In 18th- and 19th-century London, the term mudlark was coined to describe someone who scavenged river banks for valuable items. Today, metal detectors aid in the continuing pastime—which now requires a permit—and every once in a while, a modern-day mudlark dredges up a striking
Don’t be swayed by the sound of environmental protest: these songs were first sung in the voice of the cutter, not the tree - by Richard Smyth Read at Aeon
When Miles Davis recorded Kind of Blue with his sextet, they spent a total of four days in the recording studio. They created one of the bestselling and most important jazz albums of all time in less than a week. Of course, they’d been exploring for months. In clubs, in front
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” –Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–90) When Emir O. Filipovic, a medievalist at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, visited the State Archives of Dubrovnik, he stumbled upon something that will hardly
Image by Toni Pecoraro, via Wikimedia Commons Go to practically any major city today, and you’ll notice that the buildings in certain areas are much taller than in others. That may sound trivially true, but what’s less obvious is that the height of those buildings tends to
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai is one of the world’s most iconic pieces of art. Hokusai created the woodblock print in 1831 at the age of 71 as part of his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji . But in some sense, he’d been working on it all of his life. In
In the late aughts, Richard Haining began salvaging leftover wood. While working for a set design company, he realized that the sizable waste generated was also an untapped opportunity for his personal projects. “What I did not have in the way of disposable income, I did have
From Business Insider’s series Still Standing , a look at La Maison du Pastel , a 300-year-old French company that makes pastels for artists by hand. Back in its golden age, the company supplied the likes of Monet & Degas but fell into neglect near the end of the 20th century.
After moving to Honolulu in his early 70s, the Gen'ichirō Inokuma drew inspiration from the rainbows, night sky, and other natural phenomena of his new home.
Five emerging media artists will each receive a $25,000 production grant and participate in an online residency program with Eyebeam. The Grand Prix recipient will be awarded an additional $25,000.
Can shame help us become better people? “In Confucianism, shame is a crucial tool that leads you toward your best self, and you have more power over it than you know.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Queendom is a documentary film by Agniia Galdanova about queer Russian activist and performance artist Jenna Marvin and her unusual form of protest against the war in Ukraine and Russia’s treatment of LGBTQ+ people. From a short review in the Guardian: When Russia invaded
Eléonore Joulin casts humble foods in a fresh light with her gastronomic collection of ceramic goods. From her studio in Brussels, the artist layers crinkled cabbage leaves into a vegetal dwelling and twists a long sausage into a sculptural, worm-like shape. She outfits many
Ahead of the Paris Olympics, France has released a scratch-and Sniff baguette stamps . “The baguette, the bread of our daily lives, the symbol of our gastronomy, the jewel of our culture.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Interesting hypothesis: the aesthetic of Incan stone work was inspired by corn . “The layout of Machu Picchu mirrors the shape of a corn cob, with its terraces resembling the kernels of corn.” 💬 Join the discussion on kottke.org →
Kirkus’s list of 20 Books That Should Be Bestsellers reminds me that Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new book, Long Island Compromise , is due out this summer, so yay to that. Yay also to pal Nicola Twilley for making the list with her book Frostbite . And there’s a new-to-me title on
In 1802, Italian sculptor Antonio Canova produced a marble sculpture known as “ Venus Italica ,” notably commissioned by Napoléon Bonaparte and intended to replace another Venus statue at the Louvre in Paris. Among numerous other historic statues and artifacts at the Museum of