text:
David McNeil fondly remembers the day in the early 1960s his father took him to a little bistro on Paris' Île St. Louis, the kind of place where they scrawl the menu in white letters on the mirror behind the bar, and masons, house painters, plumbers and other workingmen down hearty lunches along with vin ordinaire. Wearing a beret, a battered jacket and a coarse, checkered shirt, his father— then in his mid-70s—fit in perfectly. With conversation flowing easily among the close-set tables, one of the patrons looked over at the muscular, paint-splotched hands of the man in the beret. "Working on a place around here?" he asked companionably. "Yeah," replied McNeil's father, the artist Marc Chagall, as he tucked into his appetizer of hard-boiled egg and mayonnaise. "I'm redoing a ceiling over at the Opéra."
From This Story
Chagall, the Russian-born painter who went against the current of 20th-century art with his fanciful images of blue cows, flying lovers, biblical prophets and green-faced fiddlers on roofs, had a firm idea of who he was and what he wanted to accomplish. But when it came to guarding his privacy, he was a master of deflection. Sometimes when people approached to ask if he was that famous painter Marc Chagall, he would answer, "No," or more absurdly, "I don't think so," or point to someone else and say slyly, "Maybe that's him." With his slanting, pale-blue eyes, his unruly hair and the mobile face of a mischievous faun, Chagall gave one biographer the impression that he was "always slightly hallucinating." One of those who knew him best, Virginia Haggard McNeil, David's mother and Chagall's companion for seven years, characterized him as "full of contradictions—generous and guarded, naïve and shrewd, explosive and secret, humorous and sad, vulnerable and strong."
Chagall himself said he was a dreamer who never woke up. "Some art historians have sought to decrypt his symbols," says Jean-Michel Foray, director of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message Museum in Nice, "but there's no consensus on what they mean. We cannot interpret them because they are simply part of his world, like figures from a dream." Pablo Picasso, his sometime friend and rival ("What a genius, that Picasso," Chagall once joked. "It's a pity he doesn't paint"), marveled at the Russian's feeling for light and the originality of his imagery. "I don't know where he gets those images. . . . " said Picasso. "He must have an angel in his head."
Throughout his 75-year career, during which he produced an astounding 10,000 works, Chagall continued to incorporate figurative and narrative elements (however enigmatic) into his paintings. His warm, human pictorial universe, full of personal metaphor, set him apart from much of 20th-century art, with its intellectual deconstruction of objects and arid abstraction. As a result, the public has generally loved his work, while the critics were often dismissive, complaining of sentimentality, repetition and the use of stock figures.
A major retrospective of Chagall's unique, often puzzling images was recently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, following a highly acclaimed run at the Grand Palais in Paris. The first comprehensive exhibition of Chagall's paintings since 1985 brought together more than 150 works from all periods of his career, many never before seen in the United States, including cloth-and-paper collages from the private collection of his granddaughter Meret Meyer Graber. The exhibition, says Foray, the chief organizer of the show, "offered a fresh opportunity to appreciate Chagall as the painter who restored to art the elements that modern artists rejected, such as allegory and narrative—art as a comment on life. Today he is coming back strong after a period of neglect, even in his home country." Retrospectives are planned for 2005 at the Museum of Russian Art in St. Petersburg and at the State Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow.
Movcha (Moses) Chagal was, as he put it, "born dead" on July 7, 1887, in the Belorussian town of Vitebsk, near the Polish border. His distraught family pricked the limp body of their firstborn with needles to try to stimulate a response. Desperate, they then took the infant outside and put him in a stone trough of cold water. Suddenly the baby boy began to whimper. With that rude introduction to life, it's no wonder that Marc Chagall, as he later chose to be known in Paris, stuttered as a boy and was subject to fainting. "I was scared of growing up," he told Virginia McNeil. "Even in my twenties I preferred dreaming about love and painting it in my pictures."
Chagall's talent for drawing hardly cheered his poor and numerous family, which he, as the eldest of nine children, was expected to help support. His father, Khatskel-Mordechai Chagal, worked in a herring warehouse; his mother, Feiga- Ita Chernina, ran a small grocery store. Both nominally adhered to Hasidic Jewish religious beliefs, which forbade graphic representation of anything created by God. Thus Chagall grew up in a home devoid of images. Still, he pestered his mother until she took him to an art school run by a local portraitist. Chagall, in his late teens, was the only student who used the vivid color violet.Apious uncle refused to shake his hand after he began painting figures.
