Art - Music - Culture | Ascension Lifestyle

01 Jun 2023
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June Artist of the Month: Jo March

About the Artist

My name is Jo March and I’m a self-taught painter. I’ve been making some kind of living through my work since 1986, based in Cornwall, the county where I grew up.

My work is figurative and essentially nostalgic, and both celebrates the memory, and mourns the loss of older, simpler ways of living in rural Britain.

The paintings explore patterns of landscape but also our innate emotional responses to ideas of ‘home’ and the right to roam to and from it. I admit I am sentimental, especially regarding animals, and in my imaginary land they always enjoy life, as should be their right.

My paintings invariably have a narrative element and, I hope, contain elements of individual short stories that the viewer might enjoy reading for themselves.

https://youtu.be/a0nVrcFzs1k

Link to an interview with Lost Meadow Gallery, which explains a lot!

https://instagram.com/jomarch_art?igshid=Y2M0YTlkZGNmOQ==

www.jomarchart.com

29 May 2023
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The big idea: why colour is in the eye of the beholder

In February 2015, a Scottish woman uploaded a photograph of a dress to the internet. Within 48 hours the blurry snapshot had gone viral, provoking spirited debate around the world. The disagreement centred on the dress’s colour: some people were convinced it was blue and black while others were adamant it was white and gold.

Everyone, it seemed, was incredulous. People couldn’t understand how, faced with exactly the same photograph of exactly the same dress, they could reach such different and firmly held conclusions about its appearance. The confusion was grounded in a fundamental misunderstanding about colour – one that, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, shows little sign of disappearing.

For a long time, people believed that colours were objective, physical properties of objects or of the light that bounced off them. Even today, science teachers regale their students with stories about Isaac Newton and his prism experiment, telling them how different wavelengths of light produce the rainbow of hues around us.

But this theory isn’t really true. Different wavelengths of light do exist independently of us but they only become colours inside our bodies. Colour is ultimately a neurological process whereby photons are detected by light-sensitive cells in our eyes, transformed into electrical signals and sent to our brain, where, in a series of complex calculations, our visual cortex converts them into “colour”.

Most experts now agree that colour, as commonly understood, doesn’t inhabit the physical world at all but exists in the eyes or minds of its beholders. They argue that if a tree fell in a forest and no one was there to see it, its leaves would be colourless – and so would everything else. To put it another way: there is no such thing as colour; there are only the people who perceive it.

This is why no two people will ever see exactly the same colours. Every person’s visual system is unique and so, therefore, are their perceptions. About 8% of men are colour-blind and see fewer colours than everyone else; a small number of lucky women might, thanks to a genetic duplication on the X chromosome, be able to distinguish many more than the rest of us.

Animals inhabit very different chromatic worlds too. Most mammals are red-green colour-blind; bulls might be famous for their hatred of red capes, but the colour itself is invisible to them – they are actually enraged by the fabric’s movements. By contrast, most reptiles, amphibians, insects and birds perceive more colours than us. Bees see ultraviolet light, discerning elaborate patterns in flowers that we cannot perceive, while snakes see infrared radiation, detecting the warm bodies of prey from a distance.

People generally name only the colours they consider socially or culturally important

“Colour,” Umberto Eco once said, “is not an easy matter.” It is indeed elusive and illusive. Pretty much everything we take to be self-evident about it really isn’t self-evident at all. Scientists have shown that the sky isn’t blue, the sun isn’t yellow, snow isn’t white, black isn’t dark and darkness isn’t black.

One cause of the problem – or perhaps its symptom – is language. In English we divide colour space into 11 basic terms – black, white, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, grey, orange and pink – but other languages do things differently. Many don’t have words for pink, brown and yellow, and some use one word for both green and blue. The Tiv people in west Africa use only three basic colour terms (black, white, red), and at least one Indigenous community has no specific words for any colours, only “light” and “dark”.

The vocabulary of these languages isn’t dictated by the prismatic spectrum but, once again, by what is happening inside their speakers’ heads. People generally name only the colours they consider socially or culturally important. The Aztecs, who were enthusiastic farmers, used more than a dozen words for green; the Mursi cattleherders of Ethiopia have 11 colour terms for cows, and none for anything else.

