heilkunde

Using the principles of divination and radiesthesia to guide her hand, Swiss spiritual healer and outsider artist Emma Kunz (*1892 - †1963) did not necessarily cultivate her art for art’s sake but rather as an expression and heuristic tool for exploring belief and to engender healing. Viewing these curated works on loan from the Emma Kunz Zentrum in Würenlos in Aargau is nonetheless still visually compelling and with symbolism and geometric harmonies to prise an insight from, the meditative qualities come through.
The site of the centre dedicated to conserving Kunz’ drawings and teaching is also the location of a Roman quarry (Grotto) where Kunz discovered a mineral she believed held restorative properties—naming it AION A, from the Greek for “limitless.” The benches for the exhibit were specially hewn from this stone and pulverised AION A is available from Swiss apothecaries. More to explore with Hyperallergic at the link above.

yuri’s night

This anniversary (also Cosmonautics Day, День космонавтики) of the first human to cross the barrier into outer space on this day in 1961, when the Vostok 1 was piloted by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (*1934 – †1968, previously), is an international celebration of achievements in space exploration. This World Space Party includes outreach and education and are hosted in various venues across the globe, including schools, museums and planetariums. The first NASA space shuttle mission, Columbia (STS-1), took off on the twentieth anniversary of Vostok 1 in 1981, though this coincidence was not intended as the launch was delayed due to bad weather conditions.

ausstellung für unbekannte architekten

On this day in 1919, Walter Gropius founded in Weimar the Bauhaus school—a merger of the art academies of the city and grand duchy—as the successor institution to Arts and Crafts studio founded earlier by Belgian Art Nouveau architect Henry Clemens van de Velde, dismissed earlier during the war on account of his nationality, whose new style represented a negotiated compromise between the fine and the applied arts.  A show during the same month called An Exhibition of Unknown Architects, Gropius outlined the goal of the movement (see also here, here, here, and here) to create a new trade association for which there were not the same bars to membership as the guilds of the past, crafting the neologism as the heir of the Bauhütte, the stone masons who managed construction of cathedrals in Gothic times. A huge profusion of art and design came out of this movement and explore a carefully curated archive of resources at Open Culture at the link.

serif and shoulder

The always excellent Everlasting Blört refers us to a handy interactive guide that teaches the terminology of the elements of typography, what each of the strokes and embellishments of a letter-press are called. Explore more of the anatomy of a font at the links above.

the revolution will not be televised

Just as America pushes for the removal of the incumbent administration in Venezuela (previously), this day in 2002 coincidentally marks the beginning of a violent and ultimately unsuccessful coup d’état that ousted re-elected president Hugo Chávez for a period just under two days before he was restored to power by mobilising popular support.
Though then President George W Bush vehemently denied US involvement in the matter, neo-conservative diplomat Elliott Abrams, infamous for his involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal and architecture of the Iraq War, was then implicated of plotting to overthrow the Chávez government in exchange for one more privatise state oil assets. Elliot was appointed by Donald Trump as special envoy to the country in January. The title refers to a 2003 documentary made about what transpired during the forty-seven hours.

express lane

Culturally, I think I will never stop shopping like a European, fortunate to live within easy walking distance to a corner grocery store and dash off to the shop nearly daily.
I couldn’t conceive of needing a buggy or purchasing more than I could comfortably carry outside of getting ready for a camping vacation or a long holiday weekend—and so I was rather delighted to learn that the Swedish language has a term for the etiquette expected when one is in the queue to check out.  One is to avoid making a varuberg—literally a product heap, not only in being courteous to the person ringing up your items and the person next in line by arranging them neatly for efficiency and ease of handling but also by not buying too much at a time—or at least letting others go ahead. I can’t think of an exact equivalent but in Germany shoppers also place the same sort of standards at the cash-register.