Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum's Jewelry Gallery

The Victoria & Albert Museum announces the opening of the William and Judith Bollinger Jewellery Gallery on May 24, 2008. Don't miss it!

Useful link:
www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion/jewel_archive/index.html

The Powers To Lead

The Powers to Lead by Joseph S. Nye is an interesting book on the theory of leadership + the concept of hard + soft power = smart power. A must-read.

Useful links:
www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/joseph-nye
www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/422

The Transforming Travel Industry

According to the UNWTO, international tourist arrivals grew by 6% last year, to 900m. The total has gone up by almost 100m in two years. Last year the Middle East welcomed 13% more international tourists, or 46m in all. Arrivals in Asia and the Pacific were up by 10%, to 185m—with much of the extra travel coming from elsewhere in the region. Africa saw an increase of 8%, to 44m. This year, the UNWTO predicts, growth of international tourism will be fastest in Asia and the Pacific.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11374574

Negative effects: political violence + environment.
Positive effects: emerging economies with more spending power will be unwilling to give up flying or driving.

The amazing thing is many in the emerging economies are more interested in growth than environmental issues. A few companies on the other hand with green conscience are trying to be proactive and I hope to see more companies joining hands to save the environment.

Useful links:
www.world-tourism.org
www.wttc.travel
www.travelport.com/CarbonTracker
www.carlson.com
www.thomascook.com
www.marriott.com
www.mckinsey.com
www.amadeus.com

Climate Solutions

Climate Solutions: A Citizen's Guide by Peter Barnes is an interesting book on global warming + the impact + solutions.

Useful link:
www.capanddividend.org

I think it's a great reference book.

Best Startups In North America For 2008

The best startups in North America for 2008 is listed @
http://www.redherring.com/Home/24253

Marche Du Film

The Marché du Film is the business counterpart of the Cannes Film Festival and the largest film market (estimated one billion euros) in the world, and Cannes is the place to go to learn the ropes of the trade.

Useful links:
www.marchedufilm.com
www.festival-cannes.fr
www.ifc.com
www.network18online.com
www.emaximmedia.com

Car Talk

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the stars of public radio's Car Talk make their TV debut in a new cartoon series, Click & Clack's As The Wrench Turns, which debuts in primetime on PBS in July, 2008.

Useful links:
www.cartalk.com
www.pbs.org

Don't miss it!

Blue Diamond Update

A 13.39-carat blue diamond was sold at Christie's Geneva on May 14, 2008 at a world-record price of $8.9 million.

Useful link:
www.christies.com

'This impressive result is due to the scarcity of colored diamonds on the market, and to the great demand from collectors around the world for exceptional artworks and jewels that is currently dominating the auction world.'
- Francois Curiel, Chairman, Christie's Europe

I think he is right.

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely is an excellent book that provides insights into our behavioral traits + the way we make (strange) decisions. I liked it.

Useful links:
www.predictablyirrational.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ5baAOrxXY

Robert Mondavi

(via Wiki) Robert Gerald Mondavi was a leading American vineyard operator whose technical improvements and marketing strategies brought worldwide recognition for the wines of the Napa Valley in California. From an early period, Mondavi aggressively promoted labeling wines varietally rather than generically. This is now the standard for New World wines.

Useful link:
www.robertmondaviwinery.com

The pioneering vintner who helped put California wine country on the map, died at his Napa Valley home on May 16, 2008. He was 94. He was an enthusiastic ambassador for wine — especially California wine — promoting the health, cultural and social benefits of its moderate consumption.

The Forevermark Brand Strategy: Empowering The Retailers

Chaim Even Zohar writes about the launch of the De Beers Forevermark brand + the De Beers Grading Report + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

I think the article was very useful and informative because of all the branding efforts, the diamond jewelry industry is still one of the most fragmented industries in the world. The world's largest diamond jewelry brand has a circa one percent market share. How true!

Synthetic Quartz Update

The GEMLAB Laboratory based in the Principality of Liechtenstein has an interesting update on synthetic quartz @ http://www.gemlab.net/website/gemlab/fileadmin/user_upload/Research/Gemlab-Newsletter-05-2008.pdf

Useful link:
www.gemlab.net

Uptake

(via budgettravel) UpTake is an interesting theme-based travel search engine with tons of useful information. I liked it.

Useful links:
www.uptake.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxNqDCVvnJk

Restoration Rocks

Restoration Rocks = One-of-a-kind fragments of Frank Lloyd Wright’s modern masterpiece—the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—gathered during the 2007 restoration and presented in hand-crafted acrylic and sterling silver @ http://www.guggenheimstore.org/rero1.html

Virtual Painter

(via dowloand.com) Try Virtual Painter for Windows. Virtual Painter can create dramatic landscapes like the Renaissance greats + you can choose among 16 artistic styles, like oil, watercolor, and charcoal, and 20 canvases to give your photos a unique artistic look.

International Nitrogen Initiative

The article on reactive nitrogen + the impact on environment @ http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/reactive-nitrog.html was educational. I think it's time that we do something to prevent another 5,800 square mile dead zone.

Useful links:
www.initrogen.org
www.earth.columbia.edu

Techno-Bedouins

I found the article, Nomads at last @ http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displayStory.cfm?story_id=10950394 brilliant and insightful + the most wonderful thing about mobile technology today is that consumers can increasingly forget about how it works and simply take advantage of it, it's the human connection that matters. How true!

Zero Carbon House

Here is an interesting zero-carbon house concept: Barratt's Green House is packed with the latest technology including solar panels, rain water harvesting and an air-source heat pump. Its new kind of concrete walls and floors, combined with super insulation and triple-glazed windows makes it airtight, meaning the requirement for heating is minimal. Fresh air entering the passes through a heat exchanger, which transfers the heat from the outgoing stale air and puts it back into the house. A rainwater harvesting system collects water for use in flushing toilets.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/15/greenbuilding.renewableenergy

Useful links:
www.barratthomes.co.uk
www.bre.co.uk
www.gauntfrancis.co.uk

It's a great idea, but in my view, success depends on affordability.

Vincent Cassel

Vincent Cassel is a French actor + he plays Jacques Mesrine, a true story of France's infamous public enemy during the 70s, the man of a thousand faces, as he was known, in Public Enemy Number One, director by Jean-François Richet.

Useful link:
www.vincentcassel.com

Auction Update

Souren Melikian has an interesting update on contemporary art sales at Sotheby's + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/15/arts/melik16.php

It's hard to figure out what drives the bidders to go over the roof, but I think the diversity in style may have inspired the bidders to go the extra mile paying shocking prices. Definitely the Sotheby's sale have taken the market to a new level. It looks like the bubble is still inflating.

Who's Your City?

Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life by Richard Florida is an interesting study of how the world is changing + the concept of human geography + the impact. A must-read.

Useful link:
http://creativeclass.com

Comic Relief

I found the article Comic Relief: Comic Books Aren't Just for Entertainment @ http://www.edutopia.org/comic-relief educational and inspiring.

Useful links:
www.edutopia.org
http://www.edutopia.org/animating-dreams

Old Habits Die Hard

(via BBC) The survey of 1,186 executives in 33 countries by Ernst & Young suggests that 18% had lost business to a competitor prepared to pay a bribe. Corrupt practices were perceived to be most prevalent in mining, with fewer instances in energy and banking.

