Visual Resourcefulness at MassArt

I have be plagued with guilt for not posting recently, and had been preparing the summer-went-so-fast-so-many-things-to-do-where-is-my-mind excuses, when this project from Corey Achangel came to my attention.

Archangel has compiled enough apologies from slacking bloggers across the internet to get me off the hook. I’ll be back soon.

Frog Pond on the Common from the BPL Flickr Feed

Kids, if you are in town, I don’t have to tell you its HOT! Moving at all is hard unless motivated by a promise of central air. Well you are in luck, many of our fine cultural institutions here in Beantown want to help the cause.

The ICA is one of our favorite spots to cool off, it boasts the double bonus of being waterfront AND having a brand spanking new HVAC system. This summer the work of tatoo artist Dr. Larka is on display. Additionally they have many great programs running all summer one worth checking out is CO LAB: Process + Performance with Jenny Holzer and Miguel Gutierrez on July 28. Dancing and text based art, can it get any better?

Instead of catching a mindless summer blockbuster this week get serious with a foreign film. The Boston French Film festival is at the MFA July 8 through the 25.

If you are in a more outdoorsy spirit get out on the water and take the ferry to one of the Boston Harbor Islands.  In addition to the many performances, workshops, and hot-dog eating contests happening on the islands all summer, on July 31 and August 1 you ucan check out the very cool Art Encampment projects.

For five days, eight artist groups will take temporary ownership of eight plots of land on Bumpkin Island. As “homesteaders,” they will build some kind of home on the land, live on the land for five days, and “improve” the land via a site-specific, temporary performance or installation.  -Berwick Research Institute

Think cold thoughts!

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Boston Harbor Islands

Berwick Research Institute

Here is an animation about the Visual Resources department created by our own fabulous Kate Howley!

Also known as Evacuation day to the MassArt community. The state keeps trying to take this holiday away from us lucky folk who work or go to school at a state or city school here in Boston, so enjoy it while you can! Here’s is a little video for you to enjoy on your day off eat so soda bread, wear something green, ERIN GO BRAGH!

German Playing Card designed by Ludwig Burger ca. 1885

My personal browsing produced a really neat new find today! The World of Playing Cards is an amazing archive of images and information of playing cards from the hand drawn cards from the Native Americans to ornate cards designed for royalty (above) and cards designed by abstract artists (below). When looking a the history of such a specific, ordinary item it clearly illustrates the greater history of art, illustration, and printing. So neat.

SIMULTANÉ PLAYING CARDS by Sonia Delaunay, 1964

The World of Playing Cards – Via Design*Sponge

Louis Gueymard as Robert le Diable by Jean-Désiré-Gustave Courbet

ArtStor’s Help Page

contains great handouts

ArtStor’s You Tube Channel – Artstor in 3 mintues

Register for an Artstor account – video

ArtStor’s blog

Paris Exposition: Palace of Decorative Arts, 1900 from the Brooklyn Museum

MDID is our local image database which is contains 20,000 art, architecture, and archeological images chosen by MassArt faculty and VR staff. Its a great resource for viewing and presenting slides.

Below is the ultimate guide for using MDID as an instruction tool. The guide should cover every question you could have about our image database.

MDID guide for instruction

The Flickr Commons, is one of the greatest gifts Web 2.0 has given visual resources professionals. I can’t say enough great things about it. The program is so popular with museums, non-profits and government organizations that the application process has been put on hold while Flickr catches up with the backlog of interested parties. The Commons provide access to great images that archives across the country have squirreled away over the years. One of the greatest features is that all images included must have the “no known copyright restrictions” attribution, which means for you dear student, you can use them without worry. This month the U.S. National Archives has joined with 42 image sets containing 3,000 images. The quality is low for some images but for others it is great. The Matthew Brady Civil war photos are particularly striking.

Gen. Daniel E. Sickles and Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman by Matthew Brady

The collections are eclectic and fun to browse through. And as with all Flickr Commons images community tagging is welcomed if you know any juicy tidbits about the images. Here are a few selection I found.

Merry Christmas. Peace. Your Gift To The Nation, poster from World War I

Exhibit at the First Symposium on Low Pollution Power Systems Development

The U.S. National Archives’ photostream