Day 4329: Quilted Portraits, Pandas

        

 

"Destruction": inks, collage 

  

Want music?

 

    

Click : Michael Johnson, You Are Not Alone.

 

  

 

 

2GN2S

African Fabrics Form Quilted Portraits 

Broom Jumpers.

Brooklyn-based artist Bisa Butler uses brightly colored cotton, wool, and chiffon fabrics with bold patterns to piece together quilts featuring detailed portraits of Black people. The materials and themes connect American subjects with their African roots and tell visual stories of history and culture.

Dear Mama

Butler is a New Jersey-born African American artist with Ghanian heritage. A closer look at her portraits reveals intricate mosaics of shapes and patterns and complex multi-hued skin tones. For her James Baldwin-inspired piece “I Am Not Your Negro,” Butler created a portrait of a man seated in a pose similar to Rodin’s “Thinker” and a warm complexion inspired by The Fire Next Time, an important book written by Baldwin that was first published in 1963. “I used reds and oranges in his complexion to indicate this while this man sits calmly [there] is fire inside,” Butler said in a statement. “I use colorful imaginative colors in my figures because I am connecting color to emotion and I want their images to indicate a personality, mood, and temperament.”

I Am Not Your Negro

The artist’s quilts also incorporate nods to Black wedding traditions, references to historically Black colleges and universities, and other elements that speak to the Black and African American experience. The Katonah Museum of Art is set to host the artist’s first solo museum exhibition with approximately 25 of her quilts on display from March 15 to June 14, 2020.

To learn more about the Bisa Butler’s work, head over to the Claire Oliver Gallery website and follow the artist on Instagram.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (detail)

Kindred

To God and Truth (detail)

To God and Truth (detail)

Bisa at work

Bisa at work

First Panda pair to enter the US in 21 years arrive in California

A panda at the Ya'an Bifengxia Base of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province, China, on June 12, 2024.

San Diego’s newest giant pandas landed in California on Thursday, according to Chinese state media – marking the first time Beijing has granted new panda loans to the United States in two decades.

The two pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, left the Bifengxia base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Sichuan province on Wednesday night, taking a chartered flight to their new home.

The rare loan was finalized in February, just months after Chinese leader Xi Jinping suggested sending pandas to the San Diego Zoo as “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples.”

A screengrab from a video shows people bidding farewell to pandas Xin Bao and Yun Chuan in Ya'an City, China, on June 26, 2024

Xin Bao, a female born in July 2020, is a “gentle and well-behaved” panda, while Yun Chuan, a male born in July 2019, is “smart and lively.” 

They were given a celebratory farewell at the Chinese base, attended by American and Chinese dignitaries, including performances and a gift exchange, according to a statement from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples,” he said at the time.

 

 

 

 

  

 

A 30 minute video, time-lapse plants,  here

(long, but amazing) 

 

 

  

 

Just because ...

  

 

  

Tree Swallow

 

Wednesday's Smiles ...