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Pioneer Information
Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Henderson grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in 1934 and obtained her B.S. from Simmons College in that same year. She then returned to Atlanta, where, with Grace Campbell, she opened and developed her professional practice. In 1936, she was appointed the director of the newly established Garden Center, supported by and located in Rich's Department Store in downtown Atlanta.
During her five-decade career as a landscape architect, Henderson performed over 10,000 consultations with clients. Some of her most important projects are the Clark Howell Homes public housing project, the grounds for MARTA, and the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. In addition to designing numerous residential gardens in the Atlanta area, in 1940 she began writing a weekly garden column in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, providing practical design advice to readers and featuring gardens on which she had consulted. Her column continued as a popular regular feature until 1978, and she also wrote articles for Veranda and Southern Accents magazines. In 1971 Henderson received the Oakleigh Thorne Medal of Excellence in Landscape Architecture from the Garden Club of America. In 1976 she became the first woman to be elected an officer of the American Society of Landscape Architects, serving as the organization's vice president. She later served as a member of the Society's Board of Directors, as well as chair of the Council of Fellows, to which she was elected in 1968. Henderson died in Atlanta on October 12, 2005, of complications from Alzheimer's disease.
Edith Harrison Henderson was born on June 9, 1911, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and moved with her family to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1925, when her father was transferred by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. After graduating from the North Avenue Presbyterian School, she received a diploma in March 1934 from the well-known Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in Groton, Massachusetts. Founded in 1901 to train women in landscape architecture and horticulture, it was one of the first colleges in the world to open the profession to women. Because the Lowthorpe School was affiliated with Simmons College, Henderson also received a bachelor of science degree from the latter in June 1934.
Upon receiving her degrees, Henderson returned to Atlanta to develop her practice. In 1936, she was appointed the director of the newly established Garden Center supported by and located in Rich's Department Store in downtown Atlanta. Organized by the Peachtree Garden Club, the Garden Center was a hub for garden-club activities in the metropolitan Atlanta area, offering information, lectures, exhibits, and classes pertaining to landscape design, floral design, and horticulture. In 1938, Henderson resigned due to the increasing success of her work with residential and commercial clients in private practice.
In addition to being a sought-after practitioner, Henderson was part of a national phenomenon that was sweeping early twentieth-century America: the garden-club movement. Established in 1923, Peachtree Garden Club was the first garden club in Atlanta. As part of Georgia's Bicentennial Celebration in 1933, the Peachtree Garden Club compiled and published The Garden History of Georgia, 1733-1933, an influential volume in Southern garden history. Joining the club in 1934, Henderson remained an active member and leader for over five decades, editing the club's publications, The Peachtree Planner: A Garden Schedule for Atlanta and Surrounding Areas (1966) and The Peachtree Garden Book: A Month-by-Month Guide for Lawn & Garden Care in the Southeast (1982).
In 1936, the firm of Edith Harrison and Grace Campbell, Landscape Architects, began its first civic project: beautifying the Buckhead area of Peachtree Street. Part of the larger Peachtree Garden Club Roadside Beautification Project, the work involved refuse disposal, road widening, installation of paved sidewalks and curbs, signage regulation, and roadside plantings. In 1939, the prominent Atlanta architectural firm of Hentz, Adler and Shutze selected Edith Harrison and Grace Campbell to develop a landscape architecture plan for Clark Howell Homes, the first public housing project to be completed by the Atlanta Housing Authority. Constructed directly adjacent to Techwood Homes, the nation's first federally subsidized public housing project, Clark Howell Homes was a representative example of pre-World War II housing projects constructed by local housing authorities nationwide, with the assistance of the United States Housing Authority. It demonstrated the city's early and active participation in a national effort of slum clearance and public housing construction that started during the Great Depression. As in other cities, these projects were also an important employment opportunity for architects and landscape architects, particularly women, such as Harrison and Campbell, whose numbers were few in the profession. On June 1, 1939, Harrison married Jimmy Henderson at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. They would have two sons, Ross and Edward, and a daughter, Grey, who died in infancy.
In the early 1940s, Henderson began writing a Sunday column for the Dixie Living section of The Atlanta Journal & Constitution that provided practical design advice to readers, and featured gardens on which she had consulted. Her column continued as a popular regular feature until 1978 and helped readers address challenges in their residential landscapes with straightforward and cost-effective solutions. She would later write articles about landscape design for magazines such as Southern Accents and Veranda. In 1993, Edith Henderson's Home Landscape Companion was published. Organized by season and month, this conversational guide introduces readers to the basics of landscape design and aesthetics, including privacy, color, texture, circulation patterns, focal points, lighting, fragrance, and plant selection. Henderson's lifelong passion for nature and design is evident throughout the work. She wrote, "Now I am writing this book so I can walk with you and give you landscape design ideas for the starkness of winter—when nature is bared to the bone and you should do your planning—as well as for the outburst of spring, the fecundity of summer, and the mellow golden season of fall. From my own lifetime partnership with nature, I want to tell my secrets for protecting and enjoying all of the growing things with which we have been blessed. Keep these secrets close by and your own lifetime partnership will have begun." Henderson also reached myriad garden clubs, horticultural societies, and fellow practitioners through her frequent lectures throughout the Southeast from the 1940s to the 1990s.
During her five-decade career, Henderson conducted thousands of client consultations in Atlanta and throughout the Southeast. Balancing her domestic and professional responsibilities, her primary focus was residential design, and she created a vibrant consulting business. She would meet with the homeowner for a one- or two-hour consultation at the site and then produce a notebook of detailed design sketches for the property, as well as a plant list and suggestions of several local landscape contractors. At the end of the consultation, she would hand the notebook to the client and collect her fee. This practical, no-nonsense approach allowed her to reach a large number of clients, maintain control over her design work, and have flexibility in her schedule to raise her children, and to actively participate in civic groups.
Although her practice was primarily focused on residential design, Henderson also worked on institutional and commercial projects. For example, she was the lead landscape architect for the National Life and Accident Insurance Corporation Tower in Nashville, Tennessee. Henderson also designed the grounds of the Brach Candy Company in Chattanooga, Tennessee, as well as many other complexes in the Southeast. When she worked with the Edwards Bakery and Pie Company in Decatur, Georgia, she was always asked to leave her car doors unlocked, and she would find boxes of pies on the backseat following each consultation. In terms of significant city-wide projects, in the late 1970s she consulted on landscape design for MARTA, Atlanta's public transportation system. Another significant project was the Memory Garden at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, a serene space with a clean design featuring a central, elegant pool surrounded by flat stones and fine-formed hemlocks accompanied by rhododendron, azalea, holly, and a ground cover of dwarf mondo. Henderson also advised on the gardens and grounds at the Atlanta History Center and the Atlanta Botanical Garden; she and other notable civic-minded Atlantans had helped to establish the latter in the 1970s.
Edith Henderson was an impassioned advocate for the profession of landscape architecture. In 1958, she helped organize the Board of Landscape Architects for Georgia and became one of the state's first registered landscape architects. A highly visible leader in state and local circles, she was elected "Woman of the Year" for Atlanta professionals in 1964. In 1968, Henderson became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and later served as the chair of the Board of Fellows. In 1976, she became the first woman in the history of the ASLA to be elected an officer (vice president), further opening doors for women in the profession.
Among the many awards that Edith Harrison Henderson received during her singular career was the prestigious Oakleigh Thorne Medal for Excellence in Landscape Architecture, given to her in 1971 by the Garden Club of America. In 1972, she received an award for her dedicated service to the development of environmental excellence from the Atlanta Civic Design Commission. In 1989, she was named a lifetime trustee of the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Henderson retired in 1991 after receiving an honorary bachelor of fine arts from the Rhode Island School of Design. She died in Atlanta on October 12, 2005, of complications from Alzheimer's disease.
The Edith Henderson Papers, 1939-2005, MSS 980, Cherokee Garden Library, Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.
Henderson, Edith. Edith Henderson's Home Landscape Companion. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1993.
Henderson, Edith (ed.). The Peachtree Garden Book: A Month-by-Month Guide for Lawn & Garden Care in the Southeast. Atlanta: Chambers and Asher, 1982.


