Category Archives: Art

Roman Emperors Reimagined

Found a fascinating article on the The Verge this week; a designer created photo realistic images for the first 54 Roman emperors. From Augustus to Numerian, he took historical busts, statues, paintings and coins, fed the images into an AI called ArtBreeder repeatedly, and created realistic images of what these emperors looked like. He tweaked the results with actual photos of celebrities and fed the image back into ArtBreeder; like using Daniel Craig as a reference point for Augustus. The results are amazing. None of that creepy, not-quite-human look that so many CGI renders have. If your interested, let me throw in a plug for one of my favorite podcasts; The History of Rome. This podcast is no longer active, but it covers the history of Rome from its mythical and/or actual founding, through the Republic and Empire, to end of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. The podcast ended eight long years ago, but I cannot recommend it enough to anyone with an interest in history or the ancient world.

Happy Easter To All

Happy Easter to All. My wife has been hard at work creating a series of video art tutorials. Here is a sample that she is releasing for Easter to everyone. Enjoy!

Vermeer

So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and concentration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn’t earned
the world’s end. -Wisława Szymborska
Vermeer Melkmeisje
Here’s a nice write-up. And while I am at it, here’s what incited this post.

Color Guam Grand Opening

On Saturday, September 24, Color Guam celebrated its’ grand opening at the new art studio in historic Hagåtña. Free ceramic painting for everyone was a big draw; it was the most crowded I’d ever seen the studio. Throw in some face painting and balloon animals for the kiddies, add a dash of pupus and drinks, and a great time was had by all. The day was capped with a painting class of Sirena by the seashore. A great time was had by all and I am looking forward to many more great things in the months ahead for Color Guam.

Here are some pictures of the event; for more photos surf over to the Color Guam website and click on Photos.

Come on down and check out the studio; it is located across from the Terlaje Building in Hagåtña, between the Legislature and the Julale Shopping Center. Check the map below:

Taliea Featured on KUAM News Extra

Taliea appeared on the nightly news again last night. A camera crew came out to our new location in Hagåtña, the Color Guam studios for Art & Entertainment. Here is the link to the page on KUAM.

Taliea Strohmeyer helps others through painting.

More on our new painting studio and other exciting events in the coming days. And let me invite everyone to the grand opening on Saturday, September 24, 2016. There will be food, music and entertainment for all ages at the studio, and an opportunity to paint Sirena and the Sunset!

9 Views of Guam

Huge props and congratulations to my wife for her art show!

9 Views of Guam opened on Friday December 4th at the CAHA art gallery in Hagåtña. Taliea and two other artists, Jessie Snyder and Amber Word, took to the social media sites several months ago and asked for people to submit their favorite locations on Guam. Each artist would then create a piece inspired by that location. Nine locations were requested, so the show features 27 original works of art.


The Pacific Daily News featured the show last Friday.

Talking Statues

Just caught this story on CBS this morning and it struck a nerve:

More than 30 historical figures and monuments around Chicago have been outfitted with mobile technology. It allows them to have their voice and even give their opinions, CBS News’ Dean Reynolds reports.

Basically the city of Chicago installed plaques next to the statues with QR Codes displayed. People scan the QR Code and it plays audio recorded by celebrities associated with Chicago.

Statue Stories Chicago runs for the next year and it is garnering all sorts of positive press. Hopefully this program encourages people to explore the wonderful city of Chicago and learn about the history of the city of broad shoulders. This sounds like a great idea, but I can’t help but think it seems a bit familiar somehow…

Food For My Head

If you listen to radio, or download podcasts, dash on over to Radiolab, an amazing and endlessly fascinating show from WNYC, New York Public Radio. I got turned on to this podcast thanks to a recent episode of This American Life, yet another incredible and worthwhile listen on public radio. The topics are engrossing and presented in an incredibly entertaining manner. Good stuff – like crack cocaine for my brain. Give it a listen and you’ll be hooked too.

Gauguin Overload

I’ve got Paul Gauguin on my mind lately. Can’t seem to stop gawking at his paintings… And I want to share some of my favorites for the next few days.

Paul Gauguin: Manao tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch). 1892
Paul Gauguin: Manao tupapau (The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch). 1892. Oil on canvas, Albright-Nox Art Gallery, Buffalo NY.

Ulysses

Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,–
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me–
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads–you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.