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The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.

Mary Oliver died a year ago today, having given her gift both power and time. Drink in her abiding wisdom on creativity and life.

best of 2019 lit history and literature

Favorite books of 2019 – from from Patti Smith’s gloriously uncategorizable masterpiece to the bittersweet posthumous collection of Toni Morrison’s speeches, by way of poet Ross Gay’s manifesto for delight as an act of resistance, Robert Macfarlane’s journey into the hidden universe beneath our feet, Rebecca Solnit’s empowered retelling of Cinderella, and other treasures at the crossroads of existential truth and elemental beauty.

Kazumasa Nagai illustration graphic design posters mid-century design vintage posters art and design Japan Japanese advertising

Gorgeous vintage posters of animals by the Japanese graphic designer, illustrator, and printmaker Kazumasa Nagai.

Paul Sougy art and design science and technology sciecne scientific illustration mid-century design illustration nature animals

French artist Paul Sougy’s stunning mid-century scientific diagrams of plants, animals, and the human body, forgotten for decades, newly salvaged from dusty vintage textbooks and obscure French government archives.

Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie Ashleigh Corrin children's books diversity culture and society art and design history and literature lit illustration

Layla’s Happiness – a serenade to the many meanings of happiness, its quiet everyday sources, and delight as a daily practice, from poet Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and artist Ashleigh Corrin.

Zadie Smith writing lit culture and society history and literature thought and opinion interviews amwriting

When I’m reading I consider it an activity as difficult as writing… It’s a challenge to your whole self. I love writing that is respectful of the human capacity to understand.

Wonderful interview with Zadie Smith. Couple with Smith’s 10 rules of writing (most of which apply to reading and to life itself), then see beloved writers’ letters to children about why we read.

Walt Whitman Lia Halloran quote art and design art cyanotype painting poetry

“Every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you,” Walt Whitman wrote in one of his profoundest verses, in a golden age of science and social change, yet an era at least as divisive as ours.

This stunning cyanotype painting by artist Lia Halloran, celebrating Whitman’s immortal words, is available as a print with 100% of proceeds benefiting the endeavor to build NYC’s first public observatory – an ultimate invitation to unforget our shared humanity under the dome of the cosmic perspective.

More here.

Edgar Allan Poe Harry Clarke Art Deco Art Nouveau illustartion book art black and white art and design art prints

Beautiful and terrifying century-old illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination by the Irish stained glass and book artist Harry Clarke, whose work influenced the Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and French Symbolism movements. Available as beautiful and terrifying prints.

cephalopod science science and technology octopus

Do octopuses dream of electric eels? We already know that the octopus is Earth’s most alien consciousness. Now comes this mesmerizing evidence that octopuses experience one of the most complex functions of consciousness: dreaming. Really, how can a conscious human eat a fellow dreamer?

(HT Open Culture)

conservation Monarch butterfly art and design environment culture and society infographics graffiti

Enormous mural by San Francisco art studio Ink Dwell spotlights the bittersweet beauty of the Monarch butterfly and the urgency of its protection.

Complement with environmental movement pioneer Rachel Carson’s stunning existential letter about the Monarchs.

octopus nature science and technology science

Absolutely incredible footage of a self-inflating octopus, for another reminder that this is Earth’s most wondrously alien creature.

(via kottke)

mushrooms film mycology science science and technology

Official trailer for Fantastic Fungi, with arresting art by Louie Schwartzberg. Complement with Neil Gaiman’s “The Mushroom Hunters” and the pioneering mycological drawings of Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter.

Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera love letters letters love quote culture art art history women in art

Only one mountain can know the core of another mountain.

Frida Kahlo married Diego Rivera 90 years ago today. Her gorgeous handwritten love letters to him.

Aubrey Beardsley Oscar Wilde illustration LBGT queer art artists art and design black and white

The visionary artist Aubrey Beardsley was born on this day in 1872. He died at only 25, having revolutionized both gender identity and the graphic arts with his groundbreaking illustrations for Oscar Wilde’s Salome.

brainpickings.org

Viktor Frankl humor lit history and literature mental health thought and opinion Holocaust survivors

Humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.

Viktor Frankl, who lived through the worst of humanity, on humor as a lifeline to sanity and survival.

brainpickings.org