Laurie Hogin- Artist

Laurie Hogin is a recent artist whom I discovered. While searching for Flemish painters, I came across Laurie where her new style of painting is compared to such. Anyhow, I have nothing else to say about her paintings but AMAZING! See for yourself!

Laurie Hogin's allegorical paintings of vicious creatures suggestive of human counterparts skillfully appropriate 17th century Flemish painting techniques to narrate tales of a poisoned utopia. Frequently humourous images of brand-loyal monkeys, snarling bunnies and fabulously feathered bird creatures are encoded with political and cultural messages meant to critique our trust in the contemporary global economy, including celebrations of hipness, consumerism and tourism. Hogin contends that the history of European painting since the rise of the merchant class in the 16th century represents the history of Western attitudes towards the subjects depicted, including beauty, wealth, domestic life and romantic transcendence, as well as human dominion over nature. These attitudes persist, even as our means of representing them have expanded, and are but part of our daily cultural currency. Hogin's project is to employ a seductive exposition of nostalgic, painterly celebrations of beauty, romantic allegory and the pastoral idyll to reveal the ideologies inherent in these visual forms.

Information from www.momentaart.org

Images from www.lauriehogin.com

the music machine

A great band that is rarely spoken of called the music machine or the bonniwell music machine is something that should be on our current playlists. They're quite a fun bunch. Check them out! ---KE

The Music Machine (1965-1969) was an American garage rock and psychedelic (sometimes referred to as garage punk) band from the late 1960s, headed by singer-songwriter Sean Bonniwell and based in Los Angeles. The band sound was often defined by fuzzy guitars and a Farfisa organ. Their original look comprised of all-black clothing and black moptop hairstyles. Bonniwell was known to wear a single black glove.

The group came together as The Ragamuffins in 1965, but became The Music Machine in 1966. The single "Talk Talk" was recorded at RCA studios on July 30, 1966.Their debut album, (Turn On) The Music Machine, was released in 1966 on the Original Sound label. Seven of the twelve tracks were originals, written by Bonniwell. One of these, "Talk Talk," became a Top 20 hit in the U.S. The follow-up single, "The People In Me," peaked at #66. Bonniwell blamed the weak showing of this single on a supposed feud between the band's manager and a top record executive. Four cover songs were included on this release, due to record company pressure.After a promotional tour of the U.S., the rest of the original line-up, which included Ron Edgar (drums), Mark Landon (guitar), Keith Olsen (bass) and Doug Rhodes (organ), left Bonniwell, due to internal conflicts.

In 1967, Music Machine (essentially only Bonniwell at this point) were signed to Warner Bros. and re-named The Bonniwell Music Machine. The name was changed to give more prominence to the band's core member, songwriter and vocalist Sean Bonniwell. A self-titled LP was released that year, made up mostly of previously recorded singles with the original line-up. The recording spawned no big hits, despite the inclusion of a few more pop-oriented songs.A third album was recorded but never released.

In 2000, a Bonniwell Music Machine album called "Ignition" was released on Sundazed Records. This is a collection of songs from the unreleased 1969 album, as well as demo tracks from the band's Raggamuffin days in 1965.In 2000, Bonniwell wrote about his life and The Music Machine in a biography called "Beyond The Garage," published by the small press publisher Christian Vision.

*information provided by Wikipedia

*photos provided by http://bonniwellmusicmachine.com/

tartans in fashion

Tartans in fashion are some of the sharpest, daring, and sophistocated looks. Find out all about them! ---KE

A tartan is a pattern consisting of crisscrossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven cloth, but are now used in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Celtic countries, especially Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. (Tartan is also known as plaid in North America, but in Scotland this word means a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder or a blanket.)A Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over - two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. This forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of squares and lines known as a sett.In the modern era, specific tartans have become associated with Scottish clans or Scottish (and other) families, or simply institutions who are (or wish to be seen as) associated in some way with a Scottish (or other Celtic) heritage.

Textile analysis of fabric from Indo-European Tocharian graves in Western China has shown similarities to the Iron Age civilizations of Europe dating from 800 BC, including woven twill and tartan patterns strikingly similar to Celtic tartans from Northwest Europe. The Celts wore coats set with a pattern of checks close together and of varied colours, similar in fashion to the

