Artist highlight: Tania Brun, alias Babayaga

Today I came across a blog post about an artist I have been trying to learn more about about since I first saw her work in Peru. Artist Tania Brun of Arequipa, uses the pseudonym Babayaga, a witch from Russian folklore with a wooden leg who eats children. Her artwork, which I saw printed in intricate detail on t-shirts in Lima caught my eye.

Featured in the Buenos Aires, Argentina-based zine Money In My Pocket, Babayaga describes her work (translated here):

     The influences for my drawings are the Mexican engravers, especially José Guadalupe Posada, the Mexican tradition of Day of the Dead, Catholic art of the era of the Viceroyalty, but also the cultural manifestations of people here in the mountains of Peru, like the way they decorate their combi-vans and moto-taxis and also the concert posters of different cumbia groups that can be seen pasted around the city.
     In 2004 I left the faculty of art because it was not for me and I kept drawing on my own, then in 2007 after a trip to Mexico, where I found it incredible the familiar and daily ways they deal with death there, I started this series of illustrations with the theme of death.
     The technique I use is ink on paper; I began to use these materials because I could then use the images for screen printing on t-shirts and that I think is a good way to make my work available to those who like it and I can share with them.

I love that she prints her designs on t-shirts. Seeing the shirts in Lima, a clothing manufacturing center of South America, her designs distinguish themselves from the other million designs flooding the streets. In Lima one can buy a Peru-manufactured Armani Exchange shirt for $5 before it is exported, and on the street it seems like everyone and their grandma (literally) is wearing a brand-name shirt that would cost $40 or more in another country. But when I realized that those Armani shirts were really just shirts (and their designs rarely consist of much more than the letter 'A' or 'X'), I gained a new appreciation for shirts with a great design, story, and artwork, like those of Babayaga.

View more of Babayaga's designs on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xbabayagax/

H.H. Bennett Wisconsin River photos in 3D

On Tuesday, I took a canoe trip down the Wisconsin River starting just west of Blackhawk Island State Natural Area, ending near the River Walk and downtown Wisconsin Dells.  I passed by several of the sites landscape photographer H.H. Bennett helped make famous during his career photographing the area from 1865 to 1908.

Afterwards, I made a visit to the H.H. Bennett Studio and Museum to see Bennett's work up close.  One of the highlights of the museum was seeing Bennett's images for the first time in 3D as the stereoscopic images he started making in 1868.  Bennett started making the stereoscope images because he realized "that the three dimensional aspect of the rock formations would be lost in two-dimensional photographs." (1)

At the museum, the Bennett stereoscopic images are viewable in 3D by using a set of glasses which separate the right-eye view from the left-eye view.  I thought, "I wonder what other ways people people could see these images in 3D?"  I recall that there are some 3D televisions out now, but that can't be cheap. Then I remembered that I had seen a post by Marcos Torres on abduzeedo.com using animated gif images to fake a 3D effect.

So, I present here the gimmicky (and mildy annoying) but cheap & easy method of displaying one of Bennett's photos in 3D.  By quickly switching back and forth between the left- and right-eye views of the stereoscopic image, we can visualize some of the three dimensionality of the scene:

Looking out of Boat Cave, Image ID 75053
Used with permission from Wisconsin Historical Society

What I would like to try next is using some of the 3D features in Photoshop CS4 to create a limited 3D model using the stereoscope images.  I have seen plenty of tutorials on making stereoscope images from 3D models, but have not seen any 3D models derived from stereoscope images.  There must be a way to use something like the animated gif method to create a smoother animation showing off some of the three dimensionality of the scene.

It would be cool to have a slow pan from the left-eye view to the right-eye view for something like a documentary.   Got any ideas?

You can read more about the Bennett collection and see more images on the Wisconsin Historical Society's website or on their Flickr page.

Reedsburg area historic photo collection now online

I am proud to announce that the Reedsburg Public Library's collection of Reedsburg-area historic photos is now online for public viewing.  The collection of over 5000 historic images from Reedsburg, La Valle, Loganville, Rock Springs, Plain and Ironton is now viewable HERE.

The image collection has been housed on CDs at the library for the past 10 years; now is the first time the public will be able to browse the images online.  It is a remarkable collection, with some of my favorite images being area soldiers, 1970's Halloween costumes, big bucks, kids, wild fires, swimming holes, early settlers, Indian natives, cigarettes, fun people, the Badger Theater at its best, and local cartoons.

