allstaractivist note: I had seen the previews of this movie a while ago and very much wanted to go see it but then got distracted by Gang Stalker attacks. Until yesterday, I had forgotten about the film but then came across a Facebook post of an old friend. I am ashamed to admit that before this film, I knew nothing of Muslims during the Nazi period. This film shows that not all Muslims agreed with Hitler. Even though I am not of the Islamic faith, I honor and appreciate every individual’s struggle for freedom. Ms. Khan’s story is all the more admirable as she was an Islamic woman of faith. Ms Khan displayed strength, courage and integrity, qualities both contrary to and far beyond her culture’s expectations.
Throughout the 1930’s, an unimaginable evil tore through Europe, as Hitler’s Third Reich terrorized its way to domination. During these tumultuous times, a young Muslim woman living in Paris found her calling. Noor Inayat Khan grew up in a home that fostered faith and hope. Leading with her heart, she overcame her quiet nature and joined Winston Churchill’s covert operation to give the Allies a new chance at victory. This is her story.
About the Film
Noor Inayat Khan was the daughter of a spiritual teacher from India, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and his American wife, Ora Ray Baker. After Noor’s birth in Moscow in 1914, the family moved first to England and then to Paris, where she was raised.
In 1940, the Nazis invaded France and twenty-five year old Noor fled with her family to England. There she joined Britain’s Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and trained as a wireless operator. In early 1943, she began her assignment as a covert agent, joining Winston Churchill’s Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE worked with the French resistance fighters to sabotage industry and railroads in preparation for the D-Day invasions, after which they would co-ordinate attacks on the German army behind enemy lines, tying down troops and diverting the Germans from the invading Allied troops. From Paris, Noor Inayat Khan secretly transmitted critical information back to Britain.
In the next four months she was often the only link between the U.K. and the French Resistance. She was pursued by the Gestapo and finally betrayed by French collaborators. The Nazis arrested her and imprisoned her in Paris, where she fought back against her captors and escaped twice. Finally, she was sent to the infamous Dachau concentration camp in Germany where she was executed shortly before the end of WWII.
The British and French subsequently awarded her their highest civilian honors.
Alex Kronemer and Michael Wolfe Executive Producers
Rob Gardner Producer and Director
Academy Award Winning Actress Helen Mirren, Narrator
Why This Film?
There are thousands of films about WW II but the Muslim story is largely missing. Our aim is to share a story about a hero who was unique in her own right: growing up in a household with American and Indian roots. Noor’s childhood was rich with inclusion and openness to all people, even as nationalism and ethnic genocide was on the rise across Europe. Noor’s story is something that everyone can relate to and everyone can identify with. The power of her story will enable people to see Muslims, and particularly Muslim women, in a new light.
Noor’s identity as a Muslim woman did not stop her from signing up to join the fight against the Nazis. Motivated by her faith, Noor’s worldview was based on a respect for all faiths against Hitler’s ideology of ethnic and religious extermination.
During a time in which debate and conversation about who Muslim women are and what they stand for, we, as a community, struggle to bring to the forefront examples and stories of strong Muslim women in unconventional situations. We rarely get the opportunity to share a story about strong Muslim women as widely in the public sphere as we’d like, and it’s up to us to tell these stories. Noor’s story has the potential to reach millions.
Noor’s heroic story will be timely in its message, offering both Muslim communities and mainstream communities the chance to gain a better understanding of who Muslims are. The film brings dramatic reenactments, directed by the three time Emmy winner and Academy Award Nominee, Director Rob Gardner to entertain audiences. The docudrama approach supplements this footage with interviews from leading scholars on Noor’s biography and World War II.
Not an endorsement, just my artistic appreciation of Muslim culture’s more esthetically beautiful elements. I am devoutly Christian but respect and admire people of faith, who do so in kind.
Lillie Hitchcock Coit, 1862 Coit left one-third of her estate to the City of San Francisco “to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved”.[1] The city used this bequest to build Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill.
allstaractivist note: My Mom and I were back in San Francisco this past Monday for my monthly room inspection and pest control spraying. We got there early and were driving around California street headed to Little Italy when I spotted the tower and suggested we try to go and see it. We drove around some of the steepest hills people are crazy enough to build upon, to no avail. We only found steps leading to the tower that seemed to go on for infinity. My Mom is eighty, about fifty steps is her limit. We spotted another elderly lady standing on the corner and in typical native San Franciscan spirit, she gave us impeccable directions with the order to enjoy ourselves. “Yes they have parking under the tower.” “Go on up there and see it, you’ll enjoy yourselves!” Thanks to her dead reckoning, we found our way there and below are the scenic views we were rewarded with. Neither I nor my Mom had ever been to Coit Tower, now we both can scratch that off our bucket list.
We didn’t actually go up the tower, that would have cost $11 we didn’t have. It is $5 for seniors and $6 for San Francisco residents, which I am. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were informed that there was a guided tour complete with full narratives for the murals. They are very interesting murals and not painted by Diego Rivera as I had come to believe, but by government subsidized (Public Works Of Art Project) local artists during the Great Depression. The lobby attendant explained that the artists had been heavily influenced by Diego and chose to paint the murals in his style. Mom and I plan to go back when they are giving the free tour and then pay the elevator fee to go up as well. Visiting the lobby, murals and grounds are free, seven days a week.
I did find it interesting that there were embossed fascist reed bundles flanking both sides above the front entrance. I wonder what the political climate was back then in 1933 America? Probably very close to the way things seem to be headed today. Hmmm…
San Francisco‘s Coit Tower has two fasces-like insignia (without the axe) carved above its entrance, flanking a Phoenix.
Click to view Mrs. Lillie Hitchcock Coit, Volunteer Fireman, on The Virtual SF Museum
Round and round go 2,000 visitors a day at Coit Tower, marveling at the first-floor murals and walking by a double door that leads to the murals no one ever sees.
These are the unknown upstairs wall paintings that start with a panorama of Powell Street, climbing the hill as the viewer climbs the steps, and end with a bright painting of domestic life that gets its own little room to wrap around.
“The second-floor murals have been largely closed off to the public,” says Jon Golinger of Protect Coit Tower, an advocacy group. “Most San Franciscans and most visitors don’t even know they are there.”
For most of the 80-year history of the murals, the second floor has been kept secret because the stairway is narrow and the viewing space is extremely tight. The first floor has the rotunda to handle the crowds. The second floor is only as wide as the tower itself, and the seven murals are mostly pressed together at the landing.
The unifying theme is recreation, as opposed to the first-floor theme, which is industry and commerce, depicted by people grim with purpose, trying to make their way amid the struggle and strife of the Great Depression.
Because all 27 Coit Tower murals were painted at the same time, in 1934, they presumably were meant to be seen as a whole. Now that all the murals have undergone the most intensive restoration in their history, an effort is being made to get people up there, but only in groups of four to eight, and only as part of a docent tour.
