Wahishi's scrapbook

citrus - puff away, something grow in the white

Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s large-scale work at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Streets, across from the Museum, is the third artist project to make use of the Whitney’s billboard space in partnership with TF Cornerstone and High Line Art. Akunyili Crosby is a Los Angeles–based painter who draws simultaneously on her Nigerian heritage and more recent experience living in the United States to create works that routinely include figures and more detailed collaged elements.

According to a message posted on their front page, Blingee.com is going to be permanently “turned off” on August 25. This is sad news. A while back, Doug (aka Internet History) and I began collecting death Blingees––sparkling tributes to dead pets, relatives, celebs, etc––and then we started posting our collection at RIP Blingee. 

There are a LOT of sad memorial Blingees: people in caskets, beloved pet birds, garbage-covered gravesites, old family photos, lifeless fetuses in little animated Santa hats. There are stupid, funny ones, too–the Oxy Clean guy, the Twin Towers, this thing:

Anyway, Blingee is going away forever. If you feel like mourning with us, you can pay your respects at RIP Blingee. We’re going to post as many as we can before they’re gone for good.

EVERALD BROWN (born 1917 in Clarendon, Jamaica; died 2003 in Brooklyn, NY)

A carpenter by trade, Brown began painting and carving in the late 1960’s while living in Kingston.  At this time Brown, who was a self-ordained priest of a sect related to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, was inspired by a vision to decorate a small church he had built.  In addition to adorning the church with his paintings, he also carved ceremonial objects for it.  These first works were very well received not only by his own congregation, but by other visitors.  This encouraged Brown to continue painting and carving.  He began participating in exhibitions and in the early 1970’s received several awards for his work.  Because of the close connection between Brown’s artistic and spiritual life, his imagery drew heavily upon his spiritual experiences (including his interest in Rastafarianism), and his visions.  In the early 1970’s Brown left Kingston to move to the country with his family.  They settled in the remote district of Murray Mountain, the hills near St. Ann.  Here on a limestone hill, named Meditation Heights, Brown built a house.  The early years on Murray Mountain were especially productive and Brown produced many works, including the first of his highly decorative musical instruments (the drums, dove harps and star banjoes).  Since then Brown has continued to live and work in his private sanctuary on Murray Mountain, inspired by nature and his mystical visions.