Another Cool Place in Austin : Austin Texas Children’s Museum
With 7,000 square feet of interactive and educational permanent exhibits, inventive traveling features, story-times and public events, this public museum serves as a hub of Austin’s family community.
Upon entering, kids are delighted to board a scaled down Austin Metro bus. Sitting in the driver’s seat or holding a strap in the passenger section, this exhibit is planned to distract the kiddos as the adult pays admission and learns about the day’s events. Other permanent exhibits include the dairy cow, an oversized milk-cow statue with a looping video about dairy farming, with a doll-house sized barn and toy cows to play with. The Rising Star Ranch provides a varied sensory experience especially designed for the under-two set, while the Tinkerer’s Workshop allows older kids to experience creating their own structures by inventing, designing, building and testing their ideas.
This being Austin, music is emphasized in the amazing Austin Kiddie Limits. Fun for all ages (including adults), this room is a kid-oriented interactive version of the acclaimed live music television show Austin City Limits. With toy instruments, cowboy hats and other costume pieces, a stage and a video monitor, kids can play along with their favorite Austin musicians including Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Miss Lavelle White, Asleep at the Wheel, Kelly Willis, Flaco Jimenez, and Toni Price. Kids can see themselves on the video monitor, making it a real rock-star experience.
Their program offerings include something for every age group. Baby Bloomers is a weekly opportunity for kids under three to explore the entire facility with only toddlers and their caregivers in the museum. Discovery Time offers daily, hands-on activities that enhance the permanent and changing exhibits. Storytime, held in their large foyer, is offered for different age groups, and often includes music making, bubble blowing, and other interactive elements.
Gallery programs include the popular Wednesday Community Night, featuring different performances, storytelling, music and activities, and Science Sundays, featuring hands-on activities led by real honest-to-goodness scientists. Checkout the Childbloom guitar program for a cacophonous and hilarious take on combining story telling with accompaniment by the kids, or the Austin Keyboard Orchestra program to learn how to build and play an instrument.
Located in downtown Austin the Austin Children’s Museum is centrally located for people in different areas of the city. It is also located close to other Austin attractions like Zilker Park the bat bridge so that visitors can see a number of fun Austin attractions in an afternoon.
The Austin Children’s Museum offers camps during the summer and spring break, for ages 4 to 10. They offer seasonal programs including the popular Gingerbread House workshop in December. The facilities are available for birthday (and other kids of) parties, including sleep-over parties. Special events can also be held on the premises.
With a stated goal to help Austin’s kids and families become more creative, more inventive, and more competent, the Austin Children’s museum combines fun and education in a world-class facility.
Ki lives in Austin and enjoys the local music scene. He works as a realtor in the Austin real estate market. He also regularly writes on his blog about updates on Austin Texas real estate. His site features a graphical search of the Ausin MLS.
The Triumph Of The Baroque Style
Toward the close of the 16th century a style came into being that expressed a new concept of nature and the world, of the relationships among people, and of the function of art itself in the realms of both secular and religious power and in the private realm dedicated to the enjoyment of beauty.
This amazing style was the baroque and the capital of baroque architecture was papal Rome, with Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini its leading exponents. Baroque architecture is the expression of a civilization of awe-inspiring, splendid, magniloquent images exploited by the powerful to disguise a far different reality, dramatic and full of strife: it is a tool for persuasion and propaganda.
In its effort to triumph over the Protestant heresy, the Roman church used artistic representations to spread the ideas of the Catholic religion; in the same way, Europe’s great monarchs called upon artists to use it to exalt their power and prestige. This architectural language used ‘rhetorical figures’ for the alteration of classical proportions, the effects of gigantism, the expansion of spaces, and the dynamism of forms in the constant search for surprising and paradoxical effects.
Almost at the same time in the history, the interaction between the arts was put to the service of a display that preferred theatrical and illusionistic effects because of their ability to turn the public into both spectator and participant at once. The Galilean vision of the universe had given the arts a yearning for the infinite, expressed and at the same time manipulated in the marvelous optical tricks and effects of the period, in the exploration of the uncertain borders between truth and verisimilitude.
