Since the 1800s, people have reported experiencing loved ones’ deaths almost psychically, feeling that they, too, were moving into the beyond.

This phenomenon, which has gained anecdotal support from people around the world regardless of background or religious belief, is often referred to as a “shared-death experience” or “empathic death experience.”

Empathic death experiences don’t always look or feel the same, though similarities between individuals’ accounts help sketch a vague outline of events. The light at the end of the tunnel, for example ― now a hackneyed image associated with the sensation of dying ― originated from the testimonies of people who had undergone near-death or shared-death experiences. 

Brooklyn-based artist Caledonia Curry, better known as Swoon, was not familiar with reports of shared-death experiences. That is, until she lived one. 

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the artist described an almost paranormal experience. Her mother, she said, had been sick for months, and Swoon had spent a great deal of time at her bedside caring for her. One evening in 2013, Swoon claims she heard her mother’s voice, felt her very presence, even though they weren’t in the same state. 

“I was having really intense dreams about her the whole morning,” Swoon explained. “I kept waking up and falling back asleep. At one point, I thought I was awake and looked out the window. I saw a bunch of snow falling and I thought, ‘Wow, snow in June. That can’t be good.’”

From there, the experience only grew more surreal. “I opened the window, and the snow started to come through my body, transforming into points of light that bloomed into these intricate snow blossoms. I heard my mom’s voice talking to me, and I was filled with a very profound sense of wellbeing and love. I woke up weeping, my face covered in tears. I thought, I think that was my mom dying. My sister called a few hours later.”

Swoon had experienced dreams before that she says could be described as prescient. Mostly, however, they were “subtle, little events” ― parallels that might raise an eyebrow but could be shrugged off with the morning’s coffee. This experience was something more powerful and impossible to shake. 

Even after the evening of her mother’s passing, the sensation lingered. “I had this feeling of a little buoy inside me. I felt held. I couldn’t grieve as much as I expected because I had all this love and light inside me. It makes you question your sanity.” 

The intensity of that feeling ― almost as if she were possessed ― compelled Swoon to do some research. “You don’t want to feel crazy,” she said. It wasn’t long before she discovered that her abnormal experience wasn’t actually all that abnormal. “It’s not a common phenomenon, but it does happen,” she added. “Sometimes, when someone very close to you dies ― a family member or friend ― you will share part of their dying experience.” 

Stories like Swoon’s are sprinkled across the internet, from Reddit sub-pages like r/empathic to articles on Salon and CNN to websites like PeacefulSoulTransition.com and SharedCrossing.com.

In 2012, psychiatrist Raymond Moody compiled some of the most common impressions of those who claimed to have felt a loved one’s passing. Their stories involve rooms changing shape, dying people communicating telepathically, bystanders leaving their bodies and witnessing another dimension, becoming engulfed by a bright light that feels like love, and visions of accompanying a dying person through a tunnel towards a great light where they often pass by deceased loved ones.

“The core elements of my experience were described by others,” Swoon said. “As a visual artist, to have people telling these stories, describing this stuff that is so beautiful ― the light and tunnels and meadows and magical places ― I couldn’t resist.”

This week, Swoon’s most recent exhibition, “The Light After,” went on view at Detroit’s sprawling 2,500-square-foot Library Street Collective gallery. It invites viewers to share the otherworldly experience of inhabiting the space between life and death. 

“The stories, they were just so beautiful,” Swoon said, describing the various accounts of empathic death experience she encountered during her research. “I would hear people describing these things and just started writing down what kept coming up.”

The site-specific installation, inspired by Swoon’s vision of snow blossoms, features hundreds of hand-cut paper and Mylar flowers, draped from floor to ceiling so the space resembles a snow-capped forest canopy in a lived fairy tale. Swoon operates in her usual aesthetic, where mythology meets the streets, though her usual activist ideology is replaced by a more spiritual verve.

Viewers are swallowed whole in the immersive environment ― formerly a vacuum factory ― which takes the shape of a dark vortex that leads into an open meadow, mirroring the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.” As individuals walk through the tunnel, they are greeted by Swoon’s signature paper cutouts, renderings of people representing the loved ones there to welcome the deceased into the beyond. 

Swoon hopes that the exhibition, which visualizes the experience of dying as one bursting with light and love, will change the way people think about death, or at least open their minds to visions beyond the norm. “As a culture, I think, we’re pretty death phobic,” she said. “When people do talk about death it’s always quite morbid. Even museums about death often revolve around oddities and the grotesque. I wanted to examine death from a totally different perspective.”

“I’m not talking about an afterlife, but the experience of dying,” she concluded. “It feels like, from the people who have experienced it, something beautiful, not something to fear.” 