For all his subsequent pictorial reminiscing about Vitebsk, Chagall found it stifling and provincial—"a strange town, an unhappy town, a boring town," he called it in his memoirs. In 1906, at age 19, he wangled a small sum of money from his father and left for St. Petersburg, where he enrolled in the drawing school of the Imperial Society for the Protection of Fine Arts. But he hated classical art training. "I, poor country lad, was obliged to acquaint myself thoroughly with the wretched nostrils of Alexander of Macedonia or some other plaster imbecile," he recalled. The meager money soon ran out, and although he made a few kopecks retouching photographs and painting signs, he sometimes collapsed from hunger. His world broadened in 1909 when he signed up for an art class in St. Petersburg taught by Leon Bakst, who, having been to Paris, carried an aura of sophistication. Bakst indulged Chagall's expressive, unconventional approach to painting and dropped names, exotic to the young man's ears, such as Manet, Cézanne and Matisse. He spoke of painting cubes and squares, of an artist who cut off his ear.
"Paris!" Chagall wrote in his autobiography. "No word sounded sweeter to me!" By 1911, at age 24, he was there, thanks to a stipend of 40 rubles a month from a supportive member of the Duma, Russia's elective assembly, who had taken a liking to the young artist. When he arrived, he went directly to the Louvre to look at the famous works of art there. In time he found a room at an artists' commune in a circular, three-story building near Montparnasse called La Ruche (The Beehive). He lived frugally. Often he'd cut a herring in half, the head for one day, the tail for the next. Friends who came to his door had to wait while he put on his clothes; he painted in the nude to avoid staining his only outfit. At La Ruche, Chagall rubbed shoulders with painters like Fernand Léger, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Robert Delaunay. True to his nature as a storyteller, however, he seemed to have more in common with such writers as French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who described Chagall's work as "supernatural." Another friend, Blaise Cendrars, a restless, knockabout writer, penned a short poem about Chagall: "Suddenly he paints / He grabs a church and paints with a church / He grabs a cow and paints with a cow."
Many consider Chagall's work during his four-year stay in Paris his most boldly creative. Reconnoitering the then-prevalent trends of Cubism and Fauvism, he absorbed aspects of each into his own work. There was his Cubist-influenced Temptation (Adam and Eve); the disconcerting Introduction, with a seven-fingered man holding his head under his arm; and the parti-colored Acrobat, showing Chagall's fondness for circus scenes. At La Ruche he also painted his explosive Dedicated to My Fiancée, which he tossed off in a single night's feverish work and later submitted to a major Paris exhibition. It took some artful persuasion on his part to convince the show's organizers that the topsy-turvy mix of hands, legs and a leering bull's head was not, as they contended, pornographic.


text:
Current Program Partnerships:
Past, Present and Pending Corporate Clients
NIU Credentialing Program Honors and Recognitions (FY08-Present)
Marketplace Value of Certification:
NIU Benefits:
© 2017 Board of Trustees of Northern Illinois University.
All rights reserved. Web Site Privacy Policy
DeKalb, Illinois 60115 | Regional Sites | Contact Us
Emergency Information | Employment | Maps | Accessibility

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, Sandia National labs recognize New Mexico small businesses for innovation
- Nancy Ambrosiano
- Communications Office
- (505) 667-0471
LOS ALAMOS, N. M., April 3, 2013—Ten New Mexico small businesses participating in projects using the technical expertise and assistance of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories will be recognized at the 12th annual Innovation Celebration Thursday, April 4, at Technology Venture Corporation's Deal Stream Summit being held at the Tamaya Resort in Bernalillo, NM.
The New Mexico Small Business Assistance (NMSBA) program was created in 2000 by the New Mexico State Legislature to bring national laboratory technology and expertise to small businesses in New Mexico and promote economic development with an emphasis on rural areas. The program, which started at Sandia, was joined by Los Alamos in 2007. In 2012, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories through NMSBA assisted 347 small businesses in 27 counties across the state.
The businesses and individuals to be recognized are as follows:
- Members of the Coalition of Renewable Energy Landowner Associations (CRELA) in eastern New Mexico, which asked NMSBA for help exploring the renewable energy potential of their land. Loren Toole of LANL and Craig White of UNM offered a five-course class through NMSBA covering wind-data evaluation, wind-turbine siting, power sales markets and pricing, and other factors affecting wind-energy development.
