Tuesday, September 18, 2018


Negative space is the space within, between, and around objects.  For example, negative space is the area between a cup and its handle; and it is the space between the petals of a flower.  It is also the space between an object and the edges of the canvas, i.e. the space around an object.  The opposite of negative space is positive space.  In drawing and painting, negative spaces are actual shapes that share edges with the positive shape--the object or objects you are drawing or painting--thereby creating the outline of your subject.  It is important when composing your drawing or painting to look at both the positive and the negative shapes and then to look back and forth between them to accurately assess proportions and relationships.  Learning to draw negative shapes demands a whole new way of seeing.  Regardless of what you are drawing or painting, the positive and negative shapes within the composition can be regarded as abstract shapes. You need to forget the "name" of objects, and what you think you "know" about them, and simply see them as shapes among a group of interlocking abstract shapes, like a jigsaw puzzle.  Some of those shapes are defined by the edge of the paper or canvas.  We are accustomed to seeing the positive shape as dark and the negative shape of light because the sky is lighter than the ground and objects appear dark against the sky.  However, that is not always the case.  Sometimes the positive and negative shapes can switch roles.  When this is done deliberately so that a shape could be seen as either figure or ground it is called a figure/ground reversal.  See this concept illustrated at https://www.thoughtco.com/negative-space-in-painting-2578774  In this diagram, you can see either two faces staring at each other, or a vase in the middle.  Marion Boddy-Evans  https://www.thoughtco.com/negative-space-definition-2573838

nontroversy  noun  (plural nontroversies)  A debate in the press or the blogosphere where one side has been repeatedly demonstrated to be clearly wrong but vocally advocates for their position.

Dawson City:  Frozen Time, a two-hour documentary on lost film, frozen, forgotten and rediscovered   This meditation on cinema’s past from Decasia director Bill Morrison pieces together the bizarre true history of a long-lost collection of 533 nitrate film prints from the early 1900s.  Located just south of the Arctic Circle, Dawson City was settled in 1896 and became the center of the Canadian Gold Rush that brought 100,000 prospectors to the area.  It was also the final stop for a distribution chain that sent prints and newsreels to the Yukon.  The films were seldom, if ever, returned.  The now-famous Dawson City Collection was uncovered in 1978 when a bulldozer working its way through a parking lot dug up a horde of film cans.  Morrison draws on these permafrost-protected, rare silent films and newsreels, pairing them with archival footage, interviews, historical photographs, and an enigmatic score by Sigur Rós collaborator and composer Alex Somers.  Dawson City:  Frozen Time depicts the unique history of this Canadian Gold Rush town by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery, and salvation.  https://www.kinolorber.com/film/view/id/2630  In large part, Morrison's film itself is a silent movie, illustrating the changing times of Dawson City with clips from films that were unearthed there.  As the documentary shows, Dawson City became a prime destination for fortune hunters when prospectors found gold there in 1897.  That part of the Yukon could only be reached via the 45-degree incline of the Chilkoot Pass, and authorities trying to impose order on the gold rush required every "stampeder" to bring along a full ton of provisions. 

Triple XXX Root Beer is serious business.  From the early days of its inception, to the loyal soft drink lovers who keep coming back for more, a Triple XXX Root Beer isn’t just any root beer.  In the 1920’s, close to 100 Triple XXX Thirst Stations dotted the landscape along the United States and Canada, with over 150 bottlers producing the frothy product.  It wasn’t just road warriors consuming Triple XXX Root Beer—you would’ve also found the soft drink for sale on Mississippi steamers.  Wondering where the Triple XXX moniker came from?  It all boils down to distinguishing a product’s excellence; a grading system.  Back in the day, sugar, gunpowder, and even kegs of beer were stamped with a certain number of X’s related to the quality, or grade, of the product.  One X on the package symbolized it was good.  Two XX meant it was even better.  Three XXX was tops—the best of the best.  Triple XXX Root Beer has its roots in the brewing industry and can be traced all the way back to Anheuser-Busch.  When prohibition came to Texas in 1916, the company reorganized its soft-drink production in their Galveston breweries to keep their doors from closing.  In 2008, the Ehresmans purchased the Triple XXX Root Beer brand, rights, and formula.  Bottled exclusively in Chicago, Triple XXX Root Beer is stocked by retailers across Indiana and available for purchase at both restaurant locations.  See pictures at https://www.triplexxxfamilyrestaurant.com/root-beer/

