Author: signordal

Illustrator Shows What Love Looks Like, Whether You’re in a Relationship or Not

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Love Story Illustration

Love is not one-size-fits-all. Despite what books and movies might show, it’s about more than just grand gestures; this certain fondness doesn’t even have to involve another person. More often, a demonstration of love is a collection of the mundane moments of everyday life where tenderness often hides but grows strong. Amanda Oleander creates unconventional illustrated love stories that prove this.

Oleander often depicts couples in their home who are fully relaxed in one another’s company. They traipse around in their underwear and let it all hang out; this leads to some interesting moments that reveal the inner workings of a relationship—such as popping the other person’s pimple or helping them paint their toenails. These displays aren’t exactly glamorous, but they are real and most of all, relatable.

Romance is just one type of love that Oleander illustrates. Through her popular Instagram account, she regularly highlights affection towards your pets—like letting them lick your plate clean—and more importantly, self-love. The idea of loving yourself is shown simply; like her two-person relationships, it’s all about the little things, from snuggling in a pile of warm dryer clothes to eating ice cream and watching TV.

The thread uniting all of Oleander’s illustrations is the idea of authenticity. To be happy with who you are, show your true self—whether that’s to the mirror or your romantic partner.

Amanda Oleander creates quirky illustrated love stories that you won’t find in fairy tales.

Love Story Illustration

They feature the not-so-glamorous sides of romantic love, like popping pimples or brushing hair…

Love Story Illustration
Love Story Illustration
Love Story Illustration
Illustrated Love Stories by Amanda Oleander

… but they are real and relatable to us all.

Love Story Illustration
Love Story Illustration
Love Story Illustration

In addition to romantic partners, Oleander depicts different types of love, from our pets…

Illustrated Love Stories by Amanda Oleander
Illustrated Love Stories by Amanda Oleander

… to ourselves!

Illustrated Love Stories by Amanda Oleander
Illustrated Love Stories by Amanda Oleander

Amanda Oleander: Website | Instagram | Facebook
h/t: [Design You Trust]

All images via Amanda Oleander.

Related Articles:

Sweet Animated Illustrations Show Happy Moments in Everyday Life

Charming Watercolor Illustrations Explore the Simple Moments of Love

Korean Artist’s Illustrations Capture the Intimate Moments of a Couple in Love

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‘2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar’ Shares New NASA Photo Each Day Until Christmas

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2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

The Bubble Nebula. Photo: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team

Alan Young of The Atlantic is keeping up his annual tradition of curating one of the most unique advent calendars of the season. For the past 10 years, Young has put together the Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar, publishing one photograph from NASA’s space telescope every day until December 25.

The Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990, has taken some of the most detailed visible-light images in the world, giving an unparalleled look at the depths of space. Through NASA’s dedicated page about the Hubble mission, you can even see what the telescope is currently looking at and browse galleries of still images captured in high resolution.

From festive skies dotted with brilliant stars to a surreal nebulous bubble formed from stellar wind, a scroll through the images reminds us of how wondrous the galaxy really is. Let’s look at some of our favorite images from the first half of Young’s advent calendar and keep watch of The Atlantic page and Facebook to see new images as they appear daily until Christmas.

Every year, The Atlantic publishes a Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar, check out some of the images from the 2017 edition.

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Hubble’s festive view of a grand star-forming region. Photo: NASA, ESA, and F. Paresce, INAF-IASF, Bologna, R. O’Connell, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Infrared Horsehead Nebula. Photo:NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team, AURA / STScI

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Turbulence in Sh2-106. Photo: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team, STScI / AURA, and NAOJ

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Stellar powerhouses in the Eagle Nebula. Photo: ESA / Hubble & NASA

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Grand swirls. Photo: ESA / Hubble & NASA, Flickr user Det58

2017 Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar

Backlit Dust Lanes. Photo: NASA, ESA and W. Harris – McMaster University, Ontario, Canada

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar: Website | Facebook
h/t: [kottke]

Related Articles:

Hubble Captures New Images of Breathtaking “Pillars of Creation”

Hubble Space Telescope’s Most Breathtaking Images of the Universe

Hubble Space Telescope Captures Jupiter in 4k Ultra HD

Iridescent Drinking Glasses of Spectacular Nebulae Photographed by NASA

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105 Exposures Stitched Together Reveal Ultra-High Res Photo of NYC From Night to Day

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VAST Photos New York

VAST photographer Dan Piech, who specializes in ultra-high resolution photography, shows us a different perspective of New York City. Capturing the skyline as it transitions from night to day, his New York Transitions I is a meticulous blend of 105 different exposures taken over numerous hours. The result is a seamless image that displays the dynamic change in light that falls over the Manhattan cityscape.

