personal preference art : Looking back, moving forward

Arnold Brown likens the African-American experience to the legend of Sankofa, the mythical bird that has its feet planted forward but its head turned backward.

"Just like the Sankofa bird who looks behind to see where she's come from before she can move on, you have to know where you came from before you can figure out and appreciate where you're going."

The Bergen County historian used the West African proverb to symbolize the importance of Juneteenth, a national commemoration of the abolition of slavery in the United States that New Jersey recognized as a state holiday in 2004.

On Saturday, under an overcast sky on the Great Lawn in Overpeck County Park, Bergen County hosted the first county-wide celebration of the holiday, which pays homage to African-American heritage and allows all cultures to reflect on slavery, an institution "so evil that some people today still can't come to grips with it," said Brown.

The idea for a Juneteenth celebration was first brought to the attention of County Executive Dennis McNerney by Mira Jones, minority outreach liaison for the county and organizer of the event.

"This is a nationally celebrated event, and I'm proud that we took the initiative to have the first county-wide commemoration," said Jones. "People should know their history and celebrate their culture."

McNerney agreed. "This celebration is significant because it allows us to reflect on the inhumanity thousands encountered on a daily basis during a period of struggle and oppression," he said.

At Overpeck Park, the five-hour festival featured carnival rides, food and art vendors, and a variety of bands, including the soul group Ray, Goodman & Brown, best known for their hit song "Love on a Two Way Street." Juneteenth celebrations were also held Saturday in Paterson and Newark.

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which proclaimed chattel slavery illegal. But the legislation did not impact the lives of many slaves because news of slavery's end was slow to spread across the nation. It wasn't until two years later, on June 19, 1865, that Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas, to announce and enforce the news that slaves were free. The holiday derives its name by the melding of the month and date these slaves learned the news.

Historians say the presence of slavery in New Jersey often gets overlooked in textbooks because it is a northern state. In fact, support for slavery was stronger here than in any other northern state, according to Brown.

"New Jersey was a northern state with a southern attitude," he said.

Bergen County in particular reaped the economic advantages of free labor. In 1790, the county had the largest number of slaves in the state – 2,301, according to Brown. New Jersey's slave population that year is estimated at 14,000.

Among the remaining portals into African-American history in Bergen County is Gethsemane Cemetery, the final resting place for about 500 buried between 1866 and 1924.

As part of the Juneteenth festival, Brown offered guided tours of the cemetery, located north of Route 46 in Little Ferry. Fewer than 50 gravestones remain at the historic site – many are gone because the cemetery fell into disrepair for years until the county ordered its restoration in 2003 – but interpretive panels list names of many who are buried there.

Brown touches on the life of Elizabeth Dulfur, a freed slave who became a wealthy entrepreneur after purchasing a farm along the Hackensack River. "She was quite a lady," he said.

There are members of the affluent Porter family, whose graves indicate they adhered to West African burial customs. Instead of traditional granite headstones, hollow clay drainage pipes were utilized by the family "as a way of communicating with the upper world," Brown said.

Back at Overpeck Park, David and Karen Langford of Teaneck were intrigued by a table of ethnic art presented by Deborah Dennis of Personal Preference Inc. in Englewood.

"I have family in Texas who've been talking about Juneteenth celebrations forever, so it's nice to be doing this in New Jersey," David said. "It's important to know your history and heritage and reconnect with it. We don't get to do that often enough."

By GIOVANNA FABIANO

personal preference art : Visit to the UniverSoul Circus an eye-opener

While children and their parents from the ExCEL Homeschool Program in Landover have attended the UniverSoul Circus before, they got to see life under the big top from a behind-the-scenes perspective for the first time on June 14.
‘‘It’s the highlight of our Community Helpers and Careers series,” said Tamika McKim Neblett, founder of the year-old ExCEL program.

‘‘We do a number of different activities throughout the year, but our focus is one education throughout the experience so students can see how to appreciate what they’re learning in a real-world setting.”

The children also visited Pizzeria Uno in Largo, Giant Food in Bowie and the National Museum for African Art.

