Get unlimited access with a subscription
Essential Digital
$1 for 6 months*
Subscribe Now
What’s included
Daily Plus
$3 per week
Subscribe Now
What’s included
I’m sure I am not the only one who has noticed this, but The Californian sports photography has been very good this year, especially those shot by stringer Rodney Thornburg!
I’ve known Rodney for many years, dating back to the Bakersfield College days and through the time he freelanced for us at The Californian when I was there. No matter the sport, Rodney’s images have been exceptional, and he just keeps getting better. You can tell he still loves taking pictures!
One of the fastest growing career fields is AI. However, given its nacency, it is difficult for those interested to navigated the terminology and job search process. For marketers interested in understanding how to break into the field, I sought insight from Marc Cenedella, founder of Leet Resumes and The Ladders, and author of seven Amazon Careers #1 bestsellers.
To break into AI, there are two sides, suggests Cenedella. There are “the people who build AI and those who use AI. The people who build AI, like the team at OpenAI which built ChatGPT, are developers. They’ll have titles like ‘Software Programmer,’ ‘Data Engineer,’ and ‘Machine Learning Engineer.’
For those more likely to be on the side using AI as a tool. They’ll see job titles like ‘AI Prompt Engineer,’ ‘AI Integration Specialist,’ and ‘AI Content Reviewer.’”
With regards to where marketers might fit best, Cenedella suggests that they may be able to fill “AI Prompt Engineer” jobs in marketing-related fields. He also suggests that they might “design prompts to elicit excellent social media post copy or prompts to guide AI to create interesting art designs. They could also work as ‘AI Trainers.’ These professionals teach AI how to deliver better results within specific fields.
However, Cenedella believes it will be more common for marketing professionals to use AI within job descriptions rather than as job titles. “AI skill requirements will find their way into most jobs. For example, a Social Media Coordinator may see a requirement to understand and implement ChatGPT to create social media calendars. Eventually AI will be as common a workplace skill as email.”
In general, Cenedella indicates that companies want employees who are excited about learning and embracing new technology. “Prompt engineering is brand new. Nobody is an expert (yet), so this is a unique and remarkable opportunity.
Think about it like applying at the Wright Brothers’ airplane company in 1909. No one knew how to make airplanes – most people didn’t even know what airplanes were. The Wright brothers needed people who were enthusiastic about learning. Your ability to talk with infectious enthusiasm about the latest developments in AI will set you apart.”
Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler
Marc Cenedella, founder of Leet Resumes and The Ladders, is a nationally recognized thought leader on careers, resume writing, job search, career management and recruiting. He is the author of seven Amazon Careers #1 bestsellers, including Ladders Resume Guide and Ladders Interviews Guide. Hailing from Fredonia, New York, Marc holds an MBA with High Distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar, as well as a B.A. in Political Science from Yale College.
Emergence Magazine has announced Shifting Landscapes – an immersive art exhibition documenting aspects of the climate crisis from around the world, taking place during COP28.
Shifting Landscapes will feature a selection of stunning photographic works by artists and photographers, each sharing their unique experiences documenting the effects of the climate crisis.
The exhibition will open during the United Nations Climate Change Conference, running from December 01-10. Curated by Emmy and Peabody Award-nominated filmmaker and composer, and Emergence Magazine founder, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Shifting Landscapes will be held at Oxo Tower Wharf, London.
The exhibition will bring to life Emergence Magazine‘s editorial exploration of the theme of Shifting Landscapes, stating, “The exhibition contemplates our changing Earth during the current moment of loss, possibility, and transformation”.
The exhibition features work from several professional artists and photographers, including Kiliii Yüyan and their work Beyond the Horizon, which documents the rapidly changing landscape of the Arctic. A selection of stunning wildlife and landscapes combine to tell a strong narrative while providing beautiful visuals.
Other photographers include Gheorghe Popa and his work Poisoned Beauty, a devastating insight into the impact of a Romanian Copper mine on the surrounding ecosystem.
Magnum Photographer Zied Ben Romdhane’s Desert, Fire, Flood, documents the impact of rising temperatures in Tunisia, and Mona Simon’s photography accompanies The Lost World – a film by Sundance award-winning director Kalyanee Mam – focusing on mango tree deforestation in Cambodia.
Shifting Landscapes is jam-packed with beautiful yet haunting imagery that raises awareness of the crisis that is affecting communities all over the world. As well as being an exhibition of great photography, it includes several other mediums, making it a ‘multi-sensory’ experience.
VR experiences, immersive installations, artist films, and ambisonic sound installations all contribute to sharing the message. Emergence Magazine invites viewers “to see, touch, hear, and breathe – to feel into and participate in – the spaces of connection and kinship that are held here.”
