San Diego's Coronado tops the list from “Dr. Beach,” otherwise known as Stephen Leatherman, director of the laboratory for coastal research at Florida International University.
The 1.5-mile stretch of Coronado Beach is set against the historic Hotel del Coronado, on an island just across San Diego Bay from the city's downtown. It is reachable by ferry or water taxi.
“The beach is very flat, making it great for skim boarding and walking, and the sand has a silvery sheen because of the presence of mica,” Leatherman's website said.
Coming in second on the list was Kahanamoku Beach in Waikiki on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. The Dr. Beach website describes the destination as benefiting from a shallow offshore reef that protects swimmers from big waves, making it ideal for children.
The other destinations on Leatherman's Top 10 list are: Main Beach in East Hampton, New York; St. George Island State Park on the Florida panhandle; Hamoa Beach in Maui, Hawaii; Coast Guard Beach in Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Waimanalo Bay Beach Park in Oahu, Hawaii; Cape Florida State Park in Key Biscayne, Florida; Beachwalker Park in Kiawah Island, South Carolina; and Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Last year, the top destination on the list was Siesta Beach in Sarasota, Florida. The 2010 winner was Coopers Beach on New York's Long Island.
Leatherman has released his list of top coastal destinations every year since 1991. His criteria for judging a good beach include the width of the beach, the color of the sand, the slope, water temperature, frequency of rain, noise factors and the presence of lifeguards.
The full list for 2012 coastal destinations is available at drbeach.org.
Source: www.todayszaman.com
Fundraiser Supports “Wives Behind The Badge" At Painting With A Twist- Trinity, Fl - PRLog (free press release)
Media Contact:
Jennifer Houston
352-584-1396
Jen.trinity.pwat@
TRINITY’S PAINTING WITH A TWIST FUNDRAISER SUPPORTS
“WIVES BEHIND THE BADGE”
Painting with a Purpose hosts special event for would-be artists on June 9.
TRINITY, FL —On Saturday, June 9, Painting with a Twist in Trinity is offering
a special event to support Wives Behind the Badge, a non-profit organization that aids the
families of police officers. Participants in the June Painting with a Purpose event will get step-
by-step instruction to paint a skyline entitled, “Tampa Bay at Night”, with half of the class fee
going to Wives Behind the Badge.
Every year, hundreds of police officers are killed or wounded in the line of duty. Florida is one
of the deadliest states in the country for law enforcement professionals. While these officers
go to work to serve and protect, their spouses are at work trying to provide support to the
families. Wives Behind the Badge was founded in 2006 and now has 500 members. The non-
profit organization raises awareness and provides emotional and financial support to the
families of police officers, including scholarships for the children and spouses and the support
program, HALOS (Helping Aid Lost Officers’ Survivors). In addition to raising money to help
the families, Wives Behind the Badge also raises awareness, providing a positive voice for law
enforcement in the community.
Every month, Painting with a Twist in Trinity hosts Painting with a Purpose, a 3-hour class,
where participants will be guided step by step to complete the acrylic painting du jour. For
the WBTB event, guests will paint a nighttime skyline of Tampa Bay. Even people who have
never painted before will walk away with their original artwork. The stroke-by-stroke classroom
approach always surprises even the most unsure participants.
“It’s so much fun to see people unleash their inner artist. Most of our students are amazed at
what they can do with a little instruction and a palette of paint,” says Sharon Reis, co-owner
of the Trinity studio, which opened in October 2011. Since then, they have already introduced
painting to 1,350 people—ranging from children to adults, including groups like birthday
parties, showers, girls night out, and date nights. “When we can bring this joy to people and
help a worthy cause at the same time, it’s a fantastic experience.”
For $45, anyone can take part in Painting with a Purpose. All materials and instruction is
included. Half of every fee that day will be donated to Wives Behind the Badge. The event takes
place on June 9, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Trinity location on State Route 54.
Reis’ business partner, Michelle Beres, says Painting with a Purpose is an opportunity for
them to give back to the community, something that is important to every member of the
Painting with a Twist franchise. “We host a fundraiser every month because we are committed
to supporting the community that supports our business—and not just in the financial
contribution, but in helping them to gain awareness of their cause. And what better way to
create connections than through art?”
