Curio Cabinet

Photographer Marinka Masséus proves a portrait is more than pretty poses and soft lighting. Her Chosen Not to Be Seen images find Dutch subjects with down syndrome entangled with obscuring objects—not unlike the social erasure they experience on a day-to-day basis. The above gaze of a sullen eye barely passes through knotted string, leaving the viewer feeling appropriately claustrophobic, even suffocated. About one in 700 people are affected by the syndrome, which is caused by an extra chromosome that produces developmental issues. Masséus was able to read Zwartboek, or "Blackbook", which was written by Dutch citizens on the experiences of living with down syndrome in the Netherlands. "Reading the collection of stories... broke my heart," Masséus said. "...misinformation leads to misconceptions and widely-held preconceived notions, which profoundly impact the lives of people with Down's." Masséus' buddhist and feminist studies have led her to treat these marginalized subjects not as outcasts, but as silent bearers of untold frustrations and grief, one stark black and white portrait at a time.
 

Below: more Chosen Not to Be Seen images, which recently took home the top prize from Lens Culture magazine's 2019 Portrait Awards.
 

Image credit & copyright: Marinka Masséus
 

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore—in fact, these turbulent clouds just recently passed over Shasta County near Redding, California. A National Weather Service report issued a tornado warning for the areas between Anderson and Redding, roughly a 10 mile stretch of land. Residents who usually had views of flat farmlands, forested hills, and Mount Shasta's peak, beheld a psychedelic arrangement of lights and funneling storm clouds in the low precipitation supercell storm (a cyclone containing little water). Luckily, the clouds didn't cause any major destruction, although 1.5-inch-diameter hail rocks and some lightning accompanied the unusual weather. Cory Mueller of the National Weather Service remarked that low precipitation supercells are something of a visual marvel and "...typically very photogenic because you can see the storm structure very well." We just hope these photographers will keep themselves out of harm's way, especially if the next storm proves to be more dangerous!

 

Below: more images from the Shasta County storm clouds.
 

Image credit & copyright: Angela Walfoort, Cody Gayman, Sean Boren
 

Title: Skull and Roses (Grateful Dead, Oxford Circle, Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco)
Artist: Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse (1940 - 2008, b. 1940)
Created: 1966
Medium: color offset lithograph on paper
Dimensions: 20 x 14.25 in (50.8 x 36.2 cm)
Current location: Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
 

In the '60s, no one made far-out and groovy posters quite like Alton Kelley did. With his companion Stanley Mouse, Kelley applied his skills as a motorcycle designer to the creation of iconic concert posters: lithographs like Skull and Roses for the Grateful Dead. "Riffing off each other’s giggle," Mouse and Kelley, who was born this week in 1940, would sometimes come up with their posters by lifting materials from obscure historical sources. The origins of Skull and Roses date back to a 19th-century printing of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a translation of medieval Persian poetry. The skeleton motif stuck with the Dead, as future artwork for the band came to embrace the elegant morbidity of Kelley and Mouse's work. As for other popular artists like Janis Joplin and Van Morrison, Kelley and Mouse ensured their legendary concerts were also accompanied by some of the most iconic posters in rock 'n' roll history.
 

Below: more examples of Kelley and Mouse's psychedelic lithographs, including another one for the Grateful Dead, one for blues legend Bo Diddley, and another for Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company.
 

Image credit & copyright: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Family Dog Productions
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Hole-y sweet treats, it's National Donut Day! What a delectable occasion to remember World War I heroines who popularized the breakfast snack. In 1917, a small group of women enlisted in the Salvation Army and were stationed at the 1st Ammunition Train, 1st Division in France. Dressed in uniform, they provided music, entertainment, and other amenities to help make the soldiers less homesick. Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance got the bright idea to cobble together homemade donuts made out of flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, eggs, milk, and a light dusting of powdered sugar. Their makeshift cooking stations were modest, with wine bottles used as rolling pins, helmets as rounded frying pans, and donut-shaped molds made from condensed milk cans and a tube of camphor ice. The resulting pastries were such hits with the army that their group was nicknamed "Donut Lassies," and the Salvation Army to this day provides donuts as part of their service and relief efforts. Now that's what we call history in the baking!
 

Below: more images of "Donut Lassies" providing sweet relief with their namesake pastries.
 

Image credit & copyright: Salvation Army
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Title: Napoleon Watching Moscow Burn

Artist: Albrecht Adam (1786-1862)
Created: 1841
Medium: oil on canvas
Current location: Moscow Kremlin Museums, Moscow, Russia
 

Is this a portrait of victory—or defeat? Napoleon certainly considered it a triumph when his army marched into Moscow this week in 1812. The French had just trounced Russian forces in the Battle of Borodino, and Russian troops fled the capitol without a fight as Napoleon moved in. But that same day, fires sprang up around the city. Napoleon and his troops were forced to helplessly watch the city burn, as Albrecht Adam's dark, brooding painting reflects. Adam, a German artist and court painter for Napoleon's stepson, was appointed war artist and accompanied the French army as it entered Moscow. When the fires were finally extinguished four days later, three-quarters of the city was destroyed. No one knows for sure who set the fires, but Russian troops had disabled or removed many of the city's fire pumps. The brilliant French general appeared to have been outmaneuvered by his weaker foe. By the time Napoleon's forces straggled back to France, their numbers had dwindled from 450,000 to just 6,000. A year and a half after the French triumphantly entered Moscow, Russian soldiers rolled into Paris and Napoleon was forced to abdicate. Did Adam intend his painting to foretell Napoleon's gloomy future?
 

Image credit & copyright: Moscow Kremlin Museums