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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1h

This one I do know! It’s titled Singer, by George Tooker, completed in 1962. A beautiful vibrant piece

www.brooklynmuseum.org/objects/1618

Singer

www.brooklynmuseum.org

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1h

I failed to snap a photo of the placard for that painting, and there doesn’t seem to be an online catalog for this exhibit. I sent an inquiry to the museum - hopefully I’ll get an answer within a couple days? It’s a magnificent mural-sized painting from their current bicentennial exhibit.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 12h

Ope! I fumbled and it rolled under the couch, but managed to snag it. Hup!
🖐🏾🧶

Sammich Stitches @sammichstitches.bsky.social · 13h

Game time! 🎮
I can’t sleep so let’s see how far this little ball of yarn can go - catch! 🧶

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 20h

Thanks, @brooklynmuseum.org for a great experience! I wish I could visit every day, but I’m glad to take my inspiration home with me, to view and create art locally, with my newfound knowledge and perspectives.

Three people sailing on the belly of a crow.

Bust of a woman, with painstakingly chiseled hair.

Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 20h

Overall, I was inspired by the museum’s celebration of art, and artists, in all their diverse forms. The artists’ care in crafting their work and their voice is echoed in the thoughtful curation of the exhibits.

Handmade quilt depicting a woman dressed in bold patterns and bright colors, victorious, with both hands raised, index and middle fingers pointed upwards.

This mural-sized painting was difficult to photograph without an obscuring glare. Two androgynous figures stand, clasping hands, each with both male and female genitalia. In front of the painting, a larger-than-life-sized bronze statue with exaggerated feminine features.

Line drawing of an amorphous animal with elephant, bird, horse, snake, deer, and lion heads emerging from a central body. Signed “A. Calder”

A woman singing, hand cupped at the side of her face, against an orange background.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 21h

Brooklyn Museum’s approach can straddle that line of being too hand-holdy, but there’s a value in teaching people how to view art, that levels the playing field - lets everyone participate.

www.ted.com/talks/titus_...

A life-sized replicated painting of a wealthy white family outdoors, with their black servant boy in the center. The artist has roughly painted over the family with broad strokes of white paint, leaving only the boy, unmolested, staring straight at the viewer.

TITUS KAPHAR
American, born 1976
Shifting the Gaze
2017
Oil on canvas
William K. Jacobs Jr., Fund, 2017.34
This work came together in two stages. After painting a copy of Frans Hals's Family Group in a Landscape (ca. 1645-58), Titus Kaphar unveiled the work during his 2017 TEDTalk and began applying loose, white brushstrokes over the figures. He stopped at the final subject, a young Black boy thought to be the family's servant, whom Kaphar left visible. Across his wide-ranging practice, Kaphar seeks to shift the viewer's gaze, reorienting audiences to focus on historically overlooked subjects.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 21h

As a kid, I preferred the science museum to the art museum - interactive exhibits that had educational purpose. But I grew to appreciate the art museum, with art that speaks for itself rather than railroading the viewer through a specific path of learning and appreciation.

Four women celebrate their mother’s birthday, who was inconsiderate enough to be born in the heat of July. It’s too hot to eat cake, or knit, or do anything but wilt into the furniture.

FLORINE STETTHEIMER
American, 1871-1944
Heat
1919
Oil on canvas
Florine Stettheimer painted the luxurious lifestyle of New York City's elite, including this scene of her own family at their summer retreat in Bedford Hills, New York. The artist and her sisters were well known for their eclectic personal styles and involvement in the art world. Here, they enjoy a moment of rest as they celebrate their mother's birthday.
Rosetta is surrounded by her daughters in a vibrant yellow and orange setting that evokes the sweltering heat of July. Overcome by the hot weather, Stella and Carrie abandon their knitting at the compositional center, as Florine and Ettie recline in the foreground, mimicking the wilting tree branches.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

There were some cleverly-placed audio pieces as well, such as a looped recording of an ocean shore, in front of a painting of ocean waves. Or a cone of affirmations by Tricia Hersey, which may have saved me:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=nENo...

TRICIA HERSEY
American, born 1974
Rest Life
2021
Audio: 3 min., 56 sec.
In this guided meditation, performance artist and Nap Ministry founder Tricia Hersey leads listeners through a series of rest- and liberation-centered affirmations. To learn more about Hersey's powerful "rest is resistance" frame-work, check out our Bloomberg Connects app.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

I’m not one to spend time reading placards, but the language here was so carefully and thoughtfully written. This quote caught me teary-eyed - exactly what I needed to hear: “You are not 'lazy.'
You are a human with limits, dealing with a lot at once.
You deserve periods of rest and reflection."