These differences might even influence the colours they see. Debates about linguistic relativity – the extent to which our words shape our thoughts and perceptions – have been rumbling on for decades, and while many scholars have overstated the case for it, some have found persuasive evidence that if you don’t, say, have a word for blue, you will probably find it harder to distinguish.

The meanings of colour are no less socially constructed, which is why a single colour can mean completely different things in different places and at different times. In the west white is the colour of light, life and purity, but in parts of Asia it is the colour of death. In America red is conservative and blue progressive, while in Europe it’s the other way around. Many people today think of blue as masculine and pink as feminine, but only a hundred years ago baby boys were dressed in pink and girls in blue.

When all of this is taken together – the subjective nature of visual perception, the complicating influence of language, the role that social life and cultural traditions play in filtering our understandings of colour – it becomes really rather difficult to reach a conclusion different from that of the 18th-century philosopher David Hume: that, in the end, colour is “merely a phantasm of the senses”.

The ancient Egyptian term for “colour” was iwn – a word that also meant “skin”, “nature”, “character” and “being”, and was represented in part by a hieroglyph of human hair. To the Egyptians, colours were like people – full of life, energy, power and personality. We now understand just how completely the two are entangled. That’s because every hue we see around us is actually manufactured within us – in the same grey matter that forms language, stores memories, stokes emotions, shapes thoughts and gives rise to consciousness. Colour is, if you’ll pardon the pun, a pigment of our imaginations.

Original article here

15 May 2023
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Crying can teach you a lot about yourself

Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that have made me cry: Any time I must chop, dice, or mince ingredients; a group of sea lions barking in the sun; sad music; receiving a free hot dog; the film 500 Days of Summer; a messy house.

The one emotion tying all of these experiences together, according to Ad Vingerhoets, an emeritus professor at Tilburg University and one of the world’s preeminent experts on crying, is a sense of powerlessness. Even in the context of positive tear-jerking events — like encountering a very small puppy or watching your best friend walk down the aisle at their wedding — there is a feeling of overwhelm, Vingerhoets says. “You also feel small and helpless and humble,” he says.

Humans come into the world crying, and we never really stop. As babies, we cry in order to get attention from our parents, signaling to them that we’re angry or scared or in pain or hungry or tired. In childhood and adolescence, we cry from physical pain, like a scraped knee, but as we develop empathy in our teenage years, external catalysts — like books, movies, and other people’s pain — elicit tears. As we get older, we may be moved to tears by beauty, awe, wonder, and sentimentality, says Lauren Bylsma, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

For some people, the well of tears has run dry. The stereotype that criers are seen as weaker or less masculine contributes to the well-trodden notion that boys (and men) don’t cry. Indeed, women report crying more frequently than men and with shorter gaps in between crying episodes than men. Then, there’s that thorny feeling of vulnerability associated with sobbing; to betray the veneer of stoicism is deeply uncomfortable for some, to admit you need help can be seen as a failure.

But have you ever stopped to consider why you’re crying? The root cause of the sadness or overwhelm? What about what you can learn from your tears? Mining the depths of your emotions can shed light on deeper insecurities, fears, pleasures, and relationship complications.

What our tears tell us

The presence of tears signals one basic message, says Randolph Cornelius, a professor of psychological science at Vassar College: I need help. “We’re asking other people to aid us,” he says. Research suggests tears are so effective at eliciting help because criers are seen as sadder, more helpless, less aggressive, and in need of interpersonal connection. According to one of Vingerhoets’ 2017 studies, people are more likely to offer help to a crying person compared to just a sad person with a dry face. “Recognizing that people [are] crying and in need of help is a pretty automatic process,” Cornelius says.

