Feeds:
Posts
Comments

What the Drone Found

July 29, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jesse Casana.
Jonathan Alperstein, a researcher, excavates land on an unexpectedly large ancient agricultural site in Michigan.

The other day, my neighbor surprised me with a bunch of aerial photos of my New Shoreham place that were taken by her nephew’s drone. As drones are used more and more in warfare, I sure like thinking about the harmless and often useful things drones do.

In today’s example, a mystery revealed by drone led to a long-term collaboration between Menominee tribal members and non-Indigenous archaeologists in Michigan.

Nell Greenfieldboyce reports at National Public Radio (NPR), “Archeologists studying a forested area in northern Michigan say they’ve uncovered what is likely the largest intact remains of an ancient Native American agricultural site in the eastern half of the United States.

“The researchers used a drone equipped with a laser instrument to fly over more than 300 acres, taking advantage of a brief period of time after the winter snow had melted away but before the trees had put out their leaves.

“This allowed the drone to precisely map subtle features on the surface of the exposed ground, revealing parallel rows of earthen mounds. This is what’s left of raised gardening beds that were used to grow crops like corn, beans, and squash by the ancestors of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, in the centuries before European colonizers arrived.

“The mounds appeared to continue on beyond the surveyed area, the researchers say, showing agriculture at a surprisingly vast scale in a place that wasn’t a major population center.

” ‘We haven’t even been able to locate any significant settlement sites in this region. There’s a couple of tiny little villages,’ says Jesse Casana, a professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College and one of the authors of a new report in Science. ‘So it’s really shocking in this case to see this level of investment in an agricultural system that would require really enormous amounts of human labor to make happen.’

“It’s especially odd given the relatively poor growing conditions that far north, especially during a period of colder temperatures known as the Little Ice Age, as well as the presence of wild rice right nearby, says Madeleine McLeester, a Dartmouth anthropologist who led the research team. …

” ‘This astonishing paper shows how much we’ve underestimated the geographic range, productivity, and sustainability of intensive Indigenous agriculture across North America,’ says Gayle Fritz, an anthropologist with Washington University in St. Louis.

” ‘The study is outstanding in many ways, one being the long-term collaboration between Menominee tribal members and non-Indigenous archaeologists,’ she says — with the other being the combination of new technologies plus ‘old-fashioned, ground-based excavation and survey.’

“While some people may envision historical Native Americans as mostly hunter-gatherers or nomads, ‘that is very incorrect,’ says Casana. ‘By the time colonists arrived, what they were encountering were a lot of pretty sedentary communities all over North America who were practicing various forms of farming,’ he says. …

“The site mapped in this new study is part of Anaem Omot, which means the ‘Dog’s Belly’ in Menominee. It’s an area along the Menominee River on the border between Michigan and Wisconsin, and is of great cultural and historical significance to the Menominee tribe.

“The region contains burial mounds and dance rings. It’s also known to have agricultural ridges, ranging from 4 to 12 inches in height, because previous work back in the 1990’s had mapped some of them.

” ‘These features are really difficult to see on the ground, even when you’re walking around, and they’re difficult to map,’ says McLeester.

“That difficulty, plus concerns about proposed mining activities in the area, is why the research team — which included the tribe’s historic preservation director, David Grignon — wanted to see if new technology could reveal more acres covered with the earthen agricultural rows.

“McLeester says they thought they’d find some more rows, but also expected that others would have eroded away since the last mapping effort. …

“But the drone surveys revealed that the field system was ten times bigger than what had been previously seen. ‘Just the scale, I would say, was unexpected,’ she says. …

“Says Casana, ‘One of the interesting things about this study is that it kind of shows us a preserved window of what was probably a much more extensive agricultural landscape.’ …

“Susan Kooiman of Southern Illinois University, an expert on the precontact Indigenous peoples of Eastern North America, says … ‘To find intact, ancient indigenous agricultural fields in any state, at any level, is very rare. …

” ‘The amount of work, and just how far these fields extend, is beyond anything that I think people suspected was going on this far north in eastern North America,’ she says. … ‘The question now is, what are they doing with all this stuff they were growing?’ “

More at NPR, here. (NPR is struggling since the massive federal cut. Help them out here if you can. No amount too small.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Poison Books

July 28, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: University of St Andrews.
Books bound with potentially toxic green covers. 

With all the benighted book banning going on these days, you would think that the vigilantes had learned the written word would land people in the hospital. But reading is not lethal, and thinking about new ideas won’t kill anyone.

Having said that, I admit there is some reading material that may be dangerous to touch. Ella Creamer reports at the Guardian that “arsenic was historically mixed with copper to create a vivid green for book covers.”

“A new tool to quickly identify books that are poisonous to humans has been developed by the University of St Andrews,” Creamer writes. Historically, publishers used arsenic mixed with copper to achieve a vivid emerald green color for book covers. While the risk to the public is ‘low,’ handling arsenic-containing books regularly can lead to health issues including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat along with more serious side-effects. The toxic pigment in the book bindings can flake off, meaning small pieces can easily be inhaled.

“In recent years, many libraries have prevented access to all suspect green books as a precaution, as testing has until now been costly and time-consuming. … The new device can quickly and cheaply detect the presence of toxic pigment.

“ ‘A device used in the School of Earth Sciences to detect minerals in rocks was the starting point,’ said Pilar Gil, who led the research. ‘The Eureka moment was discovering the unique reflectance pattern from emerald green pigment in the visible spectrum. The idea was then to apply this discovery to an instrument which we could use and share with the sector.’

“Two scientists from the university’s astronomy and physics school, Graham Bruce and Morgan Facchin, developed a portable tool. ‘Our device shines different colors of light on to the book,’ said Facchin. ‘The amount of light reflected at each color is like a fingerprint of the pigment in the book.’ …

“The handheld device can screen books to test for the pigment in a fraction of a second. ‘Our team has been asked to look at thousands of books, of which more than 100 have been identified as containing emerald green pigment,’ said Bruce.

“At St Andrews, emerald green books are stored in Ziploc polythene bags. ‘When the books are used, we check first if there are any other copies available which are not bound in emerald green,’ reads the university’s website. ‘If not, the book is handled with special precautions such as the use of nitrile gloves.’ …

“ ‘The retention of green books from public view is not only a matter of safety, but it also restricts access to the information contained,’ said conservator Erica Kotze, who instigated the project. ‘This means that the books which have been tested and found not to contain the pigment can remain available to users.’

“A free exhibition exploring the project, Poisonous books – Dangers from the past, is running at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews until the end of July.”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall, but please consider donating to support factual news.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Syrian Comedians Test the Waters

July 27, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Ghiath AlHaddad Ayoub/The World.
Comedy is having a moment in Syria as a new wave of artists tests the limits of expression under a new government.

Syria suffered many years of extreme oppression, so the recent overthrow of the Assad government brought hope for change. That doesn’t mean everything is fine, as recent fighting with the Druze ethnic group has shown. Still, it’s time to celebrate any encouraging baby steps.

Shirin Jaafari reports at PRI‘s The World about something that hasn’t been heard in Syria for a long time.

“As the sun set over central Damascus, laughter spilled out from the Karma Café. Inside, a young crowd gathered — some in headscarves, others without. But all were ready to experience stand-up comedy in a free Syria.

“Comedy is having a moment in the country.

