The YMCA of Youngstown will dedicate its sculpture titled “When I Was a Stranger” on May 4 in front of the Central YMCA.
YMCA of Youngstown to Dedicate Sculpture in May
Port Townsend adds communications, marketing manager
PORT TOWNSEND — Shelly Leavens is joining the city of Port Townsend as its new communications and marketing manager.
She will begin work May 4.
“Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together,” said Leavins, the former executive director of the Jefferson County Historical Soceity.
“Now is a great time to join the city team,” she added. “With so many opportunities to communicate on city priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”
Leavens recently stepped down from her position with the historical society, an organization she led for nearly five years.
Prior to that, she was curator and public events manager for the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, an Instructor at University of Washington, and an independent contractor focusing on curatorial work, collections, and oral history.
She holds a master’s in museology from University of Washington, focusing on public history interpretation and a bachelor’s in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University.
Her hire “is a significant step forward in improving how the city communicates, engages, and works with our community and partners to make a real difference, according to City Manager John Mauro.
“I’m thrilled to introduce Shelly as our new Communications and Marketing Manager, although she likely doesn’t need an introduction to the community she knows and loves so well,” Mauro said.
“Shelly stood out among a number of really excellent candidates for her deep leadership skills; her clear, approachable, and strategic communications and marketing style and acumen; her collaborative ethos; and her strong commitment to positive change in this community,” Mauro said.
“She brings a wealth of experience to this new role as an artist, storyteller, communicator, and change-maker.”
The role functions as the city’s strategic lead for communications and marketing, providing technical expertise as a conduit between internal teams and external organizations to plan, coordinate, and deliver strategic communications, marketing and engagement with the Port Townsend community and beyond, according to the release.
The city is undertaking a number of high-profile public engagements this year, including decisions concerning the Port Townsend Golf Course, an aquatics center, streets, housing and financial sustainability.
Shelly Leavens says: “Relationships and stories of people and place matter to me and connect this special community together. Now is a great time to join the City team. With so many opportunities to communicate on City priorities and engage our community, I’m eager to dive in and ensure we’re all working together to guide our collective future.”
Nine current open positions can be found at https://cityofpt.applicantpool.com/jobs.
Leroy Cooper: Toxteth riots lensman’s Liverpool love letter
Leroy CooperThe man whose arrest sparked the Toxteth riots has said an exhibition of his photos was a “labour of love” after 40 years of telling the story of his city on the streets.
Leroy Cooper was 20 when his arrest in July 1981 became the the catalyst for nine days of disturbances in the Toxteth area of Liverpool.
Now a photographer he has taken more than 250,000 images in his career and said the exhibition was important for the city’s black community.
Liverpool Through The Lens is running at the Museum of Liverpool, Skylight Gallery.
In the run up to the riots, tensions had been rising in the inner-city area with police having a reputation for stopping and searching black youths.
Mr Cooper’s arrest on Selbourne Street, near Toxteth’s Granby Street, was watched by an angry crowd on the evening of Friday 3 July 1981.
The Merseyside officers’ treatment of Mr Cooper led to a fracas in which three policemen were injured.
The disturbances escalated rapidly and turned into full-blown riots with pitched battles between police officers and youths throwing petrol bombs and paving stones. It was the first time CS Gas was used in England to quell the disorder.
In the years after his arrest Mr Cooper enrolled on a photography course and pursued a career as a photographer and produced images to counter negative depictions of the neighbourhood.
He said the Liverpool Through The Lens exhibition showed the area as a “place of warmth, community and family”.
“I think after Liverpool’s connection with black people over 300 years it is a very important moment in the city. They are celebrating my work after 40 years of being on the street telling the story of our city,” he told BBC North West Tonight.
“It’s a labour of love – I genuinely love the people of Liverpool.”
The museum said “Leroy’s evocative and insightful images are a love letter to the city and the Liverpool 8 community.”
It added: “Accompanied by text written by Leroy himself, the images chosen reflect on themes including racism, justice, the transatlantic slave trade, community, inequality, empire, migration, pride, solidarity, culture, family and regeneration.”