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Ghana 2017: A Trip to Last a Lifetime
By Kris Asleson | Founder | 8/29/2017 As I prepared to head off to Ghana for the 4th time since…
Summer Update 2016
Hey friends! It has been a roller coaster ride for us the last few months…Exciting world-changing work has been blossoming…
An Open Letter To You
Hey there! Kris here, founder of Truth x Vision. I'd like to share a very important video with you…
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Truth x Vision > General


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The Pirate Bay, a popular bit torrent website, is claiming they've found a new source of refuge: the "hermit kingdom" North Korea.
Various international litigators have chased The Pirate Bay all around the globe, insisting they cease and desist aiding anonymous internet users seeking cheap access to high-end, pirated content.
From Torrentfreak:
Last week the Swedish Pirate Party was forced to shut down its routing services to The Pirate Bay. The Party and its leaders took this difficult decision after they were threatened with a lawsuit by a local anti-piracy group.
Piratebay and the Swedish Pirate Party are only loosely affiliated — they share political goals — but the Piratebay website does not represent the party, and vice versa.
The Pirate Bay says they've been offered "virtual asylum," but haven't taken it yet. Nonetheless, they say they are using the North Korean network to connect to the rest of the globe.
Others aren't so sure. One user in a thread on Reddit says that The Pirate Bay's traffic is routing through Germany, not North Korea:
That server is in Germany, no way it's possible to have 50ms to NK. Also traditional traceroute has 500ms+ RTT. They are faking/spoofing the ICMP responses. They are also prepending [sic] their route advertisement with corresponding AS paths to further disguise it.
So possibly it's a public relations stunt, or an attempt to deride their legal opponents by implying that North Korea would be more conducive to "internet freedom." Joshua Keating of the website Foreign Policy also isn't so sure The Pirate Bay is where it says it is:
I'm still not totally buying it, given that back in 2007, the site posted an April Fool's joke about moving its hosting to the North Korean embassy. "We would like to thank Kim Jong-Il for the opportunity and we would like all of our users to review their current feelings towards this great nation!" they wrote at the time.
Keating notes that the founders of The Pirate Bay are unlikely to align with North Korea due to their moral philosophy that information should be "free," and Kim Jong Un's regime wholly suppresses the internet.
A couple Pirate Bay "insiders" told Torrent Freak, "this is truly an ironic situation. We have been fighting for a free world, and our opponents are mostly huge corporations from the United States of America, a place where freedom and freedom of speech is said to be held high."
"At the same time, companies from that country are chasing a competitor from other countries, bribing police and lawmakers, threatening political parties and physically hunting people from our crew. And to our help comes a government famous in our part of the world for locking people up for their thoughts and forbidding access to information," they add.
The Pirate Bay insiders said they believe that the offer of asylum from North Korea is a "first step" of possibly the country's changing view of internet freedom.


