musingsofaretiredunicorn - Tumblr blog

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John Singer Sargent, January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925.

In his studio in Paris with Portrait of Madame X (1884).

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Saint Monica – Luis Tristán // Hope – Ludwik Stasiak //The Virgin Mary at Prayer – unknown artist // Christian in Prayer – Max Nonnenbruch // Maria Cristina of Savoy, Queen of the Two Sicilies – unknown artist // Mary of Egypt – Jusepe de Ribera // Devotions – Ernst Nowak // Old Woman Praying – Matthias Stom // Lady Praying – unknown artist // Magdalena in Mediation – Jan Lievens// Purgatory – Gabriel von Max // That Unwanted Animal – The Amazing Devil

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“Summers Passing” pattern by @8pxl

took me nearly 9 months and 28,200 stitches but here it is!

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The first simulated image of a black hole was calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978.

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Marbles // The Amazing Devil

if you are lucky you will love someone and their hair will thin and their breasts will sag and you will kiss them everywhere over and over again

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When Adam bit the apple he did it because he trusted Eve. Because he loved her. Adam bit into the apple because the woman he loved told him to, no matter what God said. No matter the rules of heaven. What’s heaven to a woman’s love anyway? What’s God to your wife? The first sins of humanity, were trusting others. Eve trusted a snake, Adam trusted Eve, and I trust you. Maybe that’s a sin, just like the first couple. Maybe everyone’s right about us and we’re sinners and we offend God. But like I said, what’s God to a woman’s love anyway? What has heaven got that I can’t find sitting next to you on a cool autumn morning?

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Anastasia Trusova (Russian, born 1989)

“Cat in the Garden”

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Barbara Crooker // "And Now It's September,"

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“But I know that she is coming close to the point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything.”

Fiona Apple with a wooden rendering of her dog, Janet (1998-2012), made by artist Patrick Bucklew

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The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.

Julia Armfield, from 'Our Wives Under the Sea'

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David Hampton planted douglas fir and larch trees in a forest in Oregon to resemble a face. Every autumn the larch pines turn orange and the smiley face stands out.

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Allen Ginsberg

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I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today.

It's right-handed

I am right-handed

There are grooves for the thumb and knuckle to grip that fit my hand perfectly

I have calluses there from holding my stylus and pencils and the gardening tools.

There are sharper and blunter parts of the edge, for different types of cutting, as well as a point for piercing.

I know exactly how to use this to butcher a carcass.

A homo erectus made it

Some ancestor of mine, three species ago, made a tool that fits my hand perfectly, and that I still know how to use.

Who were you

A man? A woman? Did you even use those words?

Did you craft alone or were you with friends? Did you sing while you worked?

Did you find this stone yourself, or did you trade for it? Was it a gift?

Did you make it for yourself, or someone else, or does the distinction of personal property not really apply here?

Who were you?

What would you think today, seeing your descendant hold your tool and sob because it fits her hands as well?

What about your other descendant, the docent and caretaker of your tool, holding her hands under it the way you hold your hands under your baby's head when a stranger holds them.

Is it bizarre to you, that your most utilitarian object is now revered as holy?

Or has it always been divine?

Or is the divine in how I am watching videos on how to knap stone made by your other descendants, learning by example the way you did?

Tomorrow morning I am going to the local riverbed in search of the appropriate stones, and I will follow your example.

The first blood spilled on it will almost certainly be my own, as I learn the textures and rhythm of how it's done.

Did you have cuss words back then? Gods to blaspheme when the rock slips and you almost take your thumbnail off instead? Or did you just scream?

I'm not religious.

But if spilling my own blood to connect with a stranger who shared it isn't partaking in the divine

I don't know what is.

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Teeny tiny pineapple block quilts by artist Amy Pabst

Here's some with my hand to give you an idea of scale on each block:

I did get to chat a little with Amy while she was in her gallery zone. She said she works often with silks, including reclaimed ones, and she finger presses her work rather than using an iron. The pastel rainbow piece above is called Soft Pride, measures 41cm x 41cm, has 11,925 pieces, and took her about 4 weeks to make. She does not use a magnifying glass while she works, relying purely on her eyesight, but she does make sure to take regular eye rest breaks every 10-20 minutes.

Sharp Dressed Man; 33cm x 33cm, 5,700 pieces.

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(by saralatif)

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Hazel McNab, Last Light, linocut.