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Can I Raise Pigs?23 Jul 2009, by post in Things to ponder before you get a pig, by Brian Wright. This is a question we get all the time from people considering whether to raise their own pork. It is natural to think that raising pigs is hard, or that it takes a special building or constant care. The truth is that pigs are one of the easiest farm animals to raise; if you let them, they will take care of themselves. The best environment for pigs is a piece of pasture and woods large enough so they have an area to eat, drink and wallow, area to sleep and area to poop with good barriers to keep the pig in and predators out. Feed: Pigs need a balanced diet just like all animals. You can buy commercial pig feed that contains all the right proteins, fats, carbohydrates and minerals for around $8.00 per 50 lb bag (as of this writing). What many people don’t realize is that you can cut down on the cost and provide a healthier diet by letting pigs eat natural food that grows on your property. What is a pig’s natural diet? Pigs are omnivorous, meaning they eat both plant and animal matter. They are very opportunistic feeders and much of their diet is based on seasonal availability. Foods include grasses, weeds, forbs, roots and tubers, browse, mast (acorns), fruits, bulbs and mushrooms. Animal matter includes invertebrates (insects, snails, earthworms, etc.), reptiles, amphibians, and eggs. They are especially fond of domestic crops such as corn, milo, rice, wheat, soybeans, peanuts, potatoes, watermelons and cantaloupe, so they will eat just about anything from your garden or your kitchen. Pigs also need minerals and they get those from the dirt they eat. If you let them, your pigs will happily feed themselves off the land. This is one of the reasons we raise pigs on pasture; all the grass and browse is free feed and it is good for them! You may still need to supplement their diet by giving them prepared feed but allowing them access to pasture can significantly reduce the amount of prepared feed needed. One of the common mistakes that some people make is to think they can just feed cheap corn to their pigs. Pigs will grow fast on corn and this deludes some people into thinking they are getting big pigs fast. The problem is that pigs fed only on corn really are just getting fat. Corn only contains 9 percent protein and 70 percent starch (that’s why corn is used to make sugar and sweeteners). All of the extra starch in the pig’s diet is stored as fat, especially for confined pigs that don’t get adequate exercise. All that extra fat grows around the pig’s internal organs leading to all kinds of health problems. Pigs need a balanced diet just like every animal. They need about 12 to 16 percent protein with the rest of their diet consisting of carbohydrates, fiber, minerals and amino acids. Most feed stores sell good pig feed that works as a feed supplement if they also have other, natural food. Corn does work well as a treat since it is so sweet. You can use it to keep the pig preoccupied while you clean its pen or do other maintenance chores. Soak the corn in water first to make it soft and easier to digest or use cracked corn. Water: Obviously pigs need clean water to drink but many people don’t know that a pig also needs water to control it’s body temperature. Pigs don’t sweat like you and I; we sweat to cool off as the sweat evaporates. Since pigs can’t do that they have to cool off in other ways. Shade and a cool breeze helps, but the best way to keep your pigs cool is to give them a place in which to bathe when they get hot. If you let some water trickle from their water bowl, the pigs will happily turn the muddy dirt into their own mud puddle (wallow). Not only will the wallow cool them off, but the mud that adheres to their skin will shield them from the sun and keep parasites (flies and lice) from hanging around. A muddy pig is a happy pig! We provide showers for our pigs; you can also just hose them down when it’s hot. Shelter: In the daytime your pigs may just lay down and sleep anywhere but at night they prefer a quiet place to bed down. Any suitable shelter will be fine; we use old dog houses from a local dog rescue, “Port-A-Huts” that we found on Craigslist and we make hoop houses from cattle panels and tarps. Our pigs also have favorite places in the woods. These shelters double as shade in the day where they can get away from the sun and warm places in the winter. Bathroom: Yeah, I know, when you think of pigs you think of nasty, smelly pig pens. Unfortunately this is the way many people raise pigs, letting them live in their own filth. The truth is that pigs are very clean animals, in their own way. If given the room, a pig will choose a corner to use as its bathroom, far away from where it eats, wallows and sleeps. Again, pasture is the best environment because the breeze helps keep the odor down and all manner of little critters help decompose the waste. If you have to raise your pigs in a barn or other enclosure, you must be the critter to remove the waste… The problem is if you give them total freedom, they will eat your and your neighbor’s flower bed, rototill your lawn, sleep on your front porch, poop in your garage and, perhaps worse of all, be chased by and killed by your neighbor’s dog. You must limit their freedom to keep their natural behaviors from becoming a nuisance and keep the pigs safe from predators. There are many ways to do that; from building strong walls or fences to making natural barriers such as thick hedges or moats. We keep our pigs within large paddocks made of wire fencing and electric wire. Cattle panels are great for keeping large pigs controlled; pigs quickly learn to stay away from electric fencing but any barrier must be modified so that the pig can’t go under or over it. Wire fences must be on or slightly buried under the ground and you must quickly fix any area where the pig has tried to burrow under it. Electric fencing, whether tight wire or loose polywire, must have gaps no larger than six inches from the ground and between the first two or three strands. The advantage of electric fencing is that you can move it to give your pigs access to new pasture or rotate them between paddocks of pasture. Although we don’t recommend it sometimes all you have is a barn or old shed in which to raise your pig. This will work IF it gives them the needed space for all their natural behaviors. In a barn you will need to keep their bedding fresh by using hay or other dry bedding as needed. You will also need to ensure there is adequate ventilation to keep the air healthy and neither too hot nor too cold. If the floor isn’t dirt you will need to provide a feed that contains minerals, a mineral block or dirt such as that which adheres to plant roots that you feed them. You will also need to give any babies an iron shot to prevent them from becoming anemic due to lack of iron (piglets raised on dirt get their iron from it naturally). Remember to provide them with natural food (grass, hay, vegetables, etc.) daily. So, given that healthy pigs need good food, adequate areas in which to eat, sleep, cool off and poop, and barriers to protect them and the rest of your property, look at what you have before you decide to get a pig. Remember, you are going to either eat the pig, let it raise healthy babies, or just have a pet. Give it what it needs to live a good life and it will happily, and easily, return the favor! - by Brian Wright Copyright © 2010 Homegrown Acres. Used with permission.

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Guest post by Amelia “Amy” MacIntyre, Health Research & Policy Analyst, North American Management The uninsured, the underinsured and those living in underserved communities in which health care services are scarce are the segments of the U.S. population that are disproportionately affected by cervical cancer. These populations include women in rural areas, the elderly, those with less formal education, and women of color. For example, the mortality rate for African-American and Vietnamese women continues to be twice as high as for white women – and about 50 percent higher for Latinas. Meanwhile, in rural communities, uninsured white women have some of the poorest access to routine screening of any patient population. Thus, cervical cancer incidence rates vividly demonstrate inequities in our health care systems and outcomes. Community health centers supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) address this disparity by providing preventive health services – including Pap tests and HPV vaccinations – to any woman, regardless of insurance status and/or ability to pay. As such, health centers play a vital role in redressing health disparities and delivering care to groups excluded in the health care system, such as immigrants. For example, in 2010, more than 11 million patients served in community health centers were women and girls, or 6 out of every 10 patients. Of that population, 69% were women over 20 – comprising the largest single patient-category in the system. In addition to HPV vaccines, health centers administered Pap tests to about 1.8 million women, resulting in 120,167 abnormal cervical findings. Of the 9,592 attending physicians in health centers, almost 1 in 10 was an OB-GYN specialist, accounting for more than 3 million patient visits-or 9% of the 34 million visits to health centers annually. The passage of the Affordable Care Act will allow community health centers to make an even greater impact on access to preventive health services. Under the Affordable Care Act, cervical cancer screenings are already covered with no cost sharing for new health plans. Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act created the Community Health Center fund which will provide $11 billion over a five-year period to assist in the expansion, improvement and creation of new health centers throughout the country. In September 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made $700 million in funds available to health centers: $600 million for current community health centers to expand operations and serve more patients and $100 million to help health centers address immediate needs. And in August 2011, HHS awarded nearly $30 million to create the New Access Points program, which will help health centers delivery primary and preventive care to an additional 286,000 patients. Community health centers are poised to play a large role in increasing access to preventive and primary health care. Other provisions of the Affordable Care Act, including no-cost sharing for preventive services under private health insurance plans and non-discrimination protection for women with pre-existing conditions, also serve to bring down barriers to health care for women. Additionally, while greater research is needed, a recent study at the National Cancer Institute suggests that the HPV vaccine seemed to be about as effective whether women had 1, 2, or 3 doses; a development which may increase access to the HPV vaccine for women who seek it. With the nation spending over $1.4 billion a year on cervical cancer treatment, these basic preventive services not only provide crucial access to care to the most vulnerable of populations, but also serve to reduce health care costs overall by emphasizing prevention and reducing the need for costly disease treatment and emergency room costs. To find a HRSA health center near you or to download the free health center app, click here.

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||General Francisco Villa (1877-1923) was the famous and well loved rebel general of the Mexican Revolution who invaded US territory and led American soldiers on a wild goose chase all over the harsh Mexican countryside for months. Along with Emiliano Zapata and Francisco I. Madero, Villa led peasant armies to a swift victory over the corrupt and repressive regime of the aging dictator, Porfirio Diaz. Unfortunately, he was assasinated in 1923. Today Villa is remembered with pride by most Mexicans for having led the most important military campaigns of the constitutionalist revolution, in which his troops were victorious as far south as Zacatecas and Mexico City, east as far as Tampico, and west as far as Casas Grandes. Because of Villa's Columbus escapade and subsequent evasion of U.S. troops, he is also often cited as the only foreign military personage ever to have "successfully" invaded continental U.S. territory.

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Their family legend is that John Wilkes Booth survived and lived for many more years. Using modern DNA testing, the family was hoping to compare the remains of Edwin Booth (John's brother) with those believed to be John Wilkes Booth to definitively conclude that it was indeed John that was killed. As it turns out, their efforts have been thwarted. The family had hoped to obtain access to three vertebrae that reside in the collection of the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., which is managed by the U.S. Army Medical Command but the Army rejected their request. The fear of degrading the 150-year-old specimens was just to great for the museum. From the beginning of Booth's killing the identity of the body found in the barn has been in question. It looks like it will remain so for the foreseeable future. To read a full article about the John Wilkes Booth DNA saga, click here.