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Wednesday 21 December 2011
Power of making
My initial reaction was annoyance that the items were not being given adequate space and there was no list of what there was to see. A good example was Susie MacMurray's 'Widow', a black dress pierced with long steel pins, which was in a case with other 'garments'. In contrast, in her recent solo exhibition a similar dress 'A mixture of frailties' had a room to itself, presumably because in that case it was being treated as art rather than craft.
I later read that the curator of Power of making had been inspired by the way objects are displayed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, based on their function and how they solve a particular problem. As a contemporary cabinet of curiosities Power of making is successful. It includes a range of crafts and shows how those skills can be used in a contemporary way to make functional and decorative objects.
My subsequent visits to the exhibition were more successful than the first, mainly because the crowds were not so large and it was possible to spend more time looking at the exhibits. There were several fascinating things on show and some of my favourites were 'Alphabet' a series of pencil stubs with the alphabet sculpted from their lead points by Dalton Ghetti (shown in the photo), 'Physalis earrings' by Nora Fok, and Susie MacMurray's dress 'Widow'. Many of the exhibits were ingenious as well as beautifully made, hence my third visit, but I would have liked to have had the time and space to look at them in more detail.
Friday 16 December 2011
Magnetized space
Serpentine Gallery. The centrepiece of the exhibition is 'Web', as series of thin threads tightly strung in interlocking, sloping columns from the floor to ceiling, lit so that different parts of the work are visible as you move round it. I first saw it in Venice (from where this image comes) but felt it was more effective here, probably because the space was more intimate and the lighting was more effective at producing an ethereal feeling as the columns seemed to float above the floor.
Other pieces in the exhibition included 'Book of time' a series of brightly coloured blocks with sections cut out of them, painted in contrasting colours and applied to the surface in different arrangements. This piece filled the entire wall and was quite fascinating for the ingenious way the shapes had been reconfigured. It complemented a series of paper explorations into folding and cutting and a film of pages from a 'Book of creation' being unfolded to produce different shapes and forms. Many of these would be a useful start for thinking about three-dimensional work.
I also found the engravings interesting. These included 'Weavings' which are woodcut shapes on Japanese paper and a series of panels of parallel lines with shapes 'cut' out of them and placed at angles to the original lines. They seemed so simple yet had obviously taken time to produce and construct and further reflection revealed that the shapes would not fit back into the spaces left for them.
There was a lot to see and think about in this exhibition, but the star of the show was definitely the 'Web'.
Posted by Carol Q at 08:52 No comments:
Monday 12 December 2011
Material matrices
St Pancras Crypt Gallery. It focuses on the structure and behaviour of textiles to explore the link between touch and sight as registers of perception and is part of her PhD research.
St Pancras Crypt Gallery is a large gallery containing many different sized spaces, nooks and crannies and Catherine has used the space well; it felt full without being crowded. The exhibition includes sculptural work and hangings, as well as video and audio to express properties of cloth such as oscillation, caress and shimmer. The work varies from the detailed properties of cloth in the 'within' series of lightboxes, which focuses on individual threads, to the overall feeling of that cloth against skin in 'skin-flow' to express the perception of cloth. The image shows Catherine with 'becoming' in the main vault of the gallery.
Posted by Carol Q at 09:54 No comments:
Sunday 4 December 2011
The eyes of the skin
Agnew's Gallery in London. She transforms common objects such as wine glasses, gloves, feathers and hair into beautiful sculptures that are not quite what they seem at first glance and comment on the human, generally the female, condition.
'Maiden' is a traditional glass fronted picture frame enclosing, or trapping, a line of fish hooks attached to the background by human hair. This cleverly references so many aspects of maidenhood, the loops of hair, the fine hooks waiting to trap or be trapped, the idea of plenty of fish in the sea and the fact that the entire line is identical and itself trapped behind glass.
'A mixture of frailties' also addresses the female condition. A white wedding dress made entirely of rubber gloves stands serene as it billows out into the room. The fingers of the gloves form a beautiful scalloped edge to the skirt, but what a cautionary tale they suggest. This has resonances with 'Widow' another dress by MacMurray presently on show in the Power of Making exhibition at the V&A. By contrast, 'Widow' is made of black leather and incorporates 43 kg of long dressmakers' pins in fine rows forming glittering sharp fringes down the length of the dress.
The show at Agnew's also includes some of MacMurray's pen drawings of hair nets, which she has used in previous installations. These are large, well over a metre in both dimensions, and beautiful in their detail.
What appeals about this exhibition, and in fact all of MacMurray's work, is that the work is beautiful but has sinister undertones, the familiar becomes strange and we are seduced and repulsed at the same time.
Posted by Carol Q at 01:24 No comments:
Tuesday 29 November 2011
Lost in lace
Annie Bascoul, Piper Shepard and Michael Brennand-Wood have use lace as a basis for their work for many years and the pieces they present here are all large and stunning. Annie Bascoul has produced over sized Alencon needlelace to form a wall enclosing a feather bed hung over an erotic French poem written in wire. Piper Shepard has reproduced a point de gaze needlelace flounce by hand cutting and perforating black paper. This again is very large, hanging between the columns of the hall, and in fact shaped to accommodate them so that when it is exhibited again it will bear the memory of this hall. Michael Brennand-Wood has used lace themes in his work for many years. Here he has linked them to military images and emblems to produce roundels that in combination appear to look like reticella lace.
Nils Volker doesn't seem to reference lace at all but his installation is very effective nonetheless. It consists of a wall of Tyvek bags that are inflated and deflated by electronic fans in such a way that the wall seems to be breathing and moving in quite a mesmerising fashion. Another unusual material is the light sensitive cement used by Alessia Giardino to produce lacelike patterns from city pollution.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is the beautiful inverted crystal cathedral by Atelier Manferdini made of strings of Swarovski crystals, which is based on Gaudi's cathedral in Barcelona.
In all, twenty artists are represented in the exhibition and the work varies from photographs to textiles, paper and video. The accompanying catalogue is excellent, with numerous pictures of the work in development and showing how the ideas developed. I also have to declare a vested interest because I have an essay in it as well. The exhibition is definitely worth visiting to see how lace can be used as a basis for contemporary work, how it can be refigured in different materials, and how ideas about lace can be challenged.
Posted by Carol Q at 09:30 No comments:
Friday 11 November 2011
Lost in lace: concealed and revealed
The exhibition shows many different types of lace, both bobbin and needlemade, from fine Chantilly to homemade tape lace and discusses many aspects of lace linked to social history. There are examples of lace bobbins, prickings and a lace pillow showing how lace is made by hand. Several portraits and items of clothing show how lace was worn at different times, including one of Lady Mason wearing a Bedfordshire lace collar pinned at the neck, with a leaf pattern familiar to today's pattern collectors. There are also examples of lace from the collection of Mrs Cadbury, a keen local collector of lace who donated much of her collection to the Museum. There is also an interesting little sketchbook belonging to Frank Taylor Lockwood with a charming watercolour of net curtains at his scullery window. In one of the many clever links Gail makes between the exhibits we find he worked at Cadburys during the war and she then goes on to describe how lace curtain machines were used to produce mosquito netting for the troops.
This is a fascinating gem of an exhibition which holds plenty of interest for the lay person and the lacemaker. Newcomers to lace will be amazed at its variety, beauty, intricacy and history while lacemakers will gain new insights and enjoy some of the interesting pieces from the Birmingham Museum store on show for the first time.
Don't miss it when you visit Lost in Lace – it's in the Bridge Gallery next to the shop.
Posted by Carol Q at 07:04 No comments:
Monday 7 November 2011
Bite-size: miniature textiles from Japan and the UK
Daiwa Foundation, curated by Lesley Millar, celebrates 15 years of collaborative textile exhibitions between Japan and the UK. 51 artists are represented, who have all worked with Lesley on previous exhibitions, and all had to produce a miniature work, which in most cases were displayed on identical white plinths around the gallery.
It was interesting to explore the exhibition without a catalogue to try and identify the artists; some were easier than others and there were some surprises. With so many exhibits it is impossible to describe them all, but some of my favourites were Philippa Lawrence's Something from nothing, a frothy mass of seared parchment; Clyde Oliver's Little cairn, made of slate with a pebble carefully balanced on the top; Kiyonori Shimada's Division, a small sculpture of gathered cotton cloth trapped in a simple wooden shape; Reiko Sudo's Polygami, an exquisitely folded polyester cloth; and Kaori Umeda's Red and white, made up of small polyester polyps linked and trapped by red threads.
At a lunch on the day after the opening some of us were lucky enough to hear some of the Japanese artists describing their work and the inspiration behind it. Many of them had tried to include a link between Japan and the UK into their work for the exhibition, for example Chika Ohgi had referenced the star patterns prominent in the sky over London and Yuka Kawai had used materials brought on a previous visit to London. The friendship and good humour shown at the lunch revealed that on many levels, the exhibition certainly succeeded as a celebration of AngloJapanese textile art.
Posted by Carol Q at 09:08 No comments:
Insight into beauty II
Beverly Ayling-Smith's panels of black textiles, part of her Nigredo series, formed an impressive introduction to the exhibition. She explores the emotional states of melancholia and mourning and references Japanese cloth. The braids by Jacqui Carey, Jenny Parry, Makiko Tada, Sandy Jessett and Edna Gibson provided an fascinating display of new developments in kumihimo, some of which were three dimensional and others quite lace like.
Posted by Carol Q at 09:05 No comments:
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Grayson Perry: the tomb of the unknown craftsman
For this exhibition at the British Museum, Grayson Perry chose exhibits from the Museum collection and combined them with his own work and items from modern culture to comment on ideas of craftsmanship, sacred journeys and contemporary culture. He is interested in the role of the craftsman, who is often unknown, and notes that craftsmanship is less to do with precision making than a relationship with materials.
The exhibition was on a larger scale than I had expected and yet was much more personal than anticipated. Apart from the labels for the artefacts, there were panels quoting Grayson Perry and explaining the reasons behind many of his choices of items, although not all of them, which allowed the audience to make their own connections as well. Also, in several cases, it was not until you read the labels that you could distinguish the Museum artefacts from the modern equivalents. In many cases Grayson Perry cleverly uses his teddy bear, Alan Measles, as an alter ego to comment on contemporary culture and he appears on pots, fabrics and tapestries in different guises.
Some of the main themes were pilgrimage, the journey, shrines, and magic. Grayson Perry compares practices from the past and the present, for example pilgrim tokens and portable shrines, which he notes are no different from collections of photos on modern smart phones. Regarding magic, he says that artists are like shamans or witchdoctors because they give things meaning and transform ordinary materials into something significant.
Commenting on the role of the craftsman, Grayson Perry considers patina and texture and notes that damage, decay and dirt are part of the language of authenticity. We are asked to consider whether provenance or age is more important than beauty. Another important point is that everything in the British Museum was contemporary once and this idea inspired his pot entitled 'The frivolous now' (2011), which incorporates phrases from current TV shows. A number of recent pots made by the artist as a response to this exhibition were on show, including 'The Rosetta vase' (2011), a play on the Rosetta stone also housed in the British Museum. In this case the vase is unlocking the knowledge of culture, which could have been an alternative title for this interesting exhibition.
Posted by Carol Q at 01:35 No comments:
Wednesday 7 September 2011
For this exhibition at the Craft Study Centre, Farnham, four artists were invited to browse the collection and produce a response to their chosen items. Most of them chose the paraphernalia of daily life held in the archive as their starting point rather than resolved items, for example Lucie Rie's glazing samples and driving licence were selected instead of her ceramics. Interestingly, all the responses are works that not what they seem at first glance.
Laura Potter chose Lucie Rie's glazing samples from the collection and felt that by choosing something personal that had not been made for exhibiting she became closer to Lucie Rie as a person. Laura was inspired by the archive to produce an archive of her own unfinished work, enclosed in small wooden boxes. Studying the collection made her consider how she remembered dead relatives and how she would be remembered in turn. In response to this she has produced a tungsten carbide ring that should withstand the process of cremation and another made of thin gold rings – one for each year of her life. She notes that she is trying to control how her family remember her, but, ironically, this exhibition shows that artists are often remembered for the ephemera of their lives rather than their considered work.
Stephen Dixon used fragments from the collection combined with previous research into war records in Italy to produce a series of plates and bowls revealing the story of an Italian soldier. He also showed a series of earthenware 'pages', apparently torn from a notebook, depicting notes and wildlife from Australia.
Elaine Wilson considers female identity and how it is affected by cultural and social pressures. She chose textile samples by Barron and Larcher and Lucie Rie's photograph album as her inspiration and combined the ideas in a series of figurines embellished with fabric patterns. Her elegantly dressed gun-toting figurines are unsettling domestic china ornaments that question the conventional role of women.
For her re-workings of old master paintings Maisie Broadhead regularly uses museums and galleries for inspiration. From the Craft Study Centre collection she chose a jug Bernard Leach had collected, which had also been selected by Alison Britton for a previous exhibition. Maisie re-worked Vermeer's The milkmaid with Alison acting as the milkmaid pouring from the jug. Like the other artists in this exhibition, her work disguises its true nature. Her photographic images appear to be copies of the old master paintings until a second glance reveals the truth.
Posted by Carol Q at 02:17 No comments:
Thursday 7 July 2011
The cult of beauty
The Aesthetic Movement in Britain from 1860 to 1900 is the subject of this exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The aim of the Movement was to escape the ugliness and materialism of the early Victorian age and find a new beauty. Their aim was 'art for art's sake'. I was interested in the exhibition because the models used by the artists (Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Morris and Leighton) seemed to be at odds with conventional ideas of mid-Victorian demure femininity. However, it was not until the 1880s that the Aestheticism became mainstream, until then the movement was still seen as the 'preserve of self-regarding and possibly immoral cliques' according to the brochure accompanying the exhibition. It may also be relevant that the themes most of these painters followed were of an imagined past, medieval in the case of Burne-Jones and Greek in the case of Frederick Leighton, rather than the contemporary. While James McNeill Whistler, who did paint contemporary women in their homes, produced more demure images. The final part of the exhibition showing the development of furnishing fabrics, wallpaper and furniture shows that the artists of the Aesthetic Movement were successful in their quest for 'art for art's sake' and that their aesthetic design have stood the test of time, and are still sold today.
Posted by Carol Q at 06:11 No comments:
Treasures of heaven
This theme of this exhibition at the British Museum is saints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe. It is a strange mixture of the beautiful and the ghoulish – intricately worked gold and jewel encrusted artefacts containing body parts and secretions. However, it makes an aesthetically pleasing and engaging exhibition, housed in the old Reading Room, open to the church-like ceiling, with subdued lighting and surrounded by chanting music. St Helena (the mother of Constantine) converted to Christianity and was the first collector of relics. She travelled to Jerusalem where (a miracle in itself) she discovered the true cross and the crown of thorns, more than 300 years after the crucifixion. An edict by a pope about 700 years later made it compulsory for an altar to contain a relic before it could be consecrated, leading to an expansion in the trade in relics and a growth in pilgrimages to popular shrines. The workmanship in many of these artefacts is stunning. Many of them are large and would have been the centre piece of an altar but I particularly admired some of the small reliquary pendants. One in particular, composed of several layers of enamelled scenes from the life of Christ, containing a sacred thorn and decorated with precious gems, seemed to sum up the role of the relic. It was beautifully made and designed, contained so much symbolism and yet could be held quietly in the palm of the hand for devotional prayer.
Posted by Carol Q at 06:09 No comments:
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Adornment & identity
This exhibition of Omani silver jewellery and textiles at the British Museum has been running since January but I have only just caught up with it. It covers a wide range of jewellery and has several examples of necklaces, rings, bracelets, anklets, hair ornaments and other items such as kohl pots, which are all beautifully displayed. There are fewer textiles, with a couple of examples of costume for each region of the country, but they give a flavour of the different areas. I found the information about the jewellery very informative but unfortunately there was no catalogue.
Posted by Carol Q at 11:06 No comments:
This exhibition at the British Museum shows treasures from Afghanistan from four archaeological sites ranging in time from 2200 BC to the first century AD. They are rightly called treasures as most of the artefacts on show are extremely fine examples of craftsmanship and obviously belonged to those of high status. Their diversity also reveals Afghanistan's position as a crossroad for ancient trade routes. The incised gold bowls dating from 2200 BC from Tepe Fullol show evidence of a wealthy Bronze Age civilisation. The statues and stonework from Ai Khanum come from the site of a Greek city founded by one of Alexander the Great's generals in 300 BC. At the third site, an archaeological investigation at the ancient city of Begram found two sealed store rooms containing Roman glass, Indian ivory furniture and Chinese lacquerware. The examples exhibited here are outstanding, especially the coloured and shaped glass containers. However, the most impressive artefacts come from a nomad cemetery excavated at Tillya Tepe, in particular the golden crown shown on the poster. This is made so that the elements shimmer and move to catch the light, and it can also be dismantled for transport. Over 20,000 pieces of gold jewellery were buried in these graves. They are certainly impressive now and must have been even more so when they were worn in the first century AD.
Posted by Carol Q at 11:03 No comments:
Friday 3 June 2011
Vital statistics of lace
This lace exhibition at Pickford's House Museum in Derby is the first solo exhibition by Louise West, pictured above with her lace. It includes her beautiful, traditional Bedfordshire bobbin lace and a magnificent three-dimensional lace collar incorporating laser cut lace flowers and wire lace she has made during her MA. The modern and traditional lace complement each other well because the modern collar uses botanical motifs in the same way Thomas Lester used plant forms in his traditional Bedfordshire lace designs. On the day we visited, Louise was being interviewed and filmed by BBC TV Nottingham. However, the people of Nottingham also have a permanent reminder of Louise's lace as it was used for the concrete lace that adorns Nottingham Contemporary. For more information about that and the exhibition visit Louise's website http://www.louisewestlacedesign.co.uk/
Posted by Carol Q at 03:59 1 comment:
Tuesday 31 May 2011
Freud Museum
The Freud Museum is hosting an exhibition by Alice Anderson, but in this case the exhibits are not all enclosed in the Museum. Anderson has wrapped the exterior of the Museum in doll's hair – and very effective it is. Her work is based on her childhood ritual of winding threads and hair round parts of her body and other objects to calm her anxieties when she was left alone. The hair also represents the link between mother and child. In much of the work here she arranges the doll's hair in lines and grids in what seems to be an attempt to destabilise the male grid by using feminine hair and in one instance uses it to trap a model of herself. However to do this she wraps the hair around metal rods, so it seems to be softening the rods, rather than making the bars out of the hair themselves. The most effective piece in the house was the Butterfly ritual, a video performance in which she unwinds a bobbin of thread from a balcony, thus making it dance and flutter like a butterfly, and winds the unwound thread round and round her finger. The spider's web of hair, forming a soft yet effective barrier in Freud's studio was also arresting. But by far the most effective piece was Housebound, in which the house itself wound with doll's hair.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:15 No comments:
Monday 18 April 2011
Marking time
The research students at UCA recently held a conference and exhibition at Farnham. This picture shows my exhibit entitled 'Marking time'. I am studying net curtains and how they can be used to re-read the relationship between the domestic, the Uncanny and the Gothic. In particular, I am interested in the Uncanny feeling described by Freud that occurs when the familiar becomes strange, and the boundary between the homely and unhomely is blurred. This boundary, the liminal space between home and not-home, is represented by the net curtain. 'Marking time' conveys the position of a young woman trapped in the home and longing for escape but fearful of what may lie beyond, reflecting the duality of the home as sanctuary and prison. The net curtain pierced with pins and needles alludes to a prisoner marking time, but the misuse of feminine sewing equipment suggests a subversion of the domestic. The words of the accompanying 'virtual' cross stitch sampler reflect the conflicting thoughts of the trapped seamstress and they fade in and out to reflect aspects of her inner turmoil. The complete text suggests the fragility of her mental condition.
Posted by Carol Q at 04:01 No comments:
Friday 1 April 2011
This exhibition at the Wellcome Collection covered six aspects of dirt and cleanliness: a home in the Delft of 1683, a London street in 1854, Glasgow Royal Infirmary in 1867, the first International Hygiene exhibition in Dresden 1930, a present day community in India, and a New York landfill site in 2030. All were chosen to reflect Mary Douglas's observation that dirt is defined by its context.
The earlier sections were of most interest to me and I enjoyed the links between cleanliness and godliness depicted in the section on the Dutch house. The history of the development of the London sewers was very interesting, particularly that the scientific orthodoxy of the day was so fixed on the idea of 'miasma' or bad air causing disease that John Snow's map linking cholera to polluted water was largely ignored. This section also included some interesting advertisements for Victorian cleaning products including one for Hudson's soap claiming its regular daily use would bring purity, health and satisfaction.
The section on Joseph Lister's transformation of the Glasgow Royal Hospital showed what a radical effect he had on recovery rates and disease transmission and how the link with miasma causing was finally broken. He introduced a dedicated laundry to the hospital, previously the nurses had done the washing as well as the nursing, and introduced white starched uniforms for the nurses, which gave the impression of purity and cleanliness if nothing else.
The aim of the Dresden Museum was to encourage personal hygiene but it was subverted by the Nazis to included 'racial hygiene' with its horrific consequences. The present day Indian section considered what is clean and dirty, the role of scavengers and the role of the unclean other. Staten Island looked to the future of the world's largest landfill site and how it will eventually be transformed into a public park.
As well as the historical artefacts on display, the exhibition included modern artistic responses to dirt. James Croak's Dirt window (1991) obliterated by dirt, contrasted nicely with Susan Collis' broom Waltzer (2007) propped in a corner. Igor Eskinja's untitled dirt pattern on the floor, which changed as it was walked over, was effective but seemed to me to resemble previous work by Catherine Bertola and Linda Florence, also I would have liked to have known where the dust had come from. Serena Korda's bricks made from dust entitled Laid to rest (2011) and the accompanying video had more background information, which added to the experience and showed that dirt is indeed defined by its context.
Posted by Carol Q at 09:45 No comments:
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Susan Hiller exhibition
This exhibition at Tate Britain includes a variety of work by Susan Hiller spanning several years. In the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, the artist is quoted as saying 'I particularly like the way the mundane becomes special as soon as you pay attention to it …' and in much of her work she focuses on mundane aspects of daily life and represents them to us in a special light.
The exhibition begins with her Recycled works (from the 1970s) in which she has reworked some of her previous paintings by cutting them up and layering them to produce small sculptural blocks, produced loops and bundles of string by unravelling canvases, and burned canvases then stored the remaining ash in small sealed jars. This seeking for alternative meanings gleaned from the same originals is also present in the work that ends the exhibition - Enquiries/inquiries (1973-5), which consists of a series of facts and definitive explanations of words from English and American encyclopaedias, showing that knowledge is subjective and culturally specific.
Accessing information is a theme in several of the works in the exhibition. Belshazzar's feast. The writing on your wall (1983-4) is an installation of a room with seats around a television on which there is a flickering image, which may or may not be transmitting information from the ether around it. While Obtaining meaning from Magic lantern (1987) includes a sound track of singing interspersed with recordings of the sounds in empty rooms by the Latvian scientist Konstantine Raudive.
Accessing the paranormal is also queried in Psi girls (1999), which comprises five large screens showing excerpts from commercial films of young girls using telekinetic powers accompanied by an unsettling soundtrack. The theme of the supernatural is also beautifully depicted in Witness (2000), an installation of over a hundred bare speakers hanging at different heights from the ceiling of a darkened room, transmitting eye witness reports of UFO sightings. The installation is beautifully lit and engenders a magical experience as the viewer wanders among the speakers hearing snippets of reports in various languages, producing a murmur of background noise.
In Susan Hiller's hands the mundane and unseen has certainly become special in this exhibition.
Friday 21 January 2011
Gallery Gallery
Also in Kyoto we visited Gallery Gallery run by Keiko Kawashima, which specialises in contemporary textiles. I had heard so much about Gallery Gallery, and it has hosted several prestigious exhibitions, so I thought it was quite large and was surprised to find that it was much smaller than I expected. However, it contained many varied exhibits in a series of glass cases representing a large number of artists and providing a taste of the practice of each one. While we were visiting, the main exhibition was Plasma Rose by Miyoko Yoshiya, a series of colourful felt tubes hanging from the ceiling in one corner of the room and draping into the room and across the floor.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:37 No comments:
Gallery Kei
While we were in Kyoto we visited Gallery Kei run by Kei Kawasaki. It was an Aladdin's cave of wonderful textiles, weaving and stencils. Kei Kawasaki is very knowledgeable about everything in her shop and kindly talked to us about many of the items on display. She showed us some handcut stencils on mulberry paper tanned with persimmon and described how some were cut and others punched with fine holes. She also explained resist printing and ikat weaving to us. Talking about threads she explained that linden fibres are retted and then each single fibre is twisted on to the next one to form a continuous thread, which is very time consuming, however, silk and linen are spun, which is much quicker. She was very friendly, helpful and interesting and I could have stayed all day listening to her.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:36 No comments:
Sun Moon Gallery
In Kyoto we visited Akihiko Izukura's family business at the SunMoon Gallery. We started our visit in the dyeing workshop where we saw fabrics bring dyed with natural dyes. The business specialises in innovative woven, braided and felted textiles applying natural dyes to silk and wool. Their design concept is based on a sense of spirituality and empathy with nature. We were then taken to a room where we had to remove our shoes and sit on the floor Japanese style. Here we saw different designs of obis and were told how they were woven. They are quite heavy and the pattern lies on the square at the back of the body. While we were there some customers arrived and they kindly allowed us to take photos of them wearing kimono and obi. We then visited the shop, where beautiful scarves and clothes were for sale and several of us succumbed to the innovative scarves when we were shown how versatile they were to wear. We were then taken to the workshop, where Akihiko Izukura kindly explained the philosophy of the company to us and described some new research into silk weaving they are undertaking.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:32 No comments:
Amuse Museum
Amuse Museum lies in the Asakusa area of Tokyo close to the Sensoji Temple compound, adjacent to the Nitenmon Gate, and you get a good view of the entire site from the top of the building. When we visited there was a large display of Boro cloth. These are the old, patched and stitched clothes that used to be worn by the peasants. They are referred to as Yuyo-no-Bi (beauty of practicality) and are now seen as a contrast to consumer culture, although a generation ago they were considered an embarrassing sign of previous Japanese poverty. We saw underclothes, simple shifts, nappies, kimonos, jackets, tabi socks, mittens, and old scraps of cloth which were salvaged and kept for patching other clothes. The clothes contain a wealth of history and many were kept for generations. For example a bodoko was a cloth used for childbirth in a family to bring good fortune from the ancestors.
In other displays of Japanese culture we saw salmon skin boots, old kitchen tools, Jomon pots and flints and a special display of girls' underwear from the 19th century called tattsuke. The tattsuke were worn by women in the Nanbu District of Aomori Prefecture and are distinctive with leggings that are tight on the calves and baggy around the bottom.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:29 No comments:
Phantom limb exhibition
This exhibition by Odani Motohiko was staged at the Mori Arts Centre in Roppongi Hills area of Tokyo. I was very impressed with his earlier work and intrigued by the posters I had seen in the city depicting his waterfall installation and spiral made of vertebrae. My favourite piece was Fingerspanner, which used a device to make piano players' fingers more flexible in such a way that the hand looked like a deformed human violin; it subtly depicted the duality of horror and beauty.
Motohiko's work arises from an interest in the psychological conditions of fear, pain and unease. Inferno, his installation combining videos of a waterfall with music in a 'room' setting that you entered was also very effective and very disorientating because the speed of the video and the intensity of the noise changed and the floor and walls appeared to move. The quote accompanying that exhibit was 'if you stare at the abyss it enters into you'.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:23 No comments:
Nezu Museum of Art
This museum in Tokyo had just reopened when we visited. We approached it along this lovely bamboo walkway, a peaceful path away from the busy traffic of Omotesando. I later discovered the architect had deliberately tried to create an experience of wa or Japanese harmony in the building and its surroundings. The Museum has many holdings of Japanese art, ceramics, lacquer and metalwork, but the displays I found most interesting were the Kosode fabric fragments from the 16th and 17th centuries in muted browns, blues and greens, depicting flowers and symbols, in particular a sample of tie dyed wisteria, and a panel of embroidered interlocking circles. Another delightful surprise was the garden behind the Musuem. It was very relaxing to stroll through it admiring the autumn colours of the leaves and the reflections in the water of the ponds and waterfalls.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:22 No comments:
As part of the UCA study visit to Japan we visited Nuno the textile shop in Tokyo. Although describing Nuno as a textile shop is accurate, it doesn't quite convey the amazing range of innovative fabrics produced and sold by Nuno. We were lucky to be given an introduction to the fabrics by Reiko Sudo, the Creative Director of Nuno. She pulled out numerous bolts of fabric for us, describing what they were made of and how they were produced. Many of the textiles had paper embedded in them or were made from woven paper threads, one even had pieces of newspaper attached to it. We were also shown fabrics with fluorescent fibres and strips of chemical lace forming hangings. As well as the fascinating talk by Reiko we all enjoyed browsing through the scarves and clothes on display and many of us bought samples to bring a little bit of Nuno home with us.
Posted by Carol Q at 03:19 No comments:
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What does robotic process automation in logistics look like?
LOGISTICS professionals are quickly beginning to explore how technology can disrupt their workflow.
The reality is that the logistics profession has a lot to gain as a result of technology — far more than they have to lose.
New and emerging technologies such as the internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and 5G are set to help transform how different tasks in logistics are performed and optimized.
Process automation might seem to threaten the jobs of executives in factories and warehouses, and autonomous vehicles might seem to put truck and lorry drivers at risk.
However, there's a high chance that technology will create interesting opportunities for logistics operators and make their lives simpler instead of displacing them entirely — purely from an economical standpoint.
According to a recent report by McKinsey, "even if a logistics company makes a great choice about the automation equipment to buy, it can run into another problem. The leading warehouse-automation manufacturers have enjoyed strong revenue growth of 15 to 20 percent annually since 2014. At many, order books are now full."
In the short to medium run, therefore, companies might do better to pick exciting technologies as independent solutions and piece them together via robotic process automation (RPA) to augment the capabilities of existing staff and deliver dependable technology-driven gains to stakeholders.
Deloitte recently published a whitepaper on the topic and said that RPA plays a role that can lead to better outcomes for each phase of the supply chain and also open the door to use of Industry 4.0 technologies throughout.
Here are three examples of how RPA can help logistics professionals leverage new technologies to delight customers:
# 1 | IoT, 5G, and big data
Logistics professionals collect data at various stages.
With 5G coming to life and democratizing IoT, companies will be able to collect data about their products at every stage in the supply chain.
Unfortunately, this data won't be very helpful unless it's accurately combed and sorted for different kinds of AI platforms to leverage in real-time.
RPA can help manage the data feeds and ensure that there's no human error when processing the data that is collected by sensors in an IoT-powered logistics environment.
# 2 | Cloud-based automation
When data is collected by companies via IoT and 5G and sorted via RPA, it can either be processed at the edge or sent to the cloud.
For certain kinds of data, especially those that can provide managerial insights to companies, transferring to the cloud is a better idea.
However, in many cases, the data platform that collects and stores the data might not be able to integrate with the cloud-platform of choice. RPA can provide a bridge to help with this.
Using RPA, logistics professionals can help cloud-based solutions to patch into local data platforms to collect data and analyze it to create intelligent and actionable insights.
# 3 | AI-powered customer experience
With 5G and IoT making it easy to collect and store data, companies can use AI to understand that data and provide insights to customers just as it does for internal managers.
Using RPA, companies can design chatbots that answer customer's queries about their products, delivery schedules, and other matters related to logistics.
At the end of the day, RPA not only serves as an intelligent facilitator and communicator between different platforms and technologies, but it also helps meld various new-age solutions to delight customers and improve their overall experience.
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This weekend, MIT is hosting the first H@cking Medicine conference and PatientsLikeMe is proud to be a sponsor. The hacking encouraged here isn't malicious, rather, it refers to a passionate subculture of computer programmers who believe in sharing, openness, and innovation (among other things). Those are three concepts near and dear to us here at PatientsLikeMe.
The goal of the conference is to inspire new ideas and create new relationships so that everyone will leave invigorated and excited about improving healthcare. According to the H@cking Medicine website, "By using available tools in unconventional ways, we aim to revolutionize delivery of care, empower patients, and design new models of care. Typically, healthcare innovation is painfully slow and, even worse, often increases the cost. We can make a difference by creating cost-effective solutions without waiting for fundamental advances in science."
To kick off the event on the first day, our own Jamie Heywood (keynote) as well as other leaders in the health care field will inspire audience members with ways to find and learn from the best use of openly shared data. The second day is dedicated to team hacking, and gives coders a practical look at what can be done with the available resources.
Read more about this subculture of hackers on Wikipedia and follow the H@cking Medicine conference updates on their website and Twitter.


