The following were the top 10 most-viewed slide shows on Slate in 2011. On Page 2, you'll find other staff and Facebook favorites.
We revisited the subjects of eight iconic and/or potentially humiliating covers to see how the experienced affected their lives.
Vampire Weekend Contra girl wants $2M
The indy darlings from Vampire Weekend are in the midst of a legal squabble with the woman on the cover of their 2010 Grammy-nominated album, Contra. Ann Kirsten Kennis, a retired model now in her 50s, wants $2 million for use of the photograph, which depicts her at age 28. She says she doesn’t remember ever meeting the photographer who sold the image to the popular band and that the release form must have been forged.
Why does Kennis care so much? Her husband explained to Slate that it’s not just about money but also about not having been alerted that the image would be used by the band. Kennis found it jarring to suddenly see a young version of herself plastered across billboards. “She’s not even fond of the picture,” her husband added. (At right, a photo from Kennis’ modeling portfolio. You can also see a more recent photo of her here.)
Compared to some of the following cover images, however, this image is rather tame. See how others feel about being famous for being on an album.
Left, Courtesy XL Recordings. Right, Image Courtesy Ann Kirsten Kennis.
Nirvana’s Naked Baby, Nevermind, 1991
Spencer Elden, now 20, has a positive attitude about the fact that at three months old, his parents took $200 to throw him into a pool and have him photographed naked for a Nirvana album cover. "Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis," he told NPR in 2008. "So that's kinda cool." He’s now an intern for Shepard Fairey’s company OBEY. (Fairey, of course is the famous street artist behind this Obama poster.)
Left: Courtesy Nirvana.Right: Photograph by Splash News via Newscom.
Led Zeppelin’s Creepy Crawling Children, Houses of the Holy, 1973
Perhaps the only thing more embarrassing than a full frontal underwater shot is a rear shot on a pile of rocks. At age 5, Stefan and his sister Samantha Gates were photographed on Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Collage techniques then turned the siblings into the thousands of naked children who populate the cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. Stefan, now a TV food personality who travels the world tasting delicacies like rat (pictured), said he was haunted by the Zeppelin image for many years—he only got around to listening to the album, he claims, in the process of filming a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the album in 2010. In that film, one of the cover’s designers, Aubrey “Po” Powell explained, "You couldn't possibly do that album cover now. ... But you've got to put this in the context of the time. I came out of the peace and love movement where everybody danced on acid and ran around naked."
Left: Led Zeppelin. Right: Courtesy Stefan Gates.
The Smashing Pumpkins Twins, Siamese Dream, 1993
The cover of Siamese Dream, the influential Smashing Pumpkins record from 1993, featured two girls pressed together. Recently the band reinvigorated interest in the iconic cover by claiming that the girl on the left was their bassist Nicole Fiorentino. It turned out to be a hoax. Though the girl on the left has still not been identified, the girl on the right is model and fashion designer Ali Laenger. She told Slate that she occasionally gets fed up with the media requests about her appearance on the cover.
Left: Courtesy Atlantic Records. Right: Courtesy Ali Laenger.
U2’s Angry Boy, War, 1983
The brother of one of Bono's close friends, Peter Rowen saw his face grace three U2 covers by the time he was 8. His sweet grimace on Warwas perhaps the most memorable. In addition to helping sell albums, it resulted in some unexpected attention from the ladies. "I’d get phone calls from girls in America. How they got my family’s number, I don’t know,” he once said.
As an adult his cover fame hasn’t changed his life particularly, he says, though he continues to be connected to the band; this past year he photographed a few of their shows. Now a commercial photographer, he shared his technical assessment of the image with Slate, “It’s a simple photograph, but a good photograph.”
Fans speculated for years about the identity of the baby on Ready to Die, Notorious B.I.G.’s debut album. (Was he a young Biggie, or perhaps the son of another hip-hop legend?) But 16 years after the album’s release, it was revealed that he was just a baby model from the Bronx, selected by an agency because he resembled a baby Biggie. His family received $150 for the assignment. Now a high-school senior, Keithroy Yearwood told the New York Daily News that he was glad his identity was revealed because no one had ever believed him when he bragged of being on the cover of the groundbreaking album.
Left: Courtesy Bad Boy Records. Right: Getty Images.
The Blind Melon Bee Girl, Blind Melon, 1992
Although Heather DeLoach was not actually the girl on the Blind Melon cover, at left, she’s the young bee girl who’s generally credited for inspiring interest in the album. As the chubby tap-dancer in the "No Rain" music video, she generated buzz, helping propel the band to the top of the charts. The fact that she’s often mistaken for the girl on the cover is no accident; she was selected because she so closely resembled Blind Melon drummer Glenn Graham's younger sister who was used as the model. Now an actress, DeLoach has embraced her past as the Bee Girl in all its nerdy glory, even agreeing to re-create the character that helped make Blind Melon successful. (She’s pictured 15 years later at right.) She’s created a Facebook page called “Heather DeLoach ‘The Bee Girl,’ ” where people continue to praise her childhood role with comments like “I loved that vid. Awesome job.” Although she’s yet to find another role as iconic as Bee Girl, she’s appeared on several TV series, including Reno 911! and ER. “When people see my résumé, they're like, 'Really?' " DeLoach told MTV. "'You've grown to be such a beautiful woman!'”
Correction, June 22, 2011: This caption originally stated that DeLoach was also the girl on Blind Melon's album cover.
Left: Courtesy Capitol Records. Right: Photograph by Ben Tsui/Splash News via Newscom.
Fatboy Slim, You’ve Come A Long Way Baby, 1998
In the Facebook age, it’s seems that no photo can go untagged. But the identity of this fellow, who appeared on the cover of the album that topped the U.K. charts in 1998, remains a mystery. Even the people at Skint Records, the label that put out the album, don’t know. They bought the image from a photo agency, Dave Philpot, head of business affairs at Skint, told Slate. “All we know it was taken at an American 'Fat Fair’ in the early ‘90s,” he wrote via email. “We would love to know who the Kid is and what he is doing now also.” Do you know this man? If so, email heather.murphy@slate.com and we can put this Where Is He Now mystery to rest.
The U.S. military has long used cats in special operations under the top-secret Covert Anti-Terrorism Stealth (CATS) program. Smarter and stealthier than dogs, cats are also more versatile: They can climb trees and leap across buildings to gather intelligence. Studies show they can survive nine times as long as any human soldier.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by AFP/Getty
The CATS program originated during World War II and was instrumental in the invasion of Normandy.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by STF/AFP/Getty Images.
During the Vietnam War, cats proved adept at navigating unfamiliar terrain.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by AFP/Getty Images.
Paratroopers and cats, which do not need parachutes since they always land on their feet, perform training exercises over the California desert.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by Giuseppe Cacace/AFP/Getty Images.
Cats are prized for their ability to see at night without the need for special equipment. In this exclusive image from the Abbottabad raid, a special ops cat sneaks up on Bin Laden’s bodyguard.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by Darren McCollester/Getty Images.