This can be done either through City Guides, which offers free tours of all the murals on Wednesdays or Saturdays, or through the vendor, Coit Tower Tours, which includes a docent tour of all the murals, for $7 a person. The second-floor tour takes about 15 minutes, which is too short for Golinger.
“I’ve been up here for at least an hour at a time,” he says. “Every time you look at the murals you find something new.”
Studied up close
They can only be studied up close, which has a sudden impact when the double door opens to “Powell Street,” by Lucien Labaudt. The mural runs up both sides of the stairway, like both sides of the street, and as you climb the stairs, people climb Powell alongside the cable car.
“The stairway mural is superb; it is one of the all-time best within the tower,” says Anne Rosenthal, an arts conservator who led the restoration of the murals, a yearlong $500,000 project overseen by the San Francisco Arts Commission, guardian of the tower murals.
At the top of the stairs are two murals that bump into each other. One is “Sports” by Edward Takeo Terada, and the other is “Collegiate Sports” by Parker Hall, which includes a Big Game picture above and around the exit.
“I love that portion,” says Rosenthal. “It is very creative the way that center is straddled over the stairway.”
The marquee mural is “Home Life,’ by Jane Berlandina, a French artist married to Henry Howard, one of the architects for the tower. “Home Life” is the only mural at Coit that is a tempera painting, with egg yolk mixed into the pigment, and it is the only mural at Coit that had never been restored.
It took two conservators three weeks to fix the scratches and divots before it was dry-cleaned like the others.
“When I came into this room three years ago, it had the worst damage of them all,” Golinger says. “It had chips and gashes. Now every visitor I see walk into this room goes ‘wowm’ and their eyes pop open.”
Natural light
The room is flooded with natural light that brings up the yellows and reds. Berlandina also did sets for the San Francisco Opera, and this little room is a set of its own, with curtains drawn over the doorways.
Surrounding the viewer are a mom rolling out piecrust with her daughters, people in formal wear dancing to a piano/guitar duo, adults playing cards at a table, and a dad reading the newspaper in an easy chair.
“This mural really jumps out,” says Golinger, an attorney who lives in North Beach. “It’s a much more upbeat version of life in 1934. It seems almost as if all is well in the world.”
If you are up there at the right time, you can see staff coming out a door, beneath Ben Cunningham’s “Outdoor Life.” This is something else as unknown as the second-floor murals: the long-rumored Coit Tower caretaker’s apartment, now converted to an office.
Coit Tower, a slender white concrete column rising from the top of Telegraph Hill, has been an emblem of San Francisco’s skyline since its completion in 1933, a welcoming beacon to visitors and residents alike. Its observation deck, reached by elevator (tickets can be purchased in the gift shop), provides 360-degree views of the city and bay, including the Golden Gate and Bay bridges.
The simple fluted tower is named for Lillie Hitchcock Coit, a wealthy eccentric and patron of the city’s firefighters. Coit died in 1929, leaving a substantial bequest “for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city I have always loved.” The funds were used to build both the tower and a monument to Coit’s beloved volunteer firefighters, in nearby Washington Square. The tower was designed by the firm of Arthur Brown, Jr., architect of San Francisco’s City Hall. Contrary to popular belief, Coit Tower was not designed to resemble a firehose nozzle.
The murals inside the tower’s base were painted in 1934 by a group of artists employed by the Public Works of Art Project, a precursor to the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and depict life in California during the Depression. When violence broke out during the 1934 longshoremen’s strike, controversy over the radical content in some of the panels became quite heated. Some of the most controversial elements were painted over, and the tower was padlocked for several months before the frescoes were finally opened to the public in the fall of 1934.
Telegraph Hill takes its name from a semaphore telegraph erected on its summit in 1850 to alert residents to the arrival of ships. Pioneer Park, which surrounds Coit Tower, was established in 1876 on the former site of the telegraph station. As you wander the trails that wind around the tower and down the hill, you may hear the raucous chatter of the neighborhood’s most famous (and noisiest) residents, the flock of parrots featured in the 2005 film “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.”
COIT TOWER DETAILS
Hours
10am-6pm May through October and 10am-5pm November through April.
Holiday closures
Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day
Guided Tours
Docent tours are available to visitors with a complete tour of the Tower including the murals. The tours are limited to an eight (8) person maximum. The length of the tour is about 30 – 40 minutes. Visitors will learn about the Tower’s inception, the Public Work of Art Projects’ influence, and history of the twenty-six artists. A $7 fee will be charged for tours of the murals. Please visit coittowertours.com for more information.
Please note that parking at the tower is very limited, and at peak times the line of cars waiting to reach the lot can be very long. Muni’s #39 Coit bus travels between Coit Tower and Fisherman’s Wharf. For a scenic hike to the tower, climb Telegraph Hill’s eastern slope via the Filbert Street stairs, which pass through the Grace Marchant Garden, or the Greenwich Street stairs.
Lillie Hitchcock Coit August 23, 1843 – July 22, 1929
One of the most unusual personalities ever connected with our Fire Department was a woman. She was Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who was destined not only to become a legend but to attain that eminence long before her life ended.
She came to this city on the ship Tennessee in 1851 from West Point, where her father, Dr. Charles M. Hitchcock, was stationed. Dr. Hitchcock served in the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars. During the Mexican War he performed a splendid piece of surgery on Colonel Jefferson Davis, saving his leg. Davis went on to be U.S. Secretary of War and President of the Confederacy.
Seven years later, when only 15 years old, she began her famous career with Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 5. On one afternoon that pioneer fire company had a short staff on the ropes as it raced to a fire on Telegraph Hill. Because of the shortage of man power, the engine was falling behind. Oh, humiliating and bitter was the repartee passed by Manhattan No. 2 and Howard No. 3 as the total eclipse seemed to be but a matter of seconds. Then suddenly there came a diversion. It was the story of Jeanne d ‘Arc at Orleans, The Maid of Sargossa and Molly Pitcher of Revolutionary fame all over again.
Pretty and impulsive Lillie Hitchcock, on her way home from school, saw the plight of the Knickerbocker and, tossing her books to the ground, ran to a vacant place on the rope. There she exerted her feeble strength and began to pull, at the same time turning her flushed face to the bystanders and crying: “Come on, you men! Everybody pull and we’ll beat ’em!”
A Famous Day For Little Lillie
Everybody did come and pull and Knickerbocker No. 5 went up the slope like a red streak and got first water on the fire.
That was a famous day for Lillie. From that time on she caught the spirit of the Volunteers and Dr. Hitchcock had difficult work attempting to keep his daughter from dashing away every time an alarm was sounded. As it was, there never was a gala parade in which Lillie was not seen atop Knickerbocker No. 5, embowered in flags and flowers. She was, literally, the patroness of all the firemen of her city.