During a 90-minute visit, about 20 children and 11 chaperones met with performers, including motorcycle acrobats and limbo dancers. The homeschool group from Landover then attended a performance Friday.

‘‘This is great. They’ll get to see the behind-the-scenes; then on Friday, they’ll know what went into it,” Neblett said before the visit.

Several performers and officials with the circus said they enjoy when groups visit because the visits enhance their expectation of the show. Although the children may not become performers, the visits show them they can pursue any career, they said.

‘‘It makes me proud to explain what comes from my island,” said Michelle Pilgrim, a native of Trinidad and Tobago who, as a Caribbean heat dancer, does limbo and other dances with fire. ‘‘They can be anything they want, a dancer, a lawyer. They can have a career in the arts, not just a school activity.”

The visits also show the children, most of whom are black, examples of blacks in entertainment, said Hermoine White, assistant talent manager with the circus.

Entertainer and entrepreneur Cedric Walker founded UniverSoul Circus in 1994 for that reason. The circus was at the Capital Plaza Mall in Landover until Sunday.

Though many in the group had trouble hearing the performers over the din of machines in the background setting up for later performances, several performers spoke to the group in the parking lot outside.

Several adults seemed to get as much out of the visit as the children and asked several questions about the performers’ training and how many teammates work with them.

‘‘We don’t get to go behind the scenes as performances happen. You always have questions, but don’t get to ask them,” said Karen Hewett of Oxon Hill.

Some of the questions even delved into the performers’ personal lives, including where they sleep and if they date.

‘‘How do you have a relationship? I mean, that is the age,” Bowie resident Cheryl Merriman asked aerial dancer Veronica Williams, 22.

Williams didn’t shy away from the question, answering that some performers date coworkers and some have long-distance relationships. Neither is an option for her, she said.

‘‘For me, this is my top priority. (A relationship) adds complications to what I do,” she said. ‘‘It’s definitely a personal preference, you know?”

Copyright © 2006 The Gazette - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

personal preference art : Importance of Art in People's Daily Lives:

Art plays a very important role in the lives of the Chinese people. Six in ten respondents say that they are frequently willing to spend a little more money for an item of their preferred designs than an equally functional counterpart. An overwhelming majority of the Chinese people give serious thought to color and style when purchasing a commodity. Most of those interviewed think that the way they dress and decorate their homes are important to them. And nearly seven in ten Chinese households (67%) have works of art displayed.

From further interviewing the 67% of the respondents, two important characteristics of the public's general art preferences surfaced: 1. Chinese people give much more weights to the harmony of artworks displayed in their homes than their personal preferences when selecting artworks, and 2. Most Chinese prefer newer objects as collectibles, and like arts of modern styles better than those of traditional styles.

Though art plays an important part in the lives of the Chinese people, their actual participation in making art in its conventional sense remains very low. Only 2% of the total respondents say that they frequently spend their leisure time in painting, drawing, or doing graphic arts.

Specific Art Preferences of the Public:

Moving to the specific art preferences of the public, the general agreement that has characterized the previous summary disappeared partially. The public agrees on many matters of artistic taste, and rightfully disagrees on others.

In general, a large majority of respondents like Chinese paintings better than Western paintings. They prefer paintings in which colors are blended rather than separated. They name blue, green, and white as the most popular colors of the Chinese people. They favor paintings that have festive mood instead of serious mood. They believe that paintings should serve some higher goals. And overwhelmingly, they share the agreement that they like paintings that depict outdoor scenes and natural settings.

http://www.diacenter.org/km/chi/chi.html

personal preference art : Attitudes Toward Arts and Artists:

In the previous measurement of the importance of art in the lives of the public, art is represented by its basic elements, such as design and color, and used in the sense that art exists everywhere in people's daily lives. When gauged by a more conventionally and narrowly defined concept of art, two distinctive features of the public attitudes toward art and artists exist parallel to each other. On the one hand, the public knowledge of artists and their attendance of art galleries remain extremely low, A total of 81% of respondents go to museums less than once a year, and cannot recognize the names of such well-known artists as Monet and Rembrandt. On the other hand, the general public has strong views and decided opinions on what they consider to be good art. Nearly one in two respondents say that their personal preferences rather than the fame of artists are the determining factor for them to choose works of art. They like the artworks that make people happy and relaxing. They agree that a work of art can be beautiful even if it does not resemble anything in the real world.