Throughout the entire lifespan, some of the most common triggers of tears, Vingerhoets says, are bereavement, heartache, and homesickness. (Though women do cry more often in general over more mundane and conflict-driven situations, “the difference between the sexes is not that big” when it comes to these main motivators of crying, Vingerhoets says.) Then there are the positive cries: Weeping not just over a separation, but a reunion; crying out of relief and not fear; shedding tears when receiving a gift, not only when having it taken away. “All of these negative situations that provoked tears, they all seem to have their opposite,” Vingerhoets says, “which also induces tears.”

We receive the most support when we cry in front of a partner or a friend, Bylsma says, someone who is best equipped to console and emotionally support us. Research shows that the presence of visible tears can also bring people closer together and promote social bonding. “If you are stressed, it’s important that you receive social support from others,” Vingerhoets says, “because that can buffer the negative effects of stress on your well-being.”

Subliminally or not, we may realize that turning on the waterworks gets us what we want. “I have a 10-year-old grandson and he can turn crying on and off,” Cornelius says. “Kids learn how to manipulate adults and so that stays with us.” Much has been written about the weaponization of tears, especially by white women, in order to protect privilege and garner sympathy. Research finds that fake criers are seen as manipulative, less reliable, less warm, less competent, and less accepted as friends, colleagues, or neighbors. But usually, Cornelius says, adults keep their tears in check, having learned the socially appropriate places to cry (in private, on the side of the road when you have a flat tire) and opting not to cry at our desks at work when we feel frustrated. That is, unless the situation is uniquely overwhelming, Cornelius says, like in the face of an unexpected tragedy.

Why the context of the cry matters

Popular convention maintains that crying is a cathartic experience, that we feel cleansed and weightless following a good weep. “That’s not always the case,” Bylsma says, “and it really depends on various contextual factors.” We’re likely to reap the most benefit from crying if we can shed a few tears in a safe place, Bylsma says. “We found in research if someone were to cry in a place where it might be embarrassing, where people might react in a negative way, like crying in front of people you don’t know well in a workplace setting, for example, someone’s going to feel worse after crying,” she says, “versus if you cry in a more supportive environment, like in front of a partner or friend that you’re more likely to have a benefit from.”

In one of Vingerhoets’ and Bylsma’s studies, they found that people who are depressed, anxious, or experiencing burnout cry more, but they did not feel relief after crying. Those who felt shame and embarrassment were less likely to feel better following a cry, too. People find more catharsis after crying when the situation that made them weepy was controllable — like a fight with their partner — as opposed to an uncontrollable event, like a death.

Bylsma also notes that chronically suppressing tears is associated with negative emotional effects, like less empathy and emotional support, based on surveys. So if you feel the need to cry in the middle of a work meeting, try to get yourself to a bathroom and let it out. On the contrary, for those who have no reason to cry and forgo weeping for a long time, even years, there’s no harm in that, Vingerhoets says. However, persistent bouts of crying and ruminating over the same issues might be a sign you need to change your approach to crying, Bylsma says. Try seeking the help of a therapist or mental health professional who can help you cope.

What crying reveals

Regardless of what made you cry, whether it be a sad movie or a beautiful sunset, there is a deeper meaning. The presence of tears reveals what matters to you. “Sometimes our tears are signals to ourselves about the significance of events,” Cornelius says.

Consider the last time you cried. Was it an argument? An exhausting day? A delicious cupcake? What about those situations stirred up emotions? In the moment of the crying episode, try to process what, exactly, is making you cry, Cornelius says. “We do have an inner drive to know ourselves,” he says. “I think recognizing our emotions, giving them their due, allows us to do that.” Over time, you may recognize patterns in your emotions: I feel resentful in these situations, those comments make me feel embarrassed.

Having this bit of insight can help you reframe the situation: This isn’t an argument about taking out the trash, it’s an argument about respect. Sometimes tears can help reveal these underlying messages.

“When you have a realization about yourself, and that allows you to see yourself in a different way, you do feel empowered,” Cornelius says.

Original article here

01 Apr 2023
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April Artist of the Month: Mairi McLean

About the Artist:

I’ve been artistic all my life, but I don’t think of myself as an artist. I mainly write spiritual poetry; exploring our shared human condition. I paint small watercolour and ink paintings to accompany them on my website.

