Daily Archives: January 31, 2014

GOLDEN THREADS

Behind the Dendroglyph man – ABC Illawarra NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

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South Coast artist Warwick Keen (WOK) is renowned for his vibrant contemporary paintings, constructions and carvings.

The canvases include three dimensional works mixing acrylics, foam core, PVA glue and sawdust, as well as Aboriginal-based designs painted in both traditional and non-traditional colours.

The carvings are modern-day representations of Dendroglyphs; carved tree designs found in eastern NSW, Victoria and some parts of Queensland that were created in the past to signpost the burial places of highly regarded Aboriginal males and initiation sites.

Warwick\’s artistic calling is a reflection of his childhood, but quite opposed to the dynamic nature of his work, his past has left him with many hidden scars.

via Behind the Dendroglyph man – ABC Illawarra NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

GOLDEN THREADS

10 Failed Utopian Cities That Influenced the Future

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10 Failed Utopian Cities That Influenced the Future.

10 Failed Utopian Cities That Influenced the Future45SEXPAND

In 1856, the Vegetarian Kansas Emigration Company founded Octagon City near Humboldt, Kansas. They intended it to be a settlement made up entirely of vegetarians, but had to open it up to others when interest wasn’t what they hoped. The city’s design was inspired by a “scientific” idea, suggested by famous phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler, that octagons were the most practical design for homes because they permitted the most amount of light to enter. (Above you can see a design of Fowler’s from his magazine about phrenology.) City designer Henry Clubb, a vegetarian activist, imagined that eight roads would lead away from a central octagonal town square. From there, the city would be made up of four octagon villages, complete with octagon farmhouses, town squares, and public buildings.

Ultimately about sixty families came from all over the country to live in Octagon City, but were sorely disappointed when they found that the only building was a 16 x 16 windowless log cabin. The settlers who stayed faced a multitude of problems, including lack of water when the local spring dried up, mosquitoes and disease. Nothing remains of the town today, but Clubb’s legacy lives on in the handful of octagon houses that remain in the US and Canada.

GOLDEN THREADS

JUST IN FROM BRIAN AHEARN. BOOK LAUNCH OF BEYOND THE SEA AND THE ATLAS LOG

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LYNNE BELL SANDERS

Atlas Log copyBeyond the Sea two volumes copyAtlas Log copyPress Release Beyond the Sea•  There are two volumes with a limited special first edition binding.
•  Each book is hard-bound in green leather and blocked in gold.
•  There are 1,300 pages with 753 illustrations, Including a bibliography and index.
Separate to the two volumes is the log book of the convict transport ‘Atlas’. A total of 363 pages,
The following is an overview of content:
On the morning of November 29, 1801, a heavy wooden wagon, lumbered through the streets of Cork and moved slowly in the direction of the port of Cobh. Absorbing the bumps in the springless cart was a young sworn United Irishman named Murtagh Ahern and his two brothers John and Michael. They had been sentenced to suffer death for rebellious outrages and the brutal murders of all the male members of a Tithe-Proctor’s family at Croom in County Limerick.
    Their commuted…

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