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See artist Theo Jansen’s out-of-this-world sculpture “Caterpillar” in action
See artist Theo Jansen’s out-of-this-world sculpture “caterpillar” in action. Jansen is an artist and inventor who makes giant, intricate moving sculptures called “Strandbeests” t…
Felicia Honkasalo on creative obsessions, gothic horror, and the sci-fi world of AI photography
Helsinki-based Felicia Honkasalo’s research-based photography connects history and geography, life and death, and human and animal. The artist’s 2019 book, Grey Cobalt saw her imagine the life of her late grandfather (whom she never met), through the objects, photographs and documents she inherited from him. For Wallpaper’s April 2023 issue, Honkasalo brought a highly attuned perspective to our story on Finnish design icon Björn Weckström’s epic sculptures and chunky jewellery. While the frailties of the human condition are a lifelong preoccupation for Weckström, Honkasalo’s work explores the stories we tell ourselves in order to understand seemingly inconceivable or imperceptible things.
Felicia Honkasalo interview
Spread from Grey Cobalt, 2019
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo/ published by Loose Joints)
Wallpaper*: Describe your style and process
Felicia Honkasalo: My artistic process usually starts with something small or seemingly trivial that catches my eye, won’t leave me alone, and then turns into a full-blown obsession.
Recently, I have been pretty obsessed with gothic horror and different mythologies related to how people understood death and contagious disease before the advent of modern medicine. Vampires stand out from other mythological characters in European folklore because there is actually quite a substantial amount of archaeological and legal evidence of what people in those times believed they were capable of accomplishing. I have also been interested in how profound grief makes us turn to magic and the supernatural, and perhaps this is how we come to understand that the border between life and death is perhaps not as easily defined as humans would like to believe.
During my artistic research, I use photography as a way of arranging and reforming the ideas that I collect. This has been a practice of mine for a long time, and usually, these photographic series morph into the final installation. Creating still-lifes in my studio helps me narrow down what it is I’m actually looking for and distil that idea into one image.
‘Silenced’ (1978), by Björn Weckström, as featured in the April 2023 Issue of Wallpaper*
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: How did you bring your way of working to our shoot on design icon Björn Weckström?
FH: I actually haven’t had as much fun shooting in a long time as I did during this assignment. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, there were just so many beautiful, intricate and otherworldly objects in his studio. I could have stayed there forever! Archives are something that has a gravitational pull on me, and the influence of sci-fi on his works was something that resonated with my own practice.
A plaster model inside designer Björn Weckström’s home in Espoo, near Helsinki
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What do you think is the most interesting thing happening within photography now?
FH: I have been fascinated by AI and how it is used in contemporary art. Those AI-generated images that lots of photographers posted on Instagram were something really fun to look at, but at the same time, somehow terrifying. I guess reading too much sci-fi doesn’t help, but there is this feeling of unease when you look at computer-generated images that are that good. It seems like a phenomenon that in the beginning is taken up with lots of excitement, and only later the long-term political and social consequences become apparent.
From Grey Cobalt, 2019. Published by Loose Joints
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What’s on your radar?
FH: Ever since I was young I have really loved reading, as a way of obtaining knowledge but also as a way of escaping to other worlds, created by other minds. Recently I have been reading authors that use horror as a kind of narrative tool to explore the environmental degradation happening all around us but also embodied experiences of terror and grief. Authors such as Silvina Ocampo, Mariana Enriquez, Vanessa Onwuemezi, Carmen Maria Machado have really influenced my thinking.
Quite a few of Enriquez’s stories are also written from the point of view of teenagers, and I have been interested in this liminal position, and the connected indifference or maybe aggression that society has towards teens. In some ways, teenagers are ostracised, ridiculed and feared, as if their liminal existence really is a threat to the general population.
Afterimage, 2023. Still Image, Upcoming video work
(Image credit: Felicia Honkasalo)
W*: What’s next for you this year?
FH: Currently, I’m finishing a new video work starring the amazing rodeo star Kaylee Barker, which was filmed during my residency in New Mexico. I will also be an artist in residence at Sema Nanji in Seoul, South Korea, which is pretty exciting. I have a solo exhibition coming up so a lot of work goes into preparing new works.
feliciahonkasalo.com (opens in new tab)
Native Americans look back at art to shape future
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TAHLEQUAH – Indigenous artists of the past, and today’s artists, are helping mold the future, an expert on curating artwork told an audience during a recent event in the capital city of the country’s largest Native tribe.
Dr. Miranda Belarde-Lewis, assistant professor at the University of Washington and a curator, spoke during the 50th annual Symposium on the American Indian at Northeastern University.
“Relationality is something we have latched onto, how native communities continue to make our systems of knowledge visible,” she said.
