April 2013 – Kristen Baumlier

Month: April 2013

Superbrushes: Better Than Other Brushes

Posted on April 30, 2013April 30, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Last Friday I attended a launch event by Evan Marcell where he introduced Superbrushes, a set of new Photoshop brushes that he has created for use to paint and create digital images. Marcell created the brushes by taking pictures of textures around Cleveland, editing them, and preparing them as brush files to be loaded into Adobe Photoshop. The abstract brush forms provide a unique shape, texture, and pattern that make it easy to make great images and graphics.

Most of the time we use the standard brushes that come with Photoshop, but Superbrushes introduces a new exciting set of brushes to try. One interesting thing about Superbrushes is that the process of how the brushes were created was through the phenomon of the “butterfly effect,” where one action affects another action. One brush created another brush. This new brush was used to make another brush, and so on. Marcell says that the project and process of reusing a brush to make a new brush was inspired by breakbeat music, where beats are cutup and reused to make new beats.

The goal of the project is to enable artists to make more work, and to appreciate the brush. Marcell writes on the Superbrushes website, “.. artists are possibly the greatest appreciators/would-be art collectors if we didn’t feel obligated to put all of our funds right back into our art. SUPERBRUSHES brushes are beautiful compositions in themselves, enabling artists to fuel their art in appreciation of each gorgeous brush as an artwork in itself.”

At the launch event we were given direction to a webpage where we could download a set of 25 free Superbrushes. We watched a demo of how to install and setup the brushes, which was followed by a live contest – a Superbrushdown, where the audience members who brought laptops, had about 8 minutes to make an image. After the time was up, the group voted by clapping, and I am proud to say that I won(!), and got a prize of the full pack of 125 superbrushes, which usually sells for $20.00 off of the Superbrushes site..

Marcell is working to build a Superbrush community. The website is currently featuring pieces made with Superbrushes on the website. You can download a set of free 5 superbrushes to try, and then submit your image to be featured in the gallery. Why use ordinary brushes when you can use Superbrushes?

Image Source
http://evanmarcell.wix.com/superbrushes
Links:

http://evanmarcell.wix.com/superbrushes

Go Fossil Free Campaign: Eleven Cities Have Committed to a Future without Fossil Fuels

Posted on April 24, 2013April 30, 2013 by Kbaumlier

350.org, a group that for several years has been working to battle climate change through organizing, events, and petitions has a new campaign for communities and cities to commit to moving away from Fossil Fools. The latest update from the campaign is that 11 cities have made a commitment to moving away from spending money on fossil fuels, and there are over 100 petitions active in various cities and states.

The cities that are committing to divestment so far range in size, like Bayfield, Wisconsin, which has just 530 residents, to large cities, like the City of San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this past week to push the city’s retirement fund to divest $583 million from the fossil fuel industry.

Citizens who are starting the petitions feel that we are all part of institutions, such as city and state governments, religious institutions, charities and non-profits that do work to do public good. Most of these institutions invest money in stocks and bonds, and have a responsibility to divest from an industry that’s negatively impacting the environment and our future, and reinvest in solutions to climate change.

You can start a petition to show that there is support for fossil fuel divestment, and there are materials to support you in getting started. To view the campaigns that are already happening in your area and get ideas of how to promote your petition, check out the website.

If you’re not up for starting a petition, the campaign encourages you to talk to your friends, neighbors, and coworkers about the issue, and see if others are interested in stating a campaign.

Image Source:
http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/

Links:

http://campaigns.gofossilfree.org/

The Gleaners’ Kitchen

Posted on April 20, 2013April 23, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Gleaning is a practice that has been around since the beginning of agriculture. The first gleaners were poor peasants who picked up crops that had been left in the fields after the harvest. Today there are modern gleaners who have created a underground restaurant and grocery store called The Gleaners’ Kitchen where everything served is made from foods that came from dumpsters.

To support the project, founder Maximus Thaler and his collaborator go dumpster-diving behind grocery stores near Boston, getting fruit, vegetables, and packaged food which has been discarded for being past their expiration date.

Once cleaned up and prepared, the food is served and given away for free. The goal of the project is to foster community and support discussion about food and waste. The project’s website reports studies indicate that up to half of the food produced in the U.S. is ultimately thrown away, and that the National Resources Defense Council estimates that around $2300 dollars worth of food is thrown out by grocery stores nightly. Due to the variability of what is in the dumpsters, the food served in the Gleaners Kitchen is always changing.

At the last restaurant event the meal included:

Pesto Spaghetti
Curried Cauliflower and Peppers
Roasted Potatoes
Quiche with Cream, Onions, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Tomatoes and Chives
Roasted Chicken
Fruit Salad with Oranges, Clementines, Grapefruit, Apples, Bananas and Pomegranates
Green Salad with Lettuce, Arugula, Cucumbers, Peppers and Tomatoes
Warm Bread
Fresh Squeezed Apple Cider

The Gleaner’s Kitchen is currently operating out of Thaler’s apartment, but he’s hoping to get support s through Kickstarter to open up a dedicated café where everyone can eat for free.

Images:
www.thegleanerskitchen.org/

Links:

www.thegleanerskitchen.org/

Freight Farms: Upcycled Shipping Containers Become Garden Units

Posted on April 17, 2013April 23, 2013 by Kbaumlier

Want to grow 400 heads of lettuce a week? Freight Farms is a new solution for growing food in any geographic location, all within a 40’x 8’ freight container. The units are equipped with growing equipment and the latest harvest technology necessary for commercial scale agriculture. The setup provides efficient, year-round growing and will help reduce transportation costs.

The systems uses soilless agriculture setups, and uses solar energy. Freight containers are a water-tight, weather-proof structure that is capable of withstanding the most extreme weather conditions. Their size and structure provide a versatile, durable and cost effective way to grow food. Freight farms use less water than traditional agriculture and eliminate the need for pesticides or herbicides.

The company behind the units call them “A local solution for the next generation of global food supply.”The units are designed to be used by a wide variety of users, including institutional foodservice providers, schools, restaurants, farmers, grocery stores, disaster relief efforts, wholesale produce distributors and developing communities.

You can read more about their different units and even order one today if you want to get growing at freightfarms.com
Image Source:
freightfarms.com

Links:

freightfarms.com

Deconstructed Flowers – The Art of Fong Qi Wei

Posted on April 14, 2013April 22, 2013 by Kbaumlier

We’ve all seen flowers and heard of the “he loves me, he loves me not,” method of pulling off flower petals to predict if someone loves you. Fong Qi Wei, takes the removal of petals to a new level in his series of photographs of deconstructed flowers.

Wei is a conceptual fine art photographer who is based in Singapore, who views role of artist is to be a communicator what he calls an authentic message. He writes on his site, “I try to engage my audience by providing a new perspective on familiar subjects or themes. Through my art, I hope to introduce my point of view to my viewer and engage them beyond aesthetics. I wish to provoke them to think further about the familiar and ordinary.”

His series called Exploded flowers presents the beauty and design of flowers by taking flowers and presented them in a manner similar to a dissection. Each piece is separated and presented next to the other parts. The results is images that show the radial symmetry of flowers, and presents the moment of time in which a flower is still alive and in bloom.

He writes about the series, “… what is interesting to me is how much more expanded some flowers can get when they are disassembled – the relative surface area to size of a rose is so much greater compared to a larger flower like the sunflower.” The series has been featured in publications that include The Boston Globe and My Modern Met, and can be seen on his website fqwimages.com.

Image Source:
http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/

Links:

http://fqwimages.com/2011/08/exploded-flowers-3/