For the past several months, I have been talking with Reedsburg Public Library director, Sue Steiner, and staff about the challenges and benefits of putting the historic photo collection online.  Our goal in putting the images online is not only to provide a valuable resource for area people, but also to provide more exposure to the collection and encourage sales of full-resolution versions of the images.  The library currently sells full-resolution images for $5 through the request form on their website.

With support from the Reedsburg Public Library and a grant from the Sauk County UW Extension, Arts & Culture Committee, I was able to go forward with the project by transferring the library's 19 GB photo collection from 37 CDs onto my computer, use Picasa (free) software to organize, edit, annotate, tag, (even made a map) and then upload the collection to Flickr.

Here are a few photos from the collection:

Please take a moment to browse the collection on your own, and if you find an image you really like, consider buying it at full resolution!  Also, if you have information about any of the photos, feel free to leave comments.

In search of Babayaga

Right now I am in Arequipa and I am continuing a search for the person behind some really cool shirt designs with the label 'Babayaga - Arequipa'. All of my search tactics have failed. The website listed on the label, http://no.jodas.pe/, is a joke, I assume, as it doesn't exist and translates to something to something like http://areyouf.ingkidding.com/.

I've tried Google, but only find info about the witch-like character from Slavic folklore who eats children. I tried searching for people mentioning Babayaga on Twitter; no luck. My best bets in finding Babayaga are through the 2 stores where I found his her shirts in Lima, Pulga (Miraflores), and Neomutatis (Barranco). Until I hear back from them, I'll continue wandering around Arequipa with my eyes peeled for Babayaga designs and asking people if they know anything about him her, "Do you know anything about this guy girl from Arequipa who makes really cool black and white t-shirt designs with day-of-the-dead-like images? I think he's she's in a band, too." Yeah, that's about all I've got to go on.

UPDATE! 7/25/2010:  Eureka!  Tania Brun, alias Babayaga talks about some of her work in a post here:  http://bit.ly/9tX8J5.  And she's on Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/photos/xbabayagax/.  She informs me that http://no.jodas.pe/ is no joke, it's just a website that hasn't been developed yet.

Los Saicos - 1964-1966 Peru

A friend turned me onto Los Saicos playing just this one song, Demolición.

Later, I went out and found their album, which has been remastered in 2006 by Repsychled Records.  Some great, raw sounds.  Next up, I´m off to try to find the 2009 documentary about the band, Saicomania.  Hector Chavez, producer of the documentary, tells me I can find it in Quilca (Lima).

JFK in Reedsburg

Did you know??:
JFK was in Reedsburg, WI on his campaign trail fifty years ago yesterday. Relive his path 50 years later here: http://twitter.com/jfk__1960

Or read about his speech at the Badger Theater here: http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/ree/jfkinreed.htm

Finding new music, without a computer

There are some things Google is not (yet) very good at finding. For example, Google is still not very experienced at finding good music for me.

To find new music, I like simply talking to people and asking them if they would recommend something for me. While travelling in Peru and Ecuador, there is a mónton of music that is completely new to me. Here are some of the recommendations I´ve received from a Peruvian, a group of Argentinians, and two new Chilean friends:

From my hand-written, scanned notes above, here are some of the artists that have been highly recommended to me:

• Eva Ayllon
• Lucha Reyes (video)
• Charly Garcia
• Andrés Calamaro
• Los Cafres
• Fito Paez
• Los Pericos
• La Renga
• Gondwana
• Chancho en Piedra

With the endless sources of music that exist, here is why this method of just asking people works well (it sounds obvious, no?). Asking someone provides two mostly qualitative filters that other computer-based recommendation engines (last.fm, Pandora) can´t yet provide.

1. I ask for recommendations from people who I think will have either similar musical tastes... or from people who might have some insider music knowledge. Last.fm does show people other users with similar musical interests, but what I like about just asking people is that there is an element of randomness thrown in and I might find something completely new.  Also, I can get a sense of how excited someone is about a certain artist. I don´t know of any current efforts by Google, last.fm, or Pandora, to use ´´excitedness´´ or other emotions to refine their recommendations.

2. The more someone knows me, the more likely he or she will be to know what kind of music I will like. Even asking strangers for recommendations, with just a short conversation they can quickly widdle down a long list to something that´s customized for me.

(3.) There is also an ´´anti-filter´´ effect associated with asking for recommendations. People can recommend music that might not be readily available for streaming or downloading on the internet. In Peru, I have received plenty of recommendations of artists that I can not readily find (for streaming) online.


p.s. I also love using hypem.com with its social-filtering abilities to find new music.

Please leave a comment with your own recommendations because I know my lists are incomplete!