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Recently, Memorial Day caused me to reflect on my father's service in the Army in WWII. He was a captain in the Signal Corps, went to North Africa, where he met my future mother (who was 9!), crossed over to Sicily, then the Italian peninsula. He was injured by a sniper. In junior high, as a project, I obtained his Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross for him, which he had never received.
He apparently developed an extreme prejudice against all things Italian during his service. When I was little, pizza was absolutely forbidden in our house, not that you could even get decent pizza in northeastern Ohio then.
He slept on the freezing marble floors of the Capodimonte, high on a hill overlooking Naples, and had little patience with the turncoat Italians, who suddenly appeared so cooperative once Mussolini was out of the way. He could never hear "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" again the same way.
Which led me to think of American composer Douglas Allanbrook's (1921-2003) memoir "See Naples." It is a charming account of his time as an infantryman at the same period as my father. He studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Boston. Later, he returned to Naples often, to study harpsichord, and also to marry his first wife, an Italian actress.
I went to Naples in 2005. On the train from Rome, one immediately saw, as if painted on the ground, the "line" between the south of Italy and the rest of it. Not that Naples is even that shabby, compared to the "heel" of the "boot." Clothes hung on lines out every window of the relentless prefabricated apartment blocks, perhaps an unintentionally improvised window shade. Naples itself, the "birthplace" of pizza, was chaotic with traffic and crowds that seemed to gather at a moment's notice for no clear purpose.
I had a slice where Bill Clinton did, supposedly, and visited the conservatory and the opera house. I even saw the Capodimonte, (formerly a royal palace, now a museum) but wasn't allowed to lie down on its floor. Herculaneum was interesting, though no clear sense of antiquity jumped out under the shadow of Vesuvius. Sophia Loren's birthplace, Pozzuoli, is a rebuilt suburb, who knows over what . . .In the 80s, there was a series of earthquakes that also devastated the town.
We're all dancing on the edge!
© 2013 by Frank Daykin, for Innovative Music Programs