A youth sits on a stool, head in his hand, foot propped on a shoeshine box. A 7up ad on the wall behind him. He’s tired, he’s resting, but he’s not lazy.

"You are not 'lazy.'
You are a human with limits, dealing with a lot at once.
You deserve periods of rest and reflection."
—We the Urban

ERNEST CRICHLOW
American, 1914-2005
Shoe Shine
1953
Oil on Masonite
Brooklyn-based first-generation Caribbean artist Ernest Crichlow represented the experiences of Black Americans at the height of segregation, which were characterized by limited opportunities and inadequate access to housing, education, and work. Here, a young shoeshiner slumps against his propped knee, presumably resting during a quiet moment on a busy thoroughfare. Throughout his career, Crichlow infused his compositions with a quiet dignity that animates, rather than flattens, the complex social and cultural contexts from which his subjects emerge.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

The works of Beaufort Delaney and Sasha Gordon also caught my eye. So many pieces vying for attention as I tried to make it through the upper floors, but some I just had to stop and gawk at for a while.

A bright, colorful, and expressive painting of a Fang reliquary figure, bowl of lemons, and a crow. Kinda in the style of a still life, except the crow is mid-flight, swooping down towards the lemons.

"I learned about light from Beauford Delaney, the light contained in every thing, in every surface, in every face... and this light held the power to illuminate, even to redeem and reconcile and heal."
- James Baldwin, 1964

BEAUFORD DELANEY
American, 1901-1979
Untitled (Fang Sculpture, Crow, and Fruit)
1945
Oil on canvas
Evident in this still life by Beauford Delaney are the vivid color and energetic brushwork that so moved writer James Baldwin. Along with its pulsating color, the painting's minimal composition is imbued with rich iconography, including the Fang reliquary figure, the bowl of fruit, and the crow midflight, all in an arrangement reminiscent of an altar. The Fang people in central West Africa create ritual figures to guard the remains of ancestors, and the crow suggests a warning from an ancestral spirit.
Delaney moved from Boston to Harlem in 1929.
As the Great Depression loomed, core tenets of Alain Locke's influential writing in The New Negro (1925) would go on to inform Black expression for decades, namely the call for Black American artists to look to Africa for inspiration.

A purple artist grins joyfully towards the viewer, as she paints a nude portrait of herself in yellow. She is nude, except for a paint-splattered apron, the top of which has folded into the cleft between her voluptuous breasts. Paints, brushes, and other painting equipment are scattered across a table in the foreground. Yellow light streams from the window in the background.

SASHA GORDON
American, born 1998
My Friend Will Be Me
2022
Oil on canvas
Sasha Gordon depicts herself here in the nude with lustrous blue and purple skin, casually leaning on her easel and grinning widely at the viewer. Wrapped in a paint-streaked smock, she works on a posed nude study of herself, applying white pigment to the yellow underpainting of her outlined bare skin— a suggestively racialized choice. In her work, Gordon often grapples with her Polish-Jewish and Korean American mixed-race identity.
Engaging in-and challenging-Western traditions of self-portraiture, she complicates the relationship between herself as an Asian American woman and the viewer. Through enlarged features and sanguine expressions, the artist explores bold, bizarre, and at times bewildering imagery with herself at the center.
Defying categorization, Gordon's indigo-skinned persona stares confidently from the canvas, inviting and reveling in the viewer's attention.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

Talk about narrative and cultural context - “See how these white children have dominion over all these various animals, and everyone gets along? So too can these white men Peaceably introduce their bullshit bureaucracies and influenza to these Indians.” Happy Indigenous Peoples Day!

In the foreground, a cuddle puddle of white kids, plus assorted carnivorous and herbivorous animals. In the background, some white dudes introduce the concept of “Pennsylvania” to the Lenape people.

EDWARD HICKS
American, 1780-1849
The Peaceable Kingdom ca. 1833-34
Oil on canvas
•
Edward Hicks imagines the peaceful coexistence of all creatures in this harmonious scene, inspired by Isaiah's prophecy of God's earthly kingdom. Animals and children gather in the foreground, and a vignette of William Penn's treaty with the Lenape appears in the background at left. Deeply committed to Quakerism and its teachings of peace and brotherly love, Hicks reproduced his Peaceable Kingdom composition on canvas more than sixty times.
Hicks's idealized encounter between British colonists and Indigenous people, however, perpetuated fictional narratives of fairness and cooperation. Ultimately, the Lenape were forced out of Pennsylvania due to fraudulent land deals perpetrated by Penn's sons.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

Raphaelle Peale was 48 years old in 1822 when he painted Still Life With Cake - same age as me now. He died three years later. Y’all, I really want to taste this dainty little cake before I die. Royal icing, with some kind of colored dust on top, maybe some citrusy flavors going on inside?

