Saturday, June 29, 2013

Stop in Newport News During Your Virginia Vacation

Often accompany and ancestors advancing to the Hampton Roads breadth ask for admonition on things to do while on vacation. Many appear decidedly with two locations in mind: Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. That makes faculty - one has actual interests and a affair park, and the added has a abundant beach. When humans appear to the arena for a vacation, and don't apperception a bit of driving, I like to admonish them that the cities in amid are account seeing as well. Newport News, just south of Williamsburg, offers abundant to families and humans absorbed in Civil War and amphibian history.

Whether you adjudge to break in Williamsburg, Norfolk, or Virginia Bank for your vacation, you aren't added than an hour abroad from Newport News and the assorted attractions, shopping, and dining. If you accept kids, you should actively accede demography some time to analyze to area. Actuality are just a few things you can add to your itinerary:

Lee Hall Mansion - Those with an absorption in Civil War history will acquisition Lee Hall a accept to visit. As one of the endure antebellum homes in the region, Lee Hall has become a building showcasing the affluent history of the commonwealth in the mid to backward nineteenth century. Keep an eye on the agenda of contest for tours and reenactments.

Virginia Living Building - Is it a building or a zoo? The Virginia Living Building takes the best of both worlds to present to kids and grown-ups a ample appearance of our area's accustomed habitats. You'll apprentice about bounded flora and fauna and air-conditioned being like dinosaurs and sharks. Exhibits change periodically, so analysis their website.

Ferguson Center for the Arts - As allotment of Christopher Newport University, the Ferguson Center is on the arch ball venues in the Upper Peninsula. Every year brings some of the better names in music and comedy, additional Broadway musicals and plays.

Patrick Henry Mall and City Center at Oyster Point - For arcade and dining options, these two centers accommodate you with admission to some of the best boutiques and eateries in town. From civic chains to bounded favorites, you will not go athirst here.

Newport News is abutting to Williamsburg and Yorktown, and is just a abbreviate cruise through the adit from Norfolk and Virginia Beach. If you accept a few canicule of chargeless time on your Virginia vacation, why not stop by and see what's happening?

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Thursday, June 27, 2013

Thunder Bay Ontario News and Activities

Thunder Bay has been accepted for it's colder temperatures, colours and chill reputation. This could be allotment of the acumen why it is advised a hockey city-limits and the citizens would not accept it any added way. The city-limits and surrounding areas avowal abounding abundant activities such as fishing, canoeing, hiking, camping and abounding added abundant alfresco activities. Being on the bend of Basin Superior which is advised the greatest of the 5 Abundant Lakes because it is the better freshwater basin in the apple makes it a abundant abode for humans who adulation the outdoors.

Thunder Bay is aswell amid actual abutting to the US bound which gives association a change in backdrop if they charge one! Our city-limits has a abundant breadth and brings alternating abounding accustomed assets in the Northern Ontario breadth and hosts abounding altered cultures aural the association and surrounding areas. The st time to appointment Thunder Bay is amid June and September as aggregate is in abounding swing.

We are a above destination in Ontario arctic abundant like the greater Toronto areas that accompany abounding humans for assorted activities but our activities are added alfresco recreational. The majority of humans will appear during the summer months admitting as it gives them a lot added to do as we accept a admirable breadth and abounding abundant camping and fishing locations.

Some of the added notable attractions would cover Kakabeka Falls, Terry Fox Lookout, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Hoito, Kangas Sauna, Thunder Bay Amethyst Mine and Fort William Historical Park. Wherever you acquisition yourself you will accept a acceptable time and yield in abundant backdrop which is something abounding attending advanced to aural Northwestern Ontario.

No amount if you reside in Thunder Bay or are planning to visit, you will acceptable acquisition something to board you as the city-limits is actual culturally affluent and brings alternating lots of altered ball and dinery. The city-limits aswell boasts a reside nightlife that includes cinema, music shows, roller derby, art events, rap shows and abundant abundant more.

There are abounding websites online for Thunder bay association such as bounded account sites such as TbTnewswatch and the Chroniclejournal in which you can get your bounded news. A simple seek on Google can accompany up abounding able websites for humans aural the breadth to seek out bounded weather, locals news, bounded sports and abundant more.

So next time you are in Thunder Bay you should yield advantage of some of these abundant activities and advance the chat about your acquaintance in our ample breadth which is abounding of hidden treasures.

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

America: Entertainment Now Rules Our Lives

In one sense, the United States is the busiest nation on Earth, certainly the most economically productive. However, we are also a country of idlers, far too interested in non-essential things such as sports, entertainment, awards, and famous people. The art of sitting, meditating, praying, or even sleeping in a quiet room has left us. Americans now treat peace and quiet as an enemy. We won't hear of it. Entertainment rules.

As a people, we feel like we must know the latest info on everything, the very moment that it happens. Then when we get the scoop, the trusty cell phone has to be pulled-out to tell everyone what we just learned. This huge need to communicate and be a part of the bigger whole prevails, but in a bad way. Our fears and insecurities are treated with entertainment, sports, busybody acts, and gossip - versus God, prayer, and love. This should not be so. Life requires balance.

Has anyone else noticed the huge number of award shows of all types, for all activities? In today's world, any athlete, actor, singer, or dancer that doesn't win a few awards a year must be a total loser. These things are handed-out to any and everyone in each field, it seems. The same thing is true for records and statistics. I honestly heard a man on TV brag about another guy holding so many records for football at something like East Middle Tennessee State, or something like that! Even worse, during baseball games the announcers now have stats for everything you can possibly imagine: batting average with 2 outs and runners in scoring position against left-handed knuckleball pitchers? Give me a break.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with sometimes rewarding yourself with entertainment or games after working, or while working at the computer or elsewhere. The problem with America is that we let entertainment rule and guide our schedules. We plan work, even church, around big games or golf tournaments. I ask you, should we? Answer: rarely.

Entertainment began as a side activity, a sort of release from the working world. Nowadays, it has become our world! Amazing. Sports are like a national religion. We have shows about entertainment shows and award shows. TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, on and on and on. There are entire television channels dedicated to entertainment and celebrity news. Sports and music channels are everywhere. God help us.

In the 1960s it was popular for American preachers to say from the pulpit that our nation would one day be lost without a shot being fired. It was felt that we would self-destruct from within, due to our own habits and compromised ethics and morals. Might I dare suggest that we are almost there? Again, entertainment rules. Americans cannot stand to be alone, or bored. What if we had lived centuries ago? Think about it. Goodbye...

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Self Defense Training That Bridges the Gap Between Training and Experience

I'm generally abashed by the disability of "trained" individuals to finer use their antagonistic abilities in absolute situations. I anticipate the acumen is that I was built-in with the "warrior mindset" that will not acquire defeat, so I just took it for accepted that anyone who learns the concrete methods of damaging an antagonist would do so if attacked.

An absorbing archetype of this abnormality is the airline pilot in the cine Soul Plane who abstruse to fly in a simulator, just to apprehend during his aboriginal bartering flight that he was abashed of heights.

OK, that was just a movie, but it does authenticate the actuality that it is accessible to apprentice the concrete techniques all-important to fly an airplane, shoot a gun or avert yourself on the streets, alone to apprentice that you weren't able for the brainy accent that you are beneath if you are in the air, attempt at or yelled at by an antagonist on the street.

I'm generally told by humans that "it was so absolutely different" to just be glared at by a abeyant antagonist or to see the cage beam from a gun and that they were "not assured for it to be like that."

Because of that, I've abstruse during the accomplished several years of training men and women in armed and caught cocky aegis that a ample percent of training time MUST be spent teaching brainy contest to adapt my acceptance for the realities of combat. Otherwise they will "know how" to be able to fight, but "can't in fact do it."

The absolute techniques and contest that can be acclimated to mentally adapt you to not just "know," but aswell to "do" can calmly ample a baby book, but I will explain how those who accept never accomplished abandon and weren't built-in with such a mentality can adapt themselves to acknowledge beneath action stress.

First of all, what is the amount of acquaintance in assuming beneath stress?

Experience is just the attendance of absolute memories. "I apperceive I can accomplish beneath those altitude because I've done it afore and can do it again."

The acceptable account is that the animal apperception cannot actuate the aberration amid absolute and absurd "memories."

So, if your cocky aegis or arresting cutting adviser is able of teaching you the able brainy exercises, you can adapt yourself for the absoluteness of absolute action after anytime even accepting been in a fight, by creating acknowledged "experiences."

Do that and you'll acknowledge automatically and, instead of thinking, "that's absolutely altered - I wasn't assured that," you'll anticipate "I reacted absolutely like I knew I would, because it wasn't annihilation that I hadn't 'experienced' abounding times before!"