Artists mimicked the creative processes of nature and transposed natural reality into something artificial, even using light, water, and fire in their artistic creations. The palace and its facade, conceived as a theatrical backdrop, assumed a fundamental value, while the royal palaces in the countryside, from Versailles to Caserta, became emblematic expressions of 17th-century absolutism.
The church reproposed the basilican scheme, often using the ellipse as the geometric model of reference in increasingly audacious combination effects that made the dome the visual centre of urban space. At the same time the cities of Europe were being redefined with the creation of new, more easily travelled street systems, usually with right-angled or radial arrangements and vast squares. Undeniable, the triumph of the baroque started to see its influences everywhere!
Architecture Talk will help you on your way to understand more about the life and amazing works of particular world famous architect
Building an Opera House in Cyberspace
Reaching out to new audiences is a challenge for all branches of the arts, but this challenge is all the greater when you’re an opera company trying to keep an eighteenth century art form alive and well in the twenty first century.
The music, voices, and dramatic stories based in strong unchanging human emotions- have stood the test of time, but in this media stuffed, fast-paced, screen-age of computer games, high-octane entertainment and attention deficiency can you inject new life into an ancient art form to make it relevant to a whole new audience?
Where is the right space for opera amongst the explosion of easily accessible entertainment? How can opera reinvent itself for the hip-hop generation? How do you tackle the stigma of ‘elitism’ and create truly popular venues for performance?
These are questions and familiar to all modern opera companies, and one to which there is no easy answer.
Some companies reach out through schools and youth groups engaging youngsters in devising new ways of performing work. They hope that once the youths have discovered for themselves the transcendental power of this timeless music, it will be a huge force for good in their lives.
Others have taken opera out of the theatres and have collaborated with television production companies to create truly popular programmes like the Channel 4’s ground breaking ‘Operatunity’ in 2004 or ITV’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’.
Their efforts have proven that, taken away from what is perceived by many in the UK as a rich man’s club, opera still has true widespread appeal.
Following on from these televisual excursions Lovlisetta Giubblis and her associate Fanny Batta, both with successful careers as sopranos behind them, have gone a step further.
In 2007 the two women, both Continental Europeans now based in the UK, set about the task of building a new opera house; one whose repertoire would attract a new kind of spectator. One that would banish forever the idea that opera is a stuffy, exclusive, pompous entertainment with no relevance in modern society.
Ms Giubblis explains: “We spoke to a lot of young people around the UK and it was depressing to realize that for them opera was just some fat white people singing in a foreign language to an audience of pretentious, rich coffin-dodgers”.
“We decided to do everything we could to change that perception.”
The enterprising pair started by looking at what interested the young people who would never normally be drawn to opera, in the hope of bringing some old-fashioned culture to the social housing projects and run-down urban areas.
“We wanted to grab the ‘ASBO generation’ and persuade them to put down their knives, stop texting, pull back their hoods, turn off Snoop Dogg and tune in to Puccini”, adds Mrs Batta.
“So We ran some focus groups based around some of the most accessible arias, and we realised pretty quickly that the answer lay in harnessing the power of the internet, and internet video, and of mobile phones. We needed to build our opera house in Cyberspace, then it would be in everybody’s neighbourhood.”
“Another thing we realized quite quickly was that no-one was going to watch a full blown opera on the small screen, so we needed to devise short versions of classic operas more suited to the medium. We wanted to keep the classic melodies, but we would have to create new stories more relevant to life in the ghetto.”
“Language was also a huge barrier. The kids wanted to understand the what was been sung about. We were looking around for a librettist who could write for a youth audience. Someone who could speak with their voice.”
The missing piece of the puzzle turned out to be Emiliano Fista, an Italian baritone, and librettist who had been working with young people from London’s infamous Craig David Estate for several years.
Emiliano suffers from Tourette’s Syndrome and had been forced to retire from singing, but he had thrown himself into writing. His work is multi-textured and manages to reach beyond traditional boundaries. His overt bigotry, profanity, deviant sexuality and obsession with chronic flatulence and are deeply offensive to almost all sections of society on many different levels. When he showed us his work we knew that it was dynamite. Emiliano also had the idea of calling the company ‘Pervarotti’.”