“I wanted to create the photo at a special time when the city looked particularly radiant, so I waited for a snowstorm to gild the city in white…” shares Piech. “Heavy clouds thick with snow blanketed the sky on an unusually cold morning. After reviewing the forecast for many inches of snow followed by a sudden clearing of the sky at night, I decided to prepare for a photoshoot of the city from the top of one of the tallest buildings between downtown Manhattan and the iconic Midtown Manhattan skyline.”

Using a long telephoto lens mounted on a gimbal, Piech carefully snapped away for hours, covering the entire scene in great detail. A close look allows viewers to see the sleepy streets of the normally bustling city as it begins to wake after the snowfall. Just as in his recent ultra-high resolution image A New York City Dream, it’s easy to get lost in the details of the architecture, peering in windows and examining rooftops for the minutiae that make New York exceptional.

The original image is a stunning 620 megapixels and took over 100 hours of editing to pull together. New York Transitions I is available for purchase as a fine art print on Piech’s company’s website, VAST Photos.

Over 105 exposures were stitched together to create this 620-megapixel view of New York City transitioning from night to day.

VAST Photos New York
ultra high resolution photography dan piech
ultra high resolution photography dan piech
VAST Photos New York
VAST Photos New York
ultra high resolution photography dan piech
ultra high resolution photography dan piech
ultra high resolution photography dan piech

These videos demonstrate the incredible detail photographer Dan Piech achieved in this VAST photo.


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VAST Photos: Website | Facebook | Instagram

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Dan Piech – VAST Photos.

Related Articles:

It Took 160 Hours to Create This Stunning 600-Megapixel View of the Manhattan Skyline

Incredible Photo Comprised of 3,888 Images Highlights Seasons in a Year

New Photo Enhancing Software Easily Transforms Low-Resolution Images into High-Resolution

Incredible 3D Aerial Panorama of Central Park

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The Rural Vision of Ravilious & Friends

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There is a palpable mood of nostalgia in England at present. This may have been expressed politically in Brexit, but it is also visible in the popular taste for “heritage” and lost worlds. In particular, Britain is awash with books and films about World War II, which all these painters lived through and which became part of their artistic legacy. The England that Ravilious and Bawden evoked so powerfully reflected neither reactionary sentiment nor aimless aesthetic ideals. Their rural vision was not about an escapist rural retreat or nostalgic nationalism, but about a precious common heritage, something worth fighting for.

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How to Rebuild A Relationship After Cheating

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Finding out that your partner has betrayed your trust is completely devastating. You begin to question the entire relationship, struggle with feelings that you’re not good enough and, above all, wonder whether or not the damage can be repaired.

One thing that can offer you at least a sliver of comfort?

If you’ve been cheated on, you’re not alone.

In fact, in 1/3 of marriages, one or both couples have committed some form of cheating during their relationship.

While there are countless articles encouraging you to dump your cheating partner, there are also resources to help you out in case you decide to give your relationship a second try.

After all, if Beyonce and Jay-Z were able to do it, then why can’t the two of you?

If you’ve decided to stay with your partner after being cheated on, then you need to know what it really takes to heal.

Read on to find out how to rebuild a relationship after cheating.

Take Some Time Apart

cheating time apart

Finding out that you’ve been cheated on can lead to some serious fights between you and your partner.

These fights quickly stop becoming productive. Once that happens, they will start to take cruel turns that can make it a lot harder for you to move on. If you’re still living together or spending time together in the same environment, consider moving out. It will be impossible to resist the temptation to cut your partner down or to beg for forgiveness.

Whether you’ve been cheated on or if you’re the one doing the cheating, you owe it to both yourself and your partner to spend a few days away from each other.

First, you’ll be able to clear your mind. Secondly, you’ll be able to seek the support and advice of your friends. It will also help you remove yourself from a toxic environment.

So, book that dream Airbnb or just spend a few nights crashing on your friend’s couch.

Consider Counseling

Improving communication with your partner after being cheated on is one of the most important things you can do in order to heal.

To ensure that both sides are heard and that the difficult questions are addressed honestly, it’s a good idea to have a therapist to play as a mediator and to offer objective advice.

To find local counseling therapists in your area, you can search online or ask your friends if they know someone who can help.

Remember, cheating is often caused by underlying issues in your relationship. It can even be a consequence of the emotional imbalance of your partner. It’s important to tackle these problems head-on if you want to rebuild trust.

Resist The Urge To Snoop

20% of men go through texts and pictures while in a relationship.

If you’ve been cheated on, the desire to spy on your partner can be incredibly strong. While it might feel satisfying or offer a sense of relief if you don’t find anything, it’s important to think bigger.

Remember that spying on your partner indicates a serious lack of trust. If you truly want to move on after infidelity, then you need to learn how to trust your partner again.

This starts by resisting the urge to check their messages on social media.