From her earliest infancy she was curiously fascinated by the red shirt and warlike helmet of the firemen and she gloried in the excitement of a big blaze. Almost invariably, with the energy and speed that the most agile fireman might envy, she hastened to the scene of action. Lillie often said she loved courage in a uniform.
San Francisco society of that day was exclusive and rigid. As the Hitchcocks were valued members, society frequently agonized over the vagaries of its Lillie. But she seems always to have done exactly as she pleased without giving real offense.
On October 3, 1863, she was elected an honorary member of the Knickerbocker Company, and always regarded that honor as the proudest of her life. She wore the numeral as an ornament with all her costumes, along with the gold badge presented at the same time.
Honorary Membership Certificate
As Miss Hitchcock became older, she gave up the habit of following the engine, but the tie that bound her to the company was as strong as ever. If any member of a company fell ill, it was Lillie Hitchcock who gladdened the sickroom. And! should death call him, she sent a floral tribute as final expression of her regard.
A Steadfast Love For California
After her marriage to Howard Coit, a caller at the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange, she traveled extensively in the East, in Europe and the Orient. Notwithstanding all her wanderings, her love for California was steadfast and she at length made it her permanent home.
She was a notable figure even at the court of Napoleon III and a maharaja of India, and later when she came back to San Francisco to live she brought with her a remarkable collection of gifts from royalty and others. They included gems of rare value, object of art, mementoes and souvenirs, some of them priceless.
When Mrs. Coit died here on July 22, 1929, at the age of 86, she gave practical evidence of her affection for San Francisco. She left one-third of her fortune to the city “to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved.” For several years after her death, there was question as to the most fitting interpretation of the “appropriate manner” in which to make the memorial. The executors of her will at last determined to erect a memorial tower in honor of this colorful woman and also a memorial tribute to San Francisco’s firemen.
Both have been completed for some time. The novel appearance of the 185-foot cylindrical tower which stands atop Telegraph Hill is surely a significant symbol to the memory of one whose individuality made her as outstanding an example of contrast to her days as is this unusual form of memorial shaft.
The second memorial to her was unveiled in Washington Square, December 3, 1933. It is a sculptured block representing a life-sized group of three firemen, one of them carrying a woman in his arms.
By: Frederick J. Bowlen, Battalion Chief, S. F. F. D. (1939)
LILLIE HITCHCOCK COIT5
1843 – 1929
Excerpts from the same
By: Floride Green – (Floride Green was Lillie’s life long maid)
The Grabhorn Press (1935)
At this time (1851) the firemen of San Francisco were in all their glory – they had won their laurels on many a fiery field, and snatched it from the flaming jaws of death. They had shown courage, a daring and devotion never excelled in any cause. The best men in San Francisco belonged to these companies and it was considered an honor to be a fireman. Naturally enough they became the objects of the children’s admiration – in their eyes every red shirt covered a hero. Page 14
Her childish admiration for the firemen (all volunteers in these days) grew as the years went on, and this devotion led to that unique phase of her picturesque life, when she became the only woman member of a fire company. Page 18
There would have been no San Francisco without its famed volunteer fire companies – lawyers, doctors, bankers, merchants, all belonged, and she knew every one of them. Her home was just opposite Number 4, but it was to Knickerbocker Number 5 that she gave allegiance. She, like everyone else, went to all the fires that happened in the day time, and at the first clap of the bell at night she always awoke, and then she would pace the floor until the engines were again housed. Many times she would order coffee and a hot supper served at the Oriental Hotel for the members of her company on their return, and her indulgent father was only too willing to pay the bill. Knickerbocker Number 5 became so attached to her that they admitted her to honorary membership October 3, 1863, and her certificate of membership was her most prized possession. After this she was expected to go to all fires that occurred in the day. And at night, if her light was not burning until her engine was housed she was fined. With the tremendous rivalry between the fire companies, Number 5 always regarded her presence worth more than that of many men, for they redoubled their efforts when she stood by looking on with pride at the work of “her company.” Page 19
In those days not only were the engines run to the fires by men pulling ropes but the pumping was also done by man power, As a young lady returning from Grace Church, where she had been to a rehearsal of a wedding at which she was to be bridesmaid, she heard the fire alarm sounding. Immediately she had herself driven to the fire on Market Street. She found two ladders up and her Number 5 and some other company both playing water on the flames. The pipeman on the other ladder jeered at Number 5’s pipeman and pointed her out in her Paris dress saying that she was only a ‘Featherbedder.”
Number 5’s man was furious and to disprove the charge turned the hose full on her and ducked her well. Of course she was surprised, but seeing it had been done by Number 5 she waved her hand and took her ducking as a fireman should. Number 5’s pipeman then played the stream on the burning building, and her fellow member screamed to the other pipeman – “Told you she was no “Featherbedder.”
She always wore a little gold 5 pinned to her dress and signed herself Lillie H. Coit5. She asked that this 5 be left on her at the end. Everything she had, even her linen, was marked – L.H.C.5. Lacemakers even worked it into her monogram on her fans.
In December, 1866, the paid fire department of San Francisco was organized, and she became a veteran. Knickerbocker Number 5 always had an annual dinner October 17th , or as she called it, “Numbers 5’s birthday,” for October 17, 1850 was the date that the company was voted in the department. It was always her self-appointed duty to see to the table decorations and flowers. Later in the evening she would appear at these dinners dressed in a black silk skirt, red fire shirt and black tie, and her veteran’s belt – she usually carried her helmet. Of course a toast was drunk to her health at each dinner. Page 20
The Funeral of Lillie Hitchcock Coit5
Mrs. Coit passed away July 22, 1929. Had she lived a few more weeks she would have been eighty-six years old.
The next morning at the funeral parlor(s) I found a young fireman standing guard at the door of the room where she lay. I asked to what company he belonged and he replied Number 5.” A guard from that company keep watch day and night while she lay there. They considered it an honor that they had been selected to keep vigil over that tiny, white haired old lady, enshrouded in a cloud of lace, pinned with her precious “5.”
Before the cortege reached Grace Cathedral a company of firemen fell in ahead and led the procession. At the Cathedral steps stood three of the four living volunteer fire men: Samuel Baker, Captain J. H. McMenomy, and Richard Cox. They constituted themselves a special guard of honor and proceeded the pall bearers. At the end of the service someone tried to hurry these old Volunteers – but they took their own time and each laid his hand reverently on the casket and paused to say his silent goodbye before the procession could move on.
They felt that she belonged to them and it was exactly what she would have liked.
After going part of the way, the firemen parted ranks, stood with bared heads while she was borne between them. I thought this was San Francisco’s farewell to her – but this was not to be so, for the city intends that she shall be remembered by the beautiful observation tower which it has erected to her memory. Page 45
The Will of Lillie Hitchcock Coit5
Lillie Coit left one third of her estate ($225,000) to the Supervisors of San Francisco with the request that they should “expend the same in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of said city which I have always loved.”