Thus was born the ‘Gran Teatro Pervarotti’, the World’s first virtual opera house. The first five featured arias are from Fista’s masterworks “Frigolletto” and “Don Gayovanni”. All are performed with great exuberance by the feline puppet soprano Isabella Strapponi.
Another innovation: all featured songs are in the form of timeless messages which can also be personalized and sent via email and to mobile phones.
Ms Giubbli is hopeful: “I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved. Basically young people love their phones and they really get a kick out teasing one another and flirting. This can go from poking gentle fun at each other to outright bullying. This usually involves a level of obscenity often accompanied by violence. Hopefully by sending these clips of opera to one another we will manage to reduce the incidence of violence and maybe increase the incidence of singing!”
The proof will be in the pudding, but the site has already come to the attention of one prominent member of the operatic establishment, Dr Jonathan Willer, who described it as being like “The sound of angels farting.”
You can decide for yourself by visiting their site - there is a seat ready for you and it’s the best one in the house. Although be warned the show does contain pretty strong language and so it’s not for those under 16!
Maria Fuchs-Alcox is an actress, singer, film-maker and shameless hagiographer. She is currently working as a presenter and reviewer for wiredvideo.net - London’s best video production company. Visit the “Gran Teatro Pervarotti: The Home of Rude Puppet Opera“.
The Antiques Roadshow: Three Decades Of Traveling Pleasure
The original episode of the Antiques Roadshow debuted in 1977. For over three decades, experts have been determining the age and value of rare garage sale finds and family heirlooms. Although the show originated in Britain, an American version began airing in 1996 through a PBS affiliate, and a Canadian version followed in 2004.
The Roadshow experts possess a serious interest in the world of antiques and treat each find with respect and appreciation. The experts come from all backgrounds and occupations, including antiques dealers and professional appraisers. The Antiques Roadshow travels to various cities across North America and provide general evaluations online. Pictures must accompany online requests, along with a physical description and any historical information.
Antiques Roadshow torus begin in May of each year. Tickets are required but early purchases are advised due to overwhelming demand. The tour is quite popular, with approximately 2,000 people attending each show of the Canadian Antiques Roadshow. Each person attending the show is allowed to have two items appraised, some consuming several hours’ worth of an expert’s time.
Although they are quite skilled at what they do, even the experts are stumped every once in a while. Professional Maurice Doll was presented with an item referred to as “The Mysterious Horn”, a puzzle that has yet to be solved. Even though Mr. Doll had examined several other priming horns during the same episode, this one contained unique carvings of humans and animals. After a closer investigation, the experts revealed that the panels on the horn represented various stories, a couple of which stemmed from the Old Testament. There are still a few carvings that haven’t been interpreted. Mr. Doll speculates that the horn originated in the early- to mid-18th century.
The majority of requests revolve around furniture, toys, clocks, coins, medals, pictures and jewelry. People choose to have an item appraised for a variety of reasons, mainly to determine its fair market value. This type of value refers to the amount the item would be worth under general circumstances, such as divorce or estate matters. Another common type of appraisal is one requested for insurance purposes, which is quite different from fair market value. It deals specifically with replacement cost, often taking mark-ups and repairs into account. In almost all cases, the fair market value of an item is less than that of an insurance appraisal.
The Antiques Roadshow is a favorite with television viewers, collectors and antiques experts worldwide. Since its debut, the BBC Roadshow has visited over 420 locations and broadcast more than 500 shows.
Victor Epand is an expert consultant for pottery, antiques, and figurines. When shopping for pottery, antiques and figurines, we recommend these online stores for pottery, antiques, and figurines.
A Short Guide To Ceramic Art
Taking up pottery as a hobby seemed easier when I was a young child, but proved to be something that never interested me. Now, it seems there is nothing more that I want to do than mould a clay into a funny shaped bowl or a unique looking plate. The best part is when you paint and design the dish at the end. The whole process of pottery is completed in a slow, relaxing motion, with steady hands and plenty of patience.