The favorable and supportive attitudes toward art are further manifested by the fact that twice as many people say that they would rather receive a piece of art than a sum of money as a gift. A majority of Chinese are willing to spend 50 to about 200 yuan, an equivalent of 1/6 to 1/2 of a worker's monthly income, on a piece of art. As high as 67% of respondents say that they will encourage their child if he or she wanted to become an artist, even though most Chinese restrain themselves from readily supporting their child to marry an artist.

http://www.diacenter.org/km/chi/chi.html

personal preference art : The adventure begins

Still, there’s always that moment, usually just after the plane’s wheels have left the ground, when you can’t help but do a final mental checklist.

Passport? Yep. Credit card, accreditation letter, travel guide, sun lotion/umbrella, mismatched items of clothing to ensure you arrive at the gala opening ceremony looking like a deckchair? All present and correct.
The unique, essential, definitive, all-you-need-to-know World Cup 2006 guide with handy pull-out wall chart? Yes, I have all 74 of them, and not even two can seem to agree on England’s formation. (But then, sez you, neither can Sven).

Non-football reading material? Into Africa, a new account of Stanley’s search for Livingstone which, with its hair-raising tales of malaria, sleeping sickness, starvation, cannibalism, forced marches, torrential rain, blistering heat, massed attacks by soldier ants and lads having their arms chewed off by lions, is just the sort of stuff designed to comfort the befuddled travelling hack who has missed the last train from Hanover to Berlin and is faced with spending a night kipping on a bench in the Hauptbahnhof. (On the other hand, the good Doctor Livingstone never had to sit through a Sepp Blatter press conference).

So, with everything apparently accounted for, you relax into your airplane seat and then — boom! — a small detonation goes off in the back of your head.

Too late, you remember what you’ve forgotten. You frantically start searching through your hand luggage whilst simultaneously giving yourself a thorough security-style patting down, but it’s all to no avail. The terrible truth dawns — you’ve left your country behind! Ireland, Ireland, the Republic of Ireland. The land of your birth. The nation of O’Connell, Collins and Cascarino. You’re going to the World Cup and the boys in green won’t be there. Thirty-two countries have made the grade and we couldn’t even manage to insert 26 counties (plus County England). Oh woe, oh grief etc.

Ah well, I suppose World Cup 2006 will just have to muddle through without us. Somehow, they managed to do it in the last three great World Cup tournaments, in 1970, 1982 and 1986, turning to the likes of Pele, Zico and Maradona for consolation. And, of course, in the ’80s our friends in the north were also around to bring a little bit of green romance to the party.

But, on this, the opening day of the 2006 World Cup finals, it’s strange to think back to September 2004 and Ireland’s first game of the qualifying campaign at Lansdowne Road: 3-0 against Cyprus, Andy Reid scoring a cracker, the sun beaming, Brian Kerr beaming, and the road to Germany opening up and looking full of promise.

But come June 2006, and the only Irish people departing Dublin airport for the World Cup the other day were a handful of press and TV regulars, along with the boys from Apres Match, heading to Munich to shoot a few sketches which you will get to enjoy at home over the coming weeks. (As I discovered, Gary Cooke is also the ideal travelling companion: over the course of the two-hour flight; it means that I also got to sit beside Eamon Dunphy, Brian Kerr, Graeme Souness and Alex Ferguson).

In the normal course of events, the substantial Irish media gang heading for the World Cup would only be the advance troops for the full deployment of the massive Green Army. But this time, we’re no more than a tiny band of strictly neutral observers — we might as well be wearing blue helmets to distinguish us from the rest.

