The pigeon handi-crafts project(s) page: crafting pigeon folk art. (Updating)

Those of you who visit my blog, here, regularly, would easily recall some of the latest iPigeon pigeon fan art I've posted, over on my "History of Art" (with pigeons included) slight art exhibition page. I'm making attempts, or beginning to, at least, towards making some of these generative AI visions and aspirations, in art: folk art, for real. This means that I'll have to whet my chops on some new, to me, craft genres, such as crocheting, which I've already begun, having obtained a practice loom, to up my skills in weaving, in general, along with some fancy feather-ful yarn, which I just now found online, after coming across some chenille yarn pumpkins, which I found to be both amusing as well as inspiring, within this context. Who knows how far this crafting could go, and what would it look like, if I never did any of it, myself? I figure, I'm in a good place to start, somewhere, and I procured some messy, fanciful yarn, as a gesture towards equipping myself with some necessary interpretive tools and material resources to work with, for dedicating myself, and some time invested, in to creating these crafting folk art projects, which, hopefully, end up looking like birds!

My project practice loom, which I obtained from Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6R7PCSH

An adorable assortment of feathery yarn, discovered via Google Shopping, after browsing some yarn inspiration found on Amazon. Apparently, a 90% discount off of the regular price, on Temu!

The pumpkins that inspired it all (nearly; I'd been on a folk art kick, recently, and I was attracted by this product on Amazon, and I almost picked up a set, myself, for analysis).

A closer look at the material I'll be acquiring; I purchased three sets, and got free shipping, on Temu, with an exclusive buyer's offer!

There'll be more to come, as I document my progress in creating these handi-crafts, over time. It'll give me a productive and neat creative project to work on! So far, I haven't really found any sort of template I can work from, so I have to gather sparse resources and work on my raw technique, developing skills that, hopefully, some day, equate to that I can create pigeon yarn-crafts (I thought, initially, that I would work with raffia, mimicking the initial folk art pigeons I had generated on my art history page, on this blog). I had even procured a clump of dried hay grass to work with, which I found, while out buying food for the birds' next day's meal, one night.

A clump of tall hay grass that I found; perhaps suitable to try my hand at creating raffia folk art work, I felt. I took it home with me, since I found the notion serendipitous.

I'll keep this blog article updated, in due time, as I work on these projects, and hone my skills in this craft genre.

Twice the number of pigeons showed up at the DTLA Central Library, today.

Today, when I showed up to feed the pigeons at the Los Angeles Public Library's Central Branch, there was a longer-than-expected line of pigeons perched at the ledge, where the typical flock of pigeons hang out, while they wait for their meal. Not a huge problem, since I had a whole loaf of buttered bread, enough for two flocks, or more, already, along with me, for the birds' daily meal.

Today, at the library, there were nearly twice the amount of pigeons that had shown up. 

Some of the long(er) row of pigeons that I encountered, while visiting the library, today.

I had initially encountered this influx of refugee pigeons several blocks over, on Broadway at 7th, where some new street construction had just cleared, and the streets had opened up with new bike lanes. Being that the birds were there, they were potentially seeking out better meal accommodations, and I'd fed them some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I recall, possibly giving the birds there an inclination of that they could spot some better fare in a different part of town, being that they had gone searching, to begin with. These new birds had ostensibly discovered the flock already perched at the Library's famous pigeon ledge, and, collectively, saw an opportunity - a possibility for a tastier meal ticket, to come, if they wait, alongside the birds, and figure out why the flock sits perched, there: which, of course, would garner them access to my feeding services, and hence, I gave them all a meal, and a drink of water.

"Snooker," the resident Pakistani High Flyer pigeon of the library (in white, below), was a bit visible anxious, being that a near-doppelganger, similarly white, (but not quite decorated with a Pakistani High Flyer's mottled plumage), was amongst the new faces in the crowd, and, as such, he was the first amongst all of the birds present to swoop down, in order to receive the day's meal.

Snook, snook! With all of the new birds present, some of the birds (including Snooker, the Pakistani High Flyer, pictured here), experience some anxiety over whether or not they'll all be fed the same amount of food.

Quickly, a crowd arrives, awaiting a meal, along with some water, provided along with the buttered cinnamon sugar bread I had prepared, for the day.

Being the only Pakistani High Flyer pigeon, amongst the darker-feathered pigeons, it may have been a bit unnerving that a similarly-colored pigeon had shown up, causing Snooker to be a bit neurotic. Nonetheless, I made sure to feed all of the birds present a sufficient meal and drink to fill their bellies. There is also another bird at crisis' amongst the regulars in the flock. He has a swollen face; I'd suppose that he got some kind of skin condition, or perhaps he was picked on, although that started a couple of weeks ago, and he's doing better, now.

This poor bird, so far unnamed, was another recent addition to the Central Library's numbers of pigeons. He had shown up, from miles away (I believe; I had spotted another pigeon with nearly the same skin condition, the day prior to him showing up, here, under the freeway, with some other birds). It would be a miraculous thing, if he had somehow found his way to this flock, from out of being virtually blinded by the swelling on his face, now seen through to a nearly full recovery, at this point. 

At the end of the meal, all of the birds' anxieties and worries over being fed, for the day, end up satisfactorily dealt with, after a tasty meal had served them all.

Today's mealtime was more crowded than typical. Will tomorrow see the same new birds show up? 

It's a heat wave out there, being that it's summertime, so I guess I ought to touch up on these other flocks of birds, in town, as my focus, over the next and upcoming weeks, since I offer the birds water, along with their bread, when I feed them, to ensure that they get sufficient hydration in their food regimens.

The iPigeon.institute "Journey Through Art History" Generative AI Online Art Exhibition (annotations coming soon).

 It's the year 2024. 

We'd had several months' lead up time, to this place in time (February, 2024), in which conversational AI, Search Assistance with AI, and AI featuring Large Language Models had been introduced to the general public, alongside various generative AI platforms, some of which promised to shake up many industries and professions, with users' minds being given a vastly new and competitive margin in creating content, whether it be audio, video / visual, or code-based, in nature.

Personally, I let a lot of the headlines come and go, as I'd been preoccupied with healing up, from my months in being homeless (I'm now housed), for the most part. That being said, I've now come across a neat platform for generative AI at labs.google (it's called ImageFX), in terms of image generation, via text prompt. I thought of some humorous and idiot concepts, pertaining to pigeon'ry, or, which would ostensibly include pigeons, in the rendered image. 

To my delight, some of the renders come out just fantastic, to be honest! I was truly impressed by some of the images that ImageFX returned. After a few go-rounds with the web-based platform, I decided that I could compile a "History of Art," of sorts, with all art works featuring pigeons, in place of humans, or that just have pigeons present in the image. 

This article begins as simply an uploading compilation of images, and I expect to update the art exhibition, intermittently (hopefully soon, maybe later today) with annotations and art historian insight and allegory, as though the reader is brought along, on a tour. Here are the images!

Product Review: Geek Bar Pulse.

As far as nicotine vapes (smokeless inhalers) go, a relatively new geeky phenomenon has hit the streets (literally). The Geek Bar Pulse product line is a new, emergent brand that has various special features

A few Geek Bar Pulse vapes, one a Geek Bar Pulse X vape.