For people who are new to pottery, this is simply the art of creating dishware and adding to the ceramic arts collection. Even though on some famous Hollywood movies pottery is seen to be a romantic activity and a rather easy one at that, it is in fact a difficult art form and very romantic. As cheesey as it might sound this art form is in fact a very old technique and works on promoting a very relaxed approach to creating masterpiece dishes.
Historically pottery was believed to have started in 29,000 to 25,000BC whereby they were hand built and fire in a bon fire. The highest temperature reached from these fires is speculated to have reached around 900 degrees Celsius, which is enough to manipulate sand, crushed shell, grit and bits of pottery from old dishes. The earliest known pottery was of the Gravettian figurine, which is now the Czech Republic.
There have also been some earthenware excavated in China which date back as far as 10,000BC. There have also been vessels found in Japan that date back 10,500BC, which depict much of the Japanese culture on the designs. There have been much evidence of pottery being developed in ancient India, Africa and South America - these were developed independently. Some of these can be seen in local museums, depicting their culture and historical events.
There are three different types of wares earthenware, stoneware and petunste (otherwise known in the West as China clay). The latter of the two, was specifically a Chinese invention and was commonly used in Chinese Porcelain. It is believed that the Chinese people had invented porcelain soon after the Han period, between 200 BC to AD 220. This was a popular type of ware amongst the European for its refined white body and form.
Earthenware has been used for centuries, with the techniques of making earthenware virtually unchanged. This is a blend of clays put together, which is baked in the oven to harden. This is then glazed over to give it a smooth and shiny finish. Stoneware is a much more preferred type of ware for domestic uses and sets into a tough dish once placed in a kiln.
Potters have honed their pottery techniques over the years, beginning with glazing techniques. Glaze was once used as a decorative substance rather than a way of smoothing out the ware once made. This made it watertight and easier to handle. There soon followed coloured glazes. Famous pottery masterpieces have maintained a strong reputation for ceramic arts, these include Pate-sur-pate (Paste on paste) by Marc Louis Solon, products and wares by Josiah Wedgewood, works by Frederick Hurton Read and the famous Minton collections.
Anna Stenning is an expert on pottery having taken up lessons in her local town.
Tribal Chest Tattoos Are Absolutely Fascinating
There are so many different types of tribal chest tattoos that it’s impossible to say anything bad about the design in general. They have lot of black ink that holds up the tattoo very well and does not fade like other colors.
The designs of tribal tattoos are popular and it is easy to design one. They have been the hottest thing in the tattoo world since sliced bread or the old school WWII era Hula dancer. You see these influences have been all around us for a long time my grandpa even has one of those Hula Girls tattoos still.
This is really an up and coming thing and it is not huge yet. Many tattoos include Maori designs, Eskimo totems and Aztec sun clocks and so on. Other types of these rely more on the use of heavy lines and colors to create an image.
They are extremely popular if not the most popular tattoo style currently. These type of tattoos have their origin the the ancient tribes of Polynesia, New Zealand(Maori tattoos), Hawaii and many other early cultures.
Tribal Tattoos recounts the history of body decoration, explains the meanings and myths behind the symbols, and offers many patterns that can be combined into new motifs. All the designs included can be enlarged and traced to decorate any part of the body.
They were used by ancient cultures as a means by which the young become adults, but some have made it into a fashion statement. A few words of advice to those people: fashions are seasonal, tattoos are not. Tribal tattoos have existed for thousands of years in numerous cultures around the world.
Tribes in Africa used to tattoo the bodies of their warriors with crocodile teeth and handmade ink with simple images and symbols in order to mark their place in the tribe and scare their enemies with the strength of their warriors. Tribal tattoos symbolize membership in a group, family, social, or whatever. At least they used to, nowadays anyone with a cool design in their mind can get one, which makes them more a decorative thing, I suppose.
Tribal chest tattoos are possibly one of the most sought after tattoo designs and the most popular are based on the Maori, Haida, Polynesian and Native American designs. Of course the term tribal has so many different meanings and an almost limitless amount of variations and combinations. These tattoos were originally used as a form of permanent tribal identification.
Therefore putting on the wrong tattoo will jeopardize your chances of being one of the tribe and might just permanently mark you as an outsider. They have a simple appeal : we like the way they look on us, It reinforces a positive feeling about ourselves and connects us some how to an element of mystery and ancient activity.