They decided that nothing would so add to the beauty of the city as a tower on the top of historic Telegraph Hill, where she had so often played. Page 46
There was money left over in Lillie’s bequest after the building of Coit Tower. The remaining available funds were used for a statue dedicated to the volunteer firemen of San Francisco. This statue, in Washington Square, is of three firemen, one of them is holding a small child. This monument is one of the few pre-9/11 monuments in the United States that honored firefighters.
The Dedication of Coit Tower
California Historical Landmark 91
San Francisco Landmark 165
On October 8, 1933, city officials, civic organizations, the army, the pioneers, the Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, the Sons and Daughters of the Golden West, the firemen and old friends gathered there to dedicate this tower to the memory of the one they had always loved.
Knickerbocker Engine Number 5 was sold years ago to Carson City, and later discarded as too antiquated. After Mrs. Coit’s death, a few friends, who know how dear it had been to her, bought it and gave it to the Museum in San Francisco. Page 46
As, at the death of an officer, his sword and his reversed boots are borne by his riderless charger, so at the dedication of the Coit Tower her fire helmet and veteran’s belt, rested on Number 5 as it was dragged slowly up Telegraph Hill and stood there mutely speaking of the pioneer days. Page 47
A Present Day Myth About Lillie Coit
The myth is that Lillie Hitchcock Coit was the first woman firefighter in the United States.
Due to the fact that Lillie W. Hitchcock was made an honorary member of Kinckerbocker Company No. 5, she has falsely been given the title of the first woman firefighter in the United States. Please note that she was made an “honorary” member, not given a full membership, of Knickerbocker Company No. 5. There is no documentation that Lillie ever was allowed to participate in extinguishing a fire, but she was involved in all other aspects of “her company.”
Not a Myth About Lillie Coit
At age 15 (1858) Knickerbocker 5 adopted Lillie as their mascot and in every parade she was given the honor of riding atop the engine’s wash box amid wreaths, garlands and bouquets of choicest flowers, like some ballroom belle.
Previously, Lillie had been considered the pet of the young gold rush town of San Francisco.
At age 17 she and her mother left for Paris and returned three years later in the spring of 1863. Upon her return Lillie quickly became the belle of San Francisco.
On October 3, 1863 Lillie W. Hitchcock was voted an honorary membership of Kinckerbocker 5, and was given the following rules by the company.
She was expected to go to all fires that occurred during the day.
At night, if her light was not burning until her engine was housed she was fined.
With the esteemed position of honorary membership, she was allowed to wear the parade uniform of the company; a fireman’s red shirt, a black skirt (instead of pants), a parade helmet with her initials, and a formal parade belt from the Veteran Firemen’s Association of San Francisco. Lillie’s helmet and her 1863 honorary membership certificate and now on display at the SFFD Museum.
On her own she helped pull the engine of her company to the fire as a young girl. She did help with the social events of her company. She did visit sick members of the company, even well after the company was disbanded. She did assist with a proper burial of the firemen of her company if their families could not afford it.
While Mrs. Coit was constantly doing things that no other woman of her time would have dared to, her escapades were always innocent and she was never touched by the breath of scandal – everything was always open and above board. In her unconventionality, her lack of concern as to what others would think of her, she was far in advance of her times. (LHC5- Page 36)
In Paris during 1860 and 1863, she was taught how to dance by the head of the Ballet School. Page 26 This training made her the envy of every woman at a dance. Lillie’s dance card was always quickly filled after her entrance.
She traveled to Paris often and she was a notable figure at the court of Napoleon III.
On November 19, 1868, she married Benjamin Howard Coit. Howard Coit was an elected (1870) caller of the Stock Board during the tremendously exciting days of the Bonanza strike (of the Virginia City Comstock Lode). Page 27. His remarkable aptitude for the position, secured him a salary of $1000 a month. Mr. Coit died of heart disease during sleep, May 14, 1885; at the age of 47.
Lillie was a finished poker player. Page 27 During her married life her home was the rendezvous for the state builders – Ralston, Sharon and others – and these men recreated at night by playing poker. Mrs. Coit was as good a player as any of them and was often the only woman in the game.
Lillie was an avid hunter. Page 30. Mrs. Coit was a splendid shot and the hall at “Larkmead” in the Napa Valley filled with trophies of the chase. Her hunting suit was made by Poole of London – a white shirt (with a stiff front and high collar) a jacket and a skirt which escaped the ground about ten inches – a very extreme innovation in those days! She use to tell the story on herself that as she got out of her hunting wagon in Calistoga, an old country man, who had been sitting on the hotel porch with his feet cocked up on the railing, sprang to his feet and shouted: “My God! It’s a woman!” Everyone in the valley knew her for a “dead shot.”
Lillie was an accomplished carriage driver. Page 31. Not only was she a fancy driver, but she could tool her four-hand over any mountain road for Mrs. Coit had some of the best old stage-drivers come to “Larkmead” to instruct her.
A Present Day Myth of Coit Tower
Coit Tower was designed as a fire nozzle to honor Lillie Coit and the San Francisco firefighters. The 210 foot tower was designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. (1874-1957) an American architect based in San Francisco who had stated on many occasions that his tower was not designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle.
Mr. Brown also designed many other San Francisco buildings such as the Beaux-Arts City Hall (1915) where his attention extended to the smallest details, such as, light fixtures, floor patterns and even doorknobs that feature the seal of the city. In 1932 he designed the War Memorial Opera House and in collaboration with G. Albert Lansburgh, the Veterans Building. He designed the rotunda for the City of Paris department store at Geary and Stockton Streets which is now preserved in the Niemen Marcus building. His other accomplishments extend throughout California and across the Nation.
allstaractivist note: It was surprising to me just exactly what the political climate was back when Coit Tower was erected. I am not associating Mrs. Coit with any political ideology whatsoever, the tower was conceived of and built long after her death. I do wonder if she would have approved of the fascist symbolism on the front, or of the socialist murals inside. I don’t think so being the free spirit that she seemed to be, deriving her wealth from Capitalism. It may have actually been a dishonor to her.
I have not read the book below, but it seems to do a pretty good job of capturing the political beliefs of the day. Many people don’t know just how closely we were involved with fascism and socialism back then, some would say we still are. Coit Tower was built during this time and is a good reflection of the era. The book below might help those so interested get a better understanding of our journey from back then up to our present day.