Useful links:
www.ey.com
www.transparency.org

Old habits die hard
Old soldiers just fade away
Old habits die hard
Harder than November rain
Old habits die hard
Old soldiers just fade away
Old habits die hard
Hard enough to feel the pain

- Mick Jagger & Dave Stewart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elutCfvhmzE

How true!

Pearl Treatment Update

(via JNA) Colored Akoya Pearls: I found the new pearl treatment intriguing. According to Tomokazu Tanabe, President, Tanabe Pearl Farm, in Shima in Mie Prefecture, after considerable research, his company have found a unique technique to inject coloring liquid into nucleated akoya oysters, which then secreted colored nacre and produced pearls in a wide range of colors from pink to greenish, bluish and lavender. He claims that the pearls are different from dyed pearls, and the colors are unlikely to change in several years.

According to Ikuo Atsumi, Gem Science Academy of Gemology, Tokyo, pre-harvest color treated akoya pearls can be identified by UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer where the spectra of the color treated akoya pearls were very different from those of non-treated akoya pearls and ordinary akoya pearls due to reaction of the metallic compounds, including iron, injected into the oysters.

All treatments should be disclosed at all levels of the distribution chain. If you are doubtful, consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.

Conspicuous Consumption

I found the article on Conspicuous Consumption @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1963.cfm interesting + insightful. I think it's status-conscious syndrome that's driving the trend.

Useful link:
www.bls.gov/cex

Young People For Change

Footprintfriends.com is an interesting social networking site set up by young people to share a passion for protecting natural environment.

I think they are good role models. I liked it.

Useful links:
www.footprintfriends.com
www.bsi-global.com

The Voice

I love Frank Sinatra's voice + his innate genius will be found in these songs:
- I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)
- I've Got You Under My Skin
- One For My Baby (And One More For the Road)
- You Make Me Feel So Young
- Theme From New York, New York

Useful links:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/05/a_frank_exchange_of_views.html
Frank Sinatra gallery here.

It was once said that he sang not about himself but from himself. How true!

Britain's Bling Capital

I found the article The rocks that Northampton got @ http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/05/bling_blog.html very interesting + how many of us actually know how much the jewelry we are wearing is worth? A five carat question!

Heard On The Street

I have told several traders exactly what I do, some made money, some lost…but all of us had the same rules.

The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch + Jeffrey Zaslow is a great inspirational/insightful book. The lecture is available online.

Useful link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

Imeem No.1

According to Compete.com , Imeem has becoming the No. 1 streaming music site in the United States via on-demand music from all four majors + indies + social networking + blogs + industry analysts believe that the most popular options for listening to music online are free.

Useful links:
www.imeem.com
www.compete.com

WorldWide Telescope

(via BBC) Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes. Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

Useful link:
www.worldwidetelescope.org

I think the pictures were beautiful.

Too Precious To Wear Campaign

I think SeaWeb’s Too Precious To Wear campaign to create demand for coral conservation is a brilliant idea + I also believe one way to help save it is to reduce coral in fashion.

Useful links:
www.tooprecioustowear.org
www.seaweb.org
www.tiffanyandcofoundation.org
www.coralreef.noaa.gov
www.cites.org

Random Thoughts

Life is risk. Nothing we do that is of any importance carries with it a guarantee of success. Nothing we can do is absolutely sure to secure even our own personal safety or well­being from one hour to the next. Yet we are constantly faced with choices. Lots of decisions, no guarantees. We all, in some way or another, adopt strategies for living, ways of approaching the world, ways of making choices that aim at the attainment of what we consider good. These strate­gies are all, to some extent or another, calculated gambles. We have no compelling proofs that our strategies will work. None of them is a sure thing. But we are used to the risk. We are accustomed to living without many true certainties, to the extent that we ordinarily forget that life is risk.

- Blaise Pascal

Nike Art Project

(via Wired) Claudio Sinatti was commissioned to shoot Italian footballer Marco Materazzi for the Nike 'Art of Football' exhibition. He built a special frame to hang on the player to film from all angles + the mix of high and low tech behind the scenes were brilliant. I liked it.

Useful links:
www.nike.com/nikelab
www.claudiosinatti.com
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/05/nike-art-projec.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwFbQ3sKnsA

Robert Rauschenberg

(via Wiki) Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is perhaps most famous for his 'Combines' of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations. While the 'Combines' are both painting and sculpture, Rauschenberg has also worked with photography, printmaking, papermaking, and performance. Rauschenberg had a tendency to pick up the trash that interested him on the streets of New York City and bringing it back to his studio to use it in this works. He claimed he 'wanted something other than what I could make myself and I wanted to use the surprise and the collectiveness and the generosity of finding surprises. And if it wasn't a surprise at first, by the time I got through with it, it was. So the object itself was changed by its context and therefore it became a new thing.' In 1953, Rauschenberg stunned the art world by erasing a drawing by de Kooning. In 1964 Rauschenberg was the first American artist to win the Grand Prize at the Venice Biennale (Mark Tobey and James Whistler had previously won the Painting Prize). Since then he has enjoyed a rare degree of institutional support. Rauschenberg lived and worked in New York City and on Captiva Island, Florida until his death on May 12, 2008, from heart failure.

Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCWh3IFtDQ

I am a huge fan of Robert Rauschenberg + I think his life/art + experimentation/innovation will be an inspiration for next-generation artists worldwide. He will be remembered forever.

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping

Finally, the 1995 portrait, entitled Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, a life-sized Lucian Freud painting of a sleeping, naked woman was sold by auction house Christies in New York for $33.6 million (£17.2 million) setting a new world record price for a work by a living artist.

Useful link:
www.christies.com

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

The foundations of Mr Augustus John’s reputation were also laid in the drawings which he showed at the New English Art Club during the first decade of the present century. The exuberant flow of his line, his powerful modeling of form by subtleties of light and shade; the extraordinary vitality of his heads in chalks and sanguine—all seemed to suggest that in Augustus John was reincarnated the princely art of Rubens. One thing alone at that time limited his popularity. It was asked why did he draw such ‘ugly’ people. The truth was that Mr John, having an exceedingly original mind, found beauties in new types. A Welshman by birth and descent, John in his early days was a Borrow in paint, happiest and most at home among the Romanies. The apparent strangeness of his early drawings and paintings was largely due to his preference for gipsy types. While teaching at the Liverpool University School of Art, round about 1904, he would periodically disappear to go roving with the gipsies and then reappear, bringing with his pictures of the raggle-taggled life of the caravan. These pictures, bright and clear in color, incisive in line, and effective in composition, were a new thing in painting. As a painter John did not possess the precocious facility of Orpen, and his early work often shows a certain heaviness of handling when compared with his present day pictures, and in acquiring mastery of the brush John gradually evolved two distinct manners. Influenced to some extent by the modern French painters already mentioned in this Outline, he has shown a tendency to simplification which is most marked in his decorative work. In mural decorations, like ‘The Mumpers’ at the Tate Gallery, John deliberately sacrifices roundness of form for decorative effect. Like Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898), the great painter of the Ste. Geneviève series in the Panthéon, Paris, John found that the qualities he aimed at necessitated a certain flatness of treatment. At the same time his color in these decorative works has become lighter and brighter. To this extent, in so far as it has tended to simplify rather than to complicate painting, the art of Augustus John may be said to illustrate a reaction from Impressionism. But while his decorative works often have primitive qualities, in his portraits he uses his full power of expressing form, and one of his most recent masterpieces ‘Madame Suggia’, proves that when this is his aim, John is second to no living man in realistic force and characterization. While infinitely various, there is an intense individuality in his draughtsmanship which unifies all his work and makes it recognizable as a ‘John’. His landscapes are closer to his decorative work than to his realistic portraiture. Finding his favorite subjects among the mountains and lakes of his native Wales, John has invented a new genre in landscape. Emphatic in their design, simplified in form, and brilliant but still in color, they strike a new note in British art.