A programme of free weekend talks and events will accompany the exhibition, including conversations with the artists and Emergence Magazine contributors, and special film screenings. A standout guest speaker for me is Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, who will give readings from his new book.
The other great news is that you can view all this amazing art for free! There is no charge for admission to the exhibition, so if you can make it to London’s South Bank during the exhibition window there is no excuse to miss it – I certainly won’t! More information on the exhibiting photographers can be found on the official website.
For more articles on climate issues and photography, see our stories: Drowning in Plastic, New emotive climate change photo series by Nick Brandt, and Your photography can help combat the climate crisis!
#inform-video-player-1 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
#inform-video-player-2 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
Norman painter and sculptor Marta Whistler has made Oklahoma her home since the early 1960s. She grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, where some of her family still reside. Whistler is a fearless artist whose stunning oil on canvas paintings incorporate symbolism, visceral imagery and bold color. Her work has been acquired by museums, corporations and private collectors internationally.
Whistler is well known in the arts scenes of New Orleans and Philadelphia in particular. Current president of the Urban League and then mayor of the Big Easy, Marc H. Morial presented Whistler with a 1998 gold sealed certificate of appreciation for her contributions to New Orleans. She’s made similar if not greater positive impact during her decades here in Norman. Whistler is hosting an open house Saturday, Dec. 2 from 1-5 p.m. at her 2031 E. Robinson St. studio and residence.
“It will be a complete open house, meaning people will be free to go into the studios,” Whistler said. “It will be a happening. Many students from way back and many people who taught at the University of Oklahoma are coming.”
Whistler is a prolific artist and many of her paintings are large. Seeing them up close in this setting is an intense sensory experience. They make a strong impression on viewers both seasoned and naïve.
“It will be fascinating, interesting and exciting but can be a little shocking,” Whistler said.
All art work will be for sale at half off the original price. This includes small pieces around $150 to enormous canvasses north into the thousands. Whistler is able to explain in detail the significance of all her pictures’ elements.
“I’m involved in symbolism,” she said. “So the paintings have a meaning. I don’t title my work and I want to prod your mind to see what you want to see. I love abstract but figurative art, too. Expression of feelings and emotions is at the heart of my work.”
Whistler described having artistic inspiration 24/ 7 and recognizes that’s not always a good thing.
“It can be a blessing and a curse at the same time,” she said. “I can be in bed and dream of the painting that comes into my mind. I’m working very hard while dreaming. Very often I remember them and make sketches, then work it out.”
Whistler’s art is inspired by nature and spirituality but primarily other human beings.
“I can go to the marketplace and because I’m people-oriented and notice those of interest, they don’t have to be beautiful, but something attracts me,” she said. “Then of course I work it out. In a restaurant I can see a group of people and though everyone is animated and talking there’s always one person that doesn’t fit in. That’s what I focus on, the isolation and loneliness which can be depicted in my work, although we can be surrounded by friends you can still be a very lonely person. There’s so much of a façade in us. Faces are very important to me because I can read them from being a philosopher of life.”
Visitors to Whistler’s studios will see that she’s dedicated her life to making art through both the hundreds of works on display along with the variety of techniques and styles she employed.
“I’ve always liked what I’m doing,” she said. “I love the art I create because it’s so much a part of me, just like breathing air. I need to have that in order to survive. You don’t get just a painting, you get part of me. I have to capture the soul of the one who’s going to buy my painting.”
Whistler’s work is shown in galleries more frequently on the east coast than this part of the country. She admits to caring little for making art that’s pleasing to the eye in order to attract casual collectors.
“I’m familiar with the galleries in Oklahoma City but most people are not daring enough for my paintings,” she said. “They will compliment that it is great work but they’re afraid. When I have an exhibit in Philadelphia I do very well. The last one I sold six works which is exceptional for any gallery. People have collected my work over the years and I calculate I’ve sold over two thousand pieces. That’s very rewarding.”
Whistler’s lifetime of exposure to various cultures have contributed to her artistic sensibilities. Canada, Eastern Europe, Native America, Central America and place of birth The Netherlands figure into her symbolic repertoire and palette of colors.
“I’m like a sponge,” she said. “I soak it up and work it out in my own interpretation. Primarily it’s color. We cannot live without color and must have it around us. I’m eccentric and know I’m different. The most touching thing are the children of people I’ve known here. They remember me and my paintings.”
Whistler would be comfortable living on the east coast but stays in Oklahoma primarily because of daughters who grew up and still reside here.
