Arts | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Arts’ category

London Bridge Studio: Pearl Jam, Temple o.t. Dog

Pilgrimage is a noun, defined as “a journey to a place of particular interest or significance.”

There are three things you need to know about this particular personal music pilgrimage.

One: the music that’s stayed with me came about because I was tuned to `70s radio; I learned I liked the sonic combination of guitars and drums. Some of those musical memories came from Seattle.

Two: sharing the same space where your favourite bands and songs were recorded hits a lot different than intersecting at your favourite band’s concert while seated waaaay up in the upper deck.

And three: on a recent visit to Seattle, I spent the morning in a recording studio just outside city limits. Little outside suggests some important music history was made here.

The two-storey building looks like a cross between a warehouse and ordinary office space. The surroundings include a small commercial complex and a storage-unit facility. Within a quarter-mile, there’s a gas station, some fast-food joints, and a shopping mall. This is the modest setting where London Bridge Studio resides in the city of Shoreline, WA, about 14 km (9 mi) north of downtown Seattle.

It’s unassuming and it’s also important to note how out of the way this location is from other popular places to visit. A little more effort is required to visit this place of living music history.

I’m more than curious, but there’s music that’s meant a great deal and stayed with me over the decades. Recorded in this studio are two important albums on personal playlist and timeline: Temple of the Dog’s 1991 self-titled album as tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Andrew Wood; and “Ten”, Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut album. Much of the credit goes to Rakesh “Rick” Parashar: born and raised in Seattle, first owner and co-founder of the studio, and producer for “Ten” and “Temple of the Dog”.

( Click here for images and more )

Vienna Hietzing Cemetery: F.Grillparzer, G.Klimt, K.Moser, O.Wagner

Previously, I provided short biographies for artist Gustav Klimt, artist and designer Koloman Moser, and architect Otto Wagner, and why they are important figures to the arts and culture scene in early 20th-century Vienna. These three figures are buried in Hietzing Cemetery in the 13th district of Hietzing at the city’s western periphery.

Located to the southwest of the former imperial summer residence Schönbrunner Schlosspark, Hietzing Cemetery is modest in size with an area of over 10 hectares (25 acres) and containing over 11-thousand graves. With the present site inaugurated in 1787, the cemetery has seen several expansion phases and survived damage from the Second World War.

I highlight the final resting places for Alban Berg, the Fröhlich sisters, Franz Grillparzer, Hans Hollein, Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Strauss women, and Otto Wagner.

Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

2018 was the 100th anniversary of the deaths of Gustav Klimt (1862–1918), Koloman Moser (1868–1918), and Otto Wagner (1841–1918). Photo, 16 May 2018.

13. Bezirk, Hietzing, Friedhof Hietzing, Hietzing Cemetery, Friedhoefe Wien, Hietzing, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Oesterreich, fotoeins.com

Inside the front entrance – 15 May 2022.

Visitors to the cemetery can look northwest to see the glowing golden dome of Otto Wagner’s Steinhof Church at a distance of 4 km (2.5 mi). Photo, 16 May 2018.

( Click here for images and more )

Seattle: living black history in the C.D.

Oh Seattle: how is your black history defined?

With the city’s proximity to Vancouver, my time in or any understanding of Seattle was incomplete without an examination of the city’s non-white communities. I had questions about the black community and in particular why the city remains racially segregated. People of color, including black people, were once forbidden from buying houses in specific neighbourhoods because of their skin colour. The Central District (CD) thrived as a black community in the 2nd-half of the 20th-century, but now, citizens struggle with gentrification, displacement, and economic racism. There’s much more I need to ask and learn, but for now, I describe below a selection of landmarks highlighting contributions by and the historical impact of the black community to city and nation.

( Click here for images and more )

My Konstanz: Jan Hus’ last stand

Above/featured: Old Town from the Bodensee (Lake Constance): visible from left-to-right are respectively the broad-roofed Konzilgebäude (Council Building), Münster (tall Cathedral spire behind sailboat), and the Dominikanerinsel (Dominicans Island). Photo on 23 Sep 2017.

6 July is a national holiday in the Czech Republic; the formal name is “the day Jan Hus was burned at the stake” (Den upálení mistra Jana Husa).

I wrote previously about medieval Bohemian theologian and reformer Jan Hus (John Huss) whose teachings in the relatively novelty of the Czech language and criticisms about abuse and injustice within the Catholic Church predated Martin Luther’s own revolution for change by almost 100 years. Hus’ place within Czech history is fixed onto the nation with a giant memorial sculpture at the centre of Old Town Square in the capital city of Prague. His place is also assured in the European Reformation as seen in full display at the world’s largest Reformation Monument in the German city of Worms. Hus’ conviction and execution and the resulting armed conflicts would give rise not only to the concept of European unity (see also the prominent Czech historical figure George of Poděbrady), but would also give way to the European continental wars of religion.