Limitations of space prevent all but te briefest mention of another member of the New English Art Club, who has created a new type of landscape. Sir Charles John Holmes, the erudite Director of the National Gallery, was born in 1868. The son of a Cornish clergyman, he distinguished himself as a classical scholar at Eton and Oxford, and made a reputation as a writer on art before his watercolors and paintings became generally appreciated. Always a sytlist in design, simplicity is the outstanding quality in his work, and while he has painted many impressive landscapes of the grim, gaunt scenery of the Lake Country, it has been his peculiar distinction to invent ‘industrial landscape’, pictures in which factories and power stations of modern industrialism are powerfully presented with their surrounding landscapes. ‘The Burning Kiln’ is a fine example of the imaginative grandeur with which Sir C J Holmes invests these new subjects.

Another pupil of Professor Brown, Mr Walter W Russell (born 1867), added to the laurels of the New English Art Club by his brilliant portrait, ‘Mr Minney’, which was the picture of the year in the Academy of 1920.

In recent years the two most distinguished artists who have come from the Royal Academy Schools have been Mr Frederick Cayley Robinson (born 1862) whose poetic and decorative work shows a mingling of Pre-Raphaelite ideals with the noble simplicity of Puvis de Chavannes, and Mr Charles Sims (born 1873) who, after first attracting attention by the sheer beauty of his romantic idylls, astonished even his admirers by his exquisitely gracious and accomplished portrait ‘The Countess of Rocksavage and Son’, which was universally conceded to have won premier honors in the Academy of 1922.

Proverbially, art is long and talent today is so multitudinous that to attempt any adequate survey of present day achievements in Great Britain alone would be to embark on a voyage as lengthy as that which the reader has already traveled. Had space permitted it, it would have been gratifying to record successes in sculpture as well as in painting. Among the academic sculptors Sir George Frampton has acquired the widest popularity with his ‘Peter Pan’ in Kensington Gardens, while among the independent sculptors Mr Jacob Epstein’s bronze busts and Mr Eric Gill’s ‘Stations of the Cross’ in the Westminster Roman Catholic Cathedral are works which the present generation can leave with confidence to the judgment of posterity.

It is regretted that the scope of the present work has made it impossible to deal separately with etching, wood engraving, lithography, and other arts which are being practised today with skill and accomplishment. But all the pictorial and plastic arts are so intimately linked that the aims and ideals which animate them from generation to generation may to a great extent be deduced from a historical survey of painting. Without any pretence to be final or exhaustive, it is hoped that this work may contribute to a clearer understanding of the course followed by the main stream of European art from the thirteenth century to the present day.

Eric Janszen

The Wired + Eric Janszen interview on clean technologies @ http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/03/cleantech_bubble was informative and useful.

Useful link:
www.itulip.com

Random Thoughts

He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.

- St. Francis of Assisi

Kolkata Museum Of Modern Art

First of its kind in Asia: Kolkata Museum of Modern Art (India), a joint venture with the West Bengal government and center, will be set up on 10 acres in New Town of Rajarhat, on the outskirts of Kolkata metropolis, with National Gallery + Western Galleries + Far-Eastern Galleries + Academic Wing, where a national collection of fine art ranging from the 19th century to the contemporary period will be exhibited + the project will be designed by Herzog & de Meuron, based in Basel, in Switzerland.

Useful link:
www.wbgov.com

World Fair Trade Day 2008

I think World Fair Trade Day in 2008 was an exciting and challenging opportunity to raise consumer awareness = learning something new and different via sustainable earth-centered community = transformational experiences.

Useful links:
www.wftday.org
www.fairtraderesource.org
www.fairtradetownsusa.org

The San Francisco Earring Study

I found the report entitled 'Nickel release from earrings purchased in the United States: The San Francisco earring study," published online in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology via http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080512/aqm093.html?.v=45 interesting + insightful.

Useful links:
www.eblue.org
www.aad.org

Look for jewelry labeled nickel-free.

The Great Debaters

(via Wiki) The Great Debaters is a 2007 film produced by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions, based on an article about the Wiley College debate team by Tony Scherman written for American Legacy for its '97 Spring issue. It is directed by Denzel Washington who also stars in the film along with Forest Whitaker, Kimberly Elise, Denzel Whitaker, Nate Parker, Gina Ravera, and Jurnee Smollett. The screenplay was written by Suzan-Lori Parks and Robert Eisele. It was released on December 25, 2007.

Useful links:
www.thegreatdebatersmovie.com
www.imdb.com/title/tt0427309

I think it was a wonderful movie + those passionate and inspirational speeches beautifully delivered by the winning actors will be remembered forever.

Living It Up

Living It Up : America's Love Affair with Luxury by James B. Twitchell is a revealing and entertaining book on consumer culture.

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

6

While the painters mentioned above are far from exhausting the list of distinguished artists who received their training directly from Legros, his successor, Professor Brown, may be said to have been fortunate in having still more brilliant pupils. Of these first attention must be given to William Orpen and Augustus John, who, by common consent, are the most richly gifted of the many ex-students of the Slade School who have attained eminence in their profession.

Now and again in the history of art there are happy individuals who seem to escape the student stage altogether and appear as masters from the first. Lawrence was one; Millais was another; Orpen is a third, and he bids fair to go farther than either of the other two. Born on the 27th November 1878, William Orpen attracted the attention of London connoisseurs while he was still a student at the Dublic Metropolitan School of Art. The writer can remember the sensation caused at South Kensington more than twenty years ago by a drawing from the life with which this young Irishman won the gold medal at the National Competition for works by students at schools of art all over the country. Never before or since has there been so much unanimity of opinion about a prize winner. Everybody was talking then about ‘young Orpen’s’ drawing, for while it satisfied the academic mind by its flawless perfection and anatomical correctness, it roused enthusiasm among more independent critics because it was not a dead thing—as so many prize drawings are—but a real human figure in which every line pulsated with life. It was clear that a great draughtsman had come to town, and when Orpen left Ireland and came to the Slade School his drawings and paintings soon became conspicuous in the exhibitions of the New English Art Club, then held at the old Dudley Gallery in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. In the first decade of the twentieth century this youth in his twenties was already ranked, not with other students, but with artists, like Wilson Steer, who were recognized as masters. What distinguished Orpen at once from other able draughtsmen of his age was his precocious facility in the manipulation of paint. Most students have to learn slowly how to handle pigment; the first paintings Orpen exhibited proved that he had a mastery of the brush. A beautiful example of his early fluency is the picture in the Tate Gallery, entitled ‘The Mirror’, painted in 1900. Even at this period Orpen showed a wide range; he painted portraits, still life, nudes, and subject pictures, while perhaps the most characteristic of these early works were interiors with figures, pictures which seemed to have the fullness of content of a Van Eyck, though painted with the exuberance of a Hals.

