nPosted October 12, 2018
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nThere are some artists that paint pretty stuff. Super restful stuff that makes you feel good.
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| Pretty in Pink, by Graham Gercken |
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nAnd of course there are a lot of artists who paint dark stuff – paintings that make you feel upset about the worst aspects of humanity!
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| A Copse, Evening, by A. Y. Jackson |
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nWorks by Al Held, who was born on this date in 1928, sometimes manage to make me feel a little bit dizzy!
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nOf course, like other artists, Held created all sorts of different sorts of paintings, and most are not dizzying at all. His alphabet paintings are interesting because there is so very little information about which letter he was painting – and yet it is pretty darned clear which letter he was painting!!
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nCan you see that the first one is an “I” and the second an “X”?
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nThese paintings remind me of “hippie” or “psychedelic” fonts that were super popular when I was young teen:
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nHeld’s alphabet paintings and the hippie fonts create readable letters (at least, they’re readable to me!) even though they’re pretty abstract. They take the most crucial bits of background away from around the letter, so that the text is mostly solid letter, rather than being mostly background, like most fonts:
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| Above, hippie font – mostly letters. Below, an ordinary font – mostly background. |
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nAlso on this date:
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nLaos Liberation Day
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nFree Thought Day
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nColumbus Day, aka Discovery Day
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nFiesta Nacional in Spain
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nBirthday of claymation pioneer Art Clokey
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nAnniversary of the death of nurse and heroine Edith Cavell
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nSpanish Language Day
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nBirthday of Dick Gregory, comedian, activist, and conspiracy theorist
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nWorld Egg Day
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n(Second Friday of October)
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nPlan ahead:
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nCheck out my Pinterest boards for:
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nAnd here are my Pinterest boards for:
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nNovember holidays
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nNovember birthdays
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nHistorical anniversaries in November
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