As key historical aspects for creating unique Bohemian and subsequent Czech identity, Hus’ life, final days, and death are also a part of the historical record in the southern German city of Konstanz (Constance in English, Kostnice in Czech).

How Hus got here

The backdrop was the one of the largest conferences in the Middle Age. The Council of Constance met from 1414 to 1418, during which one key directive of the synod was to decide once and for all a single pope from three candidates. With the Council’s election of Pope Martin V in 1417, the Papal Schism which began in 1378 effectively came to an end; this would also be the one and only time a pope was elected on German soil. As the only meeting of its kind held north of the Alps, this massive medieval assembly gathered tens of thousands of people, including religious, political, civic, and social leaders; scholars and other civic officials; as well as traders and merchants from around the continent.

Constance had become a free Imperial city in the late 12th-century, allowing the city to prosper by trade of many goods around the European continent and onto the Mediterranean to destinations in Africa and the Middle East. The city was chosen to host the 15th-century conference, because the city as bishopric had sufficient space and resources to host, house, and feed a very large number of conference guests. Constance has the nickname “Stadt des Konzils” or the “Council City”, and has been included as part of the Hussite Cultural Route (Hussitische Kulturroute), which traces Hus’ final journey from Prague to Konstanz.

As follower of English philosopher John Wycliffe, Hus spoke out on flagrant abuse and corruption, especially on the sale of indulgences with the act of forgiveness for sin being used as a tool to increase church income. At a time when the church claimed complete spiritual, moral, and civic authority, Hus was an obvious troublemaker, and the central church authority punished him with censure and excommunication. Hus was called to travel from Prague to Konstanz and answer charges of heresy at the Council of Constance. He ignored the pleas of friends and colleagues to stay put (“it’s a trap!”), and armed with an apparent imperial promise of safe passage and conduct, he set off on his journey to Konstanz. Upon arrival in November 1414, the promise was naught and the betrayal complete; Hus was promptly arrested, imprisoned, and tortured in various places throughout the area for several months. In refusing to recant over his criticisms against the church, he was never given a fair trial. The Council convicted him of heresy inside the city’s cathedral on 6 July 1415. Hus was immediately handed over to the civil authority, who condemned him to death by burning at the stake on the same day. Jan Hus is revered as a key historical figure for Czechs and the Bohemian Reformation, just as Martin Luther would be for his role to kick off the German Reformation almost 100 years later.

( Click here for images and more )

“Iconic Black Women”, by Seattle artist Hiawatha D

(Best you view these images NOT on a tiny mobile screen, but from your desktop or laptop.)

As part of an ongoing journey to learn more about Seattle’s black community and their ongoing story, I visited the city’s Northwest African American Museum (NAAMNW) in March 2020. The museum’s permanent collection casts a spotlight on black migration within the United States, and the contributions by blacks to the nation and to the American Pacific Northwest. Also timely was the simultaneous visit of the NHL’s Black Hockey History mobile museum as part of their 14-city tour throughout North America.

I was especially moved by the museum’s special exhibition “Iconic Black Women: Ain’t I A Woman“, by Hiawatha D, an artist based in Seattle. His work and paintings highlight his story as a black man and black artist in America. His series of paintings “Iconic Black Women” shines a positive light on black women throughout past and contemporary American history: the important places they’ve occupied, and the important contributions they’ve made to human rights, music, literature, and sport. On sight of the paintings, the context, clothing, and body language may be immediately familiar. But many of the people painted don’t have faces, which allows viewers, especially young women, to see themselves in these figures, sparking and strengthening a connection between viewer and iconic black women.

I would love to see another name added to this list of iconic black women: African-Canadian Viola Desmond.

In 1940s Nova Scotia, Viola was a successful black businesswoman in the city of Halifax. In 1946, Viola Desmond was jailed, convicted, and fined for refusing to leave a whites-only area of a movie theatre. She fought unsuccessfully to have the conviction overturned. In 2010, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Mayann Francis (1st black person to serve in that post), posthumously pardoned Viola Desmond, removing her conviction from the historical record. In honour of her struggle, the Canadian Mint put Viola Desmond onto the face of Canada’s 10-dollar bill in 2018; she is the first black person and first Canadian woman to appear on Canadian currency in active circulation.

( Click here to see images )