A high-level CATS adviser, whose name was not released by the Pentagon, monitors the Abbottabad raid from the Situation Room.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen, photograph by Pete Souza.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has developed a sophisticated device—still classified and obscured in this Department of Defense photo—to insert undercover cats into war zones.
Photo illustration by Holly Allen.
A still from an unseen episode of 24,never aired due to objections from top military officials that it jeopardized national security.
Photograph by Michael Nagle/Getty Images.
An upcoming 10-part HBO series will tell the true story of an elite feline unit during World War II and will be directed by Tom Hanks.
Last week, Emmy nominee and Golden Globe winner Steve Buscemi told the dentists of the world to lay off his famously crooked chops. “I’ve had dentists who have wanted to help me out, but I say, ‘You know, I won’t work again if you fix my teeth.’ ” And he’s not alone in this sentiment. In fact, Buscemi is part of an exclusive cabal of superstars in the following photos who refuse to become metal-mouths—and might be more successful for it.
[Update, July 25th, 12:25 pm: Out of respect for Amy Winehouse we've removed her from this gallery, which was created before her death.]
Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images.
Orthodontia Virgin
Madonna flashes her famous gap-toothed grin in 2005.
After Ricky Gervais played a dentist in Ghost Town, the British actor was inundated by questions from American journalists: “One journalist said to me, ‘Now, in this film, you have an amazing set of horrible-looking fake dentist teeth.’ I told him, ‘No, actually, they are my own,’ and there was this long pause.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images.
Fangs
“I find it rude when someone asks me why I never ‘fixed’ the gap in my teeth!” says actress Anna Paquin, star of True Blood.
Photo by David Livingston/Getty Images for Rise Up Christchurch.
Hey, Johnny Depp Likes It
French actress Vanessa Paradis, who is currently dating Johnny Depp, at a Chanel product launch dinner in France.
Photo by Kristy Sparow/Getty Images.
Wax Museum
Early in her career, model Lauren Hutton used morticians’ wax and caps to hide the gap between her teeth.
Clarification, July 21, 2011: A headline on this slide show originally referred to "dental care." Specifically, the photos show celebrities who have opted not to get cosmetic dental work.
LIFE.com spoke with photographers about the powerful images they captured on Sept. 11, 2001.
Spencer Platt: City Aflame
Spencer Platt, a photographer for Getty Images, was nudged out of bed by his wife, who told him that a plane had collided with one of the Twin Towers. Platt groggily left their Brooklyn apartment and was headed toward lower Manhattan when he realized something was terribly wrong; people around him were panicking. He broke into a jog over the Brooklyn Bridge and saw it.
"I was struck by the acrid black smoke bellowing from the north tower," he told LIFE.com. "I placed the camera to my eye and took a few images on my new digital camera, which I was not yet accustomed to. In fact, I should have missed the explosion of the south tower, because I had only put the camera to my eye for a second to check on the focus when the second plane hit and the fireball erupted. I instinctively pressed the motor drive." A cab driver nearby noticed that Platt had captured the awful moment. "As I scrolled back through the pictures to make sure it really existed on my LCD, the taxi driver ran up to me. He screamed, 'He's got, he's got it!'—as if what we had all just witnessed wasn't yet reality until we confirmed it on a screen."
Spencer Platt, who won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 2006, remains a staff photographer for Getty Images.
Update, Sept. 8, 2011: This gallery originally contained five photographs for which LIFE did not have distribution rights. They have been replaced by additional photographs. You can see them here.
Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images via LIFE.com
Jennifer S. Altman: The Woman in Red
Jennifer S. Altman was a freelance photographer on the highway on her way from lower Manhattan to Brooklyn to cover municipal elections when she saw the first tower on fire. After pulling over and walking down to street level, she noticed a crowd of people running in the street. Prominent among the crowd was a woman in red with an expression of pure horror on her face. "When you're in a moment like that, you're kind of just capturing what's around you and seeing what makes for good imagery, and everything came together for me," Altman recently told LIFE.com. "When I had taken the photo, I knew that I had captured something powerful." Altman continued shooting right through the moment the first tower came down and a cloud of dust exploded into the streets. "I had stopped, caught up in the moment, when I heard the loudest noise I ever heard in my life, and the whole place rumbled. I was standing with a photographer friend, yelled Run!, and we ran. The oxygen was just sucked out of my body." Five years later, Altman was invited to the home of the woman in red, Rose Parascandola, who had been working at an online-trading company on the 51st floor of WTC 1. "She said that she had seen the picture in the paper, that I really captured how she felt, and that it meant a lot to her." For Altman, it was a meaningful photo as well. "It was a turning point in my career. All my skills came together at once. In a way, I could see things very clearly. But it also made me very aware of my life, and I don't take things for granted."
Altman is still a freelance photographer in New York.
Photograph by Jennifer S. Altman/WireImage.
Stan Honda: Enveloped
Stan Honda was a freelance photographer who was standing a couple blocks from the the towers for only a few minutes when everything changed. "A noise like a train, a big, rumbling noise, and then this huge cloud of smoke and dust," he remembers of the first tower collapsing. Honda fled into the vestibule of a nearby office building along with others.
"It was like night outside. You really couldn't see at all. As photographers we see fires and building collapses all the time, but this was something completely out of our experience."
Moments later a woman, Marcy Borders, staggered into the building. "It seemed like she was in complete shock. She was this ghostly figure, covered in grey-white dust, and I thought this would make an important picture of what was happening out there."
He shot the picture, and went back out to a vastly different world. "It looked like it had snowed, everything was covered with dust—the ground, buildings, cars, even people, walking around covered with this dust. It was very still, not even any sirens."
Later, he met Borders, who had no recollection at all of having her photo taken. She told Honda she was moving away from the East Coast because of that day. "In the picture seeing a survivor who made it through," he says. "Just her, simple, no background. It puts a face on the whole disaster."
Honda is now a staff photographer with AFP.
Photograph by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Doug Kanter: Ground Zero
Doug Kanter, then a freelancer for AFP, arrived at the scene a minute or two before the south tower fell. "When I came above ground, I was just starting to check the exposure on my camera when I heard someone yell, It's coming down! It's coming down! I didn't know what they were talking about. I didn't have a clear line of sight of the South Tower, but then the dust cloud raced around the corner. I turned and started running, but the cloud overtook us all pretty quickly." After briefly taking shelter, he went back to work and edged closer to World Trade Center plaza, perilously close to the still-burning North Tower. "I was on autopilot between the time the two towers fell. The streets were pretty much deserted, and that's when the person in the picture emerged. He looked like a maintenance worker, had a fire extinguisher in his hand, and was calling out to see anyone could hear him, saying they should make noise, and people would come and help. That's when I took the picture." A police officer shooed Kanter away from the site before the second tower fell. When he looks at his photos from that day now, what strikes Kanter most is how close he came to becoming a 9/11 victim himself. "Seeing all the photos of that dust cloud coming around the corner, the most shocking thing was realizing that if the tower came down at an angle, I'm a block or two away, and there's a good chance I'm going to die." He never learned who the man with the fire extinguisher and quixotic mission in his photograph was -- but the owner of one of the destroyed pickup trucks (at right) asked him to provide evidence for his insurance company.