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This chapter provides a historical overview of the American influence on Israel’s jurisprudence of freedom of expression from the 1950s to the first decade of the twenty first century. The chapter uses the format of decades, presenting representative cases for each decade, to record the process by which Israeli judges incorporated and sometimes rejected themes from the U.S. jurisprudence of freedom of expression. In the course of discussing the jurisprudential themes the chapter also highlights the historical context in which the cases were decided, from the war in Korea and McCarthyism in the 1950s, to the process of globalization which dominated the first decade of the twenty first century. The chapter asserts that over the decades the Israeli understanding of freedom of expression has matured so that today the appearance of U.S. law is invoked primarily for rhetorical purposes. In contrast to the 1950s, contemporary Israeli courts have enough authentic jurisprudence to guide them in their decisional law. Saturday, November 6, 2010 Lahav on American Influence on Israeli Law: Freedom of Expression American Influence on Israeli Law: Freedom of Expression is a new essay by Pnina Lahav, Boston University - School of Law. It is forthcoming in THE U.S. AND ISRAEL: SIX DECADES OF RELATIONS, Robert O. Freedman, ed. (Westview Press, 2011). Only the abstract is posted:

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The fact that our memories degrade over time is nothing new. Everyone knows that as we get older it's harder to remember where you put your keys or parked your car. Now, one neuroscientist thinks he understands how it happens. According to Michael Yassa, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University, the reason things get tougher to remember as we get older is because the pathways leading to the hippocampus degrade over the years. Since the hippocampus is where memories are stored, it makes sense that with age our brains just find it more and more difficult to process information we receive into things we remember. In essence, it's not that our brains are "filling up" with information; it's just that our brains get less effective at writing and storing that information as we get older. It's the reason, according to Yassa, why we're so nostalgic as we get older: it's just easier to look back on memories our brains have already stored than to create new ones that are just as vivid. At the same time, Yassa's research doesn't suggest how we can fix the process; only that the research could be useful in treating Alzheimer's in the future. That doesn't mean you have to sit back and let the process happen though. Try building a memory palace to improve your memory, or take a look at our top 10 memory hacks for some tips to stay sharp through the years. What are some of your favorite ways to keep your memory sharp? Share your tips in the comments. Photo by Sue Clark. As Time Goes By, It gets Tougher to "Just Remember This" | Medical Xpress via Neatorama You can follow Alan Henry, the author of this post, on Twitter.

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After my visit in April of 2013 to Gagosian Gallery to see the Basquiat show, I was inspired to publish a project I have been working on since Summer of 2012. The artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is widely known for structuring his drawings using diagrams, text and symbols— in addition to color and line—to shape his work. Many examples reveal the hieroglyphics and ideology of an ancient African symbol called a cosmogram, but so few historians have related his work to African iconography that the cosmogram is not mentioned. The revived emphasis on African heritage, which emerged during the Harlem Renaissance in the early twentieth century, has continued to be a thematic focus for many black American artists, but in elizabeth warren hearings case specific references are not often deeply examined. He offers, however, a rich example of how this ancient West African emblem bridges modern expression and ancestral heritage through line and form. Black Atlantic (Gilroy 4) artwork as early as the days of slavery has offered dramatic visceral narratives centered on white oppression; Basquiat’s work is an important contribution to that legacy, and offers particular relevance to the cosmogram. A number of visual devices have been widely explored by art historians and anthropologists alike, who collaborate in their study of African imagery and motifs to identify similarities. And in Basquiat’s work we can certainly see references to many West African continuities, as well as the interdisciplinary use of language and visual metaphor, intriguing scholars and critics. But the relevance to the cosmogram in particular seems to be missing from the discussion, and will therefore be the focus of this work. Basquiat is considered a Neo-Expressionist, part of an early 1980s art movement which reacted against the highly intellectualized and abstract conceptualism of the previous decade, and focused more deliberately on subjectivity and feeling. As a Neo-Expressionist, he was commonly known as a founding member of the “Downtown” art scene in New York, closing the space between “high art” and mass culture. He experimented with music and graffiti art, painting and drawing obsessively on a variety of canvases and artifacts including, for a time, subway walls. In his work he featured symbols and letters to create a narrative, often a heroic one. This distinguishing characteristic of his work fits the Neo-Expressionist model, in its raw and concrete figurative treatment, rather than abstractions. Some scholars have noted in Basquiat’s work visual quotations from African imagery, but my investigation will make the connection to this one particular symbol, the cosmogram that deeply informs the message of the work through hieroglyphic language and ideology. Considered a sacred sign to make sense of the world, a cosmogram maps the continuity of life through lines, arrows and circles—and most importantly implies movement or change, from one state to another. Basquiat’s paintings and drawings indicate similar transcendence to another realm, through conflict and action. “Transcendence” is not to be interpreted as the traditional Judeo-Christian spiritual model of mind over body. Rather, the word represents an embodied transition to another realm, bridging a physical gap with body over mind; an action taken. A common African thematic metaphor in music, dance and visual art, this sort of transcendence is integral to the cosmogram’s matrix, which describes movement, physical as well as spiritual (Aesthetic of the Cool 16). The visual elements in Basquiat’s work are placed in opposition—clashing, intersecting, or simply abutting each other—in a mediatory construct implying reconciliation at an intersection of some kind. Represented by crosses, plus signs, or even text, constant juxtapositions raise questions about where these elements meet and where they seem to be going. An avid reader, he incorporated content from science, music, sports, cartoons, and social history, linking them together in unexpected ways to enhance their meanings. We have the opportunity to see the trajectory of these elements moving around the canvas, rather like solving a math equation or following a musical chart. The cosmogram appears frequently in his schema. Having an interest in African symbols, Basquiat makes cosmograms part of his visual lexicon, from his days of spray-painting graffiti on urban surfaces to later incorporating them into his paintings. A cosmogram has four points that represent birth, mid life, death, and afterlife or rebirth, according to Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson, whose book Flash of the Spirit was a favorite of Basquiat’s. Cosmograms allow communication with the spirit world. Opposites and crossroads, clear themes in cosmograms, are often scribbled black X’s or crosses, the likenesses of which frequently appear in Basquiat’s paintings. These African crosses suggest both a polarity of existence, a transliminality between the material world and the spiritual plane, as well as a locus between disparate entities. This intersection can simply be a meeting, a reckoning, or sometimes an action-packed punch, complete with arrows and vectors to show us the way, like those in Basquiat’s work. As simple as a circle with a cross inside it, or a complex construction of arrows, circles and triangles, cosmograms show how polarity is inherent in the continually moving cycle of life, a highly ordered, a template by which a person can chart the nature of his own existence. Basquiat’s work, which centers on racial conflict, social injustice and misappropriation of wealth, often features colorful contrasts and aggressive compositional thrusts to different parts of the canvas, pushing rather than guiding the viewer’s eye through his map as well. His work is ripe with paradoxes, angry themes painted in joyful, child-like colors and figures. I will demonstrate that opposition and polarity are themes embedded in the artists’ work, and visceral physicality is expressed through the movement of color, shape and line sometimes quietly but more often aggressively. Movement is a from of agency that appears in the cosmogram’s diagrammatic mapping, therefore action and migration will serve as another lens through which Basquait’s work will be explored. The cycle of life and its trajectory are charted in the cosmogram, a map Basquiat appears to borrow frequently. Thirdly, transliminality and transcendence, crossing thresholds of existence or a change from one state to another, will prove to be a familiar thread in his compositions, as it is in the cosmogram. In some of Basquiat’s paintings, the cosmogram is clearly delineated, in others more subtly suggested. Via formal analysis of the construction and conceptual meaning of the examples discussed, the significance of the African cosmogram will become clear and one painting may very well demonstrate all three aspects. An important aspect of the cosmogram is redemption and healing, how it illuminates alternate ways of handling human suffering, even by fighting as a way of bettering oneself and others (Fu-Kiau 124). In my analysis of Basquiat’s work, with the cosmogram in mind as a framework, I will demonstrate that opposition is not viewed as a negative notion, but rather an occasion for deep power or knowing. The point of intersection is the magic locus where outcomes can change. My investigation will prove an important distinction, often suggesting conflict as positive in the message of Basquiat, a way to lead elsewhere. The shapes and colors are not merely formal choices, but clear constructs for coping with conflict, embracing it. I will point out the points of engagement between disparate entities and how they relate to the cosmogram’s graphic devices. In the chosen examples of paintings or sculptures, these intersections can be seen as otherworldly, like the cosmogram’s, and particularly charged with an opportunity for transformation. In conclusion, I will consider how Basquiat has informed other black American artists after him with regard to the notion of the cosmogram. I suspect my hypothesis will prove that artists, such as Renée Stout, Jim Biggers, and Keith Piper who have expanded on similar themes but approached them from an entirely different vantage point, will demonstrate how Basquiat blazed a trail for them to further travel. Definition of Terms “Bakongo”: A tribe in West Central Africa so named by Portuguese colonists in the fifteenth century. In time, slave traders loosely called Bakongo any person brought from west Central Africa to America, and the territory they inhabited widened from what could be considered Nigeria to Angola today. “Black Atlantic”: A culture not specifically African, American, Caribbean or British, but all at once a cultural hybrid. Paul Gilroy, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Yale University originally coined this term in 1993, when he wrote The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. (Gilroy v) “Cosmogram”: Originating with the Bakongo tribe of central West Africa, cosmograms are sacred cruciforms, ground drawings or etched stones which often hold two opposing parts simultaneously, with arrows indicating movement or action. They indicate communication between two worlds, the ancestors and the living, and represent the continuity of life. Wyatt MacGaffrey, a Kongo civilization scholar, describes the cosmogram as follows: “The simplest ritual space is a Greek cross [+] marked on the ground, as for oath-taking. One line represents the boundary; the other is ambivalently both the path leading across the boundary, as to the cemetery; and the vertical path of power linking ‘the above’ with “the below.” This relationship, in turn, is polyvalent, since it refers to God and man, God and the dead, and the living and the dead. The person