Liquid Landscape Paintings & mixed media by Andrew Macrae and Diane Mettleman

Liquid Landscape Paintings & mixed media by Andrew Macrae and Diane Mettleman

Artist Party Friday June 12th, 6 to 9pm Show runs June 1st, 2015, through July 18th 2015 Art derived from our urban landscape, captured and re-imagined, these two local artists actualize the art of flow. Andrew Macrae I create imagery intuitively, working the composition as I go along. The first objects of the image are scenes from nature: trees, mountains and animals. The scene slowly fills with solid shapes and perfect lines; objects of human conception. I am showing the act of contemplation as man slowly imparts his development over and around the established nature. What remains in the end is an image exhibiting tension between man and nature, a scene where the two are wrapped up in a chaotic commotion. I use a broad array of mediums to create a painting, but I prefer watercolor and gouache on paper. In my paintings, watercolor is used to create faded landscapes, while gouache is used as the foreground medium, so I can push line and color. When combined, my images become vibrant displays of graphic subjects existing in a dream state.www.admacrae.com Diane Mettelman "I am attracted to real world objects, constantly rescuing discarded metal objects from the road and highway. I should have a bumper sticker that says, " I brake for metal scrap!" -D.R.Mettelman About 17 years ago, with scraps of copper given to me by a metalsmith friend, I started a 2D collage. After learning how to make a copper rivet, I had made my first piece of wall art, and I was hooked. Since then, with varied combinations of metals, I continue to create. Sometimes I braze, solder, and use common commercial fasteners, but the copper rivet continues to be my mainstay. Using wood, paint, copper pipe and fittings, I have expanded to create 3D sculpture and furniture.An avid hiker, I began to include stones collected on mountain hikes. Including raw stone with the discarded or "scrap" objects from once natural resources completes the connection to my love of nature. Using recycled materials allows me to communicate the beauty I see in these discarded objects. My pieces seem to create themselves, and like all art, are open to the viewer's interpretation. I am merely the conduit through which the creations are formed. +++   FLOAT An urban art spa is the only floatation center & art gallery in the San Francisco Bay Area, floatation therapy is a unique and powerful tool that allows you to shut out the world, and drift into the deepest possible level of physical and mental relaxation. FLOAT offers new, public exhibits of local artists to stimulate and challenge your senses. FLOAT, Floatation Center - Art Gallery 1091 Calcot Place, Unit # 116 (located in a store front loft of the historic cotton mill studios) Oakland, CA 94606 Media is welcome to "experience" a complementary float For more information and high resolution images please contact: Allison Walton, 510.535.1702  info@thefloatcenter.com , thefloatcenter.com   Celebrating 9 Years of floating, the San Francisco Bay Areas, most innovative clients

hair

April 18, 2014 - This information about hair has been hidden from the public since the Vietnam War. Our culture leads people to believe that hair style is a matter of personal preference, that hair style is a matter of fashion and/or convenience, and that how people wear their hair is simply a cosmetic issue. Back in the Vietnam war, however, an entirely different picture emerged, one that has been carefully covered up and hidden from public view.

In the early nineties, Sally [name changed to protect privacy] was married to a licensed psychologist who worked at a VA medical hospital. He worked with combat veterans with PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Most of them had served in Vietnam.

Sally said, “I remember clearly an evening when my husband came back to our apartment on Doctor’s Circle carrying a thick official looking folder in his hands. Inside were hundreds of pages of certain studies commissioned by the government. He was in shock from the contents. What he read in those documents completely changed his life. From that moment on my conservative, middle-of-the-road husband grew his hair and beard and never cut them again. What is more, the VA Medical Center let him do it, and other very conservative men in the staff followed his example.

As I read the documents, I learned why. It seems that during the Vietnam War, special forces in the war department had sent undercover experts to comb American Indian Reservations looking for talented scouts, for tough young men trained to move stealthily through rough terrain. They were especially looking for men with outstanding, almost supernatural tracking abilities. Before being approached, these carefully selected men were extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival.

With the usual enticements, the well-proven smooth phrases used to enroll new recruits, some of these Indian trackers were then enlisted. Once enlisted, an amazing thing happened. Whatever talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear, as recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field.

Serious causalities and failures of performance led the government to contract expensive testing of these recruits, and this is what was found.