Swoon’s “The Light After” will be on view at the Library Street Collective (1260 Library Street in downtown Detroit) through Saturday, Nov. 26.

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A group of University of Pennsylvania students launched a feminist art protest against GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Tuesday.

The students hope the protest, titled “YOUR BODY, YOUR BALLOT,” will encourage voter registration. They indicated that there would be people with voter registration forms onsite at the protest. 

It will “make a statement that the students of Trump’s alma mater reject his candidacy for president on the basis of his hateful behavior, speech, and actions,”  organizer Amanda Silberling told The Huffington Post. 

Silberling said the students aim to “show support and solidarity with women, people of color, disabled people, immigrants, and other groups of people who are represented on Penn’s campus, but are not represented by Trump’s campaign for President.”

The protest was happening in light of Trump’s grossly inappropriate behavior toward women and because it’s the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania.

The reaction from other students has been mostly positive so far, Silberling said.

Several students stopped to take photos of the works.

Another student protester, senior Rhea Singh, did not hold back in her feelings on the brash businessman.

“Supporting a Donald Trump presidency is a personal attack on the bodies of women,” Singh said. “This movement is harnessing power through collective protest and flipping the script on a candidate who ― quite literally ― silences women.”

The protest was taking place on the College Green at UPenn until 5pm on Tuesday.

Other events planned included people handing out stickers with original artwork, along with printed flyers of the protests’ artist statement.

“Essentially, we are taking over Penn’s campus with feminist artwork that encourages voter registration and pride in all types of bodies,” Silberling told HuffPost.

“We have about 20 students involved who have been working tirelessly all day Sunday, Monday, and into Tuesday to make this work. We want to make a difference and stand up for the safety and respect of all people. We believe in the power of public art.” 

The artistic statement for the protest can be read in full here:

This protest comes just one month after another We Are Watching protest, also run by Silberling on UPenn’s campus, in response to a sexually suggestive email that was reportedly sent to several female freshmen students at UPenn.

"While this protest is denouncing Trump, we also want this to be a platform for those who Trump has maligned to feel supported," Silberling said.

"We want to empower the voices of the people who Trump silences, and we want to show that many students at Penn, Trump’s alma mater, do not support his hateful behavior and rhetoric.”

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Shirley Jackson’s classic dystopian short story “The Lottery” ― often assigned in English classes, invoked when current events take a dark turn, and omnipresent in paeans to great short fiction ― holds a special place in the hearts of many readers. None more so, as it happens, than Miles Hyman, an illustrator and graphic novelist who also happens to be Jackson’s grandson. 

In a brand-new graphic adaptation of “The Lottery,” Hyman translates his grandmother’s famously spare, unyielding prose into an implacably ominous visual journey through one day in a small town with a dark secret.

The unbearable suspense of the original short story derives from Jackson’s slow, detailed unspooling of the day’s events, all building toward the yearly lottery, juxtaposed with her coyness about what the lottery is or means ― even as unmistakable tension mounts amongst the townspeople. In his graphic adaptation ― which Hyman spent decades mulling over before attempting ― it’s a progression of scenes drawn from the book that lay the eerie groundwork. Without including much of the original text, or giving the whole game away, he depicts an ordinary little town that seems just slightly off-kilter, up until it becomes clear just how twisted the situation is. 

In an email conversation, Hyman opened up to HuffPost about his approach to adapting “The Lottery,” his grandmother’s influence, and why the story remains so resonant. We’ve also excerpted several pages from the graphic adaptation to give just a glimpse into the creepy world Jackson created, and her grandson has reimagined:

What made you realize that you could adapt “The Lottery” as a graphic novel, despite being hesitant to do so in the past?

It took me awhile because I knew it would be an important book for me and, in short, I really wanted to get it right. On one hand “The Lottery” is considered a masterpiece of short fiction and is widely read, a respected part of our American literary heritage. On the other it has tremendous importance ― like all of my grandmother’s writing ― to members of my family. (You wouldn’t exactly call it a “family heirloom,” but you see what I mean.)

So I was careful to set things in motion only when I felt that the graphic novel could really do something original and innovative with the story ― invite a new reading of this classic tale that has riveted but also inspired so many readers for generations. The folks at Farrar, Straus & Giroux (Hill and Wang) were excited about a graphic adaptation of the “The Lottery,” and their enthusiasm was a definite “plus” since I had worked with them in the past and knew the high quality of the books they produce. Their support was absolutely essential.

Part of what took a while to work out was what form the adaptation should take. I had felt for years that a more traditionally illustrated version would be an effective way to adapt the story, but something about that direction felt too static.