Kanter is still a freelance photographer. He recently moved back to New York City from Beijing.
Photograph by Dough Kanter/AFP/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Anthony Correia: The Survivor
Anthony Correia, who worked for Getty Images in 2001, was on the subway when the planes hit. After an hour stuck in the tunnels, he and the other passengers were let out at Union Square, far from their original destination, and a couple of miles north of the World Trade Center. But Correia headed straight to the towers. "I saw the smoke, and I made a beeline downtown as fast as I could, walking." By the time he arrived, the towers had fallen, but he couldn't quite fathom it. "As a native New Yorker, I was used to having the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building as reference points; I couldn't imagine the towers had actually come down. I only came to that realization when I was getting closer and closer to Ground Zero and I kept thinking to myself, 'I should be able to see some part of the buildings here.'" When he finally arrived near the site, there were almost no people around. But he did see a lone firefighter trudging away from the destruction. "He just looked so exhausted, so beat up." Correia knelt down and took his shot as the firefighter walked by. "I acknowledged him, and he acknowledged me. He never stopped." Correia kept shooting until he had no more film left. "I basically went into photojournalist mode. I said, 'I've got something to document, I've got this barrier to help me, and that's my camera. That is how I got through that day'" But after September 11, he found it hard to photograph anything. "That period was a little surreal for me. I didn't pick up my camera for a while after that. I was a little traumatized." Correia never found out who the firefighter was. "I've thought about trying to find out who he was and to give him a print. I'd like to do it one day."
Correia is now director of content operations for Shutterstock.com and Bigstock.com.
Photograph by Anthony Correia/Getty Images.
Spencer Platt: Watchful
Platt (who took the shot from the Brooklyn Bridge of the south tower exploding, seen earlier in the gallery) made it to lower Manhattan, where he took this picture of a crowd staring up at the burning towers in disbelief and confusion. "Having grown up looking at the black and white pictures in LIFE magazine, I wanted to witness the romance and tragedy of history firsthand. What was missing for many of us in the news business in the days before 9/11 was a sense of purpose." Unfortunately, Platt says, he's not sure Sept. 11 provided one.
"While they were reprehensible, the attacks launched an unprecedented series of American-led conflicts that gave journalists the drama, imagery, and compelling war narratives that had been absent in decades past. [But] in many ways, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq also sucked the air out of more important journalistic stories for a decade."
Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images via LIFE.com.
Paul J. Richards: 'We're Under Attack'
Paul J. Richards was part of the press pool travelling with President George W. Bush when, in the middle of a routine photo op at a Florida elementary school, he noticed that the president's aides were suddenly agitated and that every news producer's cell phone was going off. His instincts told him he needed to get into position to catch Bush's reaction when the president was told what was going on.
"I could hear talking from the back room—someone talking to the staff, getting all worked up. I was thinking, I'm in the wrong place, I need to be in dead center. Then [White House Chief of Staff] Andrew Card popped out of a door." Card whispered something to the president, as Richards took this photo. "He later told me that he said, 'Sir, we're under attack.'"
Richards is now chief photographer and assignment editor for the Washington, D.C., bureau of Agence France-Presse.
Florida-based Joe Raedle was in Miami when the planes struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He got in a car the next day and drove straight to New York to shoot images for Getty. "The city was in a state of siege, basically," he says. "That's how I'd sum it up." Raedle ended up taking pictures of what seemed an endless string of funerals for firefighters. He shot this photo four days after the attacks, on a day in which he was assigned to back-to-back funerals. It was the tears that caught his eye. "Anytime you see a fireman or a symbol of strength breaking down like that, it resonates." But though the photograph was specifically about the end of one man's life, Raedle thinks of it as really about the beginning of something else. "The last decade since the attacks have been like a blur, from Ground Zero to Afghanistan to Iraq. We've been continually covering the post-9/11 world. So it wasn't like 9/11 was the end of it. I see it as a beginning."
Raedle is still a staff photographer at Getty Images.
Thomas Edison was perhaps the greatest inventor America has known: not only because of his brilliant inventions, but for his ability to put those inventions to good use. Slate embarked on a search to discover modern-day Edisons—great thinkers in various fields who combine innovation with practicality. We’ve broken our winners down into five categories: Business, Culture, Technology, Government, and Design. View the slide show to see who we’ve chosen.
Troy Carter, Business Manager for Lady Gaga (Business)
Gaga's guru is merging old-time marketing with radical new techniques to turn the pop star into a giant of music, fashion, and media.
Ryan and his partner Adam Lowry have created a green business that customers actually like by combining high-end design with environmental science.
CREDIT: Photograph of Eric Ryan courtesy Method.
Suzanne Collins, Author of the Hunger Games Trilogy (Culture)
With her dark, bloodthirsty books, Collins has upended our notions of what young-adult fiction should be—and converted waves of skeptical adults in the process.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone showed us how to reinvigorate Broadway: by taking musicals back to their roots (while also making them more like South Park).
Photograph by Michael Buckner/Getty Images.
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com (Technology)
He's transforming the e-commerce giant into the biggest name in digital media.
Khan’s educational videos are revolutionizing how kids learn math and science.
CREDIT: Photograph courtesy Khan Academy.
Brian Tucker, President of GeoHazards International (Technology)
Tucker is working with local communities to prevent natural disasters from becoming national catastrophes.
CREDIT: Photograph credit not available.
David Bossie, President and Chairman, Citizens United (Government)
With its release of Hillary: The Movie and successful lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission, Bossie’s Citizens United has changed how political campaigns in America work.
It has the head of a man, the body of a lion, and apparently some sex appeal. In Arabic, its name means "father of terror." People love to play with perspectives to make it look like they're kissing the 4,500-year-old guardian.
Photograph by Flickr user jmj575.
The Great Sphinx: Giza, Egypt
Photograph by Flickr user jmj575.
Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Emperor Shah Jahan built this 17th century palace for Mumtaz Mahal, one of his wives who died during childbirth. Now, "pinching the Taj" is a popular photo-op.
Photograph by Flickr user Jesse Nover.
Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Photograph by Flickr user madhatrk.
Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Photograph by Flickr user Pramal.
Abbey Road: London, England
The Beatles made this zebra-crossing famous when they used it on the sleeve of Abbey Road. Now, visitors attempt to mimic the staged street-crossing path of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In 2010, the Brits designated it as a heritage site. Now a there's a webcam set up so you can watch tourists try this clichéd shot in real-time.
Photographs by Flickr users fattkatt and the hippy 2.
Abbey Road: London, England
Photograph by Flickr user luckyno3.
Abbey Road: London, England
Flickr/Peter Graves.
Leaning Tower of Pisa: Pisa, Italy
Bonanno Pisano began building the famous sinking tower in 1173. It leans because it was built on soft, swampy soil. Generations of visitors have tried to help hold it up on camera.
Photograph by Flickr user Steve Montgomery.
Leaning Tower of Pisa: Pisa, Italy
Photograph by Flickr user randomguru
Leaning Tower of Pisa: Pisa, Italy
Photograph by Flickr user Steve Montgomery.
