Daily Newsletter
Joel Shapiro sculpture removed at the Kennedy Center, how Snoopy unleashed America’s imagination, the untold history of Black American dyeing traditions, and more.
Trump’s National Park Service nonsensically removed a bright-blue Joel Shapiro sculpture from outside the Kennedy Center yesterday without stating a reason. The late artist is known for his quasi-abstract, dynamic stick-figure artworks that could not offend your most politically questionable uncle, but our president will find a way. Was it too happy? Too person-shaped? Or even better … “woke”?
Teju Adisa-Farrar’s must-read piece on Black American natural dyeing traditions is an antidote to cultural erasure. In the latest of our series on underrepresented craft histories, researched and written by the 2025 Craft Archive Fellows in collaboration with the Center for Craft, Adisa-Farrar traces the ways in which plants and organic fibers yielded a kaleidoscope of pigments whose histories are worthy of preservation and revival.
—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
The Missing Colors of Black American Pigment-Making
As one of humanity’s oldest crafts, natural pigment-making occupies the intersection of science, agriculture, and art. It requires curiosity and ingenuity to see a marigold flower, for instance, and know that it can stain fabrics with beautiful shades of mustard yellow to gold; to know, as our ancestors did, that they also have anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory properties. The blue color of denim traces its roots to indigo, a dye crop cultivated and processed by West Africans and their descendants throughout the Atlantic world. The global indigo trade that made blue textiles possible was deeply intertwined with enslaved labor and African dyeing knowledge. | Teju Adisa-Farrar
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Pratt Institute’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) certificates support professional development, educational advancement, career change, and personal enrichment for both amateurs and professionals.
Participants can attend in-person, online, or hybrid courses across 17 different art and design disciplines. Register by August 21 for the Fall Certificate Programs.
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In Memoriam
Meet with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at Admissions Events Across the US and Online
Learn more about the graduate degrees offered at SAIC and get all of your questions answered.
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—Butch Murphy on “Catherine Murphy Has Her Cake and Eats It Too”
Hyper Links
- Shoutout to our friends at Hell Gate for this impeccable hate piece on the ubiquitous NYC street “art” of @7SoulsDeep. “It cleaves its audience into two camps: People who have clapped when their plane landed, and everyone else,” Hell Gate writes. Chef’s kiss.
- Radio presenter Zach Mander added Karl Marx quotes to Richard Scarry illustrations and it’s making us all want to rise up against the bourgeoisie in this busy, busy town.
- Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed had the perfect retort to Fox News’s out-of-touch defense of billionaires.
- Did you know that 20% of your DNA comes from an unknown species? Welcome to the mysterious world of “ghost DNA.”
From the Archive
Asian Cultural Council — 2027 Global Grant Cycle
Grantees can pursue open-ended research rather than final productions. This unique focus on process encourages deep international dialogue, building lasting relationships, and advancing mutual understanding between the United States and Asia.
Deadline: November 10 | asianculturalcouncil.org
