The Styrous® Viewfinder: 07/01/2025

July 31, 2025

The Art of Clouds & Tessier Wine tasting

Sunset - 2025

This Saturday, the The Art of Clouds exhibition at the Gray Loft Gallery in the Jingletown section of Oakland will feature a wine tasting featuring Tessler Wine. The West Berkeley based winery, which is owned by Kristie Tacey, scientist turned winemaker, utilizes what it calls Sustainable Farming. The winery sources grapes from unique sites throughout Northern California farmed by great Sewards of the land. The fruit they source is always organically farmed, hand picked and hand sorted.

Tessier Wine Tasting:

Saturday, August 2, 3:00 - 5:00 pm

The Art of Clouds exhibition will be open until August 23 at which time there will be a closing reception.

Closing Reception:

Saturday, August 23, 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Artists Participating:

Gale Antokal, Francis Baker, Paola Berthoin, Ginnie Chabre, Mark Citret,
Laura Graham, Sarah Grew, Ake Grunditz, Irene Imfeld, Patrick Jagger,
Jennifer LaPierre, Laurel Anderson Malinovsky, Melina Meza, Deborah O’Grady, Ginny Parsons, Maja Planinac, Fernando Reyes, Alex Starfield, Styrous,
Christine Watten, Jan Watten, Sharon Wickham, Thomas Winz,
Wilton Wong, June Yokell

Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street #32
Oakland, CA 94601

Third floor - not wheelchair accessible

Viewfinder links:

The Art of Clouds

Gray Loft Gallery

Net links:

Gray Loft Gallery

Tessler Wine

Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 31, 2025

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Art/Exhibitions

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The Art of Clouds exhibition

Installation photos by Styrous®

Viewfinder links:

The Art of Clouds

Gray Loft Gallery

Net links:

Gray Loft Gallery

Styrous® ~ Thursday, July 31, 2025

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July 29, 2025

The 1500s ~ June brides, cats, dogs & dead ringers

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly
bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they WERE
starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the
body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the
house had the privilege of the clean water, then the sons, then all the other
men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By
then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.
Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs, thick straw-piled high with no wood
underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so, all the cats and
other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became
slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.
Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house..
This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings
could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet
hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into
existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than
dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would
get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the
floor to help keep t heir footing. As the winter wore on, they added more
thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside.
A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way. Hence the saying a
thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle
that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to
the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat
the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight
and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had
been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot,
peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel
quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.
It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They
would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around
and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid
content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning
death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400
years or so tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of
the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the "upper
crust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would
sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone
walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family
would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would
wake up. Hence the custom of "holding a wake."

England is old and small and the local folks started running
out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the
bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins,
1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they
realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the

wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground

and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all

night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be,

"saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer." This is not to be confused

with "Dead ringer", an idiom in English denoting a person or thing that

closely resembles another which dates back to the 19th century. This was

exemplified in the film by that name which starred Bette Davis (link below).

Meat Loaf made a film titled Dead Ringer which was a promotion for his second

album, Dead Ringer and featured the song, Dead Ringer For Love, The video for

this song featured Cher (link below).

Be grateful you live now!

Viewfinder links:

Cher

Bette Davis

Meat Loaf

Net links:

YouTube links:

Dead Ringer (movie trailer)

Meat Loaf ~

Dead Ringer for Love

Dead Ringer for Love (movie) (1 hr., 29 mins.)

Styrous® ~ Tuesday, July 29, 2025

History

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Abraham Lincoln articles/mentions

mentions:

Raymond Massey ~ Thespian Extraordinare

Abraham Lincoln

date & photographer unknown

Serge Gainsbourg articles/mentions

mentions:

Donna Summer ~ Love To Love You

Serge Gainsbourg

date & photographer unknown

Music People

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July 14, 2025

Sunrise Promise @ the Gray Loft Gallery

Sunrise Promise - 2025

photo by Styrous®

My image, Sunrise Promise, will be showing in the The Art of Clouds exhibition at the Gray Loft Gallery in the Jingletown section of Oakland.

Opening Reception:

Saturday, July 19, 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Closing Reception:

Saturday, August 23, 5:00 to 7:30 pm

Tessier Wine Tasting:

Saturday, August 2, 3:00 - 5:00 pm

From fleeting formations to dramatic skies, clouds take center stage in The Art of Clouds, a group exhibition featuring photography, painting, mixed media, and installation by a dynamic range of Bay Area artists.

Clouds have long inspired artists as symbols of impermanence, wonder, and the imagination. The Art of Clouds brings this timeless subject into contemporary focus, offering interpretations that are atmospheric, conceptual, and deeply personal. Featured works include striking skyscapes captured through the lens, textured paintings that blur realism and abstraction, mixed-media pieces that echo the layered nature of clouds, and an installation that allow visitors to physically engage with the sky's shifting moods.

Other artists Participating:

Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street #32
Oakland, CA 94601

Third floor - not wheelchair accessible

Viewfinder links:

The Art of Clouds
Exhibitions

Gray Loft Gallery

Net links:

Gray Loft Gallery

Styrous® ~ Monday, July 14, 2025

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Art/Exhibitions

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Gray Loft Gallery ~ The Art of Clouds articles/mentions

The Art of Clouds invitation

Every Passing Storm mixed media

image by Francis Baker

Sunrise Promise

The Art of Clouds Exhibition

The Art of Clouds Opening Reception

The Gray Loft Gallery Art of Clouds & Tessier Wine tasting

Tessier Wine Reception

Art/Exhibitions
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July 9, 2025

The 14th Amendment & racism

The 14th Amendment - 1902

Illustration by E. W. Kemble (Edward Windsor)

Cartoon shows Congress as a fat man asleep in a hammock labeled "Law Enforcement." A broken blunderbuss, labeled "14th Amendment, 2nd Section," lies at his feet. A small black boy walks by holding a drum, but an elephant cautions, "Don't wake him up!" The drawing was by E. W. Kemble who illustrated the first edition of the Mark Twain satire on entrenched attitudes, such as racism, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in 1884.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - 1884

by Mark Twain

On July 9, 1868, The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

On December 3, 1865, a group of Black Mississippians wrote to the state’s governor, demanding respect for their newly won freedom. “Now we are free,” they insisted, “we do not want to be hunted … All we ask is justice and to be treated like humane beings.” They recalled vividly “the yelping of bloodhounds and tareing of our fellow servants To pisces” by slave patrols, and called for an end to these violent abuses. The Fourteenth Amendment, written the next year and ratified in 1868, vindicated their demands for equal justice, human dignity, and bodily security.

Considered one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law at all levels of government. The Fourteenth Amendment was a response to issues affecting freed slaves following the American Civil War, and its passage was bitterly contested. States of the defeated Confederacy were required to ratify it to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions,

Viewfinder links:

Minoo Hamzavi ~

Minoo Hamzavi

The Vote: it's a setup!

E. W. Kemble

Mark Twain

Net links:

The Atlantic ~ 14th Amendment = Protection Against State Violence

National Woman's History Museum ~ 14th and 15th Amendments

YouTube links:

The 14th Amendment Explained

14th Amendment DOES NOT Guarantee Birthright Citizenship