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Half a million citizens in Spain now have control over municipal government accounts
By the Municipal Citizens' Observatories
Over half a million people now have access to real participation in their municipality
The OCMs: citizen bodies to control local governments
After two years of work at the Spanish Citizen Debt Audit Platform (PACD), we are handing over our municipal tool to citizens: the Municipal Citizens' Observatories (OCMs is the Spanish acronym), a project that fights opacity, encouraging participation in the most accessible level of government: the municipalities, to make them accessible and participatory from below. We are launching the proposal with five observatories already in place that have enabled real participation for more than half a million people in Burgos, Terrassa, Girona, Castelldefels and Moiá. And they won't be the only ones: there are groups in several municipalities learning and preparing their own websites for their neighbours.
The OCMs propose a Municipal Citizen Audit, enhancing grassroots control: our consultations in a municipality are a part of the audit process as they show us what is important for us in our town. A government team doesn't know better than us what is needed in our town or city. However, there are few that offer real participation tools in line with citizens' needs.
We all know by now that our municipalities are opaque; there is no need to look at international statistics that confirm it. We do not understand why we are provided with less information than what we would find in a simple till receipt. And we believe we must not allow this: it is our duty to ensure that municipal accounts are made public, and for this, public pressure is effective.
We encourage you to create or promote your own OCM; an open, organized and self-managed space that will network with the others to achieve greater control of municipal accounts. Up to the date, we are only provided with mostly ineffective institutions such as courts of accounts or ombudsmen.
The tool also has an international orientation and is available in different languages so any city in the world can make use of it. We have developed an open source project because we truly believe in the culture of transparency and the value of sharing information.
If we want to fight corruption, influence governments' budgets and make our participation go further than voting every four years … What better place to learn than the local level?… and after, we will be able to take it higher.