When questioned about their failure to perform as expected, the older recruits replied consistently that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer ‘sense’ the enemy, they could no longer access a ‘sixth sense,’ their ‘intuition’ no longer was reliable, they couldn’t ‘read’ subtle signs as well or access subtle extrasensory information.

So the testing institute recruited more Indian trackers, let them keep their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then they would pair two men together who had received the same scores on all the tests. They would let one man in the pair keep his hair long, and gave the other man a military haircut. Then the two men retook the tests.

Time after time the man with long hair kept making high scores. Time after time, the man with the short hair failed the tests in which he had previously scored high scores.

Here is a Typical Test:

The recruit is sleeping out in the woods. An armed ‘enemy’ approaches the sleeping man. The long haired man is awakened out of his sleep by a strong sense of danger and gets away long before the enemy is close, long before any sounds from the approaching enemy are audible.

In another version of this test, the long haired man senses an approach and somehow intuits that the enemy will perform a physical attack. He follows his ‘sixth sense’ and stays still, pretending to be sleeping, but quickly grabs the attacker and ‘kills’ him as the attacker reaches down to strangle him.

This same man, after having passed these and other tests, then received a military haircut and consistently failed these tests, and many other tests that he had previously passed.

So the document recommended that all Indian trackers be exempt from military haircuts. In fact, it required that trackers keep their hair long.

The mammalian body has evolved over millions of years. Survival skills of human and animal at times seem almost supernatural. Science is constantly coming up with more discoveries about the amazing abilities of man and animal to survive. Each part of the body has highly sensitive work to perform for the survival and well being of the body as a whole.The body has a reason for every part of itself.

Hair is an extension of the nervous system, it can be correctly seen as exteriorized nerves, a type of highly evolved ‘feelers’ or ‘antennae’ that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex.

Not only does hair in people, including facial hair in men, provide an information highway reaching the brain, hair also emits energy, the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain into the outer environment. This has been seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then rephotographed after the hair is cut.

When hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment are greatly hampered. This results in numbing out.

Cutting of hair is a contributing factor to unawareness of environmental distress in local ecosystems. It is also a contributing factor to insensitivity in relationships of all kinds. It contributes to sexual frustration.

In searching for solutions for the distress in our world, it may be time for us to consider that many of our most basic assumptions about reality are in error. It may be that a major part of the solution is looking at us in the face each morning when we see ourselves in the mirror.

The story of Samson and Delilah in the Bible has a lot of encoded truth to tell us. When Delilah cut Samson’s hair, the once undefeatable Samson was defeated.

Two Vibrant Views-Judith Frost and Thomas Kocotis at Orland Art Center Gallery

Two Vibrant Views-Judith Frost and Thomas Kocotis at
Orland Art Center Gallery

June 5 through June 27, 2015

Very different in how they view their world, fine artists Judith Frost and Thomas Kocotis use the
diverse mediums of  watercolors and oils. Their artistically different points of view are showcased
in this month’s exhibit.

Friday,  June 5 Artists Reception 3:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Refreshments and live music
Young musician Sean Bostrom at our baby grand piano.
Pop in Friday and meet the artists, or linger over refreshments, entertainment, and conversation and make an evening of it!

Orland Art Center Gallery
Phone: 530-865-5920
Address: 732 4th St. Orland, CA 95963
Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1 to 7p. m. during each 3 week show.
Saturdays: 12 noon to 7 p.m.
http://www.orlandartcenter.com/gallery.html
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Orland-Art-Center/114602481932857

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day, I'm posting this photo. It's a bit different take on our veterans and their families. My late half-brother, Harold Hatch served in WWII stationed in Morocco. He was a radioman on a bomber. When the war ended, he was returned stateside. This is the scene in my folks house, as the family awaited his call to let us know he arrived safely in the states. In the photo is his fiancee, Madeline Larrabee, my mother Marjorie Bernklow, and two best friends and neighbors, George and Lydia Clark. My dad was the photographer. The anticipation was palpable as one can see. The photo tells the story, and he soon called to everyone's delight.

