the seashore when the moon shines clear” (Reginald Scott, The Discovery of Witchcraft [1584]).

I wrote about this here: The Covert (is there any other way?) Satanic Imagery in the New Art Gallery of Mississauga Exhibit.

An excerpt from my article:

Here, a zombie witch (whose gender is nonetheless not clear) sits in a forest as she (it) genuflects its arms around its grey hair (casting spells?). Later in the video, this zombie witch joins other creatures as they run through the forest, two which are horned, and another a more "conventional" witch with a haggard grey face and decayed teeth.

Video still from Supernature (Preview 2 min)
Director: Lotte Meret Effinger
Camera: Melanie Jilg
Editor: Thomas Kühn
Music Composer: Florian Meyer
Poster 3D rendering: Marco Buetikofer

Promised Perks of Cannabis Culture for a Mover and a Shaker

"He who speaks truth tells what is right"

Proverbs 12:17

He who speaks truth tells what is right

Invoking the Spirits: Gallery Exhibits on Screen
Art Gallery of Mississauga Underground Gallery

The entrance is the doorway facing the white couch

---

Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare
Michael Hoffman
Kindle Edition
Publisher: Independent History and Research (May 18, 2018)
Date: May 18, 2018
Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B07D624MMF

This is the era of Name-calling, libel, censorship, inquisition and the dungeon[...]. But sanity is a commodity in short supply in our world today.
Michael Hoffman From: Is Truth Anti-Semitic?: California GOP Condemns Another Candidate Over Anti-Semitism at Hoffman's Revisionist Review website

So yes truth, God's truth, is now fiercely maligned by Satan. We are now in that era. That is why the underground gallery of the Art Gallery of Mississauga, the perfect abode for the conniving and deceitful Satan, so fiercely maligned me with threats of: "libel, censorship, inquisition and the dungeon (jail)" for matter-of-factly presenting the truth.

It is no longer a matter of "culture" or "arts grants" or even jobs anymore. The stranglehold is existential. The Devil knows he will loose. Who "wins" against God? But as long as he pulls enough people to his side he can prolong the war and the misery and the destruction.

He has found the perfect place.

The Art that Contemporary Kids Know

My CTV News anchor ended off the late night (11pm) newscast with this story (it is mentioned at the end of the program):
Boy 'hugged' $132,000 sculpture at OP community center [Kansas City]. Mom says city seeking damages.

Here is the "artwork" the boy hugged.

All I can say is: "Bless his soul."



Aphrodite di Kansas City
Bill Lyons

There is no date indicating when the sculpture was constructed, and no information on the material used for the sculpture at the Bill Lyons' official website.

I guess he doesn't want to "share"



The real aphrodte goddess of beauty
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Paintings_of_Venus_(Aphrodite)