just engaged in an extremely petty silent war throughout the church service i was playing organ for, which is arguably very much not in the christian spirit but it was VERY fun
i say silent war, it was a pianist vs organist war, which is probably the least silent a war could be. but at no point was war explicitly verbally declared
what happened was the pianist playing some of the hymns and mid service music came up to me as i was practising beforehand and said to me, in a very patronising “i am a middle aged man and you are but a young woman so i know more than you” way, “that gloria is very difficult isn’t it!!”. so i was like ha, not really 🙂 and he decided to grill me on my whole musical past and tell me how he was incorporating beethoven’s ninth into his pre service improv and other such pretentious things
so naturally being a competitive and petty person i decided i would absolutely have to outdo him, which was not easy considering he was playing a decent keyboard and i was playing a tiny pipe organ that often performs as if someone just kicked it down several flights of stairs
and thus throughout the service we escalated in playing ridiculously flourishy accompaniments, a battle which culminated in him physically dancing down the aisles during my last hymn shaking a maraca with total haphazard glee, which i countered by becoming maybe the first person to force several jazzy glissandi into an 11:30am pipe organ rendition of “sing hosanna”. i enjoyed every second
I always get so fucking mad when I remember that it’s actually a 16-year-old Algerian girl who influenced BOTH Picasso and Matisse. and. No one gives a rat’s ass about her work which was very focused on women and nature. History -or people dare I say- didn’t bother to remember her name because she was a young Algerian woman and no one cares about Maghrebi/Arab women. unlike P*casso & M*tisse who both became legends, almost gods both during their lives and after their deaths, no one knows her.
Her name was Baya Mahieddine.
I wish there was an internet trend to collect and document and circulate artists that should actually be getting the credit.
Oh, I’ll play. Everyone has heard of impressionism and may have heard of the Impressionists. A group of artists who took the derogatory term for their work and turned it into a movement. You’ve probably heard of Monet, Manet, Degas or Renoir.
An imdb mini series that claims to be based on documentaries called it a “Brotherhood” and left the lady members out of it.
Including Berthe Morisot, who was a prolific painter and an integral part of the movement.
Since she was quite going Morisot had been painting “en plein air”, basically meaning outdoors in open areas. Not incredibly common because paint tubes had only recently been invented and paints dried quickly and it was considered impractical.
But she had a group of like minded friends, after all she married Manet’s younger brother, and they were described by one critic as “five or six lunatics—among them a woman—a group of unfortunate creatures.“.
She was there from the beginning, an original member, when they were known as Société Anonyme des artistes.
I’m going on a bit much, but she wanted to change art, she helped them set up their own exhibition which, at the time…wasn’t done really. Private exhibitions were rare, but since most of her fellow artists were rejected from being displayed at the Paris Salon (not your girl though, she was displayed there) they had to fund their own.
She captured women often during mundane moments, moments that men didn’t really see as being quite as important. As a woman age we not allowed access to the cafes that many of the men went to for their muses, so she captured the women in her life, often her only daughter Julie.
Anyway, she was relevant and important and boss and here are some of my favourite of her work.
This was her fault. She had been the one who’d insist they rouse Thor from his sleep. She had been the one who’d determined this enemy warranted their King’s attention.
“Tell me where the villains are?” Thor demanded.
He had Mjolnir in hand, thunder crackled overhead, and he would have looked every inch the hero, ready to defend Asgard, if not for one fact.
Loki looked up irritably from their shared bed and threw a cushion at Thor’s back.
“You’re naked you idiot,” he hissed.
One of the guards nodded in hasty agreement.
“Please put your penis away, your majesty,” he said.
I’d like to apologize for all the THOR art. I swear I am drawing other things, and lots of them, but I’m having to keep them to myself right now. They’re mostly to do with some comic zines I’m fuggering out. My feelings about TDW are…complicated. There are few films that fill me with as much frustration. But there is much to love as well, and I started this with the intention of doing something nice for a new friend of mine who truly loves it, and before I knew it, it got way more detailed than I anticipated. Helped me work through those complicated feelings, heh heh. I did do some thumbs for the first and third in the trilogy as well. I have another couple friends who really like those movies, and birthdays coming up…why not.