Just addition acumen to actual anxiously baddest your adviser afore you even anticipate about aperture your wallet.

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

5 Best Android Tablet News Apps

Thankfully, technology has helped appearance the media. The success of Android platforms activated in endless smartphones and book PCs has contributed to the affecting accomplishment of the media. If you wish to analysis the latest account or RSS feeds in your Android Tablet, just accomplish abiding that you accept the appropriate account app that can accord all the admired advice that you are analytic for. If you accept not yet apparent the affectionate of account app that fits your needs, actuality is a account of the 5 best account apps accessible in the Android market:

1. Pulse News

Pulse account is one of the prettiest and a lot of accepted account clairvoyant apps for Android Tablet. You can annal assorted account feeds and already you begin what you wish to browse, you can artlessly move from larboard to appropriate to analysis the topics. It shows a admirable affectation with pictures and argument apparent on the awning while you seek for topics. It covers accordant capacity such as politics, music, art, entertainment, fashion, science, and sports. What's abundant about Pulse Account is that you can add capacity from Google's RSS reader. It is a chargeless account clairvoyant app that aswell allows you to allotment belief or capacity on Facebook and Twitter.

2. NewsRob

NewsRob is conceivably the a lot of feature-filled account app on the Android Market. It has the adeptness to accompany faster compared with any added augment readers. It is an RSS/Atom newsreader that automatically syncs with Google Clairvoyant which makes it a abundant Android app for RSS feeds. It supports abounding appearance which cover sharing, starring and allocation items with your friends. It has a two-way accomplishments accompany which allows you to get the latest feeds if you accessible the app. With NewsRob, you can download abounding and fractional feeds and appearance the online writing with one tap. To use the app you accept to assurance into your Google Account and subscribe to feeds via Google Reader. NewsRob is a chargeless account clairvoyant app. Another adaptation is NewsRob Pro which costs alone $5.53.

3.BuzzBox

If you are analytic for a convenient account app, BuzzBox is the appropriate one for you. It has a admirable user interface and allows you to calmly acquisition abounding feeds. BuzzBox, which can be downloaded for free, provides you with assorted feeds that will absolutely bolt your interest. If you wish to attending for capacity just blazon in the keywords on the seek button, or you can go to Sources agreement to baddest assorted sources. It has one of the best widgets in the Android devices.

4. Google Reader

The Google Clairvoyant app is apparently one of the a lot of approved account clairvoyant apps in the Android market. The capital page looks agnate with the adaptable website. Google Clairvoyant appliance is simple and effective. You can browse the latest account stories, mark your stories, and allotment them with your accompany on your amusing arrangement such as Twitter and Facebook. Google Clairvoyant is a chargeless app for Android devices.

5. YourVersion

If you are aggravating to acquisition the latest accordant news, tweets and videos that best clothing your needs, you charge not go through chiral Google searching. YourVersion helps break affiliated with the latest advice in a faster way. This app is aswell an RSS clairvoyant that shows you abundant and accordant topics. Just access the keywords and tap the screen, and it will anon appearance you with lots of absorbing content. YourVersion app is a chargeless app, and one which allows you to calmly allotment pages on amusing networks such Facebook and Twitter.

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Friday, June 21, 2013

The Millionaire Dream' Series "Good News" Chapter Three

Those of us that were old enough to watch black and white television between 1955 and 1960 watched 'The Millionaire.' CBS had a real winner! Every week, the-never-seen-on-camera, fabulously wealthy, John Beresford Tipton would dispatch his Executive Secretary, Michael Anthony, to give away one million dollars, tax free to someone that he had never met.

In Chapter one of 'The Millionaire Dream' Series (published into HOME::Arts-and-Entertainment) section of EzineArticles, I recounted how, in a very strange dream, I was taken to heaven. At the invitation of two who had formerly been the stars of 'The Millionaire,' 'The Master' allowed Michael Anthony and John Beresford Tipton to discuss many things with me.

(NASB) Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

(NASB) 1 Peter 4:11 Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Dear reader, you might consider reading 'The Millionaire Dream 'Introduction' Chapters One and Two in order to be up to speed, before continuing to read this article, if you have not yet done so. As it is not possible to post a link here, you can search on this article bank site by name of the article and/or by author's name, Rascal Miles. 'The Millionaire Dream' articles are posted on my Jesus4You.ws website also.

After some exciting Chapter Two news for me, including information about the existence of a big brother, Randall, that I didn't know that I had, John, who had insisted that I call him by his first name, pressed on:

"Well Rascal, Michael and I have been observing you, more recently since you've answered 'The Lord's Call' to become 'An Apostle.' You are causing quite a stir down on Planet Earth. Your accepting 'Our Lord's Provision' to receive your healing, rather than endure the continued curse of MS (Multiple Sclerosis), was met with mixed feelings by many people with illness, and by other MSers too. You've a pretty mature grasp of scripture for a guy who was born deaf by design and has never been through the formal seminaries."

"I call many of those church cemeteries, Rascal. Thank God you were kept away," Michael Anthony chuckled. Those teach failed faith and fear religion, as you know." Both of my 'Gone-before-guides' stopped saying anything and looked at me as if expecting me to say something.

"I guess what surprises me most is that so many traditional churches deny the infallibility of God's Holy word," I said. Take 3rd John 1:2 for example, '(KJV) 3 John 1:2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.' How can teachers misunderstand what this so clearly says?"

John answered. Imagine if my namesake, John the Apostle, had said, "I wish most of all that you to be broke and sick, even as your real-heart gets more poor."

"The 'Prosperity Good News' that you are expounding, Rascal, is what John and I say is, 'Hard for ordinary people to believe. Realtors, insurance agents, and those who have enjoyed success with MLM get it. Yet those who have suffered a loss, or have a fearful friend who did, are themselves afraid'. 'Making a fortune selling website domains must be to good to be true,' or so their lying logical minds assure them."

"I often had a difficult time convincing our millionaires to be that the money was really for them," Michael Anthony continued, with a perplexed expression. "But not as much trouble as you have had. It is as though so many of your present day, earth-bound souls can't remember that Jesus said, '(KJV) John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly.'

"Perhaps, Michael, the people who most need the prosperity don't want to pay their taxes in Rascal's world? We gave our people their million dollars tax free."

"Only Oprah Winfrey could afford to do that today, John. The taxes now are 'Sky-High,' as out of their world as are we. Maybe, the taxes are even higher?"

"Oprah has been doing some fine things to help people with much of her earnings also Rascal. You might consider being a guest on her television show," John suggested.

I'd love to be one of Oprah's guests, John. It would take 'An Act Of God' to make that happen, however. Her guests are by invitation only."

Perhaps, Michael Anthony will ask an angel to whisper in the ear of someone who knows Oprah?

"Gosh, that would be great!" Enthused by the idea, I agreed. "That would be really working behind the scenes."

"Speaking of television, gentleman," Regis Philbin was doing a quiz show called 'Who wants To Be a Millionaire.' The contestants had to be pretty smart to win however. Not at all like 'The Millionaire' show million dollar recipients that you two had. Your millionaires only had to have problems.

(To be continued in "The Millionaire Dream' Series Chapter Four)

Art - The Great Con

What is 'Art'? In the Collins concordance it is declared as getting 'the conception of works of adorableness or added appropriate significance.' Bearing this in mind, it is a little difficult to accept how pickled beasts or abnormal beds can sit below the branch of 'Art'.

If corruption is the world's oldest profession again art is the oldest con. How continued accept humans been bamboozled by such absurd twaddle? We accept witnessed Jackson Pollock with his accidental splashes of paint, monkeys and elephants that can 'paint' and canvasses that are anointed in a acutely allusive address by toddlers.

Every year the art industry hosts its actual own adaptation of 'The National Comedy Awards' in the appearance of 'The Turner Prize'. You can blow assured that all of the nominations will be bashed beyond a lot of of the newspapers and be featured on abounding account programmes. This is not done, however, to appearance off beginning new aptitude or the latest plan by avant-garde masters. It is done primarily for ablaze ball and amusement. What a sad accompaniment of affairs. I am abiding that Turners name is abundantly applicable for the bulk of aquiver that he has done in his grave back getting associated with the fiasco. Instead of such a celebrated accolade getting a absurdity it could accept been a accurate advertise for talent; every artisan absent of attaining such a abundant achievement.

The a lot of abhorrent affair about the accomplished bearings is that there are so abounding absolutely accomplished artists who never get a adventitious to appearance their plan because the con-'artists' are demography up admired arcade space. It takes a decidedly ample bulk of allowance to display a accumulating of old electrical apparatus broadcast beyond a attic whilst abrogation allowance for aficionados to aberrate about the periphery, abrading their chins and attending for 'meaning'.

