During one of the best classes I have ever taken in my undergraduate career, we learned about the changes implemented in the world of journalism.  As the world becomes more and more high tech and people tune into news via digital means, the way of the journalist has become not just limited to words but also to images.

Photojournalism is an art that is taking its foothold in the world of journalism.  Photography has taken the world of professional journalism to a new level, moving readers by providing images that render the invisible, seemingly-irrelevant current event into a relevant image of reality.

Where would we be now without our pictures?  What other media is as fluid and interchangeable as photography?  One person’s hobby can become capture a picture that speaks to people thousands of miles away– photojournalism is not necessarily limited to professionals.  What defines photojournalism is not that it tells about a world event in a newspaper or other news media, but photojournalism is about encapsulating one story in one picture.  It’s not about the reporting of wars or governmental policies, but the reportage on the human condition often overlooked by regular news media.  In its essence, journalism, in all forms, is about speaking for those who have no voice.  And photojournalism is about presenting the face of those people who are not being heard.

This one design blog shows 35 great examples of photojournalism.  And you’re going to find that they are not all found in newspapers or news media.

Think about it: What would our news media look like if we didn’t have pictures?  This is the power of photography.

The image of Don Quixote charging towards a group of windmills, lance at the ready, for a jousting match is one that most of us are probably familiar with. Russian-born artist, Vladimir Kush, has reimagined this scene in his painting “Fauna in La Mancha.” In this painting, the windmills’ blades have been replaced with butterflies, and Don Quixote’s lance has been exchanged for a butterfly net. On his Facebook page, Kush encourages us to metaphorically follow in Don Quixote’s footsteps, saying in his description of the painting, “Let us follow [Don Quixote’s] noble example and stretch the net of our imaginations in search for beauty!”

Much of Kush’s art relies heavily on metaphor. He has released a book of his work entitled Metaphorical Journey as well as a dvd of music and images of his paintings entitled Metaphorical Voyage. On his Facebook page, Kush has uploaded images of many of his paintings and with each, he has included a description with explanations of the metaphors in his work. These descriptions are fascinating to read; they give insights into Kush’s work that may not be immediately apparent and allow one to truly appreciate the full complexity of his work.

Kush’s paintings are so much more than a collection of pretty images – each painting contains a miniature story told through metaphor and refined through the talent of a brilliant painter. His paintings are like visual poems, each containing an overlying image with layers of meaning and nuance waiting to be discovered.

I’m quite surprised the topic of tattoos has not yet been brought up in Arts Ink. Seems ironic, no?  Well, I shall be the first to introduce you to the world of tattoos through what I call the ‘Mom’ Tat.  I think tattoos can be both the greatest and worst forms of artistic expression.  They often carry a story, maybe tribute a loved one or say something sacred to the person who wears the tattoo.  Whatever the reason for getting a tattoo, I enjoy looking at other’s tattoos and trying to understand why they got it.

Most recently one of my friends got a ‘Mom’ tat on her ribs.  It has Mom written in a heart about 3 inches wide and 2 inches long.  This is not her first tattoo, but I remember when she told me what she got I thought she might be joking.  When I realized she was not, I took her seriously and found the beauty in what she had done.  I remember saying, “Wow, your Mom must feel so special that you did that!”  Not saying that getting a Mom tattoo is THE way of telling your Mom you love and appreciate her, but it is one heck of a good one!

To get a tattoo in the first place is a big step.  I have always wanted to get one, but I don’t know what I would get, so I am ink free to date.  To get a tattoo in recognition of a loved one I believe is a selfless act.  Marking your body with their name indicates how they have affected you and how they will indefinitely be with you.

I will remain tat free for a while, but I will continue to be intrigued by others’ tattoos decisions.  Long live the MOM TAT!

Peace,

Sara

I am neither a typographer nor an expert in graphic design. Yet, there’s a lot to be said for fonts and their effects. Or rather, the proper (or not entirely appropriate) application of them. What is in the appearance of a letter? In its placement?