Rocky statue: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Modeled after the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa, this bronze statue made its film debut in Rocky III. After filming the movie, actor and director Sylvester Stallone donated his likeness to the City of Philadelphia. It stands at the bottom of the famous Rocky stairs outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Photograph by Flickr user Stacy Huggins.
Rocky statue: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Photograph by Flickr user The National Guard.
Bruce Lee statue: Hong Kong*
This bronze statue, unveiled in November 2005, honors the deceased kung-fu movie star and martial artist. As with Rocky, fans often join the fun.
*Correction, May 12, 2011: This article originally identified Hong Kong as being located in Japan.
Photographs by Flickr users Cloodlebing and Great Kindness.
Bruce Lee statue: Hong Kong
Photograph by Flickr user interestsarefree.
Oscar Wilde memorial: Paris, France
At Père Lachaise cemetery, fans of the flamboyant and irreverent playwright and poet kiss his gravestone while wearing bright red lipstick
If you look up “thick neck” on Google, you’ll get a picture of Takeo Spikes. Really, you will.
A sturdy neck is essential for an NFL player who wants to dole out punishment and avoid being decapitated himself. But is it possible to go too far? Beginning with veteran linebacker Spikes, we’ve assembled some of the thickest necks in the business—some of which are so massive as to thoroughly upstage the heads they’re intended to anchor.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
Roman Harper, safety, New Orleans Saints
When in the NFL, do as Roman does: Lift weights until your neck is thicker than your head.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
Paul Posluszny, linebacker, Jacksonville Jaguars
A fearsome middle linebacker, “Poz” has broken his arm twice, but his neck has thus far remained injury free.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
Kelly Gregg, defensive tackle, Kansas City Chiefs
Gregg, who inherited Baltimore’s starting nose-tackle job from fellow giant Tony Siragusa before moving to Kansas City this year, has a neck so large it is hard to tell where it ends and his face begins.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
Maurice Jones-Drew, running back, Jacksonville Jaguars
One of the league’s most explosive players, Jones-Drew is just 5-foot-7 and 208 pounds. He has proven remarkably durable over the years, however, perhaps because he is shaped like a battering ram.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
Riley Cooper, wide receiver, Philadelphia Eagles
Cooper looks a bit like Frank from the film Donnie Darko, if the giant bunny mask weighed 40 pounds and he built up his neck muscles by wearing it around all the time.
Photograph by NFL via Getty Images.
David Diehl, offensive lineman, New York Giants
The 315-pound Diehl has tattoos of the Croatian coat of arms and University of Illinois mascot Chief Illiniwek. His neck appears to be ink free.
Meade painted and photographed herself for this self-portrait. Keeping her left straight from her right (she painted herself while looking in a mirror) and her face perfectly lined up with the wall “came pretty close came to breaking my brain,” she said.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Victorious on the Streets
A model, covered in paint, crosses the street.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Timmy at the Metro Stop
He may look like a cut-out, but this is actually a man walking through the Washington, D.C. Metro.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Transit
The thick brushstrokes make the model appear flat, perplexing fellow riders.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Bernie
The model's actual hair peeks through his painted "mask" as Meade calls it. The wall behind him is also painted, thoroughly blurring the line between reality and perception.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Aligned with Alexa
An unpainted Meade appears in many of her compositions. Next to her, under the paint, is a real, living, breathing man.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Found
The dimensionality of real, unpainted blades of grass contrast with a model who is entirely painted.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Calculated
If one was not familiar with Meade's other work, one might not suspect that this is a photograph of a human coated with acrylic paint.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Nocturne
Meade spends from six to eight hours painting each of her human models. She starts with a plan, but often throws it out in the moment, she says.
Copyright Alexa Meade. Courtesy of Irvine Contemporary.
Natura Morta Installation
Here, a man at an exhibition examines one of Meade's painted human models. It's the thick brushstrokes—not the camera—that are responsible for creating the flattened, 2D visual effect. Taken from any angle, with any camera, the photographic result is essentially the same, Meade explains.
The following were selected because they were among the most shared, most liked, or simply most memorable.
This slideshow, evidently sent from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Silvio Berlusconi about 24 hours after the Italian prime minister's resignation, was intercepted by Slate, accompanied by this note.
February 2003
Remember when we went to that wildlife preserve? You whined about the cold like a little Ukrainian seal baby. But I still told you, “We are meant to be brothers!” I realized you are a courageous man like me and gave you a furry hat.
Alexei Panov/AFP/Getty Images.
June 2003
Remember when I taught you the gesture I used to use to pick up Russian girls in the clubs when I was young?
Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images.
July 2003
Remember when everyone thought we were talking about Iraq, but actually you were just telling me how you thought it would be funny if you renamed your political party Go Pussy? I was hurt when you shared this joke with the whole world last week. It’s our joke, and of course they didn’t understand. But I forgive you.
Sergei Chirikov/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2003
Remember when you had a young girl bring me a shirt before our meeting with a note that said: “Wear this and we will look like irresistible ruthless brothers. The kind that might kill you and marry your daughter in the same week.” And I wore it as you showed me Sardinia.
Presidential Press Service/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2003
And remember how we wore almost the same shirts the next day too? I like matching with you.
STR/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2003
Sometimes it astounds me that even though you drink too much wine and not enough raw eggs, and you are too lazy to hike up mountains and shoot bears, you are very sly at hopping out of planes.
STR/AFP/Getty Images.
April 2004
Sometimes people don’t understand our courageous brotherhood. They don’t understand why I must grab you and rub your belly. It’s just that sometimes you seem seems so independent, so sure of yourself, but also sad. Like a big kitten in need of spiritual rebirth. Svetlana, one of my “Putin girls,” who is reading over my shoulder right now, says these captions are getting too serious. That what you want right now is fun fun fun. OK, Svetlana. OK.
Vladimir Rodionov/AFP/Getty Images.
April 2004
Remember when you agreed to go out to the woods with me to search for wild porcupines, but only if you could get high on Siberian bark first. And then three days later you were still high, and I had to keep you from falling over during the military demonstration at Chkalov Pilots Combat Training Centre?
Dmitri Astakhov/AFP/Getty Images.
April 2004
I like it when you wipe my nose.
Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty Images.
April 2004
Remember when we pushed a button together at that Italian home appliances plant and afterward revealed that we were both imagining that it was a nuclear reactor?
Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty Images.
May 2005
Because we have been so close for so long, I can tell you the truth now: At first, I worried that you’d steal my wife.
Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2005
But then you explained to me that you only like young girls. What a relief! I also can tell you this now. I never much liked your wife Veronica. Her face was beautiful but always frozen like an Arctic muskox. She refused to laugh at my jokes or pet my animals. I resent that she told you to get Botox and then you told me to get Botox and now the members of my young sexy army make fun of me for it. You are 15 years older than me. You needed it. I didn’t.
Vladimir Rodionov/AFP/Getty Images.
August 2005
Remember when you made up a song about dwarf horses for me? How did it go again? We’ll have to go on a retreat and sing it now that you’ll have more time.