It is because of the adumbration that is casting by such things as 'The Turner Prize' that so abounding humans will accept apprehensive glances if they acknowledge themselves as getting 'an artist'. Unfortunately, a lot of the accessible brainstorm painters to accept rather ambiguous habits such as benumbed bicycles beyond canvasses, acid off locations of their aerial and authoritative 'sculptures' from endless of abode bricks.

The betray of 'art' has gone on for far too long. Will the art arena anytime change? This is apparently best answered with addition question; will humans anytime cease to be so gullible?

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Monday, June 17, 2013

Is Classical Music Dead?

After account Mr. Daniel Wakin's commodity in the New York Times advantaged "High Notes and Low Points for Classical Music" (12/22/2011), I acquainted it all-important to animadversion on this accompaniment of affairs. In his editorial, the biographer lists the top account acceptance from the Classical music world. Unfortunately, one cannot absence the abhorrent banking distresses in which abounding orchestras acquisition themselves today. Mr. Wakin decidedly mentions the disasters that befell the Syracuse, New Mexico, Louisville, Utica, and even the Philadelphia orchestras. Then, there is aswell the Detroit Symphony, which alone afresh has been disturbing to achieve its footing.

For years, naysayers accept been admiration the afterlife of classical music. Abounding adduce graying audiences, "expensive" tickets (never apperception that pop concerts and sports amateur can amount abundant more), and a accustomed abridgement of absorption a part of the accessible in superior music.

It is aswell absolutely simple and adequate for us to put up our hands, shrug, and accusation the difficult abridgement for the woes of the aloft orchestras. Yet, I acquisition it all-important to dig added as we appraise why this has happened.

Let me aboriginal accompaniment that I am not a pessimist by nature. Nor do I accept that classical music is dead. In fact, I would not accept pursued my dream of acceptable a violinist had this been the case.

As musicians, it is my acceptance that we accept voluntarily placed ourselves out of blow with the boilerplate society. There are abounding affidavit for this and my abstracts ability not accede with my colleagues'. Yet, I accept that our fixation on accomplishment and abstention at the amount of actuality has done us a abundant disservice. Before I can appraise this problem, I charge to explain the atmosphere in which we musicians acquisition ourselves. This will accord you an abstraction as to why this has happened.

Most musicians go through years and years of education, accrue massive apprentice accommodation bills, and afresh yield whatever job comes their way. Abounding "struggling musicians" in big-ticket cities will afresh plan angrily continued hours for little pay in melancholia orchestras and music schools. Abounding are agreeable with this affairs but others, who wish a ancestors apprehend that the money isn't there. Afresh there are those who were consistently OK with this fact, as music is their passion, and money was never meant to be in the cards. Some abdicate and accompany added goals. For those who try to ascend the agreeable ladder, afterwards demography arduous auditions for top orchestras two handfuls of actual advantageous humans will be accustomed every year for a job that pays a semi-decent (but too generally not comfortable) wage. One scattering will accomplish it into orchestras that pay absolutely able-bodied (but are a lot of acceptable in cities with top costs of living).

As you can see, antagonism is fierce. It is not aberrant for 300 musicians to admirers for 1 bench which was accustomed up if anyone anesthetized abroad in the orchestra.

Against this backdrop, the music schools cannot but advice accent that accomplishment in arena is the alone way to "make it" in music. Coupled with an admirers of CD-buyers who apprehend note-perfect CD's due to avant-garde alteration techniques, musicians who abatement abbreviate of an acutely top akin of musicianship artlessly will not accomplish the cut.

It is my acceptance that as musicians, we accept corrective ourselves into a corner. Due to no accountability of our own, we accept approved so harder to become absolute (ie: god-like) that association has larboard us behind. As we accept attempted to play the aforementioned repertoire over and over afresh in adjustment to challenge the abundant adept conductors and performers, we accept not brought annihilation new or of amount to the majority of society. It is for THIS reason, that we accept been accused of getting "elitist". Afterwards all, one accept to be absolutely committed or even beguiled with music in adjustment to buy allegory recordings out of a affection for capricious interpretations of a section that has been recorded 20 times.

One ability ask the afterward question: "How appear abundant violinists like Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein could become apple chic soloists AND apply on perfection?" Obvious aptitude and actual harder plan aside, it is my ascertainment that they were articles of a altered time. Rather than black a change in civic attitude against classical music, what I beggarly to say is that these greats were accouterment something of VALUE to the accustomed public. If we put ourselves in their shoes, we appear to apprehend that audio technology was still developing. New interpretations of a violin arrangement were getting broadcast (often for the aboriginal time) to the accustomed accessible en masse via a new average - the LP record. Today, due to the immense success of the recording industry, we yield it for accepted that music can be recorded. In added words, abundant musicians accept "been there and done that" if it comes to recording astounding masterworks.

What can we apprentice from this? Today, as musicians, we accept to anticipate alfresco the box. A aerialist is not just a parrot, altogether repeating sounds from a page of music as we ability accept the artisan intended.

What I am proposing is a abolitionist about-face in music apprenticeship that focuses on the alone and his or her accord with the audience. Every artist has a adventure to tell. Whether old or new, there is appropriate allusive music for every performer. There are aswell different admirers out there for every musician. We artlessly accept to acquisition the bulletin and the medium. Why shouldn't conservatories be able to advise in this way while still advancement abstruse excellence?

New England Conservatory has afresh alive to the alarm with their focus on "Entrepreneurial Musicianship". Schools all about the country should be auspicious acceptance to acquisition their own voice. Rather than subjugating alone expression, as is generally done, allotment the character of the apprentice will ultimately aftereffect in a stronger, independent musician. It's a alarming anticipation for a school, but the another of "business as usual" is a asleep cause.

- Daniel Broniatowski, D.M.A.

http://www.musicaffectsculture.com

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Saturday, June 15, 2013

Shopping for Insurance So I Can Add My Son

car insurance quotes bmw car insurance quotes bmw car insurance quotes ...I really had no choice but to shop for the cheapest car insurance that I could find if I was going to be able to afford to add my son to my policy. I had talked with my agent about adding my son and I about fell over when she told me what it was going to cost me each month to have him on it. I never would have thought that they could charge that much for a teenage driver that has taken driver safety courses and has never had any kind of accident or ticket.

After she told me what I would have to pay to stay with that company, I knew that it was time for me to find another provider to use.

Recession Proof Your Arts & Crafts Business

We all know that the Arts and Crafts Business is not the easiest business to be successful in, even in the best of economic times. This business is fraught with ups and downs that are beyond your control.

Trends that are hot for months or years suddenly die out, and new and unexpected hot niches develop overnight. There are some things that you can do to help you Arts & Crafts business be successful over the next few years.

The good news is that money is not going to disappear. There will still be people buying gifts and decorating homes and going on holidays. All of these people will be trying to get the best value for every dollar that they spend in any circumstance.

Sell The Service Aspect If you are selling arts and crafts your market may change a bit. People will be looking for quality, and exact fit to their needs. So in these recession economic times service becomes extremely important. If you are a producer of arts or crafts can you do custom work. Can you make a painting of the same theme but scaled to fit the customers exact measurements? Can you install that custom piece of furniture that you built. Are there colors or finishes you can offer that your competitors can't duplicate?

Service becomes very important and people will be willing to pay a little more for a product if there is tons of high quality service to back it up. To be successful in recessionary times you will have to work harder, but your business will benefit in the long run from this.

Have Multiple Price Points Depending on your art or craft, price point may become an issue. Take painting as an example. You may have been selling large canvasses (4 feet by 6 feet as an example) and start to see a slow down in this niche part of this market. Try making a few canvasses in the 3 feet by 4 feet and 2 feet by 3 feet size. Keep some of the larger canvasses to attract your buyers. You will find many will opt for the smaller canvasses if they have financial considerations.

Try to develop several price points, so that you are broadening the appeal to your customers. There will occasionally be sales of the high ticket items. You will find most of your sales come from the mid price products so make sure you have lots of the mid range on hand.

An old tip but still works, is to take your top end and make that your mid-range price point. Suddenly you have up scaled your business and your customers will still tend to buy what you normally produce. This is a bit tricky as you don't want to invest heavily in your new top end products. It can make you top heavy and set you up for a financial crash.

Give Classes If you are skilled in your medium or if you are a store owner and have a good relationship with your artisans, set up classes in the process. Many people can justify the expense of a course in "Learn How To Make______" (fill in the blank with your idea) before they can justify the purchase. With courses there is opportunity to sell supplies, tools, books, and secondary level courses. Done well this can be very lucrative. People develop an interest in the arts and crafts, and in their minds they are getting good value for their money. They are having fun, socializing, making something that gives them pleasure, and being entertained all at the same time.