taking the oath stands upon the cross, situating himself between life and death, and invokes the judgment of God and the dead upon himself. (The Four Moments of the Sun 108). A major reason for the cosmogram is to provide a locus for communication, particularly with the unseen or the spirit word. The intersection of lines, or even shapes, can be seen as creating opportunity in the face of opposition. “Double-Consciousness”: from The Souls of Black Folk, a term coined in 1903 by W. E. B. Du Bois, the sociologist, historian and Pan-Africanist, which describes a split subjectivity and race-consciousness that Du Bois felt was seminal to being an African-American, a sense of existing within and outside predominant culture (Leninger-Miller xv-xvi). Double consciousness, as Paul Gilroy claims, is one of the defining characteristics of modern Black Atlantic expressive culture. “Neo-Expressionism”: An art movement that emerged in the early 1980s. Neo-Expressionism comprised a collection of predominantly young artists, interested in rejecting the highly intellectualized abstract expressionism of the 1970s. It was a reaction against Conceptual art and Minimalism. A reassertion of emotionalism and narrative, combined with references to art historical references, became hallmarks of Neo-Expressionism internationally as well as in the States. For the context of this thesis, the reference to Neo-Expressionism will be in the context of the New York community, otherwise known as the “Downtown Scene.” Recognizable figures and objects, and a concern with mythology and narrative, were elements that distinguished Neo-expressionists from earlier abstractionism. The movement was characterized by intense subjectivity and “aggressively raw handling of materials,” and was also known for its connection to marketing and media promotion on the part of gallery owners (Chilvers 497). “Transliminality”: Literally meaning “crossing the threshold,” this term will mean bridging two planes of existence, say, from the spiritual to the material plane. The word will not refer to the clinical term used by Australian psychologist Michael Thalbourne to describe a psychological perceptual-personality construct that examines the barrier mechanism between subliminal and supraliminal parts of the brain. (Thalbourne 1617) Transliminality here will be referred to in its general context throughout. “Transcendence”: Moving from one state to another. Used in the colloquial sense to mean an ability to rise above one experience to reach another simultaneously. Dr. Thompson writes that in African culture, the sense keeping one’s “cool,” is a form of “trasnscendental balance,” a coping means for survival or moving to a “different level of aspiration” (Aesthetics of Cool 16) “Vodun”: The spiritual practice rooted in West Africa which migrated to North America during the slave trade and especially after 1791, when the Haitian Revolution brought hundreds of retreating Free People of Color to New Orleans from their war-torn country, nearly doubling the city’s population (Fandrich 39), two thirds of whom were black or colored (Stewart 185). Extending the boundaries of West African influence, many Haitians were from Dahomean or Yoruban tribes, bringing with them the practice of Vodun. Combined with indigenous Native American and Christian customs (Holloway 114), this unparalleled syncretic opportunity has since deeply influenced black American culture. “Papa, do you know about energy? There’s energy all around us. When I move my hand I create energy. There’s energy everywhere, Papa.” —Jean-Michel Basquiat to his father Gerard, at age 6 Basquiat had an aura about him. Critics came to refer to him as the “radiant child” (Ricard 35) and even at an early age his father Gerard described his son as curious with “an amazing, amazing mind,” able to understand things abstractly and conceptually, making connections constantly (Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981 90). Always drawing and listening to music—from jazz to classical— he was naturally curious and inquisitive. Basquiat’s work was bright, irreverent, and densely structured with information, creating a spontaneous and aggressive energy on his canvas. He connected ideas with signs, words with pictures and color with feeling, and often invited his viewer to approach his work from many disciplines. Noted for its symbols— graphical simplified objects—the hieroglyphics are linear in nature and almost child-like in their rendering. These symbols communicate a subjective language, which although open to interpretation, expresses for the viewer a narrative or even a complex question to ponder. In ArtNews, Lisa Liebman commented in 198 that “the linear quality of his phrases and notations, whether graffiti or art, shows innate subtlety…Basquiat’s mock-ominous figures—apemen, skulls, predatory animals, stick figures—look incorporeal because of the fleetness of their execution, and in their cryptic half-presence they seem to take on Shaman-like characteristics” (qt. in Hoban 110). Basquiat was quite informed of his African roots. He was well-read, had an extensive reference library of West African imagery, and traveled to the Ivory Coast. The “mock-ominous” figures would more likely be primordial and geometric symbols, his toolbox to create his own scientific hierarchy. His expressive “primitivism” and editorials on racism and materialism became talking points among reviewers, but often the symbols and devices were mentioned without much analysis. Reviewers seemed seduced by the artist rather than by the art—a tendency to critique who he was, rather than what he made. Challenging his “blackness,” his talent, or his intentions, critics continually penalized him for being a marketing phenomenon. As Keith Haring noted, “The hype of the art world of the early eighties became a constant blur. There was very little criticism of the works themselves. Rather, the talk was about the circumstances around the success of the work” (Haring 57). The ballyhoo around Basquiat’s short-lived career began with his irreverent graffiti art under the alter ego SAMO© and resulted in his first show in 1981 at New York’s PS1. Accompanied by subsequent rave reviews and critiques, he appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in 1985, for the article “New Art, New Money,” (McGuigan). His career spanned seven years and was labeled as “heady enough to confound academics and hip enough to capture the attention span of the hip-hop nation” (Tate 56). After his death in 1988, tones shifted to retrospective examinations of his unearned success, and the commodification of his Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage rather than his talent (Hughes), and how his rise to fame was either unearned or tainted by his relationship to Andy Warhol, another controversial artist famous for being famous. Basquiat suffered similar barbs as Warhol, by critics like Adam Gopnik who claimed he was simply a clichéd “wildchild” rehashing the “primitivism” from 1910 Paris (Gopnik 138). Basquiat’s first gallery patron Mary Boone said “he was too externalized; he didn’t have a strong enough internal life” (Gopnik 139), implying that he showed little substance to support his content. Twenty-five years later, however, Basquiat’s commentary on the racist mainstream media still commands attention, and appears to be substantial enough to continue the discussion. Some feel that SAMO© was his “escape clause” (Rodrigues 228), a way to take advantage of the art world and to simultaneously snub it, using a copyright symbol as a commentary on ownership. It is true that Basquiat made a lot of paintings, somewhere in the thousands, and the bad boy of the Downtown scene enjoyed his monetary success. Yet, rather than speculation about Basquiat’s motives or his “blackness” or talent, the specific form of the work deserves pure formal analysis. Only a handful of people have attempted to do this, calling the work too random or too easily manufactured. However, some art critics like Richard Marshall carefully and elegantly framed Basquiat’s work in motifs, a tempting way to understand the large body of work, noting categories of anatomy, heroes, cartoons, royalty and famous people, or autobiography. Over-arching themes of racism, capitalism and death provide another superstructure for the work, which invited me to look at various elements as they relate to the schema of a cosmogram. But as Lisa Bloom notes, “despite attempts by Marshall and others, Basquiat’s paintings were mostly seen by art dealers and art critics as about a poor American minority living on the street” (Bloom 34). She further describes the controversy over Basquiat position in the canon of Neo-Expressionism— as a debate between strategic essentialism, how race informs and elevates the work, or Eunice Lipton’s “artist-genius” explanation for Basquiat’s entrée to insider status of the art scene (Bloom 37) or his ability to bring the street to a higher aesthetic, making paintings “unrepentantly about American culture” and risking criticism by the “strain of Europhilia” that assumed anyone making art from the plain stuff of America was a “dilettante-hick” (Tate 241). For decades Basquiat has inspired speculation about his success, as well as his demise, which apparently cannot be separated by most critics from the work itself. But I would argue it is exactly this intersection of street and gallery, high and low culture, or black and white that makes the reference to the cosmogram so poignant. While many observations have been made about Basquiat’s paintings and his anguish about class and money, or his black heritage, few scholars have written about how the actual form of his work relates to any specific ancient African imagery. Bell Hooks has stated plainly, “Rarely does anyone connect Basquiat’s work to traditions of African-American art history” (Hooks 36) As exceptions, it would be important to mention Andrea Frohne, who explores icons of masculinity in his work as it relates to African rock drawing and ancient mythology. Robert Farris Thompson links Basquiat’s fascination with black music, poetry and “words from dual realms, hip and straight, black and white” to his “courage and full powers of self-transformation” (Aesthetic of the Cool 85) Thompson interprets his “source of power as self-creolization,” how he “juggled Afro-Atlantic motifs” (Aesthetic of the Cool 88) with a bold palette and a curious mind, remaining open to the influences of all the cultures around him. Basquiat was by all accounts cool and, as Thompson explains, the presentation of cool is particularly West African, a way of keeping one’s head above any challenging situation (Aesthetic of the Cool 16). By exploring this particular notion of transcendence and inhabiting dual realms, a sense of living on the edge of two planes, invited a more careful look at the cosmogram and how the ancient symbol is revealed in his work. This important matrix inspired my deeper look at some of Basquiat’s markings and by what larger system they may have been inspired. Historical context is important to a discussion of the cultural narrative in the work of Basquiat. His paintings speak to a visual and spiritual connection to his Haitian and Puerto Rican roots, using the power of polarity and opposition evident in Vodun imagery. The West African diaspora, resulting from slave trade to the European colonies from the 16th to the 19th centuries, imported many traditions and customs to Black Atlantic communities, whether in Brazil, the Caribbean, or the American South. Distinct visual representations in artwork, clothing, music, dance, as well as altars and other artifacts of worship, can be traced to the ritual imagery of Dahomean and Yoruban tribes in West Africa and tribes of the Kongo, the ancestry of Basquiat. As the influence of Vodun spread northward, vestiges of its cultural imagery, including symbols of the cosmogram, has been a familiar motif for Basquiat’s work. I have found research uncovered about the cosmogram and corroborating analyses among highly respected scholars in the field of art history and anthropology about its use of mathematics and movement to communicate transcendence, polarity and movement. I am fortunate to have discovered, as I was investigating the relationship between Basquiat and the cosomogram, that not only had Basquiat read one of my primary sources, Flash of the Spirit, he is quoted as claiming its importance for any serious black American artist. In my initial research, this was a welcome and encouraging coincidence. Cosmograms and Basquiat: A Crossover Intersecting lines or crossroads have been recognized within West African tribes for centuries as an ideographic spiritual symbol known as dikenga. As pointed out by Wyatt MacGaffrey, an expert on the Lower Kongo, and African American art historian Robert Farris Thompson, the cosmogram represents not only the four directions, similar to Buddhist mandalas or Celtic pagan symbols, but it also maps out a distinctly