Painting with a Twist is a concept born of two spirited women in New Orleans following the
dark days of Hurricane Katrina. The motto of Painting with a Twist is, “A little bit of paint,
a little bit of wine, and a whole lot of fun.” The idea quickly caught on and the business is
enjoying a growth spurt that has yielded more than 60 units in two short years of franchising.
Offering a unique getaway that includes friends, paint and the option to bring a favorite bottle
of wine and snacks, Painting with a Twist has become a pioneer in the art entertainment
industry, making art accessible to anyone. With local art instructors as guides, friends can come
together for an evening of creativity and camaraderie as they create one-of-a-kind pieces of art
and, often, discover a newfound talent.
Over 100 artists work for the Painting with a Twist studios, which presents individual sessions
from a gallery of over 2,000 copyrighted paintings. The monthly calendar features specific
paintings. Guests then choose a painting, reserve a spot online or by phone, come in for a great
evening, and leave with a masterpiece. Classes and camps for children are also scheduled, and
provide a wonderful way for the kids to spend quality time socializing and discovering their
creative abilities.
For more information or to register for Painting with a Purpose, contact Jennifer
Houston, Event Coordinator for Painting with a Twist in Trinity, 352-584-1396, or visit
www.paintingwithatwist.com/
Suite 112, Trinity, Florida.
Source: www.prlog.org
Acclaimed writer and artist Alasdair Gray plans further works of art for reigning pub of the year Oran Mor - Daily Record
May 27 2012 By Steve Hendry
Alasdair Gray with Oran Mor owner Colin Beattie
WHEN Alasdair Gray visits our reigning pub of the year he is not thinking about painting the town red.
Instead, the acclaimed writer and artist is working out how to finish off the ceiling.
His incredible murals adorn the walls and ceilings of Oran Mor, a converted church turned bar, restaurant and music venue that has become one of Scotland’s most popular nightspots.
Alasdair has been painstakingly completing his murals at the Glasgow venue since 2003 after being asked by owner Colin Beattie to start work in the auditorium.
His murals have won legions of fans including art impresario Richard Demarco and late singer Amy Winehouse, who described the room as one of the most beautiful she had ever seen.
But while he has created one of the largest works of art in Scotland, Alasdair, 77, revealed he hasn’t finished by a long way as he plans more additions to the murals in the bar on Byres Road, in the city’s West End.
He said: “There are elaborate plans for the side walls and the eastern gable isn’t quite finished.My idea is to have a mural painted view of 10 different Scottish towns, but not Glasgow which is sufficiently represented in the gallery, if we can get a different municipality to each sponsor a portrait of their town into the wall.
“The problem from the Oran Mor point of view is when I am working and painting it they can’t use the place and it is a working venue.
“I’m working with Nicol Wheatley, who is a specialist in murals. He has helped with the decorative frieze around the walls at the side and the gold stencilling of thistles, roses, leeks and hearts on the side walls.
“Nicol thinks we can find a way of me painting it on canvas and he will be able to stick it up.”
Alasdair, whose written work includes the acclaimed Lanark which took him almost 30 years to complete, revealed he took some of his inspiration for the ceiling from a Ladybird
children’s book.
He said: “When Colin asked me to decorate the place I said that I thought the ceiling should be a starry night sky and I painted a large panel to show him how a section of it should look.
“It’s impossible to do a mural on a small drawing to show how the final thing will look because, as it develops, it will change. The muralist has to be trusted to some extent and Colin decided he could trust me.
“I did not intend initially to paint the zodiac. I just wanted to scatter a few stars about.
“ But the beams divided the ceiling into six areas on each side and I thought, ‘The 12 signs of the zodiac, well that’s more fun’ and I got a Ladybird guide to the zodiac.
“When the scaffolding came down I got a bit of shock because, for Sagittarius, I have a centaur drawing a bow and I based the centaur’s head on one of my assistants .
“When I got down, I realised the head was far too small for a big, horsey body but it was too late to go back up and change it. Apart from that I thought it was all right.” Oran Mor, which won the famous Sunday Mail Pub of The Year mirror last year, played host to the Scottish Government when it staged a summit about nuclear weapons in Scotland in 2007.