I’ve always written poetry. Mostly it’s a beautiful mystery to me where poems come from; unfolding as they do from somewhere in the ether. When someone experiences a connection with a poem, it all feels of value on a soul level.

Website: etherealview.uk

Instagram: @justmairimclean

Twitter: @JustMairi

Shadow

There is no

darkness;

only a shadow..

just

the shrouded

reflection

of all

that blocks

the power

of light

to reveal

to heal

to grow.

The Unfolding

Even within

the awakening

light

or dark night

of the

soul..

each of us

is a part

of the unknowable

whole

the beating heart

of all

that unfolds.

Peace

An olive branch

a white dove’s

view;

another chance

to renew

a fountain

of love..

above and beyond

all thoughts

of right or wrong

or belonging to.

Towards the Light

Let’s turn

towards

the light;

can you feel

its expansion

within..

as fear begins

to retreat;

defeated..

and faith

meets

love.

01 Mar 2023
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March Artist of the Month: Jessica Jacobsen

About the Artist:

My name is Jessica Jacobsen. I grew up in the projects in New York City. Since I was a little girl, I’ve been drawn to the arts, which served as a distraction from my life circumstance. My curiosity spanned from sewing, to cooking, to dancing. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I dedicated many waking hours to weaving stories both in art and in writing.

During that exploration, I developed a personal style of storytelling that I still draw upon today. After many twists and turns, I graduated with a BFA in Painting from Sonoma State, where my skills became more finely tuned. My stories, both on canvas and on paper, reflect my inner process as a person, but primarily, a woman.

It’s taken me a long time to feel comfortable sharing these parts of myself with others and I appreciate the encouragement I’ve received from friends and family who believe in me. It’s heartening to see others relate to my work, as this is my hope and intention.

Connect with me:

Instagram: @sheesheeart

Website: sheesheeart.com

24 Feb 2023
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Misophonia: how ‘sound rage’ destroys relationships and forces people to move home

As a teenager, I remember being moved almost to tears by the sound of a family member chewing muesli. A friend eating dumplings once forced me to flee the room. The noises one former housemate makes when chomping popcorn mean I have declined their invitations to the cinema for nearly 20 years.

I am not proud of myself for reacting like this – in fact, I am pretty embarrassed – but my responses feel unavoidable. It is probable that I have misophonia. According to a forthcoming scientific paper from King’s College London, so do 18% of people in the UK.

Otherwise known as “sound rage”, misophonia is “a decreased tolerance to certain sounds” says Dr Jane Gregory, a clinical psychologist at the University of Oxford who co-authored the paper and counts herself among the 18%.

Sound triggers are usually repetitive, she says. It is not about “the volume of the sound or necessarily the acoustic pattern”, but what it means to the observer. Eating sounds are most commonly reported, closely followed by so-called throat sounds. (Gregory is driven spare by the sound of pigeons.)

“Chewing, crunching, snorting, sniffing, throat clearing, nose whistling, heavy breathing,” rattles off Dr Zach Rosenthal, who runs the Centre for Misophonia and Emotion Regulation at Duke university in Durham, North Carolina. “These are all relatively ordinary everyday things that people need to do, but in people with misophonia they are experienced as highly aversive.”

That “aversive reaction” can take the form of physical changes such as increased muscle tension or heart rate, or emotional responses such as irritability, shame and anxiety. It brings on a fight, flight or even a freeze response where, according to Gregory, “you get a really strong adrenaline reaction and it tells you that you’re either in danger or you’re being violated”.

Only about 14% of the UK population are aware of misophonia, according to the King’s College London paper. Perhaps one of the reasons, Gregory suggests, is simply that it is hard to talk about. “You are essentially telling someone: ‘The sound of you eating and breathing – the sounds of you keeping yourself alive – are repulsing me.’ It’s really hard to find a polite way to say that.” Maybe the movie Tár will help: its protagonist, played by Cate Blanchett, has an extreme reaction to the sound of a metronome.