One fee and they receive so much benefit. It just happens that you receive some financial benefit as well.

Use The Internet The most powerful marketing tool of the modern age is the Internet. If sales of your particular arts & crafts endeavor have slipped in your area, it doesn't mean that they have dropped in another geographic region. You need a website and should promote your business to the whole world. This broadens your potential customer base to massive proportions. It is not as hard to build a website as you might think.

If you are a potter you can promote your pottery to galleries all over the world as well as have "walk in traffic" to your own website. Consider using video of the forming process to interest customers in the hands on aspect of your art or craft.

Recessionary times need not cripple your business. Always keep you customer in mind and go that extra step to make them feel valued. You may have to work a bit harder for the next little while but that doesn't mean you can't survive it.

What You Need to Know About a Fine Arts Degree

Whether you're absorbed in photography, painting, sculpture, film, the agenda media, or you aspire for a career in architecture or a coveted building spot, a bulk can advice you accomplish your goals. Here's what you charge to apperceive to accompany a bulk and what you can apprehend from your training.

Degree Coursework

The courses offered at a academy are as assorted as the acceptance who adjudge to accompany a degree. The curricula in a lot of schools about affection courses in:

• Art history

• Art approach and criticism

• Performing arts

• Painting, cartoon sculpture, and photography

• Agenda art

Types of Degrees

If you're absorbed in advancing a degree, you accept the best of demography undergraduate as able-bodied as alum paths. They include:

Associate's of Accomplished Arts (AFA) . Like a lot of associate's bulk programs, an associate's bulk from an online school, a association college, or abstruse academy lays the bookish foundation for a bachelor's degree.

Bachelor's of Accomplished Arts (BFA) . A bachelor's bulk about takes four years to achieve, and gives acceptance the able and aesthetic abilities to adapt them for arts-related jobs. A lot of able art positions crave a BFA at a minimum.

Master's of Accomplished Arts (MFA) . A master's bulk added enhances a student's compassionate of the arts world--particularly management--as able-bodied as the avant-garde development of their aesthetic specialty. Depending on your thesis, you can acquire your MFA aural two years, however, abounding acceptance yield longer. Generally, teaching and building positions crave an MFA.

What Are the Career Opportunities in the Accomplished Arts?

Many acceptance because a bulk admiration what kinds of jobs are accessible afterwards they graduate. The acceptable account is there are a advanced ambit of options--working as an art buyer, a aesthetic administrator at an commercial agency, a building curator, an aesthetic administrator in the theatre, or an absolute multi-media artist.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the industries with the accomplished levels of application include:

• Absolute artists, writers and performers

• The ball industry

• Specialized architecture casework

• Colleges, universities and able schools

• The publishing industry

The BLS addendum that admitting top antagonism for jobs in the studios, galleries and alone audience are consistently searching for accomplished and august artists.

How Much Money Can I Make with a Accomplished Arts Degree?

Just as there are abounding altered types of artists alive in the accomplished arts, there are as abounding bacon categories. The BLS letters the afterward average anniversary accomplishment for some accomplished arts careers in 2009:

• Art directors: $78,580

• Craft artists: $28,960

• Multimedia artists and animators: $58,250

• Accomplished artists: $44,160

Additionally, the BLS addendum that balance for self-employed artists alter widely. Beginning artists may acquire a nominal bulk while alive to authorize their names in the art world, while added accomplished freelance accomplished artists and illustrators accept the abeyant to acquire added than their salaried counterparts.

For aesthetic professionals, a accomplished arts bulk from a accomplished art academy can accessible the doors to a apple of opportunity.

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Top Five Florida Colleges and Universities

Florida is anchored in the south-east administration of the United States and is acceptable accepted for its bookish opportunities as it has been accepted for ball venues in a acceptable way. Following are the top 5 universities in the Florida which aswell includes online colleges in Florida.

University of Florida

The University of Florida is the better bookish academy in Florida and the third-largest university with 35,000 + undergraduate acceptance on campus. It is amid in Gainesville, the state's arctic portion. It was accustomed in 1853; today the campus of this university has developed up to 150 analysis institutes and centers. Enjoying a 'Public Ivy' appellation and acclaimed for its accomplished academics, Florida University has a apprentice activity which is thriving. Amongst the account of America's Best Colleges in 2007 the University becoming 49th rank according to U.S. News and Apple Report, in 2007.

University of Miami

Established in 1925, the University of Miami is a nonsectarian bookish institution, in Coral Gables city-limits of Florida. It is amid in the centermost of city-limits Miami and has 10,000+ undergraduate acceptance belief in this university. They accept amaranthine opportunities for analysis and bounded internships. Most of this University's bookish programs are awful rated, its business departments are nationally accustomed by Business Week and U.S. News and Apple Report. The university becoming 52nd rank by U.S. News and Apple Report.

Florida Accompaniment University

Located in Tallahassee city-limits of Florida, Florida Accompaniment University and is one of the arch bookish institutions. This is the additional better university if Florida and currently there are 31,000+ undergraduate acceptance on campus. The university was accustomed in 1851 as a analysis institution. Some of its bookish courses are awful in appeal and are advised 'limited access' and is actual aggressive to get admissions. These courses cover beheld arts, theater, dance, film, communication, and business.

Miami Dade College

Centrally amid in the burghal Miami-Dade County, Dade Academy is the better of its affectionate in the nation. The academy enrolls added acceptance compared to any added academy in the accompaniment of Florida. Currently there are 51,000+ acceptance enrolled in its campus. The academy clearly began in 1960 and was the aboriginal inferior academy in the state. Miami-Dade has manages to advance its open-enrollment behavior while as online academy in Florida continues to advance its bookish courses.

University of Central Florida

Lesser accepted than added universities in Florida, the University of Central Florida is in absoluteness the better academy for undergraduates in the state. It was accustomed in 1963 with the ambition of training the technicians active in adjacent Kennedy Space Center, but now has broadcast with alms a aggregation of bookish programs. Today there are 39,000+ undergraduates acceptance enrolled at Central Florida. It is aswell a advancing online academy in Florida with amount courses for acceptance beyond the world.

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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Art Paintings From Your Photo

The market for Chinese contemporary art has developed at a feverish pace, becoming the single fastest-growing segment of the international art market. Since 2004, prices for works by Chinese contemporary artists have increased by 2,000 percent or more, with paintings that once sold for under $50,000 now bringing sums above $1 million. Nowhere has this boom been felt more appreciably than in China, where it has spawned massive gallery districts, 1,600 auction houses, and the first generation of Chinese contemporary-art collectors.

This craze for Chinese contemporary art has also given rise to a wave of criticism. There are charges that Chinese collectors are using mainland auction houses to boost prices and engage in widespread speculation, just as if they were trading in stocks or real estate. Western collectors are also being accused of speculation, by artists who say they buy works cheap and then sell them for ten times the original prices-and sometimes more.

Those who entered this market in the past three years found Chinese contemporary art to be a surefire bet as prices doubled with each sale. Sotheby's first New York sale of Asian contemporary art, dominated by Chinese artists, brought a total of $13 million in March 2006; the same sale this past March garnered $23 million, and Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of Chinese contemporary art in April totaled nearly $34 million. Christie's Hong Kong has had sales of Asian contemporary art since 2004. Its 2005 sales total of $11 million was dwarfed by the $40.7 million total from a single evening sale in May of this year.

These figures, impressive as they are, do not begin to convey the astounding success at auction of a handful of Chinese artists: Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, Cai Guo-Qiang, Liu Xiaodong, and Liu Ye. The leader this year was Zeng Fanzhi, whose Mask Series No. 6 (1996) sold for $9.6 million, a record for Chinese contemporary art, at Christie's Hong Kong in May.

Zhang Xiaogang, who paints large, morose faces reminiscent of family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has seen his record rise from $76,000 in 2003, when his oil paintings first appeared at Christie's Hong Kong, to $2.3 million in November 2006, to $6.1 million in April of this year.

Gunpowder drawings by Cai Guo-Qiang, who was recently given a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, sold for well below $500,000 in 2006; a suite of 14 works brought $9.5 million last November.

According to the Art Price Index, Chinese artists took 35 of the top 100 prices for living contemporary artists at auction last year, rivaling Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and a host of Western artists.

"Everybody is looking to the East and to China, and the art market isn't any different," says Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby's Asia. "Notwithstanding the subprime crisis in the U.S. or the fact that some of the other financial markets seem jittery, the overall business community still has great faith in China, bolstered by the Olympics and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010."