Then came the chance for me to work on a series of graphic novel adaptations, working with great texts such as Jim Thompson’s “Savage Night” and especially James Ellroy’s “The Black Dahlia.” I realized that this approach ― a graphic novelization ― would be an exciting direction for “The Lottery,” a format that would best allow me to convey the electric tension of the original story in a new way. My feeling was that if the adapted story was to develop the same seamless crescendo of intensity that the original does, it would be important to make the reader feel like they were right there in the crowd ― as if they were participating in the ritual themselves. A graphic novelization allows for that degree of proximity that illustration sometimes doesn’t.

What approach did you take to make use of the visual element to provide new insight to the story?

“The Lottery” is one of the most carefully constructed stories I’ve ever come across, so I knew that my drawings had to carefully respect the basic mechanics of the original text while rebuilding it as a graphic tale. This was no small task. In the original story much of the information shared with the reader about the ritual practice of the lottery itself is communicated with the help an omniscient narrator. However with graphic fiction you generally want to avoid over-using blocks of narrative text if at all possible. Action and dialogue tend to be much more effective storytelling tools when adapting a text in graphic form.  

So I made the decision to “tease out” the opening scenes of the graphic novel with a series of nearly text-less sequences, based on small snippets of the original story. It’s in these scenes that we get the bulk of our key information ― the essential visual landmarks that are going to help us navigate the action going forward.  

For instance, the opening scene of the graphic novel introduces us to Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, who meet in the dead of night to prepare the ceremony in the store-room of Mr. Summers’ coal store. This new scene is actually inspired by a simple sentence of the original story that struck me as having a potentially strong visual impact, but which also lays the groundwork for what’s to come by allowing the reader of the graphic novel “sit in” on this late-night encounter, in a sense.  

As a result we have important visual elements in mind from the get-go: We meet two of the key characters and see them preparing the black box that has been sitting on a dusty storeroom shelf for the last 364 days. We’re able to observe the folding of these curious pieces of paper that are going to be so important moving forward. And above all, we watch the men marking one of those pieces of paper with a mysterious black dot. The theatrical principle known as “Chekhov’s Gun” comes to mind. We’re left with a gut feeling that this strange marked paper, visible for an instant and then hidden away in the black box in the first scene of the graphic adaptation, will inevitably have some sinister impact on the story as events unfold. And, of course, it does.

Beyond developing a familiar setting for the decor and characters in the earliest passages of the graphic novel, the main challenge in adapting “The Lottery” revolved around creating the right choreography for the lengthly, increasingly vivid exchange between the various villagers as the ritual draws to its terrifying conclusion. That’s where my fondness for unusual angles, composition and lighting came into play!

I have to admit that I very much enjoyed making that scene work as a graphic experience for the reader. As a “spectator,” we’re constantly moving in and out of the crowd, alternating close-ups on facial expressions with wide-angle views of the village and its inhabitants grouped together in the square, as if we were simultaneously a participant in the event and a neutral observer. Working with this part of the story was a challenge but also great fun to do. It feels like the adaptation does something I’m particularly proud of. By creating “The Lottery” as a visual experience, we’re able to see aspects of the story from a new and sometimes unexpected point of view, giving the reader a new take on a story so many of us thought we knew by heart. 

How did you adapt your artistic style to fit the literary style of “The Lottery”?

When readers of The New Yorker discovered the story in June 1948, many of them believed they were not reading fiction at all but an eyewitness account of something Shirley Jackson had just experienced a few days earlier.  

In her essay “Biography of a Story,” my grandmother spoke about how surprised she was by the letters she received, asking for (and sometimes demanding) details about the ceremony. Many curious readers actually wanted to come watch the following year’s lottery in person! I think that the simple, meticulous quality of her writing explains part of the shock readers feel when they first experience the story, and I felt like the drawings ― while not hyper-realistic in style ― needed to be realistic enough that we might feel they were inspired by observed events.

So while I’ve sometimes used a more stylized sort of drawing in my previous graphic novels, in the case of my adaptation of “The Lottery” I was careful to stay as close as possible to a style of drawing that looks generally more realistic than other books of mine.

What influence, if any, has your grandmother’s work had on you as an artist? 

With time, I’ve come to notice quite a few parallels between my grandmother’s work and my own. I do all sorts of illustration, for a wide variety of publishers, but perhaps what I like best tends to be that intense interplay of light and shadows that has come to typify so much of my work. As a result, publishers tend to associate my work with certain genres ― detective novels, horror stories, etc. This being said, like Shirley Jackson’s work, there is also a contrasting lighter side to my work that is equally important ― children’s books, editorial pieces.

I admire my grandmother’s ability, even in her most terrifying novels, to include elements of dark comedy. I think we share a common taste for this paradoxical blending of humor and horror. Whether it’s an artistic influence or just a family trait is up for debate, but I certainly recognize a common artistic taste for these qualities that would generally seem mutually exclusive.