“With the fall of the Assad regime, a new wave of artists is testing the limits of expression. Among them is Styria, a stand-up troupe whose name fuses Syria with hysteria, a nod to the absurdity and pain of living under dictatorship. …

“Sharif Homsi, founder of the group, [started] writing comedy long before it was safe. Living under a regime that silenced dissent, he described the past as a kind of suspended state: ‘You’re not allowed to die, but you’re not allowed to live.’

“In 2016, he left for Dubai, trained with Arab comedians, and later returned to his homeland to form Styria. Even then, performing comedy felt dangerous.

“ ‘One wrong word and someone could report you,’ Homsi recalled. ‘You could disappear in a blink.’

“So, the group played it smart, he said, avoiding politics, tiptoeing around religion and carefully crafting jokes about sex and social taboos. But now, with the old red lines shifting, they’re pushing the envelope further.

“At the cafe in Damascus, Homsi took the mic, greeting the audience with humor and ease. His jokes, often about his own frugality or his dad’s job as a dog walker, sparked laughter and a sense of connection. But he didn’t shy away from sharper edges, even referencing the extremist past of Syria’s new leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa. …

“Fellow comedian Ammar Daba, who returned after the regime fell, said the challenge now is not just legal limits, but social ones.

“ ‘It’s exciting and confusing. I don’t know where the lines are,’ he said. 

But Daba thinks comedians have a role to play in this new environment.

“ ‘It is our time, as stand-up comedians, to be the pioneers,’ he said, ‘to tell people that “yeah, you can talk about that! You can talk about that outside of your private rooms and homes. You can say whatever you want even on the streets.” ‘

“The night’s only woman performer, Mary Obaid (aka Meme), steered away from politics, instead poking fun at her own life and body image.

“ ‘Every problem, when spoken out loud, becomes smaller,’ Obaid said. ‘Comedy helps us do that.’

“After the show, a man who only gave his first name, Ibrahim, reflected on the performance.

“ ‘This is what we need here. We need to communicate our fears, our taboos, in a healthy way,’ he said. ‘And this is the best way to discuss those really difficult issues.’

“The crowd spilled into the Damascus night, still laughing and exchanging numbers.

“For Sharif Homsi, the founder of Styria, this is the power of comedy. It can create moments of relief and respite, and it can start conversations that otherwise would not take place.

“ ‘Fifty, sixty people to a hundred sharing a room, laughing about similar things. … If they can laugh together, they can live together.’

“Syrians have been divided for so long, he added. ‘It’s time for that to end.’ ”

More at The World, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Archiving When Nothing’s on Paper

July 26, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Library of Congress.

I have often thought about what we’ve lost in the digital age, when we can no longer scrutinize the thought process of a novelist from seeing her many revisions. Nor can we learn much about the significant people in her life, given that so many of her emails and texts will have been erased.

What will biographers do? How will today’s archivists deal with the challenge?

Michael Waters writes at the Atlantic (via MSN), “It was long the case that archives were full of physical ephemera. Think of Oscar Wilde’s love letters to Lord Alfred Douglas; … Sylvia Plath’s shopping list; Malcolm X’s lost poem; and other scraps of paper buried in boxes. Today, text messages and disappearing voice notes have replaced letters between close friends, Instagram Stories vanish by default, and encrypted platforms such as Signal, where social movements flourish, let users automatically erase messages. Many people write to-do lists in notes apps and then delete them, line by line, when each task is complete.

“The problem for [historians]: On the one hand, celebrities, artists, executives, and social-movement leaders are generating more personal records than ever, meaning a lucky researcher might have access to a public figure’s entire hard drive but struggle to interpret its contents. On the other hand, historians might lose access to the kind of intimate material that reveals the most. …

“The work of history starts with a negotiation. A public figure or their descendant — or, say, an activist group or a college club — works with an institution, such as a university library, to decide which of the figure’s papers, correspondence, photos, and other materials to donate. Archivists then organize these records for researchers, who, over subsequent years, physically flip through them. These tidbits are deeply valuable. They reveal crucial details about our most famous figures and important historical events. …

“Over the past two decades, the volume of these donations has increased dramatically. When Donald Mennerich, a digital archivist at NYU, first started working in the field, 15 years ago, writers or activists or public figures would hand over boxes of letters, notes, photos, meeting minutes, and maybe a floppy disk or a ‘small computer that had a gigabyte hard drive,’ he told me. Now, Mennerich said, ‘everyone has a terabyte of data on their laptop and a 4-terabyte hard drive’ … plus an email inbox with 10,000 messages or more. …

“Now many libraries possess emails that they don’t have the bandwidth to make accessible to researchers. … Even when an email archive is made public … it’s easy to get lost in the chaos. Jacquelyn Ardam, a writer and a literary scholar, was one of the first people to visit Susan Sontag’s archive, which she told me was filled with digital clutter: Sephora marketing emails, files with unlabeled collections of words (rubbery, ineluctable), and lots and lots of lists — of movies she’d liked, drinks she’d enjoyed. …

“Among that mess of information, however, Ardam found emails confirming Sontag’s relationship with the photographer Annie Leibovitz, which Sontag had denied. All Ardam had to do to locate them was ‘search her computer for the word Annie,’ she said. …

“In the past, even a writer of Sontag’s stature would typically have a small-enough correspondence collection that they could plausibly review the letters they were planning to donate to an archive—and perhaps wouldn’t have included missives from a secret lover. But the scope of our digital lives can make it much harder to account for everything (imagine giving up your whole social-media history to a researcher) and much easier for a historian to locate the tantalizing parts with a single search.

“Of course, that’s if historians are lucky enough to access records at all. Many people delete their old texts to save storage space. … Mennerich said he’s been locked out of the email accounts of several deceased public figures because they never shared their passwords. …

“Archivists might be able to sidestep some of these problems by rethinking how they present collections of digital records. Today, after archivists do their initial review of a collection, visitors can typically get a complete box of someone’s letters with no questions asked. With emails, conducting that whole initial review up front would be so much more time intensive that blanket access might no longer be realistic. …

“The archivists I spoke with told me they’re all bracing themselves for the moment when, inevitably, a public figure donates their smartphone. It is in some ways the most personal kind of donation someone can make, offering access to text and WhatsApp histories, photos, Tinder messages, saved recipes, TikTok likes. Such a donation seems both likely to reveal more than a person’s emails ever could and even harder to sort through and interpret.”

More at the Atlantic, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Inmates Making Music

July 25, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Noam Brown.
Bending the Bars artists Kashdatt, Chuckie Lee and ZQ recording in the studio. 

Given that the US leads the world in numbers of people incarcerated (1,808,100), more than even China, that’s a lot of human beings we can’t just forget about. We need to find ways for them to be engaged in the world and not give up hope, for our own sakes as well as theirs.

Monica Uszerowicz writes at the Guardian about an experiment in Florida that was organized by inmate advocates and received no help from the system.

“In ‘Locked Down,’ a song by the San Diego-based poet and rapper, Chance, she sings with both foreboding and care: ‘Every day that you wake up you’re blessed / love every breath, ’cause you don’t know what’s next.’

“Chance wrote the song – originally a poem, its title a callback to Akon’s ‘Locked Up’ – while imprisoned in Phoenix, Arizona, during the beginning of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdown (‘six feet apart in a five-by-five,’ she raps in the same song, alluding to the virtual impossibility of social distancing in the American prison system). … She shared with me in a recent phone call, ‘It’s crazy how they maintained control and instilled fear within us. When you’re locked up, you ask yourself … are you going to be angry, or are you going to find what your calling and purpose is?’

