Happy anniversary, Anitra! We’re now in “The Ocho!”
Category: It Happened to Me
I saw this car going westward on Waters, just west of 275. I saw some small bumper stickers while we were stopped at the red light and inched closer to get a better look.
Smiths sticker? Okay, maybe they have mopey tendencies.
Unabomber sticker? Okay, I’m putting an additional car length between you and me.
Severed head of Yukio Mishima sticker? Okay — I’m putting at least eight car lengths between you and me next chance I get.
I volunteered to help out at Masterminds Tampa Bay’s booth at the Synapse Summit 2023 conference yesterday, where Masterminds team moderator Vadim Davydov worked his photographic magic creating professional headshots for a long line of VIPs. It was my job to help get them registered and lined up for their sessions.
Masterminds Tampa Bay is “The Other Bay Area’s” Mastermind group, a peer mentoring group aimed at entrepreneurs and techies looking for connections, support, advice, assistance, resources, and so on. Many metro areas have Mastermind groups, whose name comes from The Law of Success by Napoleon Hill, a book that’s nearly 100 years old, where he defined the Mastermind Principle as:
“The coordination of knowledge and effort between two or more people who work towards a definite purpose in a spirit of harmony…
No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind.”
If you’re interested in the rest of Napoleon Hill’s definition of the Mastermind Principle, it’s summarized pretty well in this article. If you want to hear it in Hill’s own voice, watch this video:
Vadim’s lighting setup is a key part of why his headshots look so good…
…but more important are the instructions he gives you as you pose:
- “Follow my finger!”
- “Close your mouth!”
- “More sexy! Okay, too much sexy! Less sexy!”
- “Stretch your neck! Think turtle! Turtle, turtle, turtle, turtle!”
- “Squeeze your butt cheeks! Shake your booty!”
The instructions may sound nonsensical and hilarious, and he gets you into poses that you’d never do naturally, but they work. I kept telling people to just do what he says and to trust the process. And he kept cranking out gorgeous result after gorgeous result.
At 4:27 p.m. after nearly 8 hours of shooting, the last person in line had come and gone. That’s when I asked Vadim “Can you do one more — namely, me?”
He smiled and obliged. The official photo isn’t done yet, but every photo he took was displayed on a couple of screens in the booth. I took a couple of shots of these screens, and even these previews are great:
I can’t wait for the official shot! In the meantime, these are my new profile pics.
Thanks, Vadim, and thanks, Tampa Bay Masterminds for taking me on as a booth volunteer!
And once again: if you need to look great in a headshot, you want Vadim Davydov!
Categories
Earlier today…
Anitra’s on the board of the Glazer Children’s Museum, and their big upcoming attraction is Big John, the world’s largest triceratops, who’s moving into his own exhibit in the museum at end of May.
Last night was the museum’s annual fundraising gala, and as people involved with the museum, we got a sneak peek at the 65 million year-old, RV-sized fella, and he was impressive.
More photos (including one with my ridiculous triceratops mask) later.
We’ve just come from a “hot glass date” at Susan Gott’s glass workshop, which is conveniently located in our neighborhood, Seminole Heights. We opted to make a fluted bowl together, and I’ll post pictures of the finished work once it’s cooled off in the annealer.
As for “glory hole,” I’m using it in the glassblowing sense — it’s the opening for the furnace for reheating glass to shape it. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably more familiar with the other usage of the term. Slate has an interesting article on the use of the term by glassblowing and other-kind-of-blowing cultures.
More photos (and video too!) later.
Last year, I heard about a painting by Jonathan Harris, titled Critical Race Theory, pictured below:
It depicts Black people, led by Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, and Malcolm X, being covered up with white paint by an unidentified White man with a roller.
It’s the perfect painting for the present moment, when Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis is:
- barring public schools from participating in a pilot of the College Board’s new AP course on African American Studies, which he called denounced the curriculum as “woke,” “contrary to Florida law” and an exercise in “indoctrination,”
- gerrymandering in order to reduce the power of Black voters to a minimum,
- proposing legislation against teaching about racism and sexism in universities and colleges with the “Stop-Woke” act,
- and making “unapproved” books in schools illegal, with teachers worries about facing jail terms should these books be found in their classrooms. These unapproved books tend to be about racial minorities and LGBTQ people — surprise, surprise.
Photo courtesy of Jonathan Harris.
Here’s Jonathan Harris’ bio, taking from his site:
Jonathan Harris (b. 1988) is a visual artist who was born and raised in the city of Detroit. After attending the Detroit School for the Fine and Performing Arts, he attended Henry Ford Community College, Antioch College, and Oakland University, where he majored in Graphic Design and minored in Studio Art. Oil paints, acrylics and charcoal are his media of choice. He has perfected and become known for an oil enamel technique, resulting in graphic, high contrast portraits, without the use of a brush.
Jonathan’s work is emotive, with a focus on current events and the African American experience. Bringing awareness to social and world issues, in addition to instilling pride in the Black community, are goals that he strives to accomplish through his visual and curatorial work. Harris and his works have recently been featured extensively in the press, including on PBS American Black Journal, PBS One Detroit, CBS Local, and in the Detroit Free Press, Michigan Chronicle and Oakland University Post. One of the artist’s latest paintings, Critical Race Theory, created in response to recent controversy over the same subject matter, has garnered responses and sparked conversations across social media platforms around the world.
Harris’ art currently resides in prominent collections, including the N’Namdi Center for Contemporary Arts, David and Linda Whitaker, and Michigan State Representative Shri Thanedar. He served as a juror for Canvas Pontiac 2022, and his work has been exhibited at Swords to Plowshares Gallery. He has shown in and curated special exhibitions at Irwin House Gallery, as well as the BONDED exhibit at Beacon Park, along with a team of distinguished Detroit arts professionals.
In 2022 Jonathan Harris was named one of 2022’s Influential Artists To Watch by the Detroit News, and received The Spirit of Detroit Award from the City Council of Detroit, Michigan.
I ordered a signed print, framed it, and hung it up proudly in my home office:
Tap to view at full size.
Want to know more about the painting?
Want to order a print?
You can order one (prices range from US$125 – US$200) on Jonathan Harris’ ecommerce site.