Daily Loaf

Marvel Comics has always been known for its human touch – for its focus on continuity before capes. Spider-Man wasn’t born of Krypton, but Queens: your average boy next door. The Fantastic Four were fantastic, yes, but a family first. Before getting his act together, Tony Stark, Iron Man, drank more than my dad on a Monday. They’re human.

It’s that touch that has drawn readers (and conglomerates) to their pages for 70 years. Man before Super, Woman before Wonder.

In 1963, the X-Men blasted, flew, bounced and ice-slid into the comics world as character first – but also social commentary.

Before this, superheroes were always different – “special” – but with few exceptions, praised for it. Any minority could enjoy them next to the majority, perhaps identifying with their differences: but what about their acceptance? Could they identify with that?

Spider-Man was often looked down upon by the city he protected, but his powers were the result of circumstance. Bruce Wayne was feared for his differences – but he had elected to become Batman. (Not to mention that, by day, he was a millionaire. Tough life.)

But the X-Men – that was it. That was the key. It wasn’t choice that made them who they’d become. It wasn’t circumstance that had made them different.

It was birth. Read the rest of this entry »

A traveling exhibition organized by Chattanooga’s Hunter Museum of American Art, I Heard A Voice: The Art of Lesley Dill brings nearly 30 of the acclaimed contemporary artist’s works — with an emphasis on sculptural installations — to St. Petersburg. Poetic and psychologically charged, Dill’s constructions often combine fabric and figures (or dress forms) with text to spellbinding effect; works featured in I Heard A Voice respond to poetry by Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu and Franz Kafka. Expect to be moved by the artist’s ideas and awed by her craft. Oct. 10-Dec. 27, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, 727-896-2667, fine-arts.org.

Pictured right: Dill’s Breathing Leaves (2004). Ink, thread, glue on tea-stained fabric. Courtesy of the Artist and Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, Canada

More of Lesley Dill’s artwork after the break. Read the rest of this entry »