” ‘Locked Down’ is also one of 16 tracks on Bending the Bars, a hip-hop album featuring original songs by artists formerly or currently incarcerated in Florida’s Broward county jails (with the exception of Chance, a Florida native). Bending the Bars was organized by the south Florida abolitionist organization Chip – the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People – which was initially founded to support inmates during the early days of Covid.

“Nicole Morse, a Chip co-founder and associate professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, says the organization began fielding calls in April 2020, primarily from Broward, the county just north of Miami-Dade; the calls were primarily about medical neglect, abuse and an atmosphere of abject fear. …

“In 2021, the data Chip had gathered was used to support a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Disability Rights Florida on behalf of individuals suffering from Covid in the Broward county jail.

“Something more hopeful was emerging from those hotline calls, too: creativity. ‘People wanted to share their latest poetry or a song they were developing,’ Morse said. ‘Art was helping people survive an incredibly desperate time.’

“Noam Brown, a children’s musician and Chip committee member, began dreaming up the idea of an album. … Chip hoped to create a platform for the wealth of talent they continually encountered. The organization began fundraising, applying for grants and putting the word out that they were producing an album; Gary Field, an incarcerated organizer, writer and scholar, became the executive producer, helping to connect the artists with Chip.

“Musicians on the inside used two phones to record their songs – one as the microphone to record their vocals, the other to listen to the beat. ‘The challenges were phenomenal,’ Field shared in a phone call. ‘People couldn’t even talk to their families, never mind collaborate on something as complicated as producing a studio album. We were in the middle of a pandemic. There were four phones and 40 inmates trying to use them.’

“Spaces with two easily accessible phones were limited; the duration of any prison phone call is restricted. But Chip covered the costs of the calls, while Brown’s brother, Eitan, worked as the sound engineer, and the Grammy-winning children’s artists Alphabet Rockers helped create beats. Artists who were already out were able to spend time in the studio, including Chance, who returned to south Florida after her release.

“After reconnecting with a former classmate, the two attended a meeting for Chainless Change, a Lauderhill-based non-profit advocating for those affected by the criminal legal system. ‘It was divine – I don’t believe in accidents; I knew I was being called to go back to Florida’ Chance said. She began working with the group and helped organize a poetry event, where she met Field, Brown and Morse. She asked if they had room on the album for one more.

“The result is nearly an hour of uniquely south Floridian hip-hop and R&B, both of which are constellations of so many genres – Caribbean beats, southern bass, Deep City soul, Miami drill – poetic musings on love, loneliness and hope, and demands for systemic change to the draconian and brutal conditions of the Florida prison system. While Morse noted that the album’s sound quality was impaired by technical limitations, Bending the Bars is polished and clear, an accomplishment owed partly to its production and mostly to the ingenuity of its artists: singers, rappers and collaborators like J4, Corvette Cal and Chuckie Lee, all of whom alchemized the tracklist into a textural tapestry: playful, mournful, educational and intentionally dotted with prerecorded interjections from the prison phone line (‘you have one minute remaining’). 

“Field, whose song ‘Tearing Down Walls and Building Bridges’ closes the album, studied political science at Columbia University and received his master’s from Gulf Coast Bible College, and has contributed 2,000 pages of writing to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology civic media project Between the Bars. He knows, intimately, the significance of the writing process.

” ‘I remember, as an inmate back in 2010, what a profound sense of gratitude the opportunity to write gave me,’ he shared. …

“The system often censored mail or blocked phone calls during the recording process. … ‘We had to develop a set of strategies to overcome those barriers,’ they said. ‘The project was made without the cooperation of any prison or jail. Every strategy we came up with for how to get through to people … we can now share those strategies with loved ones of incarcerated folks who don’t have any additional privileged access.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Is Peace Possible?

July 24, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: It’s Time.
Jewish Israeli singer Achinoam Nini and Palestinian Israeli singer Mira Awad take the stage at the People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem, May 9, 2025.

You wouldn’t know it from the headlines, but in Israel there are actually quite a few Jewish and Palestinian individuals who refuse to give up on peaceful coexistence.

Dina Kraft reports at the Christian Science Monitor, “For Israelis and Palestinians, May 28 marked 600 days of the most devastating period either side has known since Israel’s foundation. And yet amid it all, there are people trying to build bridges from one side to the other, attempting – together – to create a different reality.

“Some of them gathered recently for a well-attended two-day People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem, forged by a coalition of Jewish and Palestinian peace-building and coexistence organizations. They sought to demonstrate that a peace movement is a viable and growing notion, and that joint Jewish-Palestinian activism is withstanding the raging war and shattered trust.

“ ‘The way to peace will not be short, but it is better than endless war,’ Sally Abed, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, called out from the Jerusalem stage to an auditorium packed with over 3,000 people. She is a leader of Standing Together, a fast-growing group uniting Jewish and Palestinian Israeli citizens.

“One outspoken Israeli peace activist is Maoz Inon, whose parents were burned to death in their home near Gaza in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war. He and his siblings responded with a vow to seek peace, not revenge.

“ ‘Yes, we are devastated from the horrors that are happening in Gaza and the West Bank, and we acknowledge the ongoing trauma both peoples are enduring,’ he says in an interview. ‘But we know the only way to end the bloodshed and the cycle of violence, revenge, and hate is shaping and creating a new reality. We are learning from spiritual and faith leaders, security leaders, and from other conflict areas that were resolved.’

“In the aftermath of Oct. 7, Mr. Inon paired with a fellow entrepreneur, Aziz Abu-Sarah, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem whose older brother died soon after being imprisoned and beaten in the first intifada. Together they have been advocating reconciliation, equality, and justice.

“They say they can see their growing impact in their growing list of invitations to speak, not only at peace-related events but also in public schools, at universities, and at conferences. Their joint TED Talk has gone viral, and their work caught the attention of the late Pope Francis, leading to a Vatican meeting.

“It can be difficult for Israelis and Palestinians to work together openly. Activists are called naive at best, traitors at worst. But, Mr. Abu-Sarah argues, ‘We are offering the only viable answer to the current reality. As Maoz told me after his parents were killed, “Right now, we are in the desert – no food, no water. We’re lost. And when you’re lost in the desert, you call out for water.”

” ‘We are calling out for peace. … In times like these, we must work with Israelis who oppose the bombardment of Gaza and genuinely support peace. [But] bridge-building must be rooted in clear principles: equality, justice, recognition, healing, and safety for all. It’s not just about dialogue. It must lead to real action and tangible change. We do have strong, principled allies on the Israeli side. … They need us, and we need them, because without each other, we’re weaker – and the killing won’t stop.’

“[Standing Together] sees the recent surge in activism as the sign of an awakening among Israeli Jews who view the war as endangering Palestinian civilians alongside Hamas-held Israeli hostages and soldiers. …

“Illustrating both the challenge and the potential for peace activists, throngs of ultranationalist young Israelis swept through Jerusalem’s Old City on May 26, shouting hateful slogans in a sometimes-violent march marking the day in 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem.

“Volunteers from Standing Together and the Free Jerusalem collective, a group of predominantly Jewish Jerusalem residents that works with Palestinians in the city, acted as a ‘humanitarian guard’ to prevent violence. In a scene captured on video, a Jewish Israeli volunteer can be seen rushing into a crowd of far-right marchers surrounding a Palestinian man. …

“ ‘We always have something we can do and a way we can do it,’ wrote Rula Daoud, co-director of Standing Together, herself a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

“Mohammad Darawshe, director of strategy at Givat Haviva, Israel’s oldest and largest organization working for a shared Jewish-Arab society, says bridge-building is challenging for Palestinian Israelis. They face systemic discrimination and are often seen as a fifth column in Israel, he says, and while they have an ethnic and cultural affinity for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians, they have limited political influence.