In ‘The Mirror’ traces of the influence of Whistler may still be seen; in his later works Orpen’s style has become broader and more vigorous, his color has grown lighter and more brilliant, and in portraits his penetration into character has gained in profundity. But the characterisation was keen in several early portraits, notably the ‘Charles Wertheimer’, the first and only picture the artist exhibited at the Royal Academy prior to his election as Associate in 1910.

Since his entry into the Royal Academy the art of Sir William Orpen has steadily grown in power and public favor, but his phenomenal success has never warped his sincerity as an artist. While he has contributed a generous measure of portraits to the exhibitions of Burlington House, he has remained loyal to the New English Art Club, and there he has again and again shown those inimitable pictures which an artist paints for his own delight and pleasure. Among them may be mentioned some notable scenes of vagrant and peasant life in Ireland, and playful allegories, like ‘Sowing the Seed’, in which a true Irish sense of humor has been blended with pictorial and decorative charm. It is characteristic of Sir William’s independence as an artist that of all the hundreds of portraits which he painted in Paris during and after the Peace Conference, the very best of them should be, not one of the famous statesmen and soldiers who sat to him, but a man who was a nonentity till his portrait was exhibited. The now famous ‘Chef de I’Hôtel Chatham’ was not only the ‘picture of the year’ at the 1921 Academy, it is a picture for all time which has and will have the wide human appeal of Moroni’s ‘Portrait of a Tailor’. In this portrait of the Chef (Mr Chester) in his immaculate white cap and jacket, standing beside his grill, we have Orpen at his very best, using all his amazing facility and dexterity in the handling of paint for the purpose of putting on canvas the rich, full humanity of a living being.

Sir William’s two great Peace picture in the Academy of 1920, ‘Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles,’ and ‘A Peace Conference at the Quai d’Orsay,’ were an expansion of the delightful little interiors which he had sent in earlier days to the New English Art Club, and in a way his allegory ‘Sowing the Seed’ may be regarded as a prelude to the very different and far more serious painting, ‘To the Unknown Soldier’, which was the center of interest in the Academy of 1923. For both these paintings show high powers of imagination, and warn us that in marveling at the quickness of his eye and at the unerring skill of his hand, we must not forget that Sir William Orpen is also an artist with a keenly intelligent brain and with a warm imaginative heart, a man who can see both the humor and tragedy of life, who can feel deeply and can express his emotions either in genial satire or in a majestic allegory of epic grandeur.

The Art Of Today (continued)

Remember Who You Are

Remember Who You Are: Life Stories That Inspire the Heart and Mind by Daisy Wademan + Kim Clark + Rosabeth Moss Kanter is a great inspirational book.

Branko Lukic

I am a huge fan of Branko Lukic + his designs are amazing!

Useful link:
www.brankolukic.com

Greendex 2008

The National Geographic Society + international polling firm GlobeScan have unveiled Greendex 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment—A Worldwide Tracking Survey to look at how consumers across the globe are behaving.

Useful link:
www.nationalgeographic.com

I think the survey will definitely impact individual consumer behavior.

Random Thoughts

(via fastcompany) Some people are drawn to movie stars and rock stars. To me, entrepreneurs are the interesting people in this time and our society because they drive the economy. They have whacked out marginal utilities for risk in the sense that they seem to value risk instead of trying to shy away from it. They tend to walk away from high-paying jobs to do things that are highly risky just because they want to change the world and hope to make some money even though it's very unlikely they will. That's what's drawn me to this particular beat. I love blogging just because it's a direct channel to your readers that's very raw and unfiltered.

- Michael Arrington
www.techcrunch.com

Olympic Memorabilia

Olympic memorabilia are fetching high prices + Economist has an interesting update @ http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11355677

Useful links:
www.dnw.co.uk
http://ioneil.com
www.coubertin.com
www.goldmedalcollectibles.com
www.olympic.org
www.societyofolympiccollectors.org
www.olympinclub.com
www.bonhams.com

Mathieu Amalric

(via Wiki) Mathieu Amalric is a three-time César Award winning French actor and film director, perhaps best known for his lead role in the four-time Academy Award nominated 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He also has won the Étoile d'Or and the Lumiere Award, and is considered one of France's greatest contemporary actors.

Useful links:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/interview/interviewpages/0,,2279291,00.html
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0023832

I think he is brilliant!

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

5

Returning to the pupils of Legros, first attention must be given to Charles Wellington Furse (1868-1904), who, but for his early death, would assuredly now be occupying a position in the art world rivalling that of Sargent and Orpen. Born at Staines, Furse was only sixteen when he began to study under Legros at the Slade School. Later he worked in Paris, and returning to London he soon made his mark at the New English Art Club, where his portraits especially attracted attention. He was only twenty-five when he began his heroic equestrian portrait of Lord Roberts—now in the Tate Gallery—a great work which, being interrupted by illness, he was never able to complete, for after his recovery he was too much occupied with other work to return to it at once.

Between 1899 and 1901 much of his time was taken up in painting the decorative spandrels for Liverpool Town Hall, and his remarkable capacity for executing imposing works on a large scale was clearly revealed to the world in 1903, when ‘The Return from the Ride’ was the ‘picture of the year’ at the Academy. In this magnificent portrait group of his friends Mr and Mrs Aubrey Waterfield, the figures are nearly life-size and the whole picture is painted with the assurance and exuberance of a master. In the following year, when he was elected A.R.A, he repeated his success at the Academy with an open air portraits of his wife, entitled ‘Diana of the Uplands’, another life-sized work full of breeziness and polished brilliance. For many years the artist had suffered from lung trouble; and this finally caused his death in the very year in which he had won his Associateship. The breadth and dignity of his outlook equalled the felicity of his execution, and while the great performances in which his art culminated may be said to have been based to some extent on the practice of Velazquez, his own personal gifts and his keen observations of Nature gave an individual distinction to his works which makes them essentially original.

Mr William Strang was born at Dumbarton in 1859, came to London in 1875, and developed remarkable powers as a draughtsman under Legros at the Slade School. The first works of his to attract notice were his portrait drawings and his etchings, which attained distinction in two very different fields. His portraits, whether drawn or etched were intensely realistic, of a Holbeinesque clarity and simplicity, strong in line and character; but in etchings of other subjects Strang displayed imaginative gifts of the highest order, and his illustrations to the Bible, Don Quixote, and to some of Mr Kipling’s stories revealed a mind as alert to think and philosophise as his eye to see and his hand to record.

As a painter Strang had two distinct styles: in the first his color was based on that of the great Venetians, in the second his palette became much brighter and lighter and the influence of Manet was apparent. The union of his incisive drawing with this pure clean color produced in his second manner pictures of arresting brilliance. ‘Bank Holiday’, painted in 1912 and now in the Tate Gallery, is a fine example of his later style and, while displaying the severity of his line and the emphatic realism with which he presents figures and objects, it also reveals his imaginative gifts in the subtle rendering of the embarrassment of a holiday couple used to the etiquette which prevails in restaurants.