Massachusetts Pine Tree Shilling,

Cassius D Phelps & A CURIOUS FIND IN WILLIAMSTOWN, MASS

For my Phelps Genealogy Group
From American Journal of Numismatics, Volume 44
The newspaper reporters have given us the following interesting item, under date of October 24, instant: —

Coin Made In 1652 is Found In Field. 

Cassius D. Phelps, a South Williamstown merchant, while plowing a field, found one of the rarest of American coins, a Massachusetts Pine Tree Shilling, for which he has refused 5300. It is one of the first coins which was minted in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and is dated 1652, thirty-two years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. There are only two others like it in existence, and neither is as good a specimen as this one. One is owned by a Boston collector and cost him $212, and the other is owned in Albany, and no price will be placed upon it.
Before accepting the reporter's estimate of its value and rarity it will be best to wait for a further description of the piece. From the price named, it has been suggested by a correspondent, that it is perhaps an impression of the so-called "Good Samaritan " piece, one of which, in the Parmalee collection, was sold in June, 1890, for $210. As no "Pine-tree Shilling," so-called, has ever brought so high a price, the suggestion seems probable.
In this connection we may note that there is a good deal of uncertainty about the history of the "Good Samaritan shilling." Dr. Green, in the Journal—then one of its editors— VII (1870): p. 40, said that the original was "undoubtedly the work of some English apothecary, who without any special object in view, stamped the piece with his trade-mark. It is figured in Felt's Account of ' Massachusetts Currency,' (plate, p. 38)." The "Good Samaritan Shilling " attracted attention as early as 1767, when Thomas Hollis wrote about it to the Rev. Andrew Eliot, D. D., of Boston, and in his letter said: "Shilling, No. 10, Massachusetts in Portraiture of the good Samaritan. Over it FacSimile No Reverse If the shilling, No. 10 can be procured for T. H. in fair, unrubbed, uncleaned condition, he will be glad of them at any price." To this Dr. Eliot replied: "The portraiture of the good Samaritan no one among us ever heard of. I am persuaded that it was not a current coin; but a medal struck on some particular occasion." It will be noted that the piece Hollis asked for, nearly a century before Wyatt, had "no reverse," and was a facsimile copy of an earlier issue.

In 1856 counterfeits of the piece appeared, and in a sale by Bangs, Merwin & Co., Sept. 24, 1874, a "Samaritan shilling" was offered with a Pine tree reverse. This example was struck in gold, and was at once recognized as a fraud. The editor of the Journal (then Mr. W. S. Appleton) said at that time, "We have no doubt this is one of Wyatt's fabrications. It is well known that the Good Samaritan piece was not a coin, and all which were ever struck in gold (and no one knows how many beside) came from the same unscrupulous hand." For a further account of the piece see " Crosby's Early Coins." Mr. Appleton, in commenting on the piece in the Parmelee collection said he had not changed his opinion frankly expressed some years ago, "as to its genuine character," and still thought it sold "for a great many times its value."
If however the Williamstown specimen should chance to be a genuine "Pine Tree Shilling," and not one of Wyatt's counterfeits, a detailed description of the particular variety, of which we are told there are only two others like it in existence, etc. — one valued at $212, or more, and the other at — nobody knows what — would be interesting to many collectors. We are tempted to inquire on what authority the reporter says that only two others like it are in existence, neither as good as this one.
Monday, October 24, 1910
Paper: Boston Herald (Boston, MA)

C D Phelps Born in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA on 25 Mar 1852 to Daniel H Phelps and Mary Elizabeth Tiffany. Cassius Daniel married Emilly Ella White and had 11 children. He passed away on 29 Oct 1925 in South Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.
Emilly E White Born on 9 Mar 1856 to William White and Lucretia Williams. Emilly Ella married Cassius Daniel Phelps and had 11 children. She passed away on 9 Nov 1945 in South Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA.
Cassius Daniel Phelps1880-1943 

Ella B Phelps1881-1885 

Thomas Cooley Phelps1882-1965 

Douglas Harry Phelps1883-1956 

Mildred Daisy Phelps1886-1952 

Robert Garfield Phelps1887-1954 

Daniel Harrison Phelps1889-1964 

Amos Leon Phelps1891-1891 

Frederick Hall Phelps1893-1951 

Myrtle Claribel Phelps1895-Unknown 

Harley Proctor Phelps1901-Unknown

More on C D Phelps
Sunday, May 19, 1918
Paper: Springfield Republican (Springfield, MA)

anceSTORY archives: Cassius D Phelps & A CURIOUS FIND IN WILLIAMSTOWN,...

anceSTORY archives: Cassius D Phelps & A CURIOUS FIND IN WILLIAMSTOWN,...: For my Phelps Genealogy Group From American Journal of Numismatics, Volume 44 The newspaper reporters have given us the following interes...

