Weekend Art; Petro Magro

Petro Magro

Born 22nd June, 1918, Dnipropetrovsk

At the age of 22, Petro Magro graduated from Dnipropetrovsk Art College, a school well known for its high regard for realism in all its forms, with a particular focus on drawing and painting.
After active service in the Second World War, in 1948 Magro began to participate in various exhibitions at a local, national and international level.


Well known for his landscapes, in 1964, Magro was accepted into the Union of USSR Artists and in 1996 received the title of an Honoured Artists of Ukraine and more recently, the People’s Artist of Ukraine (the highest achievement award in the country) in 2004.


 Now a highly regarded and distinguished artist, Magro’s paintings can be found in
Russian and Ukrainian museums as well as in private collections in the UK, USA, Germany, Italy,The Netherlands, Israel, Canada and Belgium.


He has had three solo shows in the British Isles since 1992 and the painting Going to Church received the accolade of being rated as the best painting in Liverpool in 1998.


full article here

http://www.danusha-fine-arts.co.uk/artists/magro.htm

Art, Prose and Music; Not for the fainthearted

Art, Prose and Music;
Not for the fainthearted
Trainspotting

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Trainspotting is the first novel by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as addictions that serve the same function as heroin addiction. The novel is set in the mid to late 1980s.

The novel has since achieved a cult status, added to by the global success of the film based on it, Trainspotting (1996), directed by Danny Boyle. Welsh later wrote a sequel, Porno, in 2002. Skagboys, a novella that will serve as a prequel, is expected for publication in 2009

‘’Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family.
Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars,
compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good
health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed
interest mortage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your
friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a
three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics.
Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning.
Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing
game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth.

Choose
rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable
home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up
brats you spawned to replace yourself.

Choose your future
Choose life'’.

How To Win Afghanistan's
Opium War
The best way to deprive the Taliban of drug profits?

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Oct. 6, 2008

Complete article here
http://www.slate.com/id/2201622/



‘’Hard-pressed Afghan farmers should be allowed to sell their opium to the government rather than only to the many criminal elements that continue to infest it or to the Taliban. We don't have to smoke the stuff once we have purchased it: It can be burned or thrown away or perhaps more profitably used to manufacture the painkillers of which the United States currently suffers a shortage. (As it is, we allow Turkey to cultivate opium poppy fields for precisely this purpose.) Why not give Afghanistan the contract instead? At one stroke, we help fill its coffers and empty the main war chest of our foes while altering the "hearts-and-minds" balance that has been tipping away from us. I happen to know that this option has been discussed at quite high levels in Afghanistan itself, and I leave you to guess at the sort of political constraints that prevent it from being discussed intelligently in public in the United States. But if we ever have to have the melancholy inquest on how we "lost" a country we had once liberated, this will be one of the places where the conversation will have to start’’.

Art Work by
Francis Bacon
Style: Expressionism
Lived: 1909 - 1992 (20th century)
Nationality: United Kingdom

Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd - The Wall

     

American Health Care,

American Health Care

I need a little clarification. I’m probably going to regret this, at the very least I’m taking a bit of a risk, but after lots of consideration, I’ve come to the conclusion the only way I am going to understand this situation is to ASK.

This is the situation as I see it.
There are a whole lot of Americans who do not have access to health care. There are some proposals put forward by the present administration which are aimed at reforming the American health care system in order to give ALL Americans access to health care.

Support for these proposals is widely divided. People seem to either love them and consider them the salvation of Americas soul, OR; people seem to hate them and consider them an evil intrusion into the American way of life orchestrated by the devil himself.

Being a Brit; I’m not sure exactly what these proposals are, actually, I’m not exactly sure how the American health care system works (or doesn’t work).

This is what I would like.

• 1.    I would like to know what changes are proposed.
• 2.    I would like to know why you either support these changes or are against these changes
• 3.    If you are against these changes, I would like to know what alternative strategies you would implement in order ensure that Health care is available to all Americans.
• 4.    If you don’t believe that all Americans have a RIGHT to Health care, I respectfully ask you not to contribute.
  

This last requirement may seem a little odd and I apologise if you feel excluded by this. The reason I say this is because if this is truly your belief; that people living in a wealthy industrialised country have no basic right to health care, our ideologies are so far apart that we share no common ground on which to begin. Also because if you don't believe health care is a right you obviously have no argument or debate about how best to provide health care for every one.

PLEASE, be polite, be courteous and don’t let this get nasty.
Thanks, I am looking forward to understanding the issues here.

Poetry Wednesday, Anger

Poetry Wednesday; Anger.

Anger and angry people are my topic for today, chosen because………………there are a lot of them about. Artwork by the well known 60’s artist Jackson Pollock.

A Poison Tree by;
William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

  Devine Image by;

 William Blake

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is God our Father dear;
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart
Pity, a human face;
And Love, the human form divine;
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine:
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell,
There God is dwelling too.

Not From This Anger;
by Dylam Thomas

Not from this anger, anticlimax after
Refusal struck her loin and the lame flower
Bent like a beast to lap the singular floods
In a land strapped by hunger
Shall she receive a bellyful of weeds
And bear those tendril hands I touch across
The agonized, two seas.

Behind my head a square of sky sags over
The circular smile tossed from lover to lover
And the golden ball spins out of the skies;
Not from this anger after
Refusal struck like a bell under water
Shall her smile breed that mouth, behind the mirror,
That burns along my eyes.




This is a warning……some guy allows himself to become so angry in hotel foyer he loses all control and the whole thing is caught on video.


 

Sunday Art; Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera

I had almost decided not to post this, hence my second choice Helen Forbes is already posted.



I like this post much better and the reason I didn’t post it earlier is that I suddenly remembered someone else posting on him a while ago.





Then I thought, well there are maybe some people who didn’t see the other post, so to who ever posted this guy before (sorry but can’t remember who you are) you have great taste.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Diego Rivera (December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez in Guanajuato, Gto. He was a world-famous Mexican painter, an active Communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo, 1929-1939 and 1940-1954 (her death). Rivera's large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Renaissance.






Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City.[1] His 1931 retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City was their second.

Lots more very interesting info here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Rivera

Great site and pictures of his mural work

http://www.fbuch.com/diego.htm

also check this one out, the Mural project

http://www.riveramural.com/home.asp?language=english