Mikhail Klimentiev/AFP/Getty Images.
Nov 2008
Remember when you made people angry by pretending to shoot that little parasite of a reporter?
AFP via Getty Images.
Oct 2009
I hate it when we fight.
Alexey Nikolsky/AFP/Getty Images.
March 2010
Remember when I gave you a bed just like mine for you to have adventures on and we called it the Putin Bed? I wish I had a photo of it to include here, but it’s probably smart that you never emailed me a photo. Bunga bunga!
Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images.
October 2010
Remember when I caught a 20-foot trout? The newspapers said we planted it there. They are always accusing me of planting things. But they are just jealous of our friendship and our power. I dared you to eat the fish raw on a bed of spicy cabbage and you did, just to show your loyalty. That was nice. That’s all. I hope this makes you happy, Silvio!
I recently bought a sweater online. The designer, Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent, calls it a Navajo blanket cardigan, and I’m well aware that it’s trendy. “Navajo,” “Native American,” and “Indian” prints are everywhere. Fashion magazines like Elle and Teen Vogue have touted their now-ness. High-end designers like Vivienne Westwood and middle—range lines like William Rast have shown these prints on the runway. Even retailers like the Gap—which this past winter peddled multiple sweaters featuring a striped pattern described as Navajo—and Urban Outfitters—which currently has 27 pieces of Navajo merchandise available online—are getting in on the action.
But why are these prints suddenly so popular? And what, if anything, do these Native American or Navajo prints have to do with Native American textiles?
The fashion world’s recent enthusiasm for all things Native American was kick-started by British designer Matthew Williamson’s spring 2008 show, which featured dresses, tops, and skirts beaded with fluorescent Native American motifs. From there, the trend spread to designers like Phillip Lim, Anna Sui, Isabel Marant, and Burberry. But it was in the winter of 2009 that Native American prints gained mass traction with the launch of a prominent collaboration between Pendleton—a woolen mill in Oregon that has been making wool blankets emblazoned with Native American-inspired designs for more than a hundred years—and Opening Ceremony, the envelope-pushing fashion brand and retailer. For the past three seasons, Opening Ceremony has elevated Pendleton from catalog frumpery to the fashion front lines, cutting the boldest and brightest of Pendleton fabrics into micro-minis, cropped jackets, and even (rather garish) onesies. Other companies followed suit: Pendleton fabrics have also lined and embellished Levi’s jean jackets and adorned Timberland hiking boots, as well as Vans slip-ons and high-tops. Pendleton is now getting into the game itself with its new, blatantly hipster-oriented Portland collection.
Courtesy Opening Ceremony.
Pendleton's Chief Joseph Print Blanket
Pendleton isn’t just a manufacturer of Native American designs: In fact, the Oregonian woolen mill played a huge role—perhaps more than any one Indian tribe—in creating these distinctive patterns. Pendleton’s early designers were instrumental in shaping modern conceptions of what Native American designs look like. They created bold and bright patterns that incorporated symbols from various tribes (as well as some non-Native American symbols), and their marketing persuaded Americans that the patterns derived directly from some authentic source. Pendleton was thus able to sell its product both on reservations—where Native Americans were attracted to Pendleton’s quality and vibrant colors—and off—where “authenticity” was a big selling point.
Courtesy Pendleton Archives.
A Navajo Woman With Her Sheep, Circa 1920
Of course, Native Americans were making blankets long before the Pendleton mill was founded in 1893. But those blankets were largely buffalo robes, created out of hide; only some tribes produced woven blankets, and only the Navajo produced woven woolen blankets (a fact that may account for the often inaccurate description of Pendleton-esque patterns as Navajo). The Navajo developed the craft of wool weaving in the 1500s, when the Spanish brought Churro sheep to Navajo lands. Though the Navajo were the only tribe weaving wool, according to Ann Hedlund, director of the tapestry program at the Arizona State Museum, other tribes had access to Navajo-woven wool through intertribal trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. As this weaving tradition developed, the growth of the European fur trade brought new trade items to the New World, and into the Native American economy. Among the most valuable were plain wool blankets, called Hudson Bay blankets, which were introduced in the late 1700s. These factory-made blankets became very valuable, says Bobbie Conner, director of the Tamástslikt Cultural Institute in Pendleton, Ore., because they were thicker, warmer, and more weather- resistant than what most Native Americans were creating at the time.
Photograph by William Pennington/Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library via Library of Congress.
The Pendleton Factory Jacquard Loom During the Early 20th Century
By the late 1800s, these machine-made blankets had flooded the market, so the Navajo had fewer outlets for their textiles. And as the 19th century progressed, political pressures and stresses—including the loss of substantial populations of the Churro sheep—made it increasingly difficult for the Navajo to weave and trade their textiles to other Native American tribes. The 19th century also saw the arrival of the Jacquard loom in America. Jacquard technology made it easier for factories to produce intensely patterned and elaborately colorful blankets, in contrast to the plain Hudson Bay Blankets, which were created on less sophisticated looms.
Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy CREDIT: University of Oregon Libraries.
Designs From the 1915 Pendleton Catalog
With a Native American market for wool blankets already in place, a new ability to produce dazzlingly colored and patterned blankets in the United States, and the depletion in trade of Navajo woolen textiles, the late 19th century was an optimal moment for white-owned companies, like Pendleton, to get into what they called the “Indian trade blanket” business. At the turn of the 20th century, there were five major companies in the United States producing wool blankets for the purposes of trade with Native Americans. Although there was at least one company, Buell Manufacturing, that tried to replicate Navajo patterns exactly, most of the Indian trade blankets were not direct replicas but original designs, based in part on motifs used in Native American handicrafts—such as teepees, ceramics, parfleche, and beadwork. Incredibly bright colors were de rigueur: Conner says that when a brightly colored, patterned alternative to Hudson Bay blankets became available, Native American customers snapped them up. According to Bob Christnacht, the current manager of the Pendleton home division, to this day, when selling to trading posts and reservations, the idea is “the hotter, the brighter, the better.”
Courtesy Pendleton Archives.
Designs From the 1915 Pendleton Catalog
Of those five companies, Pendleton is the only one still in existence. Robert Kapoun, the author of Language of the Robe: American Indian Trade Blankets, attributes Pendleton’s longevity to its single-minded commitment to Indian trade blankets; in the company’s first decades it eschewed all other woolen goods and focused exclusively on producing these blankets.
Barry Friedman, the author of Chasing Rainbows: Collecting American Indian Trade and Camp Blankets, says that Pendleton's patterns were much more stylized than those of the other companies, and much more the product of a single man's imagination. That man was Joseph Rawnsley, an Englishman who studied at the prestigious Philadelphia Textile School; Pendleton hired him in 1901 to operate its Jacquard loom. Rawnsley's blanket designs emerged out of his travels to various reservations in the north- and southwest, where he went to live for months at a time on research trips. According to Christnacht, Rawnsley cobbled together elements that he saw in everyday life on the reservation, sometimes mixing symbols from different tribes in a single design. Rawnsley’s blankets incorporated not only Native American motifs, but also European and Oriental geometric elements. "Early Pendleton ads intimate that Indians were part of the design of the blankets," Friedman says. "But it was sort of what white people thought looked Indian."
