Wikimedia Commons: Lakeview #1 oil gusher, Kern County, California, USA, after the well had partially subsided, the derrick removed, and the well surrounded by a sandbag berm. Photo by W.C. Mendenhall, US Geological Survey, 1910

The Lakeview Gusher Number One was an immense out-of-control pressurized oil well in the Midway-Sunset Oil Field in Kern County, California, resulting in what is regarded as the largest oil spill in history, lasting 18 months and releasing 9 million barrels (1.4×106 m3) of crude oil. In what was one of the largest oil reserves in America, pressure built to an extreme due to the quantity of crude oil in the area. (wikipedia)

This is the first year of Colton’s map publishing business. Ristow says that Colton published his first map in 1833, Burr’s map of New York State; this U.S. map must be as early. The graphic style is similar to Burr’s Universal Atlas maps, engraved the following year. With six detailed and elegant inset maps showing the environs of Albany, Boston, New York, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Baltimore & Washington; plus a small inset map of South Part of Florida. Outline color, folded into dark teal leather covers 13.5x8 with “Burr’s Map of the United States Published By J.H. Colton & Co. New York” and a decorative border stamped in gilt. Prime meridians: Greenwich and Washington.

About this collection:

The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 25 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 18th and 19th century maps of North and South America, although it also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. The collection includes atlases, wall maps, globes, school geographies, pocket maps, books of exploration, maritime charts, and a variety of cartographic materials including pocket, wall, children’s, and manuscript maps. Items range in date from about 1700 to 1950s.

Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 21,000 items online, with new additions added regularly. The site is free and open to the public. Here viewers have access not only to high resolution images of maps that are extensively cataloged, but also to a variety of tools that allow to users to compare, analyze, and view items in new and experimental ways. (About)

Previously on Skandalon

Fernand Pelez (Paris, January 18, 1843 – August 7, 1913) was a French painter of Spanish origin who worked in Paris. Pelez portrayed social issues in a realistic style. (Wikipedia)

Read a short analysis of his work over at The Art Tribune. In addition, for French reader, don’t miss Myriam Tsikounas’ exposé on the socio-historical context of this image over at the L’Histoire par l’image website.

Hark! A Vagrant! is an comic series by Kate Beaton:

Kate Beaton was born in Nova Scotia, took a history degree in New Brunswick, paid it off in Alberta, worked in a museum in British Columbia, then came to Ontario to draw pictures. (About)

Kate owns a degree in History and Anthropology from Mount Allison University.

Roger Ebert’s Journal: “Roger Ebert presents At the Movies” September 10th, 2010

“Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies,” a weekly half-hour film review program, was announced today by its producers, Chaz and Roger Ebert. The program continues the 35-year-old run of a reviewing format first introduced by Gene Siskel and Ebert and later by Ebert and Richard Roeper.

It will return to its birthplace, launching nationally on public television with presenting station WTTW Chicago, where it began in 1975 as “Opening Soon at a Theater Near You” and then in 1976 as “Sneak Previews,” became the highest rated entertainment show in PBS history. The original format moved into syndication as “At the Movies” in 1982 with Tribune Entertainment and a quarter-century with Buena Vista Television.

The Eberts said the new program will air in January 2011, and in addition to reviewing new movies will expand into coverage of New Media, special segments on classics, on-demand viewing and genres, and an extended website. It will use the copyrighted “Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down”® format made famous by Siskel & Ebert. (read on)

About Marc Séguin:

Originally from Ottawa, Marc Séguin lives and works between Montreal and New York. Since his first solo exhibition in 1996, his work has been presented in Madrid, Barcelona, Venice, Berlin, Cologne, Brussels, New York, Chicago and Florida while participating in international art fairs such as the Miami Basel. He is currently represented by several galleries including Corkin Gallery in Toronto as well as Envoy Gallery in New York. (Bio)

Art takes time. It takes time to create, and it takes time to experiment as well. If the artist creates himself while he paints, I guess the spectator creates himself while he takes some time to examine a piece of art. Or maybe it’s the other way around. One doesn’t take the time to watch a film or read a book : rather, one gives some of his time to experiment with a piece of art (DeLillo plays with this idea when he writes about Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hours Psycho). Maybe art has something to do with a dance between sacrifice and gift : one sacrifices a part of his life and, in return, is given the gift of himself through artistic journeys.

Here’s an example. Just quickly surfing the web, browsing through hundreds of pictures, one would missed the fact that the above painting was created with tar, real feathers and real butterflies (all glued to the canvas). The painting is huge : the crow hanging from the Pope’s necklace is real.

Here’s an excerpt from a 2008 interview with Marc Séguin:

In addition to the road kill series you have the pope series. Is there a correlation between the two of them besides the material that you use?

Maybe. I’m really too close to all these series to reflect on it, or it’s for people like you to find a link. I’m sure it makes sense somewhere, with the use of the use of the symbol of the crow, with the idea of infallibility of the pope in the Roman Catholic Church. There’s questions there, because in that way it addresses serious issues.

Serious issues being what?