Scottish, Irish, and Welsh tartans. Tartan patterns have been used in British and Irish weaving for centuries. A possible predecessor dating from the 3rd century, found near the Antonine Wall and known as the "Falkirk sett", has a checked pattern in two colours identified as the undyed brown and white of the native Soay sheep. The fabric had been used as a stopper in an earthenware pot containing a hoard of silver coins. Particoloured cloth was used by the Celts from the earliest time, but the variety of colours in the clothing was greater or less, according to the rank of the wearer. That of the ancient kings had seven colours, that of the druids six, and that of the nobles four [citation needed]. In the days of Martin Martin (circa 1700), the tartans seemed to be used to distinguish the inhabitants of different districts and not the inhabitants of different families as at present. He expressly says that the inhabitants of various islands were not all dressed alike, but that the setts and colours of the various tartans varied from isle to isle. As he does not mention the use of a special pattern by each family, it would appear that such a distinction is a modern one, and taken from the ancient custom of a tartan for each district, the family or clan in each district originally the most numerous in each part, eventually adopting as their distinctive clan tartan, the tartan of such district. Martin's information was not obtained on hearsay: he was born in Skye, and reared in the midst of Highland customs.John Campbell of the Bank, 1749. The present official Clan Campbell tartans are green. For many centuries, the patterns were loosely associated with the weavers of a particular area, though it was common for highlanders to wear a number of different tartans at the same time. A 1587 charter granted to Hector Maclean of Duart requires feu duty on land paid as 60 ells of cloth of white, black and green colours. A witness of the 1689 Battle of Killiecrankie describes "McDonnell's men in their triple stripes". From 1725 the government force of the Highland Independent Companies introduced a standardised tartan chosen to avoid association with any particular clan, and this was formalised when they became the Black Watch regiment in 1739.The most effective fighters for Jacobitism were the supporting Scottish clans, leading to an association of tartans with the Jacobite cause. Efforts to pacify the Highlands led to the 1746 Dress Act banning tartans with exemptions for the military and the gentry. Soon after the Act was repealed in 1782 Highland Societies of landowners were promoting "the general use of the ancient Highland dress". William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn became the foremost weaving manufacturer around 1770 as suppliers of tartan to the military. Wilson corresponded with his agents in the highlands to get information and samples of cloth from the clan districts to enable him to reproduce "perfectly genuine patterns" and recorded over 200 setts by 1822, many of which were tentatively named. The Cockburn Collection of named samples made by Wilsons was put together between 1810 and 1820 and is now in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. At this time many setts were simply numbered, or given fanciful names such as the "Robin Hood" tartan.By the 19th century the Highland romantic revival inspired by James Macpherson's Ossian poems and the writings of Walter Scott led to wider interest, with clubs like the Celtic Society of Edinburgh welcoming Lowlanders. The pageantry invented for the 1822 visit of King George IV to Scotland brought a sudden demand for tartan cloth and made it the national dress of the whole of Scotland, with the invention of many new clan tartans to suit.

*information provided by Wikipedia

cottages

Cottages are absolutely the quaintest forms of shelter. Did you ever think about how they got their name?---KE

Originally in the Middle Ages, cottages housed agricultural workers and their families. The term cottage denoted the dwelling of a cotter. Thus, cottages were smaller peasant units (larger peasant units being called "messuages"). In that early period, a documentary reference to a cottage would most often mean, not a small stand-alone dwelling as today, but a complete farmhouse and yard (albeit a small one). Thus in the Middle-Ages, the word cottage (Lat. "cotagium") seems to have meant not just a dwelling, but have included at least a dwelling (domus) and a barn (grangia), as well as, usually, a fenced yard or piece of land enclosed by a gate (portum)Examples of this may be found in 15th Century manor court rolls. The house of the cottage bore the Latin name: "domum dicti cotagii", while the barn of the cottage was termed "grangia dicti cotagii".Later on, a cottage might also have denoted a smallholding comprising houses, outbuildings, and supporting farmland or woods. A cottage, in this sense, would typically include just a few acres of tilled land.Much later (from around the 18th Century onwards), the development of industry led to the development of weavers' cottages and miners' cottages.

*information provided by Wikipedia

tudor style

When I think of a Tudor home, class is the first word that comes to mind. Here is a brief history of the Tudor. ---KE


The Tudor style in English architecture is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, for conservative college patrons. It followed the Perpendicular style and, although superseded by the English Renaissance in domestic building of any pretensions to fashion, the Tudor style still retained its hold on English taste, portions of the additions to the various colleges of Oxford and Cambridge being still carried out in the Tudor style which overlaps with the first stirrings of the Gothic Revival.
The four-centred arch, now known as the Tudor arch, was a defining feature; some of the most remarkable oriel windows belong to this period; the mouldings are more spread out and the foliage becomes more naturalistic. Nevertheless, "Tudor style" is an awkward style-designation, with its implied suggestions of continuity through the period of the Tudor dynasty and the misleading impression that there was a style break at the accession of Stuart James I in 1603. In the domestic architecture one would find the walls made of wattle and daub.
In the 19th century a free mix of these late Gothic elements and Elizabethan were combined for hotels and railway stations, in revival styles known as Jacobethan and Tudorbethan.


Tudor style buildings have six distinctive features
-Decorative half-timbering
-Steeply pitched roof
-Prominent cross gables
-Tall, narrow windows Window Examples
-Small window panes
-Large chimneys, often topped with decorative chimney pots


*information provided by Wikipedia