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Filtered slowly for 5,000 years through layers of lava rock, Icelandic Glacial™ possesses a highly desirable and uncommonly high pH of 8.4, making it naturally alkaline.
Icelandic Glacial™ is sourced from the legendary Ölfus Spring in Iceland, one of the world's most pristine ecosystems. It possesses a naturally low mineral content (TDS of 62 ppm) that does not crowd the palate with heavy metals, minerals or silica. A water so pure, nothing is added or taken away.
Icelandic Glacial™ was the world's first bottled water to be certified as CarbonNeutral® for both product and operation. Icelandic Glacial takes immense pride in running a completely sustainable operation fueled entirely by geothermal and hydroelectric power. At 7,688 sq. ft., the world class facility is one of the world's greenest and cleanest. In a commitment to reach a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, Icelandic Glacial™ measures and reduces emissions through a combination of internal reductions and environmental instruments on an ongoing basis. To offset any remaining emissions, Icelandic Glacial™ invests in verified renewable energy, forestry and resource conservation projects around the world. Our efforts have been rewarded with international recognition, most notably winning the 2007 Bottled Water World Design Awards for Best Sustainability Initiative.
Testing is continually conducted to ensure Icelandic Glacial™ Water meets top food safety and quality standards. Our facilities and products are fully accredited by the NSF and always meet or exceed U.S.A. Food & Drug Administration and World Health Organization requirements. Both the Ölfus Spring source and our facility are also regularly inspected by the Icelandic Public Health Authority, which carries out stringent tests to ensure the facility is operating in compliance with WHO standards. In addition to governmental requirements, Icelandic Glacial™ carries out extensive daily testing with its own in-house laboratory.
Carbon Neutral Company Certificate
Zenith International Source Sustainablility Report


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About the Book
Holcomb Springs has a wild past, and the wilderness outside its borders hides a treacherous present.
Teacher Ella Sommer is ready to forget about her broken engagement and escape from running into her ex. An overnight hiking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail offers what she needs to clear her head and breathe out under the stars.
Ex-military Reese Vega left Holcomb Springs with a bad boy rep, but has returned wiser, longing for a fresh start in his hometown. His hiking tour business offers that opportunity, especially when he can get into the great outdoors and let his past evaporate into the mountain air.
When Reese and Ella are thrown together on the overnighter, what starts as a simple trek ends up being filled with danger when they stumble across something they weren't supposed to see.
Can they put aside their history and use their wits to get out of this situation?
Or will it be too late?
You'll love Beneath a Star-Lit Sky because while the wilderness can't be tamed, the human heart can.
About the Author
JL's favorite thing is discovering how much there is to love about America the Beautiful and the great outdoors. She's a mom to two, navigating the young adult years while battling her daughter's juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, exploring the delights of her son's autism, and keeping gluten free. A California native who's spent significant time in the Midwest, she's thrilled to be back in the Golden State. Follow her on social media to see all her adventures and how she gets inspired for her books!
More from JL Crosswhite
What does writing a book have in common with…
I've got a new series with the first book releasing this month. The series is called Holcomb Springs Small Town Romantic Suspense, and the first book is Beneath a Star-Lit Sky. I like how this series and this book show how long the creative process can end up being for me.
Before when I've talked about where I get my book ideas, I mention that I call it the compost pile. Any of you gardeners know about the magic of compost. You take a bunch of unrelated kitchen scraps—coffee grounds, carrot tops, egg shells, lettuce that went bad, rotten oranges—and throw them in your compost pile. With the magic of decomposition, in about a year you have something wonderful for your plants.
The creative process is a lot like that for me. I get bits and pieces of ideas from all over the place—things I've experienced, places I've visited, a news story that stuck with me—and I toss them in my mental compost pile. When something has come together enough to actually be a story idea, it gets its own file.
The germination of Beneath a Star-Lit Sky began at least ten years ago. I remember being on a long drive and talking to my dad on the phone and somehow getting on the topic of criminals in the wilderness, particularly the Sidney Poitier movie, Shoot to Kill. A lot of things can go wrong in the wilderness, and having a bad guy after you just makes it worse.
As I was writing and finishing up the previous series, In the Shadow, I had been wanting to write a series set in a small town. I liked the idea of all the characters continuing to run into each other and being a part of one another's lives, for good or for ill.
My previous books had been based in the Southern California beach town of Laguna Vista (which also exists only in my imagination). But if you've read any of the In the Shadow books, you might have noticed that they made frequent visits to the Southern California San Bernardino mountains.
Since I grew up at the base of these mountains and spent a lot of time up there, I wondered if I might figure out how to create a small town in the mountains. There are some up there, but I like creating my own so I can take liberty with things and not feel like I'm insulting any real town.
There was an old gold mining town—Belleville—that used to exist in an area called Holcomb Valley. I imagined what would have happened if that boomtown had continued on to become a resort town similar to Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead. I liked the idea of having a small town on the edge of the wilderness with all of the problems and possibilities it can bring. And it was within driving distance of Laguna Vista, so all of our old friends could come up and visit.
So the compost pile came together to truly cause my story idea to flourish and blossom into a full-fledged book! Toss in a few previous characters, and I had a ton of fun thinking about all the possibilities while keeping in touch with old characters who have become like friends. I hope you enjoy what's to come. It's going to be an adventure!
Blog Stops
Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, April 4
Debbie's Dusty Deliberations, April 5
Texas Book-aholic, April 6
For Him and My Family, April 7
Gina Holder, Author and Blogger, April 8 (Author Interview)
The Sacred Line, April 8
Ashley's Clean Book Reviews, April 9
deb's Book Review, April 10
Locks, Hooks and Books, April 11
Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, April 12
Inklings and notions, April 13
Guild Master, April 14 (Author Interview)
Pause for Tales, April 14
Happily Managing a Household of Boys, April 15
Adventures of a Travelers Wife, April 16 (Author Interview)
Because I said so — and other adventures in Parenting, April 17


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Voters in four London districts with significant Jewish populations have likely made it much easier for embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May to form a coalition government, a leading UK political analyst told The Algemeiner on Friday.
May's decision to call an early election after just a year at the helm of the ruling Conservative Party backfired spectacularly at the polls yesterday, with the opposition Labour Party, under far left leader Jeremy Corbyn, gaining an additional 29 parliamentary seats to bring its total number to 261.
Meanwhile May – having hoped to secure a stronger electoral majority in advance of the forthcoming Brexit negotiations with the European Union – ended up eight seats short of an absolute majority.
But with the support of the ten parliamentarians from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), an ultranationalist party based in Northern Ireland's overwhelmingly Protestant pro-Union community, May commands 329 parliamentary seats – three more than needed for a working coalition government.
Significantly, four parliamentary constituencies in London with a significant Jewish vote may have made all the difference to Corbyn's attempt to block May from forming a government.
The DUP is by far the easiest option available to her, and the one that she presented to Queen Elizabeth on Friday morning during her meeting with the monarch at Buckingham Palace.
Alan Mendoza – Executive Director of The Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank – noted that had Labour captured these four North London seats, May would not have had the choice of forming a government with the DUP. Such an outcome would have been a welcome boost to Corbyn's chances of forming a coalition government with other opposition parties.
"There were massive swings to Labour recorded across North London," Mendoza said. "That is, except for Harrow East, Chipping Barnet, Finchley and Golders Green, and Hendon."
In all these constituencies, Mendoza observed, Labour came close to winning, only to fall at the final hurdle. The strong opposition toward Corbyn among Jewish voters – a May 30 poll conducted by the Jewish Chronicle put support for the Conservatives in the community at 77 percent – played a major part in "stopping a clean Labour sweep across the north part of London," Mendoza said.
The battle in Finchley and Golders Green pitted the serving Conservative MP Mike Freer against Jeremy Newmark, a high profile Jewish community figure who is currently the chair of the Labour Party-affiliated Jewish Labour Movement. After a nail-biting contest, Freer won by a wafer thin 1,500 votes.
"Clearly Labour's problem with antisemitism would have weighed heavily on (Jewish people's) minds," Freer told the Jewish Chronicle afterwards. "In terms of what we're feeling the Jewish community have stuck with me and got us over the line."
In nearby Hend0n, the defeated Labour candidate Mike Katz, who is Jewish, told the Jewish News that "it would be a folly" to ignore the fact that Jewish anxieties about Labour's antisemitism assisted in his defeat.
"I had many conversations with people who said 'I like you, I like Labour's policies, I've no love for the incumbent but can't vote for your party and its leadership because of recent events.' It was a conversation that went beyond the Jewish community," Katz said.
While Labour leaders are hailing a performance that would have been dismissed as a deeply disappointing result in previous elections, the humbling of May's electoral ambitions and the uncertain path she now faces with the Brexit negotiations may yet hand Corbyn another chance to run for the Prime Minister's office. That should encourage the party to examine its attitude to the scandals around antisemitism and support for terrorism that have continually surfaced during Corbyn's two years as Labour's leader, Mendoza said.
"If they are looking at it objectively, Labour's leadership need to take stock, because this issue has hurt them," he remarked.
Britain's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said in a statement that the election demonstrated the dramatic polarization of British society.
"The General Election results make it quite clear that it is not only our political representatives who are sharply divided on what is in the best long term interests of our country, but also that the electorate is similarly divided," Mirvis said.
"As Theresa May seeks to form a new Government, my prayer is that she be blessed with the insight and the wisdom to lead the country with a spirit of understanding and a commitment to the common good," he added.
Source: The Algemeiner