different message of growth and dynamism. Where mandalas represent balance, holding different points simultaneously in a calm stasis, cosmograms differ by charting action over time and space, sometimes even described by mathematics. This visual agency summarizes a broad sampling of key ideas and metaphoric meanings of West African and Kongo culture, which Thompson has written about extensively, and which appear in the work of Basquiat. Ethnohistorical sources confirm that this symbol existed in Kongo culture before European contact in the late 15th century (Fennell 31). It diagrams the practice and belief that there are several planes of existence: The earth is a mountain “over a body of water which is the land of the dead, called Mpemba…where the sun rises and sets just as it does in the land of the living…the water is both a passage and a great barrier. The world, in Kongo thought, is like two mountains opposed at their bases and separated by the ocean. At the rising and setting of the sun the living and the dead exchange day and night. The setting of the sun signifies man’s death and its rising, his rebirth, or the continuity of his life. Bakongo believe and hold it true that man’s life has no end, that it constitutes a cycle, and death is merely a transition in the process of change” (Janzen 34). African cosmograms can be fashioned from elements in nature, such as in the form of two crossed sticks in the woods or the intersection of two roads, implying the intersection of two realms. Basquiat used this ancient practice of employing found objects in his own work, painting and drawing on any surface he could find, from brick walls, to concrete, or even a refrigerator door, pulling the street into his practice of making art. In Sub-Saharan African culture cosmograms were carefully drawn in dirt, or painted on the side of a wall or etched into stone, much like current-day graffiti and often represented a specific point of access to spirits of the underworld or the gods. As the African scholar Fu-Kiau explains, if seen literally as “x” and “y” axes (Fig. 1) a vertical axis exists at their intersection, which provides a conduit to the underworld or to the gods above. Comprised of intersecting vertical and horizontal lines set within a circle, variations may include further intersections or arrows suggesting movement and direction. It might show circles at the end of the intersecting lines to represent the apex of a person’s earthly life opposed to his spiritual plane, and the moving sun, rising and setting throughout his life (Fu-Kiau 25-32). The particularities of this symbol suggest a narrative or three-dimensional blueprint for existence, as Christopher Fennell explores in Crossroads and Cosmologies, where he supports the notion that the persistent appearance of these patterns over time in West African culture can be interpreted with associated meanings. As a sort of hieroglyphic to explain life’s story, these symbols have been evident in West African and Kongo tribes for centuries and have been elaborated upon, showing more complex intricate patterns or simplified into abbreviated X’s, or even V’s implying an arc of travel or motion. (Fig. 2). “The ‘Vee’ teaches with all simplicity the formation process of the universe” (Fu Kiau 132). Built on an infrastructure using polarity symbols to suggest movement, and opposition, conflict becomes a positive and necessary phenomenon—a colorful, dynamic opportunity for change or healing. Thompson supports this construct by linking African structures to a variety of contemporary black art forms, which include not only visual ones but also music and dance— built on confrontation and resolution. The most important part is the point of intersection, the clash, the butting up against or crossing over. These “signs of reappropriation” are the imaged polemics or intersections—present and past, mundane and spiritual, love and hate, or masculine and feminine. The opposites enhance the strength in each. Pairings like these are the alphabet of Basquiat. Other forms of Basquiat’s vocabulary will be explored with reference to cosmograms, such as in the complex Carribean cosmogram (Fig. 3) and Untitled (Fig. 4). The hierarchical information displayed in both the Trinidadian diagram and his letters and numbers reflect a compositional similarity, within a set of intersecting triangles making a star shape, a motif seen in a variety sacred practices. Codifying content in Basquiat’s work is a relevant reference to the cosmogram, and requires deliberate engagement with the viewer. He often crossed words out, emphasizing them by hiding them, which further created mystique. Using the copyright symbol after his name SAMO© or his ubiquitous crown signature was another form of imposing a new identity or value to his subjects. More discussion will be devoted to Basquiat’s fascination with letters and numbers, such as the letter A and what it represents in his paintings, and how it is used as a structural device. The letter becomes the subject, as in Cadillac Moon, 1981 (Fig. 5), where the letter A is repeated over and over, creating its own shape. The letter is thought to refer to the double A’s in Hank Aaron’s name, a theme he returns to repeatedly in his work, elevating the names of black heroes and athletes to iconographic status. Hank Aaron was one among many of his inspirations, struggling within the constraint of a white world. In Cadillac Moon, we also see a crossroads, with a cartoonish stack of T.V. sets on the right hand side of the work. Two cars areindicated, one at the top and the one at the bottom, dismantled from its chassis, most likely referring to a life-changing car accident resulting in a bedridden recovery from losing his spleen. The ambulance is apparent in Untitled, 1981 (Fig. 6) as well, with an array of A’s creating patterns with O’s of the wheels. The hammer and nails suggests another kind of collision and the planes are flying in two different levels of the sky. Often in Basquiat’s earlier drawings, we see a double plane or a car, one on top of the other as we see here in these two drawings of planes and cars, depicting two realms simultaneously occupied. The cannon and hammer both suggest an explosion, the breaking of a sound barrier perhaps. Dismantlement and anatomy recur time and again in his work along with the theme of collision, whether with cars, fistfights, or boxers, and indicate a kind of transformation through clashing. Again, the point of intersection is the point of change in the cosmogram and so it is in Basquiat’s work, the ambulance appearing between the two planes as healing resolution for collision. Other symbols of heroism, such as the bats in Untitled (Fig. 4) with the balloon burst with “hey” inside it suggest the cartoon hero of Batman. For other heroes, like jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, he created a matrix with words in Tuxedo, 1983 (Fig. 7 and 8). The tuxedo jacket shaped by the words themselves provide an interesting metaphor for the status of the great music legend. We can see several cosomogram images within, one in the form of a circle with two perpendicular arrows through the center of the work, like a central compass rose in the place where the man’s heart would be. Another circle with curvy radiating spokes can be seen on the left, with “Sun King” written inside, a divine nametag. Another to the lower right looks like a medal with ice melting from it on the bottom, and inside it reads “Blue Ribbon,” another measure of quality or status, that can so easily change or melt away. Charlie Parker and Bebop music were inspirations that Basquiat pictorialized over and over. Opposition and Polarity Several examples will demonstrate polarity, as in the cosmogram, an intersection of opposing forces in Basquiat’s paintings. The place where these forces meet is the exact locus where opportunity or action happens, to express his masculinity and his identity as a son and a man of color in the art world of the ‘80s. African art historian Andrea Frohne points out hunting symbols in Basquiat’s paintings that she believes he may have borrowed from images in Thompson’s Flash of the Spirit, strikingly similar to the Yoruban drawings of the hunter spirit Oshoosi and the trickster Exu, complete with bows and arrows. Her argument is compelling, not least because it accounts for his fight to acquire a firm position in the 80s art scene of New York. An Oshosi song lyric of the powerful child “becomes famous and fame becomes power” (Frohne 439) seems prescient regarding his career, and gives new meaning, for example, to the figures in Self-Portrait (Fig. 9 and 10). They are black warriors, much like the rock paintings mentioned with outstretched arms almost perpendicular to their vertical bodies, a layout we often see in renderings of male figures. The vector of the man’s arm in the painting on the left is punching towards two o’clock, rising up the air in defiance or pride, holding an arrow perpendicular to his arm. These angles are reminiscent of the kind of grid and geometry we see over and over in cosmograms. The figure on the right is almost his own cosmogram, a vertical body and arms at 90° to his body, pointing east and west with knife and mallet in each hand. In the thesis, we will see in other portraits where Basquiat often uses the head and body as a cosmogram matrix or grid, intersecting lines within a circle. Action and Migration Agency expressed in aggressive paint strokes and vibrancy of pigment is a powerful reminder of West African ritual where music, dance, theater, and physical objects are often incorporated in performance, action and connection. The esteemed anthropologist and Harlem Renaissance author Zora Neale Hurston describes what she called Negro expression in 1934: “His very words are action words. His interpretation of the English language is in terms of pictures… the speaker has in his mind the picture of the object in use. Action. Everything illustrated. So we can say the white man thinks in written language and the Negro thinks in hieroglyphics (Hurston 355) …” Her observation is relevant to Basquiat fifty years later and is fully supported in the body of work to be discussed; it directly relates to the matrix of the cosmogram in its expressions of action, doing, and collision. In Six Crimées (Fig.11), we see six figures with circles above their heads, with protruding lines, like halos or thorns. The grids below them resemble the geometry seen in cosmogram line work and crossroads, but more likely relate to dice games or chalk on a sidewalk in urban New York, or possible the grid of the city itself. Triptychs are common forms for Basquiat, compartmentalizing and repeating his objects, for emphasis, much like Haitian motifs. Movement takes on another dimension in his work when we see King Alphonso (Fig. 12). Here is a distinct example of the cosmogram plainly in view, acting like the head of an arrow on the right side of the canvas. The vector shape moving from left to right in the center of the image dissects the head with what looks like a bullet or arrow. The trajectory of the vector is delineated by solid and dashed lines, a spiral coming from the left of the skull shape. A clearly fashioned cosmogram, a circle with an X through it, sits on the right of the image with the arrow moving through its center. A number of scribbles add to the drawing of lines and angles coming out of the diagram, which centers on a bright red head, a black mouth and blue nose. Grids and checkerboards provide a schema for might be called the area of the brain of this head, suggesting processing and complex thinking. Sitting atop this head is a black curly hair and a big black crown, drawn boldly in seven thick lines, the signature that appears many times in Basquiat’s work. Also notable about this image is the lack of color, except for the head. Nearly an entirely black and white drawing, the red head takes up merely an eighth of the canvas, but because of its color we are drawn to its sanguine nature. The face looks angry, braced for something, with gritted teeth and fixed eyes. The title scribbled below, “King Alphonso,” another name with an “A,” likely refers to Hank Aaron or to Nzinga Mbemba (c.1456–1542). Otherwise known as King Alfonso I, he ruled the Kingdom of Kongo in the first half of the 16th century and was best known for converting Kongo to Catholicism, merging tribal spiritual customs with Christianity. Many Kongolese challenged his controversial liaisons with Portugal, including his half-brother, with whom he went to war. His legacy, however, includes his emphasis on modern innovation, which helped modernize Kongo’s school system: a positive outcome from conflict. The technical diagram aspect of King Alphonso suggests a transition, a measure of velocity from one place to another. The action in King Alphonso also brings to mindthe speed and accuracy of sports, not to mention another “Alphonso.” A current baseball favorite, second baseman Alphonso Soriano signed with the