Gregory Wadel
Find Over 6000 Tattoo Designs Here
How To Write An Acting Resume
Some would argue that an actor’s resume is even more important than his or her headshot. The headshot expresses the look and feel of the actor at a glance, but the resume sells the versatility, skillfullness, and success of an actor before he or she ever shows up to the audition. In this article we will quickly review the central purpose of an acting resume and from there discuss what should and should not go in it and why.
An acting resume is exactly one side of one page, and you will typically staple it to the back of your head shot. This single page represents you as an artist, as an entertainer, as an employee, and as a colleague. The average audition gives you just a minute or two to make a direct impression on the auditioners, and the opinion they form during that short time will be heavily impacted by their preconceived notions of you. Those preconceptions come from two places: their own life experiences, and you resume and headshot. There is absolutely nothing you can do about their life experiences, but there is everything you can do to give them a good and solid impression of you through your resume and headshot.
In order to do that, you will have to do a little thinking about what the auditioners seem to be looking for. What show are they putting up, and how does it compare to their previous shows? What types of shows do these people typically produce, and what kinds of people do they usually use for the type of part you’re trying out for? Once you’ve considered what they’re looking for, the only thing to do is to try and give it to them. You’re an actor, so this should be the easy part.
The only thing you need to realize is that your acting resume is not an extension of you as an actor, it is an extension of the part you want to play. So, you should twist and pull at the facts of your professional life until they fit, as closely as possible, the specific audition. Don’t lie; just select the shows you list and the order in which you list them to suit the demands of the part. Highlight the skills that will enhance this particular show. This is a little bit of an extra investment in terms of time and energy, but it’s not that big an investment. Five or ten minutes per audition could be the difference between your next big break and you next season of waiting tables.
Dallas help actors put together excellent acting resumes and modeling portfolios.
Lighthouse Poster Symbols And Stories
Lighthouses are really fascinating structures. Not just for the architecture themselves, which are very unique to be sure. The tall spiral column poking at the sky seems hardly practical as a domicile. Which in fact is exactly not what it is supposed to be. Lighthouses serve a different purpose, and if you asked a dozen different people they would most likely tell you the same thing. Lighthouses are intended to warn boats away, and keep them from crashing into the shore.
But, apart from the prime function, and their slightly adherent architecture, lighthouses are very symbolic creatures. And they have been quite often represented that way in popular photography and art. Now, if you ask those same dozen or so people from our prior query, what do lighthouses represent then you are bound to get a dozen very different answers.
Lighthouses represent a beacon to guide you on your way. A prophetic leader who knows the way to safety that you would follow to the ends of the earth. Lighthouses could represent singular solitude. They really do their jobs all alone. Day and night. Isolated from the rest of the world by the nature of their work. And the lighthouse keepers themselves could attest to the very solitude of the job.
People seem to acquire a deep emotional attachment to lighthouses. From capturing them in paingings, photographs, prints and framed posters to actual preservation. There have been lighthouse preservation societies springing up all over the world as many of these solitary beacons begin to fall into disrepair. Many of their functions now being handled by technically more advanced apparatus.
You can of course have your very own lighthouse posters anytime you want. Their prints are everywhere. From calm serene Cape Cod style lighthouses painted with red and white stripes like an old style barbers pole to very dramatic pictures of lighthouse being tormented by the very storms they’re sworn to protect sailors from.
There’s one very dramatic series of posters the La Jument Lighthouse by Jean Guichard. The lighthouse is being bombarded by an incredible storm, when Jean Guichard shows up to photograph the storm and the lighthouse via helicopter. The keeper thinking that the helicopter is there to rescue them, bravely ventures out to look, but ducks back inside, seconds before being washed to sea by a monstrous wave. The event is recorded on film, and makes for one of the most dramatic series of lighthouse photographs ever.
If you like to see the absolute lighthouse poster reviews, or simply browse through a listing of a lighthouse poster on sale be sure to visit.
The Rising Popularity Of Tattoo Designs
Throughout the span of time, tattoo ideas have been utilized to personify and represent person’s affiliations, personal preferences or choices, and their creative outlook on life. Tattoos are achieving popularity in these days as well with both men and women. Research has revealed that nearly 1 in 4 people have at least one tattoo art on their body.