The Art Of Today (continued)

Pangea Day

Pangea Day is a global event bringing the world together through film. In 2006, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim won the TED Prize, an annual award granted at the TED Conference. She was granted $100,000, and more important, a wish to change the world. Her wish was to create a day in which the world came together through film. Pangea Day grew out of that wish.

Useful link:
www.pangeaday.org

Brilliant!

Riedel

Riedel products are unique + the designs are beautiful + they are oenophile's pleasure. I liked it.

Useful link:
www.riedel.com

Htein Lin

Htein Lin is a Burmese artist + his prison experiences are portrayed in his paintings + they are dense with unique visual information.

Useful link:
www.hteinlin.com

The Billionaire's Vinegar

The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine by Benjamin Wallace is full of detail that will delight wine lovers + it's a great story well told.

Useful link:
www.benjaminwallace.net

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

While Legros was responsible for the renewed attention paid to drawings, other artists gradually made England familiar with the new ideas about color which had originated in France. Conspicuous among the pioneers in this direction is Mr George Clausen, R.A. Born at London in 1852, Mr Clausen was an art student at South Kensington from 1867 to 1873, and then went to Paris, where he was at first chiefly influenced by J.F Millet and his follower, Jules Bastien-Lapage (1848-84). His well-known picture at the Tate Gallery, ‘The Girl at the Gate’, a comparatively early work painted in 1889, shows Mr Clausen still dominated by the art of Bastien-Lepage. Later the artist was profoundly influenced by the color of the Impressionists, especially by Monet and Pissarro, and in his second manner, while frequently adhering to pastoral and peasant subjects which recall Millet, Mr Clausen presented them in prismatic colors in which the illumination of real sunshine is rendered with exquisite truth and delicacy. Mr Clausen has painted both the life and the light of the fields, fusing the humanity of J F Millet with the Nature-worship of Claude Monet. Possessing a wide range, he has painted portraits and allegorical subjects as well as landscapes and pastorals. All his work is distinguished by its beauty of color, radiant illumination, and human tenderness.

Mr P Wilson Steer was born at Birkenhead in 1860. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, he returned to England full of enthusiasm for the Impressionists, and among his early works may be found experiments in the style of Manet, Degas, Monet, and Renoir. But while he has always preserved their keen interest in light, Mr Wilson Steer gradually broke away from the close imitation of the Impressionists and developed a style of his own in which the vivacity and broken touch of the French painters were mingled with elements derived from such British painters as Gainsborough, Constable, and Turner. The later art of Mr Steer may be described as a blend of English and French traditions. In the landscapes of his maturity he has used pinks, mauves, and blues very sparingly and concentrated on the varied greens and yellows of Nature, excelling in the rendering of wooded country with trees glittering in the sunshine after rain, and also in depicting the light and atmosphere in great vistas of spacious countrysides. Equally distinguished s a figure painter, Mr Steer is represented by an auto-portrait in the Pitti Gallery, Florence, by ‘The Music Room’ in the Tate Gallery, and by figure subjects as well as landscapes in many other public galleries. Apparently averse to Academical honors, Mr Steer has from the first remained the most loyal member of the New English Art Club, of which he is still the chief ornament. The grace and refinement of his portraiture ar beautifully exemplified in his ‘Portrait of Mrs Hammersley’, in which the background also reveals his powers as landscape painter.

Two other members of the New English Art Club who have helped to introduce Impressionism into England are Lucien Pissarro and Walter Sickert. The former is the eldest son of Camille Pissarro. He was born at Paris in 1863, and grew up among the Impressionist and neo-Impressionists, so that he may be said to have been impregnated with the science of color from his early boyhood. In 1893 he settled in London, where he came into touch with William Morris, and setting up a private press he made a European reputation as a wood engraver and printer of beautiful books. As a painter he made his way more slowly, but his landscapes have always aroused the enthusiasm of his brother artists by their just observation and masterly statement of the actual hues in Nature.

Mr Walter Sickert, born in 1860, was in his youth a pupil of Whistler, but the influence of this master was later superseded by that of the Impressionists, especially that of Degas, after the artist took up his residence in Paris, where he remained for several years. Making a speciality of painting low-life scenes, portraying humble interiors, the galleries of theatres and music halls, costers and flower girls, Mr Sickert does not rarely explore, even in his landscapes, scenes at Dieppe or Venice, the realm of full sunshine which was the happy hunting ground of the earlier Impressionists. In his interiors Mr Sickert is known chiefly as an exquisite interpreter of the subtle beauties of twilight, in his exteriors he usually prefers grey days or at least moments when direct sunshine is masked; but within his self-imposed limits he is a true Impressionist, always giving his first attention to the lighting, and making lights even in darkness sparkle and vibrate with the magic of his deft broken touches.

The Art Of Today (continued)

The Venkateswara Temple

The Venkateswara Temple at Tirumala, Andhra Pradesh, in India is dedicated to Lord Vishnu as 'Venkateswara' (or Srinivasa) and attracts followers from a wide range of Hindu traditions. The temple is the world's richest in terms of the wealth of offerings (invaluable ornaments and precious jewels) and gifts given by visiting pilgrims. Gold and diamonds are the traditional choice (s) for offerings.

Useful link:
www.tirumala.org

A must-visit.

Subroto Bagchi

I think Saritha Rai's article on MindTree @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/0519/020.html was brilliant. I really liked the jargon (s) emotional infrastructure/gardener = an aggregate of the positive feelings employees have for their company + for one another; 95-95-95 = 95% of its employees have access to 95% of the information 95% of the time.

Useful links:
www.mindtree.com
www.bangalore.philips.com

'My work will be unending in the same way as a gardener is eternally connected to every tree and plant in his garden. A gardener's work is never finished.'
- Subroto Bagchi

He was spot on.

Rediscovering David Lean

I am a huge fan of David Lean + (The Guardian) David Thomson has written an interesting article about the most celebrated English movie director @ http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2279185,00.html + David Lean's The Passionate Friends is in cinemas from June through July @ bfi.org.uk/lean

Mark Boston

Mark Boston is the Chairman of H. Goldie & Company Ltd, international diamond brokers and consultants + he has an interesting/insightful blog @ http://hgoldie.blogspot.com

Useful link:
www.hgoldie.com

Home-brew Biodiesel

I found the article on home-brew biodiesel @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/10/biofuels.alternativeenergy very interesting + insightful. It's really encouraging to see people going the extra mile to produce DIY diesel to save the environment. Bravo!

Useful link:
www.etruk.com

Estella Collection Update

Here is an interesting update on Estella Collections @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/08/arts/estella.php + the controversy. It's unfortuntate but it's a fact of life that art business is always prone to speculation + misinterpretation + there are always unexpected winners and losers + I think the specific gravity of the art market is moving towards China.

Teaching The Science Of Selling Art

As the global art market flourishes into an industry turning over an estimated $25 billion or more a year in sales, a subsidiary business has grown alongside, training those who hope to make a living from the commerce of art. The programs are intensive + highly priced.

Useful links:
www.christies.com/services/education
www.fitnyc.edu (Art Market Principles and Practice)
www.sothebysinstitute.com
www.courtauld.ac.uk
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/15/europe/rieart.php

U.S. Court Subpoenas GIA ‘Certifigate’ Records

Chaim Even Zohar writes about the ongoing GIA 'Certifigate' investigation + other viewpoints @
http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

It will be interesging to see the outcome + impact, if any. Thanks to Chaim for updating the info.