Different typefaces, when used in contexts appropriate to them, are as good as invisible in the everyday world. Language, so integral to human interaction, occurs in written forms perhaps more often than one would notice. Books, tags and labels, signs, advertisements of every kind, informative, entertaining, philosophical- the written word is ubiquitous. How it is physically manifested, however, is something that the average reader does not tend to notice unless something goes horridly awry. And it does, it does.

Everyone has seen this, or done this themselves, at least once, I am certain:  It is an email, perhaps, or a hand-coded website, or perhaps a homegrown flyer or pamphlet or newsletter. It has clearly been produced in Microsoft Word because there is WordArt on it. Eye-squinting, brow-contorting, mottled-brown (or perhaps wavy blue, rainbow, or shiny chrome), 3-D (or the kind with drop shadows) WordArt that reads “OUR VISIUN 4 THE FUTRUE” like a whack in the brain with a crowbar. There may be neither misspelling nor poor grammar in actuality, but its appearance does not precisely emanate the glow of professionalism, either.

Without the aid of WordArt, the overenthusiastic font-decorator may turn to the handy-dandy format bar for some nice garnishing. In the same page, there may be eight different fonts, six different font sizes, ten different colors and probably excessive and extraneous punctuation or some glitter and unicorns thrown in there for good measure.

Please, please, no.

Understandably,  simplicity is not always the solution. Less is not always more. A single classy, clean black typeface will not necessarily do the trick. 12pt. Times New Roman in black will leave the correct impression only in certain cases.  But there is often something to be said for restraint. A font that is overly spiky, flourish-y, blocky, or otherwise irregular can certainly be fun to use sometimes, but reading a block of text written in one is most assuredly not fun. Putting up a poster telling everyone about the party would not be very effective if, say, it looked like this:

Also, this is a fantastic guide to fonts.

But in all honesty, now, what is it that makes some fonts more effective than others? Is it the curve and thickness and slant of their lines, the way their letters sit next to or apart from one another? The exact details are difficult to pin down. But one can definitively declare one type ephemeral, another heavy and authoritative. One can have age and dignity; another, cleanly cut, modern and progressive.

About a year ago, I was tasked with the analysis of a graphic novel. I do not entirely recall what the prompt was, or what we were to glean from it, precisely, but I chose to do a study of different fonts. In a graphic novel or comic, a story is told not only through words and illustrations, but a blend of the two- the appearances of said words. Language becomes not only verbal, or even visual, but both. Darkness and foreboding? Use dark heavy slashes and angular letters. Uncertainty? Weak, widely spaced letters, uniformly shaped but perhaps a bit shaky. Something archaic can be conveyed with an Old-English- style type, evocative of bygone flourishes and grandness, of academia and the intellectual. Flat, angular, typewriter-generated font can suggest a detached coldness.

The connotations and effects associated with different fonts provide a fascinating study. We will explore this further, perhaps, another time. But until then–

-TChen

Ingredients for apple-pie filling
8 apples, sliced into bite-sized to half inch pieces (recommended for baking: northern spies but any tart/hard apples will do)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup (grade B)
cinnamon and nutmeg to taste
3 tablespoons corn starch or arrowroot powder
dash of vanilla extract

Since returning to Michigan after a spring semester in Maine, I’ve taken steps to become a pie boulangère, all in the interest of keeping the spirit of transcendentalism close against my mind and discerning, once again, its perceptible weight on my open hands. Thus, in every kitchen I step in, pies have begun to spring out of thin air. All sorts of pies. Apple pies. Cherry pies. Blueberry pies. My fall skirts are ornamented with patterned streaks of flour, now becoming a permanent fixture of my daily apparel, of my daily countenance.

Some of my friends think I have gone wide-eyed pie-crazy.

