The Illustrations of Laurie Lipton

School has got me busy, sorry about the lack of posts. I have a lot to post but very little time to do so. Thanks for checking back. I promise you that it's going to get interesting....


"Laurie Lipton was born in New York. She was the first person to graduate from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pennsylvania with a Fine Arts Degree in Drawing (with honours). She has lived in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France and has made her home in London since 1986."


"It was all abstract and conceptual art at my university. I cut my classes and sat for hours in the library copying Durer, Memling and Van Eyck. So even though I went to one of the best universities for art in the USA, I am self-taught. My weird way of drawing took a horrendous amout of time, but I was able to get the same kind of luminous quality that the Renaissance Flemish painters had achieved. My teachers tried to dissuade me and get me to "draw for drawing's sake" and loosen up, but I knew what I wanted. I ached to make something no one had ever seen before with pencil."

"Diane Arbus was another of my inspirations, and her use of black and white (the color of ghosts, memory and madness) opened up a world of possibilities for me."

Check out Laurie's site. Prints are available for purchase.

Artist Harry Clarke

''Clarke was born in Dublin in 1889. His father was a craftsman who produced, among other objects d'art, stained glass windows. Most know Clarke's work from his drawings which are all too often and all too unfairly compared to Beardsley, but it was as a stained glass designer and artisan that he devoted the most of his too-short life. He studied in his father's studio and for a short time in London. In 1907 he was exposed to the works of Beardsley at the Irish International Exhibition, but was likewise entranced by the art of Rossetti, Annie French, E.J. Sullivan and others. By 1909 he was accepting the occasional graphic commission and working at the more creative and critical aspects of the stained glass process. That same year he was awarded a Scholarship in Stained Glass and commenced daily classes with A.E. Child at the Dublin Art School.''

''His first entry to the Board of Education National Competition won the Gold Medal in the stained glass competition in 1910. It was The Consecration of St. Mel, Bishop of Longford, by St. Patrick, as seen at left, and demonstrates the maturity he displayed early on in his chosen field of endeavor. His education continued via scholarship and he won the Gold Medal for stained glass in the National Competition three times. After his three year course, he traveled to London where he began his illustrative career with two major efforts that never saw print: The Rape of the Lock and Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The former was a private commission that raises a lot of questions. Beardsley had illustrated the poem not 20 years prior and comparisons would have been inevitable due to the stylistic similarities. It strikes me as perhaps a youthful challenge that Clarke dared not refuse. It may never have been intended for publication and the extant images are not that impressive. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was much more mature and displayed the density of texture and design that would be his trademark.''

''While in London in 1913, he made the rounds of the publishers looking for illustration work. He met with no success at a dozen publishing houses. Then George Harrap divined his genius and hired him, on the spot, to provide illustrations for an edition of Andersen's Fairy Tales in both a trade and deluxe edition - almost unheard of for an untested, unknown and very young illustrator. The image at right is from The Nightingale and shows Clarke's debt to both Dulac and Nielsen. The Rime was put on hold and work began immediately on the Andersen. This was to occupy several years and finally see print in 1916, the same year that The Rime project was abandoned after most of the drawings and all of the blocks were destroyed in a devastating Dublin riot called the "The 1916 Easter Rising." By this time, however, Harry was already planning and working on Tales of Mystery and Imagination by E.A. Poe.''

''Swinburne was published in 1928, giving him a total of six major books illustrated in 15 years. Compare that to the more than 130 stained glass windows that he and his studio designed and crafted and it becomes very evident where his passions lay. His techniques and talents in glass often surpassed the drawing skills of other artists. The colors, patterns and expressions surpass much of what was being published at the time. And this is merely a small portion of one half of one of eight panels of one stained glass job.''

''Ill-health plagued him much of the last years of his life. He worked at a feverish pace creating glass and book illustrations while trying to maintain his father's decoration studio, which he and his brother Walter ran after the untimely death of their father in 1921. In 1930, shortly before his death, he split the stained glass business off from the decorating business and closed the latter. Walter died in July and Clarke worked even harder, despite his own frailty, to inspire confidence in his newly formed studio. He died in early 1931 while trying to recuperate from his efforts. He was 41.''


Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1979 Douglas Hyde
Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1983 Dolmen
Nicola Gordon Bowe, 1989 Irish Academic Press

source of text & more on Clarke

Nikola Tesla: Master of Lightening

Born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, Vojna Krajina, in the territory of today's Croatia, Tesla was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen.[2] After his demonstration of wireless communication through radio in 1894 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America.[3] Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture,[4] but
due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist.[5]
[6] Tesla never put much focus on his finances. It is said he died impoverished, at the age of 86.[7]

Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics,[8] and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio.[9] A few of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.

During his early life, Tesla was stricken with illness time and time again. He suffered a peculiar affliction in which blinding flashes of light would appear before his eyes, often accompanied by hallucinations. Much of the time the visions were linked to a word or idea he might have come across; just by hearing the name of an item, he would involuntarily envision it in realistic detail. Modern-day synesthetes report similar symptoms. Tesla would visualise an invention in his brain with extreme precision, including all dimensions, before moving to the construction stage; a technique sometimes known as picture thinking. He typically did not make drawings by hand, instead just conceiving all ideas with his mind. Tesla also often had flashbacks to events that had happened previously in his life; this began to happen during childhood.[22]

On 6 June 1884, Tesla first arrived in the US in New York City[26] with little besides a letter of recommendation from Charles Batchelor, a former employer. In the letter of recommendation to Thomas Edison, Batchelor wrote, "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." Edison hired Tesla to work for his Edison Machine Works. Tesla's work for Edison began with simple electrical engineering and quickly progressed to solving some of the company's most difficult problems. Tesla was even offered the task of completely redesigning the Edison company's direct current generators.[27]

Tesla claims he was offered US$50,000 (~ US$1.1 million in 2007, adjusted for inflation)[28] if he redesigned Edison's inefficient motor and generators, making an improvement in both service and economy.[22]:54–57 Tesla said he worked night and day on the project and gave the Edison Company several profitable new patents in the process. In 1885 when Tesla inquired about the payment for his work, Edison replied, "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor," thus breaking his word.[29][30] Earning a mere US$18 per week, Tesla would have had to work for 53 years to earn the amount he was promised. The offer was equal to the initial capital of the company. Tesla then immediately resigned when he was refused a raise to US$25 per week.[31]

Tesla, in need of work, eventually found himself digging ditches for a short period of time for the Edison company. He saw the manual labor as such a terrible job, but Tesla used this time to focus on his AC polyphase system.[22]
In 1886, Tesla formed his own company, Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing. The initial financial investors disagreed with Tesla on his plan for an alternating current motor and eventually relieved him of his duties at the company. Tesla worked in New York as a common laborer from 1886 to 1887 to feed himself and raise capital for his next project. In 1887, he constructed the initial brushless alternating current induction motor, which he demonstrated to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (now IEEE) in 1888. In the same year, he developed the principles of his Tesla coil and began working with George Westinghouse at Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company's Pittsburgh labs. Westinghouse listened to his ideas for polyphase systems which would allow transmission of alternating current electricity over long distances.

In April 1887, Tesla began investigating what would later be called X-rays using his own single node vacuum tubes (similar to his patent #514,170). This device differed from other early X-ray tubes in that they had no target electrode. The modern term for the phenomenon produced by this device is bremsstrahlung (or braking radiation). We now know that this device operated by emitting electrons from the single electrode through a combination of field electron emission and thermionic emission. Once liberated, electrons are strongly repelled by the high electric field near the electrode during negative voltage peaks from the oscillating HV output of the Tesla Coil, generating X-rays as they collide with the glass envelope. He also used Geissler tubes. By 1892, Tesla became aware of the skin damage that Wilhelm Röntgen later identified as an effect of X-rays.