Theories about how misophonia develops are exactly that. “A lot of people say they had always been a little bit sensitive to sound, but then they remember a certain time when it suddenly got a lot worse,” says Gregory. Rosenthal says it typically presents itself in late childhood or early teens and is often associated with family members. “People ask me all the time: ‘Why my family? Why my parents?’” The explanation feels comfortingly logical: “You’re not blaming, you’re not judging – you were probably just around them the most.”

You might have clocked a sibling eating baked beans, say, then once you have noticed it your brain begins to look out for it. Rosenthal describes the whirlpool: “It starts to be aversive and then I pay more attention to it, and then the more attention I pay to it the more I notice it, and then the more I notice it the more aversive it becomes …”

The impact can be severe. Gregory knows of relationships that have ended over misophonia; she has encountered people who have moved several times to escape triggering neighbours. Others must pick careers based on where they can work without being bothered by sounds. “If you don’t get any respite from it, you can get desperate,” she says.

Strategies might help, however, such as introducing background noise when eating. Gregory’s husband, who knows better than to eat Monster Munch at home, can tell if she is bothered by a sound, because she will suddenly call out: “Siri, play Taylor Swift!”

Sometimes the best option is to walk away. Gregory suggests then “slowing down your breathing, or just giving your mind a little job to do”, such as playing a game for a minute. By the time you re-enter the room, the sound might be gone, or you might feel better equipped, “because you know what’s coming”.

She also recommends “opposite action – this idea that sometimes the more we avoid something or block it out, the more harmful it feels to us. In CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy], we do the opposite of what you feel like doing.” In this vein, she tries to fight her instinct to glare at her husband, gazing adoringly at him instead: “It’s a way of tripping up your brain and saying: remember that you love this person, remember that you’re not actually in danger.”

I make a note to try this the next time I hear someone eating scrambled eggs.

Original article here

01 Feb 2023
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How to Find Your Hidden Creative Genius

There is an interesting story about how Pablo Picasso, the famous Spanish artist and creative genius, developed the ability to produce remarkable work in just minutes.

As the story goes, Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman spotted him. She stopped the artist, pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”

Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. Then, he handed the paper back to her saying, “That will be one million dollars.”

“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman said. “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”

“My good woman,” Picasso said, “It took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.”

Picasso isn’t the only creative genius who worked for decades to master his craft. His journey is typical of many brilliant creatives.

Even people of considerable talent rarely produce incredible work before decades of practice.

Let’s talk about why that is, and even more important, how you can reveal your own creative genius.

The Age of Most Nobel Prize Winners

A recent study tracked the ages of Nobel Prize winners, great inventors, and scientists. As you can see in the graph below, the researchers found that most groundbreaking work peaked during the late thirties — at least a full decade into any individual career. Even in the fields of science and math, creative breakthroughs often require ten years or more or work.

These findings match the work done by previous researchers as well.

For example, a study conducted at Carnegie Mellon University by cognitive psychology professor John Hayes found that out of 500 famous musical pieces, nearly all of them were created after year 10 of the composer’s career. In later studies, Hayes found similar patterns with poets and painters. He began referring to this period hard work and little recognition as the “ten years of silence.”

Whether you are a composer or a scientist, creativity is not a quality you are born with or without. It is something that is discovered, honed, and improved through real work.

Which brings us to an important question: How can you do your best work and discover your hidden creative genius?

Permission to Create Junk

“People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts… For me and most other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. If fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

In any creative endeavor, you have to give yourself permission to create junk. There is no way around it. Sometimes you have to write 4 terrible pages just to discover that you wrote one good sentence in the second paragraph of the third page.

Creating something useful and compelling is like being a gold miner. You have to sift through pounds of dirt and rock and silt just to find a speck of gold in the middle of it all. Bits and pieces of genius will find their way to you, if you give yourself permission to let the muse flow.

Create on a Schedule

Amateurs create when they feel inspired. Professionals create on a schedule.

No single act will uncover more creative genius than forcing yourself to create consistently. Practicing your craft over and over is the only way to become decent at it. The person who sits around theorizing about what a best-selling book looks like will never write it. Meanwhile, the writer who shows up every day and puts their butt in the chair and their hands on the keyboard — they are learning how to do the work.