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- Satellite Evolution
Modularity Space and Orbital Transports create reusable space ecosystem
Modularity Space and Orbital Transports announced a partnership to create a reusable ecosystem of suppliers, manufacturers, and rideshare opportunities for payloads. By combining mission planning and supply chain management services provided by Orbital Transports with reusable spacecraft engineering from Modularity Space, the companies can offer affordable opportunities for payloads to get to orbit with a full turn-key mission package. The combined service provides an easy on-ramp to space for payload types ranging from technology demonstration and qualification missions to full constellation-scale deployments. With flights starting in 2022, Modularity Space is mass producing reusable satellites and renting them to space companies for use in hosting their technology. Much like an apartment rental, customers pay a deposit before move-in and then pay monthly throughout the duration of their mission. Space companies can now benefit from rapid manufacturing timelines, affordable financing to get to space, and the reliability that comes from effective on-orbit satellite servicing.
"We're over the Moon to partner with Modularity Space to deliver reusable satellites," said David Hurst, CEO of Orbital Transports. As a space logistics provider, Orbital Transports delivers complete small satellite programs from initial concept through completed mission. Under the agreement with Modularity Space, Orbital Transports will provide mission services, including systems engineering, design, development, payload testing and integration; and supply chain management services including smallsat products and services procurement, delivery schedule monitoring, product quality assessment, regulatory review, and shipping logistics. "If you want to put a payload in space or even deploy instruments in a constellation, there's no longer any reason to build your own satellite. Let us handle the space logistics of getting you there so you can focus on your primary mission objectives." "Our partnership with Orbital Transports signifies a major milestone in the transition to reusable space as we are enabling standardization, automation, and mass production of reusable space systems." stated Scott Weintraub, CEO of Modularity Space. "By partnering with Orbital Transports, leveraging their expertise, and building a constellation of satellites designed to be serviced in space, and then renting the space on each satellite in the constellation, space companies can build an entire constellation of sensors in space, without ever having to build an actual satellite. Combine this with the space tug companies coming online in search of spacecraft to service in space, and together, Modularity Space and Orbital Transports are enabling a reusable space ecosystem to be born." Orbital Transports is bringing the smallsat supply chain online with the SmallSat Catalog, a digital portal showcasing products and services from some of the industry's most innovative and reliable companies. The SmallSat Catalog is a one-stop shop for all your smallsat supply chain needs, and features CubeSat and smallsat buses, COTS nanosatellite hardware components, ground station services, satellite servicing and refueling technologies, development and test equipment, space biotech experiment modules, and more. The SmallSat Catalog provides a convenient go-to resource to check out the latest and greatest that the smallsat industry has to offer.


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Remembering Shimon Peres - Thursday October 20th, 7:30pm
Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue | 100 Elder St, Toronto
Join UJA Federation and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) in honouring and remembering the life of Shimon Peres, z"l, and his special connection to the Toronto Jewish community.
FREE EVENT, everyone is welcome.
If you, or someone you know have photos with Shimon Peres that you would like to be displayed at the event, please send them to email@example.com
*Please note that not all the photos submitted will be used
Participating organizations: Adath Israel Congregation, AJS - Association of Jewish Seniors, ARZA Canada, Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto, Beth David B'Nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue, Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue, Beth Jacob V'Anshe Drildz Congregation, Beth Tikvah Synagogue, Beth Torah Congregation, Beth Tzedec Congregation, Bnei Akiva of Toronto, Canadian Friends of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Canadian Zionist Federation, CJPAC, Congregation Darchei Noam, Consulate General of Israel in Toronto, First Narayever Congregation, Hillel Ontario, Holy Blossom Temple, Jewish National Fund, JSpaceCanada, Neshamah Congregation, Temple Emanu-El, Temple Sinai Congregation of Toronto.


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WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Betsy DeVos watched a transgender girl eat apple sauce and draw and listened to another student's emotional story of feeling marginalized at school, as activists pressed DeVos to make good on her promise to protect all students.
Parents and activists who met with DeVos on Wednesday said they thought she was moved by their stories, but they still left with little hope that she would be a strong advocate for transgender children.
The meeting at the Education Department came two weeks after the Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance that instructed schools to let students use bathrooms in line with their gender, not their assigned sex at birth. The decision was strongly condemned by civil rights groups, who said that it would harm already highly vulnerable students, but it was applauded by conservatives, who said the guidelines violated the safety and privacy of all other students.
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Attending the meeting were Ellie Ford, a 5-year-old transgender girl, and high school student Grace Dolan-Sandrino, who told DeVos the middle school she attended did not let her use the girls' bathroom — as the Obama guidance was not in place then.
DeVos would not commit to any specific actions to help protect students like Grace and Ellie, the parents said. One parent at the meeting said she had lost a transgender child to suicide.
Grace's mother, Karen Dolan, said of the education secretary: "She sat there and listened to our stories through our tears and at times she seemed to appear visibly moved, but she didn't react."
DeVos agreed that there were "thousands and thousands" of transgender students across the country and that children are born that way, according to Dolan, who lives in Washington's Maryland suburbs.
"There is one thing between increasing your understanding and having your heart moved for an hour and then out of her position of power either acting to protect transgender and gender nonconforming children or acting in a way that will make their lives worse," Dolan added. "I haven't seen any concrete action that would give me any reason to be hopeful."
Grace, 16, who now goes to an inclusive high school where she can use the girls' bathroom, said that she told DeVos that her decision to scrap the guidance was "an extremely cruel thing to do." She said that being in an unwelcoming environment dramatically increases a transgender child's chances of developing depression or committing suicide.
"It is not fair for them to grow up with their human rights being denied," Grace said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is beyond bathrooms; this is about our right as transgender people, as humans to exist, to simply exist."
Vanessa Ford, Ellie's mother and a resident of the District of Columbia, said that the Education Department already has an existing document, published on its website, that outlines best practices that some schools have used with regard to transgender students. She urged DeVos to promote the document publicly and urge schools to use it.
Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that she was grateful to DeVos for devoting two hours of her time to the meeting. "I think decision makers should meet the people they are deciding about."
At the same time Keisling said rescinding the bathroom guidance was "extremely harmful" and urged DeVos to take steps to undo the harm and increase protections for transgender children.
DeVos said she was glad to meet with transgender families and hopes to continue the dialogue.
"Every school and every school leader has a moral responsibility to protect all students and ensure every child is respected and can learn in an accepting environment," DeVos said in a statement. "I remain committed to advocating for and fighting on behalf of all students."
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The week ahead for January 27: No Thai election, but maybe a Morsi hearing
A look at what's coming up on the East Coast and around the world.
Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Panarat Thepgumpanat
7:27 a.m. EST, January 24, 2014
BANGKOK (Reuters) – The Constitutional Court of Thailand on Friday opened the way to put off a general election the government had set for February 2, putting pressure on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who looks increasingly cornered by legal challenges to her hold on power.
The election would have joined a State of the Union, a delayed hearing for Mohamed Morsi and two large South American diplomatic events in a week of expected news.
Related links:
State of the Union: Obama aiming his message beyond Congress
Thai court ruling adds to mounting pressure on PM Yingluck
Chile and Peru see end to old differences as Hague verdict nears
Supporters of ousted president clash with security forces in Cairo
The Election Commission in Thailand sought court approval to postpone the Feb 2. vote, arguing that the country was too unsettled by mass anti-government protests in the capital, now in their third month, to hold a successful vote.
Yingluck called the election in the hope of confirming her hold on power in the face of protests trying to force her from office.
"(The ruling) is likely to be seen as part of the build-up to dislodge Yingluck from office, similar to what happened in 2008 but with higher stakes and higher potential for violence and unpredictability," Thitinan Pongsudhirak, political analyst at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, said.
In 2008, courts brought down two governments allied to Yingluck's brother and ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra who now lives in self-imposed exile.
The ruling appears to fudge a decision. It gave the Election Commission the right to postpone the election, but also ruled that the commission would have to agree on a new date with the government.
The government has refused to accept a delay in the vote which it would almost certainly win and which the opposition says it will boycott.
Varathep Rattankorn, a minister at the prime minister's office, said it would study the ruling before deciding its next move.
One election commissioner, speaking to Reuters, said the vote could still go ahead on February 2 if Yingluck's government dug in its heels.
"We will ask to meet with the prime minister and her government on Monday to discuss a new election date," Election Commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn said. "If the government doesn't agree to postpone the election, then the election will go ahead."
The government declared a 60-day state of emergency from Wednesday hoping to prevent an escalation in protests.
A leading pro-government activist was shot and wounded the same day in northeast Thailand, a Yingluck stronghold, in what police said was a political attack, adding to fears the violence could spread.
Nine people have died and dozens been wounded in violence, including two grenade attacks in the capital last weekend.
Anti-government firebrand and protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, accusing the government of mass corruption, wants it to step down and a "people's council" appointed to push through electoral and political changes.
He has yet to comment publicly on the court ruling.
The protests are the latest eruption in a political conflict that has gripped the country for eight years.
Broadly, it pits the Bangkok middle class and royalist establishment against the mainly poorer supporters of Yingluck and her brother, who was toppled by the military in 2006.
Additional editing by Baltimore Sun staff


