Coming back from Morocco it hit me with a perfumed chorus of crickets - Virginia is a limpid verdant paradise. The air is sweet and crackling with water. Virginia is so alive. Virginia is green.
Morocco
A feast for the eyes.
More to come, but first, major props to the graphic designer who has the name of this product in Latin alphabet (left to right, in red) and in Arabic script (right to left, in blue), simultaneously, intertwined. Surely this artist is intimately acquainted with the brilliant Arabic calligraphy tradition. Not only an ancient art.
New Poster
Based on the old postrer
Shenandoah National Park
Is stunning. Sunsets! Beautiful waterfalls, trails, views - - -
But I think I like this better
We all need a little, or a lot of, inspiration these days. Great book, great subject. Great president.
Colors came on today
Good read. Glad I picked it up - at my *library*
Closing sentence from author Nick Taylor: The "New Deal's fundamental wisdom of treating people as a resource and not as a commodity ... fulfill[ed] the founding vision of a government by and for its people. All its people.”
Asked who would pay for all this, Hopkins spoke passionately of the moral necessity of big government. "You are. ... This is America, the richest country in the world. We can afford to pay for anything we want. And we want a decent life for all the people in this country."
What did the WPA do? Paraphrasing the author here - WPA was so successful and ubiquitous and had such impact that its physical legacy is so familiar as to be unnoticed. Millions of us grow up riding on WPA built roads and crossing WPA built bridges, reading books in WPOA libraries attending WPA built schools adorned with WPA murals, swam in lakes made by WPA dams in parks constructed by WPA.
Hot lunches in public schools, vaccinations, outhouses in rural unplumbed areas, university stadiums, lodges in grand national parks, mobile libraries, Americanization classes for immigrants.
And some great murals, frescoes, mosaics, paintings, novels, theater productions - and travel guides and posters.
Phillip Guston’s mural at the 1939 World’s Fair. Screenshot of photo by WPA Art Project. Phillip Guston went on to become a painter’s painter in the Abstract Expressionist era and made NYC the pinnacle of post War art
sketches -
Source material, from the Library of Congress - Message? Check. Image - especially the top left one - three white(ish?) men; noted
Problematic images - the WPA was of its time, of course. Interesting to update this one a bit.
Lyndhurst, designed 1820s revised extensively I gather 1860s? Gothic Revivial, super glam drama queen of architectural styles
Do you think my illustration has a look similar to these, below, from the 1910s?
Informed Opinion Counts
Another timeless message, from Penna WPA
Afton
!!!!!!
We are in scary alarming dangerous times. If you are not paying attention I cannot blame you at all. Here’s a pug.
A National Park - belongs to all of us
As I am reading a very engaging book about the WPA and the New Deal, a visit to one of its crowning achievements was extra fulfilling. I bow to the ancestors, those who came before us and had the foresight to provide for future generations a gem along the spine of the mountains of Virginia.
It may have been 93 degrees in Charlottesville but on Hawksbill in Shenadoah National Park it was 69 and as always gorgeous
World Progress Association
Proceeding with WPA posters, updated and completely repurposed and redone, retaining a similar message yet not at all - current for 2019, issues everlasting, since the 1935 - 1943 WPA period. Headlines are often the challenge.
The poster’s visual antecedent
Frederick Douglass
Ima brag - recently finished the 900 page biography of him by David Blight, listened to it as I worked in the studio - 35+ hours. Had to really parcel out the early years of his life, as an enslaved child in Maryland. It was all fascinating and distressing as so many issues he contended with are still roiling our country.
Custom art/interior design consulting
Color consulting is part of what I do - people are often terrified of color which it’s totally understandable - a mistake can be costly as well as annoying to have to live with. Color is what I do, all day every day. I’m glad to consult. Sometimes the result is a bit more confidence in the colors you have chosen. Sometimes there is an exploration process, in which mockups of rooms in Photoshop simulate a color plan.
Wanted to share the posters I adjusted the color for a client who had a definite idea - she wanted them to coordinate with the pillows she had already chosen. Wish I could find the photos but it turned out great! Here are the posters; use your imagination about how the room looked with these warm, rich color accents -
This essay had me cheering out loud as I read it on the train
Where Our New World Begins
Politics, power, and the Green New Deal
By Kevin Baker
Fascinating history, and ends with …
Like the best of liberalism, which was what the original New Deal was—and the Green New Deal could be—the proof is in the doing. All the efforts to dismiss it as some socialist plot will not stand, cannot stand, if we are to meet the greatest challenges of our time. Those challenges will not vanish just because we want to avoid them. They will not slow just because we prefer to go slow. The Green New Deal, as its name implies, is meant to be a restoration, a return to the sort of fairness, the human balance, the dignity of a working life wantonly abandoned and derided by so many of our leading politicians and commentators. If we are to survive, it will be necessary to ignore them. Obviously, they have nothing more to offer.
The manifesto that announced the Green New Deal will not be instituted literally. Some parts of it will be compromised, some will be improved, added, or subtracted. But it had better come into being, or we will leave to future generations a world of natural disasters unlike anything we have ever known.
No doubt it will be a heavy lift. But there is one, somewhat comforting fact to remember as we face the task ahead of us: we have been here before.
Just had a notion this would work out - -
A Modest Proposal: Tax Worthlessness
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/a-modest-proposal-tax-worthlessness/
Rent-seeking comes in many forms, including barriers to entry like onerous licenses, having to belong to a particular trade union in order to work in a trade, imposing tariffs, and corruption in government. In all cases, no additional wealth for the nation, sector or society is created.
Sometimes, requiring a license is necessary and makes sense. For example, doctors are not allowed to practice if they don’t have a license – that is to protect the well being of patients. Pilots are not allowed to fly passenger planes unless they have a special license – that is to protect the lives of the passengers. In such cases, license requirements make sense – the reasons are obvious.
