Wheatpasting by JC, Brooklyn. Photo by Kelsey Savage.
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – With little footprint aside from his street art, JC offers little in the way of details about identity. Instead, his anonymity forces the focus away from the artist and to the art.
Luckily, he (or she) has plenty of work to make the most of in Williamsburg, particularly outside the decrepit Salvation Army thrift store on Bedford Avenue. The wheatpastings are less detailed than some of the legal murals in the area, but they convey the curves and beauty of the women represented – adding a little sexuality and color to a gray wall.
JC doesn’t always work alone, as proven by his recent collaboration with another fairly shy artist – MuryzOne. Together the two artist help to keep Williamsburg a little rough around the edges, even as the area continues to gentrify.
Those new concrete condos continually being built along the waterfront still fail to shape this part of Brooklyn as much as the artists like JC that use it as their canvas.
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Wheatpasting by JC, Brooklyn. Photo by Kelsey Savage.Wheatpasting by JC, Brooklyn. Photo by Kelsey Savage.Wheatpasting by JC, Brooklyn. Photo by Kelsey Savage.
Ruins from the 1863 burning of Darien, Ga., one of the most controversial events of the Civil War. Image by Bubba 73. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
DARIEN, Ga. (AP) – Evidence of the worst day in the city’s history rests in a trash bag at Fort King George State Historic Site.
Aside from tough tabby foundations, the brittle pieces of wood with charred edges are all that’s left of the warehouses that once stood on Darien River when the city was a thriving seaport. It went up in flames July 11, 1863, when the 54th Massachusetts, an all-black Union regiment, torched the town during the Civil War.
The Union troops burned the cotton and rice warehouses, homes, churches, the courthouse and anything else made of wood.
Fort King George Superintendent Steven Smith wants to put the timbers and other artifacts on display when Darien celebrates the 150th anniversary of the burning this year.
Archeologist Fred Cook found the timbers in 1990 during a dig among the tabby ruins of the foundations. He entrusted them to the state park and Smith wants to include them in a museum at the trailhead building downtown.
As Georgia celebrates the sesquicentennial of the war, Smith thinks Darien will be the first out of the blocks.
“As nearly as I can tell, this is the first sesquicentennial observance in Georgia. Not much happened in Georgia until Sherman started his march to the sea,” Smith said.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the fire, said historian Buddy Sullivan, who will deliver two lectures during the observance.
Sherman’s Georgia campaign didn’t start until the spring of 1864. He took and burned Atlanta and then marched to the coast, burning and pillaging as he went, Sullivan said.
“The closest he ever came was Savannah,” Sullivan said.
The 54th Massachusetts had been stationed on St. Simons Island until they came north and moved on Darien, he said.
Because it was an important seaport, Darien was blockaded by the Union Navy, Sullivan said.
When the Union troops arrived, there was no resistance.
“Darien was almost completely unpopulated. The population was only about 500, but they had left and moved farther inland because they were worried about being invaded,” he said.
The unit’s commander, Col. Robert Gould Shaw, strongly objected to his orders to burn Darien, but did so rather than be subject to court martial. Shaw died a month later during the siege of Fort Wagner near Charleston.
Smith doesn’t want the timbers to rest alone in the museum. He is hopeful people will loan some items they have found. After all, Darien goes back to the early 1700s and a lot of things are still found in yards and gardens.
“People dig up stuff all the time,” and bring it by the fort in hopes someone can identify it, Smith said.
He’s seen fully intact Indian pottery, a late 19th-century bayonet from a yard, pottery shards, old rice hoes and axe heads, he said.
Local sources, such as Darien Telephone, the Lower Altamaha Historical Society and the State Farm Foundation, donated a total of $3,500 to the Civil War Sesquicentennial Committee, but it also recently received a $10,000 historic tourism grant.
The first event is a Civil War artifact road show from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. March 9 at the fort. People with artifacts are invited to come by and show them off.
There will be some experts there to identify objects and explain their significance, Smith said.
Sullivan will deliver lectures in May and June and there will be a new mural painted in the waterfront park under the U.S. 17 bridge.
The main event is the town festival on June 15 with a living history encampment on Butler Island on the southern side of the Darien River.
There will also be a showing of Glory, a movie filmed partly on Jekyll Island that showed the 54th Massachusetts’ futile assault on Fort Wagner.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This information may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-02-27-13 2258GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
Ruins from the 1863 burning of Darien, Ga., one of the most controversial events of the Civil War. Image by Bubba 73. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
A rare Timucua owl totem found buried in muck near Hontoon Island, Fla., in 1955. It is on display at the Fort Caroline National Monument in Jacksonville, Fla. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – Eleven people from Florida and two from Georgia have been charged in what state investigators called a criminal conspiracy to sell artifacts stolen from state-owned lands in Florida.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers Wednesday described a nearly $2 million black market in illegal historical artifacts.