This graphic adaptation of “The Lottery” will be publishing less than a month before a very controversial presidential election in the U.S. Do you think the book has any useful lessons for voters or citizens today, in particular?

Hmm ... I wouldn’t want to draw any direct parallels between a short story written in 1948 and our current political environment. Any analogies would obviously be imperfect at best and the last thing I’d want to do would be to bend the story’s meaning to address current events. As my grandmother might have said, “The Lottery” is just a story.

This being said, the story in question has clear allegorical qualities that make its meaning timeless. Part of the tale’s impact comes from its ability to speak to something broader and deeper than the fictional events it describes. Those elements are what has made the story so unsettling to people over the years. I guess “The Lottery” speaks to something latent in all of us, whether or not we choose to face it. 

Jackson explores our proclivity to bow to rote tradition and ritual out of fear ― or, worse still, out of complacency, perpetuating conventions that are not only archaic but downright inhuman simply because we lack the courage to change them.

Something tells me my grandmother had many things on her mind when she wrote this dark tale in 1948: the country was still traumatized from an apocalyptic World War, coming to terms with the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust. Jim Crow-era legislation continued to segregate citizens based on the color of their skin, while “red scare” policies began persecuting some Americans based on their political convictions. Economic gains brought prosperity to much of the nation but fear, entrenched hatred and archaic conventions determined much of the rigid social and political boundaries that dominated our country during these conservative post-war years. It doesn’t sound like anything we’d want to go back to.

My grandmother always turned down her readers’ requests to explain the meaning of “The Lottery.” Evoking her refusal to do so in his introduction to the posthumous omnibus The Magic of Shirley Jackson my grandfather, literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, recalled her pride upon learning that the Apartheid-era Union of South Africa had banned “The Lottery.” According to my grandfather she allowed herself a rare enigmatic quip in reaction to the news: “At least they understand the story,” she said.

At work in my studio over the last year, listening to a steady stream of radio news as the graphic adaptation of “The Lottery” took shape on my drawing table, I couldn’t help but be struck by how pertinent this short story continues to be today, nearly 70 years after its original publication. Never in my lifetime have we seen a political environment so laced with those old toxic emotions: fear and hatred. Seen through the eyes of my grandmother’s classic tale, some of what has been said during this election cycle has, if anything, taken Old Mr. Warner’s irate rants to a whole new level of shrill demagoguery.

You could argue that “The Lottery” has only one hero: the reader. The story’s ultimate goal is perhaps to “shock us awake,” so that we might be moved to act differently the next time we’re confronted with stale ideas that perpetuate senseless cruelty, bigotry or injustice. If anything positive should come from the harrowing spectacle of watching our political discourse degenerate into reality TV, perhaps the current election cycle ― like the reading of my grandmother’s dystopic tale of horror ― might just shock us awake as a nation, encouraging us to move together beyond this dark and ugly place we seem to be in.

But, again: “The Lottery” is just a story.

This interview has been edited.

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In a study published this summer in the interdisciplinary arts and culture journal Poetics, researchers found that people with “bad” movie preferences tend to be, well, smart.

If you’re wondering how educated the study participants were, here’s the breakdown Sarkhosh gave HuffPost:

• 
  

  148 (43.3 percent) held a university degree

  
  


• 
  

  110 (32.2 percent) had a higher education entrance qualification

  
  


• 
  

   61 (17.8 percent) had a general certificate of secondary education

  
  


• 
  

   15 (4.4 percent) had only completed mandatory basic secondary schooling

  
  


• 
  

   4 (1.2 percent) had no educational diplomas  

  
  


• 
  

   4 (1.2 percent) reported having a degree which was not included in the list given.

  
  

The study deduced that 86 percent of the participants are regular trash film viewers, which Sarkhosh chalks up to “a sustained and deliberate hedonic habitude devoid of guilt feelings.”

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High school senior Anna Lehane made an intriguing outfit choice during a rally for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on October 10.

The 18-year-old wore a T-shirt with “Grab my pussy, I dare you ” emblazoned on it.

Lehane chose to create and wear the shirt ―and attend the rally in the first place ― following the release of a recording of the GOP nominee making disparaging comments about women, specifically that he would “grab [women] by the pussy.”

“I made the shirt as a protest to people in the public spotlight on such a global platform making such disrespectful, degrading and misogynistic comments and still being taken seriously,” Lehane told The Huffington Post.

Lehane said she received both positive and negative remarks about the T-shirt.

“Many people took pictures of my shirt without permission and there were some degrading comments made ― mostly by older white men it seemed,” she told HuffPost.  