- As a registered respiratory therapist and president of Inspyrd Products Corp., Stephen Lueckenhoff invented the Tube-B-Gone, a device that retrieves up to 50 feet of oxygen tubing and eliminates tripping hazards. Electromechanical design engineers Ernie García and Ken Pohl of Sandia addressed tangling problems, implemented a low-voltage DC motor and radio-frequency controller, and improved the unit's design.
- MuleShoe Engineering designed a device that can separate natural gas from the water pumped out of natural gas wells. Marion Vance of Los Alamos analyzed MuleShoe's device through various simulations that provided insight into the physics of how the device works.
- Kids Hardware Kompany owner Tina Bagon discovered that the fastener for her shoehorn for children could be removed, causing a choking hazard. She was matched with Sandia design engineer Trish Selcher, who led a small team in investigating design options and prototypes and used 3D printing to provide a visual representation of the final design.
- Chantal Lau of PediBioMetrix, LLC, is developing devices/interventions to help solve feeding difficulties of premature infants. She worked with LANL engineers Jim Watts and Larry Bronisz on low-cost, high-reliability sensors to document these infants' sucking, swallowing, and breathing events.
- Foreign material in clay was preventing printing and interrupting the workshops taught by Carrie Quade, Squlptures' president and artist, who had developed a unique method of using pigmented clay to produce monoprints. Sandia's Materials Characterization and Performance Department scientist, Amy Allen identified the problematic material as a surfactant and recommended procedures to allow for uninterrupted printing that will allow Quade's business to resume.
- Phil Kithil of Atmocean and Phil Fullam of Reytek developed a wave-driven pump system that converts wave power into electricity. Sandia's Rick Givler, a specialist in modeling physical systems, helped the companies assess the feasibility of their offshore arrays of wave-driven pistons. This NMSBA project received the Honorable Speaker Ben Lujan Business Excellence Award for having the greatest business development growth resulting from the technical assistance.
Since its inception, the NMSBA Program has provided 2,036 New Mexico small businesses with more than $34 million in technical assistance. The program helped create and retain nearly 2,875 jobs at a mean salary of $38,650. Through the assistance of the NMSBA Program, these companies also saw their revenue increased by more than $145 million, while their operating costs decreased by $72.6 million. These companies in turn invested $43 million in other New Mexico goods and services and received $52 million in new funding and financing.
Learn more about the New Mexico Small Business Assistance Program online.
About Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWXT Government Group, and URS, an AECOM company, for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.


text:
I always ask my clients their age. I don't mean to make them feel bad about how old they are. But someone that's 55 is at a different stage in their career and life than someone that's 25 or 45. As a career counselor, I know that a 25 year old client presents dissimilar issues than someone who may be close to retiring and asking themselves the question, "What's next?" One of the pioneers in the field of career development, Dr. Donald Super argued that people pass through five career stages during their life span. I write about this because these sequential generalizations often provide a useful timeframe to understand the career transitions you'll face in adulthood.
Within each stage mastery of certain tasks allows people to function successfully within that stage while preparing them to move on to the next task. Each stage is loosely affiliated with a chronological period and is characterized by work attitudes, behaviors, types of relationships, and the aspects of work that are valued.
1. Growth - The early years (4 to 13 years old) is a time when the individual first becomes aware of the future. People start to find ways to develop competencies and to achieve in order to increase control over their life.
2. Exploration - From the early teens to mid-twenties, people begin to crystallize, specify and implement an occupational choice. Different roles are tried and various occupational options are explored though school, leisure, part-time work and volunteering. "Trial jobs" may be tested before more firmly finding a more stable and appropriate fit.
3. Establishment - In the mid-twenties through mid-forties, typically a suitable field is selected and efforts are made to secure a long-term place in the chosen career. Young adulthood tends to be a time for stabilizing, consolidating, building momentum and moving up. Obtaining certifications, credentials, and advanced degrees may be the norm.
4. Maintenance - This stage usually happens in the mid-forties to mid-sixties and is characterized by constancy: 1) Holding on (stagnating or plateauing), or 2) Keeping up (updating or enriching). Continuity, stress, safety and stability tend to be the standard. Sometimes people feel risk adverse with various career options which may lead to frustration or even depression. In middle adulthood we may ask ourselves, "What have I done with my life? or Is this all there is? or even What do I truly want?" For men, state of health or career accomplishment may predominate. Women sometimes perceive this period as an opportunity to pursue new personal or professional goals now that their nurturing role has peaked.