“ ‘As peacemakers they have a very underutilized role. But if empowered by Israel and by Palestinians on the other side, then they could play a significant role in peacemaking thanks to our bilingualism and dual identity,’ he says. …

“Mika Almog, creative director of the It’s Time movement that organized the peace summit, says that it is hard to counter the general Israeli mindset that there are no Palestinian partners for peace, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities. …

“She says Israelis have been told that the conflict could be contained through periodic wars, but not resolved. ‘We have been taught that this is a reasonable price,’ she says. ‘In order for Israelis to be able to sustain and build faith [in the prospects for peace] we need to see Palestinian partners within Israel but also partners in Gaza and the West Bank.’

“At the summit, a view of life in Gaza came in the form of a brief video of a Palestinian woman walking through the rubble. She details the difficulties of her life: living in a tent, subsisting on limited food and water.

“ ‘We are living a tragedy,’ she says. ‘Most people in Gaza are against extremism and terrorism. We want peace.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Subscription prices are reasonable.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Ancient “New” Ideas in Housing

July 23, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg.
An interior courtyard at the Sunnyside Garden Apartments in Queens, New York. Completed in 1928, it remains a beacon of quality of life.

Growing up on the Copeland Estate in a suburb of New York, I would have been quite isolated from humanity if not for a scattering of nearby homes that had children. Having playmates meant so much to me. But for years, US community designers forgot about the importance of human interaction for both children and adults. One way to build it in, especially in cities, is the classic courtyard.

Alexandra Lange notes at Bloomberg CityLab that the shrinking population of children under five across the US “is bad news for the diversity and stability of cities, which are improved by the amenities that families seek — parks, public libraries, safe streets. It’s also discouraging for families who prefer to live in the city or don’t have the option or desire to move to the car-dominated suburbs. Any effort to retain families has to start with housing, their primary expense.

“That one weird trick for making cities more family-friendly? We’ve known it for decades: It’s the courtyard. …

“While Europe can claim centuries-old courts, America dabbled in them for decades, before the suburbs became the dominant housing type of both government subsidy and political propaganda.

“Courtyards don’t have to belong to the past. While textbook examples in brick and stone are lovely — and still home to thriving communities — contemporary architects are making courts in all sorts of materials, and for all types of housing, from apartments to townhomes.

“One of the first influential figures to advance the idea of the courtyard as the ideal urban type for families was Henry Darbishire, the mid-19th century English architect. His first patron, Angela Burdett-Coutts, was inspired by Charles Dickens and his novels of the urban poor to apply her wealth to reformist housing. ‘Nurturing the family and protecting children from the street was a huge part of the logic — turning the city inward,’ says Matthew G. Lasner, housing historian and the author of High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century.

“Architects and philanthropists quickly embraced an easily replicable courtyard model, with a single entrance on the street and interior vertical access off a planted court. The concept came to America in the 1870s via developers like Alfred Treadway White, responsible for the Cobble Hill Towers in Brooklyn. In the 1920s, more reformist developers — including everyone from the Rockefellers to communist unions — constructed many more of these courtyard projects.

“As architecture critic John Taylor Boyd wrote in 1920 of the Linden Court complex in Jackson Heights, the courtyard’s ‘benefits are apparent when it is remembered that the streets are the only playground of New York children, including the children of the rich.’ …

“When you’re talking courtyards in America, it’s hard to avoid Sunnyside Gardens. Not only does the Queens community remain one of New York City’s best neighborhoods, but it was home to one of America’s best critics, who made his affection clear.

“Lewis Mumford was one of the first residents of Sunnyside Gardens, completed in 1928, and constantly returned to its balance of private and public space, building and garden, in his analysis of other lesser New York City housing options. In “The Plight of the Prosperous,” published in the New Yorker in 1950, Mumford takes aim at the new white-brick residential buildings ‘that have sprung up since the war in the wealthy and fashionable parts of the city.’ While new low- and middle-income housing projects like his own ‘provide light and air and walks and sometimes even patches of grass and forsythia,’ these other private buildings, clustered in uptown rich neighborhoods, lack multiple exposures, outdoor space, cross-ventilation and quiet. …

“Clarence Stein and Henry Wright were the primary architects and planners behind Sunnyside Gardens, with Marjorie Sewell Cautley the landscape architect; all three would subsequently collaborate on Radburn, New Jersey, the ‘town for the motor age’ that in fact applied these communal principles for a result that we would now call transit-oriented development.

“The planners’ primary insight, in both the city and the suburbs, was to prioritize protected, communal open space over private yards or interior amenities. The courts, or courtyards, could be much larger if not subdivided by owner, and even in areas with public parks, having play space (and play companions) directly outside your door was a huge amenity. …

“On the West Coast, the courtyard evolved a little differently: surrounded by lower density, semi-detached houses with, eventually, a swimming pool in the center instead of a lawn. Irving Gill, considered the father of California modernism, designed prototype bungalow court in Santa Monica in the teens, with parking out of sight in the back and doorstep gardens. On tighter sites, U-shaped buildings with Spanish- and Italian-influenced architecture featured tiled fountains at center court. …

“ ‘When people have families with children, the home is important, but equally important are the people who are there with you,’ says Livable Cities president Meredith Wenskoski. “Your neighborhood is crucial. …

“Bay State Cohousing, a 30-unit development outside Boston, has common amenities as part of its charter, including a shared kitchen and activity rooms. But the pastel, clapboard complex, intended to blend in with single-family neighbors, also forms a U around a southwest-facing courtyard, with outdoor circulation providing plenty of opportunities for casual run-ins with the neighbors.

“ ‘The courtyard is a nested boundary that allows interaction with other children, and more importantly, with other adults who become a kind of network,’ says Jenny French, whose firm French 2D designed Bay State. ‘In an urban setting, the barrier that the contemporary parent has to letting their child out the door, thinking about the car-dominated city where they are unable to play in the street – the courtyard is a natural alternative.’

“French, who has also been coordinating the housing studio at the Harvard Graduate School of Design for seven years, can’t help but extend these design observations into the cultural and political spheres. Everyone talks about loneliness in America for people of all ages. For teens and seniors alike, French sees a solution. It’s one we’ve had all along: ‘Could a courtyard house actually be the friendship apparatus we need?’ ”

Lots more at Bloomberg, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Seashells for Sustainable Design

July 22, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Brett Phelps for the Boston Globe.
At her new studio space in Providence, Felicia Neuhof holds a bag of shells she gathered at her sister’s wedding to create new products sustainably.

Today’s story is about a designer who looked around for a way to do her work using more-sustainable materials and found them almost under her nose.

Alexa Gagosz writes at the Boston Globe, “After spending seven years as an art director in New York City working for Fortune 500 brands, Felicia Neuhof grew increasingly frustrated with the unsustainable materials of her industry. She was constantly surrounded by plastic with a single-use lifecycle that would later become landfill waste.

“When she moved to Providence to earn her master’s degree at the Rhode Island School of Design, she started eating a ton of shellfish and wondered what would eventually happen to the discarded shells, which were typically thrown away. That‘s when she set out on a mission. She started by experimenting with the shells being tossed into dumpsters behind her favorite restaurants, and began molding them into building materials.