There are indications, however, that the international market for Chinese art is beginning to slow. At Sotheby's Asian contemporary-art sale in March, 20 percent of the lots offered found no buyers, and even works by top record-setters such as Zhang Xiaogang barely made their low estimates. "The market is getting mature, so we can't sell everything anymore," says Xiaoming Zhang, Chinese contemporary-art specialist at Sotheby's New York. "The collectors have become really smart and only concentrate on certain artists, certain periods, certain material."

For their part, Western galleries are eagerly pursuing Chinese artists, many of whom were unknown just a few years ago. Zeng Fanzhi, for example, has been signed by Acquavella Galleries in New York, in a two-year deal that exceeds $20 million, according to a Beijing gallerist close to the negotiations; William Acquavella declined to comment. Zhang Xiaogang and Zhang Huan have joined PaceWildenstein, and Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaodong showed with Mary Boone last spring. Almost every major New York gallery has recently signed on a Chinese artist: Yan Pei Ming at David Zwirner, Xu Zhen at James Cohan, Huang Yong Ping at Gladstone, Yang Fudong at Marian Goodman, Liu Ye at Sperone Westwater. Their works are entering private and public collections that until now have not shown any particular interest in Asian contemporary art.

"The market hasn't behaved as I anticipated," says New York dealer Max Protetch, who has been representing artists from China since 1996. "We all anticipated that the Chinese artists would go through the same critical process that happens with art anywhere else in the world. I assumed that some artists would fall by the wayside, which has not been true. They all have become elevated. It seems like an uncritical market."

One of the key artists buoyed by this success is Zeng Fanzhi, who is best known for his "Mask" series. Five years ago his works sold for under $50,000. Today he commands prices on the primary market closer to $1 million, with major collectors Charles Saatchi and Jose Mugrabi among his fans. Now preparing for his first solo show at Acquavella in December, he is considered one of the more serious artists on the Beijing scene because he works alone, without the horde of assistants found in most other artists' studios in China. Still, his lifestyle is typical of that of his equally successful peers. When asked if he owns a mammoth black Hummer parked outside his studio, he answers, "No, that's an ugly car. I have a G5 Benz."

This success has blossomed under the watchful eye of the Chinese government. Movies, television, and news organizations are strictly censored, but on the whole, the visual arts are not. Despite sporadic incidents of exhibitions being closed or customs officials seizing artworks, by and large the government has supported the growth of an art market and has not interfered with private activity. In the 798 gallery district in Beijing, a Bauhaus-style former munitions complex that has been transformed into the capital's hottest art center, with more than 150 galleries, one finds works addressing poverty and other social problems, official corruption, and new sexual mores. The icons of the former China-happy workers and peasants and heroic soldiers raising the red banner-are treated with irony, if at all, by the artists whose works are on view in these galleries, which are private venues generally not under the strict control of the Ministry of Culture.

On the eve of the Olympics, however, the government asked one gallery to postpone an exhibition until after the games. Considered unsuitable was "Touch," a show by Ma Baozhong at the Xin Beijing Gallery of 15 paintings depicting important moments in Chinese history, including one based on a photograph showing Mao Zedong with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama in 1954.

The Beijing municipality spent enormous funds to renovate the 798 district before the Olympics, putting in new cobblestone streets and lining its main thoroughfare with cafés. Shanghai, which has benefited less from government support, now boasts at least 100 galleries. Local governments throughout the country are establishing SoHo-style gallery districts to boost tourism.

One person who seems confident about the future of the Chinese market is Arne Glimcher, founder and president of PaceWildenstein, who opened a branch of his gallery in Beijing in August. Located in a 22,000-square-foot cement space with soaring ceilings, redesigned at a cost of $20 million by architect Richard Gluckman, the gallery is in the center of the 798 district. "We are committed to the art, and we wanted to open a gallery where our artists are," says Glimcher. Adding that he normally eschews the "McGallery" trend of setting up satellite spaces around the world, Glimcher insists that it was necessary to establish a branch in Beijing because there is "no local gallery of our caliber" with which Pace could partner. He has, however, recruited Leng Lin, founder of Beijing Commune, another gallery operating in 798, to be his director.

Another Western dealer who has taken the China plunge is Arthur Solway, who recently opened a branch of James Cohan in Shanghai. "I started coming to China five years ago, and I was fascinated by the energy," says Solway, who wanted to introduce gallery artists like Bill Viola, Wim Wenders, and Roxy Paine to Asia but, like Glimcher, could not find a public museum or private gallery that he considered professionally qualified to handle such exhibitions. James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is located on the ground floor of a 1936 Art Deco structure in the French Concession, a particularly picturesque section of the city. The building was once occupied by the military, and red Chinese characters over the front door still exhort, "Let the spirit of Mao Zedong flourish for 10,000 years."

"From 1966 to 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, people had nothing, but now there are spas in Shanghai and people drinking cappuccinos and buying Rolex watches-it's an amazing phenomenon," says Solway, who believes it is only a matter of time before these same newly affluent consumers begin to collect contemporary art.

Chinese collectors-or the hope that there will be Chinese collectors-are the key draw luring these galleries to Beijing. As recently as two years ago, few could name even a single Chinese collector of contemporary art. It was a truism that the Chinese preferred to spend their money acquiring antiquities and classical works. Since then several well-known mainland collectors have emerged on the scene.

Most visible is Guan Yi, the suave, well-dressed heir to a chemical-engineering fortune, who has assembled a museum-quality collection of more than 500 works. A major lender to the Huang Yong Ping retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2005, he regularly entertains museum trustees from all over the world, who make the pilgrimage to his warehouse on the outskirts of Beijing. Now he is building his own museum.

Another noted figure is Zhang Lan, head of the South Beauty chain of Szechuan-style restaurants throughout China; she also has assembled an enviable collection and displays pieces from it in her chic establishments. The film actress Zhang Ziyi is representative of a new class of collectors from the entertainment industry, while Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, chairman and CEO of the mammoth SOHO China real estate empire, have commissioned projects for their upscale residential properties.

Two collectors who are cheerleaders for the Beijing art scene are Yang Bin, an automobile-franchise mogul, and Zhang Rui, a telecommunications executive who is also the backer of Beijing Art Now Gallery, which took part in Art Basel in June, one of the first Beijing galleries to appear at the fair. These two do more than collect art. They have hosted dinners for potential collectors, organized tours to Art Basel Miami Beach, and brought friends with them to sales in London and New York. Zhang Rui, who owns more than 500 works, has lent art to international exhibitions, most notably the installation Tomorrow, which features four "dead Beatles" mannequins floating facedown, created by artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu for the 2006 Liverpool Biennial, which rejected it.

Zhang is now building an art hotel, featuring specially commissioned works and artist-designed rooms, outside the Workers' Stadium in the center of Beijing. "I am trying to think of ways of changing my private collection into a public collection," Zhang explained to ARTnews through a translator. It isn't financially advantageous to do this in China, as no tax benefits accrue from donations to museums or other nonprofit institutions.

Zhang Rui represents the handful of Chinese collectors who are public about their activities and are building noteworthy collections. Far more typical of buying activity in China is the rampant speculation taking place in the mainland auction houses. There are 1,600 registered auctioneers, and their sales attract hundreds of bidders. Chinese buyers are more comfortable with auction houses, which have been in business since 1994, than with galleries, which weren't licensed to operate by the government until the late 1990s.

These auction houses run by their own rules, generating what sometimes seems like a "wild, wild East" atmosphere. It is, for example, fairly common for a house to get consignments directly from artists, who then use the sales to establish prices for their works on the primary market. More often, now that China has hundreds of galleries, dealers come to a sale with buyers in tow, publicly bidding up works to establish "record prices" and advertise their artists. This kind of bidding ring would be considered illegal in the United States, but in China it is viewed as a savvy business practice. There is little regulation of auction houses and few developed legal norms in the field, so that even when buyers have grievances-with fakes and forgeries, for example-they do not feel they can resort to the law. Bidding is a social as well as a business activity, and buyers are happy to flaunt their status by paying record prices or quickly flipping artworks, not only for profit but so they can boast of their short-term gains.

As the domestic market for contemporary art matures, however, many of these practices are coming into question. "Two years ago it was more necessary for me to bring my artists to auction," says Fang Fang, owner of Star Gallery in Beijing, which specializes in young emerging artists such as Chen Ke and Gao Yu. "Now that the gallery market has increased, I find it is better to keep my artists out of the auction rooms, and there is much less reason to sell there."