Book Description
Publication Date:July 27, 2011
A new President takes office amidst economic and financial turmoil. A business community is bruised and battered from public condemnation. A controversial and ambitious political agenda with far-reaching consequences is fiercely challenged across the country. A dangerous foreign ideology overshadows American debates on security.2009? Not exactly. It was 1934, and one year into Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, powerful forces were gathering to oppose the New Deal. Some were comical, like the Silver Shirt militiamen who wore ill-fitting uniforms emblazoned with a giant L for “Love, Liberty, and Loyalty.” Others were deadly serious, like the heir to the Singer sewing machine dynasty who admitted he was willing to spend half of his thirty million dollar inheritance in order to save the other half by overthrowing the U.S. government.In STATE OF EMERGENCY, Nate Braden brings these various threads together to show how the United States was closer to revolution in 1934 than at any time since 1776. Relying on thousands of pages of testimony from the House Un-American Activities Committee – held in executive session and kept classified for decades – he crafts a spellbinding story of a troubled country rocked by political and economic upheaval.While countless books have been written on the Depression, Braden sheds new light on a host of fascinating, forgotten characters who hatched an incredible scheme to make Franklin Roosevelt the last American President.There was the private wealth manager from New York who visited Germany and was inspired by Hitler to create a paramilitary force of 500,000 men modeled on the Nazi Brownshirts. He had $700 million in assets to finance this private army. Thanks to his friendship with a high-ranking Army officer, he was able to tour Civilian Conservation Corps camps in Maryland with the intent of using them as staging areas for his men to march on Washington.There was Douglas MacArthur’s deputy chief of staff; a man who despised Franklin Roosevelt and everything he stood for, advocated the forced sterilization of foreign “undesirables,” and believed “the problem of the Jew in America must be studied and solved without further delay.”There was the West Point graduate and co-founder of the American Legion who returned from World War I to start a successful Wall Street brokerage firm. A passionate libertarian, he was convinced the New Deal was a front for a Communist revolution. Quietly, discreetly, he began to work through chosen agents for an end to democratic rule in the United States.There were the disturbing signs that America’s social and political fabric was unraveling. From the Farmers’ Holiday insurrection in Iowa to the Bonus Army riot in Washington, the writing was on the wall – after three years of Depression, the American people weren’t going to take much more.There were the cadres of paramilitary organizations cropping up with alarming frequency across the country. Most were pompous and impotent. Others had cash and cunning; men who were making plans to assassinate public officials and take over city halls, hiding weapons near major population centers in the event the time came to act.
Using his trademark eye for detail and mastery of historic context, Braden weaves these disparate elements together in a fascinating tale of conspiracy and treason, of fear and honor, proving once again the truth of Thomas Jefferson’s famous warning: “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”
Be kind, this is my very first attempt at painting with acrylics, ever. I’ve painted with water colors before but never with actual “paint”. I bought a bunch of art supplies (acrylics, canvas, graphite and tools) over a year ago but when the Gang Stalkers attacked, I haven’t been able to use them. I may not even have them anymore since my room was burglarized by the maintenance man and my landlord at the All Star Hotel (Tenderloin Housing Clinic manager Aubrey & maintenance man “Victor”).
Anyway, I was helping my mom shop for silverware trays at Marshall’s when I spotted this Easel and Painting Set made by Winsor & Newton for twenty dollars. Since I already had a set of their calligraphy inks and liked them, I figured I could finally get to test out some acrylic painting. Practice for when I was finally able to use the other supplies I bought. The set came with a table top easel, six tubes of Acrylic paints, two spatulas, six pre-shrunk canvas boards, a graphite pencil, and instruction booklet, a mixing palette and two synthetic round brushes plus a flat. The only thing missing was black, impossible to change the tint without.
When I originally bought the other supplies I had a long talk with the salesperson. He told me acrylics were best because they could be worked either like oils or watercolors. The only caveat he gave was that you layered them. I didn’t understand what that meant. The experience was something quite different from the talk. I found that you must mix your pallet before painting, they don’t seem to blend at all on the canvas. You have to work fast as well, undiluted they dry fast and will gum up the brush. That was something of an advantage as well because you could cover different areas without fear of smudging. The colors change a little when dry, so you have to get used to that. You should also do a complete drawing before starting (I was so excited I did not) as correcting uses more paint. Surprising how fast the tube goes flat. You can make the drawing as dark as you like if using the paint undiluted, it is very opaque and covers well. The set did not come with an eraser for this reason, the paint will just cover.
As to subject matter, I wanted my first to be something special. I chose Betsy Ross making the first flag for the Thirteen States. I’m having trouble with her but will take photos as I finish, the photo below is four hours worth of “work”. This is my very first time painting so please don’t be too critical, I promise that I’ll stay with her until she is presentable. Oh, thats another nice thing about acrylics, THEY’RE TOUGH. You can just throw it to the side without worrying about it getting damaged until you are ready to paint again.
Revealed: how the spy agency used unwitting artists such as Pollock and de Kooning in a cultural Cold War
By Frances Stonor Saunders
Sunday, 22 October 1995
For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art – including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko – as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince – except that it acted secretly – the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.
Title: The key Artist: Jackson Pollock Completion Date: 1946 Style: Abstract Expressionism Genre: abstract painting Gallery: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
The connection is improbable. This was a period, in the 1950s and 1960s, when the great majority of Americans disliked or even despised modern art – President Truman summed up the popular view when he said: “If that’s art, then I’m a Hottentot.” As for the artists themselves, many were ex- communists barely acceptable in the America of the McCarthyite era, and certainly not the sort of people normally likely to receive US government backing.
Why did the CIA support them? Because in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union, this new artistic movement could be held up as proof of the creativity, the intellectual freedom, and the cultural power of the US. Russian art, strapped into the communist ideological straitjacket, could not compete.
Title: Woman III Artist:Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) Medium: Oil on canvas, 1953 172.7 cm × 123.2 cm (68 in × 48.5 in) Private collection of Steven A. Cohen
The existence of this policy, rumoured and disputed for many years, has now been confirmed for the first time by former CIA officials. Unknown to the artists, the new American art was secretly promoted under a policy known as the “long leash” – arrangements similar in some ways to the indirect CIA backing of the journal Encounter, edited by Stephen Spender.
The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.
The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America’s anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.
Initially, more open attempts were made to support the new American art. In 1947 the State Department organised and paid for a touring international exhibition entitled “Advancing American Art”, with the aim of rebutting Soviet suggestions that America was a cultural desert. But the show caused outrage at home, prompting Truman to make his Hottentot remark and one bitter congressman to declare: “I am just a dumb American who pays taxes for this kind of trash.” The tour had to be cancelled.
Title: Circle Artist: Jackson Pollock Start Date: 1938 Completion Date:1941 Style: Expressionism Period: Early works Genre: figurative painting Technique: oil Material: board Dimensions: 30.5 x 32.2 cm Gallery: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
The US government now faced a dilemma. This philistinism, combined with Joseph McCarthy’s hysterical denunciations of all that was avant-garde or unorthodox, was deeply embarrassing. It discredited the idea that America was a sophisticated, culturally rich democracy. It also prevented the US government from consolidating the shift in cultural supremacy from Paris to New York since the 1930s. To resolve this dilemma, the CIA was brought in.
