jimprov
@jimprov.sendusyourmoney.com
Ana Mendieta (1976)
!["Anima (Alma/Soul)" chromogenic print, sheet, image and mount
----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] -----
For these works, Mendieta used fireworks to set wooden effigies of her outline ablaze in a clearing in Oaxaca, Mexico.
The flames light up the night sky, asserting her presence and power, before the figures collapse into a pile of ash. Leaving only photographic and film evidence behind, this feminist approach to earth art acknowledges human transience in the face of ecological time.
Using her body and natural materials, Mendieta created unforgettable yet fleeting interventions in sites from Iowa to Mexico to Cuba. Her best known series, Silueta, depicts her nude body or traced silhouette in natural environments, evoking ancient goddesses, fertility symbols and rituals borrowed from Catholicism, Caribbean santería, and pre-Columbian indigenous cultures around the world.
Mendieta came to the United States in 1961 as part of wave of unaccompanied child refugees transported from Cuba by the Catholic Church.
Mendieta spent her high school, college, and graduate school years in Iowa and her art continually addresses dislocation from and reconnection to the land.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreibnh2cyhdz7bnevs664nzw3yzdth2hg3gzxoqfgiin3kzmifxjyau@jpeg)
January 16, 2026 at 4:42 PM
Ana Mendieta (1976)
"can't go to brunch. I'm staying in."
January 16, 2026 at 1:26 PM
"can't go to brunch. I'm staying in."
René Castro (1992)
!["I Am Ashamed, MLK" screenprint on paper
----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] -----
This powerful screenprint unites King’s likeness with a quote from his famous 1967 speech against the US war in Vietnam: “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my own country.”
Castro added text near the bottom of the print to point out that the start of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 closely coincided with the observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day that year.
--
René Castro is a Chilean post-war artist who was born in Viña del Mar in 1943. Throughout his career, Castro has made significant contributions to the art world, particularly in the United States and Chile. His contributions to the art world have left an indelible mark on the post-war art movement. His thought-provoking artworks continue to captivate audiences and spark meaningful conversations about society, identity, and the human experience.
As an artist, Castro’s ability to evoke emotions and challenge societal norms is a testament to his artistic prowess and enduring legacy.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreidyxmfbh7hr2w4vwsvmwpbzuajrarqkl5o7i3lkkzggz6d344ozdy@jpeg)
January 15, 2026 at 1:45 PM
René Castro (1992)
@kthorjensen.bsky.social this turned out excellent
January 15, 2026 at 2:35 AM
@kthorjensen.bsky.social this turned out excellent
Nicolas de Largillierre (1710-1714)
!["Portrait of a Boy in Fancy Dress" oil on canvas
----- [from the Getty Museum] -----
Dressed in a fanciful Roman costume, a young boy with blond hair and blue eyes poses before an enigmatic landscape. Facing frontally, he twists his torso in order to hold and stroke his dog. Both the boy and the animal watch a goldfinch with outspread wings perched on a thornbush. Although the young sitter's identity is unknown, he is presumed to be a member of the French royal family.
Nicolas de Largilliere positioned his figure before an atmospheric landscape and used fluent brushwork, rich autumnal colors, and exquisite treatment of draperies. All these characteristics betray his training in a Flemish late Baroque style heavily indebted to Anthony van Dyck.
The inclusion of elaborate symbolism also reflects a Baroque sensibility. The child's costume refers to nobility, his pet dog to fidelity, and the thornbush to the Crown of Thorns.
Through an extended series of connections, the goldfinch functions as a symbol of the Passion: goldfinches eat seeds from the thorny thistle, another reminder of the Crown of Thorns, and the red spot on their breast is a further reminder of Christ's bloody death.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreibeva4hqeyui6jbgyrtua2f3a4id7u655qlfqrclqgqmyl6hxyntm@jpeg)
January 14, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Nicolas de Largillierre (1710-1714)
![[dilbert comic]
PANEL 1: [Wally] "HERE COMES THE COCK BOAT!"
PANEL 2: [Dilbert] "ME FIRST!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!"
[Wally] "AYE-AYE, SKIPPER!"
PANEL 3: [Dilbert] (under the desk) "I THOUGHT HE SAID CAKE BOAT"
[Boss] (sitting at desk) "SET SAIL FOR DICK."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreigkevpkzrnfbmnybl6hlwdqejnajlbjc3q5n37ehlknfwxh3bukfm@jpeg)
Nam June Paik (1995)
!["Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii" fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood
----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] -----
Paik predicted, in 1965, that "someday artists will work with capacitors, resistors, and semiconductors as they work today with brushes, violins and junk."
Over the decades, his own work stayed in constant conversation with how new technologies reshape the world.
In this TV map, neon-outlined states play a mix of borrowed and original footage. Each distinct channel reveals Paik's associations with or understanding of that state. Some video collages draw from personal connections, like Paik's recordings of longtime collaborator and cellist Charlotte Moorman filling the screens in her home state of Arkansas (along with images of then president Bill Clinton, also from Arkansas). Others incorporate existing media representations, with the movie musical Oklahoma! filling Oklahoma, and edits from a documentary on the 1950s Montgomery bus boycotts echoing from Alabama. A closed-circuit camera marks Washington, DC, where gallery visitors can see themselves in real time.
