Gatherr

Rock ‘n’ Roll by Alan Bean

Bean’s drawings are interesting for the personal touches often included such as the notes on this one, evidently by another astronaut with personal words as well as scientific details of the rock sample about to be picked up.

Giant Leap by Alan Bean

Look closely at this painting. Bean started by making an impression on a board with his space suit boot and then painted over it the small picture of the astronaut taking the first step on the moon’s surface. Bean often incorporates physical impressions from equipment he brought back from the moon and also collages pieces of the gold foil that wrapped around the lower parts of the lunar lander. Some of it is seen here around the foot of the spacecraft. On occasion he has been known to cut off precious portions of his cloth badges to incorporate into a painting. He once joked that some of the paintings have probably picked up traces of the moon dust which had worked its way into his equipment.

The Hammer by Alan Bean

Bean has caught the feeling many of the astronauts no doubt experienced from time to time when the spacesuits gave the appearance of a latter day space age Frankenstein. As an artist Bean has been better able to convey such personal observations than any of the photographs that came back from the moon.

The Fantasy by Alan Bean.

We were excited. We were going to have the ultimate adventure someone in our profession could experience. But while we (Pete Conrad and Alan Bean) did (land on the moon) Dick Gordon would be orbiting 60 miles above us. We often fantasized Dick joining us on the moon for all the fun, but we could never find a way. But now I am an artist and in my paintings I can have it my way. Now, at last, our best friend has come the last 60 miles (to join us).”

- Alan Bean 

 Back in 2002 Newsweek put Steve Jobs with one of the first iPods onto their front cover with the words “iPod Therefore iAm”. Back then CD’s were king and nobody except SJ thought that that would change any time soon. There had been several other MP3 Players but none had made a dent in traditional music distribution and indie artists still struggled to be heard. Now, almost 6 years later Steve Jobs (love him or hate him) has taken the music world by storm, changed the way people listen to music, and along the way changed the way artists interact with their audience. In the digital world artists don’t need arrogant record company’s to find an audience any more. With the news this week that iTunes has now overtaken WalMart to become the largest retailer of music in the US (read: biggest in the world) I figured it was time to put a crown on that cover picture of Steve and his iPod. Back then almost no one would have predicted that an electronic device could change culture and that one day a blog would say the iPod is King. Long live the King!

YouTube is a video sharing site. Because of YouTube literally millions of artists are able to be seen and to free themselves from the shackles of control by the record labels. Yet in the name of “protection” against ideas from outside more and more countries are joining Iran in trying to prevent their citizens watching YouTube content, or using the blackmail of temporary bans to force YouTube to remove content. YouTube is exposing the black side of humanity at the same time it shines a light on artistic endeavor.

The red colored countries/state have banned YouTube permanently or temporarily. The grey countries have threatened to ban it (and China attempted a partial ban recently.