Courtesy Pendleton Archives.
A Cayuse Man Wearing a Pendleton Blanket
It’s surprising that Native Americans would so wholeheartedly adopt a white, factory-made product that copied, and distorted, Native designs—especially during a period of major conflict with white America. But that’s exactly what happened in the case of Pendleton blankets. According to Hedlund, Native Americans may have been attracted to Pendleton blankets not because they were familiar, and bastardized, but because they were exotic and new. And though Pendletons—durable, warm, and weather-resistant—certainly served a practical purpose, they quickly began to take on spiritual and ceremonial importance. Pendletons became a symbol of honor and respect, and the giving of a Pendleton blanket still accompanies many important occasions in Native American life. According to Kapoun, even today, Native American babies of many different tribes who are born on reservations are swaddled in Pendleton blankets. Conner says of her people, the Umatilla: “when people have a ceremony, a wedding, a memorial, a burial, a birth—there will always be Pendletons present. In our lives they are precious.”
Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy CREDIT: University of Oregon Libraries.
A Photograph Staged in the Pendleton Factory
Though these blankets were conceived with Native American customers in mind, companies quickly began marketing them to white clients as well—an endeavor that depended on establishing the blankets as “authentically” Native American. (This early 20th-century Lee Moorhouse photograph of a Native American man posing in the Pendleton factory may have been taken as a promotional picture to strengthen that association.) Just as Indian trade blankets were becoming standard on the reservation, white America’s fascination with Native American handicrafts was reaching fever pitch. The Arts and Crafts movement, popular at the time, idealized the authentic and the handmade. One decorative notion was that of the Indian room, or cozy corner—basically a space in the house where one could escape corporate and industrial corruption by surrounding oneself with Native American textiles and handicrafts.
Photograph by Lee Moorhouse. Courtesy CREDIT: University of Oregon Libraries.
A Navajo Rug, Circa 1900
The rise of the notion of the cozy corner proved fortuitous for Native American artisans, too. Enterprising traders saw a new niche they could ask Navajo weavers in their territories to fill: a market for Navajo rugs. Traders encouraged the Navajo to begin rug weaving (which they had never done), by showing them examples of Middle Eastern rugs for inspiration; the result was that the Navajo began to incorporate some of those Middle Eastern motifs into their new, unprecedentedly thick textiles. So as white Americans were making blankets that were supposed to look authentically Native American for a largely Native American market, Native Americans were making textiles tailored to white use for white people.
Courtesy the Farmington Museum Collection.
A “Cozy Corner”
A 1915 Pendleton catalog describes possible uses of Pendleton blankets in non-Indian homes: “A ‘Den,’ ‘Cozy Corner’ or ‘Indian Corner’ is not complete without one or more Indian Robes, which are made in such a wide range of colors that any carpet or drapery can be perfectly matched.” At the same time, the catalog also emphasizes the supposed authenticity of its product: “Pendleton Indian Robes are made in more than a score of different designs, every one of which is a true Indian pattern, original and unique in conception.” As Kapoun points out in Language of the Robe, Pendleton’s early advertising “somewhat exaggerated” the connection between Pendleton and the nearby tribe of Umatilla Indians, in order to establish a sense of legitimacy. A sort of origin myth printed at the front of this particular catalog reads, falsely, that, “The Indian could bring in his favorite designs [to the factory] and have them woven into a fleecy robe of gorgeous hue.”
Image from 1915 Pendleton catalog. Courtesy Pendleton Archives.
A Painting Based on Pendleton Designs
Pendleton blankets represent a complicated alchemy of white industrialists’ ideas of Indian-ness, combined with actual Native American market preferences. Pendleton’s Christnacht points out that the company’s practice of merging symbols from multiple tribes into a single design wasn’t so unusual, given that various tribes of Native Americans were trading widely among themselves prior to Pendleton’s founding. Conner agrees that any appropriation, influence, or even theft, went in both directions: “There are people who feel like they stole our designs, but we did the same thing when the French trappers and traders came here. We appropriated the fleur-de-lis. If mimicry is a form of flattery, I would say that the Pendleton woolen mill flatters us by using designs that we take responsibility for originating.” What we think of as authentic Navajo weavings are also a mishmash of styles and influences, as Hedlund notes: Navajo weaving emerged from an earlier Pueblo weaving tradition. And the Navajo wove textiles from Spanish wool, using Mexican dyes, influenced by Anglo-American quilt patterns, and later, by Middle Eastern rugs.
A painting, based on a Lee Moorhouse photograph, from the 1915 Pendleton catalog. Courtesy Pendleton Archives.
Levis Workwear by Pendleton
These days, Pendleton is generally very careful to refer to its designs as Native American-inspired—though in its announcement of the fall 2011 collaboration with Opening Ceremony, Pendleton refers to its own “beautiful Native American fabrics.” And in its Collaborations blog, Levi’s plays into the conversation about authenticity—by referring to “the authentic wool jacquard fabrics of Pendleton”—and reinforces the Navajo association in a series of blog posts called “The Navajo Cowboys,” featuring young Navajo riders wearing the Levi’s/Pendleton line.
Christnacht says there’s no tension between the arm of the company that still creates Indian trade blankets and the arm of the company that arranges collaborations with fashion brands. “We take a lot of our Indian designs, and we’ll keep the same basic designs, but we’ll change the coloration,” he says, “with the thought that one will be a reservation design, one will be a couture design, and one will be a mainstream American design.” Christnacht doesn’t think the collaborations can shake the community’s commitment to Pendleton. “We’re already the gold standard down on the reservation, so I don’t think that a Levi’s collaboration will change the perception of Pendleton in the Native American community.”
Photograph of Monica Yazzie from the Navajo Cowboys series. Courtesy Brad Bunyea.
The Pendleton Collaboration With Opening Ceremony
But others are not so sure about Pendleton’s new direction. In a post on the blog, Native Appropriations, writer Adrienne K., whose heritage is Cherokee, takes a more contentious view of Pendleton’s recent emergence as a high-fashion brand. “Seeing hipsters march down the street in Pendleton clothes, seeing these bloggers ooh and ahh over how ‘cute’ these designs are, and seeing non-Native models all wrapped up in Pendleton blankets makes me upset,” she writes. “It’s a complicated feeling, because I feel ownership over these designs as a Native person, but on a rational level I realize that they aren’t necessarily ours to claim.”
Her objection comes down to expense as well; Pendleton’s collaborations and its new line are priced for the fashion market, placing these designs out of reach for the Native communities for whom Pendleton blankets were first intended. And Kapoun has noticed that the cost of a regular Pendleton Indian-style blanket, which now sells for around $200, may have become prohibitive for some Native Americans. He‘s seen Native Americans where he lives in Santa Fe, N.M., using cheaper, acrylic blankets from big box stores like Walmart, rather than Pendletons. But Conner maintains that when Native Americans have a ceremony, a wedding, a memorial, a burial, or a birth, there will always be Pendletons present. “They might use a bunch of polar fleece blankets,” she says. “We can’t afford to do all Pendletons, but the people we care the most about get the Pendleton vest, the Pendleton blanket.”