Infallibility, or the fact that we’re living in this era where we can’t question what the Roman Catholic church does, but we can question what the Quran says or what the Muslim people do, or the Buddhists or what the Chinese do, but we never question ourselves. Dogma is a very dangerous thing. They’re supposed to stand for modesty, poverty, and whatever, and here they are—posing like peacocks. They’re blown up as these big statues, presenting themselves as bigger than life, or more important than their subjects.

And here they’re tarred and feathered.

They’re tarred and feathered because it was a way, back in the old days, to tell when somebody was wrong. They’d turn them out of the city and they could be recognized for months or years, because they were tarred and feathered. (NY Art Beat: “Death Becomes Him: The Art of Marc Seguin” by Amanda Scigaj, Oct. 29th, 2008)

See more of his work at the Simon Blais Gallery (Montreal) and Charest-Weinberg Gallery (Miami). The Canadian Art website has a slideshow about recent paintings by Marc Séguin.

James Nachtwey grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth College, where he studied Art History and Political Science (1966-70). Images from the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights movement had a powerful effect on him and were instrumental in his decision to become a photographer. He has worked aboard ships in the Merchant Marine, and while teaching himself photography, he was an apprentice news film editor and a truck driver.

In 1976 he started work as a newspaper photographer in New Mexico, and in 1980, he moved to New York to begin a career as a freelance magazine photographer. His first foreign assignment was to cover civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981 during the IRA hunger strike. Since then, Nachtwey has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues. He has worked on extensive photographic essays in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Romania, Brazil and the United States.

Nachtwey has been a contract photographer with Time Magazine since 1984. He was associated with Black Star from 1980 - 1985 and was a member of Magnum from 1986 until 2001. In 2001, he became one of the founding members of the photo agency, VII. (Bio)

To learn more about James Nachtwey, I strongly recommend watching the documentary War Photographer (Christian Frei, 2001).

About the photo:

George Tames covered Washington D.C for four decades (1945-1985) and is best remembered for one, “The Loneliest Job,” a photograph of President John F. Kennedy looking out of the south window of the oval office. Tames took the photograph through the door of the Oval Office, after Kennedy thought he had left. From behind, it looks as if he is carrying the weight of the world. Kennedy – who had a bad back – simply was reading the newspapers standing up, as he often preferred to do.[…]

Although the photo was taken on Feb. 10, 1961 — just a few months into Kennedy administration — the image would later take on a more symbolic meaning as the Kennedy presidency waded into difficult waters. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the New York Times christened the photo, “The loneliest job in the world.” The photo was a favourite of President Clinton, who hang it in the Treaty Room, the presidential private office on the second floor of the White House. The West Wing recreated it for its opening segment (below). (more)

This photo is part of the George Tames Collection hosted by The New York Times Agency. George Tames was a photographer for The New York Times from 1945 to 1985.

From a set of stereoviews made in Makkovik, Labrador by a member of the Moravians around 1900. (converted to anaglyph). View over Makkovik Bay with the Moravian Church and the mission house in the distance. Both were destroyed by fire in 1948.

In case you’re wondering : here’s Makkovik Bay.

Taken in the spring of 1894, and originally published as part of an article by T.C. Martin called “Tesla’s Oscillator and Other Inventions” that appeared in the Century Magazine (Vol. 49, issue 6, April 1895, p. 930).

You can see the same picture in the online archive of the Century Magazine as well as read the article it illustrated. Here is the original caption from the magazine:

Fig. 13 Similar experiment, the high-tension current being passed through the body before it brings the lamps to incandescence. The loop is held over the resonating coil by Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain). (From a flash-light photograph)

This post is for a friend whom I shall now call Doctor.

The dog’s name was Nipper:

In 1898, three years after Nipper’s death, Francis painted a picture based on a photograph of Nipper listening intently to a wind-up Edison-Bell cylinder phonograph, substituting a disc gramophone for the phonograph. On February 11, 1899, Francis filed an application for copyright of his picture “Dog Looking At and Listening to a Phonograph.” Thinking the Edison-Bell Company might find it useful, he presented it to James E. Hough who, in a move that would eventually result in Edison exiting the record business altogether, promptly said, “Dogs don’t listen to phonographs.” On May 31, 1899, Francis went to the Maiden Lane offices of The Gramophone Company with the intention of borrowing a brass horn to replace the original black horn on the painting. Manager, William Barry Owen suggested that if the artist replaced the entire machine with a Berliner disc gramophone, the Company would buy the painting. A modified form of the painting became the successful trademark of Victor and HMV records, HMV music stores, and RCA. The trademark itself was registered by Berliner on July 10, 1900. (wikipedia)

More info about Nipper over at DesignBoom.

Techno Tuesday is a comic drawn by Andy Rementer:

Andy Rementer is a creative person based in Philadelphia. He received a bachelors degree from The University of the Arts in 2004. From 2005 to 2007 he worked for Fabrica, while living in Treviso, a small town in northern Italy. He currently divides his time between graphic design, cartooning and illustration. […] Aside from doodling Andy enjoys Italian meals, playing the banjo and drinking coffee. (more)

Check his personal website for more of his work.