By definition, tattoos or tattoo designs are permanent markings on the skin. The ink is injected by needle under the skin, forming the image of the tattoo. The needle goes ups and downs very fast, puncturing the skin and depositing the ink into the epidermis. As the ink is depositing into the epidermis, the skin captures the color of the ink. The artist will continue to clean the tattoo as he works on it, wiping it off with antiseptic and disinfecting the wound created.
Over time tattoo designs will change with the skin on a constant basis due to the wind, sun, regeneration, water, and other things. The way a tattoo art looks and the design must also change with the skin as it shrinks, stretches, and ages. The pigment that makes up the tattoo must remain the way it is over time, although tanning and wrinkles can substantially affect the color and clarity of the tattoo design.
The overall length of time that a tattoo designs healthy and vibrant in color all depends on how well it was taking care of after it was completed and how yourself is taking care of. Though infection is always a concern with tattoos, you must also promote healing in the sense of retaining as much ink as you possibly can do. Most tattoos will heal totally within a few short weeks, although they must be kept moist to prevent scabbing. If allowed to scab, the scab that forms will remove some of the color from the tattoo art.
One thing you should remember, as part of taking care of tattoo designs is the sun. Just like other colors that are exposed to sunlight, the pigments found in tattoo designs will fade. Yellow and red are the most difficult colors to maintain over time, blue and black are the easiest and most stable to maintain. Tattoos are considered to be part of the organism of living skin and need to be maintained to keep the color vibrant and fresh. If you are going to be out in the sun, you should always cover your tattoos and wear a quality sunscreen also, just to be on the safe side.
Tattoos that have been appropriately applied, properly healed, and protected from the rays of the sun can remain their best for years and years to come. Although the colors will remain vibrant as well, time and the sun are definite enemies for tattoo designs.
For more information, visit http://www.tattoosabc.com/
The History Of Cherished Precious Moments Figurines
Mr. Sam Butcher started out over 30 years past creating wonderful drawn gifts for his friends and his close family depicted lovely children with tear dropped shaped eyes, he called these his “Precious Moments”.
Sam’s talent for artistic creations blossomed at a very young age and most of all he had his Mother’s encouragement to learn more and become even more creative in his talents. He went to Art Formal Training after his high school years and received a scholarship to attend Berkeley’s Arts & Crafts College.
Around the 1970’s Sam along with Mr. Bill Biel started their own Precious Moments line of art such as posters, stationery and cards with all of Sam’s drawings upon them, they named this first business “Jonathan and David”. Bill and Sam traveled to the Christian Booksellers Association and Convention where they both became bombarded by retailers enthusiastically waiting to place many orders for their wonderful and creative line of Precious Moments Artwork.
A few years afterwards the Enesco Corporations Head Mr. Gene Friedman contacted Sam and talked him into letting Enesco create a figurine based on Sam’s artwork called “Love One Another”. Fujiokasan was the master sculptor who helped bring Sam’s art to life. Sam was so touched by the figurines outcome he actually wept upon first seeing it.
Twenty-one Precious Moments originals figurines were out within the markets by the year 1978. The collection was a major success all over. Sam received hundreds if not thousands of inspirational letters from customers who told him how this Precious Moments had meant so much to their lives and how they had brought such joy into them as well.
In the year 2005, Precious Moments, Inc. came to life and the figurines found a new home outside of Enesco. Every year new Precious Moments are introduce to the world and web sites are found with all sorts of Precious Moments collectors and fan links to them. Did you know that there is also a Precious Moments Park built in the year 1989 which has a Precious Moment chapel on the grounds and has over 350,000 visitors through its gates each year in Carthage Missouri?
Today there are thousands of Precious Moments on the markets today and they even more sought after and collected than all those years ago. They still inspire, enlighten and make us feel joy and happiness every time we look upon those lovely and precious tear dropped eyes.
Victor Epand is an expert consultant for pottery, antiques, and figurines. When shopping for pottery, antiques and figurines, we recommend these online stores for pottery, antiques, and Precious Moments figurines.