Stable Heart – Stable Climate Daylong Saturday, June 27, 2015 9:30 am to 5 pm

Stable Heart – Stable Climate Daylong
Climate Change Monastic Daylong with the Aloka Vihara Bhikkunis
Saturday, June 27, 2015 9:30 am to 5 pm

Beuna Vista United Methodist Church
2311 Buena Vista Ave, Alameda, CA 94501
Alameda Sangha  https://sites.google.com/site/alamedasangha/

Stable Heart – Stable Climate Daylong

A Buddhist response to climate change
Join Ayya Santacitta (saranaloka.org)and Ayya Santussika (karunabv.org),
two Theravadan Buddhist nuns, for a day of exploration and cultivation.
We will use the Buddha’s core teachings to bring forth the inner strength and
resilience to wisely respond to the most important issue of our times. Connecting
to our own true purpose and to one another, we rise together to a higher level of
understanding, stability and action.

Please bring a vegetarian dish to share with the nuns for the meal at 12:00 noon.
Since the beginning of Buddhism over 2500 years ago, Buddhist nuns and monks
have depended on almsfood. In this spirit, you are invited to bring food to offer
and to share with others.

Please check Www.saranaloka.org for dietary restrictions
The day is offered on a Dana basis (Dana is the Pali
word for generosity) so that all may engage in the Buddhist practice of generosity.
Iit is imperative that no disposable plates, cups or silverware is brought to this daylong.
Please bring your own dishes and silverware and take them back home

Explore Fine Art and Crafts showing in Jack London Square’s Market Hall June 6, 7, 13, 14, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm

Explore Fine Art and Crafts showing in Jack London Square’s Market Hall June 6, 7, 13, 14, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm 

Over 50 local, established and emerging artists, working in a wide variety of mediums, will exhibit at the expansive Market Hall building, 55 Harrison Street, the first two weekends in June, in Jack London Square, Oakland.

June 6, 7, 13, 14, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm each day.  

With easy transportation options, ample parking and numerous dining spots nearby, it’s yet another win for Oakland, and a perfect place to spend an afternoon.

http://markethallartists.com/

The public is invited to explore, meet the artists, and get inspired as the artists share their colorful and exciting work as part of Pro Arts’ East Bay Open Studios. This year marks the group’s 5^th year at Oakland’s biggest cultural event of the year. “The venue is the perfect setting, with a rich, very diverse range of original art”, cites Paula Lewis, long time Oakland resident and Pro Arts supporter, “and the talent is overflowing with so many artists conveniently in the Hall.”

Ranging from conceptual sculpture installations and political, ecologically themed work all the way to practical custom furniture and everything in between.  This show will satisfy the most varied palette. Sculpture, painting, pastel, mosaic, photography, printmaking, drawing, woodwork, glass, ceramics, metal, and jewelry - all available for purchase at the ProArts event.

A sampling of the art can be viewed at the group’s website: www.markethallartists.com and find us on Facebook: fb.com/market.hall.artists

Contact: Pat Patterson, pmacp@aol.com/510.499.3392

Climate Change - Monastic Daylong with the Aloka Vihara Bhikkunis Saturday, June 27, 2015

Climate Change - Monastic Daylong with the Aloka Vihara Bhikkunis
Saturday, June 27, 2015 
9:30 am to 5 pm

Beuna Vista United Methodist Church 
2311 Buena Vista Ave, Alameda, CA 94501
Alameda Sangha  https://sites.google.com/site/alamedasangha/

Ok to bring food to offer the nuns at lunchtime. Please check Www.saranaloka.org for dietary restrictions
The day is offered on a Dana basis (Dana is the Paliword for generosity) so that all may engage in the Buddhist practice of generosity.
Iit is imperative that no disposable plates, cups or silverware is brought to this daylong. 
Please bring your own dishes and silverware and take them back home