Alasdair took the opportunity to send them a not-so subtle message.
He said: “When I heard they were going to have the parliament there I put up a sign saying, ‘Let Scotland flourish by telling the truth’.
“I like the idea of an itinerant Scottish Parliament. With modern technology, you can meet anywhere. It doesn’t need to have a big building, just a big space.
“I was astonished by the wonderful notion of the Scottish Parliament meeting in Oran Mor and I also like the idea of the parliament assembling in Dundee or Inverness or Oban.
“I don’t think the mural itself has a political message but it does feature a phrase I got from the Canadian poet Dennis Lee. It says, ‘Work as if you were living in the early days of a better nation’.
I thought that was a great idea and it is engraved in the Canongate wall of the Scottish Parliament.”
Colin Beattie is used to being in control of his business interests but he has no regrets about letting Alasdair’s imagination run riot.
He said: “Whether it’s a tradesman, an accountant or an artist, you have to know their work before putting yourself in their hands. Not only do I trust Alasdair, I’m a huge fan.
“His work is so distinctive you can tell it from a million miles away. The project has been fantastic and it is still evolving.”
Source: www.dailyrecord.co.uk
Amerindian painting and sculpture: the newest development in Caribbean art - Stabroek News
Amerindian art in Guyana has generated forms in painting and sculpture which are the most unique in the anglophone Caribbean. They also hold a very interesting place because they may be described as both the most ancient and the newest forms in the region as a whole. These forms are among the most distinctive and fascinating, but the critical accounts are yet to catch up with them.
Closely related to that is the state of Guyanese archaeology. Amerindian art is the most ancient in the Caribbean because it has its roots in the oldest civilisations in the region. These pre-Columbian civilisations existed in the Guianas, within the wider region of Amazonia in which there have been advanced archaeological finds. The research and publications about this pre-history which is older than the Christian era, hold significant implications for both South America and the West Indies. But the achievements in Guyanese archaeology and anthropology are insufficiently celebrated in the region.
Interestingly, the work of Guyanese Stanley Greaves was selected to grace the cover of Caribbean Art by Veerle Poupeye, the most authoritative text on Caribbean art. Similarly, Denis Williams of Guyana was recognised and decorated by the UWI as a leader in …..
Source: www.stabroeknews.com
Spear is hate speech - Zuma’s daughter - Independent Online
INLSA
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla was at the forefront of her family's support for Zuma. Photo: Cara Viereckl
President Jacob Zuma’s younger children could become victims of abuse in school if the controversial painting portraying their father’s genitals is not declared illegal and removed from public display.
So says his daughter Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, who applied on behalf of his children to enter the court case over the controversial portrait.
Zuma-Sambudla attended the first day of argument along with her husband Lonwabo Sambudla and remained in the public gallery for the duration of the hearing.
Wearing a black T-shirt denouncing the Brett Murray artwork, she easily blended in with other ANC supporters in the packed High Court in Joburg and those protesting outside.
However Zuma-Sambudla was at the forefront of her family’s support for Zuma, much like when she testified in his rape trial in 2006. Her twin brother Duduzane Zuma was seen briefly outside the court room, looking slightly uncomfortable at the attention he was receiving.
In an affidavit before the court, Zuma-Sambudla said she was speaking on behalf of all Zuma’s children as she requested to be admitted in the case as an applicant.
She referred to The Spear painting as hate-speech that is “vulgar and conveys no meaningful or constitutional protectable political speech”.
She said Zuma’s children had not taken the decision to join the proceedings lightly.
“As a family we have learnt to appreciate the ‘arrows of outrageous fortune’ that come with being a public family. I have in the past watched with horror at the deeply hurtful insults that have been hauled at my father’s person and have restrained myself from making any comments about it because I understand that his public position inspired a variety of emotional, intellectual and sometimes physical responses from people.” However, Zuma-Sambudla could not stand by idle after seeing the portrait.
“I am advised that the portrait of my father with his sexual organs exposed is deeply offensive and constitutes hate speech because it displays disdain for our cultural attitudes towards the public display of sexual organs… In fact in our culture, when you wish to insult an opponent, you insult them by referring to the sexual organs of parents. Such an insult often leads to violent conflict between the parties involved,” she says.