5. Disengagement - The mid-sixties is typically marked by decelerating from formal employment to finding new roles with a view to retirement. Baby Boomers are teaching us that this stage should be more appropriately named "Re-inventment." They are completely redesigning the notion of "retirement" preferring to work in some form while pursuing new or renewed outside interests. In later adulthood, there may be a need to assist or mentor younger members of society or seek self-employment.
However, it has limitation due to the rapidly changing nature of work and each person's own circumstances. Not everyone transitions through these five stages at fixed ages or in the same manner. I have learned in my private practice it is more common nowadays to move back and forth more frequently from the Exploration to Re-inventment stages.
For example, before entering the Maintenance stage, many people are asking the mid-life question, "Do I want to do this job for the next twenty years?" Eventually, they decide to either: 1) Hang on and enter the Maintenance stage, or 2) Let go and change their job, company, or career and then recycle back to an earlier stage in order to move in a new direction. For others, their career is without boundaries based on skills and abilities that function independent of a set timeline.
Your self-image evolves throughout your life as a result of experience. You successively refine your uniqueness over time and make adaptation in your career choices. As we go through life stages our priorities change. Career ideas that you had at 25 might not be relevant when you are 45 or 55.
So, what career stage do you actually find yourself in chronological terms? What specific stage do you think you need to be in? Perhaps this is the time to step back and reflect on where you are. Maybe you need to return to the Exploration stage and re-evaluate your skills, values, interests, personality traits and core priorities. At your stage, perhaps you what to find out what else is out there and you want to begin a process of career discovery. What are the financial and time considerations of the choices you are making at your stage? What types of planning and preparation needs to be done at each stage both personally and professionally? Can you list three to five specific issues that you need to address right now? What are some issues you'll face as you pass through future stages?
These are all important questions that you will need to get clarity on in order to have successful and satisfying career development. Just knowing that as we age, we will be progressing through career stages, can be insightful, freeing and can have a profound effect on our professional development. Remember: It's never too late to reinvent yourself!
Copyright 2012, Dr. Thomas J. Denham, Careers In Transition LLC - Published Friday, February 17, 2012


text:
Speaking at a town hall meeting at Eurasian University in Astana, Kazakhstan on November 30, Secretary Clinton said:
"...My very first stop was to come and meet with you, because strong democracies, thriving economies, and stable societies cannot be built by governments alone. There must be a partnership between governments and vibrant institutions and free societies that work together to solve the problems that we face in the 21st century.
"Thirty-five years ago, when the leaders of North America, Europe, and the Soviet Union came together to sign the Helsinki Final Act, they committed themselves to a core set of human values, including the fundamental freedoms of expression, association, peaceful assembly, thought, and religion. These values are as fresh and relevant today as they were 35 years ago, and they are absolutely critical to the building of sustainable societies and nations that are committed to creating a better set of opportunities for all of their citizens.
"...There are so many people who have worked hand in hand to advance democracy and human rights. And I particularly was pleased to see some of the women who are on the front lines of change in Kazakhstan, some of whom I met in 1997, some of whom I have seen in other settings, but all of whom I greatly respect.
"But I also want to commend the Government of Kazakhstan, because this government has made more progress than any other in the region and has committed itself to continuing that progress. Civil society groups help hold governments accountable, but governments have to be responsive. So I'd like to thank Adil Soz, the International Foundation for Protection of Freedom of Speech, for its vital role as a media watchdog, because the OSCE commitments include the right of all citizens to know and act upon their rights. And it takes both brave journalists and independent local monitors to fight violations of press freedom.
"...I do think it's important to just take a step back for perspective. We have come a very long way in just 35 years. When you get to be my age, 35 years seems like a very short time. In 1975, the international community embraced a revolutionary idea, that security among states was directly connected to the way that their citizens were treated within states. And in the decades since, we have seen time and again that countries need more than military and economic security if they are to achieve stability, prosperity, and progress. They need vibrant civil society.
"President Obama and I understand this. I started my career at a nongovernmental organization called the Children's Defense Fund. He began his as a community organizer in Chicago. We live in a country where civil society movements have been the engine of major social advance. Change is not easy anywhere. It wasn't easy in the history of the United States and it is not easy anywhere else in the world. It takes persistence and it takes a commitment by people, sometimes generation after generation. We found that in the struggle to abolish slavery, to establish civil rights, to empower women, to protect our environment. And we have watched civil society write history, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the end of apartheid in South Africa, to the spread of democracy. Thirty-five years ago when the Helsinki commitments were made, very few people predicted the end of the Soviet Union. And yet 15 years later, it was no longer.
