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hamletthedane · 3 months

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I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

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aueua · 8 months

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people with siblings: how do you feel about them?

#[.txt]#just. a bit curious #e: I see... thank you for the answers so far; it's interesting to hear as someone who's an only child #i suppose i should have phrased this as: if you have them - how do you feel about your siblings?#i am aware most answers can be boiled down to being complicated; even so it has been nice to hear from everyone of different circumstances #i hope that your day is well.

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mydairpercabeth · 3 months

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More Baby Annabeth thoughts to ruin your day:

In the show, Echidna explains that monsters trach demigods by smelling their fear; it’s part of the hunt. Once a demigod is aware of who they are and why they’re in danger, monsters will come for them. Annabeth was constantly hunted by monsters from the age of 5. MEANING THIS LITTLE BABY ANGLE WAS SCARED AND ALL HER STEPMOTHER AND FATHER DID WAS MAKE HER FEEL LIKE ITS HER FAULT!!! SHE WAS SO ALIENATED FOR TWO YEARS AND BLAMED HERSELF!!!

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kittyeatzboyzz · 5 months

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heysweetbee · 8 months

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yourangle-yuordevil · 6 months

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First time they make an effort (because going to the bathhouses Barbie style™ would have raised more questions than necessary...)

#good omens #crowley #Thermae and chill #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #Aziraphale hear's Crowley's voice and turns to him #only to see him suddenly miracle his clothes away and make an effort so he be like *surprised Pikachu*#while Crowley is like oh i always look at Aziraphale lovingly because he's the most precious bean in all existence and i love him so much #but with the new addition he is WAIT WAIT THESE EMOTIONS ARE STRONGER WAIT NO IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A SECRET; BODY WTF!!!!#sof questo è per te e per l'headcanon delle terme - by vane #also la capigliatura greco romana è QUASI decente (by vane)#fare i tag dal telefono è ORRIBILE #wake me up wake me up inside #🤗🔥🤗#good omens comic #historical husbands

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bevirspnsblmnt · 8 months

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sometimes "disarm" and "trigger" are synonyms

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 astarion #bg3 shadowheart #khael tav #disegna e bevi #when the barbarian is the only one spotting a trap but he's resistant to fire damage so might as well #Oh Worm?

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ryllen · 3 months

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do u know that even the size of the different size of vegetables at another country amazed me because from where i came from they are all smaller and scrawnier

#to remind u guys if u're thinking about something naughty stop right there; the different size of the food served is also surprising #twisted wonderland #twst #sebek zigvolt #ace trappola #deuce spade #twst yuu #twst mc #fanart #do westerners go to asian country feels like they are served dwarf's portion #because as an asian; it always feel like we are served giant's portion; not exaggerating bcs we can never finish it #understandable because westerners can grow so tall so they must need more energy to burn #it's like if we order food; we asians always have to have a tupperware to take leftover home #but the price of the food in all the food places is so expensive it's reasonable the portion is big #i might ignite if paying so much we only get rabbit portion #anyhow i am just thinking of this because of the briar valley's big horse post #i do love to think everything is bigger in briar valley #the trees are all so lushfull and majestic like they all have lived a thousand years already #and the vegetables all just grow happily and absorb so much nutrient from the soil they are so big also #i was thinking of drawing e pel too but the space #while to people who born in this country feels things like these are normal #the thought of being able to be born in such a country where the produce all looking so big and healthy is such a blessing to me #it almost feels like they take it for granted; but it's just what they are born to #i have a nephew who is SUPER picky & waste food so much #i am crying everytime #yes y'all have a lot of food and good life here but h e l p #i'm sure the climate also makes vegetables bigger #i think i heard in winter plants stock more nutrients in their produce as stock for spring & summer #that's why winter veggies are better & sweeter and all #my country's vegetables are scrawny because the heat evaporates everything

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5ftboy · 1 year

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"And Edgin saw something he'd never seen in the young half-elf's face before. [...] It was as if, when his life was on the line, his back to the wall, Simon finally stopped being afraid." — The Road to Neverwinter

#dungeons and dragons honor among thieves #dndhat #edgin darvis #simon aumar #chris pine #justice smith #dndhatedit #mine **#justicesmithedit #the unwavering belief edgin has in simon is *so* important to me !!#at this point they've known each other for y e a r s and he's only ever supportive & confident & patient #and it makes for such a Heartwarming dynamic !! hell yes to earnest and sympathetic heroes !!#1k **

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clownsuu · 1 year

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