Artful Transformations

Free downloads celebrating great writers

Lahn — Sun, 20 May 2012 10:46:41 +0000

Lovers of literature, rejoice! You can get free downloads of a series of short introductory lectures by experts at the University of Oxford celebrating a range of great writers and why they inspire.

Some names of the famous writers I noticed on the website: Ezra Pound, John Milton, Beowulf, William Blake, Mary Leapor, and George Eliot.

Street artist JR turns the world inside out

Lahn — Sun, 20 May 2012 05:25:55 +0000

Street artist JR made a wish in 2011: Join me in a worldwide photo project to show the world its true face.

Now, a year after his TED Prize wish, with a camera, a dedicated wheatpasting crew and the help of whole villages and favelas, he shows how giant posters of human faces, pasted in public, are connecting communities, making change, and turning the world inside out.

Intrigued and want to be a part of this meaningful project? You can participate here.

Meeting the daring people who live off the grid

Lahn — Sat, 19 May 2012 10:35:09 +0000

Here is a wonderful photo documentary I stumbled upon that brings up intrigue and inspiration. Titled “Off the Grid”, the project documents Americans who have “decided to live light on the earth, to not be a part of problem anymore,” as the French photographer Eric Valli writes on his website.

Valli has spent the last few years with four of them who strove to live in harmony with nature in the most pristine corners of United States.

View more photos from this fascinating research here.

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How to make double chin disappear in photography

Lahn — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:46:22 +0000

Portrait photographer, Peter Hurley, explains how he accentuates the jawline of his clients with a few simple tips that you might want to add to your repertoire whenever you have a person in front of your camera.

Sticky note drawings about arts

Lahn — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:36:13 +0000

The following humorous and sometimes quite insightful drawings are by Doug Savage. Known as “Savage Chickens”, the cartoonist draws chickens (well, duh.) and some other characters on sticky notes. Here, I chose four that relate to the arts. Enjoy!

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Papercut portraits

Lahn — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:29:21 +0000

A self-described “master paper portrait cutter,” artist Ming Liang Lu created intricate portraits of the commuters on the L train platform at the Union Square station in Manhattan.

To read the wonderful article about Lu’s work, visit here.

Want to be thin? Indulge in the arts

Lahn — Fri, 18 May 2012 07:19:49 +0000

You don’t burn many calories flipping pages in a novel, or walking to your seat in the opera house. But new research reveals an intriguing association between weight control and enjoyment of culturally enriching but sedentary activities.

That’s the conclusion I reach in a paper published in the Sociology of Health and Illness. The results show how specific sedentary activities reflect one’s lifestyle, and tell us something about the social sources of health.

The study uses survey data from 17 nations, most of which are in Europe. In each country, a representative sample of the population was asked not only about height and weight, but also about time spent in a variety of activities. These included reading, going to cultural events, socializing with family and friends, attending sporting events, watching TV, going shopping, and exercising.

A scale that measures interest in ideas, art, and knowledge—by surveying the amount of time spent reading, attending cultural events, going to movies, and using the Internet—is associated as strongly as exercise with a lower body-mass index, or BMI (a measure of weight relative to height). In other words, reading and exercise appear similarly beneficial in terms of BMI.

In contrast, people participating in other activities such as watching TV, socializing, playing cards, attending sporting events, and shopping have higher average BMI. Although time spent reading and time spent watching TV both expend few calories, one is associated with lower weight, and the other with higher weight.

Creating dubstep

Lahn — Fri, 18 May 2012 05:37:59 +0000

Have you ever wondered how dubstep sound is composed? Well, wonder no more. Check out this video and see what creating dubstep looks like.

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Stephen Fry on the joys of swearing

Lahn — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:13:49 +0000

Hope you f*#@ing enjoyed the video!

Dressed up cats

Lahn — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:19:31 +0000

We love cats, don’t we? They are wonderful companions, for sure. Some cat lovers use various measures to shower their love for their cats, such as dressing them up in fancy clothes.

Artist Heather Mattoon has a cat named Megan who inspired her series, Cat in Clothes. These whimsical cat paintings have each cat with a name and a personality enhanced by a distinct outfit.

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