“It doesn’t matter where I am as long as I have a studio,” she said. “I’m not fighting for a reputation. I can work to my heart’s content. I’m not dependent on Oklahoma to make a living. Although I love it, of course, and I’ve made an impact on many people here who I’ve known for years. It’s a certain sentimental feeling for Oklahoma.”
Whistler looks forward to increasing that impact with her Dec. 2 studio happening.
#inform-video-player-3 .inform-embed { margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 20px; }
Brian Graham took this picture of two artists – Raoul Hague and Robert Frank – at Hague’s cabin on Old Maverick Road in Woodstock, New York, in 1988. Hague, an abstract sculptor working mainly in wood, was a friend and mentor to Frank, whose 1958 coast to coast journey, The Americans, had been a landmark in documentary photography. The picture is included in Graham’s new book, Goin’ Down the Road With Robert Frank, about the photographer. Frank died in 2019 aged 94.
Graham’s memoir is a personal homage to Frank’s influence and an intimate pictorial history of his later years. Graham met the older photographer in the late 1970s when he had spent a couple of years working on oil rigs and was looking for a change of life. Frank bought him a camera and some film and subsequently worked with him for a decade “in and out of the darkroom”.
Frank divided those years between a ramshackle home on Bleecker Street in New York and a house on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, in Graham’s native Canada.
Both places look a little like lost worlds through Graham’s lens: dusty and beaten-up rooms and yards in which Frank’s wild-haired friends from different bohemias, Allen Ginsberg and Tom Waits and Jim Jarmusch, come and go. Hague’s cabin feels emblematic of that spirit, eccentric and homebuilt and full of life. In a diary note in the book, Graham recalls visits to that cabin, remembering how Hague described to him walking home 13 miles in the winter from the public libraries where he went to read. “Raoul kept scrapbooks and enjoyed showing me pictures of snow storms taken around the time he returned home from bypass surgery,” he wrote. “Back in New York, I imagine Hague forever in a snow globe.”
Goin’ Down the Road With Robert Frank is published by Steidl
The artists in the gallery space bring out various narrative threads, showing the ways in which we can shape a thing so ephemeral. For instance, Bourse’s lamp design, Charlotte’s skirt from Tokyo (2022) is an ongoing exploration of swirling lines that evoke the idea of psychedelic frescoes apparent in her body of work. The pastel colours of the textile illuminated by the warm light bulb bring to mind the swirling colours of a soft sunrise. Similarly evolving the softness of light is a mixed-media sculpture by Cici Wu, a New York-based artist and designer. The Chinese designer’s works draw a thread from paper lanterns to cinema, as the artist believes cinema cannot exist without the presence of light. Further, the use of paper lanterns in her work makes reference to the fact that like film, they were used as a form of storytelling. Her sculptural artefacts make use of found objects to underscore this theme.
Another artist who is part of the line-up and works with found objects is New York-based Jessi Reaves. Her hybrid-seeming artefact, All hope for a better past belies her twisted sense of humour, where she blends complex compositions, colour, and disparate materials to create visually intriguing objects. An American artist whose work straddles the line between furniture design and sculpture, she often begins her work with discarded objects which she dismantles, converts, remakes, and embellishes, focusing on the craft and handmade aspects of the work. Tellingly, the fragmented sculpture with a warm yellow illuminating it does bring to mind the idea of hope in a dismal past.
Another American artist whose work is displayed in the gallery is Cooper Jacoby. The Los Angeles-based artist’s wall mounting titled Apopheniac (introvert) explores how malfunctions of hardware (in this case a street lamp) reveal the infrastructure of the built environment and its intersections with other ecologies. The intersection of living and non-living is a subject that also fascinates Mimosa Echard, a French artist. Her piece is titled Sap (Prof d’anglais), which calls to mind the secretion of trees but was made from red glass beads. Its glowing centre makes the piece feel like it has come alive. Her larger body of work interrogates areas of contact and contamination between organic objects and consumer items, a fascination that Kim Farkas, another French artist shares. His sculpture, 22-08, evokes the idea of organic proto-lamps and incorporates replicas of commodities from Asian bazaars (a nod to his South East Asian roots) in its form. Finally, Renaud Jerez’s installation draws on the imagery of death in his work that is on display, Untitled (Miroir noir – Poisson/Dragon).
From the idea of hope to the idea of new beginnings to the idea that light can reveal concealed truths, the exhibition goes over disparate themes, often forming unexpected linkages. The show’s title, Solstice is perhaps the most telling. A time when daylight is most or least prolonged (in the case of summer/winter), various cultures have formulated holidays arising around these events, all of which in some form celebrate the idea of triumph, and light over darkness, a recurring idea for the exhibition.