Items shown at a news conference in Tallahassee included dozens of arrowheads and pot shards. But many stolen artifacts likely will never be recovered.
“This looting didn’t just take artifacts from the ground,” said Robert Bendus, Florida’s state historic preservation officer. “It took history away from this generation and from future generations of Floridians.”
The FWC’s Maj. Curtis Brown said those arrested were the “main dealers and looters.” The youngest defendant is 25; the oldest is 74.
“This network is a very tight-knit group of folks,” Brown said. “They had collectors they dealt with and they’d sell around the state and around the country.”
Brown confirmed that the investigation is ongoing. When asked if some of the collectors who bought illegal artifacts would also be arrested, he said, “There may be additional violations found.”
Other officers served search warrants on four homes in Florida and found artifacts and other illegal items, according to a FWC statement. Two of those arrested also were charged with drug possession.
Investigators said the recent arrests resulted from a two-year-long investigation called Operation Timacua, named after an Indian tribe that once lived in parts of Florida and Georgia. The probe started after complaints of looting lodged over the last five years from around the state.
An undercover operative posed as a buyer, Brown said. The looted artifacts often were listed on websites such as Craigslist and also turned up at trade shows.
Asking prices for some of the artifacts were as high as $100,000, Brown told reporters.
Some of those charged were accused of sneaking onto historical sites – mostly in northern Florida – at night and digging in the dirt with hand tools.
The charges listed include multiple counts of violation of historical resources, dealing in stolen property and illegal removal of artifacts by excavation.
Copyright 2013 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This information may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
AP-WF-02-27-13 2215GMT
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
A rare Timucua owl totem found buried in muck near Hontoon Island, Fla., in 1955. It is on display at the Fort Caroline National Monument in Jacksonville, Fla. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
LONG BEACH, Calif. – WikiHouse is putting a new spin on old-time barn-raising with a free online resource that lets people put homes together the same way they might a giant jigsaw puzzle.
WikiHouse.cc was designed as an open-source construction kit that lets people create and share home designs and then “print” pieces using machines available for as little as a few thousand dollars.
It is part of the effort by the WikiHouse collective of professionals who volunteer to give consumers information and tools about home design and construction.
“Two or three people working together can build a small house in about a day,” said Alastair Parvin, a British architect sharing his work at WikiHouse at a TED gathering on Thursday in California.
“People continually get confused between construction work and having fun.”
He explained that while the shell of a home would be done it would lack plumbing, electric and other inner components.
Aspiring builders have to get their own building materials, which can be cut into pieces by computer-controlled tools called CNC machines with without any other tools, using data downloaded from WikiHouse, according to Parvin.
“It is kind of like making a big jigsaw puzzle,” Parvin told AFP. “It is basically magic as far as I’m concerned.”
Parvin told of graduating university in 2008 only to encounter a bleak job market for architects. He veered from the traditional career path, and took part in launching WikiHouse about 18 months ago.
A growing “makers movement” coupled with increasingly affordable technology such as 3D printers and CNC machines is letting consumers become creators of goods they desire, according to Parvin.
“How awesome would it be if we had a kind of Wikipedia for stuff?” he asked rhetorically. “How much would that change the rules? I think technology is on our side.”
He sees the great design project of this century as the “democratization of production.”
WikiHouse is putting itself to the test in the favelas, or shanty towns, of Brazil, hoping that a CNC machine made available for creating furniture will eventually be put to use building homes with the potential to transform slums.
“Slums are being built anyway,” Parvin said. “If people are going to build things for themselves, wouldn’t it be cool if what they make is not rubbish?”
WikiHouse is working on a way to attach files showing people how to make foundations for homes.
“We could do it,” Parvin said. “We are at a point where it is not innovative; it is just that architecture is behind the game.”
A set of exquisitely executed Russian enamel tea accessories (dated 1899-1908) should bring $3,000 to $5,000. John Moran Auctioneers image. PASADENA, Calif. – Hot on the heels of a successful sale Feb. 5, John Moran Auctioneers is preparing for a highly anticipated Antiques and Fine Art Auction on March 12. The sale is packed to the brim with Continental decorative arts, furniture, silver and fine European paintings. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.
Many of the 200 cataloged lots were carefully culled from a fabulous private estate in Las Vegas, and are fit for a palace large or small.