Tribal relationships with the land, water, ceremonies and stories are the nouns in the vocabulary she used, resulting in the objects people can see in museums. The verbs are people’s actions — how indigenous people deliberately engage with the world, through their people, places and ideas. Proper curating of art work is imperative in reflecting indigenous people’s culture now and helping it create change in the future.
Belarde-Lewis showed the photo of a robe created by an artist in Sitka, AK. A school of herring, depicted in gold, swim across a burgundy background. The fish are plentiful on the back of the road, diminishing to a narrow group of fish and finally a single fish as they approach the wearer’s neck.
The robe was created to protest the path to extinction facing the herring because of overfishing.
“Commercial fishing — they just scoop up everything in their nets,” Belarde-Lewis said. “This is showing how the herring would swim everywhere, but now they are getting channel into this little area.”
The fish population has been depleted because of man’s activities — including pollution and overfishing. The robe depicts the situation in an effort to depict this depletion and encourage change.
Belarde-Lewis praised the work of several artists, including Cherokees Roy Boney Jr. and Jane Osti.
Boney has the skill to say things creatively on a regular basis with meaning in his Daily Sketches.
“Colonization is a system because it works every day. It doesn’t take a day off,” she said.
Osti, a renowned potter, creates clay vessels and paddles “showing how long our systems of technology are unique to us.” The pottery isn’t necessarily flashy but it depicts tradition and objects that have been useful to Cherokee cooks for centuries.
“All the people who Jane has worked with, who Jane is mentoring, they will continue that technology,” Belarde-Lewis said.
She also spoke of artist collectives, saying they were working toward a future where all indigenous creatures can thrive side by side.
Some people are put off by believing art musicians are snobby institutions not relevant to most people. But curating according to Belarde-Lewis’ philosophy encourages communication and discussing art as it is socially relevant.
“Sometimes it’s as simple as pulling up a chair and talking to people,” she said.
Among the contemporary curators she praised was America Meredith, a Cherokee and editor of First American Art magazine.
She and other renowned curators have the wealth of experience needed for cultural preservation, Belarde-Lewis said. They can walk into a gallery and tell if something just isn’t right. They can work correct the exhibit, to make it convey the message needed in today’s society.
“The artists are leading the way. The curators are holding it and the curators are presenting their work to our people and the world,” she said.
She quoted Dr. Jolene Rickard on how curating tribal art relates to sovereignty: “Sovereignty is the border that shifts indigenous experience from a victimized stance to a strategic one. The recognition of this puts brains in our heads and muscle in our bones.”
The curator’s knowledge and discretion are imperative, Belarde-Lewis said.
“The artists are leading the way. The curators are holding it and the curators are presenting their work to our people and the world,” she said.
“There are a lot of things that are out of our control, but our choices are our own.”
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Civil War-Era Sculpture Inspires Contemporary Artists at Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Emancipation: The Unfinished Project of Liberation, an exhibition now on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth through July 9, investigates the progress of that cause in the 21st century through the lens of seven Black contemporary artists.
The iPhone has a photography problem — here’s how to fix it
Let me be clear from the get go: iPhones are not bad at photography. The problems lie in the finer details that enthusiasts like me and you will spot. These come with Apple’s approach to color, contrast, and sharpening.
In most situations, you will get great shots for the family album, or even to share on Instagram. And don’t even get me started on the video quality, which is the best you can get on any smartphone right now.
However, I found myself thinking something is missing after taking dozens of photos on the iPhone 14 Pro Max and. Nothing overtly bad, but it seems to want to brighten up too much of the picture and oversharpen certain elements.
So let’s take a deep dive on what the problem is, the root cause, and how to fix it.
What’s the problem?
The issue seems to be two-fold: there is a fair amount of oversharpening at play here, and the default approach to contrast seems to be at war with any shadowy areas of a picture.
In some circumstances, like this picture of my pint outside the oldest pub in England, that’s fine. The computation is not having to do that much work, the near subject matter aids the natural bokeh of the lens (accentuated by software), and the sharpening really brings out the crispness of that beer — even down to the bubbly vivocity of this IPA.
The real challenges come at dusk. When the sun starts to set, and you get the dramatic shadow-laden vistas you want a picture of, that’s where the iPhone starts to struggle.
This hedge on one of my big daily walks after work sums up the issue here. It’s a complex shot for sure, with all the intricacies of the sticks in the bush, this is hard for any phone to get. But rather than allow some subtle softening of the twigs that are slightly out of focus, like my iPhone 13 Pro, the 14 Pro Max seems to be over-compensating.