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"Dazed and Confused" brought us a portrait of teenage camaraderie set in the '70s. "Everybody Wants Some!!" takes this same concept and applies it to a band of friends in their college years.
In an interview with The Daily Californian, director Richard Linklater describes the characters in his latest film — "Last Flag Flying" — as "a pack of guys, trying to do something in the world for better or worse. Often worse."
Linklater's films have a penchant for several easily observable tendencies: narratives centered upon a group of guy buddies, the careful construction of a specific time period and an emphasis on naturalistic dialogue. While "Last Flag Flying" incorporates these elements, what truly sets this film apart from Linklater's typical wheelhouse is its complex musings on the topics of grief and truth.
"Last Flag Flying" follows Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell), a veteran who served in Vietnam. Having recently lost a son in the Iraq War, he takes a journey with his former military comrades Reverend Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne) and Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston) in order to bury his son and hopefully come to terms with his own grief. The film is long, at just over two hours, and the audience truly feels the length of the journey these characters take — in a good way.
The personal toll that Doc suffered is not only articulated through the film's duration, but through its very visual language.
On the subject of cinematography, Linklater remarked that he wanted the film to be visually pessimistic. "I was like, OK, there will be no sunlight in this movie. It's just gonna be rain and kinda gritty — a lot of dark. Just kinda wet, cold, rainy, grey was the color palette."
The settings of dreary industrial landscapes, empty train stations and nighttime-drenched freeways effectively capture Linklater's sentiment. Ironically, the film sets itself close to Christmas, yet, as Linklater articulates, "There is no Christmas for Doc this year."
Indeed, the gloomy environment offers no solace or promise of Yuletide to the audience. Instead, the audience finds comfort in the Linklater-brand comradery between the film's central characters.
The interactions between Carell, Cranston and Fishburne are where the movies truly shines, and Linklater once again proves his mastery over constructing moving and believable dialogue. Linklater describes how the actors each brought a mutual respect and admiration for each other's work to the project: "My job was to just let the movie be what it wanted to be with these three guys. Luckily, they really respected one another. … Each guy was looking forward to working with the other two," Linklater recounted. "Those guys really bonded — it was beautiful to watch."
That it is.
The scenes of the film range in tone from hilarious, drunken exchanges in a cramped train car to a devastating letter read at the film's conclusion. However, what remains the same is the strength of the performances and the friendship that seems to so believably exist between all three characters. Furthermore, these characters get to develop over time through their respective opinions when it comes to the truth.
To fans familiar with Linklater's previous filmography, Cranston's character will be most recognizable. He's critical of authority, comedic and quick to call out lies whenever he sees them. However, as Linklater explains, truth is a blunt instrument, and "Last Flag Flying" argues that sometimes lies are necessary.
"There's a difference between, like, truth and honesty maybe," said Linklater. "Truth can be a greater spiritual thing. Honesty is just, you know, a lie."
"I had a tagline for the movie: 'The lies that bind,' " he laughed.
It is definitely an apt tagline. "Last Flag Flying" is very much an exercise in the the duality of lies — and the way they both tear people apart and bring them together.
A lie serves as a catalyst in a confrontation between the central characters and the mother of their fallen comrade. The emotional stakes are high in this scene, as the characters are forced to make a choice between an appealing lie and a heartbreaking truth. Ultimately, the film doesn't take a firm stance in either direction on the topic of lies, but it leaves the audience to ponder their own feelings throughout the film.
Linklater is similarly ambiguous about his own position on this topic. But he does assert that lies have become a component of everyday life: "It's social lubrication — it's like verbal alcohol. You know, just how we can all kinda get along."
And the characters do get along. Throughout the whole of Linklater's beautifully paced film, his characters grapple with each other as well as with larger complex questions. The film's bittersweet final scene, according to Linklater, was always set in stone, provided that the "film earned that ending."
Although "Last Flag Flying" focuses on the loss of one individual, the film shines because it truly captures human elements of grief and lies. The film firmly centers people at its heart through the camaraderie of the central characters.
Friendship is the light at the end of the tunnel when one is confronted with the gravity of grief — and the audience emerges from the other side of "Last Flag Flying" truly believing that Linklater's ending is earned.


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APO, FPO, DPO Discount — 25% OFF
Send a friend, colleague or loved one serving overseas in the military some Chicaoji to improve their mess hall meals!
25% off orders sent to APO, FPO, AND DPO addresses. The USPS offers reduce Flat Rate shipping to Army Post Office, Fleet Post office, Diplomatic Post Office addresses.
USPS Flat Rate boxes work really well for international orders. A large USPS Flat Rate box can hold up to eight 12 oz bottles.
The cost is $9.00 per bottle plus $20 for shipping. 8 bottle maximum in USPS Flat Rate box.
Order by mail, email, or phone.
Pay with personal check, credit card, or money order. Paypal lets me send you an invoice to pay if that works better for you..
If you don't want to order online, then call us and we'll figure out your order, shipping cost and payment. The goal is to get the sauce to service personnel. As delightful as the mess hall grub might be….a puddle of Chicaoji is likely to make it taste better.
Send your checks payable to:
Waugh Enterprises LLC
PO Box 691
Lopez Island, WA 98261
Email: email@example.com
Phone: 360-468-4372
If you call, PLEASE say your order, address, phone number, and payment info slowly and clearly.
Chicaoji makes good food taste better!
—Randall & Annie


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Scientists Want to Freeze and Pulverize Your Old Computers
E-waste is a growing problem worldwide, but a new method could help take a byte out of the issue
Every year, people toss about 45 million tons of old smart phones, computers and other electronic waste into the trash. Flame retardants, rare earth metals and other dangerous compounds make much of this waste toxic. There are ways to recycle e-waste and reuse parts, but these methods and the regulations that require and enforce such recycling are struggling to keep up with the growing mountain of circuit boards and components. The health and environmental consequences of failing to grapple with e-waste could be dire, warns the United Nations Environment Programme.
But as Daniel Akst reports for The Wall Street Journal, a group of scientists has a possible solution: Take that e-waste, freeze it and smash it into nanoscale pieces.
The solution isn't just viscerally satisfying, but may actually make e-waste recycling easier and more profitable. The benefits might help combat the global trend of waste processors that have been collecting e-waste for a fee and then illegally dumping it.
Scientists from Rice University in Houston, Texas, and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, teamed up to test the new solution. They threw circuit boards ripped out of old optical computer mice into a steel box pumped full of argon gas. A stream of liquid nitrogen directed at the box chilled the enclosed mice down to -182 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, the team shook the box for three hours.
Heating material will melt the components, causing them to combine. Freezing, however, makes it brittle, and with a bit of rattling, the mice fall apart into particles so small they can only be measured on the nanoscale. These minute pieces of dust are made up of singular materials, the researchers report in Materials Today, making it more efficient to recycle. The nano-particulate can be separated by methods currently used in waste recycling, including submerging in water to let denser materials sink and using magnetism.
By conventional pulverizing, larger pieces of e-waste that are mixes of different materials commonly remain. Other methods sometimes rely on chemicals or heat, Chandra Sekhar Tiwary, one of the scientists, tells The Wall Street Journal. "Burning or using chemicals takes a lot of energy while still leaving waste."
If the method can be scaled up, it would be addressing a big problem.
Although e-waste accounts for just two percent of landfill volume, it contributes 70 percent of the toxic waste filling them, reports Alexandra Ossola of Popular Science. "Electronics really contain so much energy and toxic materials in them that it's imperative that we don't throw them in the trash," Christine Datz-Romero tells Popular Science. "You're trashing our environment in a significant way."


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Woman Crashes Ferrari Minutes After Renting It [VIDEO]
Bless her heart.
Watch as a woman crashes a Ferrari just minutes after renting it.
The woman in China reportedly rented the $600,000 car and after admitting it was just her first time driving a Ferrari she DESTROYED IT after losing control of the car!
Fortunately, no one was injured in this crash. As for her deposit, I'm sure she didn't get it back!