Still life oil painting, featuring a yellow apple, an absolutely delicious-looking dainty little cake with white icing and some powdery green and orange decoration on the top, and in the middle maybe a bunch of grapes that are well on their way to being raisins? I dunno - they ate some weird shit back then. I hope that cake doesn’t taste like fish sauce and rusty screws.

A plaque describing the painting:

RAPHAELLE PEALE
American, 1774-1825
Still Life with Cake
1822
Oil on panel
Museum Collection Fund, 24.72
Acquired by André E. Rueff, before 1924; purchased, 1924.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

Contemporary and ancient artworks were displayed side by side throughout the exhibit - there was a narrative of historic and cultural context that poked at how our relationship to art changes, and stays the same, over centuries.

A creature with snail antennae, sharp jagged teeth, beady eyes, and what looks like intricate circuitry etched all over its face and body.

McDonald’s Big Mac clamshell, fry box, and disposable utensils - all made of bronze, with intricate designs and patina as if they were ancient artifacts.

Someone’s boisterous auntie, wearing her best hat.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

This piece was enchanting, and literally chanting. A miniature slice of city, with a beautiful prayerful chant emanating from inside. It called me from the next room over, and as soon as I saw it I was transported - I think a part of me still lives in that tiny home.

A wall hanging, featuring a miniature three-dimensional slice of city, all cluttered and stacked upon itself, made of found objects and bits of organic matter. Embroidered laundry hangs from strings. Pipes and wires jut out from cross-sectioned walls and streets. A little car, the side of a house, and rooftop gardens seemingly receding into the distance.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

As with most museums, I didn’t have nearly enough time to satisfactorily view the whole place. I tried to hone in on the pieces that caught my attention, and had to skip a good portion of it. One floor had an Asian art collection, and I managed to snap some cool cats.

A grumpy tiger with bushy eyebrows, standing on its own tail.

A bronze cat with a wide toothy grin, standing in a short pedestal. Its tail lays along its back with a curl at the tip, as if the piece could be hung like a Christmas ornament.

Two worn wooden tigers. The tiger on the right looks like it’s highly amused by a joke it just told. The tiger on the left is unamused, possibly offended.

A ceramic lion with a chubby sausage-shaped body, and a cylinder sticking out its back, as if it were a bud vase. It looks very proud of itself.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

I got to spend some time in and around New York City this month, and saw some pretty cool museums, but my favorite was the Brooklyn Museum. @brooklynmuseum.org 🧵

A grotesque cigar-smoking bespectacled man, apparently named King Porn, according to the counter he sits behind. He’s made of burlap and other various colorful fabrics, and his cash register reads $3.98. Behind him, a painted backdrop with posters for the Cactus Club (featuring a scraped-up nude woman with potted cacti all around), Cigarette (featuring a blindfolded nude man with several lit cigarettes being thrust at his various parts), and a sign reading “IF WE DON’T HAVE IT IN STOCK ASK DON”. Maybe King Porn is also known as Don? No matter - one gets the sense this porn shop has pretty much everything in stock.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

Home made prickly pear kvass! With tunas from my yard, red cabbage, apple, jalapeño, lemon rind, and sea salt. I added a couple tuna skins as well, for extra tannins. Beautiful, bright, tart, tasty tonic!
#Handmade #LactoFermented #Probiotic #PricklyPear #Kvass

Several swing-top bottles, filled with bright red prickly pear kvass

Prickly pear cacti from my yard, with deep purple tunas sprouting out the top

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 1d

Nice try Biffo, but the inside of your car still stinks like wet animal and sin.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 2d

Boioionnng!

Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 2d

“HWHIFFUW!”

Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 2d

Tsk tsk, sucking head down at the docks again I see

Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 2d

This week’s #CrochetAway prompt is anything 🧡orange🧡

So here’s a wide-eyed orange tentacle monster. Go on - give ‘em a squeeze!
🧶 #Handmade #Crochet #Tentacle #Monster

An orange tentacle monster, slip stitch crocheted, with wide eyes, against a brown backdrop.

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 4d

The Cure is playing their set, and I’m trying to get closer to the stage, but this beer-drinking guy keeps trying to tell me something. It’s too loud in here, guy - I can’t hear a word you’re saying!

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Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 5d

Pesky Salesman Wins Breakdance Competition

Jellokrunch (bleh)🧛‍♂️ @jellokrunch.bsky.social · 5d

Ye Olde Scorpion