In the category of fine furniture a number of standout pieces promise to turn out the bidders in full force. A stunning 18th century North Italian walnut cassone, ornately carved overall in foliate and floral designs and peppered with putti, is estimated to realize $2,000-$3,000 at the auction block. Also estimated to bring $2,000-$3,000 is a handsome rosewood and ebony-inlaid late 19th century Renaissance Revival library table featuring carved griffins and Corinthian column-form legs. In the Louis XVI-style is a pair of ormolu chenets, each cast as ewers with dolphin-form handles (estimate: $3,000 to $5,000), and a wonderful marble-top, ormolu-mounted cabinet by the renowned Parisian ébéniste Joseph-Emanuel Zweiner, bearing his stamp and also the stamp of the retailer Jansen. Moran’s is offering this marvelous example of the German/ French maker’s fine craftsmanship consigned from a private Southern California collection, for $3,000-$5,000.
Two Italian marble sculptures are alluring 19th century works of art. The first, a seated maiden in a flowing, sheer sheath, poses with an open book to her side. Signed “A. Fulli,” the sculpture carries an estimate of $4,000 to $6,000. The second work, by Vittorio Caradossi (1861–1909), is offered at $10,000 to $15,000, and portrays a classical maiden inquisitively inspecting two doves that have alighted nearby.
Smaller decorative pieces are also sure to turn heads. An enchanting boxed set of cloisonné enamel tea pieces by noted Moscow maker Maria Semenova, composed of a sugar bowl, tongs, and creamer jug, exhibit an attention to detail (estimate: $3,000 to $5,000). A gorgeous Edwardian Boulle-style bronze-inlaid rosewood desk set will most likely find a buyer for a price of $2,000 to $3,000, and a Naploeon III ormolu-mounted, lapis-inlaid table casket from the Parisian firm of Tahan is expected to realize $2,500-$3,500.
Perhaps one of the most show-stopping pieces slated for sale is a monumental silvered bronze figural centerpiece, with ship’s prow-form handles at each end, and female allegorical figures perched atop each of the piece’s four corners. Measuring more than 3 feet across at its widest point, the centerpiece is estimated at $20,000 to $30,000.
High quality Continental porcelain will also be well represented at the auction. A pair of Sevres-style white ground porcelain urns, decorated overall with polychrome floral garlands within cobalt and gilt borders and topped with foliate finials, is estimated at $4,000 to $6,000. A silvered and gilt bronze-mounted porcelain casket with a cherub-headed scroll handle and painted with vignettes of courting couples in the manner of Watteau, is expected to achieve $7,000 to $9,000 at the block. Also included is a fantastic ormolu-mounted bisque porcelain centerpiece, depicting a goddess attended by three maidens and two cherubim (estimate: $7,000 to $9,000), and a very large and ornate Berlin / KPM covered vase depicting soldiers in various uniforms ($5,000 to $7,000).
Additional highlights include:
– An intriguing photographic print of Abraham Lincoln, taken by Moses P. Rice, showing the president at three-quarters view, looking directly into the camera lens (estimate: $800 to $1,200).
– A Victorian library globe by W. & A.K. Johnson, circa 1893, featuring a wood and paper equatorial rim carved with calendar and zodiac, a brass meridian ring, and a compass, centered at the base (estimate: $5,000 to $7,000).
– An Austrian cold-painted bronze lamp by Anton Chotka and modeled as a Bedouin and his musically inclined monkey (estimate: $1,500 to $2,000).
– A fine Parisian Street Scene by Edouard Cortes, titled Place Republicque, hailing from a private estate in San Diego (estimate: $7,000 to $9,000).
– An owl-form polychrome-glazed ceramic vase by Pablo Picasso (estimate: $5,000 to $7,000).
The cataloged session of this sale will begin at 3 p.m. PDT, with the uncatalogued Discovery Session to follow.
Interested parties are welcome to contact info@JohnMoran.com or call 626-793-1833.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
A set of exquisitely executed Russian enamel tea accessories (dated 1899-1908) should bring $3,000 to $5,000. John Moran Auctioneers image.
This richly carved 18th century Italian cassone is offered at an estimate of $2,000 to $3,000. John Moran Auctioneers image.
This charming work in marble by Vittorio Caradossi is expected to find a buyer for $10,000 to $15,000. John Moran Auctioneers image.
This fantastical 19th century monumental centerpiece in silvered bronze is a gorgeous statement piece, carrying an estimate of $20,000 to $30,000. John Moran Auctioneers image.
John Moran Auctioneers will offer this arresting photographic portrait of America’s 16th president at the March 12 auction (estimate: $800 to $1,200). John Moran Auctioneers image.
A charming street scene in oil by Edouard Cortes titled ‘Place Republique’ is offered at $7,000 to $9,000. John Moran Auctioneers image.
