Humanity and Nature: The Porcelain of Kate MacDowell

Is it possible for art to be creepy and cute at the same time? Certainly when you see the porcelain art of Kate MacDowell in to account you are struck by two things. There is an breathtaking beauty in her attention to detail of our animal friends. Yet, many of the animals that she portrays are distinctly dead – already on the slab and undergoing a porcelain necropsy.
When you think about it our relationship with nature goes back way before human history – cave paintings drawn by prehistoric people in what they no doubt did not refer to as their leisure time show our intimacy with the natural world. Tens of thousands of years later MacDowell extends that tradition.
Yet all those many thousands of years ago we hunted and we gathered. We retain a rather idealistic impression of our union with nature in an age when our impact on our environment has never been so great or so harmful. MacDowell’s pieces reflect this dichotomy – we are the ultimate environmental stressor. We pollute, change the climate and introduce GM crops. LINK: kuriositas

Chakra Chair

Chakras are centers of energy and consciousness within the human body according to various Hindu traditions. There are six basic, physical chakras as well as a higher, spiritual one. This chair, designed by Karim Rashid, is made to accommodate those pressure points.

Link, Via: OhGizmo, Via: Neatorama

Mardi Gras: Big Chief Bo Dollis, Wild Magnolias and Wild Red Flames

Video above: "Big Chief Bo Dollis on Mardi Gras 2008: Wild Magnolias and Wild Red Flames," Mardi Gras Indians, via Clayton Cubitt. Here's a related song by Professor Longhair. And more on the tradition. LINK: Boingboing, Via: Youtube

The Strange Cult Of Santa Muerte

The Grim Reaper as a cross-dresser? In South America Mexico, Saint Death (Santa Muerte) will visit you one day - or so it is believed - and it will come in female form dressed up to the nines.

Take a look at the strange tradition of Saint Death. A pagan mix of the supernatural and black magic or a Catholic saint worthy of veneration? LINK