Courtesy Pendleton.
Pendleton’s Portland Collection
As for the high-fashion collaborations, Conner sees those as an extension of a Native American tradition, as well: “We cut up Pendleton blankets, and use them for whatever we need,” she says. “The reason the Pendleton home store cuts up that fabric by the bolt and makes jackets, is because we used to do that. In our culture, if you kill a deer or an elk, you use everything: the hooves, horns, brain. Scraps from the woolen mill: same exact philosophy. When the Pendleton home store launched with the tote bags and the jackets, they were just catching up with us, from my perspective.”
President Obama turns 50 Thursday. Although he has the type of job that encourages rapid aging, he still shows signs of youthfulness—particularly in the presence of children. Perhaps that’s because kids encountering the president aren’t cowed by his lofty title. If they feel the urge to scream, they go for it. If they want to grab his nose, they do that, too. Here are photos of some of these moments, featuring tiny constituents with reactions that range from bored to awestruck. In this shot, taken on June 9, we see Obama at a day-care facility across from his daughter Sasha's school.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House via Getty Images.
Bored
This baby, photographed on May 23, 2008, in Sunrise, Fla., doesn't seem to care that Obama is a leading presidential hopeful. He wants to be put down.
Photograph by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.
Bored but Impressed With the President’s Chin
Seven-month-old Matthew Ian Clark, from Bozeman, Mont., grabs the president's face on Aug. 14, 2009.
Photograph by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.
Serene
A child crowd-surfs with Obama’s help on March 3, 2008.
Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images.
Hypnotized
Then-Sen. Obama has a chat with a supporter’s child during a rally in Westminster, Colo., on Sept. 29, 2008.
Photograph by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images.
Hypnotized by a Small Glittery Object in the Distance
Obama semi-successfully attempted to befriend this baby at Fireside Diner in Georgetown, Ohio, on Oct. 9, 2008.
Photograph by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Getty Images
Embarrassed but Pleased
President Obama picks up a razor and pretends to shave a hairless child at a Boys and Girls Club event in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 13, 2010.
Photograph by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images.
Downright Pleased, Mostly with the Big Man’s Right Cheek
This Czech baby may not know who Obama is, but she’s awestruck by his face on April 4, 2009, in Prague.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House via Getty Images.
Thrilled
A young girl offers the president a handshake in Miami on April 29, 2011.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House.
Beyond Thrilled
The insightful Diego Diaz seems to realize that the man in front of him is important.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House.
Thrilled to the Point Where She’s Willing To Give Him Her Pencil Case
Fainting looks like a dangerous possibility for this girl at the U.S. Embassy in Santiago, Chile.
Photograph by Pete Souza/White House.
Awestruck in a Way We Wish We Could Extract, Replicate, and Instill in Every Bad Person in the World
A young boy hugs the president after a town-hall discussion in Farmington Hills, Mich., on Sept. 8, 2008.
This 1941 photograph shows the Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto, with his wife and collaborator, Aino, in the studio of their home outside Helsinki. Like all the main rooms in the house, which they designed themselves, the studio has a cozy fireplace, just visible in the background. Aalto, who belonged to the first generation of International Style modernists, was not a polemicist like Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, and he produced buildings that have stood the test of time, not only because they were well conceived, but also because they were well built. As a new, beautifully illustrated book on Aalto's houses (many of which are less well known than his public buildings) shows, his domestic work bears revisiting, for his particular brand of low-key modern design holds many lessons, especially in our economically stressed period.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
While many of the modernist pioneers were not formally trained as architects—Behrens and Van de Velde studied painting, Mies van der Rohe was a builder's apprentice, Le Corbusier learned watch-engraving—Aalto (born in 1898) studied architecture at the University of Helsinki. He was taught a severe, Nordic version of classicism, and one of his first commissions (right), a country house, has vertical wooden siding and a low, hipped roof, more like a Finnish farmhouse than a neo-classical villa. The plan resembles an American center-hall Colonial, with formal public rooms on the right and the kitchen and a traditional tupa (a multipurpose room) on the left. An unheated vestibule, covered in stucco, occupies the center of the perfectly balanced façade. Aalto would soon abandon this style, but he would never stray far from the practical traditions that a cold climate—and conservative customs—demanded.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
While most European modernists were building suburban villas, Aalto was soon given the opportunity to build industrial and public buildings in the newly independent Finland. By the mid 1930s, he had achieved international fame with a modern-looking newspaper plant, a streamlined tuberculosis sanatorium in a northern forest, and a public library. In these buildings he adhered more or less to the International Style, but in the home and studio that he and Aino built for themselves in Munkkiniemi, a distant suburb of Helsinki, they explored a different sort of modernism. Instead of white Cubist boxes, they created a collage of lime-washed brick and several different textures of wood siding, some painted white and some dark brown. The office-studio on the left is enlivened by a screen of vertical rods for climbing plants. There is nothing functionalistic about this architecture—the dark wall morphs into a balustrade at the roof terrace. Leaky flat roofs were a hallmark of the International Style, but here and in other projects Aalto's common sense prevailed and the roofs are actually gently sloped.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
The Aaltos didn't just design buildings, they also designed lamps, furniture, and fabrics. The living room of the Aalto house, today owned by the Alvar Aalto Foundation (and open to visitors by appointment), contains many examples of their work. The easy chairs are strikingly modern, but instead of tubular metal and leather, they are made out of bent wood and upholstered in fabric, a characteristic combination of innovation and tradition. The furniture was manufactured by the Artek company, which still carries many Aalto designs, including his famous stool, a low-cost version of which is available from Target. This furniture has withstood changing fashions by providing tactile pleasure as well as comfort.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
Alvar and Aino Aalto designed many small houses in the 1930s, but their masterwork was a large country residence for a young couple, Harry and Maire Gullichsen, part of the family that owned the A. Ahlström industrial conglomerate, for which Aalto designed factories and worker housing. The so-called Villa Mairea is a curious blend of white-box modernism, handcrafted details, and a rambling casualness. The white walls are not hard-edged plaster such as European modernists used but lime-washed brick. Although this is a rather grand house, it has a bourgeois sense of unpretentious comfort, which sets it apart from contemporaneous modernist country houses such as Mies' Tuggendhat House in Brno, or Le Corbusier's Villa Savoie in the Paris suburbs.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
The main living space demonstrates Aalto's odd brand of modernism, which is rooted in tradition. (Aalto's traditions were always authentic, however, never used coyly or whimsically, as in the later postmodern movement.) Living room, dining room, and art gallery—Maire Gullichsen collected modern art—are combined in a single multipurpose space, with a library area defined by movable bookcases. At the same time, there is a traditional Finnish raised fireplace in the corner, a beech-wood ceiling, and the tubular steel columns are wrapped in rattan. Sculptural staircases were a common feature of early modern houses, but the wooden stair of the Villa Mairea, with its handcrafted details is far removed from a "machine for living."
