freek show

He was born with three legs, two sets of genitals and one rudimentary foot growing from the knee of his third leg. So, in total, he had three legs, four feet, sixteen toes, and two sets of functioning male genitals, which were all that existed of a conjoined twin and jutted from the right side of his body. The doctors determined that since his twin was connected to his spine, removal could have resulted in paralysis. When his parents refused to acknowledge him, his aunt raised him but eventually handed him over to a home for disabled children. As a child Lentini had hated his extra body parts until he spent time at the home. There, he met children who were deaf, blind, and mute.
At the age of nine, Lentini moved to the U.S. and entered the sideshow business as The Great Lentini, joining the Ringling Brothers circus act. Later he toured with Barnum and Bailey and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. He gained US citizenship at the age of 30.
In his youth, Lentini used his extraordinary third leg to kick a soccer ball across the stage, hence his show name, the Three-Legged Football Player. While his extra leg was several inches shorter than the others, his primary legs were also two different lengths. He was heard to complain that even with three legs, he still didn't have a pair.

In living Color

Nadine Nakanishi

 

Nadine Nakanishi : Profile from mas / menos on Vimeo.

needle and threads

For his graduation project from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, Siggi Eggertsson designed a quilt based upon his childhood memories (obviously a Michael Jordan fan). It’s 2 x 2.5 metres and made from 10,000 pieces. The quilter, Johanna Viborg took 250 hours over six weeks to complete it.

link provided by: 30gm

Ray Materson

Ray Materson began making his intricate needlework pictures, which measure about 3 by 2 inches each, from unraveled socks. He was in prison at the time, serving a 25-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery after becoming an alcoholic and drug addict. His unlikely life story of redemption through art is aptly, if punningly, told in Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending, written by Materson and his wife Melanie. www.raymaterson.com
 

 The Prisoner
1991

House on York Road
1994

 

Everything is Extraordinary

This year has been creatively fruitful and recently I have realized that 'happiness' is found through work. Not because of the final outcome but because of the process which in turn gives me a sense of purpose. I have been working on a film project that has slowly been evolving. The following imagery are just bits and pieces of stories and inspirational artifacts Ive been researching of people who live such lives, specifically in the baron desert landscapes of the western united states.

Salvation Mountain: Leonard Knight

William Pester: The Palm Springs Hermit

Pester had a cabin  in Palm Canyon and another next to a hot spring in Chino Canyon, where he lived during the summer months. He was the first "nature boy," putting on clothes, often a monk's robe, when curious canyon visitors came into view. He earned a living making canes from palm blossom stalks, fashioning Indian arrowheads, and selling postcards with a message urging proper diet and healthful living. Though he spent many hours roaming the canyons, he had an equal passion for reading. Years later a large library was discovered in his deserted cabin. In the 1920s, Pester moved from Palm Canyon but returned every weekend with his telescope, charging ten cents to look at the moon or at Lincoln's profile on the distant canyon wall.

Bill Pester at this palm log cabin in Palm Canyon, California, 1917. With his "lebensreform" philosophy, nudism and raw foods diet, he was one of the many German immigrants, who "invented" the hippie lifestyle more than half a century before the 1960s. He left Germany to avoid military service in 1906 at age 19, for a new life in America. (Photo Courtesy of Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California)

"Rudolph Valentino, while working on a French Foreign Legion movie in the desert about 1920, is entertained by Peter Pester, the hermit of Palm Springs."

head wounds

burlesque of north america

In love