Still, there’s nothing to stop the Gaels from transferring their allegiance to another nation for this World Cup — and I don’t just mean whoever happens to be playing England. The presence of a big Polish population in Ireland should certainly lend itself to passion by association but my own personal preference would be for the Ivory Coast.

By Liam Mackey

personal preference art : Space tourism inspires fashion show

Maybe musician Donald Fagen was onto something. In his classic 1982 song, I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World), the sometime-Steely Dan collaborator sang of adventurers buying a ticket to the wheel in space and a world with spandex jackets for everyone.

Well, while the wheel is still in the drawing stages, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and Rocketplane Ltd., along with numbers of designers and artisans, have taken it upon themselves to improve on the spandex: a Hyper Space Couture Design Contest.

Runway fashion
The multi-part competition has been underway for several months, patterned to elicit space tourism fashion ideas. A key rule is that suborbital wear submittals must be functional and scientific—but don’t forget a stylish chic.

Rocketplane made the fundamental design decision to fly in a true ‘shirtsleeve environment’ very early in the development program,” explained Chuck Lauer, Vice President of Business Development for Rocketplane, based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Rocketplane’s XP vehicle will accommodate a pilot and three passengers. The fighter-sized craft is powered by both turbojet engines and a rocket engine. The vehicle is being built to accelerate to speeds of some 2,386 miles per hour (3,500 feet per second) and reach altitudes in excess of 330,000 feet (100 kilometers). Flying that suborbital profile, all onboard will be weightless for three to four minutes during the trek to the edge of space.

“In our view, not having to wear bulky pressure suits, helmets or breathing masks will enhance the customer’s space flight experience,” Lauer told SPACE.com.

Say no to Nomex
It was Misuzu Onuki, Asia Liaison for the Space Frontier Foundation and Rocketplane's Asian Business Representative, who first identified the need for design, creative expression and personal preference to become a part of the customer’s individual space flight choices.

“We were stuck in the ‘old school’ way of thinking about space flight clothing. We assumed that our choices were limited to picking our own Midnight Blue company color for the standard Nomex military flight suit, with our own logo patches in place of the NASA meatball,” Lauer pointed out.

The Space Couture Design Contest—organized by Ms. Onuki, Eri Matsui, a fashion designer based in Tokyo, and their colleagues in JAXA and the fashion industry—have spurred a fresh and exciting look at what the possibilities for personal space wear really can be.

The contest is zipping forward to having the top 10 finalists produce and test their personal creations, Lauer explained. The winning designs will become part of the catalog of Rocketplane Official Space Wear.

“Ultimately, we would like to see additional design contests for the European and American markets and a whole line of winning space wear fashion designs become a part of our catalog,” Lauer said.

Casual wear for space
The space wear contest is for the first generation of space tourism, Onuki explained.

“So far, space tourism wear has been not so considered … though space tourism is very popular among the general public,” Onuki observed. “However, wear for space tourism is one of the important elements to make space tourism very dramatic and exhilarating.”

Onuki told SPACE.com that she has been engaged in research geared toward casual wear for space over the last five years.

“Though it is easy to ask a famous fashion designer to design space suits, I chose another way to encourage mass market public attention to space tourism by performing the competition,” Onuki added. “To do that, we got a new pleasure. I was sure that it must be interesting to see the design pictures which embody people’s image and dreams towards personally experiencing space flight.”

Catwalk in space
Onuki said that, in working with fashion designer, Ms. Matsui, the intent is to cross-thread mathematics, science, art, and physics with fashion.

To date, there have been several kickoff events, as well as fashion shows to stir interest in the multi-step contest. At the end of March, contest officials had received 882 drawings by 365 individuals. Last month, the top 10 designs plus three alternate designs were picked. The actual winner, second and third place will be selected later this year.

“I think that it will be very hard to select one as the ultimate winner,” Onuki admitted.

Contest organizers plan to perform the first space fashion show—“Catwalk in Space”—this autumn hosted by Space Travellers of Germany, as well as German and Japanese media.

A Zero G Wedding Dress designed by Matsui, as well as the top 10 designers garbed in their own outfits, will float in weightlessness courtesy of a parabolic-flying Russian Ilyushin 76 aircraft.