Lehane said one person called her a “communist” while another older man told her that he “always likes a good dare.” 

Lehan thought the shirt “might cause a little stir” but told HuffPost she’d wear the shirt again. She told HuffPost she eventually wants to sell the shirts.

No surprise then, that Lehane told HuffPost she’ll be voting for Secretary Clinton in November.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from
entering the U.S.

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A simple yet powerful encounter at a fantasy and sci-fi convention is showing why representation is so important for young kids. 

Last week, 25-year-old cosplayer Charles Conley shared an inspiring story on Facebook. 

Conley, who has been cosplaying since 2011, attended the multigenre convention, Dragon Con, in Atlanta this September. In his now-viral Facebook post, he wrote about his decision to dress as Batman for the convention.

“As many of you know I’ve had to deal with issues regarding bigots who can’t seem to wrap their mind around the idea of a black guy cosplaying Batman, because ‘Batman is historically white, there are plenty of black characters you could do instead,’” he wrote. “Well I cosplay Batman because I love the character and because representation matters.”

Conley said he was walking around in his Dark Knight costume when he came across a little boy with his mom. Conley explained that the boy was a person of color and wearing his own black-and-yellow Batman outfit.

“He couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6,” he said.

“This little boy saw me approaching and immediately stopped dead in his tracks, tugging at his mother’s hand,” the cosplayer recalled. “I could see him point at his hand (the skin) and then pointing to me.”

Conley approached the boy, who was a little frightened by his full armor outfit, so he knelt down and put out his hand for a high five. 

“With all the force he could muster he slapped my hand, with the biggest smile on his face,” Conley wrote. “He told me he wanted to ask me something so, still kneeling I leaned in with my ear.

‘Batman,’ he said timidly, ‘You’re brown, just like me! Does that mean that I can be a real superhero someday too? I don’t see a lot of brown superheroes...’”

The cosplayer said the little boy’s words “touched the deepest part of [his] soul.”

“If you know me, you know that I don’t ever break character but I broke down when he said that,” he wrote. Breaking his own cosplay rule, Conley then removed his cowl to show the boy his face. Seeing the boy light up made him tear up even more, he said. 

“I looked this kid dead in the eye and said ‘you can be any superhero you want to be and don’t ever let anyone tell you different. Being a brown superhero is a very special thing, and I know you’re going to make a great one.’”

The boy nodded, and his mother thanked him for making her son’s day. Conley said he then put his cowl back on, wiped away his tears and tried to get back into character as Batman. 

“These kids are growing up in a country where you can so easily feel like ‘less than’ because your skin is darker,” Conley wrote. “Police brutality and racism are being made ever so visible by today’s multimedia outlets, and these kids aren’t blind, they take that in.”

Ha added, “For kids like this little boy, the idea that you can one day be a superhero, no matter what your skin color is, opens up a whole new world for them. This is why I cosplay. This is why I’m The Batman.”

Conley concluded with the hashtag #RepresentationMatters. The post received over 11,000 likes and 5,000 shares, and the comments section is filled with supportive responses. 

He told The Huffington Post that he shared the story to show why diversity matters.

“I also just thought it’d be nice to share this heartfelt experience I had,” he added.

Conley has a prop-building business called Ebony Warrior Studios and also works as a chef. He said the response to his story has been “overwhelming,” as he’s received messages from as far away as New Zealand. 

The cosplayer told HuffPost that he hopes people who read his story realize that representation matters for kids. “There are not very many heroes of color in the mainstream world, and kids ― contrary to what you may believe ― see that and take it to heart,” he said.

“It’s so very important to let them know they have just as much opportunity to be one of these great superheroes,” he added. “Love the skin that you’re in, don’t think you have to change it to be accepted or ‘accurate.’”

He also noted that he doesn’t want to be seen as just “Black Batman” in the cosplay world.

“I may have beautiful chocolate skin but that does not define my cosplay,” he said. “So I’m not cosplaying ‘Black’ Batman. I am Batman. It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.”

Conley said he was bullied as a child and knows what it’s like to feel inferior.

“I am Batman today because I don’t ever what any kids to feel what I used to feel. I want them to know that there is hope,” he told HuffPost. “I pray that a short big-headed kid with thick glasses sees this a realizes that I used to be just like that.”

Conley added, “Everyone has the opportunity to be a hero.”

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Remember Zoltar? That primitive animatronic fortune telling machine you sometimes find at arcades?

Well, a bizarre variation featuring Donald Trump is popping up around New York City. And since it features Trump, we’d have to say it’s even more primitive than Zoltar ever was.

The “All-Seeing Trump” features a Trump mannequin spouting prerecorded predictions that are just as offensive and inaccurate as the ones made by Trump himself.