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
Like most early modernists, Aalto was fascinated by the idea of factory-produced housing, but he approached the problem in a characteristically unmechanical way. His standardized housing "system" comprised prefabricated doors and windows and precut lumber, but these were combined to create the maximum variety. Aalto was active in Finnish postwar reconstruction, and among his projects was a small development of 26 semidetached houses for veterans in the small city of Tampere (right). The modest (2 rooms and a kitchenette) houses are not an exercise in self-indulgent design, but rather a practical solution to inexpensive and simple shelter—the houses were built by volunteers. These modest bungalows—still in good shape—gain character from the tarred-log porch supports.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
One of Aalto's most charming designs of the immediate postwar period is this small hunting cabin. The one-room structure, with an attached sauna, has a turf roof, spruce tree-trunk columns, and rough wooden gutters. While some of these features are the result of material shortages, it is hard not to see this and other Aalto houses of that period as exercises in deliberate normality. After all, Finland had just fought three wars, successfully resisting a Russian invasion in 1939-40, fighting the Soviet Union, and then Nazi Germany. Visionary modernism may have seemed out of place.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
During the late 1940s and 1950s, Aalto garnered many international commissions, among them the Baker Dormitory at MIT, apartment buildings in Germany, and an art museum in Aalborg, Denmark. The Säynätsalo Town Hall in central Finland is a masterpiece of this period. So is the house (right) that Aalto design for the Parisian art dealer, Louis Carré, in Bazoches-sur-Guyonne, near Versailles. Carré told the architect that he wanted "materials that have lived" and a "real roof," and that he didn't want anything luxurious. The result was a modern villa of whitewashed brick, copper, and travertine, topped by a sloping slate roof. Simple yet extremely elegant.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
Both elegance and a lack of luxury are visible in Louis Carré's bathroom, which is finished in gray ceramic tile rather than marble, and is equipped with wooden rather than stainless steel handrails. A stark contrast to the Pompeian extravagance of many high-end bathrooms today.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
Aalto spent part of World War II in the United States, where he met and became friends with Frank Lloyd Wright (Wright, on seeing Aalto's Finnish pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, had declared the Finnish architect a "genius"—a rare compliment) and Aalto's use of exposed brick was influenced by Wright. While late in his career Aalto focused on large public projects such as theaters and opera houses, he designed several small houses for friends. He believed that a house should reflect the character of its owner, and this small, polygonal-shaped summer lakeside cottage for a professor of classical languages includes a book-lined work space in the corner. Unaffected pine boards are used throughout the interior, which includes lamps and furniture designed by the architect years earlier and still fresh. The unpretentious house, completed in 1974, just two years before its architect's death, cannily combines modern ideals with a down-to-earth realism in a way that has rarely been surpassed since.
From CREDIT: Alvar Aalto Houses by Jari Jetsonen and Sirkkaliisa Jetsonen – Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
From the days of the first watering holes catering to a same-sex appreciating clientele, bar owners have had to think carefully about the iconography of their signs. Beyond the rainbow flag, symbols, font, and color scheme frequently offer bold hints about who should enter and who should stay away. On the other side of the spectrum, some bar owners select traditional — or even dull — signs that allow them to blend in. Take a look through this gallery of bars with similar names and see if you can spot the gay bars.
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer. Scroll up before moving onto the next slide.
The gay bar is: 2.
Apex 2, located in Washington D.C., describes itself as the “longest running gay dance club in the city.” Apex 1 is a beer bar oriented toward cyclists in Portland, Ore.
Photographs by tangocyclist via Flickr and Sam Wolson/CREDIT: Slate.
Le Barcito vs. The Little Bar
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer. Scroll up before moving onto next slide.
The gay bar is: 1.
1, Le Barcito, which translates to the Little Bar, is located on the site of the historic Black Cat gay bar in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. 2, the other Little Bar is a fine dining establishment and bar in Marine City, Mich.
Photographs by Thomas Hawk/thomashawk.com and Maryland Route 5 via Flickr.
Bob and Barbara’s Lounge vs. Barbara
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 2 and partly 1.
2, the very pink Barbara, is one of the only gay dance clubs in Reykjavik, Iceland. Bob and Barbara’s Lounge, a jazz lounge in Philadelphia, is also considered gay-friendly and hosts weekly drag shows.
Photographs courtesy Bob & Barbara’s Lounge and Gustavo Thomas via Getty Images.
Gay Bar vs. G-A-Y
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 2.
G-A-Y was a proudly gay London nightclub, which closed in 2008. Gay Bar, like the town where it resides — Gay, Mich. — takes its name from explorer Joseph E. Gay.
Photographs by a shadow of ny future self via Flickr and courtesy the Gay Bar.
Twin Peaks vs. Twin Peaks
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 1.
The first Twin Peaks, located in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, may have a typical cocktail lounge sign, but it gives its identity away with floor-to-ceiling windows that put its gay male clientele on display. The other Twin Peaks, a bar and restaurant franchise across Texas, Oklahoma and parts of the Midwest has a very different identity, embodied by its motto: “You’re the Man!” The “scenic views” advertised are busty waitresses in crop-top lumberjack shirts, all part of the “ultimate man cave experience.”
Photographs by Jen SFO-BCN via Flickr and courtesy Twin Peaks Facebook page.
Real Friends Lounge. vs. Friends Bar
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 1.
Although Friends Bar in Basel, Switzerland, gets honorary gay points for having photos of the entire smiling cast of Friends on the window, it’s RF — which stands for Real Friends — that caters to a lesbian clientele. In an earlier incarnation, RF Lounge was called Rubyfruit Bar and Grill, a reference to Rita Mae Brown’s lesbian classic Rubyfruit Jungle.
Photographs by Isabel Slepoy/CREDIT: Slate and Doctor Casino via Flickr.
Henrietta Hudson vs. Hudson’s Bar and Grill
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 1. Obviously.
Henrietta Hudson is a lesbian bar in New York City’s West Village. Hudson’s Bar and Grill is just a run of the mill hotel bar.
Photograph CREDIT: courtesy The Heathman Lodge and by Isabel Slepoy/Slate.
The Fireplace vs. The Fireplace
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 2.
Though The Fireplace in St. Louis may have a flaming sign, it’s the more traditional-looking Fireplace in Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle that draws gay men.
Photographs Courtesy The Fireplace Bar and Grill and Sam Wolson/CREDIT: Slate.
Gangway vs. Our Gang’s Lounge
Which is the gay bar? Scroll down for the answer.
The gay bar is: 1.
Gangway in San Francisco’s notoriously rough and tumble Tenderloin district, advertises itself as the “Oldest Gay Bar West of the Rockies.” Our Gang’s Lounge in Sharon, Pa., is a regular ol' heterosexually inclined pub.
Photographs courtesy Gangway Facebook page and Our Gang’s Lounge.
Cubby hole, a lesbian bar in New York, distinguishes itself clearly from Da Cubby hole, a sports bar in St. Louis, with the most widely used gay bar trick in the books: happy rainbow font.
Photography by Isabel Slepoy/CREDIT: Slate and Courtesy Da Cubby Hole Facebook page.