The connection is not quite as odd as it might appear. At this time the new agency, staffed mainly by Yale and Harvard graduates, many of whom collected art and wrote novels in their spare time, was a haven of liberalism when compared with a political world dominated by McCarthy or with J Edgar Hoover’s FBI. If any official institution was in a position to celebrate the collection of Leninists, Trotskyites and heavy drinkers that made up the New York School, it was the CIA.
Until now there has been no first-hand evidence to prove that this connection was made, but for the first time a former case officer, Donald Jameson, has broken the silence. Yes, he says, the agency saw Abstract Expressionism as an opportunity, and yes, it ran with it.
“Regarding Abstract Expressionism, I’d love to be able to say that the CIA invented it just to see what happens in New York and downtown SoHo tomorrow!” he joked. “But I think that what we did really was to recognise the difference. It was recognised that Abstract Expression- ism was the kind of art that made Socialist Realism look even more stylised and more rigid and confined than it was. And that relationship was exploited in some of the exhibitions.
“In a way our understanding was helped because Moscow in those days was very vicious in its denunciation of any kind of non-conformity to its own very rigid patterns. And so one could quite adequately and accurately reason that anything they criticised that much and that heavy- handedly was worth support one way or another.”
Title: Man With Knife Artist: Jackson Pollock Start Date: 1938 Completion Date:1940 Style: Abstract Expressionism Period: Early works Genre: figurative painting Technique: oil Material: canvas Dimensions: 127 x 91.4 cm Gallery: Tate Britain, London, England, UK
To pursue its underground interest in America’s lefty avant-garde, the CIA had to be sure its patronage could not be discovered. “Matters of this sort could only have been done at two or three removes,” Mr Jameson explained, “so that there wouldn’t be any question of having to clear Jackson Pollock, for example, or do anything that would involve these people in the organisation. And it couldn’t have been any closer, because most of them were people who had very little respect for the government, in particular, and certainly none for the CIA. If you had to use people who considered themselves one way or another to be closer to Moscow than to Washington, well, so much the better perhaps.”
This was the “long leash”. The centrepiece of the CIA campaign became the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a vast jamboree of intellectuals, writers, historians, poets, and artists which was set up with CIA funds in 1950 and run by a CIA agent. It was the beach-head from which culture could be defended against the attacks of Moscow and its “fellow travellers” in the West. At its height, it had offices in 35 countries and published more than two dozen magazines, including Encounter.
The Congress for Cultural Freedom also gave the CIA the ideal front to promote its covert interest in Abstract Expressionism. It would be the official sponsor of touring exhibitions; its magazines would provide useful platforms for critics favourable to the new American painting; and no one, the artists included, would be any the wiser.
This organisation put together several exhibitions of Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s. One of the most significant, “The New American Painting”, visited every big European city in 1958-59. Other influential shows included “Modern Art in the United States” (1955) and “Masterpieces of the Twentieth Century” (1952).
Because Abstract Expressionism was expensive to move around and exhibit, millionaires and museums were called into play. Pre-eminent among these was Nelson Rockefeller, whose mother had co-founded the Museum of Modern Art in New York. As president of what he called “Mummy’s museum”, Rockefeller was one of the biggest backers of Abstract Expressionism (which he called “free enterprise painting”). His museum was contracted to the Congress for Cultural Freedom to organise and curate most of its important art shows.
Title: Landscape With Steer Artist: Jackson Pollock Completion Date: 1937 Style: Expressionism Period: Early works Genre: figurative painting Technique: enamel, lithography Dimensions: 35.1 x 47.1 cm Gallery: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
The museum was also linked to the CIA by several other bridges. William Paley, the president of CBS broadcasting and a founding father of the CIA, sat on the members’ board of the museum’s International Programme. John Hay Whitney, who had served in the agency’s wartime predecessor, the OSS, was its chairman. And Tom Braden, first chief of the CIA’s International Organisations Division, was executive secretary of the museum in 1949.
Now in his eighties, Mr Braden lives in Woodbridge, Virginia, in a house packed with Abstract Expressionist works and guarded by enormous Alsatians. He explained the purpose of the IOD.
“We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do, and what you must paint, which was what was going on in the Soviet Union. I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War.”
He confirmed that his division had acted secretly because of the public hostility to the avant-garde: “It was very difficult to get Congress to go along with some of the things we wanted to do – send art abroad, send symphonies abroad, publish magazines abroad. That’s one of the reasons it had to be done covertly. It had to be a secret. In order to encourage openness we had to be secret.”
Jackson Pollock, Summertime No 9+
If this meant playing pope to this century’s Michelangelos, well, all the better: “It takes a pope or somebody with a lot of money to recognise art and to support it,” Mr Braden said. “And after many centuries people say, ‘Oh look! the Sistine Chapel, the most beautiful creation on Earth!’ It’s a problem that civilisation has faced ever since the first artist and the first millionaire or pope who supported him. And yet if it hadn’t been for the multi-millionaires or the popes, we wouldn’t have had the art.”
Would Abstract Expressionism have been the dominant art movement of the post-war years without this patronage? The answer is probably yes. Equally, it would be wrong to suggest that when you look at an Abstract Expressionist painting you are being duped by the CIA.
But look where this art ended up: in the marble halls of banks, in airports, in city halls, boardrooms and great galleries. For the Cold Warriors who promoted them, these paintings were a logo, a signature for their culture and system which they wanted to display everywhere that counted. They succeeded.
* The full story of the CIA and modern art is told in ‘Hidden Hands’ on Channel 4 next Sunday at 8pm. The first programme in the series is screened tonight. Frances Stonor Saunders is writing a book on the cultural Cold War.
Covert Operation
Title: John F. Kennedy portrait Artist: Elaine de Kooning Completion Date: 1962 Style: Abstract Expressionism, Expressionism Genre: portrait
In 1958 the touring exhibition “The New American Painting”, including works by Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and others, was on show in Paris. The Tate Gallery was keen to have it next, but could not afford to bring it over. Late in the day, an American millionaire and art lover, Julius Fleischmann, stepped in with the cash and the show was brought to London.
The money that Fleischmann provided, however, was not his but the CIA’s. It came through a body called the Farfield Foundation, of which Fleischmann was president, but far from being a millionaire’s charitable arm, the foundation was a secret conduit for CIA funds.
So, unknown to the Tate, the public or the artists, the exhibition was transferred to London at American taxpayers’ expense to serve subtle Cold War propaganda purposes. A former CIA man, Tom Braden, described how such conduits as the Farfield Foundation were set up. “We would go to somebody in New York who was a well-known rich person and we would say, ‘We want to set up a foundation.’ We would tell him what we were trying to do and pledge him to secrecy, and he would say, ‘Of course I’ll do it,’ and then you would publish a letterhead and his name would be on it and there would be a foundation. It was really a pretty simple device.”
Julius Fleischmann was well placed for such a role. He sat on the board of the International Programme of the Museum of Modern Art in New York – as did several powerful figures close to the CIA.