Take a gander at one prediction and see if you can tell the difference between this Donald and the one running for the nation’s highest office:

“I see a huge investment into a high-speed rail system. Very advanced and very fast. And we’re going to use it to deport 11 million illegal Mexicans.

“And, by the way, I love the Mexican people. I love their spirit. I love their spirit! And I love packing them onto trains like cattle.”

Like Zoltar, this Trump machine hands out fortunes. Bad fortunes.

Reporter Camille Dodero said she first saw the machine in Brooklyn before it was mysteriously placed in a van and taken elsewhere.

The roving machine was last seen in front of Trump Tower, where it is surely offering “bigly” advice.

Gothamist speculates the “All-Seeing Trump” might be the work of Banksy, but his people deny any involvement. 

Other possible suspects include Indecline, the anonymous street collective responsible for erecting naked Trump statues all over the country a few weeks.

Indecline did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from
entering the U.S.

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“Nobody makes it on their own, without a million dollar loan,” Death Cab for Cutie croons in their newly released video, a clear blast gentle takedown of Donald Trump.

It’s probably one of the more mild insults lodged against the bigoted cheese mound today, but, given Trump’s sad, lonely existence, we’re hoping he’s a Death Cab guy and takes their disapproval to heart. 

Oh wait ... heart. LOL.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from
entering the U.S.

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White ink tattoos are all the rage these days, and after looking at some of these beauties, it’s pretty clear why. If you’re in the market for tasteful and subtle ink, going white might be your answer. And who knows, your boss might even dig it.

For those who aren’t familiar, white ink tattoos are applied the same way as any other color of tattoo. The biggest catch with going white is that it requires extra care and cleaning during the healing process, because any scarring becomes more visible with the lighter ink. It’s also worth noting that tattoo ink fades over time, which can be more pronounced with white ink. In other words, it’s crucial to find a tattoo artist who specializes specifically in white ink.

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Ally Sheedy doesn’t mind if you still think of her as the basket case from “The Breakfast Club.” But maybe we can do her a solid and move on. For now, let’s think of Ally Sheedy as the weed-smoking, somewhat unstable mother of a former goth teen (Addison Timlin) who left home to become a nun. That’s her character’s biography in “Little Sister,” a charming new indie drama directed by Zach Clark (”White Reindeer”). 

Thanks to “WarGames,” “The Breakfast Club,” “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Short Circuit,” Sheedy, 54, is inextricably linked to 1980s Hollywood. Most of Sheedy’s post-’80s résumé comprises independent projects that have struggled to find mainstream attention. In the late ‘90s, stuck in professional limbo, Sheedy proved herself as a proverbial Serious Actress, starring in the psychosexual festival drama “High Art” and the title role in an Off Broadway production of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” an intense experience that prompted bouts of crippling stage fright. 

That pair of gigs didn’t return Sheedy to the top of Hollywood’s A-list, partly because she then opted not to work much outside of New York City, where her child, who has since come out as transgender, was struggling through middle school. No matter: “Little Sister,” which opens in limited release on Friday, is one of the actress’ finest films, a sweet dysfunctional-family gem that taps into the off-center characters to which Sheedy is attracted.

In June, when the movie premiered at the BAMcinemaFest in Brooklyn, I sat down with Sheedy to reflect on her 35-year career, what she learned from “Hedwig” and the “mixed blessings” of remaining an ‘80s queen.

There’s no assurance that an indie film like “Little Sister” will find the audience it deserves. Having done a lot of small projects, are you used to having no idea whether your work will find a shelf life?

It’s not weird for me. I’ve been in some really good ones that didn’t sell, and then some middling ones that did, and I’ve been in some that have done well and some that you never see. So the biggest first part of it is, “What is this character, and, just for myself as an actor, what am I going to get to do?” And then after that, it’s going to have its own life and there’s nothing I can do about it. So, as an actor going through the trajectory of what I can do and developing my career, I’d rather work my way through the part and figure out the scene and have it be some kind of challenge. And if it makes it out into the world, whatever. I will be different at the end of shooting it than I was if I hadn’t done it. 

You’re often labeled as a queen of the ‘80s. How have you moved forward from that, knowing that your livelihood is attached to people’s nostalgic perceptions of you?

It’s a mixed blessing, everything that happened in the ‘80s. And in the ‘90s, there was TV stuff here and there ― there was a lot of stuff coming in. But I guess when I was about 27, something started to settle in me where I was thinking, “I want to think about the long-term. I’m going to be doing this for my entire life. Who do I admire? Gena Rowlands.” I was looking at actors like that. Juliette Binoche and so many French actresses have this long life, and I was in Hollywood thinking, “How do I transform what’s happening with me now into that? How am I gonna be that?” And I realized that was what was going to drive me. I was going to be able to continue.