Eagle-eyed photo geeks amongst you may even notice ever so slight artifacting around some of the shrubbery’s finer ends, which is indicative of sharpening working overtime.
Image 1 of 2
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13 Pro
On top of that, a lot of this bush is coated in shadows as the sun sets just off to the right, but the iPhone has largely worked to eliminate a lot of those. For most people, that’s fine. However, I’m not most people. I’m a photographer at heart and my personal style gravitates towards those true-to-contrast shots over grabbing as much detail as possible.
Nothing sums that up more than a walk down the main high street of my working class mining hometown. Normally, as the sun sets, this street is plunged into relative darkness, as shadows cascade across the landscape. However, the 14 Pro Max has tried too hard to balance everything, taking some of the drama out of the shot.
Meanwhile, my iPhone 13 Pro gave everything a far more moody aesthetic — my kind of aesthetic.
Image 1 of 2
iPhone 14 Pro Max
iPhone 13 Pro
What’s the cause?
Quite simply, it seems to be the computational photography. The hardware itself is stellar, as is proven in many of the daylight shots I take. But the software that processes every picture you take seems to have a problem with pictures taken at this time.
Whether it’s making shots overly warm while over-balancing the contrast, or trying to sharpen too much of a scene rather than giving allowances to some subtle focus blur every now and again, this is the next photography mountain for Apple to climb with its default settings.
How to fix it
The oversharpening is, unfortunately, unavoidable. That is hard-coded into the iPhone’s computational photography DNA for now, and outside of downloading a prosumer-focussed camera app like ProCam 8 or Focus, there’s no getting around it.
However, we can do something about the over-brightening of scenes within the default camera app.
Open the camera
(Image: © Future)
1. Open the Camera app and tap the arrow symbol at the top of the screen when in portrait, or to the left when in landscape mode.
Pick a filter
(Image: © Future)
2. Tap the Filters button (looks like three squares laid on top of each other), and select the Rich Contrast option.
This tackles some of the saturation, and provides a decent contrast depth to a lot of shots. But for the right result every time, you need to go a little further. Say I’m dealing with this bright window and want the contrast. By standard, it throws off the iPhone’s camera, so let’s use AE/AF Lock.
Activate AE/AF lock
(Image: © Future)
1. Press and hold on the light source you wish to balance out, until you see the focus square pulse and AE/AF Lock appear on-screen.
Balance the exposure
2. Scroll your thumb up or down to turn the exposure up or down, until you get the right balance.
Image 1 of 2
Before AE/AF Lock
After AE/AF Lock
Bottom Line
So, there you have it. Chances are that as many of you agree with my take on the iPhone’s change in photography style, as those who think I’m talking out of my arse. And that’s OK — this is a subjective topic.
If you’re thrilled with the results you get from the camera by default, then ignore me! The pictures have a nice bokeh to them, and the easy-to-use customization means you can make some really cool shots.
But if you’re like me, and you miss the moody contrast-heavy persona of iPhones before, then be sure to hit up that rich contrast filter to get it back.
Hundreds in Juneau celebrate the dedication of Kootéeyaa Deiyí
Hundreds celebrated the raising of the first 12 of 30 totem poles along the Juneau waterfront that make up Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, during a dedication ceremony held Saturday in downtown Juneau.
[Totem poles raised along waterfront ahead of trail dedication ceremony]
Hundreds of people flocked to Heritage Square in downtown Juneau for a ceremony celebrating the raising of 12 totem poles along Juneau’s waterfront. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Over the last week, the poles carved by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian artists were raised along the waterfront, each depicting the crests of their respective clans and tribes. Most of the artists spent more than six months creating the poles after being commissioned by Sealaska Heritage Institute, which launched the Kootéeyaa Deiyí initiative in 2021 through a $2.9 million grant from the Mellon Foundation. The 12 now dedicated poles can be seen along the waterfront, and soon will be joined by an additional 18 more.
A totem pole by Tsimshian carver Gyibaawm Laxha David Robert Boxley stands tall during a light drizzle Saturday afternoon after the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, was held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
During the multi-hour event, SHI’s Heritage Plaza downtown was overflowing as dozens of students from the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy program at Harborview Elementary led the procession of the event that featured speeches from dozens of renowned Alaska Native artists and leaders from across Southeast Alaska about the historic trail.