Yankees in 1998, tens years after Basquiat died. Often compared to Hank Aaron, the Dominican Soriano is a strikingly thin and powerful hitter. The picture is made of angles and triangles, with a clear sense of movement, as if the baseball is moving precisely through the subject’s eyes towards the cosmogram, the ultimate target. The angles on the sides of the head give the impression of tension springing upwards, like a scissors jack. With an efficiency of linework and color, we experience a powerful dynamism in King Alphonso, a clear sense of movement and agency. Transliminality and Transcendence “What identifies Jean-Michel Basquiat as a major artist is courage and full powers of self-transformation. That courage, meaning not being afraid to fail, transforms paralyzingly self-conscious predicaments of culture into confident ecstasies of cultures recombined. He had the guts, what is more, to confront New York art challenge number one: can you transform self and heritage into something new and named? (“Royalty, Heroism, and the Streets” 36) Revisiting Tuxedo we also see the concept of changing states, evident in almost indistinguishable scribblings of text— with arrows and equations, signifying one thing equaling another, or something transforming with a particular function applied to it. His later work The Melting Point of Ice refers to this phenomenon as well. What exactly determines the moment a person can actually change becomes a question Basquiat explores again and again, such as the tipping point of one remaining cool versus losing one’s temper. The tension of pushing back, acting out against, or holding multiple conflicts simultanoeously, recurs repeatedly. The nature of transcendence or transition in Basquiat’s work, ways that he expresses separate realms and the connections between them, those inks between two worlds, brings to mind W.E. B. Dubois’ often cited term, “double consciousness.” The term describes the nature of the black person who has been dislocated to America and how he experiences two states of being. Seeing oneself through the “revelation of the other world” or “looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (Du Bois) is yet another kind of intersection, the focus being where two forces meet. Like the spark flashing in the gap between two charged poles, this sacred locus is a chance for the unseen to work its power, for the material plane to cross with other realms, perhaps another perspective or a spiritual state. This ability to hold the present and the past in a work of art is precisely the message of Basquiat, building upon ancient visual architecture, and allowing for two opposing ideas or constructs to clash. In this way, conflict is important, a chance for growth. The symbol of the ambulance is a healing one; the warrior is a protector and the crown an overarching halo of value and the copyright symbol legitimacy. A New Kind of Africanism in the Twentieth Century African influence in Modern art has been widely discussed since the beginning of the twentieth century. Picasso and Braque shared an appreciation of African imagery and Cubists openly described their works as inspired by African masks and sculptures. But Cubism was often more formal than narrative: deconstructing objects and figures into simple planes and forms, which led to labeling Primitivism as a movement in Modernism, expressing mere suggestions of Man’s natural form and gesture via an intellectual and analytic approach. Deviating from romantic or spiritual themes, previously popular throughout European works of the nineteenth century, Cubism was not a movement of cultural narrative. Formally dissecting exotic images is the very reason that contemporaneous black artists were not inclined toward this pursuit; the common denominator in Black Atlantic artwork is not intellectual abstraction, but a need to tell a story. This narrative of polarity is often expressed through two-toned or clashing shapes; during the Harlem Renaissance, the work of artists such as Jacob Lawrence or Aaron Douglas feature jagged compositions expressing dynamism, conflict, or frustration. More contemporary artists such as John T. Biggers used bright colors reminiscent of the West African and Kongo palette. In the last three decades, we have seen a different influence of West African imagery emerging, a rougher presentation of found objects, mundane street imagery, and scrawled text. This more “primitive” presentation has gained a certain acceptance in the art world, possibly because of its chronological distance from the Black Diaspora, and an evolutionary advantage following Abstract Expressionism and Conceptualism. Perhaps “high art” can finally embrace African forms without condescending to calling it naïve. We experienced the raw form of Matisse almost a century ago, an artist who Henry Miller describes as having the “courage to sacrifice an harmonious line in order to detect the rhythm and murmur of the blood” (Miller 164) the wild colors agitating his viewers as well as his subjects. Joseph Cornell’s conceptual work from the mid-twentieth century, influenced by Surrealism, used quotidian elements and found objects to create icons and transform “primitive” constructions into shrines. But here we are invited to experience the ancestral intention of these symbols, not abstracted or deconstructed “primitivism” as a means to a new end. Rather, in the work of Basquiat, we experience a compulsion to use the very symbols used in the African visual lexicon to create work closer to its roots, with original intention and meaning or at least bridging one context to another. Often mystical or enigmatic, these symbols are reminiscent of cosmograms in their ability to do just that. As a conclusion to my analysis, I will broaden my observation to include Basquiat’s legacy, and demonstrate his influence on later artists. By using the example of the work of John T. Biggers, Renée Stout, and Keith Piper I will show how they have incorporated the ideology of the cosmogram into their work in ways quite different from Basquiat. © Lisa Clark April, 2013 All information in this blog is copyright to the original author, from whom nothing can be copied without written consent. All rights reserved. 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An early C19 landscape laid out to accompany a purpose-built private lunatic asylum. The therapeutic use of the grounds at Brislington House and their layout were influential on the development of later C19 establishments for the treatment of mental illness. Brislington House was established as a private lunatic asylum on a previously undeveloped site by Dr Edward Long Fox (1761-1835) in 1804-06. Edward Fox, a Quaker and member of the Fox family of Falmouth, Cornwall, practised in Bristol as a physician from 1786, being attached to the Bristol Royal Infirmary from 1786 to 1816. In 1794 Fox took over the management of a small, Quaker private asylum at Cleeve Hill, Downend, Bristol which he subsequently purchased. The site purchased by Fox for his asylum c 1804 had formed part of Brislington Common, which had been enclosed in 1780 (Enclosure map, BRO). The site was chosen partly for its location close to the cities of Bath and Bristol which could provide a supply of affluent patients. The asylum, the first purpose-built establishment in England, was opened in 1806. A prospectus published c 1809 (SRO) explains that the asylum's distinctive plan was intended to allow Dr Fox to implement his therapeutic theories of segregation and classification by gender, medical symptoms, and social and financial background. Each block had access to its own designated airing court, beyond which was a range of cells for the restraint of refractory patients. This arrangement is shown on a plan probably published c 1809 (Huntington Library, CA), while the main buildings are shown in an engraved view which accompanied the prospectus. In addition to the airing courts, pleasure grounds with an extensive system of walks were laid out around the House; further walks led through the parkland and agricultural estate, while a cliff-top walk led through woodland above the River Avon. The grounds and agricultural estate were used for therapeutic purposes, pauper patients being employed on manual work and those of middle- and upper-class backgrounds taking walks and exercise in the grounds under the supervision of attendants (Greenwood 1822). This regime was noted with approval by the House of Commons Committee appointed to consider the 'better regulation of Madhouses in England' in 1815. By the 1830s a move away from rigid classification by social and economic circumstances allowed gentlemen patients to work in the pleasure grounds forming walks and performing other tasks; these are described in an account of his treatment at Brislington in 1830-2 written by John Perceval (Bateson 1961). In 1816 a detached cottage, Lanesborough Cottage, was built in the grounds to accommodate Lord Lanesborough, while in 1819 the Swiss Cottage was built for Lord Carysfoot. Two further detached villas, The Beeches and Heath House, were built on the western boundary of the site in the 1820s, the latter being occupied by Dr Fox from 1825. In addition, Heath Farm, then known as Heath Cottage, was in use by 1836 as a fifth detached picturesque residence for patients (Fox and Fox 1836). By the mid 1830s Brislington House was 'placed in the centre of what is now become a well wooded estate' (ibid). The estate, with its park, pleasure grounds, and farm, was intended to replicate that of a gentleman in order both to reassure the relatives of wealthy patients, and to provide a secluded place for the implementation of Dr Fox's treatments. Dr Edward Fox retired from the direction of the asylum in 1829, passing its management to two of his sons, Dr Francis Ker Fox and Dr Charles Joseph Fox; at Dr E L Fox's death in 1835 the property was inherited jointly by the two brothers. In 1840 a detached Private House for the proprietor was constructed to the south of the original building, while in 1850-1 a major programme of alterations was undertaken. This included merging the three male and female divisions into a single unit for each sex, the extension and remodelling of the airing courts, and the construction of a chapel (Fox 1906). The asylum continued to be run by the family until the 1950s when it was sold and converted into a nurses' home. At this time the estate was fragmented, a secondary school being constructed to the south-west of the asylum, and playing fields being laid out in the park to the east and west. Heath House was destroyed in an air raid in 1940, while the former asylum building is today (2001) in the process of being converted into apartments. LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING Brislington House is situated to the north of the A4, Bath Road c 1km south-east of the centre of the former village of Brislington. The c 36ha site comprises c 6ha of gardens and pleasure grounds, c 25ha of parkland which is now largely laid out as sports fields, c 2ha of former kitchen garden, and a further 3ha of woodland walks overlooking the River Avon. The site is bounded by public roads, with Bath Road forming the southern boundary, Ironmould Lane forming the eastern and northern boundaries, and Broomhill Road and Emery Road forming the western boundary. The north, east, and west boundaries are marked by high stone walls, while the south boundary is enclosed by C20 wire fences. The cliff-top walk c 400m north-east of Brislington House is separated from the core of the site by Ironmould Lane and partly by a strip of agricultural land which formed part of the C19 agricultural estate. The site is generally level to the north, west, and south of the asylum which stands on an artificially levelled terrace, beyond which the land falls to the east, allowing wide views across surrounding agricultural land to Lansdown Hill north of Bath. The north, west, and south boundaries of the site are largely enclosed by boundary plantations which screen the site. ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES Brislington House is approached from Bath Road to the south. The entrance lies towards the centre of the southern boundary. It is marked by a pair of tall, square-section ashlar piers, from which low quadrant walls extend back to a pair of low, square-section stone piers with domed caps which frame the entrance to the drive. Immediately within the site the tarmac drive divides to pass to the east and west of the lodge (listed grade II), which comprises a two-storey ashlar structure with ornamental bargeboards, arch-headed windows set in recesses on the symmetrical gabled south facade, and a semicircular single-storey porch supported by a pair of Tuscan columns. Originally known as the Wheelhouse, the lodge was constructed in 1804-06, forming part of the original scheme for the development of the asylum and containing a mechanism for operating iron gates at the entrance (listed building description); the early C19 gates do not survive. Beyond the lodge the drive sweeps north and north-east for c 200m through mixed ornamental shrubbery on the western boundary of the pleasure grounds, before emerging onto lawns before the west facade of the asylum. The drive extends the full length of the building to reach the early C19 stables to the north. A mid or late C20 service drive leads south-east from the former stables to Ironmould Lane, providing access to C20 light industrial premises located in and around the stables. Continuing c 320m north of Brislington House through the grounds of Swiss Cottage, the principal drive reaches an entrance from Ironmould Lane to the north. The late C19 OS map (1881-3) shows this drive passing through an avenue which then extended across the field north of Ironmould Lane, flanking a path leading to the cliff-top walk; this avenue does not survive. The Beeches, the only survivor of the three early C19 villas constructed near the western boundary of the site, has its own independent access from Broomfield Road at a point c 200m north-east of its junction with Emery Road. This entrance is marked by a late C19 lodge. Some 70m north-east of this entrance a pair of stone piers marks the former entrance to Lanesborough Cottage, which was demolished in the 1970s. Brislington House (listed grade II) stands on an artificially levelled terrace towards the centre of the site. The building comprises two three-storey wings which flank a taller, central three-storey block to form a long, approximately rectangular range extending from north to south, the various blocks being linked by a spine corridor. The building is constructed in rendered stone under a slate roof, with Palladian-derived details. The west porch is flanked by a balustrade surmounted by urns which extends the full width of the central block. The central block on the garden or east facade has a pair of full-height semicircular bays and a centrally placed porch which gives access to a semicircular basement extension. To the north-west the mid C19 chapel breaks forward from the west facade. The present Brislington House represents the mid C19 remodelling of Dr E L Fox's original fire-proof structure of 1804-06 which comprised a central block containing his own accommodation and that for gentlemen and lady inmates, flanked on each side by three separate blocks for lower-class male and female patients. These blocks were connected by a corridor or covered way at basement level. This scheme, which is illustrated on the plan of c 1809 (Huntington Library, CA), was altered by Dr F K Fox in 1850-1, when the flanking blocks were united to the central range behind a new west facade; at the same time the attached chapel was built to the north-west. These changes are shown on a plan of 1850 (SRO). In 1840 a new private wing was built immediately to the south of the asylum; this is shown on a plan of 1843 (SRO). Further minor alterations and additions were made to the building in the late C19 and early C20. Although it was the first purpose-built private asylum, the design of Brislington House with segregated accommodation for male and female patients of different classes was influential on the development of public asylums in the mid C19. GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS The informal pleasure grounds are situated principally to the west, south, and south-west of Brislington House; there are also informal pleasure grounds associated with the surviving detached villas north and west of the asylum. To the rear or east of the asylum is an area of formal gardens and lawns which represents the site of the former patients' airing courts. A gravel terrace returns around the southern end of the building to give access to a terrace below the east facade of the former private house. A conservatory shown on the 1881-3 OS map forming the northern termination of this terrace does not survive. A flight of stone steps flanked by balustrades descends east to an area of lawn planted with specimen trees and conifers and bounded to the east and south-east by mixed shrubbery. To the north, the lawn is bounded by a stone wall c 3m high, in which are set a pair of wide C20 wooden gates which give access to a terrace c 65m deep which extends the full length of the east facade of the asylum. The terrace is enclosed to the west by the asylum buildings, and to the north and south by high stone walls. To the east it is retained by a further wall which is lower than those to the north and south, its down-swept parapet allowing views out across the surrounding country. The terrace is laid to lawn with late C20 island borders, three mature weeping ash planted on symmetrically arranged mounds, and a pair of mature hollies. To the north there is a late C20 swimming pool surrounded by paved seating areas and several late C20 greenhouses. The east terrace occupies the site of the airing courts laid out in 1804-06 as part of Dr Fox's original asylum scheme. As first constructed, the terrace was divided into six rectangular enclosures, each separated by stone walls and bounded to the east by a continuous range of cells to accommodate refractory patients. This arrangement is shown on the plan of c 1809 (Huntington Library, CA), which also notes that: 'Each of these Six courts has an elevated Plane of Grass occupying the middle, and a walk round it under the Walls. From these mounts the Patients can view the surrounding Country. Each Court is appropriated to a distinct Class of Patients and accessible to them at all times under the care of separate Keepers'. In 1815 a Parliamentary Visitor noted that silver pheasants and doves were kept in the courts for the diversion of the patients (quoted in Fox 1906), while in 1836 it was noted that an arcade extended the length of each court to allow patients to exercise in wet weather (Fox and Fox 1836). These arrangements are shown in an engraving published in 1836 (ibid), which also indicates that the airing courts were planted with trees and shrubs. The plan of 1843 (SRO) shows the ornamental layout of the airing courts with walks, lawns, shrubbery, and mounts, while a further plan of 1850 indicates the amalgamation of the three airing courts for each gender into two; the ornamental layout appears to have been simplified at the same period. In 1875, S C Fripp prepared plans for a pair of ornamental summerhouses to be constructed adjacent to the ladies' and gentlemen's sitting rooms in the central block; these are shown on the late C19 OS map but do not survive today. By 1881 (OS) the layout of the airing courts had been further simplified with the removal of the internal division on the male and female sides. A central dividing wall was retained and the two airing courts were laid out with cruciform walks dividing areas of lawn planted with specimen trees (OS 1881-3). The range of cells to the east of the airing courts was removed between 1846 (Tithe map) and 1881 (OS), at which time their site, and an enclosed garden to their east, were incorporated into the airing courts. The east terrace thus attained its present area. To the west of the House is an area of informal lawns planted with specimen trees including mature cedars, and evergreen shrubbery. Some 50m west and on the axis of the centre of the asylum, a slightly raised level terrace, partly occupied by a C20 hard tennis court, corresponds to the early C19 bowling green constructed by Dr Fox for the recreation of patients (Fox c 1809). The pleasure grounds west of the House are separated from the park beyond by C19 metal estate fencing, and to the north connect with the pleasure grounds associated with Swiss Cottage (listed grade II). These pleasure grounds extend west of the north drive leading to Ironmould Lane, and include walks leading through mature trees and mixed shrubbery with a small pond. Their present arrangement corresponds closely to that shown on the 1846 Tithe map. South of the asylum an area of lawn is bounded to the south-east and south-west by further areas of informal pleasure grounds. The lawn is now enclosed to the south by a late C20 hedge, but formerly connected with parkland to the south-east of the asylum. To the south-east of the lawn a belt of mature trees and evergreen shrubs screens the south wall of the kitchen garden; a mid C20 drive leads through this planting to reach Ironmould Lane, while a mid C20 single-storey sports pavilion stands on the site of a small conservatory which is shown on the late C19 OS map c 80m south-south-east of the asylum. To the south-west of the lawn curvilinear walks extend through a belt of mature trees, conifers, and evergreen shrubbery which extends parallel to the principal drive. One walk leads c 260m south-south-west to emerge onto the drive adjacent to the lodge, while another walk, partly edged by rustic stones and boulders, leads c 60m south-south-west to reach a flight of rustic stone steps which ascends to a level, approximately circular viewing platform. The western side of this platform is enclosed by a low, horseshoe-shaped rustic stone bench and monolithic rocks, while the eastern side is enclosed by C19 ornamental wire fencing, allowing views east across the park towards Lansdown Hill. The centre of the platform is occupied by a cyclopean stone table. The viewing platform is constructed above a semicircular stone-lined alcove which is reached by a flight of rustic stone steps which descends from the platform. The front of the alcove is supported by a cyclopean stone pillar, while the interior retains traces of a bench seat. The viewing platform and alcove may have been constructed before c 1840, as the park enclosure to the south is described as 'Grotto Field' on the Tithe map (1846); the feature is indicated on the OS map of 1881-3. To the west and south-west of the alcove, a walk follows a low stone retaining wall or ha-ha; this is now set back from the boundary between the pleasure grounds and park, but in the C19 would have allowed views east across the park from the walk (Tithe map, 1846; OS 1881-3). The park is situated to the north-east, west, and south-east of Brislington House. The area to the north-east is partly occupied by late C20 light industrial units; the remainder of this area is pasture and gardens attached to a late C20 bungalow. A belt of plantation extends parallel to the northern boundary; this is indicated on the 1846 Tithe map and formerly contained a boundary walk. The park to the south-east of the asylum is laid out as playing fields and is enclosed to the north by shrubbery which serves to screen the south wall of the kitchen garden, and to the south-east by a stone wall fronting Ironmould Lane. A belt of plantation extends along the southern boundary fronting Bath Road, while to the west this area is enclosed by the pleasure grounds. The Tithe map (1846) describes this area as 'Grotto Field', and indicates a small area of plantation in its south-east corner; this had been extended along the southern boundary by 1881 (OS). The park to the west of Brislington House is today laid out as sports fields associated with the mid C20 St Brendan's College, a school which stands c 170m west of Brislington House and c 80m east of The Beeches. Plantations enclose the north, west, and south-west boundaries of this area, and traces of the perimeter walk and C19 metal estate fencing separating the plantations from the park survive to the north. A low earthwork ridge crossing the playing fields from a point c 80m west of Brislington House represents the course of a partly tree-lined walk which led from The Beeches to the asylum. Some 180m north of this ridge, a tree-lined walk crossing the playing fields corresponds to the C19 walk connecting the asylum to the site of the former Heath House and Lanesborough Cottage. Of the three early C19 detached villas built by Dr Fox adjacent to the western boundary of the park, only The Beeches survives, standing in mature informal pleasure grounds characterised by specimen trees, lawns, and mixed shrubbery. Lanesborough Cottage, c 70m north of The Beeches, survived until the 1970s and its site is marked by some mature trees and shrubbery, as is the site of Heath Cottage which stood c 230m north-east of The Beeches until its destruction by a bomb in 1940. The present (2001) layout of the park and the disposition of boundary planting and the surviving detached villas correspond closely to that shown on the Greenwoods' Map of Somerset (1822) and the Tithe map of 1846. The location of the asylum within a landscaped park setting was intended by Dr Fox both to create reassuringly genteel surroundings for his patients and their relatives, and to provide 'abundant occupation for those who are able to engage in agricultural or horticultural pursuits' (Fox and Fox 1836). The park provided facilities for cricket and football, and at certain seasons, greyhound coursing (ibid). Exercise, including walking in the grounds, was seen by Dr Fox and his successors as an essential part of the treatment offered at Brislington