Zuma-Sambudla is also concerned about her younger siblings.
“I cannot, together with my siblings, freely mingle with the public without a deep feeling of being ostracised by the demeaning discussions about my father’s private parts… My brothers and sisters are exposed to abuse by other children in schools and colleges when their father’s sexual organs are publicly displayed and discussed on radio stations and talk shows.”
The court has admitted the affidavit along with written submissions made on behalf of Zuma’s children. These will be argued when the case resumes on a date which is yet to be determined.
Sunday Independent
Source: www.iol.co.za
No ‘retouching’ of Erardi painting - Times of Malta
Peter Farrugia’s feature ‘Canvases and coronets’ (The Sunday Times, May 6) might give readers the wrong impression.
I found it strange that my name, together with that of RoccoBuhagiar, was singled out in connection with the generic claim that the Erardi painting, TheVirgin of Divine Grace at the Capuchin church in Victoria, was “retouched by various painters”.
Historically, the painting was enlarged by Rocco Buhagiar, who was also commissioned to paint the two vertical paintings of St Anne and St Joachim which flank the altarpiece.
For the record I will narrate the exact circumstances surrounding my involvement in the painting’s restoration process. I was contacted by the then Capuchin convent superior, Fr Spiridione Galea, and his successor Fr Joe Mallia after the crowns of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus were pulled from the canvas and stolen in the mid-1970s. As a result, the canvas suffered minute cuts because the crowns were forcibly pulled together with the screws and bolts which secured them to it.
It was eventually agreed that the painting would be carried to my temporary studio at home in Victoria. I was charged with the elimination of the cuts and reintegrating the minute perforations originally done for the passing of the screws holding the respective crowns. My involvement was solely limited to this and in no way did I ‘retouch’ the whole painting as claimed in the article.
I am including a close-up photo of the damage suffered by the painting prior to my intervention. When, some years later, the crowns were stolen again, I was not consulted and hence any restoration interventions were carried out by others.
I used the restoration technique I learned during my years atthe Accademia in Perugia under Prof. Lanciotto Fumi, and by exploiting other techniques as applied by old masters such as the painters Giuseppe Briffa and Toussant Busuttil, who were also restorers at the Malta Museum of Fine Arts.
They were both close friends of my father, the sculptor Wistinu Camilleri, and the three of them grew and collaborated together in all spheres of art. Eventually they took me under their wing and instructed me in the art of restoration. I also obtained further expertise in conservation and restoration from Raimondo Boenni, who led a team of restorers for the restoration project on Mattia Preti’s St John’s Co-Cathedral vaults in the early 1960s.
It was the Capuchin, Fr Faustino Testaferrata, who retouched the whole painting prior to the first crowning ceremony of the Erardi painting.
I do not know of anybody else who might have retouched the painting.
As an experienced artist, I see a huge leap in art appreciationeven by the lay person. Even restoration technology has made huge strides.
However, I believe that technical examination rarely solves attribution issues in a definitive manner. It often shows that our questions and presumptions are much too simple and stereotyped.
It is time to move the debateabout restoration which is intricately tied up with questions of scientific analysis.
Let us detach the quest to examine works of art scientifically from the process of restoration.
Knowing and intervening are different things.
Source: www.timesofmalta.com
US art collectors, dealers, museum curators prowling Havana for works at Biennial festival - Daily Press
A visitor takes a picture of "My Ark" by Cuban artist Ruben Alpizar at the San Carlos de La Cabana fortress as part of the 11th Havana Biennial exhibition in Havana, Cuba, Friday, May 25, 2012. The piece was bought by an American art collector during the month long art event. An unusually large delegation of American artists, curators, collectors and fans were accredited to attend the Biennial, organizers say. Unlike with other island goods, it's perfectly legal for Americans to buy Cuban art, which is covered under an exemption to the 50-year-old U.S. embargo allowing the purchase of “informational materials.” (AP Photo/Franklin Reyes) (Franklin Reyes, AP / May 25, 2012)
Source: www.dailypress.com
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