I’m not advocating for the conflation of sportswear with general casual clothing, but I might be suggesting that team gear is indeed designer. No… I’m not suggesting it, I’m saying it.
Tag: Dalynart
National Women’s Day: Bree Newsome
The confederate battle flag was not just the banner flown by an army fighting for the right to own black people, it was also the banner that was revived and waved by those who opposed desegregation and civil rights.
In honor of the centennial celebration of the Civil War in 1961, South Carolina decided to raise the confederate battle flag over the state house. No black people were on the commission that made that decision.
Not only were they not on that commission, but South Carolina did not allow any black people to participate in their hosting of the national festivities. JFK tried to force the South Carolinians by moving the festivities to an integrated Navy base in Charleston, but the white people led a walk out and held their own official celebration in a segregated hotel. In that celebration Strom Thurmond gave a speech saying integration was evil and that the US Constitution never promised racial equality.
That is when that flag went up on the South Carolina capitol building. Black people (and some allies) have been asking for that flag to come down ever since. Those in authority continually refused.
On June 17th, 2015 a white supremacist murdered 9 black worshipers in a Charleston church. In the subsequent outcry against violent racism, there was some talk of the flag coming down. Those in authority thought they might allow it.
On June 27, 2015 a full 54 years after that flag went up, a black woman named Bree Newsome climbed the 30 foot flag pole and tore the flag down in defiance of the police who waited below to arrest her. She refused to wait for some democratic action to recognize her humanity when God had granted it from birth.
She was of course arrested when she came back down.
On July 9th the SC House of Representatives voted to remove the confederate battle flag in some seemingly gracious act of conciliation. It was an act that came not only 23 days too late, but 54 years overdue.
Bree, in her act of theater, gave America a symbol illustrating bravery and self determination in blackness.
Here is my nod to you Bree Newsome.
That Place With All the Lights: LACMA
The first thing I saw when I walked in the doors of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was a giant portrait of a guy wearing a kilt. The little plaque at the bottom said the subject shared my last name which obviously required me to like it.
But it wasn’t my favorite.
I gravitate toward American artists, like the Eakins they had there, but at LACMA this was also not my favorite. Nor the Rembrandt. Not even the Picasso exhibition which came complete with a guard who tells you to stop taking pictures, even though the painting were picture worthy- still not my favorite.
I think LACMA had squeakier floors, more construction, and just plain more wear and tear than most of the museums I have been too, definitely more than the Broad or the Barnes, but what made up for it, what became my favorite, was the people.
It wasn’t quite like some other places where you go inside and the only people there are retirees wearing clothing from the gift shop and bus loads full of middle-schoolers on field trips. No. This was more like if all those people who run up the Rocky steps in Philadelphia, then proceeded inside the museum. No one in Philly actually goes inside that place, in LA, they do.
I will not forward that the art is better, or that the patrons appreciate it more, just that there were more of the folks you see out on the streets- inside.
People of all sorts are always my favorite.
But aside from them, what LACMA did best, at least in my Philistine opinion, is what California has always done best.
Mid-mod.
The Eames duo were not LA natives, but no one is. But those chairs go with those paintings, which work in those normally awful (shall we say severe) buildings, and they then find themselves in LACMA.
Yeah… they have other stuff there too:
Grahame Fowler
John Tinseth of the Trad describes him as authentic. GQ called him stylish. I decided not to describe him but rather illustrate him.
He claims he is happier than portayed. I would be happy if I had his style.
Starting New Things
I’ve been in the studio quite a bit as of late. Here is why…
Today I launch a new blog, not instead, but in addition to this one. www.dalynart.com
I have long loved the advertising illustration of times past. When I have looked back at Leyendecker or others of that time I am amazed that the work, meant as a modern advertisement, could still look so appealing; not dated. 
Of course most don’t wear straw boater hats today but after viewing these ads, one might want to. There are of course great ads out today, but these old ones were done with a brush.
So are mine.
It feels appropriate to kick it off with the blog that started the menswear or fashion blogging craze that exists today, Scott Schuman of the Sartorialist.
As I’ve spoken with other bloggers, successful ones, there was a common theme; they saw the sartorialist, loved it, and were inspired to do something of their own.
I make no claims to being a Leyendecker, Rockwell, or Eakins, but I will be posting illustrations of blogs, bloggers, brands, or others, that I think deserve a hand painted ode to when things had style and beauty.
Enjoy… and tell a friend.
New Vintage Advertising
It’s hard to get, but so are most things worth having.
Brohammas 