For this one, I wanted to focus on the theme of grief. I am loathe to explain my pieces but forgive me again, it’s been a while since an art school critique and I thought I’d point out at least a couple of my choices.
The large cloud of Aether creates a ‘divine’ sort of overhanging presence over the small figures below (one of those floating heads should shout ‘Get on with it!’ I suppose.) The name ‚Aether’ reminds me of the term from Greek myth, which is both a primordial deity (son of Chaos and Darkness) and the name of the air only the gods could breathe. Thus, this blood-like air chokes and smothers even as it gives life by making up the very forms themselves. A lot of Asgard’s old violence is again revealed in this film, even if it isn’t as condemned as it should be until Ragnarok, and much of their old violence is returned to them, notably with the violent death of Frigga.
I’m sure my repeated use of the cross is apparent – Norse Myths these may be, but thanks to Sturluson and the Americanization of the film and comics, they are very Christianized. The cross also has four points, one for each member of the Royal Family. Four is also a number associated with death in Japan, and I admit I often think of that and use it even subconsciously when dealing with the subject. Frigga, though her screentime is limited, is the dominant figure of the film in terms of impact, much like how Odin is in the first, so she is the highest figure in the poster and the character who connects and touches all the others. Her death functions not only as the catalyst for the plot but shakes up the family dynamics. Thor and Odin, initially aligned, are estranged when Odin’s grief makes him aggressive and reckless. Thus the main cross element, Frigga’s funeral sword, comes between them, while simultaneously being the line that connects them to the estranged Loki. Loki is separated from the rest of his family by the looming Dark Elf mask. The mask works to symbolize a few things – Otherness and Alienation, of which Loki is still subject to, thanks to his reviled heritage and own sense of unbelonging. The film itself draws parallels between Loki and the Dark Elves, in particular Kurse, a funhouse reflection of him in narrative and design. Kurse chooses to take on a monstrous appearance and is embraced as a self-sacrificing hero for it. Meanwhile, Loki has his true form (thought monstrous) hidden away and is shunned for his twisted attempts to be heroic. Loki himself connects the two of them by implying they will go to the same undesirable afterlife in the film, a rather sad note that highlights his sentiments of separation and self-disgust. Finally, being a mask, it, of course, infers concealment of identity and expression, a blank facade to hide behind, which is Loki’s whole schtick. Even if it is a monstrous, unfeeling mask, he still exists in all his muss beneath it. My favourite scene is the unravelling of Loki in his cell, where the illusions, for a moment, are dropped. Thus the braid of the mask coming undone, much like Loki himself. Frigga’s sword pierces him through, as her death affects him greatest in the family, thanks to their previously strong bond and her being the only one who still had faith in him. It is this faith that continues to connect him to the family members who turned their backs to him, even after her death.
The cross element descends into the little miniature scene below with the red glare behind Jane, who is also in the form of a cross; I intended no Jesus symbolism, but she is a vessel for ‚divinity’ in the form of the Aether, I suppose. This cross divides the little figures of Thor and Loki still – this is the scene where Loki pretends to be on Malekith’s side, after all (he is directly below Thor’s giant head, so thus really on his side) – but already Loki has a knife out, ready for some trademark backstabbing. Careful, Kurse, you’re nearest…
Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory, make a brief appearance at the start of the film, excusing my inclusion of them here. As carrion birds, they already have a strong association with Death here in the West, but I think Thought and Memory as concepts are the more important to me, as it is in these only the departed continue to exist. Hence, they frame Frigga and also hang over the film.
My grandfather having recently passed, I suppose it’s little wonder I was drawn to do this poster first. That and I had the clearest ideas for it. There’s a few more choices in here, but I’ll keep a few secrets for myself and something for you to interpret.
We Are What We Feel 