This may or may not be the case, but I would just like to add here that they are perhaps the primary beneficiaries of my pie-inspired neuroses. The number-of-pies-coming-out-of-the-oven to the-number-of-pies-that-I-can-feasibly-eat is a fairly high ratio and consequently, I have begun leaving pies, carefully wrapped in aluminum foil and with the tell-tale etchings of a lattice top, at my friends’ doorsteps. I’ve also noticed a change in my parents’ attitude towards me. I dare say that the atmosphere is merrier when we drive back to their house with a pie pan in my lap than without. (Perhaps a general rule of thumb in all scenarios.)
While most people around me have written me off as merely caught up in a fiery passion, clad in the flour emblazoned trappings of a pie enthusiast, clearly fueled by insomnia, stress hormones and oscillating Michigan temperature, I’d like to say that I have more reason than that.

Andrew Jackson Downing says, spurred by a quote of Emerson’s:

“Fine fruit is the flower of commodities.” It is the most perfect union of the useful and the beautiful that the earth knows. Trees full of soft foliage; blossoms fresh with spring bounty; and, finally, fruit, rich, bloom-dusted, melting, and luscious.

This is one of the reasons I love to bake pies. When I pull out the pie pans and roll up my sleeves, I think about the seasonality of the earth, that serendipitous 23 degree tilt, and how we are inextricably tied to it. Fruits are tied to nature’s cycle, not the supermarkets’ and it is picked from farms, borrowed from your neighborhood’s hidden gardens, scavenged from the town’s public trees before they are crushed under pedestrian heels (my pie maestro and inspiration, Emily, calls it “guerilla urban berry picking”) these fruit are intimately bound to both coordinates of time and place. Fruits are one of the more edible, evident manifestations of the invisible, yet honest geometric reality of the earth. What’s more amazing is that not only does it call upon geologic traditions but human traditions as well: art and altruism (since they are constructed often with these in mind) and a history of refined practices (to make the perfect crust) passed through the fabric of time, pie by pie, until it reaches us, here, now, and when you think about it, we eat all of it — all of it collectively: time, place, history — and make it a part of us… literally! In baking a pie, you invite others to share in all of these wonderful abstractions with you as you sit around a table, on a blanket laid on a spread of grass, stand around a tiny college living room, and then you make it tangible. It becomes your body. It becomes your actions.

Or maybe it’s more aptly described as a rampant yearning for authenticity, to feel the texture of something real again. In acknowledging the most fundamental phenomena of the earth, listening to its rhythms that connect it to something much larger, we can begin to rediscover the value in our hands and what we can mold from the raw, most altruistic organism – the Earth. No matter how removed we now are, how civilized we are, no matter whatever socially constructed mannerisms we have acquired, no matter how deeply we’ve spiritually convinced ourselves that money is the pearl we orbit around, we are born from the earth, blossomed from its pieces. It amazes me to think that one day, far in the future, these things won’t be here anymore. This ground, all these books, my fingers that type… and what have we got to show? I’d like to spend my days rapt in life-affirming, actions. Because, once, life lived here. Not your car or your designer dress. Not resumes suggesting your estimated social worth. But pure, unadulterated, life.

Sue majors in Neuroscience & English and tends to lurk in bookstores.

Other than writing, what can a pencil be used for?  Sometimes, I attempt to use them to put up my hair… and of course it fails because I can never get the twist/grip right.  Other times, I use them as bookmarks.  I use them as pointers for demonstration purposes; I use them to poke people.

I wish I could use them as artwork, as Dalton Ghetti does.  These minuscule sculptures carved out of pencil stubs and the graphite are amazingly intricate in their design.  It is absolutely insane what he can do with one pencil.

Especially these:

They remind me of small charms.  And indeed, they are tiny.

Starting from Marcel Duchamp’s notorious “Fountain“, the practice of transforming daily objects into art forms is nothing new.  But it makes me wonder: what other everyday objects can be used as breathtaking pieces of artwork?  Or, controversial ones, as well (to which Duchamp can attest).

All I know is, I want about a hundred of these pencils lining my desk.  Perhaps it will give me more motivation to study!