International Digital Art Competition – The Lumen Prize: Bringing The World Closer Together Through Digital Art

INTRODUCING THE LUMEN PRIZE EXHIBITION from Lumen Prize Exhibition on Vimeo.

I want to share a competition for an exhibition my partner Andrew entered, The Lumen Prize.

As many of you who follow my blog know, my partner Andrew is disabled. Andrew is having setbacks with different complications all adding to his pain. Due to the massive surgeries, the toll on his spine has been tremendous.  He now has problems with his left leg causing him terrible pain and making it difficult to walk. Also, he is having problems with his upper back, shoulders and neck causing terrible migrain headaches. He has to sleep with his left arm tied down so he can’t move it at night which adds to his constriction while sleeping in addition to having to wear a CPAP mask because of severe sleep apnia caused by the first surgery. So for me I’m very proud of my Andrew. I push him as much as I can and do all that I can to keep him where he loves to be, creating art which helps him get away from his pain. Their are many forms of healing pain. Art is a powerful one.

Read below about this fabulous competition and the two works he entered.

The Lumen Prize shortlist of 50 works will be chosen by an international selection committe of art specialists and entries will start traveling the world as the Lumen Prize Exhibition in January 2013, appearing in top galleries and venues around the world listed below and more locations will be added.

January 21-28:   London, Gallery 27, Cork Street
February, 2013:  Latvia, Robert’s Books
March 2013:        Hong Kong, Plum Blossoms Art Gallery
March 2013:        Shanghai, FQ Projects

Andrew says about digital art and it’s relation to the exhibit:

The burgeoning movement of Digital Fine Art is gaining momentum. The art world is beginning to recognize that art created with digital tools is art that speaks of our times,the 21st century. Technology is exponentially changing our world and it’s only logical that it’s use will continue to spread as a tool not only to communicate, but a powerful engine of creativity in the visual arts.

Another important aspect of the growth of the digital visual arts is that it is global in reach in a way not seen before in art movements and thus opens us up to rich visual expressions from cultures across the world and in doing so I believe can help bring us all closer together. It is in this spirit that is at the core of this special exhibition.

Excerpt from The Lumen Prize Mission Statement:

The Lumen Prize Exhibition is an international award that celebrates the very best fine art created digitally. Our goal is to focus the world’s attention on this exciting, emerging genre of fine art through a curated competition that will find the very best examples of digitally-created art andthen take this work on a global tour in 2013.  read more…

 Above: Screen shot of The Lumen Prize Home Page. visit www.Lumenprize.com

Below are Andrew’s entries

Bumps in the Road, 2012
Epson Print on Canvas, 54 x 54 inches

The Schemes of Pain That Freedom Must Endure, 2012
Epson Print on Canvas, 85.5 x 54 inches

Publication by Andrew Reach – A Journey of Transformation in Eight Pictures

Eight pictures chronologically through time, take you on a journey of Andrew Reach’s transformation from Architect to Artist through the healing power of art. See the slide show and  read publication 

Cover

sample pages – showing and describing the work
“Lost In a Place Where Pain Does Not Live”

visit Andrew Reach’s website www.andrewreach.com

New York City Archives – The Photographs of Manhattan and the Rockaways and More

I have always loved to look at old photographs.  The two archives that I’m sharing with you today are very special to me. I was born on the upper west side of Manhattan at Women’s Hospital. My family lived in the city from 1890. They also lived  in the Bronx and the Rockaways.

My partner Andrew’s family on his mothers side comes from the Five Towns in Long Island. Andrew’s fathers family came to America in 1840. And his other side on his father side came in 1820 they were from Cincinnati Ohio. His ancestors fought in the civil war. His fathers line is from Fort levenworth where Andrew’s grandfather was born. They were there during indian raids we were told. They would hide the children in pickle barrels. They had a store and made and sold covered wagon covers to the goverment and to people going west. They also made saddles, clothing, tents and  boots. Andrew’s grandfather and his brothers were Jewish Cowboys. They lived in Leavenworth Kansas when George and Lily Armstrong Custer lived there. His great grandfather was the treasurer of the first synagogue of Kansas, Bnai Jeshuran . At this moment in time I’m very excited because we just found family photos of Andrew’s family on the plains. I’ve begun to look at the Jewish Civil War soldiers that were his relations.

Photographs take us all back to another time; to so many lives that came before us. When I got notice that the New York Archives went online, I was terribly excited. No one really owns photographs. They are their for us all to discover our history.

The archives I’m linking to here are just among a couple of many other archives on different subjects. Once your there, I hope you enjoy all the wonder.

Pennsylvania Station: Photo from Detroit Publishing Company

Pennsylvania Station: Photo from Detroit Publishing Company

Skating in Central Park 1895
Photo from the book “Once Upon A City” by  Grace M. Myers

click here to visit New York City Department of Records website

Click here to see Manhattan photos (77,747 photos) from
the NYC Department of Records Photo Archives

Click here to photos of the Rockaways (2,382 photos) from
the New York City Department of Records Photo Archives 

ROCKAWAY BEACH – A new book by Vivian Rattay Carter from Arcadia Books “Images of America” Series

I want to thank Vivian Rattay Carter for her permission to use her wonderful photograph of a beautiful sunrise on the Rockaway Boardwalk for my video about Playland.  The Rockaway’s are a place of continual change. There is the past, the present and the future in all things. Her extraordinary photograph is of the present, where life is going on now. She continually captivates the Rockaway’s in it’s continuous cycles of blossoming. In her new book “Rockaway Beach” from Arcadia Books “Images of America” series she takes us to the past and shares with us much that we have not known before. Through people like Vivian Carter who captures the ever changing peninsula of the Rockaway’s, we will find the future of this extraordinary place. For once you have been to the Rockaway’s, it never leaves you. Please visit her fabulous blog, Oy Vey Rockaway to buy your signed copy. www.rockviv.wordpress.com

 The publisher Arcadia Books website says about the author:

Vivian Rattay Carter is a columnist for Rockaway’s The Wave newspaper and publishes a local events website, Oy Vey Rockaway. A lawyer and civic activist, she has served on the board of directors of the Rockaway Civic Association and as a lay leader of the First Congregational Church, whose earliest members included many of the pioneers of Rockaway Beach.