Jackson Pollack’s studio floor. He used ordinary, Devoe house paints.
Pollock’s pallet? Courtesy of Devoe house paints.
Was here before Pollock, still here after he’s long gone.
I was flipping through channels late one night and happened to see a music video that looked really interesting, I had never seen anything like it before. What caught my attention at first was the neon preppy type of clothing the singers were wearing, that and their rather effeminate looks. After getting over the shock from the over the top fashion and styling, I began to listen to the music and realized it sounded very familiar, almost like R&B of twenty years ago. The more I listened, the more I liked it. It reminded me of what I used to listen to when I was that young, only these were asian kids singing it. Not only were they mimicking an 80’s R&B style, they were doing it extremely well. I picked up tones of Luther Vandross, R Kelly, Riahanna, Hip Hop and other such accustic alchemy. They were dazzling in their production and a pleasure to listen to. All the videos are different, but the greatest variety are among the female groups. They sound great, they look great and they all dance very, very well. It’s refreshing to see real artistry and genuine talent back in music again. Can’t say I agree with the materialism, drug dealing nor the overt sexuality of some of the videos but the artistry is very impressive. So, these are some of the videos I have seen that really impressed me for all of the qualities mentioned above. If only I could speak and understand Korean.
BIGBANG – FANTASTIC BABY M/V
2NE1 – CAN’T NOBODY M/V
G-DRAGON – ONE OF A KIND M/V
[MV] ORANGE CARAMEL (Catallena)
Ailee – Singing Got Better
Practically an unknown quantity at the start of the decade, K-pop is now a household name around the globe. In recent years, the Western media has all but overflowed with a rising tide of South Korean pop, from fashion spreads to viral ads, Lorde pull-quotes to Grimes tweets, music video analyses to industry think pieces (and, of course, the most popular piece of content on the internet). And yet, so little of this attention has paid much mind to the music itself. If K-pop seems like the fad that never ends, that’s probably because it never really started, either.
K-pop treats a song as just one of several interlocking aesthetic parts, which typically include corresponding choreography, a music video, novella-thick liner notes, the occasional corporate tie-in, and an overarching “concept” that brings it all together. These tend to be conceived in tandem to a much greater extent than in Western pop, so to divorce a K-pop single from its context is to engage with it only partially. For example, the absurdist satire of “Gangnam Style” wouldn’t make total sense even to someone living in Gangnam without its attendant video and “horse dance.”
The Korean music industry—for all its bright color schemes, plastic sheen, and frankly commercial raison d’être—has quietly produced some of the most intelligent, adventurous, and accomplished mainstream pop of the past few years. It’s a world where songs with whiplash tempo cuts, Punjabi-via-Korean lyrics, and irregular beats exist as hyper-realized pop commodities, but connect with audiences on a mass scale.
Black Sharpie Chisel Tip permanent marker, Windsor gold ink on quarter inch white foamboard.
Student watercolors on acid free 200 lb. tinted watercolor paper. Speedball calligraphy pen using b1 nib and Windsor gold ink. Crayola glitter glue pen.
10 frame animated gif at 2.5 second intervals rendered with Adobe Illustrator – photographed at 300 ISO, f/5.6 apeture, 1/250 shutter, tungsten light setting, no flash in med lighting. Frames adjusted with Adobe Photoshop 5.5 brightness/contrast and gaussian blur filter.
Student watercolors on 20 lb bright typing paper.
Calligaphy chisel tip pen with clear nail polish overlay. Luke 22:49 KJV “When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword?”
Close up of calligraphy.
Engraved with Dremel tool using glass etcher bit, metallic gold ball point pen fill. Clear nail polish overlay.
Close up of engraving.
Permanent marker on beige construction paper. Done while in East Bay Hospital.
Gel pens on typing paper, correction fluid for mistakes.
Metal raised music notes, black vinyl music note “stickers”, plastic turquoise tiles, technical pen on typing paper and clear plastic CD case.
Photocopied sheet music, pressed flowers and holographic butterfly “stickers”.
Metallic fabric ribbon with green, white and red stripes. White fabric ribbon with metallic geometric repeating pattern.
My front door at the All Star Hotel. Wood grain patterned 12″ contact paper, large brass viewer (peep hole), solid brass Dolphin spring loaded paper clip, solid brass numbers, solid brass whale design door knocker secured with stainless steel security screws, Schlage solid brass 00414 Plymouth residential single lock front door handleset and brass toned 33′ aluminum kickplate.
A little further away for a better view. I found a discarded black rubber industrial floor mat on the street and cut it in half. I first cleaned it with purple automotive degreaser before installing it. I then secured it to the floor with four 3″ black drywall screws, screwed into the floorboards at all four corners for safety.
Children’s washable liquid marker set on typing paper.
An unfinished greeting card design. Stadler gold calligraphic pen, soft pastel, No.2 pencil on vellum.
Mixed media doodles. Colored pencil, technical pen and gel color ballpoint pen on typing paper. Orange highlighter marker for Koi.
Bucolic landscape. Permanent marker and No. 2 pencil on bright typing paper.
Study to the above drawing.
Mixed media Aztec medallion. Soft pastel, technical pen, gel color ballpoint pen, colored pencil, highlighter marker and correction fluid (White Out).
No. 2 graphite pencil and soft carpenters pencil on notebook paper.
Done with Photoshop 5.5. I’ve forgotten exactly how I did this however, no edited images were used. Done totally in 2D program with filters, effects, distortions, hues, contrasting, colors and masking. The water droplets were “plastic wrap” and gradient work finished with lighting effects (spotlight). There are magazines that show you how to do this now with a 2D graphics app, but I did this in 1992. As proof, I still have the original PSD file. The gold signature at bottom was the only thing I used a 3D app for and it was done with Swift 3D.
I knew I had the original file laying around here somewhere. It was zipped up in an archive within an archive AND, password protected. What was I thinking way back in 1992??
Done with Swift 3D, Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop 5.5. An artist out of San Quentin said that “Now that looks like a mess.” I did it to impress a girl who shall remain nameless (chuckle), but she preferred a guy who wouldn’t give her the time of day.
Technical pen doodles.
Jailhouse envelope designs that certain gang members liked, they paid me but I was not a member. Done in Santa Rita Jail, Dublin CA.
More envelope designs.
Practice line drawings.
Even more practice line drawings.
A CD case I did for a friend and classmate at Cypress Mandela Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program, Oakland, California. Her name was Shamaria. She later went into the Marines at Paris Island. All Technical pen line drawing and stippling.
Shamaria is the pretty girl in a green irridescent blouse & black pants/shoes, fourth from the right (going left). I am the one on the far right front row kneeling down in black leather bomber & khaki pants.
Preliminary design of a house we would like to build. Class room assignment at Cypress Mandela Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program, Oakland, CA.
Black ballpoint pen.
No.2 pencil, done in jail.