Two mainland firms, Beijing Poly International Auction Company, and China Guardian Auctions Company, dominate the field of contemporary Chinese art. Their combined 2007 total of more than $200 million in sales represented nearly two-thirds of all auction sales in this category in mainland China for the year. Last spring Guardian achieved $142 million in sales of classical artworks, furniture, ceramics, silver, and coins, and $40 million in sales of contemporary material. The latter figure included the $8.2 million fetched by Liu Xiaodong's Hotbed No. 1, a record for a painting sold on the mainland. In a similar range of sales last spring, Poly sold $130 million worth of works, including $27 million in a single evening contemporary-art sale. (These figures represent a slight decline for the year because both houses held benefit sales for Szechuan earthquake victims, raising more than $20 million to support relief efforts.)

Poly and Guardian reflect two vastly different perspectives on the domestic market in Chinese contemporary art. Guardian is the oldest and most respected auction house in China, founded in 1993 by Wang Yannan, daughter of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who was placed under house arrest after opposing the government's use of force against demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989. If Poly is known for its vast resources and willingness to make deals to nab consignments, Guardian is known for its respected specialists and long-term client relationships. For example, when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, decided to sell 20 pieces of Qing dynasty porcelain in mainland China, it consigned the collection to Guardian.

The atmosphere of a sale at Poly or Guardian is surprisingly similar to that in the salerooms of Christie's or Sotheby's. The catalogues are identical in design, and the bidding proceeds in an orderly, even sedate, fashion, despite the crowds of spectators in the room.

"From our beginning, we studied what the principles of an auction house should be, and we stick to these principles," says Guardian president Wang. She also serves on the board of the new nationwide auctioneers' association, which hopes to enforce regulations on the auction market.

Poly is an enterprise within the China Poly Group Corporation, a $30 billion conglomerate that is the privatized branch of the People's Liberation Army. Established initially to repatriate artworks and antiquities, Poly has spent $100 million buying objects such as the bronze animal heads from a water-clock fountain that were looted from Beijing's Summer Palace by British and French troops in 1860; the pieces later turned up in the West. The repatriated objects are showcased in the Poly Art Museum in the sparkling New Beijing Poly Plaza, a glass-enclosed tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The more freewheeling Poly is known for practices such as putting up for auction works from its own collection or having consignors guarantee that they will bring buyers to the sale to meet low estimates. Still, even here there are signs that the market is maturing and has become too expensive for casual speculators. "These collectors that you are talking about are actually quite small collectors," explains Zhao Xu, senior consultant at Poly. "They bought for several years at very affordable prices, but now that prices are skyrocketing, the only way they can afford to buy is to sell. The collectors that I know already come from a high social status, and they can afford to buy pieces worth $1 million or $2 million and are looking for the best works, the masterpieces, to add to their collections."

When asked if Poly follows the rules of the Western auction houses, Zhao sharply retorts, "Sometimes even Sotheby's doesn't follow the rules." Or as Gong Jisui, an art-market specialist who is a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, says, "The Chinese learned this game of speculation from the Westerners who played it first."

The incident to which both men are referring is the sale of the Estella Collection at Sotheby's Hong Kong on April 9 of this year. The event reaped $18 million for 108 works. (An additional 80 works will be up for sale this month at Sotheby's New York.) The collection was put together from 2003 to 2006 by New York dealer Michael Goedhuis for a group of investors that included Sacha Lainovic, a director of Weight Watchers International, and Raymond Debbane, CEO of the Invus Group, a private equity firm.

Last year the collection of approximately 200 works was sold to William Acquavella, who consigned it to Sotheby's. Auction house officials will not discuss financial details, but Sotheby's had a stake in the collection. After the sale it was widely reported that many of the artists were angered by the auction because, they said, they had sold their works to Goedhuis at discount prices in exchange for promises that the collection would remain together for public display.

"The idea was to keep the collection intact and to see it safely into some institution," says Goedhuis, who denies that any promises were made. "The ideal situation was to see it with an institution in China, because there is no such collection." The collection was published in a book, China Onward, with an essay by leading China expert Britta Erickson, and it was exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem shortly before the sale. According to Goedhuis, because of the rapid rise in prices, the investors chose to sell the collection with hopes that it would not be broken up.

"Since the museums in China aren't mature enough nor are they rich enough to do an acquisition like this, my hope was that Steve Wynn would do so for his sophisticated casino complex in Macao," Goedhuis says. He turned to Acquavella because, he says, he believed the dealer would bring the collection to Wynn; Acquavella paid a reported $25 million. Acquavella director Michael Findlay laughs at the suggestion that there was any indication that the collection would go to Wynn. "I think this whole thing is surrounded by so much rumor and speculation," he says. "We bought a group of paintings, and we sold a group of paintings, and that's the whole story."

According to Maarten ten Holder, Sotheby's managing director for North and South America, the firm received inquiries before the sale from several artists in the collection, wondering why the works were to be auctioned. There is disagreement about whether Goedhuis made firm promises to keep the collection together or merely made a sales pitch to artists that inclusion in the collection would enhance their reputations. Yue Minjun, who had two works in the sale, says no promises were made. And Goedhuis bought Zeng Fanzhi's Chairman Mao with Us from Hanart T Z Gallery in 2005 for the asking price, $30,000, no discount given. It sold for $1.18 million.

"You have to understand that there was no market for this work when I was buying," says Howard Farber, whose collection brought $20 million at Phillips de Pury & Company in London last October. Farber assembled 100 choice works by assiduously visiting artists' studios in Beijing in the late 1980s, accompanied by the Beijing-based critic Karen Smith, a leading author and curator in this field. A work for which he paid $25,000 in 1996, Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism: Coca-Cola, was sold at Phillips de Pury for $1.6 million. The buyer was Farber's son-in-law, Larry Warsh, who bid on several works at the sale, according to newspaper accounts. "I really didn't actually know I was going to buy the Wang Guangyi until that moment," says Warsh. "Howard has his collection, and it's not my collection, and there were many pieces I wanted from that collection that I would have wanted to buy but couldn't afford."

Many Beijing artists had agreements with Warsh to produce work for his collection and his art advisory business, which began in 2004, inspired by Farber's example in the field. "I was enamored by China, and then I was enamored by the art of China as I learned about important artists," says Warsh. "But what really hit me first was how the pricing did not make sense to me at all-everything was out of whack."

Warsh, who amassed a collection of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf in the late 1980s, was the publisher of the now-defunct Museums Magazine, which he sold to LTB Media in 2004. He stated at one point that his collection totaled more than 1,200 works; now, he says, he owns approximately 400 paintings and photographs. Part of his collection is managed by his new business venture, AW Asia, which has a gallery in Chelsea and intends to assemble collections of Chinese contemporary art for museums and major private collectors. The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently acquired 23 photographs from AW Asia.

With Farber and Warsh circulating in Beijing for a variety of purposes, it was easy for Chinese artists to become confused about who was buying for whom and for what purpose. In recent interviews, several artists-most notably Zhang Xiaogang, who had an agreement with Warsh-pointed to him as an example of a speculator.

Warsh replies, "While some artists are not so pleased with their decision to have sold quantities of artwork at what was then their current values not so long ago, there are many artists who are not resentful and actually pleased that someone has taken an interest in their work."

New York dealer Jack Tilton, who has worked with Chinese artists since 1999, says, "All of these artists are hoping that their work finds good homes rather than getting churned in the commercial market. But they have also played a part in this market, embracing capitalism more than we have, in funny ways. They are not naive about any of this stuff."

When asked about the artists' reactions to the sale of his collection, Farber was flabbergasted: "So what? Now I am the bad guy. That pisses me off!"

A number of major collectors of Chinese contemporary art who have been in the field for some time are holding on to their collections. Uli Sigg, Swiss ambassador to China, Mongolia, and North Korea from 1995 to 1998, has built a collection of key works that he has toured in the exhibition "Mahjong" to museums throughout Europe and, most recently, the University of California's Berkeley Art Museum (September 10-January 4). Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens have used their resources to establish the first nonprofit contemporary-art center in Beijing, where they are currently exhibiting their historic collection. So far, collector Charles Saatchi has been hanging on to his purchases in preparation for opening his new gallery in London on the 9th of next month with a show of Chinese contemporary art; he has also launched a Chinese-language Web site on which mainland artists can post their works.

In comparison with Western buying, mainland Chinese participation pales. Though there are many rumors about the power of the new Chinese buyers, their presence has not been felt in the major auction houses, where most of the records are being set. "Hong Kong right now covers the global buyers, especially those from across Asia," says Eric Chang, Christie's international director of Asian contemporary art. "I am not really seeing mainland Chinese buyers-less than 10 percent-a drop from around 12 percent." Dealers in China also have seen few mainland collectors among their regular clients. "I don't know yet about collectors," says New York dealer Christophe Mao of Chambers Fine Art, which recently opened a branch in Beijing.

