Art History
February 8, 2024

Spot the Self-Portrait II: How Many Famous Artists Can You Identify? [Quiz]

We're back with another art history quiz, and this one's quite a challenge. We first introduced our Spot the Self-Portrait quiz in April 2023, and we must admit, for anyone with a decent knowledge of art history, it was probably a breeze. So, for the sequel, we dug a bit deeper and found 20 more self-portraits by famous painters from the 17th century all the way up to the first half of the 20th century.

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Photography
February 7, 2024

Photographer Uses 150-Year-Old Photo Technique To Create Painterly Vintage-Looking Portraits

Fine art photographer Barbara Cole is known for her artistic underwater photography. But when the temperatures in her native Canada dip low enough that her pool is unusable for this type of photoshoot, she needs to pivot. This is where her series Shadow Dancing was born. This ongoing series of wet collodion photographs marries Cole's modern vision with a turn-of-the-century technique.

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Embroidery
February 7, 2024

Artists Merge Thread Painting With the Japanese Art of Kintsugi on Vintage Plates

When artists with two different styles come together, magic can happen. That is certainly the case with the collaboration between embroidery artist Katerina Marchenko and mixed-media artist Artashes Sardarian. They've merged Marchenko's embroidery on tulle with Sardarian's kintsugi to great effect. The pair worked together using vintage plates, tulle, embroidery thread, and gold. The results are delicate mixed-media pieces where Marchenko's embroidered eyes and hands peer out from holes in the punctured ceramics.

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Health
February 6, 2024

Research Finds That Playing an Instrument or Singing Helps Keep Your Brain Healthy

Music is a powerful medicine for the soul—and as recent research suggests, the brain. Particularly as one ages, keeping an active, varied mental world alive is critical to preserving cognitive abilities and can help stave off decline. A study out of the UK, recently published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, found that playing music (rather than just listening to it)

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.