Random Thoughts

All paper money returns to its intrinsic value—zero.
- François-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name, Voltaire.

Gold is money and nothing else.
- J.P. Morgan

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

4

No two institutions in the United Kingdom have produced a more remarkable sequence of illustrious artists than the New English Art Club and the Slade School of Art, and since, though separate in their origin, the two have come to be closely related to each other, it is convenient to consider them together. The New English Art Club was founded in the ‘eighties by a number of young artists whose bond of union was a Paris training. Among the founders were the painters P Wilson Steer and Frederick Brown and the sculptors J Harvard Thomas and T Stirling Lee; while other early members included John S Sargent, H H La Thangue, Mark Fisher, and George Clausen. For more than twenty years the New English Art Club has supplied the Royal Academy with nearly all its most distinguished members. At the present moment fifty percent of the Academicians and Associates are or have been exhibitors at the New English Art Club, while almost all the most important official art positions in London have been gradually captured by members of this Club. Sir Charles J Holmes and C J Collins Baker, respectively Director and Keeper of the National Gallery, Mr D S MacColl, Keeper of the Wallace Collection, Mr William Rothenstein, Principal of the Royal College of Art at South Kensington, are all former members of the New English Art Club.

Since its foundation the New English Art Club has largely recruited its strength from students of the Slade School, and the close alliance between the School and the Club is easily understood when we remember that the bond of union between the original clubmen was a Paris training, and when we discover that French influence has been paramount at the Slade School. This school of drawing and painting, situated in Gower Street and connected with University College, was named after Felix Slade (1790-1868), a famous art collector, who left money for the endowment of (Slade) professorships of fine arts in Oxford, Cambridge, and University College, London.

The first Slade Professor at University College was Sir E J Poynter (1871-5), under whose direction the teaching was much the same as that given in the Royal Academy Schools, but in 1876 he was succeeded by a distinguished French artist, M Alphonse Legros, who more than any other one man perhaps, may be said to have changed the character of British painting. Born at Dijon in 1837 and afterwards studying in Paris under the famous teacher of drawing, Lecoq de Boisbaudran, Alphonse Legros came to England in 1863. He was befriended by Whistler, Rossetti, Watts, and other English artists, and made his living principally by etching and by teaching. For a time he taught at the South Kensington School of Art, but in 1876 he was appointed Slade Professor at University College, a position he held till 1892. His picture of French peasant women at prayer, painted at University College in 1888, is a characteristic example of the seriousness and shows that Legros was a a lineal descendant of Ingres. To a generation absorbed in problems of color, lighting, and atmosphere, this broadminded exponent of the French classical school came as a prophet in his insistence on impeccable drawing as the sure foundation of all good painting.

At the Slade, Legros worked wonders in two ways. His great reputation as a teacher attracted the most promising art students of the time; and his influence on these students has far reaching effects. Legros, it has been well said, ‘brought English art again into closer touch with the main European tradition, and contributed largely to the noticeable revival of draughtsmanship in England at the close of the nineteenth century.’ Among the most gifted of his pupils were Charles Wellington Furse, William Strang, and William Rothenstein, all of whom laid the foundations of their reputationsas painters by sterling drawing. After Legros left the Slade in 1892, the great tradition he bequeathed to the School was ably maintained by Professor Frederick Brown, among whose pupils were Sir William Orpen and Augustus John, and since Mr Brown’s retirement, Mr Henry Tonks, also of the New English Art Club, has successfully conducted the Slade School along the lines laid down by Legros.

The Art Of Today (continued)

Great Advice

(via Fortune) The best advice I ever got came from my mother, Estée Lauder: She believed that if you had something good to say, you should put it in writing. But if you had something bad to say, you should tell the person to his or her face. I learned this lesson the hard way. I'm chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and several years ago, I was angry with one of my trustees. I wrote a letter and signed it. But then I decided not to send the letter, and left it on my desk over the weekend. The following Monday I was out of the office, when a temp saw the letter and mailed it. The trustee got very angry and resigned from the board. To this day, writing that letter is something that I regret.

- Leonard Lauder
Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies

Brilliant!

Random Thoughts

The market is smarter than ever. It's an environment. You either adapt to it or you don't. In the market a few thrive, most muddle along, and many succumb. Sort of like life really — full of interesting creatures and characters.

- George Parkanyi

I agree.

Wine Update

James Meikle has an interesting update on wine producing countries + the emerging markets + what I found intriguing was The Future of Wine report by Berry Brothers and Rudd + the effects of climate change @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/09/food.fooddrinks

It looks like China will become the biggest player in the coming years.

Useful link:
www.bbr.com

Kerala's Art Scene

I found the article on Kerala's art scene @ http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Kochi_the_Queen_of_Keralas_art_scene/articleshow/3023460.cms interesting + I hope the new trend benefits local artists.

Useful links:
www.openeyeddreams.com
www.kashiartgallery.com

EFuel Micro Fueler

(via Wired) E-Fuel Corporation has unveiled its EFuel 100 MicroFueler, a device about the size of a stacking washer-dryer that uses sugar, yeast and water to make 100 percent ethanol at the push of a button. According to the company founder, Tom Quinn, it is easy.

Brilliant!

Useful links:
www.efuel100.com
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/make-your-own-e.html

Modern Masters Of Form

Roderick Conway Morris has written an interesting article on goldsmiths of Padua @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/02/arts/rcajpad.php + their unique techniques.

21: The Movie

(via Wiki) 21 is a 2008 drama film from Columbia Pictures. It is directed by Australian director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, and Laurence Fishburne. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team. The film draws from Bringing Down the House, the best-selling book by Ben Mezrich.

Useful links:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/21
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7374111.stm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478087

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

Since he gave up poster designing, Mr Pryde has never made any attempt to obtain popularity. A fastidious and self exacting painter, his output has been comparatively small, and the pictures he has shown at the old Grosvenor Gallery, at the New Gallery, and at the exhibitions of the International Society, of which he is distinguished member, have appealed more to the collector and connoisseur than to the general public. As a painter he is difficult to place, for he is neither a realist not an out-and-out romanticist. His subjects are a little mysterious, and though his pictures often have an eighteenth-century look we hesitate to assign them to any definite period. What is happening in the picture is rarely clear, yet the artist contrives to hold our interest by a suggestion that something is about to happen. There is a strong feeling of latent drama in his work, because he excels in Dramatic Design.

‘The Venstibule’, in the Earl of Crawford’s Collection, is a characteristic example of the peculiar qualities in Mr Pryde’s work. Here,as in all his pictures, we find a stage beautifully set, a scene which so bewitches us by the nobility of its design, by the monumental splendor of its masses, by rich glows of color from a whole of harmonious sombreness, thta we catch our breath with delight at the spectable, just as we might do in a theatre as the curtain goes up and before we have any knowledge of what action will take place on the scene.

Mr William Nicholson, who was born at Neward-on-Trent in 1872, served a lengthy apprenticeship before he developed into the popular painter of portraits and still-life that he is today. After the success of the posters which he designed jointly with his brother-in-law, he laid the foundations of his individual reputation by a remarkable series of woodcuts in color. Three of his books, an Alphabet, an Almanac of Twelve Sports, and London Types—all published in 1898—widened the base of his popularity and made the name of William Nicholson known to thousands who rarely visit picture exhibitions.