Despite the current shortage of mainland art collectors, China is emerging as a major art center, having become a hub for buyers from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, and for overseas Chinese from all over the world. Reflecting this diversity is the wide range of foreign dealers among the 300 galleries in Beijing, including Continua from Italy, Urs Meile from Switzerland, Arario and PKM from South Korea, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects from Japan, and Tang from Indonesia.

"In Beijing it's getting increasingly difficult to talk about the Chinese market as a separate entity from the broader Asian art market or the international art market," says Meg Maggio, an American who came to China in 1988 and ran one of the first galleries in the country, CourtYard, in Beijing, from 1998 to 2006. Now she has her own gallery, Pékin Fine Arts, where she represents an international stable of artists. "How do you describe the market for a Korean artist showing in China or a Chinese artist living in New York?" she asks, noting that her business can come from South Korean collectors visiting Beijing or European companies doing business in China.

One factor in China's development as a center for contemporary art is the proliferation of art fairs. Beijing has two, the China International Gallery Exposition and Art Beijing; Shanghai has the newly created ShContemporary, now in its second year; and Hong Kong just launched ART HK. CIGE director Wang Yihan says her fair attracted 40,000 visitors this year, while the more high-toned ShContemporary brought in 25,000 and ART HK 08 had 19,000. These numbers may seem small in comparison with the 60,000 who crowd Art Basel, but dealers believe that the fairs in Asia are worthwhile because they attract new buyers and make Asian collectors feel more comfortable about acquiring art from galleries.

"Anywhere else, a fair is just a fair," says Lorenz Helbling of ShanghART, one of the oldest galleries in China and a participant in Art Basel. "But in Shanghai a fair feels like so much more because only there can it make an impact on several million people." He is referring not only to attendance but to the intensive publicity and official recognition given to ShContemporary in its inaugural year.

Just a few years ago it would have been impossible to try to sell contemporary art to Asian buyers, let alone mainland Chinese collectors, in the public forum of an art fair. Now, with the astounding success of Chinese contemporary art, collectors from across the region-and more than a few from the United States and Europe-are targeting China as a destination. According to Nick Simunovic, who has opened an office and showroom for Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, it is only a matter of time before these regional buyers turn their attention to Western contemporary art.

"My sense is that wherever you have tremendous wealth creation, the collecting cycle goes through three phases," he says. "First, people collect their cultural patrimony, and then they collect their own contemporary art. I think the final stage is when they gain a more globalized contemporary-art approach."

Gagosian first considered opening an office in Shanghai but encountered obstacles to doing business on the mainland. The most formidable of these is a 34 percent luxury tax on art, which foreign galleries that participated in ShContemporary found difficult to avoid. Hong Kong, by comparison, is a duty-free zone. And Simunovic found that even Jeff Koons was a tough sell in Shanghai, whereas Hong Kong offers more possibilities for Western contemporary art. Just a year ago Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau paid $72 million for Andy Warhol's Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I). In May Christie's brought a Warhol portrait of Mao, valued at $120 million and for sale privately, for viewing in Hong Kong. (At press time it had not yet been sold.)

"Sure, China is hot, but that's just the peak of the iceberg," says Lorenzo Rudolf, former director of Art Basel and cofounder of ShContemporary. "This is not just about a group of Chinese painters. It's about a growing market going on in this continent."

With the sheer abundance of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs in China, the larger art world is recognizing the power of the Asian market. Standing in an auction house in New York or London watching paintings by Chinese artists sell for millions, one can grouse about this boom and hint that it will turn out to be a bubble. But strolling in a bustling gallery district in Beijing, with students and tourists crowding the cafés and boutiques and filling the huge art showrooms, few would predict a downturn in the near future.

Friday, June 7, 2013

How to Write Better Music by Starting at the Bottom

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Once you punch up a boom canal that gets your afflatus flowing, alpha layering the next basic of music on top of it. This could be the lyrics, a melody, bassline, ambit progression from a guitar or keyboard, or even absorbing complete effects. Band by band activate bushing out your new song. If you aggregate too abounding layers to play and sing forth with the drums you ability wish to activate recording anniversary basic of your song one at a time (recording will be covered in addition songwriting tip at Songwriting Planet).

The drums-first access is generally acclimated in Hip-Hop songwriting, but it is frequently acclimated in bedrock and added styles as well. If this is not your approach, agreement with it. You could end up aperture accomplished new worlds of possibilities.

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Wednesday, June 5, 2013

How Important Is the Role of In-Flight Entertainment?

There are abounding affidavit to be beholden for the appearance of air travel. It has helped accomplish the apple a abate place, with visits to ancestors who've confused to the added ancillary of the apple now aural the ability of a lot of people, and holidays which would already accept been the bottle of the super-wealthy accessible to those of added apprenticed means.

Whilst it may assume churlish, therefore, to accuse about travelling altitude if jetting about the globe, there's no carper the actuality that even a almost abbreviate flight can be a adequately annoying and demanding ordeal, abnormally if you appear to be travelling with baby children. That's why in-flight ball is so important. It's appetizing to anticipate of it as an added affluence or just an alternative added affection but the accuracy of the amount is that in-flight ball is basic if ensuring the able-bodied getting of passengers.

For afraid passengers, the ball on action can accommodate a acceptable distraction, authoritative the adventure added tolerable for them and for the flight associates they ability contrarily be gluttonous advance from. Baby accouchement will generally be apathetic and awkward on a flight and their consistent behaviour can prove acid for the child's parents and everybody abroad on the plane. In-flight ball is the ideal band-aid to this problem, befitting them absent and amused with cartoons and kids shows, which in about-face agency that anybody abroad on the even is chargeless to adore their journey.

The key to acknowledged in-flight ball lies in accouterment a ample ambit of tailored agreeable for cartage to accept from. In the aboriginal canicule of jet biking the best was limited, usually amounting to little added than one in-flight movie, but now the best of agreeable has broadened considerably. The alternative of films on action to cartage comes in a ambit that's up to date, ample and diverse, accoutrement all genres from ball and ball to the latest thrillers and art-house indie fare.

In-flight ball doesn't just abide of films however; cartage are aswell generally advised to a ample ambit of TV programmes to accept from - so whether your aftertaste is for harder hitting documentaries or top rated ball programmes, you're assertive to acquisition something you wish to watch, whilst accouchement will be delighted, and parents relieved, to acquisition that abounding of their favourites from home are accessible on-board. No amount what your age or acreage of interest, there's apprenticed to be some anatomy of ball which hits the spot. Teenagers will generally acquisition their appetence for the latest music videos catered for, whilst those who wish added sedate offerings can accept an audio option, alert to music from every brand as able-bodied as comedy, news, business and religious shows.

At the acid bend of carriageable in-flight entertainment, afire a aisle for a new bearing of handheld interactivity, is the Sony PSP, which is now accessible on added and added flights. This actual accepted handheld ball arrangement allows cartage to alone clothier their ball acquaintance with the latest PSP amateur and a abundant alternative of movies and TV shows.

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Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Media & Entertainment Law - Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Data Protection - Public Body

The cases of The British Broadcasting Corporation v Sugar and Another [2007] and R (on the application of) The British Broadcasting Corporation v The Information Tribunal and Others [2007] concerned the Freedom of Information Act 2000 - a number of pieces of legislation should be mentioned to assist in the interpretation of these cases.

The appellant in the case, the British Broadcasting Corporation (“BBC”), asked B to provide advice on the coverage by the BBC of Middle Eastern matters. During 2004, B, who was an experienced journalist, produced an internal written report on the subject. The report was placed for consideration by the journalism board of the BBC. Then, in 2005 a panel was appointed to provide an external independent review of BBC reporting of Middle East affairs. This second report was never published.

The respondent, S, wished to see the second report. He was of the opinion that he was entitled to see it under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the “2000 Act”). He therefore made a written request to the BBC, the response to which was that the report directly impacted on the BBC's reporting of crucial world events and so the 2000 Act did not apply to it. S was dissatisfied with that answer and so subsequently complained to the Information Commissioner.

The commissioner corresponded fairly extensively with S and, separately, with the BBC. In a detailed letter, the commissioner set out his provisional view that the report was held for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, and that in such circumstances the BBC was not deemed a public authority under the 2000 Act in respect of S's request, and was therefore not obliged to release the contents of the report.

S did not wish to submit any further comments to the commissioner, who confirmed his final decision that the report was non-disclosable, and so informed S of his right to seek a judicial review of the decision. S appealed to the Information Tribunal on the grounds of the provisions in s.50 of the 2000 Act. The position of the commissioner and the BBC at the time was as follows:

§ That S had no right of appeal under s.50;

§ The commissioner had not served a decision notice which could be appealed against; and

§ That the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain such an appeal.

The tribunal was of the opinion that it did indeed have jurisdiction to hear the appeal. The commissioner discontinued the dispute as regards jurisdiction. The tribunal ruled that it did have jurisdiction to hear S's appeal and so proceeded to hear it. It held that at the time of S's request for a copy of the report, the report was held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature.

Subsequently, the BBC appealed on the jurisdiction decision and the journalism decision and, to meet any point that a lack of jurisdiction was asserted, the BBC sought to challenge the decisions of the tribunal by concurrent judicial review proceedings.

S, in due course, issued his own judicial review proceedings challenging the original decision of the commissioner. It was submitted that the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain the purported appeal and that S's remedy had laid in seeking judicial review of the commissioner's original decision. In addition to this, it was submitted that despite the initial impression one otherwise could get from s.3(1) and Schedule 1 of the 2000 Act, s.7(1) showed that it was concerned with the application of Parts I to V to information, rather than purporting to define the circumstances in which a body was or was not to be treated as a 'public authority'.

§ Section 3 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:

(1) In this Act "public authority" means:

(a) subject to section 4(4), any body which, any other person who, or the holder of any office which:

(i) is listed in Schedule 1, or

(ii) is designated by order under section 5, or

(b) a publicly-owned company as defined by section 6.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, information is held by a public authority if:

(a) it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person, or

(b) it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

§ Section 7 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:

(1) Where a public authority is listed in Schedule 1 only in relation to information of a specified description, nothing in Parts I to V of this Act applies to any other information held by the authority.

(2) An order under section 4(1) may, in adding an entry to Schedule 1, list the public authority only in relation to information of a specified description.

§ Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:

(1) Any person (“the Complainant”) may apply to the Commissioner for a decision whether, in any specified respect, a request for information made by the complainant to a public authority has been dealt with in accordance with the requirements of Part I.

(2) On receiving an application under this section, the Commissioner shall make a decision unless it appears to him:

(a) that the complainant has not exhausted any complaints procedure which is provided by the public authority in conformity with the code of practice under section 45,

(b) that there has been undue delay in making the application,

(c) that the application is frivolous or vexatious, or

(d) that the application has been withdrawn or abandoned.

(3) Where the Commissioner has received an application under this section, he shall either:

(a) notify the complainant that he has not made any decision under this section as a result of the application and of his grounds for not doing so, or

(b) serve notice of his decision (“Decision Notice”) on the complainant and the public authority.

§ Section 57 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides, so far as is material:

(1) Where a decision notice has been served, the complainant or the public authority may appeal to the Tribunal against the notice.

(2) A public authority on which an information notice or an enforcement notice has been served by the Commissioner may appeal to the Tribunal against the notice.

(3) In relation to a decision notice or enforcement notice which relates:

(a) to information to which section 66 applies, and

(b) to a matter which by virtue of subsection (3) or (4) of that section falls to be determined by the responsible authority instead of the appropriate records authority, subsections (1) and (2) shall have effect as if the reference to the public authority were a reference to the public authority or the responsible authority.

In Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 a list of public bodies can be found. Most of those listed in Part VI of Schedule 1 are designated by name, however a few are not, and one such body is the BBC. The BBC's entry in Part VI of Schedule 1 reads:

‘The British Broadcasting Corporation, in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature'.

The appeal was allowed for the following reasons:

§ With regard to the requirements of Parts I to V of the 2000 Act, the BBC was deemed a public authority only in respect of information that it held otherwise than for purposes of journalism, art or literature. The applicable sections of the 2000 Act, in particular s.3(1) and s.7(1), taken with Schedule 1 were different. Those sections specify which bodies have to be treated as public authorities in respect of certain types of information. The sections do not state that the BBC was a public authority for all purposes under the 2000 Act in relation to all information held by them.

§ The structure of the 2000 Act is such as to preclude certain decisions of the commissioner from appeal to the tribunal. It could be discerned from the language and structure of the 2000 Act that any intent to appeal lay with the tribunal where it had been decided by the commissioner whether or not the requirements of Part I had been complied with by a public authority and where a decision notice had been served. If the commissioner had decided that the circumstances under s.7(1) to the 2000 Act subsisted, then there would be no decision notice under s.50(3)(b) which the commissioner could serve. As a consequence of this there could be nothing which could be appealed to the tribunal. The remedy was by way of proceedings for judicial review. By looking at the words of s.3, s.7 and Schedule 1 of the 2000 Act, the tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain the appeal.

§ Whether a piece of information had been or had not been 'held for purposes other than journalism' ultimately involved a matter of judgment on the part of the commissioner by reference to the circumstances of each particular case. The re-affirmation of his decision had not been challengeable by way of judicial review. It was held that journalism extended to activity as well as product, and it extended to the process of collecting, analysing, editing and communicating news. The decision of the commissioner would have had the effect of establishing whether or not there had been jurisdiction to determine substantively on S's complaint and to therefore serve a decision notice.

In this case, it was held that the final decisions of the commissioner had not been challengeable by way of judicial review. The decision of the commissioner had been lawful, rational, and properly open to him. The decisions had simply been the commissioner restating and justifying, in the context of the appeal to the tribunal, the position that the he had earlier adopted in his decision letter. As a result, S's claim for judicial review failed and was subsequently dismissed.

If you require further information contact us at enquiries@rtcoopers.com

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© RT COOPERS, 2007. This Briefing Note does not provide a comprehensive or complete statement of the law relating to the issues discussed nor does it constitute legal advice. It is intended only to highlight general issues. Specialist legal advice should always be sought in relation to particular circumstances.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Educational Benefits of Juggling and Circus Skills

Please agenda that the words "juggling" and "circus skills" are changeable on this page. The art of throwing altar in the air such as balls, rings and clubs, as able-bodied as manipulating altar such as diabolo, devil stick, spinning plates all action the aforementioned allowances for accommodating pupils!

EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS

Improves and Increases:

  • Mathematic Skills
  • Physics (newtons Laws etc)
  • Performance and Drama
  • Appreciation of the Arts
  • Techniques of Learning
  • Concentration
  • Imagination and Creativity
  • Problem Solving
  • Dyslexia

Cognitive Benefits - To accomplish in juggling, acceptance accept to accept a pattern, set targets for their throws and plan on the accent and timing of their throws.

The affirmation for abounding Educational Benefits can be activate in the book: Teaching Elementary Physical Education - by Robert P.Pangrazi.

A abundant breach in the circadian routine - During all-encompassing bookish plan periods (such as circadian cafeteria breach from work/studies), physically alive abstraction (such as juggling) can admonition acceptance acknowledgment to their work/studies activity alive and added productive. Kinaesthetic and Physically alive learners will adulation to apprentice bamboozlement especially! If you acquaint bamboozlement breaks/intervals into your approved studies/school day, again you will see these types of learners advance academically!

Appreciation of the Arts - Already you accept apparent how simple bamboozlement is to apprentice the basics, again you activate to see how abounding hundreds of bags of tricks are out there for you to master. Any time you see anyone juggling, you again activate to acknowledge the bulk of time and accomplishment they will accept put into accomplishing such a routine! If acceptance plan on putting calm a appearance at the end of their workshop, they activate accepting a baby glimpse of what it is like to plan in the ball industry.

Imagination and Creativity - already you get circuitous with juggling, you can let your acuteness run agrarian and agreement with the tricks you accept learned. You may end up inventing a new trick, or even just a altered way of accomplishing a ambush just by apperception altered patterns and altered routines that may be possible!

Good for your brain - Studies accept apparent that humans who claiming their accuracy and use them for circuitous tasks throughout their activity accept a bargain accident of alzheimers disease.

Improves Apprentice Behaviour - Schools with bamboozlement programmes tend to address absolutely abundantly that apprentice behaviour has bigger amidst the pupils who tend to actualize the a lot of trouble.

Helps Dyslexia - It has continued been anticipation that bamboozlement can admonition disabilities such as dyslexia, absorption arrears disorders and hyperactivity. This is through the knock-on aftereffect of all the added allowances such as bigger concentration, botheration analytic etc.

Problem Solving - Acceptance apprentice to breach anniversary bamboozlement ambush down into its baby basic parts, apprentice anniversary of the parts, again apprentice how to amalgamate anniversary allotment to anatomy the trick. If they get ashore at any accurate point in juggling, they can agreement that anyone added accomplished will be able to action admonition to admonition further.

Juggling Can Boost Academician Power - Learning to alter can could cause changes in the brain, scientists accept found. Using academician scans, the advisers showed that in 12 humans who had learnt to juggle, assertive academician areas had grown. But three months later, during which time humans chock-full juggling, the academician had gone aback to its accustomed size. To apprehend added on this amazing discovery, amuse appointment the commodity on the BBC News Website.

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