“Neuhof is now the founder and chief executive officer of Shellf Life, a Providence startup that transforms discarded seafood shells into innovative building materials. She’s also received international praise, winning the Terra Carta Design Lab, a global competition where she was able to place her material into the hands of King Charles III.

“What is Shellf Life and how does it work?
“Shellf Life transforms discarded seafood shells into innovative building materials through a process I developed on my kitchen stove. We take what restaurants throw away — oyster, mussel, clam, crab, and scallop shells — and create architectural surfaces, furniture, and lighting with properties ranging from rigid to flexible to translucent. Since winning the Terra Carta Design Lab competition, I’ve been scaling operations at our 50 Sims [incubator] facility in Providence.

“[We turn] waste into valuable building materials through processes accessible to people from all backgrounds and skill levels.

“How much seafood waste is there in New England?
“The numbers are staggering. One Rhode Island shellfish processor alone generates 7 tons of shell waste weekly — that’s 728,000 pounds annually, enough material for 30,000 square feet of tiling. When combined with restaurant waste across New England, we’re looking at a tremendous resource: Rhode Island could produce enough material for 3,000 kitchen backsplashes annually, Massachusetts enough for 5,000 bathroom floors, Maine sufficient for 20,000 serving bowls that return to the restaurants supplying the shells, Connecticut enough for 1,500 countertops, New Hampshire enough for 1,000 shower surrounds, and even my home state of Vermont contributes. …

“What kind of materials are you creating? Furniture and fixtures? Raw materials?
“Both. I create three product lines: furniture for residential and commercial settings, homeware like bowls and lighting, and architectural materials including tiles and surfaces. I’m also developing specialized applications for marine environments — working with City Island Oyster Reef to create alternatives to concrete currently used in aquaculture farms and coastal defense. …

“Walk me through the process.
“I collect shells from restaurant partners, clean and sanitize them, then crush them into a calibrated material. This is blended with my proprietary binder — much like following a recipe — and molded into form. During curing, the material actually captures CO2. At my facility at 50 Sims [Ave.] in Providence, I’ve scaled this process from my kitchen to a manufacturing microlab. I’ve secured a provisional patent on both the material composition and manufacturing method, which was an important step for commercialization. My goal has been to develop a system so refined that making a tile is as easy as flipping burgers. …

“What kind of seafood waste are you using?
“I primarily use oyster, mussel, clam, and scallop shells — any bivalve shells typically tossed in restaurant dumpsters. Each brings unique qualities: oysters provide strength and texture, mussels offer beautiful color and luminosity, clams contribute creamy hues with flecks of purple, and scallops add structural pattern variability. Like a chef selecting ingredients, I blend these shells in various ratios to customize the material for specific applications.

“What was it like to meet King Charles, and develop Shellf Life as part of the Terra Carta Design Lab?
“Meeting King Charles III was transformative. … He asked thoughtful questions, revealing someone who truly understood the potential, calling the idea ‘genius.’ What struck me most was seeing how Shellf Life made intuitive sense to everyone — from farmers and chefs to a King.

“How can restaurants, consumers, and others direct seafood waste to Shellf Life?
“I’ve made it as simple as recycling. For restaurants, I provide collection buckets and regular pickup that fits into their existing workflow. … For individual consumers, I’m looking to establish community collection points. My goal is to make shell recycling as normal as glass or paper recycling.

“Do you have any investors?
“The Terra Carta award has funded my initial development. Now I’m seeking additional investment to support my two-year growth plan as I move from R&D into commercial production. I’m looking for partners who understand both the environmental opportunity and the social impact — investors who recognize the value of creating accessible manufacturing jobs while addressing environmental challenges.”

More at the Globe, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Swedes Try to Define Their Culture

July 21, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Ola Lewitschnik for the New York Times.
What defines Sweden? A sauna in the cold? Abba songs? Painted red horses? IKEA?

As Suzanne’s family heads off to Sweden to experience Erik’s culture for a few months, I notice that the New York Times has an interest in trying to define that culture. So does the currrent Swedish government.

I guess diversity of opinion is part of the culture as not everyone thinks the initiative is a good idea.

Imogen West-Knights writes, “What is Swedish culture? Some obvious answers might spring to mind: Abba, the films of Ingmar Bergman, Pippi Longstocking, IKEA. It’s an almost impossibly broad question — but one that Sweden’s government is trying to answer.

“In 2023, the government began an initiative called the Culture Canon, with two streams: an ‘experts’ canon and a ‘people’s canon.’ The first involves academics, journalists, historians and other authorities who will decide on 100 works or other items of cultural importance that have played a key role in shaping Swedish culture.

“The second will be made up of suggestions submitted by the Swedish public to the Culture Canon website, which can be drawn from the arts or can include everyday activities like the daily ‘fika‘ coffee and cake break or ideas like ‘Allemansrätten,’ the Swedish right to explore nature, even on private land. So far, suggestions include saunas and the plays of August Strindberg, the 1361 Battle of Visby and Björn Borg’s five straight Wimbledon victories. …

“Yet even the suggestion of such a definitive list is dividing opinion in Sweden. The Culture Canon is a pet project of a party with far-right roots that supports, but is not part of, the government. Many in the arts scene fear that the results will project a narrow view of Swedish culture, glorifying an imagined past and shutting out the cultural contributions of minorities.

“Lars Trägårdh, a historian whom the government appointed to lead the project, said in an interview that the Culture Canon would be particularly useful for helping immigrants integrate. …

” ‘Most of the culture world is against the idea of a canon,’ said Ida Ölmedal, the culture editor of the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet: ‘It’s being used as a populist tool to point out what is Swedish and not, and to exclude some people from the concept of Swedishness.’

“ ‘But even if it wasn’t nationalist, it would still be wrong for politicians to point out what is important culture,’ Ölmedal added. ‘We have a proud tradition of the government financing culture without trying to govern culture — and this is an exception.’

Martí Manen, the director of Index, a contemporary art foundation in Stockholm, said the Culture Canon was ‘a tool for a specific political agenda.’

“In the interview, Trägårdh rebuffed such objections. ‘They are not real arguments,’ he said, adding that he had no cultural loyalty to the left or the right. … He is a historian who works on issues of Swedish identity, such as in his 2006 book Is the Swede a Human Being?, which he cowrote with Henrik Berggren. … Trägårdh also rejected the idea that a cultural canon would exclude minorities from the concept of Swedishness. …

“Parisa Liljestrand, a member of the Moderate Party who is Sweden’s culture minister, said the project had been set up to be independent from government influence and was now ‘in the hands of the committee.’ It was the committee’s job, she added, ‘to find out what fields we should have a canon in, and also to establish criteria for selection of works.’

“One criteria the committee has set for the expert part of the canon is that it can only include entries that are at least 50 years old. This has stirred fears that the results will downplay the importance of cultural output by immigrants, most of whom arrived in Sweden after 1975. …

“[Said] Mattias Andersson, the artistic director of the Royal Dramatic Theater, Sweden’s national playhouse, ‘It’s about trying to speak about the Sweden from the ’40s, or the ’50s, when everyone had the same God, the same impression of what the family is, of how to live your life.’ …

“For all the Culture Canon’s critics in the arts scene, there are also those who say it is too soon to judge. Victor Malm, the culture editor of the Expressen newspaper, said he was reserving his judgment until he read the final report.” More at the Times, here.

