Selma Burke began playing with clay around the age of seven. And with that experience, she discovered a love of making sculptures. “It was there in 1907 that I discovered me,” she said, looking back.
While Selma loved art, her mother encouraged Selma to pursue a financially stable career. So Selma studied nursing and took a job as a private nurse in New York City in the late 1920s.
But in New York City, Selma found much inspiration from the Harlem Renaissance scene. She found a community of artists and began making art a more significant part of life.
To improve her skills, Selma began taking art classes at Sarah Lawrence College. She then traveled to Europe for training and projects. In 1941, Selma earned an MFA from Columbia. And the year prior, while still a student herself, she opened the Selma Burke School of Sculpture.
Selma dedicated herself to teaching and making art. She would go on to create sculptures of numerous famous figures, including Duke Ellington and Martin Luther King Jr. However, her most famous work was a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That portrait hangs today at the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C.
#OTD in 1825 – Death of United Irishman, Michael Dwyer.
Michael Dwyer of Imaal, Co Wicklow, joined the United Irishmen in the spring of 1797 and fought as captain of a Talbotstown rebel corps during the 1798 Rebellion. Having seen action in Wexford and Wicklow, including severe fighting at Ballyellis and Hacketstown, Dwyer returned to the familiar mountains and valleys of his native county to prosecute a guerilla war under ‘General’ Joseph Holt. When…
It has recently been that I began to see various adaptations of Sherlock Holmes to satisfy my hyperfixation but I always found it very funny the ability that my sister had to fall in love only with Watson's actors without knowing that they were Watson.
Sure she knows what is Sherlock Holmes but her idea of the characters and everything she knows about them is basically the great mouse detective so when I saw Sherlock and she pointed to Freeman's Watson as "a really handsome man" she was quite surprised to learn that that was Watson.
Later it was hilarious when I saw the Granada version because there were 2 Watsons and they both seemed attractive to her, like when she saw Burke's Watson it was something so dramatic because my sister has a thing to evaluate the costumes of any series that she watches or I see because my sis study textile engineering and she always gives me speechs on how that fabric that they used for x victorian costumes is wrong because it did not even exist at that time, so she was telling me something about that and Burke's Watson appeared on the screen and she fell silent then she accused me of putting series "where only guys who seem very hot appear". Then when there was the change with Edward Hardwicke my sister unknowingly chose Watson's actor for her joke of "My ideal sugar daddy, he looks so adorable and kind, look how that suit fits him." When I told her that she pointed to Watson's actor AGAIN, she accused me of lying to her because "of course she already knew who Watson was in that series that I saw". I told her that they changed the actor.
As I did not stop watching SH adaptations, she decided to stop for a while pointing out who she found handsome until when my sister naively thought that if I saw something in Russian that definitely could not be an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, after to declare out loud that she "could marry" with Solomin's Watson I just laughed and she knew it. By the time I saw the new russian holmes she came to ask me directly who was Watson this time? And when I pointed it out she just said "Fuck" and left.
Then we had a very long talk where we concluded that her type is Watson.
Director - Mark Robson, Cinematography - William H. Daniels
"You've got to climb Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls. It's a brutal climb to reach that peak. You stand there. Waiting for the rush of exhilaration; but, it doesn't come. You're alone and the feeling of loneliness is overpowering."
Sharon Tate with director Mark Robson (front) and fellow cast members Tony Scotti, Patty Duke Martin Milner, Barbara Perkins & Paul Burke while filming a wedding scene for “Valley of the Dolls” 20th Century Fox 1967.