More definitely realistic, less imaginative, and less mysterious than Mr Pryde, Mr William Nicholson has this much in common with him, that he, too, is pre-eminently a designer. This much we may see in a work so remarkable for its fidelity to nature as his ‘Portrait of Miss Jekyll’. In its suave rendering of character and atmosphere this portrait is descended from Velazquez through Whistler, but in its arresting simplicity, the effective placing of the chair-back, head, and hands as the accented notes of a diagonal composition, the picture is also related to the posters of the Beggarstaff Brothers and to the masterly designs of the Far East.

A younger generation of Scottish artists, of whom the best known are S J Peploe, J D Fergusson, and Joseph Simpson, are connected with Edinburgh, not Glasgow, and form another distinct group. All of them were at first influenced by Whistler and subsequently by Manet and later French artists; and while each painter has his own personality, strong drawing, bright clean color, and emphatic design are common to all three.

The once much talked of Newyln School was never a local development, like that of Glasgow, but consisted of a group of artists drawn from various places who found this Cornish fishing village, near Penzance, a pleasant place in which to settle and practice open air painting. Stanhope Forbes, the late Napier Hemy, the sea painter, and Frank Bramley have been considered the leaders and founders of this school. Other artists have founded colonies at St Ives and elsewhere along the Cornish coast, some of the best known of the younger generation being the marine painter Mr Julius Olsson, the landscape painter Mr Lamorna Birch, and that particuarly brilliant pair, alike in portraiture, landscape, and figure subjects, Harold and Laura Knight.

The Art Of Today (continued)

Akshaya Tritiya

(via Wiki) Akshaya Tritiya, falling on the third day of the bright half of the lunar month of Vaisakha of the traditional Hindu calendar, is one of the four most auspicious days of the year for Hindus. The word Akshaya, a Sanskrit word, literally means one that never diminishes, and the day is believed to bring good luck and success. It is widely celebrated in all parts of India by different sections of the society irrespective of their religious faith and social grouping. The day is particularly considered auspicious for buying long term assets like gold and silver, including ornaments made of the same; diamond and other precious stones; and the real estate. The legend states that any venture initiated on the auspicious day of Akshaya Tritiya shall continue to grow and bring prosperity. Hence, it is normal to see many of the new ventures, like starting a business, ground breaking for construction etc on the Akshaya Tritiya Day. In 2008, Akshaya Tritiya falls on 8th May.

Useful links:
www.marketing.gold.org
www.kotakcommodities.com
http://riddhisiddhicommodity.com

Pascal Dangin

Pascal Dangin is arguably one of the most powerful men in fashion + behind-the-scenes premier retoucher of fashion photographs.

Useful links:
www.boxstudios.com
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_collins

Santa Fe Symposium

The 22nd annual symposium on jewelry manufacturing technology will be held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 18 - 20, 2008.

Useful link:
www.santafesymposium.org

Portugal Gemas

A quarterly gemological newsletter in Portuguese has been launched by LABGEM gemological laboratory in PDF format.

Useful link:
www.labgem.org

Goldheart

Goldheart is an interesting jewelry store: the metamorphosis from a traditional store selling gold to a large branded jewelry operation with innovative designs and good customer service should be a good business model for aspiring jewelers.

Useful link:
www.goldheart.com.sg

Art Market Update

Souren Melikian has an interesting update on Christie's sale of Impressionist and Modern art @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/07/arts/w-melik8.php + what's amazing to me is the state of the art market: it is still active despite economic uncertainities worldwide.

Useful link:
www.christies.com

Wind Power

I found the article on wind power @ http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11323401 very interesting + insightful + it's really exciting to see innovative entrepreneurs venturing with technocrats to create alternative energy sources.

Useful links:
http://sway.no
www.bluehgroup.com
www.nrel.gov/wind
www.capewind.org

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

3

Since Pettie and Orchardson Scotland has always been strongly represented in the Royal Academy. The younger Scottish school originated in Glasgow, whither about fifty years ago a very large number of fine pictures by the French romanticists found their way into public and private collections. In the appreciation of Corot and his contemporaries, Scotland was far ahead of England, and since Whistler also found favor more quickly in the north than in the south, the Scottish painters were, generally speaking, more advanced than their English confrères during the latter part of the nineteenth century. Of the group of painters known as the Glasgow School, it may be broadly said that the figure painters were chiefly influenced by Whistler, the landscapists by Corot and the French romanticists. Among the most distinguished of the figure painters are Sir James Guthrie, born in 1859 and elected President of Royal Scottish Academy in 1902, who adds much of the robustness of Raeburn to a Whistlerian elegance and color harmony; Sir John Lavery, born at Belfast in 1857, who has developed in his own way the graceful style and dainty coloring of Whistler, whether in portraying manly dignity, feminine loveliness, or in painting landscapes; Mr E A Walton, equally at home in portrait and landscape, Mr Harrington Mann, Mr George Henry, and Mr Edward Hornel, who with thick, enamel-like paint, has invented a new style in which children are usually seen decoratively disposed amid flowery gardens of a semi-tropical luxuriance. In this school a place apart was held by the late Joseph Crawhall, whose animal paintings, and particularly his watercolors on brown holland, had an inevitability of line and simple grandeur of design which related his work to that of the greatest oriental artists.

Among the Glasgow landscape painters, most of whom, like W Y Macgregor and David Gauld, followed either the Barbizon or Modern Dutch Schools, the premier place has now been won by Mr D Y Cameron, R.A. Born at Glasgow in 1865, Mr Cameron has made a foremost place for himself as an etcher, rivaling Mr Muirhead Bone in his masterly interpretation of architectural and landscape subjects, while he has also developed a most personal style as a painter, depicting the hills and lakes of Scotland and the picturesque houses in her cities with a fine simplicity of design and clear, translucent color. While in his use of delicate hues, harmonised with subtelty, Mr Cameron shows more than a passing acquaintance with Impressionism, in his emphasis of line and tendency towards simplication he exhibits in a mild and restrained form that reaction from Impressionism which ran to excess in Paris.

While there has never been a definite Edinburgh school, several modern painters of distinction have been associated with the Scottish capital, among them being Mr James Pryde, one of the most original and gifted artists of our time. Born in 1869, Mr Pryde is the son of the late Dr David Pryde of St Andrews and subsequently of Edinburgh. Though nominally he received his training, like so many others, at the Atelier Julien in Paris, very little French influence appears in his work. He learnt the decorative value of the silhouette from Whistler, something about the effective disposal of masses, perhaps, from the brilliant French poster-designer Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), and a good deal about dramatic composition from Hogarth. In other words, Mr Pryde made his own choice among the masters and built up his own art by affinities and observation. It was by poster work that Mr Pryde first roused the attention of the public. He had a sister, Mabel Pryde, who married another artist, William Nicholson, and the brothers-in-law, working under the pseudonym of ‘Beggar staff Brothers’, produced a series of posters in the ‘nintees which electrified London by their outstanding artistic qualities.