"So think about the work you are doing in the urgency of the moment, but also with the perspective of what it takes to create change. We now have so many organizations ready, willing, and able to help you -- foundations, universities, other nongovernmental organizations. We now can communicate to understand what is happening in countries and societies far from our own. We can become global problem solvers. And that is what I hope we will determine to do going forward, and that we will bring governments into partnerships.
"One of your neighboring countries, Kyrgyzstan, has just undergone a dramatic change, culminating in a free parliamentary election. Now, the road ahead is hard, and I will be going there on Thursday to meet with the president and the people that are working with her, but that is a courageous moment that now must be built upon.
"No country can be fully free unless human rights defenders are given their rights. That means right to counsel and trials. It means journalists who can bring their attackers to justice and prevent impunity. It means pollsters who can ask questions about public attitudes. It means that civil society groups are not harassed by the tax police, or that the rule of law is protected and respected even when everyone disagrees with a position that is taken by an activist.
"I really believe that we are at a particularly important moment in history. The 20th century ended totalitarianism, two bloody world wars, a cold war, and now in the 21st century we have to make good on the sacrifice of all those who came before us. And this is not just for activists, but for government leaders as well. Because if you want your country to grow, if you want your people to prosper, if you want all of your citizens to fulfill their own God-given potential, then governments must respect human rights.
"My country will continue to advocate for democratic government, civil society, free markets, and we will continue to do so in part by supporting education and exchange programs that empower civil society groups. And I hope at tomorrow's summit we will reconfirm our commitment to a community of freedom, security, and prosperity, stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
"Each government will finally be judged by how it lives up to the promises that it makes. Constitutions can be written with all kinds of promises, but they're not more than paper if those promises are not implemented. Laws can be passed promising all kinds of protections, but they really are not worth much unless they are enforced.
"So governments hold so much of the future in their hands, but they are not the most powerful determinant. That is the people themselves, and particularly the organizations that bring people together in civil society."
You can read the full transcript here.


text:
City Woman Dies In Fourth Of July Thruway Accident
HAMBURG – A city woman died following a Thursday evening accident on the New York State Thruway.
State Police say a 2003 Chevrolet Blazer being driven by Kimberly Malone of Jamestown was traveling westbound on I-90 near Exit 57 at 5:50 p.m. when it drifted onto the left shoulder and struck a delineator. Malone overcorrected and lost control of the vehicle causing it to skid off the highway and overturn, landing on its roof in the center median.
Debbie Smith, a front-seat passenger, also of Jamestown, was ejected from the vehicle and received treatment for a broken leg and pelvis at the scene. Malone sustained an arm injury.
Both Malone and Smith were taken to Erie County Medical Center with what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries.
Upon further examination, it was determined that Smith had sustained severe internal injuries and she passed away later that evening.
No charges have been filed at this time.


text:
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Northrop Grumman Repair Facility Earns EASA Certification
EASA granted Part 145 certification to Northrop Grumman's aircraft systems repair station in Rolling Meadows, Ill. The certification allows the station to operate on aircraft registered in Europe.
"We understand the importance of keeping critical systems in top condition and doing so affordably," said Carl Smith, vice president of infrared countermeasures for Northrop Grumman's Land and Self Protection Systems division. "This EASA Part 145 certification will allow us to extend our award-winning service to customers who operate aircraft registered in Europe."
The station also has a Part 145 certification from FAA. More


text:
Support was lacking
To the Journal editor:
Where were your two U.S. senators during Rand Paul's marathon speech to bring notice to the current administrations view of using drones on U.S. citizens in the United States of America?
I did not see them stand with our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I did not hear them voice their concern or opinion.
If you have not read the letter in question, from Eric Holder to Rand Paul, I pray/hope you take the time to read one page.
Eric Miljour


text:
After all of her professional success in the second half of 2012, Katie Holmes was probably overdue for a lull in that department.
Her Broadway play Dead Accounts premiered to mixed reviews last November and is now closing seven weeks ahead of schedule. The final show will be on January 6, well before the planned end date of February 24, according to E! Online.
Find out what Katie has in store for next year after the jump!