House. The kitchen garden is situated to the east of the former airing courts and is enclosed to the north, east, and south by high stone walls. To the west it is enclosed by the retaining wall of the airing court, which is partly screened by a line of overgrown fruit trees. Today (2001) the kitchen garden is laid out as sports pitches. The early C19 kitchen garden was situated immediately east of the cells for refractory patients on the eastern side of the airing courts. Flues for stoves heating glasshouses built against the east face of the cell walls provided heat for the patients without the necessity for open fires (ibid). This arrangement is shown on the plan of c 1809 (Huntington Library, CA), and on the Tithe map of 1846, although at that date the kitchen garden is described as a yard. The Tithe map shows three further enclosures, one a garden and orchard, the other two being arable fields occupying the site of the present kitchen garden. The present arrangement was achieved between 1846 (Tithe map) and 1881 (OS) when the cells were demolished, the airing courts extended east, and the three garden or arable enclosures thrown together to form a kitchen garden. In 1881 the OS shows the garden divided into rectangular sections by walks, with a concentration of fruit trees in the south and south-east sections. Some 400m north of Brislington House, and separated from the park by Ironmould Lane and partly by a narrow strip of agricultural land, is a detached area of pleasure grounds comprising a cliff-top walk above the River Avon. The walk is partly retained by stone walls, and partly constructed as a level terrace along the cliff-top through deciduous woodland and evergreen shrubbery known as Fox's Wood. The steep, north-east-facing slope below the walk is also partly wooded, and there are dramatic views south-east along the Avon valley and north-east and east to the far side of the river. A level area within the woodland corresponds to the site of an early C19 thatched rustic summerhouse known as The Battery (photograph album, BRO), but no trace of this structure survives above ground. A steep gully to the north of the site of The Battery contains remains of a tramway used to haul coal for the asylum from a wharf by the river (Bygone Brislington 1986), which is now separated from the woodland walk by the mid C19 railway. The cliff-top walk was developed in the early C19 by Dr Fox for the recreation of his patients. The walk and The Battery summerhouse were described by John Perceval in his account (1831-2); Perceval commented that he considered it a 'most imprudent place to take them [the patients]' (Bateson 1961). The walk and summerhouse are indicated on the 1846 Tithe map. To the north-west of the cliff-top walk, Heath Farm is situated in gardens which are largely laid to lawn. To the south-east of the house a rectangular pond is now dry; the pond was marked on the Tithe map (1846). Between the pond and Pear Tree Meadow to the south-east is a group of five mature cedars which correspond to the ornamental planting shown on the late C19 OS map. Heath Farm farmhouse (listed grade II) was fitted-up by Dr Fox in the early C19 with picturesque bargeboards, windows, and a gabled porch in order to serve as a further detached residence for his patients; it is illustrated in the account published in 1836 by Francis and Charles Fox. The farm buildings to the north of the farmhouse formed the centre of the asylum's agricultural estate which by 1836 extended to over 200 acres (c 81ha). E L Fox, Brislington House, An Asylum for Lunatics... An Account of the Establishment (c 1809), (Somerset Record Office) Report together with The Minutes of Evidence, and an Appendix of Papers from the Committee appointed to consider the provision being made for the better regulation of Madhouses in England (1815), p 298 E L Fox, Brislington House, An Asylum for Lunatics... An Account of the Establishment (new edn with additional letter from Lord Robert Seymour, c 1817) (Bedfordshire Record Office) C and J Greenwood, Somersetshire Delineated (1822) F and C Fox, History and Present State of Brislington House near Bristol, an Asylum for the cure and reception of Insane Persons (1836) (Bristol Reference Library) Brislington House Prospectus (1902) (Bristol Reference Library) A Fox, A Short Account of Brislington House, 1804-1906, [published in Brislington House Quarterly Newsletter Centenary Number (1906), pp 4-14 (Somerset Record Office)] G Bateson (ed), Perceval's Narrative A Patient's Account of his Psychosis 1830-32 (1961) S Stoddard, Mr Braikenridge's Brislington (1981), p 10 Bygone Brislington (1986), pp 19-22 Brislington Common Enclosure map, 1780 (39624/1-2), (Bristol Record Office) C and J Greenwood, Map of Somerset, 1822 The Ground Plan of the Asylum for Lunatics at Brislington House near Bristol, c 1809 (Stowe Papers, maps and plans Box 10, item 4), (Huntington Library, San Marino, CA) Plan of Brislington House, 1843 (Q/RLu 42/6), (Somerset Record Office) Tithe map for Brislington parish, 1846 (Bristol Record Office) Brislington House Ground Plan, 1850 (Q/RLu 42/2), (Somerset Record Office) S C Fripp, Brislington House and detached buildings, 1857 (Q/RLu 42/9), (Somerset Record Office) S C Fripp, Plan for proposed Summer Houses in airing ground Brislington House, 1875 (Q/RLu 42/16), (Somerset Record Office) OS 6" to 1 mile: 2nd edition published 1905 3rd edition published 1921 OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1881-3 Engraved view of Brislington House, c 1809 (in Fox c 1809) Engraved views of Brislington House, airing courts, Heath Farm, Swiss Cottage, and entrance lodge, c 1836 (in Fox and Fox 1836) Brislington House near Bristol, Somersetshire, engraving after S C Jones, View of the west front as remodelled in 1850 (BB72/4645), (NMR, Swindon) Early C20 photographs of Brislington House and grounds, c 1900 (39624/5), (Bristol Record Office) Description written: May 2001 Register Inspector: JML Edited: January 2004

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10 Fascinating Artisan Crafts Artisan Craft is the creation of an item made to serve one or more practical functions and be influential as an artistic work. However, some of the entries on this list serve no practical purpose other than artistic merit and aesthetics, but they are all the more welcomed as they borrow from similar skill sets. Some very well-known artisan crafts have been omitted, such as pottery and quilting, as the focus of this list is on the more intriguing and lesser-known crafts. Azulejo is a form of Portuguese or Spanish painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tile work. Typically, azulejos can be found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses and even train stations or subway stations. They constitute a major aspect of Portuguese architecture as they are applied on walls, floors and even ceilings. They were not only used as an ornamental art form, but also had a specific functional capacity like temperature control at homes. Many azulejos chronicle major historical and cultural aspects of Portuguese history. Lace is an openwork fabric, noticeable for the patterned open holes in the work. The holes can be formed via removal of threads or cloth from previously woven fabric, but more often open spaces are created as part of the lace fabric. The craft of lace-making is ancient, though true lace and widespread use of it did not appear until the late 15th century. A true lace is created when a thread is looped, twisted or braided to other threads independently from a backing fabric. Linen, silk, and even silver and gold threads were used originally while most lace now is made with cotton thread. Calligraphy is defined as the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner. Modern calligraphy ranges from functional hand-lettered inscriptions and designs to fine-art pieces where the abstract expression of the handwritten mark may or may not compromise the legibility of the letters. Traditional calligraphy tools include varying types of ink, nib-tipped pens, calligraphic brushes, desk pads and paper weights. Pyrography, also known as pokerwork or wood burning, is the art of decorating wood or other materials with burn-marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker. As photography means “writing with light,” pyrography means “writing with fire” in Greek. It can be practiced using specialized modern pyrography tools, or using a metal implement heated in a fire, or even sunlight concentrated with a magnifying lens. Varying the type of tip used, the temperature, or the way the iron is applied to the material all create different effects. After the design is burned in, wooden objects are often colored. Light-colored hardwoods such as sycamore, basswood, beech and birch are most commonly used. Clockmaking is the craft of manufacturing a clock; the trade requires fine motor coordination as clockmakers must frequently work on devices with small gears and fine machinery. Originally, clockmakers were master craftsmen who designed and built clocks by hand. Since modern clockmakers are required to repair antique, handmade or one-of-a-kind clocks for which parts are not available, they must have some of the design and fabrication abilities of the original craftsmen. A qualified clockmaker can typically design and make a missing piece for a clock without access to the original component. Clockmakers generally do not work on watches; the skills and tools required are different enough that watchmaking is a separate field, handled by another specialist: the watchmaker. Knifemaking is the process of manufacturing a knife by one or any combination of processes: stock removal, forging to shape, welded lamination or investment cast. Typical metals used come from the carbon steel, tool, or stainless steel families. Primitive knives have been made from bronze, copper, brass, iron, obsidian, and flint. Different steels are suited to different applications. There is a trade off between hardness, toughness, edge retention, corrosion resistance, and achievable sharpness between metals. Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding in which pieces of paper, usually square in shape and uncut, are folded into objects such as birds and animals. It is an ancient art that dates back to 538 A.D., but has grown over the centuries from a craft used to make decorations for ceremonial occasions to an art form practiced by people of all ages and all nationalities. The best known origami model is probably the Japanese paper crane. The principles of origami are also used in packaging and in engineering structures. Lapidary is the art of cutting and polishing stone. Lapidary has its roots in prehistory, as early as humans began fashioning tools and weapons from stone. Over time, these techniques were also used for items of personal adornment. Stone carving evolved as an art in many cultures throughout the world. During the 1950s, lapidary became a popular hobby in the United States. Hobbyists enjoyed tumbling, cutting and polishing gemstones and mounting them in prefabricated jewelry settings or in metalwork of their own creation. There are three types of stonework: tumbling, cabochon cutting, and faceting. Quilling, also known as paper filigree, is an art form that involves the use of strips of paper that are rolled, shaped, and glued together to create decorative designs. The name originates from winding the paper around a quill to create a basic coil shape. The paper is glued at the tip and the coiled shapes are arranged to form flowers, leaves, and various ornamental patterns similar to ironwork. During the Renaissance, French and Italian nuns and monks used quilling to decorate book covers and religious items. The paper most commonly used was strips of paper trimmed from the gilded edges of books. These gilded paper strips were then rolled to create the quilled shapes. Ikebana is the Japanese art of flower arrangement, emphasizing other areas of the plant besides the blooms such as the stems and leaves and drawing importance to the employment of minimalism in the art form. Unlike a bouquet, this floral arrangement is not a collection of multicolored blooms. Ikebana is a disciplined art form in which nature and humanity are brought together. Though ikebana is a creative expression, it has certain rules governing its form. The main rule is that all the elements used in construction must be organic, be they branches, leaves, grasses, or flowers. The artist’s intention behind each arrangement is shown through a piece’s color combinations, natural shapes, graceful lines, and the usually implied meaning of the arrangement. The structure of a Japanese flower arrangement is based on a scalene triangle delineated by three main points, usually twigs, considered in some schools to symbolize heaven, earth, and man and in others sun, moon, love & earth. The container is also a key element of the composition, and various styles of pottery may be used in their construction.