Remember, It’s A Process

relationship process

When things are good with your partner, it can be tempting to throw the past out of the window and return to your previous routines. It can also be challenging to stick around if the changes you want to see aren’t happening fast enough.

Give your partner a chance to improve and give yourself the time to heal. Remember that recovery after infidelity is a process. If you treat it like a race, you’ll both end up losing.

The post How to Rebuild A Relationship After Cheating appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Democracy and the Machinations of Mind Control

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In both the US and the UK, investigations into the deployment of these shadowy forces are still in progress. In close contests, every influence counts. There is, therefore, an understandable temptation to emphasize that without secretive billionaires, or the Russians, or Facebook, the outcomes of the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election would have been different. And as elections are likely to carry on being close-run, it is important to track down and expose systemic manipulation. But it does not follow that slush funds, algorithms, and alleged conspiracies were primary causes of the electoral shocks of 2016.

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Voices Unbound

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When I was growing up in San Francisco, singing choral music in the San Francisco Girls Chorus, I and my fellow choristers were, for the most part, learning to perform music that had, for most of its history, been sung by boys or men. One year, though, we were offered the chance to sing pieces from a rare collection of music written for the Venetian ospedali: a series of choral arrangements that had been composed in the seventeenth century, for unmarriageable or abandoned women living in convent-run group homes or orphanages. Inside the ospedali, which were meant to offer shelter and modest community to women who’d otherwise be destitute, the residents had formed choirs, which apparently had gotten so wonderful that composers like Vivaldi had traveled miles to compose for the women’s rich sound. The music, often set to cellos and violas, was sweeping and a joy to sing. But I also came to understand that this music — written if not by women, at least for women’s voices — was a rarity. The very fact of its presence was radical. Mostly, no one had ever heard women sing in public. Mostly, no one had heard women speak in public. Mostly, no one had allowed women to speak or sing in public, and mostly, women without proper attachments to men had been destitute. As we learned to carry these old songs forward, we also learned that we lifted our voices up against a much longer history of silence. Beyond the music were the centuries in which female voices, stories, perspectives, testimonies, poems, and truths were suppressed.

The strange weight of discovering this — of leaning into the heft of that absence — came back to me again as I read Rebecca Solnit’s passionate and haunting inquiry into the history of women’s silence, contained in her recent book The Mother of All Questions, which examines what it means for us now collectively to reshape the position of women’s speech. As we begin — in ways large and small — to chip away at these centuries of often violent silencing, Solnit reminds us of the many mechanisms by which women have been and continue to be denied voice, through time and in the present. Consider this, a quote from “The Public Voice of Women,” a noteworthy essay by classicist Mary Beard. “A woman speaking in public was, in most circumstances, not a woman.” If this is an ancient perspective about how women have been historically seen or not seen, heard or not heard, it also helps us ground and unpack the movement of daily life in American politics. It frames a world in which women who tell stories of abuse are dismissed; women who protest abuses of power are called shrill; and where women who claim positions of power on a public stage are demonized, sexualized, or threatened with violence.

Recently, when I wrote an editorial for CNN, talking about my own experience with gun violence, I received notes that threatened my life. One delightful letter that told me that because I differed with the letter writer on the terms of the Second Amendment, we as a nation should strip all women of the right to vote. Solnit herself routinely receives such letters and points out how often their writers want to re-silence women or to rob them of something: dignity, life, voice, civic rights.

The wonderful thing, though, is that Solnit reads these threats against and through a moment in which women, collectively, are breaking their silence, speaking and singing up and out and back — for and with one another. “If the right to speak, if having credibility, if being heard, is a kind of wealth, that wealth is now being redistributed,” she writes, noticing that this process itself could hardly be expected to be easy. “There has long been an elite with audibility and credibility, an underclass of the voiceless. As the wealth is redistributed, the stunned incomprehension of the elites erupts over and over again, a fury and disbelief that this or that child dared to speak up, that people deigned to believe her, that her voice counts for something.”

And yet in laying bare and historicizing the power relations concerning speech, in pointing out the scope of the violent histories that go into determining who has and who has not had the right to be heard, Solnit provides a road map by which we may begin righting ourselves, listening to each other, breaking through old traps and conspiracies. I have read many books about feminism; I chaired the high school chapter of NOW in the ’90s; my feminism made me the first woman in my family to attend what had been a men’s college. Sometimes I have felt that I have processed my feminism or that I live within it. This book made me feel urgent again, alive to this moment and its radical potential.

It made me honor what we are doing in chorus.

Image of Gala Concert in Old Procuratory for Czar’s Daughter (1780) by Francesco Guardi via Wikipedia.