U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the first Alaska Native person to represent Alaska in Congress, laughs while sitting in the crowd at the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
The ceremony also celebrated the unveiling of “Faces of Alaska,” a new installation of five, 4-foot bronze masks that represent the diversity of the Alaska Native cultures including the Inupiat, Yup’ik, Alutiiq and Athabascan peoples, and a combined mask for the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian peoples, according to the SHI.
A singer beats to a song during the procession of the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
SHI President Rosita Worl said the poles will further the continuous goal of SHI and the City and Borough of Juneau of making Juneau the Northwest Coast art capital of the world.
“Gunalchéesh to clans and tribes whose crests and masks are represented here, and to the master artists who created these iconic works that will stand among the greatest art collections of the world,” she said.
From left to right, City and Borough of Juneau Deputy Mayor Maria Gladziszewski, City Manager Rorie Watt and SHI President Rosita Worl laugh together during a speech at the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
Fran Houston, cultural Leader of the A’akw Kwáan, said the poles will serve to bring unity and positivity to Juneau and the Alaska Native community.
“We need to come together, and that’s what we’re doing. We see these beautiful, beautiful totem poles out here, I’ve taken the walk through the walkway to the channel — it’s beautiful,” she said. “All of this will bring us together, support each other, love one another,” she said.
Kaax̱ḵaatuklag̱é Ken Grant sings a song as Ben Coronell performs a thanking and feeding the spirits of the trees ceremony during the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
Renowned Haida master artist Robert Davidson congratulated the artists for taking on the challenge of creating a totem pole and thanked them for what the poles will mean for the future of Alaska Native art in Juneau and Southeast Alaska.
“These totem poles mark this time in our history, the strength we are gaining in reclaiming our rightful place in the world,” he said, continuing. “Art is our official language throughout our history, to help keep our spirit alive, now arts helps us reconnect with our history and ceremonies.”
U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the first Alaska Native person to represent Alaska in Congress, also spoke to the crowd, beginning her speech as she wiped away tears following a standing ovation.
U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the first Alaska Native person to represent Alaska in Congress, speaks to the crowd at the dedication ceremony of the Kootéeyaa Deiyí, Totem Pole Trail, held Saturday in downtown Juneau at Heritage Plaza. (Clarise Larson / Juneau Empire)
“Usually these tears swell up when the introduction song comes, Walter Soboleff Jr. always laughs at me, but when the dancers come in, it makes me bawl like a baby,” she said. “Because of all those decades where we were not supposed to be proud, we were not supposed to be here, we were not supposed to know our language and our names and our cultures and our clans. All that information was underground for a while, but now it is here, and it is loud and it’s proud.”
• Contact reporter Clarise Larson at clarise.larson@juneauempire.com or (651)-528-1807.
a concrete bridge for airplanes: david altrath photographs madeira’s airport runway extension
David Altrath captures Airport Runway Extension in Portugal
After visiting a brutalist church in Neviges, a historic town hall in Hamburg, and a charming bamboo villa in Ibiza, David Altrath now moves on to Portugal to document the Funchal Airport Runway Extension on Madeira Island. In this latest architectural photography series, the German artist captures the complex’s large concrete bridges, its round columns and pre-stressed beams, as well as the mesmerizing sea views they frame.
the photographer captures the airport’s round columns and the sea views they frame | all images courtesy of David Altrath
spotlighting the new runway of Funchal Airport
This new project by David Altrath (find more here) documents the extension of the runway at Funchal Airport on Madeira Island, Portugal. The original length of the runway posed a constraint to the island’s development, as only small to medium-sized aircraft could land. To overcome this challenge, the existing runway was moved slightly and a bridge was built that spans a bay of shallow water and is 57 meters above sea level. The bridge, which is 1020 meters long and 180 meters wide, was designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 747. Reinforced concrete was used for the structure, with large portal frames with circular columns and post-tensioned girders supporting a bi-directionally post-tensioned deck. Direct foundations, including large concrete footings, were used wherever possible, while indirect foundations with concrete piles at depths of up to 60 m were used in areas with inadequate rock formations at the surface.
Altrath’s series captures the new structure, its architectural features, and the connection between the structural materiality and the natural environment, both green space and the sea. The contrast of light and shadow captured in the series gives the architecture an almost poetic character, while the tall columns and upper arches add to the imposing appearance.
the tall columns and upper arches of the new extension
the series documents the relationship between the architecture and the natural environment
contrast of light and shadow
