Recently in miscpics Category
A sign shop, apparently, on North Boulevard.
The Shwedagon Pagoda is a massive golden stupa, in Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma). (Darn this endless double-naming!) According to Wikipedia, "The crown or umbrella is tipped with 5, 448 diamonds and 2,317 rubies. The very top, the diamond bud, is tipped with a 76 carat (15g) diamond." In the background of this picture you can see the base of the stupa, and surrounding it is an enormous complex that buzzed with the activity of monks, worshippes and tourists and reminded me of (no disrepect to this sacred site intended) the North Carolina State Fair.
At the airport as I was leaving Burma, I spent my last few kyats ("chats") on a souvenir picture postcard of one of the thousands of temples in Bagan, which I had visited just a few days earlier. The color does not seem oversaturated to me. It strkes me as just right. Perfect. Bagan ("Pah-garn") is an amazing place.
At one time there were over 13,000 temples on this plain in central Burma, on the east bank of the wide and muddy Irrawady (properly the Ayeyarwady) River. About 2,200 of these temples remain standing today. It is not until you climb to the top of one of them that the rest of them are revealed. They dot the landscape like jewels. Really, that"s how it feels!
Climbing the temple. Up here some boys tried to sell me some stones, which they said were jewels, rubies I think. The scraped them and showed that they didn't scratch. They said they would take anything for them, but I (foolishly") wasn"t interested.
A massive Buddha in the base of one of the temples. You had to wander about, into the shadows, to find the doorways and stairways to the next level. There was a feeling of real adventure about this place. Like Indiana Jones, but that was just a movie!
Panning for gold by the Irrawaddy river.
The world"s largest book stands at the foot of Mandalay Hill in Mandalay, Burma. The text is carved and inscribed in gold, in the Burmese abugida script, into both sides of 730 stone tablets, for a total of 1460 "pages." Each stone tablet stands under a white structure with its own roof with a precious gem on top, and these structures are arranged around a larger golden pagoda. The carefully edited text is the Tipitaka Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism. Construction on this enormous project began in 1860 and was completed in 1868. I visited it in 1986. It was a grey day and as I recall was no one at all on the grounds, tourist or local, as a friend and I explored it. It was run-down, but there were signs that someone was caring for it as best they could. As a graphic designer and a book lover I was impressed but saddened. It is an amazing structure, an astonishing thing, really, standing neglected in a dusty corner of the world.
Click here for more pictures and information from Wikipedia.
Cologne Cathedral has intalled a new stained glass-window which was designed by the German painter Gerhard Richter. Here he combines the old (the cathedral) with the new (pixels). Already known as an outrageous colorist, I think he's topped himself with this one.
My brothers Jim and Bruce, and the famous Jay Joyner, at Atlantic Beach just a week ago.
I'm back. I'm safely back. I've been visiting family and friends in piedmont and good ol' down east North Carolina, and I had a wonderful time. I'll post more pics soon, but for tonight here's a shot of Vollis Simpson's Whirligig Farm, located on Simpson's Shop road, not far from Wilson.
It's the end of an area. Don Murray's Barbecue & Seafood, on Wake Forest Road in Raleigh, North Carolina, is out of business and the property is for sale. I never ate there, but I have always loved the sign, a replica of the original building on top of brick pier. Some years back it won an exemption from a city-wide sign ordinance, and a well deserved exemption it was. This sign has chutzpah, this sign has huevos. But I don't think this erection will be up much longer.
HAL Sings 'Daisy', digital photo by Paul Dean. Earlier this evening I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big screen at the Colony Theater, right here in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was well-attended but not too crowded, and excitement was in the air. I felt a tiny but definite chill as it ended, and contributed to the light applause. Afterwards, people hung around outside the theater as if we had experienced an event.
The Space Odyssey, digital photo by Paul Dean. The 'descent to Jupiter' was fantastic, of course. The movie went by much faster than I had expected. There was so much to be seen.
Diamonds, digital photo by Paul Dean. Stanley Kubrick was a frickin' genius, and 2001 on the wide screen is proof.
Serenity, digital photo by Paul Dean. An accident; I was testing the camera's settings while watching the evening news with my dad.