All of the “Breakfast Club” stuff was happening, and I could just feel this bizarre shift inside of me. What was it that I really wanted? What I really wanted was to not be just this teen-movie star. What I wanted was to actually be able to do this for my whole life and be able to continue developing as an actor and changing through my whole life. That shifted the universe for me.

I’m sure you’re constantly asked about “The Breakfast Club.” Is it encouraging to know you’ve made a dent that people remember, or is it stifling to know that’s still what comes to mind when people think of your name?

No, listen, it’s the calling card that I have with people who are my age and kids who are still seeing the movies. The movie was this incredible blessing as far as having some kind of impact with my work in a way that I’m actually quite proud of. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without it because it’s informed the experience of my life. I don’t find it suffocating, and I also don’t feel particularly hooked into it. I created the life that I have, and the priorities and focus of my life are not actually on movies. I don’t feel that I’m leashed to it. I think it’s this really cool, amazing thing that happened, and sometimes it leads to other great things. Zach Clark had this tiny movie, but somehow or other, they thought of me for it. Why did they think of me? Because they already knew who I was. If I hadn’t done all this stuff, you never know what might cross your path. It was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

You earned rave reviews for “High Art” at Sundance, and it seemed like you might be on the cusp of a resurgence. The movie made hardly any money at the box office, but your performance got a lot of critical attention and some awards buzz. What did and what didn’t open up to you after “High Art”? 

“High Art” was such a weird bird. I think the perception that I actually was an actor of some kind of weight changed from that part. Suddenly there was this other dimension ― it’s not just teen movies. It was a role that came along that was the perfect role for me at the time. There was a shift in how I could feel and how I was perceived. That role was where I was. Then, after that, I took a lot of chances. I did “Hedwig” ― that was a whole thing. It’s a role of the dice. A lot of the work came to me, but the work that came to me was not the kind of stuff that kept advancing my career forward.

Because it was small?

No, it was a mixture ― there was television stuff, and there was nothing that came to me that made my career go up and to another level. It was sort of like continual, steady work, but also, right after that movie, it’s always, “What was the last thing you did?” So there certainly was this perception of me as being this trouble-y, problematic kind of person who was no longer, “Oh, she could maybe play the girl-next-door role.” Instead, “She has to play the dark character,” which I prefer. But it wasn’t like leading-lady roles started coming to me because of “High Art.” It was the opposite. And then it’s just been the roads that continued out from there. I’ve just taken some pretty big chances, I think, in my career, and it’s led me crazy places.

You played Hedwig in 1998. Our understanding of gender has evolved greatly since then. I don’t think anyone would cast a cisgender woman in the role today.

It wasn’t received well then either. I understand now that the gender question was a big question. To have an actual woman playing Hedwig, who’s supposed to be a transgender man to woman, I understand now why that would have been something that would have caused some problems for certain people. [Editor’s note: Hedwig is genderqueer.] My kid is trans, so I’m looking at gender through an entirely different angle now, so I can understand now what the problem with that would have been, in a way that I didn’t understand back then.

You missed a handful of shows during your stint as Hedwig, and there were reports that stage fright got the best of you. Was the reaction to a woman taking the part why it didn’t go over swimmingly?

I think there were a couple things. I think that my interpretation of that part, it worked for me, and the person who was always my big supporter was [Stephen Trask, who wrote the music and lyrics]. He was really on board with me. But I’m not a singer ― John is. I think when I was starting to do it, I didn’t realize that was going to be as big of a problem as it ended up being.

It’s a two-part show. There are only certain people, like Michael Cerveris and obviously Neil Patrick Harris, who can kick the crap out of that monologue, which is really heavy, and be able to handle the songs. And John Mitchell, of course, could do it. For me, the monologue part of it was where my focus was, and I felt like I could do a lot with it. I had seen some versions of the show where the actor was a fab singer, but something got lost in the writing in the monologue. So I thought, “OK, that part of it I can do. If I can sing the songs but I can’t sing them as well as some other people, that can be OK.” But it just didn’t quite work for a lot of people.

Did it take a while to process that experience, or did you bounce back quickly?

It was really tough when I was doing the show because the support for what I was doing was kind of scattered. It’s hard to do that, and it was kind of a dangerous, challenging thing to go out there every single night. But to go back to your original question, the way that my career has gone for me, I really do not know when I take something if it’s going to be received well or if it’s going to be seen. Really, the criteria is, “How much can I bring to this, and how much better will I be at what I do after I’ve done it?” With “Hedwig” at that moment, it was the most challenging thing I could think of possibly doing. And I thought, if I can get to the end of this show, I don’t think I’ll ever be afraid of doing anything ever again, except maybe Shakespeare in the Park. And, in fact, that’s what happened. I got a thicker skin and I got more courageous in my work from having done “Hedwig.” There’s not much that really scares me right now. There’s a lot I’d like to do.