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England, Australia 1912-1981 Drysdale created a new vision of Australia. Influenced by European modernism, his work made a radical break from the prevailing Heidelberg school. He was the first artist to take as his primary subject the complex relationships between the land and people of the Australian interior. His landscapes were frequently harsh and peopled by isolated figures who seem strangely stoic and at ease in their environment. Born in England to an Australian pastoralist family, he moved with them to Australia in 1923. He studied art in Melbourne and later in London and Paris before moving to Sydney in 1940 and dedicating himself full-time to painting. In 1947, Drysdale’s painting companion Donald Friend read about the deserted gold mining towns of New South Wales. The two men organised a painting trip to Sofala and Hill End, near Bathurst. Drysdale’s now-famous painting of Sofala was awarded the Wynne Prize in 1947 – a dramatic change from the prize’s pastoral traditions to a more sober post-war view of the Australian landscape. Drysdale observed: ‘...these curious and strange rhythms which one discovers in a vast landscape, the juxtaposition of figures, of objects… Add to that again the peculiarity of the particular land in which we live here, and you get a quality of strangeness that you do not find, I think, anywhere else. This is a very ancient land, and its forms and general psychology are so intriguing…’ - View Sofala in the collection People and places Gold was first discovered at Hill End in 1851 and by the height of the gold rush in 1872 the town was the largest inland settlement in the state, with a population of almost 10,000. Once there was no more gold, its decline was dramatic. By 1945, the population was just 700. Just 38 kilometres away, Sofala’s gold rush was short lived, with thousands of prospectors dropping to just a few hundred by 1854, although commercial goldmining didn’t stop until 1948. After Drysdale and Friend’s first visit, the area attracted some of Australia’s greatest painters to work there, and remains a drawcard for artists today.

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11150 East Boulevard Cleveland, Ohio 44106 info [at] ClevelandArt [dot] org Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m. Free General Admission Tools, documents, and paintings from the collections of the Western Reserve Historical Society (WRHS) in Cleveland and the Cleveland Museum of Art evoke the lives of Native Americans and early settlers. Museum educators guide students through an examination of the mutual perceptions between the Native Americans and settlers, as well as the historical environment created by their encounters during the 18th and early 19th century. During this lesson students participate in a bartering exercise to help them imagine transactions and issues of mutual dependence between the two groups. An in-classroom activity kit with the bartering materials accompanies the teacher packet for this lesson. Teacher Information Packet will be mailed.

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While Iraq has about the same population as Afghanistan (26 million), experts say its people may be more vulnerable to the hardships of war. Many more are concentrated in urban areas and therefore less used to surviving in a rough environment. They may have had access to modern water, sewer, and power facilities, but those systems already are in bad shape across much of the country. Some 500,000 tons of raw sewage flow into water sources daily, according to the aid group CARE International, and electricity is often off. According to the UN World Food Program, at least 40 percent of Iraq's population (some sources put it as high as 60 percent) relies on government rations, a supply of such basics as flour, sugar, and rice. Since the Gulf War the number of children suffering chronic malnutrition has grown from 18.7 percent to 30 percent. Having gone through two wars (the Iran-Iraq War, followed by the Gulf War), UN sanctions, and years of mistreatment under a dictatorial regime, "the Iraqi people now don't have the resources to withstand an additional crisis," says Margaret Hassan, CARE International's director for Iraq. In anticipation of such needs, Oxfam International and other organizations are positioning staff and equipment in the region. UN agencies that focus on children, refugees, and others who need help are storing food, blankets, and other material in Iran and other neighboring countries. Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam's executive director, worries that, in the event of war, airstrikes will target Iraqi power stations. "If that happened, the Iraqi water and sanitation system, which depends on electricity and which is already in a parlous state, would collapse, leaving millions of people vulnerable to diseases and epidemics," he says. For its part, the Bush administration lays most of the blame for Iraqis' suffering at the feet of Saddam Hussein. "To craft tragedy, the regime places civilians close to military equipment, facilities, and troops, which are legitimate targets in an armed conflict," says the White House in a recent report titled "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda 1990-2003."

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Forty percent of all food produced in the US goes to waste. Boulder (Colo.) Food Rescue picks up food, primarily fresh fruits and vegetables, from local grocers and transports it by bike to groups that serve hungry, homeless, and low-income people. A group of three impassioned friends, all under the age of 30, started Boulder Food Rescue in August of 2011 with the goal of introducing the problems of waste and want to one another, and with the help of a little logistical muddling on our part, letting them solve each other. It’s a shocking fact that 40% of all food produced in the US goes to waste at some point in production. The EPA estimates that every grocery store in the country generates about 1 ton of waste per day, which doesn’t even touch waste in the field or in transport. This (almost inconceivably) occurs at the same time at 1 in 6 Americans are considered “food insecure” and do not have access to adequate and reliable nutrition. We set about addressing this lunacy in our own community of Boulder, Colo., by starting an organization that picks up food, primarily fresh fruits and veggies, from local grocers and transports it by bike to 50 agencies that serve hungry, homeless, and low-income folks in Boulder. We use 90% bicycle transportation because our food system is incredibly energy intensive, and it makes no sense to put more fossil fuels into trying to rescue food that slips though the cracks. Over the past 20 months, Boulder Food Rescue has amassed a volunteer base of 150, saved nearly 325,000 lbs. of fresh, healthy food, and is in the process of becoming a national nonprofit. This last point has been our focus over the past several months as we began to export our bike-powered food rescue model to 5 different cities. Due to some national press coverage, we had people from 25 different cities around the globe from Dublin to San Francisco contact us to ask for support in rescuing food.

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PATHARGHATA—Patharghata sits on the frontline of the battle against climate change and recurring natural disasters, its inhabitants living in a constant state of preparedness for the weather fronts that wreak havoc as they roll in destructively off the Bay of Bengal. Cyclones, flooding, salt water intrusion into agricultural land, and river erosion are just some of the many challenges facing these farming communities. All are expected to increase in severity over the coming decades as a direct result of climate change. In the past five years, major floods in 2004 were followed by Cyclone Sidr in 2007 and Cyclone Aila in 2009, causing millions of dollars of damage, destroying the homes and belongings of millions of people, and adding to long-term food insecurity. At high risk “We had to swim through the water holding each other’s hands to get to the local shelter,” Fatema Begum, a mother of two, recalls as she remembers the trials of recent years. “When we returned, our house was destroyed and everything was gone – all our food and our clothes. We made shelter out of leaves and stayed like that for four days, wearing the same clothes. It was painful!” While climate change affects everyone, it is poor people living in places like Partharghata that are disproportionately affected. As part of a strategy to build resilience and equip these communities with the knowledge and means to protect themselves against the vagaries of the weather, WFP has been working with the Government of Bangladesh to provide training and cash for work programmes that help them to build or renovate community assets. This “Enhancing Resilience” or ER programme is now a priority within the government’s plans to improve food security and protect communities against climate change The aim is to identify projects that will equip communities to cope with the next storm or cyclone. Villagers are encouraged to work together to raise the foundations of their homes above potential flood levels, or to remove sediment from canals and rehabilitate ponds that can be used to support fish farming, helping to bring more nutritious food into local diets. Learning to cope Training takes place in the monsoon season when it is often too wet to carry out communal works. Women are actively encouraged to join the training programmes in recognition of the pivotal role they play in tackling hunger and improving nutrition within the family. They receive a ration of rice, pulses and oil and a small cash payment alongside the training on disaster preparedness, and instructions on how to prepare for a disaster. “We got training like what to do before and after floods,” Fatema says. “Now we know what we should do, that we need to plant trees and build our houses in higher places. We make the proper preparations and organise our belongings.” In Patharghata alone, some 4,500 ultra-poor women and men from three separate communities have participated in an ER programme that was launched in 2011. It has helped stabilise incomes and ensure more secure access to food. Local people are now better prepared for future disasters, they know what to do when they strike and they have learnt how to adapt to the localised impact of climate change. At the same time, their houses, canals and ponds are in better condition, adding to the food security of local people.

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