Abi Gordon-Cody is a self-taught UK special effects artist. The creative household she grew up in inspired her love of special effects make-up.
Tag Archives: Arts & Entertainment
Too Consumed to Ingest the world around us?
What’s more important to you; actually enjoying the moment or taking a photo of the particular moment to show that you were enjoying it?
Teenage Artist Donates $1 Million to Charity
Jeff Hanson has a visual impairment himself but has used his talent as an artist to hugely benefit those less fortunate.
Robert Frost Biography
An acclaimed American poet, Robert Frost didn’t have any of his work published until after he was 40 years old. He went on to receive much recognition and many awards, including four Pulitzer Prizes.
Josephine Baker—A French and American Hero
Rising from poverty in St. Louis to become an entertainment superstar in her adopted home of Paris, Josephine Baker could easily have enjoyed a life of leisurely wealth. Instead, she aided the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of World War II and later spoke out for American civil rights.
Shakespeare Inspired Robben Island Inmates, Including Mandela
Publishers have been cranking out editions of Shakespeare’s works for hundreds of years. So what makes an ordinary 1970 edition, pasted with pictures and marked with handwritten notes, so special?
Why Are Shirt Buttons on Different Sides for Men and Women?
Read about some interesting theories related to fashion for men and women. Did nobility dictate the differences in fashion?
I Wonder What It’s Like To Be Dyslexic
To give people an idea of what it’s like to have dyslexia, Sam Barclay, a UK graphic designer, produced a typographic visual representation of how he sees text on a page.
Why Success Makes Us Risk Averse
Psychologist Ruth Blatt uses music as an example to explain how achieving success can often lead to risk aversion.
Patriotism on Broadway
The timelessness and universality of Alexander Hamilton’s story is explored in this review of the popular hip-hop musical Hamilton.
Photography in the Age of Falsification
Even when Photoshop can create false or impossible images, we still tend to trust what we see in photos as real. But not only can we not trust the veracity of photos now—images have been manipulated for aesthetic and political effect since the dawn of photography.
Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War
Award-winning historian Ari Kelman and the acclaimed graphic novelist Jonathan Fetter-Vorm produced this graphic novel about the civil war. Scroll down the page to access and read the book online.
Joy Harjo
This biography of poet Joy Harjo includes an overview of her work.
Why We Need the Wild
Professor David Gessner of the University of North Carolina Wilmington reviews the nature writing in Jason Mark’s recently-published Satellites in the High Country, and he touches on some transcendental ideas in the process.
The Decades That Invented the Future, Part 1: 1900-1910
The turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s was a time of great innovation and growth. Read about some of the influential inventions of the twentieth century’s first decade.
In Defense of Thoreau
Duke professor Jedediah Purdy makes a counter-argument to Kathryn Schulz’s “Pond Scum” essay in The New Yorker, which criticized Henry David Thoreau both as a writer and as a person.
Aaron Douglas’s Magisterial Aspects of Negro Life
This text provides an overview of Harlem Renaissance painter Aaron Douglas. Click the images on the left to view some of his work in more detail and watch the video at the bottom for more background.
How Animal Farm Gave Hope to Stalin’s Refugees
Ukranians oppressed by the Soviet Stalin regime managed to smuggle in a translation of George Orwell’s indictment of Stalinism.
Up, Up, and Oy Vey!
An old joke goes that if you meet a guy whose name has “man” at the end, either he’s from a Jewish family or he’s a superhero. A rabbi digs into the Jewish roots of our most popular superheroes.
Robert Frost’s Christmas Cards
Although these greeting cards started as a way to celebrate the winter season, poet Robert Frost was encouraged to continue them as an annual holiday tradition. Find out which of his famous poems were used as the verses for these unique cards that are collectors’ items today.