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A serious bird with a playful look, Northern Hawk Owls live year…

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A serious bird with a playful look, Northern Hawk Owls live year round in Alaska. Able to spot prey a half mile away, this skilled hunter can also seize small animals hiding under a foot of snow. This one at Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge is keeping his eyes on you. Photo by Lisa Hupp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

5 Signs Your Romantic Relationship Is Worth Fighting For

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Is your relationship worth fighting for? Is the stress of the struggle worth it?

If you are currently in a romantic relationship or marriage and you’re having doubts about whether to fight for it or not, there are a few ways to tell.

Here are 5 signs that you can put away the white flag and salvage your relationship.

You Mean It When You Say, “It’s Not You, It’s Me”

relationship

Yes, this phrase is one of the most cliché break-up excuses. Cliché or not, looking at your own, personal intimacy issues can provide great insight into your current relationship.

Maybe your issues have nothing to do with the love and companionship your partner offers. Maybe it has something to do with your own emotional baggage.

Are you seeing a pattern in your relationship turmoil? Are the same issues that ended your last relationship haunting this one?

What’s the common denominator?

Yep, you guessed it right – it’s you.

Though I’m painting a pretty dismal picture, all hope is not lost.

If the only problems plaguing your current relationship are deeply rooted in your own insecurities, the first step is to acknowledge them. Take a step back and examine how these personality traits are affecting your relationship. You’d be surprised to see how a few slight changes to your state of mind, communication tactics or displays of affection can change things for the better.

You’re Willing to Put in the Work

Do thoughts of attending a couples retreat or counseling turn your stomach? Do your palms get sweaty and blood pressure rise when you and your loved one are left in a room together?

If working to save your relationship sounds like too much work, then it’s probably time to move on.

But if you can clearly see salvageable pieces of your broken puzzle or if you can still easily name at least five admirable qualities about your partner, there may be hope.

So, make a list and include pros and cons of you two as a couple and your partner individually. You might be surprised to discover that one awesome ‘pro’ can actually outweigh a long list of ‘cons’ or the other way around.

If you’re willing to work things out, then the relationship is definitely worth fighting for.

See Also: When to Say Fuck It and STAY in Relationship

The Thought of Ending Things Makes You Sick

Maybe it’s jealousy. Maybe it’s possessiveness.

Whatever it is, if the thought of your partner moving on or moving out turns your stomach, then you’re probably not ready to end things.

Ending a toxic relationship usually leaves you with a feeling of freedom, release, and peace of mind. All these feelings are a good indication that you made the right decision.

Sleepless nights and conflicted emotions, on the other hand, mean the opposite. If your heart and mind are torn over whether to end things, you should probably give it another shot.

There’s no worse feeling in this world than regret. Avoid the “what if” by giving things another try.

You Only Threaten to Break Up When You’re Mad

romantic relationship

We all say things when we’re mad and sometimes, it can get ugly. You blurt out things you later wish you could take back.

Often times, people use idle threats and make empty promises in the heat of an argument.

Have you ever threatened to leave only to go around the corner for a beer and return home after cooling off? Or promised to never name call again only to forget your promise during the very next fight?

If the only time you can think of leaving your partner or ending the relationship is when you’re angry or high on adrenaline, then it’s likely an irrational and superficial emotion. This means you should pause for further consideration.

You Can Imagine a Future Together

People say things like “I can’t live without you”, but do they really mean it?

If you can’t imagine your life without your partner, then you have a great foundation to work with.

When you have a solid relationship, talking about the future is important.

Some people depend their life plans on their partners. They will plan their life, career choices, and thoughts about kids based on their significant others.

For you, do your long-term goals all include your partner? Can you not imagine purchasing a home or growing old with anyone else? Even when times are tough and the two of you can’t seem to get on the same page, do you still foresee a future together?

If your answer is yes, then the two of you should be willing to work through whatever issues you are having.

See Also: 7 Best Secrets To Building Lasting Relationships

Closing Thoughts

Now that you know that your romantic relationship is worth saving, you can take the necessary steps.

Keep the lines of communication and your mind open. Try not to go on the defensive when your partner expresses concern or worry about your relationship status. Don’t jump the gun and call things off at the first sign of trouble.

Yes, relationships take work but if it’s a relationship worth saving, it will feel less like work and more like an investment in your future.

 

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Modigliani: Fevered Life, Pure Line

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These sensual images, with curving shoulders, breasts, and thighs outlined in black, with clever references to both old masters and contemporary styles, were a bald commercial venture. But these nudes overcome the cynical appeal to a male gaze. Their bodies are idealized, smooth shapes of sex, but their faces are those of individual women: some gaze out frankly, or peer teasingly, from beneath long lashes; others close their eyes or let their heads loll wearily, as if bored with the whole affair. It is as though Modigliani himself found peace in their calm stillness, away from his fevered life, away from the mass death and ravages of the war.

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