The Art Of Today (continued)

The Sospiro Programme

I just came across The Sospiro Programme via Global Business, BBC by Peter Day. It was an extraordinary experience. I enjoyed it immensely.

Thanks to BBC + Peter Day.

Useful link:
www.sospiro.com

The Best Advice

(via Fortune) Some of the best advice I ever received was unspoken. Over the course of my IBM career I've observed many CEOs, heads of state, and others in positions of great authority. I've noticed that some of the most effective leaders don't make themselves the center of attention. They are respectful. They listen. This is an appealing personal quality, but it's also an effective leadership attribute. Their selflessness makes the people around them comfortable. People open up, speak up, contribute. They give those leaders their very best. When it comes to specific advice, the best was from a former boss, who told me, "Don't view your career as a linear progression." He advised me to take horizontal rather than vertical steps: to try out situations that are unstructured, to learn different ways of working, and to get outside of headquarters and experience different cultures. I've applied this advice many times - most notably, taking a decidedly unstructured job at IBM Japan and then joining the fledgling IBM services business. After those experiences, I had the confidence that I could manage pretty much anything.

- Sam Palmisano
Chairman and CEO, IBM

Very inspirational. I have learned a bit more today.

Alltournative

I really liked Alltournative's right combination of off-track adventure travel, nature and Maya culture. Brilliant idea!

Useful links:
www.alltournative.com
www.globalreporting.org
www.wri.org

The Online Way

I really liked Telling Stories the Online Way @ http://www.newsweek.com/id/130188. The impact of seeing real-world places in their context is a unique experience. I think they were brilliant.

Fine Jewelry News

Fine Jewelry News website is a great place for consumers + jewelry industry + it's educational and insightful.

I liked it.

Useful link:
www.finejewelrynews.com

Random Thoughts

In human affairs excesses provoke corrections, and the mo­mentum of the correction carries on to provoke a new and differ­ent excess. So it is with politics, so with religion, so with art, and so with tides of opinion generally, including the stock market.

- John Train

Diamond Pipeline Update

I found Chaim Even Zohar's Diamond Pipeline 2007 update @
http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullNews.asp?SID=&id=30244 educational and useful.

Thanks, Chaim.

Useful link:
www.kimberleyprocess.com

The Art Of Today

(via The Outline of Art) Frank Rutter writes:

2

Glancing briefly at the number of British artists who have attained eminence by the character and individuality of their work—a number so great that it excludes any possibility of doing justice to them all within the space of this chapter—it is not without significance to note how few of them have received their training in the Royal Academy schools. In recent years the most fruitful forcing grounds for British Art have been the Scottish schools and the Slade School in London; other painters of distinction have come from the Royal College of Art in South Kensington or have received their training abroad.

It has often been said that the rank of a living artist can most fairly be gauged by the esteem in which he is held by foreign countries. By this reckoning a high place must be assigned to Mr Frank Brangwyn, R.A, for few British artists have been more feted than he on the Continent and in America, Paris, Munich, Vienna, Brussels, Madrid, Holland, and Italy, all have showered honors and distinctions on this artist. Born at Bruges in 1867, of Welsh extraction, Mr Brangwyn was from boyhood familiar with the splendors of Flemish tapestry, and though he first obtained notice by his power of drawing as an illustrator, his real bent has always been towards decorative art. In his early boyhood he worked with William Morris, executing designs for tapestries, etc; but when he was only sixteen he left Morris and went to sea, and the knowledge of shipping and seafaring life which he thus gained stood him in good stead when he again returned to London and the practice of art. All his most important early pictures were of subjects he had seen at sea; among them may be mentioned ‘Ashore’ (1890), ‘Burial at Sea’ and ‘Salvage’ (1891), and ‘The Convict Ship’ (1892). The sturdy drawing, glowing color, and spacious design in these works marked out the decorative painter of the future, though at this time the artist was earning his living principally by seafaring drawings, executed for the Graphic and other illustrated papers. In addition to his drawings and paintings Mr Brangwyn also devoted himself to etching, and his plates of the working maritime life on the lower reaches of the Thames were among the earliest of his works to attain a wide popularity.

Influenced to some extent perhaps by the Belgian painter and sculptor Constantin Meunier (1831-1905), whose vigorous art illustrated the industrial and mining life of the ‘Black Country’ of Belgium, Mr Brangwyn soon made his reputation as a painter by his unique gift of basing heroic decorative designs on typical scenes and episodes of modern industrialism. In 1895 his ‘Trade on the Beach’ was bought for the Luxembourg, Paris, and a few years later his panel ‘Commerce,’ in the Royal Exchange, London, made his decorative gifts widely known to his own compatriots. His decorations for the Skinner’s Hall and the series of panels illustrating typical modern industries, originally designed for the British pavilion in the Venice International Exhibition and now in the Leeds Art Gallery may be cited as brilliant examples of the decorative mural painting which this artist has done so much to revive.

Though latterly gigantic projects of decorative painting in the United States have taken up much of Mr Brangwyn’s time, so that he is now a comparatively rare exhibitor in London, he has been a prolific producer of pictures, watercolors, and etchings in addition to his mural painting. He is limited neither in method nor in subject, but whether the latter be a scene in Italy, an impression of Pittsburg, or a table laden with the rich fruits of a sumptuous dessert, the presentation of the theme is invariably decorative and grandiose. ‘The Poulterer’s Shop’, which was bought for the nation by the Chantrey Trustees from the Academy of 1916, is a glowing example of the sense of opulent splendor which Mr Brangwyn’s imagination and executive skill can extract from dead poultry, a heap of vegetables, and commonplace utencils.

The Art Of Today (continued)

Heard On The Street

You will never succeed if you don’t know how to fail.

Alex Metcalf

I really liked Alex Metcalf's Tree Listening Installation concept + the designs + the interactive mode. Brilliant!

Useful links:
www.alexmetcalf.co.uk
www.touchmusic.org.uk

The Government Art Collection

The Government Art Collection, in the care of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, U.K, has thousands of works of art, and now members of the public are invited to celebrate museums and galleries month by visiting the spectacular national art collection they never knew they owned.

It's a real treasure trove!

Useful link:
www.gac.culture.gov.uk

Winza Tanzanian Ruby

Industry analysts believe highly saturated + transparent untreated rubies from Winza, Morogoro, Tanzania, may become the choice locality for ruby connoisseurs. There are many Winza Tanzanian rubies in the market and I hope they are not sold as Burmese. As always, if in doubt, consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.

Useful links:
www.gemburi.co.th
www.multicolour.com

Green Business Network In India

New Ventures India has launched Coaches Network to help SMEs go Green + the Coaches Network would also include top investors, business leaders and successful entrepreneurs who would devote time to nurturing seed and early and expansion stage green companies.

Useful link:
www.newventuresindia.org

Emerald Update

Ronald Ringsrud has the latest information on emerald production from Colombia's premier mines, Muzo, La Pita and Coscuez + emerald proportions @ www.emeraldmine.com

I found the article on proportions educational + insightful. I learned something new. Thanks, Ron.

Marketing Metaphoria

Marketing Metaphoria: What Deep Metaphors Reveal About the Minds of Consumers by Gerald Zaltman + Lindsay H. Zaltman is a great book + I think metaphors/analogies are the best medium to connect the dots, and the book says it all.

Useful link:
www.marketingmetaphoria.com