You know, asking immigrants who have been in Sweden a while to define Swedish culture would be most revealing. I am always surprised when immigrants tell me that a characteristic of the US is that people follow the laws. Relative to where some of them come from, ordinary Americans certainly do if not high-level officials and billionaires. We pay our taxes. We obey traffic directives. I’ve heard Swedes are very law-abiding, too.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

A New Kind of Career

July 20, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Cassandra Klos/New York Times.
Heather Billings, food waste reduction consultant.

Have you ever marveled at the different kinds of jobs humans have tackled in the history of the world? My mind goes to glassblowers, harness makers, oil cup salesmen, jester to the king. And there are always new jobs popping up to meet new demands.

In Massachusetts, for example, you can now find a career as a “food waste consultant.”

Somini Sengupta reports at the New York Times, “America has a food waste problem: Rotten tomatoes and pizza boxes end up in trash dumps and produce a potent planet-heating gas called methane.

“Massachusetts has a fix: A state regulation requires businesses to keep food out of dumpsters. To help them comply, the state offers a carrot, in the form of a chatty, practical, 63-year-old hand-holding food-waste-reduction consultant named Heather Billings.

“Which is how, on a frigid Wednesday morning, Ms. Billings found herself poking around the narrow kitchen of the Port Tavern, a sports bar in Newburyport, Mass.

“An owner of the Port Tavern, Abbie Hannan, [invited] Ms. Billings to look at how the restaurant managed its waste. She quickly spotted a very solvable problem at the prep cook’s station: a 23-gallon trash can into which went tomato tops and other food scraps. Then came the dumpster inspection. Could anything in there go to compost?

“Ms. Billings, a consultant contracted by the state government, took notes, snapped pictures and peered behind the bar to assess where the lemon wedges and plastic olive skewers ended up.

“She had some easy fixes for Port Tavern’s co-owner Abbie Hannan. She proposed inexpensive, four-gallon plastic buckets to nest inside the bigger trash bins to collect food scraps. She connected Ms. Hannan to compost haulers and a charity that could pick up leftover edible food.

“ ‘Our biggest challenge will be to get everyone to follow the rules,’ Ms. Hannan surmised.

“ ‘A visual reminder is always good,’ Ms. Billings replied. She opened her binder to show signs that could be affixed to the kitchen walls.

“State regulations require institutions that produce half a ton of waste per week — hospitals, universities, restaurants — to divert organic waste away from landfills and incinerators. …

“In theory, there’s a stick for those that fail to comply. If state inspectors see large amounts of food waste being trucked into a waste site, they try to trace it back to where it’s coming from. Enforcement is rare. In the last 10 years since the regulations have been in place, only 141 businesses have been cited for not complying with the regulation. …

“Some food that’s wasted is still good. There are charities in the Boston area that take the surplus from restaurants and grocery stores. Because, even as so much food goes to waste, many Americans are still hungry

“An independent study published in the journal Science concluded that among the half dozen states with composting laws, Massachusetts had gone farthest in reducing total waste in its landfills. … Environmentalists want Massachusetts to go further, by requiring residents to also keep food waste out of landfills and requiring cities and towns to offer rat-proof compost bins. ‘We’re still throwing away a lot of food,’ said Kirstie Pecci, who heads an advocacy group called Just Zero. …

“One additional benefit of the food waste rule: It has spurred new businesses around the state, like Black Earth Compost. Composting turns food waste into dirt that farmers and gardeners can use to nourish their soil. …

“[Ms. Billings’s] passion for keeping useful things out of the trash goes back decades. … She is now a senior waste reduction consultant for CET, formerly called the Center for EcoTechnology, a nonprofit group contracted by the state to help businesses comply with the regulation.

“Her job, as she sees it, is to observe and advise. Do people who work in the kitchen have to travel far to dispose of compost? Are dumpsters clearly labeled so employees know what should go in them? Can restaurants save money by reducing their trash volumes? Is there enough organic waste to send to an anaerobic digester facility, where organic matter is turned into fuel?

“At Port Tavern, the trickiest problem stood in the parking lot. The bar shares the dumpster with three other restaurants. Only if everyone agrees to hire a compost hauler would they be able to reduce the trash they generate, and the cost of trash pickup.

“ ‘It’s complicated,’ Ms. Hannan warned.

“ ‘Not insurmountable,’ Ms. Billings replied, with her signature cheer.” More at the Times, here.

Some residents where I live compost with Black Earth. But we’re still trying to persuade our kitchens to do the same. The people in charge tend to think — unlike Ms. Billings — that what is complicated is “insurmountable.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Theater and Other Photos

July 19, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photos: Suzanne and John’s Mom.

Here are a few recent photos, including some from a very entertaining but sweltering off-island theater excursion with the seniors.

First is my wonderful chair pilates teacher, Britt, who is also a singer. Her students showed up in force at the retirement community as we had never had the opportunity before to see her perform. She was great. I’m noticing her strong fingers on the guitar in this photo. Finger strength is one of the things we all work on in her class.

For some reason our community has acquired a large memento from the town’s 250th anniversary, A giant replica of one of Paul Revere’s lanterns (“one if by land, two if by sea”), which now resides in the town’s museum.

Next, there’s an old gas pump that speaks for itself.

From the heat wave: days almost too hot to walk down to the water. And some advice from a snail.

At Bill Hanney’s historic Theatre-by-the-Sea we saw the Broadway musical Waitress, a polished and fun performance. In its long history of destruction and rebirth, Theatre-by-the-Sea has featured performers like Judy Holliday, Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West, Groucho Marx, and Marlon Brando. It’s in a lovely garden setting and also has a restaurant.

I went on the seniors’ theater trip to hear this song. Here it is sung by the show’s originator, Sara Bareilles, when she performed it on Broadway.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Stories Bringing Past Foes Together

July 18, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nathaniel Bivan.
Ahmed Haruna speaks during a storytelling session in Nigeria.

I know I pick sides when I read about wars. It’s pretty clear that Russia invaded an independent neighbor when it launched attacks on Ukraine, for example. I have to remind myself that civilians on all sides suffer. And then for years after — sometimes generations after — bitterness festers. Not a good thing.

So I was interested to read how some Nigerians are working to ease longlasting enmity. Whatever works, I’d say.

Nathaniel Bivan writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Seven years ago, when Dalyop Timothy Toma was 15, an angry mob came in the night to torch his family’s home in Kyeng village. Everyone but his grandfather fled outside into the bushes to safety. 

“ ‘He couldn’t run because he was disabled,’ recalls Mr. Toma, his face contorting in grief at the memory of his grandfather’s killing. Then he adds matter-of-factly, ‘We were planning revenge.’

“Mr. Toma and his family, who are Christians from the Berom ethnic group, blamed Muslims, mainly from the Fulani group, for the attack. Sectarian tensions run high in Kyeng and other communities in Nigeria’s Plateau state. Disputes often involve politics or land and sometimes erupt into violence.

“But in 2022, a youth leader from Kyeng invited Mr. Toma to do something extraordinary: Recount his painful story aloud to a large room full of people from different ethnic groups that he distrusted. That gathering, organized by a nongovernmental organization called Youth Initiative Against Violence and Human Rights Abuse (Yiavha), changed Mr. Toma’s attitude toward those he thought were his enemies.

‘Telling my story helped me heal gradually,’ says Mr. Toma, explaining that he no longer thirsts for vengeance.