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.

— Chuck Close

Ira Glass is the host of the popular radio show This American Life, which is broadcast to 1.7 million listeners each week. This is the advice Glass gives to anyone looking to interesting, creative work: “The most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that … the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.”

If you want to do your best creative work, then don’t leave it up to choice. Don’t wake up in the morning and think, “I hope I feel inspired to create something today.” You need to take the decision-making out of it. Set a schedule for your work. Creative genius arrives when you show up enough times to get the average ideas out of the way.

Finish Something

Steven Pressfield’s most famous work, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was a best-selling novel that became a major motion picture starring Matt Damon, Will Smith, and Charlize Theron. But if you ask Pressfield, he will say that his most important book is one that you never heard of: the first book he finished.

Here’s how Pressfield describes finishing his first novel…

“I never did find a buyer for the book. Or the next one, either. It was ten years before I got the first check for something I had written and ten more before a novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was actually published. But that moment when I first hit the keys to spell out THE END was so epochal. I remember rolling the last page out and adding it to the stack that was the finished manuscript. Nobody knew I was done. Nobody cared. But I knew. I felt like a dragon I’d been fighting all my life had just dropped dead at my feet and gasped out its last sulfuric breath.”

Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and just do the work. It doesn’t matter how good or how bad it is. You don’t need to set the world on fire with your first try. You just need to prove to yourself that you have what it takes to produce something.

There are no artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, or scientists who became great by half-finishing their work. Stop debating what you should make and just make something.

Practice Self-Compassion

Everyone struggles to create great art. Even great artists.

When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in my mouth.

— Kurt Vonnegut

Anyone who creates something on a consistent basis will begin to judge their own work. I write new articles every Monday and Thursday. After sticking to that publishing schedule for three months, I began to judge everything I created. I was convinced that I had gone through every decent idea I had available. My most popular article came 8 months later.

It is natural to judge your work. It is natural to feel disappointed that your creation isn’t as wonderful as you hoped it would be, or that you’re not getting any better at your craft. But the key is to not let your discontent prevent you from continuing to do the work.

You have to practice enough self-compassion to not let self-judgment take over. Sure, you care about your work, but don’t get so serious about it that you can’t laugh off your mistakes and continue to produce the thing you love. Don’t let judgment prevent delivery.

Share Your Work

Share your work publicly. It will hold you accountable to creating your best work. It will provide feedback for doing better work. And when you see others connect with what you create, it will inspire you and make you care more.

When it comes to ideas, most people overestimate the risk of piracy, and underestimate the price of obscurity.

— Mike Trap

Sometimes sharing your work means you have to deal with haters and critics. But more often than not, the only thing that happens is that you rally the people who believe the same things you believe, are excited about the same things you are excited about, or who support the work that you believe in — who wouldn’t want that?

The world needs people who put creative work out into the world. What seems simple to you is often brilliant to someone else. But you’ll never know that unless you choose to share.

How to Find Your Creative Genius

Finding your creative genius is easy: do the work, finish something, get feedback, find ways to improve, show up again tomorrow. Repeat for ten years. Or twenty. Or thirty.

Inspiration only reveals itself after perspiration.

Original article here

01 Jan 2023
Comments: 0

January Artist of the Month: Anne Fairley

Artist Statement:

Hi, I’m Anne Fairley.

I’m an international award-winning artist from Scotland. I studied art at college back in 2002, and have been painting on and off since then.

My choice of medium is encaustic wax, and sometimes acrylic. However, wax is my favourite. The technique I use to get this is melting coloured wax with a hot iron, and applying it to a special glossy paper, which achieves the effect you see.

My inspiration mostly comes from nature, and personal experiences. I’m a quirky person at heart, and try to reflect this in my work. My hope is that it brings joy to those who see it.