On 30 July 1891, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States at the age of 35. Tesla established his 35 South Fifth Avenue laboratory in New York during this same year. Later, Tesla would establish his Houston Street laboratory in New York at 46 E. Houston Street. There, at one point while conducting mechanical resonance experiments with electro-mechanical oscillators he generated a resonance of several surrounding buildings but, due to the frequencies involved, not his own building, causing complaints to the police. As the speed grew he hit the resonant frequency of his own building and,
belatedly realizing the danger, he was forced to apply a sledgehammer to terminate the experiment, just as the astonished police arrived.[55]
He also lit vacuum tubes wirelessly at both of the New York locations, providing evidence for the potential of wireless power transmission.[56]

In 1899, Tesla decided to move and began research in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments. Upon his arrival he told reporters that he was conducting wireless telegraphy experiments transmitting signals from Pikes Peak to Paris. Tesla's diary contains explanations of his experiments concerning the ionosphere and the ground's telluric currents via transverse waves and longitudinal waves.[63] At his lab, Tesla proved that the earth was a conductor, and he produced artificial lightning (with discharges consisting of millions of volts, and up to 135 feet long).[64] Tesla also investigated atmospheric electricity, observing lightning signals via his receivers. Reproductions of Tesla's receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity (e.g., distributed high-Q helical resonators, radio frequency feedback, crude heterodyne effects, and regeneration techniques).[65]

Tesla may have suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder,[93] and had many unusual quirks and phobias. He did things in threes, and was adamant about staying in a hotel room with a number divisible by three. Tesla was also noted to be physically revolted by jewelry, notably pearl earrings. He was fastidious about cleanliness and hygiene, and was by all accounts mysophobic.

Tesla was obsessed with pigeons, ordering special seeds for the pigeons he fed in Central Park and even bringing some into his hotel room with him. Tesla was an animal-lover, often reflecting contentedly about a childhood cat, "The Magnificent Macak." Tesla never married. He was celibate and claimed that his chastity was very helpful to his scientific abilities.[22] Nonetheless there have been numerous accounts of women vying for Tesla's affection, even some madly in love with him. Tesla, though polite, behaved rather ambivalently to these women in the romantic sense.

Tesla was prone to alienating himself and was generally soft-spoken. However, when he did engage in a social life, many people spoke very positively and admiringly of him. Robert Underwood Johnson described him as attaining a "distinguished sweetness, sincerity, modesty, refinement, generosity, and force." His loyal secretary, Dorothy Skerrit, wrote: "his genial smile and nobility of bearing always denoted the gentlemanly characteristics that were so ingrained in his soul." Tesla's friend Hawthorne wrote that "seldom did one meet a scientist or engineer who was also a poet, a philosopher, an appreciator of fine music, a linguist, and a connoisseur of food and drink."

Close friend, Mark Twain in Tesla's lab.

Tesla was widely known for his great showmanship, presenting his innovations and demonstrations to the public as an artform, almost like a magician. This seems to conflict with his observed reclusiveness; Tesla was a complicated figure.

He refused to hold conventions without his Tesla coil blasting electricity throughout the room, despite the audience often being terrified, though he assured them everything was perfectly safe.

Tesla died of heart failure alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, on 7 January 1943.[100] Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts on the books.