“Yiavha has made him a peace ambassador, tasked with spreading his story of grace and forgiveness at intergenerational storytelling sessions in his community and in others.

“Plateau state, in central Nigeria, is home to some 4 million people. Jacob Choji Pwakim, a longtime peace-building activist in Jos, the state’s capital, founded Yiavha to change the narrative in communities that have been riven by ethno-religious attacks.

“The origins of the violence in Plateau state can be traced to a tumultuous week in Jos in early September 2001. More than 1,000 people were killed and tens of thousands displaced amid a long-running struggle for political and economic power among the area’s different ethnic groups. Disputes also flared between settlers and people indigenous to Jos. 

“Yiavha has held at least 66 storytelling sessions across the state. Elders have given accounts of bygone times when residents from various ethnic groups lived in harmony, even sharing gifts during religious celebrations for Eid and Christmas. Meanwhile, young people have recounted why they destroyed farms or livestock belonging to members of a different faith or tribe.

” ‘This was what inspired me to set up Yiavha in 2014, with the objective of creating a platform where young people across the divide can talk about their experiences without judgment,’ Mr. Pwakim says. 

“So far, Yiavha has worked with up to 3,300 young people, including more than 300 who have been trained as peace ambassadors who might eventually organize storytelling sessions in their communities. Other young people become agents of change after attending the sessions, organizing interfaith meals, youth soccer competitions, and trash cleanups. …

“One sunny afternoon in February, a group of young people is assembled at a soccer viewing center in Kambel, a community in the Anglo-Jos settlement within Jos. Ahmed Haruna is at the front of the room telling stories to the rapt audience, which includes residents of both Kambel and Channel Seven, another community in Anglo-Jos.

“ ‘Growing up, we didn’t even know the difference, who was Muslim or Christian among us,’ Mr. Haruna says. Over the years, residents have lived in segregated areas, with Christians mainly in Kambel and Muslims mainly in Channel Seven. But the storytelling sessions are gradually bringing them together to interact once again. 

“After Mr. Haruna finishes sharing stories about the settlements’ tranquil past, peace ambassador Joshua Tsok opens the floor for questions. …

“Training for peace ambassadors is extensive. In 2023, for example, peace ambassadors gathered in Barkin Ladi, another community in Plateau state known for violent sectarian conflict. A training facilitator, Hussaini Umaru, who is an associate professor in the department of theater and film arts at the University of Jos, says he divided the young people into groups and asked them to narrate and dramatize personal experiences of conflict, and then discuss the episodes. 

“It is not easy for ambassadors to trust their trainers. Umar Farouk Musa, a development consultant who facilitated a training session last August, explains that this is typically the first hurdle. ‘Some thought we were there to introduce an agenda or to spy. But we built their confidence,’ he says. 

“The government’s Plateau Peace Building Agency is a key partner with Yiavha. Kenneth Dakop, a team lead for the agency, says that Yiavha’s initiatives have helped transform young people who previously were drivers of violence in their communities. ‘Most of them are either unemployed or into substance and drug abuse,’ he says. 

“Yiavha’s ambassadors have seen transformations in themselves. ‘I want to become a professional teacher,’ Mr. Toma says. 

“This year, Yiavha paired Mr. Toma with a Fulani boy and assigned each of them to plant a pear tree in the other’s village to signify a commitment to peace.”

More at the Monitor, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

How to Preserve a Sculpture

July 17, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: @risdmuseum on Instagram.
Conservator Ingrid Neuman (left) with Rhode Island School of Design undergrad student Sophie Bugat, doing repair work on a statue of Pan.

When a new artwork is acquired by a museum, it doesn’t go right on display. At least one expert must look it over and make sure it’s in good shape.

At the Rhode Island School of Design [RISD ] in Providence that expert is often Ingrid Neuman.

Kristine Yang writes at the Providence Eye, “This past November, Ingrid Neuman, senior conservator at the RISD Museum, wheeled a twelfth-century Japanese wooden Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara into Hasbro Children’s Hospital for a CAT scan. Conservators have repaired the ancient figure, a revered Buddhist symbol, over centuries — Neuman’s examination would reveal exactly where and how they had carried out those repairs. …

“Over time, sculptures accumulate dirt and often chip, show wear, or even break. Some arrive with broken parts or past repair attempts that complicate restoration. Preparing these pieces for public exhibition falls to the museum’s conservation team.

“Through a meticulous process that integrates chemistry, art history, and craftsmanship, conservators work to stabilize and restore each object. … Neuman’s background in organic chemistry is essential to her work. Sculptures are vulnerable to a host of natural forces over time such as ultraviolet radiation, pollution, humidity, and fluctuations in temperature – all of which can degrade original materials. Pieces with organic materials like wood and ivory, along with metals such as bronze or iron, are particularly prone to these ‘agents of deterioration’ and can experience accelerated degradation if not properly maintained, says Neuman.

‘An ancient bronze beaker from China wants to corrode. It wants to go back to its original copper ore,’ says Neuman. ‘We’re trying to keep it from doing that.’

“Corrosion is a natural chemical reaction that occurs when metals like bronze are exposed to oxygen, moisture, or pollutants over time. This reaction, called oxidation, causes the metal to slowly break down. Left unchecked, this chemical process can eat away at the surface of a sculpture. …

” ‘We borrow a lot of techniques from dentists and doctors,’ says Neuman. ‘There’s a lot of overlap with the medical field.’ With limited in-house instrumentation at the RISD Museum, Neuman often relies on nearby hospitals such as Hasbro’s and research institutions for specialized evaluations.

“Understanding a sculpture’s composition and preservation history is crucial, as it directly informs the selection of repair materials. … Conservators intentionally choose repair materials that are visually similar to the original but chemically distinct, ensuring that their work can be easily differentiated from the artist’s upon chemical evaluation.

“ ‘We don’t like to use the same materials as the artist,’ Neuman says. ‘We’re not trying to be the artist, or be better than the artist, or confuse people.’ 

“The ease with which any added materials can be removed is also a crucial consideration for conservators, as they must ensure that any restoration work can be undone without damaging the original piece. …

“For this reason, conservators use inpainting – a technique used to fill in missing parts of an artwork – with materials that can be easily distinguished and removed. For example, Neuman says conservators often use acrylic paint when filling in an oil painting. Acrylic is water-based and chemically different from oil paint, allowing it to be safely removed. …

“Neuman emphasizes the importance of reversibility and the chemical properties of adhesives. ‘There’s so many glues in the world. A zillion,’ she says. ‘Everyone uses epoxy or Gorilla Glue, but we never use them because they’re too strong.’

“If conservators use a glue that is stronger than the sculpture’s original material, any physical stress on the object could result in new fractures, rather than breaking along existing lines. … She prepares her own adhesives in the lab, including wheat starch paste and Funori, a traditional Japanese adhesive made from seaweed — both of which are gentle yet effective enough for conservation work.

“While conservators intentionally make their repairs distinguishable from the original through their selection of materials, their work must remain invisible to the viewer. … This means conservators must address each deformity with painstaking precision and care. Inpainting demands an especially detailed approach. … Neuman says, ‘You have to use a very tiny brush, with only a few hairs in it, and you have to be really good at color matching.’

“One of the challenges of inpainting is a color perception phenomenon called metamerism, where colors that match under one light source may look different under another. … To navigate this, she moves the piece back and forth on wheeled carts between her sunlit lab and the gallery space to ensure the colors match under different lighting conditions.