Twitter @anneflyer (Rose Art)

YouTube (Roseworksart)

https://youtube.com/channel/UCHVcDYD2CqKM9ioAOPP1-4w

15 Dec 2022
Comments: 0

In These Cities, Car-Free Streets Are Here To Stay

What happens when you close down a city street to cars? More people do non-driving things, like walking, biking, strolling, skating and frolicking in the space normally reserved for motor vehicles. Car-free advocates would say that as greenhouse gas emissions and traffic violence go down, happiness and connection go up — it’s hard to connect with your neighbors while ensconced in two tons of steel.

Despite the benefits, closing streets to cars can make some people, er — a bit upset. Opponents argue that businesses will suffer (despite evidence to the contrary), congestion will increase (not so, says CityLab) and disabled and elderly people will have less access to public space (there’s a column for that). Like any change that pushes back against car culture, car-free streets face significant challenges.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, cities around the world closed down streets to cars and opened them up for people. Over two years later, some of these experiments were so popular that they are here to stay. Here are four car-free streets that are still going strong or just getting started.

John F. Kennedy Drive in San Francisco

The people of San Francisco have spoken: Keep JFK Drive car-free. Historically, JFK Drive (now known as JFK Promenade) has been closed to cars on Sundays since 1967. When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down most of the city and put a premium on outdoor space for socially-distanced play, it made sense to keep the street car-free seven days a week.

As anyone who has biked, skated or rolled during an open streets event can attest — once you go car-free it’s extremely hard to go back. Making JFK Drive car-free not only increased walking and biking, it turned the street into a space for art, music, celebration and connection.

In April, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a motion keeping JFK Drive closed to cars, along with 40 improvements that would make the park more accessible to disabled people, seniors and others.

The 1.5 mile street in San Francisco’s famed Golden Gate State Park was then the subject of dueling ballot measures this month — Prop J would keep cars out and Prop I would reopen the street to motorized vehicles. Supporters of Prop I argued that permanently closing the drive to cars would exclude people with disabilities from accessing the park. In the end, voters passed Prop J with almost 60% voting “yes” and rejected Prop I with over 60% voting “no.”

Jodie Medeiros, who leads the pedestrian advocacy group Walk San Francisco, says car-free movement at JFK is critical to protecting pedestrians from vehicle traffic. “For two years, we have seen how much people not only love but really need this car-free space,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Car-free JFK is all about our safety.”

According to San Francisco Recreation and Parks, visits to the park increased 36% since the closure, totaling nearly 7 million visits, while over 90% of the streets in the park are still open to cars.

Griffith Park Drive in Los Angeles

It started with tragedy: On April 16, 77-year-old Andrew Jelmart was riding his bike through Griffith Park when he was struck and killed by a speeding driver. While the park is a popular spot for hiking, biking and horseriding with over 50-miles of trails, cars often use it as a shortcut to avoid adjacent freeways. Los Angeles has long been known for its car-centric culture, but Jelmart’s death sparked a movement to make at least part of Griffith Park Drive car-free.

It might seem like a no-brainer that parks should be for recreation, rather than for drivers trying to get from point A to point B faster, but the tragic death of a cyclist drove the point home. By the end of June, the park announced it was temporarily shutting a stretch of Griffith Park Drive to cars. By Aug. 18, the change was made permanent.

As mobility advocates and writers have pointed out, most of the park is still open to cars — the section of Griffith Park Drive that is newly car-free is less than a mile long. However, city officials estimate that the closure keeps about 2,000 cars per day from cutting through the park, making it safer for people walking and rolling.

The city of L.A. has rarely moved this quickly to implement safety improvements for people outside of cars, even in the face of tragedy. In this case, it helped that the Department of Recreation and Parks has sole jurisdiction over Griffith Park Avenue, avoiding some of the public pushback that projects like this often face. In addition to the closure, the park has also announced new plans to curb speeding, calm traffic and improve cycling infrastructure.

34th Ave in New York City

Although not shut down to cars 24/7, one of the most successful car-free street projects is 34th Avenue (now known as “Paseo Park”) in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Currently, the street is car-free every day between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m, turning 26 city blocks into a de facto public park. With the newfound space, the neighborhood hosts a myriad of cultural activities, including yoga, dance, gardening, ESL classes and arts and crafts for kids.

Started in the early days of the pandemic, the 34th Avenue open street project was organized as part of New York City’s Open Streets initiative. Volunteers from the neighborhood put out traffic barriers every morning and started organizing events, activities and games. This year, only 20 miles of open streets remain in the city, down from a high of 83 miles.

The city’s department of transportation says that the project has reduced traffic violence involving pedestrians by a whopping 41.7%. A study conducted by Streetsblog showed a dramatic reduction in all car crashes.

Although the project has sparked controversy in recent months, 34th Avenue is a testament to community organizing and the possibilities of a street centered on people, not cars.

Capel Street in Dublin

Capel Street is a popular retail and restaurant district in Dublin that went car-less in May, making it the longest car-free street in the country — but not without some pushback.

On the face of it, the street – since named one of Time Out’s coolest streets in the world – seems perfect for pedestrianization. Capel is home to such TikTok-famous eateries as Krewe, Bovinity and a secret Asian street food restaurant hidden in the back of a supermarket. A new report out of New York City has found that far from hurting restaurants, car-free streets actually increased business for restaurants enrolled in the Open Streets program. They saw a 19% increase in revenue over previous years, or almost $6 million total during summer 2021.

Capel Street’s car-free journey started gradually, with more space on the street dedicated to outdoor dining during the pandemic. Then, last year, Dublin piloted a program shutting down the street to cars during weekend evening hours for 17 weeks. A public outreach survey found that almost 90% of respondents supported making Capel Street traffic-free, saying that it “improved their experience” of the street.

While some businesses were opposed to the idea, Dublin city councilors voted this month to keep the street closed to motor vehicles.

Before the Pandemic

Even before the threat of a highly-infectious airborne virus pushed cities to begin getting serious about outdoor dining and pedestrianized streets, some cities were already working toward implementing car-free zones in their city centers. In Paris, air and noise pollution pushed Mayor Anne Hidalgo to institute several car-free days beginning in 2015. Reports by the Airparif association, which measures urban pollution levels, suggest that nitrogen dioxide levels fell by nearly a third on the Champs-Élysées, by as much as 40% along the Seine, and about 20% at the Place de l’Opéra, during a car-free day in September 2015. Now, the city plans to ban private vehicles from the city’s historic center by 2024, ahead of the Paris Olympics.

The success of the occasional car-free days in Paris also inspired a movement in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2016, Mayor Fernando Haddad announced a ban on cars every Sunday along the city’s iconic Paulista Avenue. The move has been welcomed, including by the local business owners who were initially skeptical: A 2019 study conducted by a group of local NGOs found that 86% of store owners supported the program. Indeed, many are encouraging the city to expand the ban to Saturday afternoons as well, to encourage more foot traffic and sales.

“With the closing for cars, people started to walk a lot more, to stroll around, and the sales on Sundays grew seven-fold,” one local bookstore manager told Next City. “It was the best thing that could have happened for us. Sundays are now, by far, our busiest days.”

Original article here

01 Dec 2022
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December Artist of the Month: Roland Nissan

Artist Statement: Roland Nissan

I’m an urban sketcher and painter working primarily around London and the Southeast of England. I concentrate on buildings and street scenes. Since I use my sketchbooks as a form of daily visual diary, my work can also include home scenes and, of course, drawings from my travels. I sometimes get commissions to sketch people’s homes and other memorable places.

I’m lucky to have been able to retire early from my desk job in London to concentrate more on my passion of art and sketching. When I’m not sketching, I like to play guitar and ride my motorbike. Since teaching myself to draw about 10 years ago, I’ve amassed a huge number of sketchbooks and piles of paintings. Mostly I draw on-site, as I believe this is the best way to capture the ambience of the scene. I’m proud that my work has been noticed around the world due to exposure on social media and in the local press. I have fans all over the world where some of my paintings have travelled.

You can see my work on my social media channels, where you may also contact me for sales and commissions:

Twitter @RolandN

Instagram @rolandnissanart (where I post most days)