© 2006 Space.com. All rights reserved.

personal preference art : Effects of Task Goal and Personal Preference

From the Department of Occupational Therapy, Chang Gung University (C.W.), and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (M.W.), Taoyuan; the School of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University and Department of Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei (K.L.); and the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Chaoyang University of Technology, Wufong (H.C.), Taiwan.


Correspondence to Dr Keh-chung Lin, School of Occupational Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, 7 Chung Shan South Rd, Taipei 100, Taiwan. E-mail kclin@ha.mc.ntu.edu.tw

Background and Purpose—Current theories of motor control in rehabilitation focus on how the nervous system responds to many types of external and internal constraints to execute motor behavior to accomplish a task. However, the dynamic interplay between these 2 constraints remains unclear. This study examined the impact of some aspects of internal and external constraints on motor performance in persons with stroke.

Methods—Twenty-seven persons with stroke used the uninvolved arms to perform an upper-extremity reaching task under 4 experimental conditions, formed by the crossing of functional goals and personal preferences. For the higher level of a functional goal, subjects took a drink from a can of beverage. For the lower level of a functional goal, subjects brought the can to the mouth without drinking. The level of personal preferences was determined, by interview, by the degree of predilection for particular beverages.

Results—Significant and large effects of functional goals and personal preference were found in the variables of movement time and reaction time. However, the data trend of the 4 testing conditions varied according to presence of visuospatial neglect and side of lesion.

Conclusions—Offering choices for the treatment activities and incorporating functional goals to therapeutic tasks might enhance response rate or movement efficiency, depending on the side of the lesion and presence of visuospatial neglect. The findings suggest that the consideration of the neglect phenomenon is a necessity when rehabilitative treatment planning incorporates constraint factors.

Copyright © 2001 by the American Heart Association.

personal preference art : Adaptive Knowledge and Decisions

Goldberg (2001) calls the cognitive processes that lead to a personal preference among alternatives adaptive thought and decision-making. Knowing the names of the presidential candidates is veridical knowledge. Casting my vote is an adaptive decision. Most human thought and decision-making are adaptive, actor-centered. How do I interpret the facts? Which choice is best for me?

We often use veridical information during the process of making an adaptive decision. For example, we look at a restaurant menu before ordering and note such veridical elements as the cost and composition of items. Cost may be important to the price-conscious and ingredients to the allergic – but the issue of what we should order has no correct or incorrect answer. It抯 a personal preference based on many factors, and any order is a legitimate decision.

Even U.S. Supreme Court decisions are adaptive. After examining the veridical facts of the case and the relevant carefully worded laws and precedents, the judges may adaptively differ 5-4 on which position in the case is constitutionally correct.

This veridical/adaptive relationship also exists in arts, humanities, and social skills programs that subjectively integrate veridical information into adaptive decisions. All these cognitively important curricular areas have sadly lost their school significance and funding in an era in which precise assessment controls the curricular agenda.

For example, art is a unique expression that抯 centered on preference. Thus, if it抯 possible to precisely evaluate art, it抯 not art but rather reproducible craft. There抯 nothing wrong with craft; it抯 just not art. When a noted pianist was asked to explain the difference between a piano player and a pianist, he responded that anyone can play the correct notes. That response gets to the heart of the issue. Playing the correct notes (a veridical act) is important, but the aesthetics of playing the correct notes with adaptive style and grace is more important.

Consider professional basketball. Veridical information (such as scores, averages, and records) dominates sports reporting. Fans want their team to win, but they抮e generally more interested in observing the many adaptive decisions that occur during a game—as elite players follow set plays or improvise shots, coaches send players in and out of the game, and referees respond to or ignore violations. Perhaps more important, fans want both teams to play with the creative style and grace expected of athletic virtuosos. It will thus be possible to identify the champion with veridical certainty at the end of the NBA playoffs, but something is seriously missing in the enterprise if that抯 all the long season was about. So is it also with schools and test scores.

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