“Once the restoration is complete, detailed documentation is essential, Neuman says. Photographs of the piece before, during, and after the process, along with written records, are uploaded to the museum’s database for future conservators’ reference. ‘It’s important to leave a record,’ Neuman says.”

More at the Providence Eye, here. This story reminds me of the work that Sotheby’s did on one of my mother’s Pousette-Dart paintings, one that had been too close to a chimney fire!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Calling Birds Back to Yorkshire

July 16, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Rebecca Cole.
A female stonechat calls from a bilberry bush. Cooperation between farmers and conservationists in England is bringing back “ghost woodlands” and wildlife habitat.

When do tree-planting programs accomplish what they set out to do? That is the question as we hear more and more that some massive initiatives haven’t worked. In a story from Yorkshire we learn that cooperation among different interest groups is one route to success. Another is using native species to reawaken ancient species buried deep in the soil.

Phoebe Weston writes at the Guardian about a restoration effort by both conservationists and farmers to transform barren sheep fells.

“The Howgill Fells are a smooth, treeless cluster of hills in the Yorkshire Dales national park, so bald and lumpy that they are sometimes described as a herd of sleeping elephants. Their bare appearance – stark even by UK standards – has been shaped by centuries of sheep grazing. Yet beneath the soil lie ancient tree roots: the silent traces of long-lost ‘ghost woodlands.’ …

“Over the past 12 years, 300,000 native trees have been planted across these hills in sheep-free enclosures. The results are beginning to be seen: birds and flowers are returning. … Says ecologist Mike Douglas from South Lakes Ecology, who is monitoring birds in the enclosures, ‘We are 10 years into what was ecologically very damaged land.’ …

“Big rewilding projects often happen on private land with limited public access. These enclosures are a result of agreements reached between dozens of farmers on common land with public access. ‘Doing so much tree-planting on a common was groundbreaking,’ says Peter Leeson from the Woodland Trust. …

“Bluebells are popping up and there are patches of bracken, which suggest the soils and seed banks retain the memory of being a woodland despite hundreds of years of sheep grazing. “We call these memories ‘ghost woodlands,’ says Leeson. These ancient woodland indicators could offer a blueprint of where trees should return. …

“Last year, there were 14 breeding species here. Before the enclosure was created, he says, just four would have been found: meadow pipit, skylarks, wren and grey wagtails. Eleven new breeding bird species have been recorded since the original 2016 survey, with numbers increasing year-on-year. ‘I’m surprised by how quickly birds have colonized, and the diversity of species,’ says Douglas. …

“The enclosures were possible thanks to a 10-year government agri-environment scheme, signed by farmers with grazing rights to the fell as part of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, and the owner of the fell, Lonsdale Estates, supported and monitored by the Woodland Trust. …

“Across Europe, conflicts between farmers and conservationists are increasing due to the need for maintaining food production while creating space for nature. This conflict tends to be especially pronounced in the uplands because the land is relatively unproductive for farming. ‘Farmer and conservation collaboration is the real joy,’ Leeson says. ‘We want the same things. We want to be listened to, and heard and involved. I’d say we’re friends now.’

“John Capstick, chair of the Ravenstonedale Common Graziers Association, which hosts 187 hectares (462 acres) of fenced off land, says at first some farmers ‘were dead against it being fenced off. They were frightened it was an ulterior motive to get sheep off the fell.’ …

“In fact, the trees are not proving a threat to hill farming. The money is a lifeline for farmers, who earn as little as £7,500 a year from selling sheep and have been reliant on disappearing government subsidies. The Tebay scheme provides payments of £25,600 a year for maintaining the trees and fences and for loss of grazing rights, which are shared equally between the landowner and the farmers.

“Twenty-five years ago, there were 25 farmers on Tebay common. Now there are 10. For those who still graze on the common, the payments are ‘keeping them going,’ says Tim Winder, chair of the Tebay Common Grazing Association, whose father’s family have been farming for as long as they can remember.

“Now Winder is working with researchers on using the fells for peatland restoration and natural flood management. ‘We have to look at different ways of farming,’ he says. ‘We’ll invite anyone to work with us.’

“In the years to come, patches of mature woodland and scrubland will develop here, and common birds such as great tits, blue tits, dunnocks and blackbirds, will move in, says Douglas. It is a mystery what these hills may have looked like hundreds of years ago – no detailed historical records exist. Ghost woodlands speak of not only what has been lost, but what could one day return. ‘This was a leap in the dark for the farmers, as much as anyone else,’ says Leeson. ‘Hats off to them.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

To Save Florida’s Reefs

July 15, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Keys Marine Lab.
Experts inspect nursery-grown juveniles from the reef-building elkhorn coral species.  They’re testing them to withstand warmer temperatures.

Scientists don’t give up, do they? They will surely have a harder time without federal grants, but I hope they will find ways to keep improving life on Planet Earth.

Take this effort to address the damage that global warming poses to coral. Richard Luscombe reports at the Guardian that a group pf experts are seeking “to save Florida’s dying reefs with hardy nursery-grown coral.”

“A taskforce of experts looking into the mass bleaching and decline of Florida’s delicate coral reefs is planting more than 1,000 nursery-grown juveniles from the reef-building elkhorn species in a new effort to reverse the tide of destruction.

“Record ocean heat in 2023 hastened the death spiral for reefs in the Florida Keys, which have lost 90% of their healthy coral cover over the last 40 years, largely because of the climate emergency, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“Marine biologists from the Keys Marine Laboratory of the University of South Florida (USF) partnered with scientists from Tampa’s Florida Aquarium to develop a large-scale restoration project involving elkhorn coral, which is critically endangered but also one of the fastest-growing and most resilient species.

“[In May], the USF facility in Long Key, halfway along the ecologically fragile Florida Keys island chain, took delivery of 1,050 young elkhorn corals spawned between 2022 and 2023 at the aquarium’s conservation and research center in Apollo Beach.

The corals are acclimatizing in temperature-regulated seawater beds in Long Key.

“They will be distributed to research partners including the Coral Restoration Foundation, the Mote Marine Laboratory, Reef Renewal USA, and Sustainable Oceans and Reefs for planting at seven designated offshore sites around the Keys during the next two months.

“Teams will monitor their progress over the following months and years. While project managers say not all will survive, they hope some of the juveniles will thrive and grow, and the knowledge gleaned will help better inform future recovery efforts.

“ ‘Maybe there will only be 100 out there a year from now, but even if it’s only one out of a hundred that survives that’s particularly tough, we can propagate that one,’ said Cindy Lewis, director of the Keys Marine Laboratory. …

“ ‘The coral juveniles we just transferred are made up of many new mother and father combinations that we hope will be more resilient to future stressors,’ Keri O’Neil, director of the [Florida Aquarium] coral conservation program, said.

” ‘Without human intervention, these parent corals would not be able to breed due to the extent of the loss. They’re a sign that, even during a crisis, we can make a difference. By working together we’re protecting a reef that’s essential to our environment, our economy and the thousands of species that call it home.’

“Lewis said the elkhorn project was a small component of a vast wider effort by numerous universities, environmental groups, and state and federal partners to try to restore as much lost coral as possible. …

“ ‘All these different organizations produced over 25,000 pieces of coral this winter to put out on the reef that are going to make a difference, along with our elkhorn.

“ ‘Even though it seems dismal and depressing, the ray of hope is that we can produce these corals, we can get these corals out there, and that everybody has banded together to work together. No one organization is going to do it all. We need everybody, and we need everybody’s ideas.’ “

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »