Synaesthesia…
From our old friends at Colossal, “The Chromatic Typewriter“:
Washington-based painter Tyree Callahan modified a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter, replacing the letters and keys with color pads and hued labels to create a functional “painting” device called the Chromatic Typewriter. Callahan submitted the beautiful typewriter as part of the 2012 West Prize competition, an annual art prize that’s determined by popular vote. I don’t know how practical painting an image with a color typewriter is, but if Keira Rathbone can do it…
As we reconsider those typing classes, we might send large and colorful birthday wishes to Diego Rivera; he was born on this date in 1886. Rivera left his native Mexico at 21 to study art first in Madrid, then in Paris. He established a life-long friendship with Modigliani, and travelled in the circle (Braque, Picasso, et al.) that was hatching Cubism. But he concluded his Grand Tour with a trip through Italy, studying Renaissance frescoes. Taken with that scale, Rivera returned to Mexico, where he “re-purposed” that reverently religious approach, using fresco to create wall-sized political statements– and in the process, founded the Mexican Mural Movement.
Carl Van Vechten’s photo of Rivera with his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo (source)