NYC's 8 New Libraries: City Finds Creative Ways to Revamp Facilities and Build Housing bMichelle Sinclair Colman  June 18, 2018   Libraries are not what they used to be.  At a luncheon hosted by the New York Building Congress, the Presidents and CEOs of the Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Public Library agreed that they have become a place for communities rather than the solitude and quiet isolation stereotypically associated with them.  As locals of all ages use the library to attend story hours, do homework, study for citizenship tests, learn to code, attend workshops, watch the World Cup, and work together in addition to checking out books, the design must be rethought to reflect the changes.  Throughout the city, libraries are moving or renovating into more modern, more appropriate spaces through partnerships with the city, the public library system, and residential developers.  Some of the projects seek to provide affordable housing and community spaces, others are luxury residential projects that provide new spaces in the building for local libraries.  Whether or not these projects create more affordable housing, the building of new libraries benefits all communities.  “Libraries are the last truly open democratic institution.” - Dennis Wolcott, President and CEO, Queens Public Library  Find extensive descriptions and pictures of the planned libraries:  The Inwood Library, Sunset Park Library, Brooklyn Heights Library, Elmhurst Public Library, Greenpoint Library, 53rd Street Library, The Queens Library at Hunters Point, and Mid-Manhattan Branch Library at

Current exhibits at the Toledo Museum of Art  Celebrating Libbey Glass, 1818-2018  through Nov. 25, 2018   Rebecca Louise Law: Community  through Jan. 13, 2019     Sights & Sounds: Art, Nature, and the Senses  through Feb. 24, 2019   Upcoming exhibits  Mel Chin: Two Me  Sep. 22, 2018 — Nov. 11, 2018   Frans Hals Portraits: A Family Reunion  Oct. 13, 2018 — Jan. 6, 2019   View details at https://www.toledomuseum.org/art/exhibitions

Researchers say they have found the world's oldest brewery, with residue of 13,000-year-old beer, in a prehistoric cave near Haifa in Israel.  The researchers say they cannot tell which came first, and in October 2018 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science:  Reports, they suggest the beer was brewed for ritual feasts to honour the dead.  "This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world," Li Liu, a Stanford University professor who led the research team, told Stanford News.  Ms Liu said they were looking for clues into what plant foods the Natufian people--who lived between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods--were eating, and during the search they discovered the traces of a wheat-and-barley-based alcohol.  The findings also suggest beer was not necessarily a surplus of making bread as previously thought.  The ancient brew, which was more porridge or gruel-like, is thought to have looked quite unlike what we know as beer today.  The research team has managed to recreate the ancient brew to compare it with the residue they found.  This involved first germinating the grain to produce malt, then heating the mash and fermenting it with wild yeast, the study said.  The ancient booze was fermented but probably weaker than modern beer.  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45534133

The Toledo-Lucas County Public Library and The University of Toledo present:  Creative Writing and Book Making  (F) Sept. 21 | 3:30 p.m.  King Road Branch  Haiku Poetry Writing  (F) Oct. 12 | 3:30 p.m.  Reynolds Corners Branch  Writing Your First Novel  (T) Nov. 6 | 3:30 p.m.  University of Toledo's Carlson Library (Dorothy Price Room 2024)

The World's Most Beautiful Libraries  https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2018/jul/31/libraries-world-most-beautiful-in-pictures  Thank you, Muse reader!  Find pictures of the largest library in Ireland that is home to the Book of Kells, and a library that houses bats to fight off insects.  See also 62 of the World's Most Beautiful Libraries at http://mentalfloss.com/article/51788/62-worlds-most-beautiful-libraries

The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58) contains the four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate text which St Jerome completed in 384AD, intermixed with readings from the earlier Old Latin translation.  The Gospel texts are prefaced by other texts, including "canon tables", or concordances of Gospel passages common to two or more of the evangelists; summaries of the gospel narratives (Breves causae); and prefaces characterizing the evangelists (Argumenta). 
The book is written on vellum (prepared calfskin) in a bold and expert version of the script known as "insular majuscule".  It contains 340 folios, now measuring approximately 330 x 255 mm; they were severely trimmed, and their edges gilded, in the course of rebinding in the 19th century.  https://www.tcd.ie/library/manuscripts/book-of-kells.php

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 1954  September 18, 2018  Thought for Today  To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (18 Sep 1709-1784)

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