Ball point pen jailhouse doodles. The penitentiary drawing was done by an Arian Brotherhood member. When it comes to art “inside”, racism and prejudice goes out the window. All that matters is the art.
Piece of black Crayon used for filling out complaint forms in San Francisco’s Bryant St. main jail, CJ-1 (City Jail #1). I don’t do people well, obviously. This was a female guard who was very nice. I did this on my top bunk as she was passing by.
Crayon, No. 2 pencil and black ball point pen. An envelope and card design that I did while in jail at Santa Rita in the city of Dublin, California. These did not sell and is why I still have them.
Gold calligraphic pen and color Sharpie’s. This is a card that I presented to a former Desk Clerk at my hotel who was terminated after her boyfriend assaulted her on the job. I still have it because she was not allowed to accept any gifts from tenants. I miss her.
Black ball point pen. A semi-technical drawing for a truck mirror base I was going to make.
Crayon Glitter Glue Pens and white Sharpie Paint Pen. An Art Deco style vase I jazzed up the base on. I bought it at Goodwill.
Stadler silver chisel tip calligraphic pen, cast aluminum gold fillagree decoration from a purse, string of faux pearls, holographic label, silver Crayon Glitter Glue Pen, red Sharpie Chisel Tip permanent marker, 22 guage galvanized steel wire and gold carpet thread. This item was only shown to the intended recipient but not given.
The Gimp, Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Swift 3D. This was a design I did for a business card and stationary. Don’t remember all that I did but the final PSD file had about 70 layers.
I knew I had the psd file somewhere. This is the actual graphic.
Brown clay, green, yellow, blue and brown glaze. Fired. I made this in 1971 in Kindergarten at John Muir Elementary School in Berkeley, California. I was four years old. I actually made an anatomically correct head at the same time but it was not fired. My mom washed it and destroyed it though.
Down for the night.
Photoshop 5.5. circular select tool, paint bucket, lighting effects, text tool utilizing digital type and gradient tool. Brightness/Contrast adjust.
Photoshop 5.5 and Swift 3D text tool utilizing Gothic font. Same tools used as on 9 ball except plastic wrap filter was used for ivory. I’ve forgotten how I did the background.
Photoshop 5.5. My attempt at remembering how to duplicate my experiments with making 3D from a 2D graphics app.
Adobe Illustrator. I really like the sophisticated look of images made by vector. I wish I had spent more time learning Illustrator.
Swift 3D, Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop. I had fun with this one but was always too embarrassed to show it to anyone. Just think of a circus!
Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and Swift 3D. Believe it or not, the hardest part of this one was getting the lighting just right. The grapes were easy, just make one and duplicate it 30 times.
Adobe Photoshop 5.5. I like math! Not really, I only like it as art. 🙂
Adobe Photoshop 5.5. As you might be able to tell, I like the Crown stand up trucks very much. Lighting effects, text tool, pillow embossing and inverted as well.
Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and The Gimp. Embossing, lighting effects, text tool, plastic wrap filter, gradient, hue-constrast-brightness adjust.
Adobe Photoshop 5.5. I’m tired now, you know how it was made. Just like the rest.
Adobe Photoshop 5.5. Another attempt of me trying to remember how I got from here to there.
Photoshop 5.5. Pretty basic, magnetic selection tool, color selection tool, masking, hue, saturation and gaussian blur on the bikini. Couldn’t get the eyes white though, didn’t mask them when I did a hue adjustment.
My favorite truck.
Adobe Photoshop 5.5 and Swift 3D. Various filters and effects that I have long since forgotten. Wish I could remember the jem like thingy. I believe it can be made by applying distortions to either plastic wrap or chrome filter and then maxing out hues and saturation. Throw in some contrast too.
Unfinished Jailhouse envelope. Colored pencil.
Unfinished Jailhouse envelope. Colored pencil.
Red Sharpie Chisel Tip permanent marker. Gold gel pen. Inkjet printer.
Acid free pre-cut mat board. Gold metallic ribbon. Lace ribbon. Cast filigree metal heart. Gold metallic pen. Dried and pressed flowers.
This is the first Native American Eagle prayer feather that I did. I gave it to a neighbor who is also Native American Indian.
This is my neighbor, Mr. Jeffrey Soto. A proud Native American and military veteran.
Photoshop 5.5. I did the Batman spotlight on September 12th, 2001, the day after.
Photoshop 5.5. The only image that I did’nt make was the Klingon insignia. All I did to it was change the hue and add a “plastic wrap” filter.
Photoshop 5.5 and Swift 3D. The only images not of my own making were in the Crown reach truck graphic.
Photoshop 5.5 and The Gimp. Only graphic not mine was the Terminator (I changed eye color) and part of that background, I just changed opacity.
These were all done in the 1990’s. Photoshop 5.5 and Swift 3D. Police van was not mine.
All me. Photoshop 5.5 exclusively. I seem to have a thing for the Sun. My dream is to walk through our Sun when given my glorified body. A Black Hole too. Think God will let me?
All mine again except for the Klingon emblem. Remember AOL? I copied both designs from those CD’s they used to send out. What can I say, they had good graphic designers. Photoshop 5.5 & Swift 3D for “Bridget” only.
Need I say more?
This was an animated .gif and the planet floated by in the mirror. This was the very first animated .gif that I ever made and I did it in Web Development school, it kind of made me a minor celebrity on campus. Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop 5.5.
September 9th was the fifth anniversary of the San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed (murdered) CPUC Gas Ratepayer Advocate Mrs. Jacqueline (Jackie) Greig and her thirteen year old daughter, Janessa. Mrs. Greig was the head of her department and was in charge of approving a 3.6 billion dollar rate increase proposal submitted by PG&E […]
Alan Wang (KGO Reporter) SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — PG&E is waiting to get hit with criminal charges. The federal government is expected to go after the utility for that pipeline disaster in San Bruno more than three years ago. The gas explosion was always a crime in the eyes of Gayle Masuno whose 87-year old […]
Well, I just finished the story about attending the Subcommittee meeting and I must say, it wasn’t easy. It was difficult for several reasons but most of them had to do with me being new to blogging, especially this particular template that you see here. Even though both of my blogs are on WordPress (which […]
![Lillie Hitchcock Coit, 1862 Coit left one-third of her estate to the City of San Francisco "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved".[1] The city used this bequest to build Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill.](https://allstaractivist.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/366px-lillie_hitchcock_coit1.jpg?w=627)
![State of Emergency: The Depression and the Plots to Create an American Dictatorship [Kindle Edition]._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-v3-big,TopRight,0,-55_SX278_SY278_PIkin4,BottomRight,1,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_](https://allstaractivist.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/state-of-emergency-the-depression-and-the-plots-to-create-an-american-dictatorship-kindle-edition-_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-v3-bigtopright0-55_sx278_sy278_pikin4bottomright.jpg?w=627)
All Star Activist 