Audio Note: Synced television sounds match a handful of states' channels, so the audio spreads and blends across the length of the map. At different moments, various soundtracks become louder and dominate; at other times it is a noisy collage. The appropriated movie musicals--Oklahoma! in Oklahoma, Meet Me in St. Louis in Missouri, and The Wizard of Oz in Kansas--are each audible when standing nearby and as their songs reach a crescendo. Uniquely, the audio related to the Montgomery bus boycotts, which includes speeches by Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., plays through speakers on both sides of the map, not just near Alabama, making it the most prominent and legible part of the sound mix.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreiahqapcfsaetivfc3yiquo3adlzovnqyqdkwj4iazdts7ocmf67g4@jpeg)
January 13, 2026 at 1:54 PM
Nam June Paik (1995)
finally got a chance to record Moo playing the Bone Harmonica®
January 12, 2026 at 10:37 PM
finally got a chance to record Moo playing the Bone Harmonica®
replaying the ytmnd soundtrack and man there were some bangers in this
January 12, 2026 at 5:55 PM
replaying the ytmnd soundtrack and man there were some bangers in this
!["Retired Upholsterer Who Covered His House with Beer Cans, on His 71st Birthday: Houston, Texas" gelatin silver print
----- [from Roadside America] -----
In 1968, John Milkovisch was just another retired employee of Southern Pacific railroad. He lived in an undistinguished house in an undistinguished suburban neighborhood of Houston. Then John got antsy. The former upholsterer began decorating his patio with pieces of brass, marbles, rocks and buttons. Then he tore up the lawn and replaced it with similar glittery debris. The house itself was next. Tired of painting it, John took beer cans and flattened them into aluminum siding.
Beer cans quickly became John's exclusive medium -- a convenient one, since John drank a lot of beer. He worked on the house for the next 18 years, incorporating a six-pack a day into its adornment -- roughly 39,000 cans. He linked pull-tabs into long streamers to make curtains that chimed when the wind blew. "This curtain idea is just one of those dreams in the back of my noodle," he explained at the time.
"John thought beer cured everything," explained Mary, his wife, after John had died in 1988. Mary was still there, welcoming visitors, until her death in 2002. In November 2001, when Mary could no longer live without assistance, the Orange Show Foundation and its army of folk art preservationists purchased the property. By March 2008 the house and yard were open again to the public, helped by a $125,000 Houston Endowment grant to repair and restore the Milkovisch's beer can home. A quote by John is painted on an inside wall: "They say every man should leave something to be remembered by. At least I accomplished that goal."
The cans are also a record of John's imbibing preferences -- Coors cylinders are sculpted into whirligigs, while long rows of Texas Pride and various Lite beers make up the walls. Pull tabs tinkle lightly in the breeze, but the only belches you'll hear are your own.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreiffexbxuiefpggr6ql5scia2zevddisy6q5wd6ipxwdpmbmrqcwgy@jpeg)
Jeff Donaldson (1980)
!["Victory in Zimbabwe" mixed media on cardboard
----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] -----
Jeff Donaldson played a pivotal role in founding the artists' collective AfriCOBRA in Chicago in 1968.
He then continued as an artist in Washington, DC, where he became a professor, gallery director, and eventually dean at Howard University.
Victory in Zimbabwe displays many hallmarks of AfriCOBRA aesthetics: symmetrical design, rhythmic pattern, and Afrocentric imagery. It also highlights Donaldson's unique practice of working with corrugated cardboard, a method he developed in the mid-1970s.
By exposing the ribs of the cardboard and cutting and coloring intricate patterns in the material, he created an exuberant work celebrating Zimbabwe in the year it formally became independent from British rule.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreibrjtcpfv7k7hynuxxcpykg2lei2rtio4quuat2ragwqpgllv2gjy@jpeg)
January 11, 2026 at 4:45 PM
Jeff Donaldson (1980)
Dr. Wifeprov let me make dinner tonight
January 11, 2026 at 4:31 AM
Dr. Wifeprov let me make dinner tonight
if I had to fathom. a guess it's another "fulfillment center" needlessly dominating more of the landscape like they've done in other areas outside Chicago
January 10, 2026 at 11:42 PM
if I had to fathom. a guess it's another "fulfillment center" needlessly dominating more of the landscape like they've done in other areas outside Chicago
John Steuart Curry (1936-37)
!["Ajax" oil on canvas
----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] -----
John Steuart Curry created this painting of green pastures and fat cattle to reassure Americans worn down by the dust bowl years.
A prize bull fills the canvas, grazing contentedly in meadows that fall away on all sides. Cowbirds alight daintily on his back, feeding on the insects that would otherwise torment him.
The painting's title evokes the myth of Ajax, the Trojan hero who went mad and slew all of his army's cattle, thinking they were his enemies.
Curry's bull stands between the viewer and the herd, his wary eye suggesting that the cows might get their revenge.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreiacgeaudkfcpxk6vnbtaepmtuttf4ptnualu7avdjjfzxy4bwnary@jpeg)
January 10, 2026 at 6:10 PM
John Steuart Curry (1936-37)
this incredible meal was at Perry's Steakhouse, where they have the most distrust in their male clientele I've ever witnessed personally
January 10, 2026 at 4:11 AM
this incredible meal was at Perry's Steakhouse, where they have the most distrust in their male clientele I've ever witnessed personally
birthday weekend #steakFriday was a very special celebration where I didn’t have to grill for a change
January 10, 2026 at 3:04 AM
birthday weekend #steakFriday was a very special celebration where I didn’t have to grill for a change
F.O.C. Darley, Alexander Hay Ritchie, Adam Cuerden (1868)
!["Sherman's March to the Sea" engraving
----- [from Wikipedia] -----
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union army.
The campaign began on November 15, 1864, with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a "scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks.
The operation debilitated the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ewb37o2ftablnrgx3ma45l3b/bafkreia5dtgscdpueffbep2pb2u2466ekquwwx7lqrv4i75xb7xrriyyii@jpeg)
January 9, 2026 at 2:33 PM
F.O.C. Darley, Alexander Hay Ritchie, Adam Cuerden (1868)
our dog Moo is this, precisely
January 9, 2026 at 2:13 AM
our dog Moo is this, precisely