#2 ^ "Electrical pioneer Tesla honoured". BBC News. 2006-07-10. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5167054.stm. Retrieved 2009-08-15.
#3 ^ "Nikola Tesla - electrical engineer and inventor". Serbian Unity Congress. http://www.serbianunity.net/people/tesla/index.html. Retrieved 2009-08-15.#4 ^ Valone, T. Harnessing the Wheelwork of Nature: Tesla's Science of Energy. Adventures Unlimited Press. pp. 102. ISBN 1931882045.
# 5^ Childress, David Hatcher (ed.) (2000). The Tesla Papers: Nikola Tesla on Free Energy & Wireless Transmission of Power. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press. ISBN 0932813860.#6 ^ Robert Lomas (1999-08-21). "Spark of genius". Independent Magazine. http://www.robertlomas.com/Tesla/Independent_Article.html. Retrieved 2008-07-29.# 7^ White MJ (2001). Rivals: conflict as the fuel of science. London: Secker & Warburg. pp. 174. ISBN 0-436-20463-0.#8 ^ Cheney M (2001). Tesla : Man Out of Time. New York, NY: Touchstone. ISBN 0-7432-1536-2.#9 U.S. Supreme Court, "Marconi Wireless Telegraph co. of America v. United States". 320 U.S. 1. Nos. 369, 373. Argued 9–12 April 1943. Decided 21 June 1943.#22 Cheney, Margaret (2001) [1979]. Tesla: Man Out of Time. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743215362. http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0743215362&id=ti2Jt7XarzMC. Retrieved 2007-06-17.#26 ^ "Master of Lightning" by Public Broadcasting Service. Website#27 ^ "Tesla Says Edison was an Empiricist. Electrical Technician Declares Persistent Trials Attested Inventor's Vigor. 'His Method Inefficient' A Little Theory Would Have Saved Him 90% of Labor, Ex-Aide Asserts. Praises His Great Genius.". New York Times. 19 October 1931. "Nikola Tesla, one of the world's outstanding electrical technicians, who came to America in 1884 to work with Thomas A. Edison, specifically in the designing of motors and generators, recounted yesterday some of ..."#28 ^ http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ Adjusting the reported given amount of money for inflation, the US$50,000 in 1885 would equal US$1,140,112.60 in 2007#29 ^ Clifford A. Pickover, Strange Brains and Genius: The Secret Lives of Eccentric Scientists and Madmen. HarperCollins, 1999. 352 pages. P. 14. ISBN 0688168949#30 ^ "My Inventions" by Nikola Tesla, printed in Electrical Experimenter Feb–June, 1919. Reprinted, edited by Ben Johnson, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1982. ISBN# 31^ Jonnes,"Empire of light" p. 110#55 ^ O'Neill, "Prodigal Genius" pp 162–164#56 ^ Krumme, Katherine, Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla: Thunder and Lightning. 4 December 2000#63 ^ Tesla, Nikola, "The True Wireless". Electrical Experimenter, May 1919. (also at pbs.org)#64 ^ Gillispie, Charles Coulston, "Dictionary of Scientific Biography"; Tesla, Nikola. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. ISBN#65 ^ Corum, K. L., J. F. Corum, and A. H. Aidinejad, "Atmospheric Fields, Tesla's Receivers and Regenerative Detectors". 1994.#93 ^ Kerryr.net#100 ^ "Nikola Tesla Dies. Prolific Inventor. Alternating Power Current's Developer Found Dead in Hotel Suite Here. Claimed a 'Death Beam'. He Insisted the Invention Could Annihilate an Army of 1,000,000 at Once.". New York Times. 8 January 1943, Friday.

Sable Island: Shipwrecks & Wild Horses in the North Atlantic

Sable Island is a small Canadian island situated 180 km southeast of mainland Nova Scotia in the Atlantic Ocean.
The island is a narrow crescent-shaped sandbar with a surface area of about 34 km². Despite being nearly 42 km long, it is no more than 1.5 km across at its widest point. It emerges from vast shoals and shallows on the continental shelf which, in tandem with the area's frequent fog and sudden strong storms including hurricanes and nor'easters, have caused over 350 recorded shipwrecks. It is often referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic[3], as it sits astride the great circle route from North America's east coast to Europe. The nearest landfall is 160 kilometres to the northwest near Canso, Nova Scotia.


Sable Island was named after its sand—sable is French for "sand". It is covered with grass and other low-growing vegetation. In 1901, the federal government planted over 80,000 trees on the island in an attempt to stabilize the soil; all died. Sable Island is believed to have formed from large quantities of sand and gravel deposited on the continental shelf near the end of the last ice age. The island is continually changing its shape with the effects of strong winds and violent ocean storms. The island has several freshwater ponds on the south side between the station and west light and a brackish lake named Lake Wallace near its centre.

"The most famous, and perhaps the most popular, of Sable Island's fauna are the wild horses. Although access to the island is restricted - both by location and by regulations - the horses are well-known, and are of great interest, culturally and scientifically. The Sable Island horses have been featured in several documentaries and numerous books and magazine articles, and they were the subject of an exhibition at the Equine Museum of Japan in Yokohama (1994), and a photography exhibition in New York City (Roberto Dutesco, 2002). This population of horses has been the topic of doctoral research (Welsh 1975), and long-term studies have been underway since the mid-1980s (e.g. Lucas et al. 1991)."




"The romantic notion that Sable Island horses are descended from shipwreck survivors persists."


There are frequent heavy fogs in the area due to the contrasting effects of the cold Labrador Current and the warm Gulf Stream. During winter months, the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream can sometimes give Sable Island the warmest temperatures in Canada.





Green Horse Society
http://www.dutescoart.com/gallery/sablehorses/