Removal from the Social Unit, a collage by Jimmy Kellough, 12.5"x12.5", 2005. Kellough, a multi-media artist who lives in Durham, North Carolina, has inspired countless other artists, including myself. I love this guy!
Paul Dean, Incense And Peppermints, collage, 14"x14", 2007.
Paul Dean, Paper Sun, collage, 14"x14", 2007.
Paul Dean, Echoes, collage, 14"x14", 2007.
Paul Dean, Journey To The Center Of The Mind, collage, 14"x14", 2007.
Just back from the Baton Rouge Gallery, these four collages are meant to resemble simple cubic diamonds. They are named after a few of my favorite psychedelic songs. Because, let's face it, diamonds are psychedelic.
Meet Chan Yen. She wants to be known as the woman who looks like Chairman Mao. I am not making this up!
It's a sound absorber, an artistic acoustic panel for the wall of your studio, office or home. Paul Dean, 2007, red felt, 23"x23". I don't know if it's art or if it's product design. If it's art, then I need to give it a title. If it's product design, then I guess I'm done!
Sub Rosa, a collage by Paul Dean, 30"x30". On display now through May 31st at the Baton Rouge Gallery. Don't miss the real thing!
'Sub rosa' is Latin and translates as 'under the rose.' Conversations that took place 'sub rosa' were regarded as private and confidential. The structure of this collage is based on the rose cut, a very popular diamond cut until the nineteenth century when the better know brilliant cut was invented.
You know what they used to say about staring directly at the sun' Well, now we can! NASA has taken pictures of OUR STAR with its Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, acronymically known as STEREO (I am not making this up), and these pics are now available online. Just get out your red and cyan 3-D glasses, and click here.
If you're curious, if you like startling images, click here to see a great collection of rare cloud formations.
I am pretending to be famous enough to call this booklet 'Paul Dean's Stereobook.' Hah! . . . I just finished photoshopping the front cover and a few spreads from this, the second edition of Stereobook, and thought I'd post them for you. The publisher, The Barefoot Press of Raleigh NC, recently sent me two cases of this vintage chestnut, and so it will soon be available online for purchase at papershrine.com. Not IMMEDIATELY, not right now, not QUITE yet . . . but soon.
Photos by Kari Cesta. For similarly shocking pictures and more information, scroll down to part 1 of this continuing series.
Jeanine at Mardis Gras!
From somewhere in California, I think, these are The Most Famous Photographs.
Just click to see more pictures of this insanely huge diamond mine in Eastern Siberia. Found via Fark.
Tejo Remy's Chest of Drawers (detail), 1991; used drawers, maple. At the Droog store, Amsterdam. Photo by Paul Dean.
People love good type. It's irresistible. Photo by Paul Dean.
From Makrokosmos I, by George Crumb, 1973.
Part of the score of Makrokosmos II, by George Crumb, 1973. Found at the visually stunning, historically significant, and well-archived BibliOdyssey. Check it out!
A bicycle and pedestrian underpass near the Martin Luther King, Jr Park, in Amsterdam. Photo by Paul Dean. Photos within the photo by Edweard Muybridge, if I'm not mistaken.
Amsterdam, 2006. Photo by Paul Dean.
From Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, 1825. As reproduced and captioned in Imitation and Imagination: The Art of the Theatre, by Loren K. Ruff, 1994.
Rick Nielson as a guitar god, by Mr. Squirrel.
My nephew, Nick Dean, among others, at Emerald Isle, North Carolina, just last week. Everyone had a very, very nice time.
'Known in the weather world as a circumhorizontal arc, this rare sight was caught on film on June 3 as it hung over northern Idaho near the Washington State border.
The arc isn't a rainbow in the traditional sense'it is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58' above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.
When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus's crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.
This particular arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour. . . .'
'Victoria Gilman for National Geographic, June 19, 2006.
This was broadcast late this morning on WPS1, and I thought I was hearing it live! But it actually took place a few weeks ago. Pictured above is reigning champion Ushio Shinohara, 74 years young. The contender (not pictured) had a percussion ensemble, bowled over the announcer, and even received an infinity sign (disallowed) from one of the judges. Nevertheless, Shinohara was proclaimed the winner. I found the picture, and there's another good one, here.