Like Shakespeare in the Park?

I’d love to do Shakespeare in the Park, if somebody wanted me to.

Have you done Shakespeare?

I’ve actually worked on Shakespeare in workshops. And also I’ve been working with teenagers on Shakespeare. I teach it to juniors. We do Shakespeare for a few months during the spring. They have to do some Shakespeare scenes, so I’ve gotten immersed in that. I’ve learned a lot about working on Shakespeare and working with the language from actually working on it with 16-year-olds.

You said in the ‘80s that you used to keep diaries for your characters. Do you still do that?

Yeah, there’s writing that goes into it, thoughts usually. Now, more, it’s a feeling I get in my body: “Who’s this character?” But then, as I look through the script and I read through the scenes, stuff occurs: things, thoughts, an image of this or that. So that gets jotted down now on the actual pages of the script, which is why the digital thing drives me crazy. I need paper so I can write those things down. But I used to actually just write and write and write for the characters. It’s kind of morphed a little bit.

Do you still have all of your characters’ diaries?

I have all the diaries from when I was younger, but since it’s changed, I have years of scripts full of notes. They’re in my bedroom. I want to keep and remember them.

Not that this will happen anytime soon, knock on wood, but have you thought about what will happen to those diaries and scripts once you’re gone?

I haven’t thought about it, but everything in my life will go to [Beck, my kid]. Beck will probably think, “Oh, god, why do I have all these cartons of stuff? Let me put them in an attic somewhere.” I don’t know. But it’s all going to Beck.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Watch our Facebook Live chat with Ally Sheedy and Zach Clark below.

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There’s never been more great TV being created, but there’s also never been more binge-watching. So what do you do when you’re waiting for a new episode of “Atlanta” and you’ve already burned through the archives of “Game of Thrones,” “Broad City,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Transparent,” and so on?

Stay calm: The world of digital video series doesn’t end with Amazon and Netflix original offerings, nor even with all of “Seinfeld” appearing on Hulu. In recent years, the quality and quantity of indie web series has skyrocketed, and there’s no limit to the brilliant entertainment you can find on Youtube, Vimeo, and even Facebook Video. 

One problem: It’s hard to find the best shows out there without a major network’s publicity machine and press coverage. 

To get a taste of all the web series the world has to offer, we checked out the slate of shows at Brooklyn Web Fest, which took place on Oct. 7 and 8 ― and we found a rich lineup of sketch comedy, romantic comedy, dark comedy, reality TV, and even drama. 

As evidenced by well-known web series that ultimately were transformed into TV series, such as “Broad City” and “Awkward Black Girl” (the basis for Issa Rae’s new HBO comedy “Insecure”), the format has the potential to offer greater opportunities to people of color, women, and other underrepresented groups often held back by traditional TV gatekeepers. Not only can artists simply make their own shows and put them out there for audiences to judge on merit, they can make shows that subvert stereotypes, take on touchy topics, and expand the world viewers are accustomed to seeing on screen. 

In a BKWF panel on women creators Saturday, the panelists agreed that the ability to create their own series allowed them to explore roles and storylines that they often couldn’t when auditioning for mainstream projects. Laura Hankin, the co-creator of “Emergency Contacts,” recalled that she and her co-creator and co-star had become frustrated with the narrow range presented to young women like themselves during the audition process. “All the notices were like, ‘Must be willing to be naked, no pay,’” she joked.

Veronica Dang, creator and star of “Subway: The Series,” pointed out, “As an Asian-American actress, I’m often relegated” to stereotypical roles. She explained that she created the series to make more interesting material for herself ― in it, she plays a shy, anxious woman, the child of Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites, who wants to make it in New York City.

In a panel on diversity in comedy, the panelists emphasized how they sought to push the envelope toward diverse and honest representation in their work. “I’m talking to black people,” said Alex Ubokudom of “BOK TV.” In traditional TV, he noted, a white audience is assumed; directing his web series to a black audience freed it from the stifling pressure to “explain blackness to white people.” Melissa Mickens, the creator of “Shampagne,” pointed out that she was able to decide to choose a cast and crew entirely composed of people of color. 

While it’s troubling that certain groups still struggle disproportionately to get their ingenious concepts picked up by networks, the compulsively watchable shows on display at the BKWF prove just how far talent and drive can go. And if hits like “Broad City” are any indication, the web series pool might just be where TV execs and viewers go for their next hot show.

To begin your journey into the weird and wonderful world of web series, we’ve recommended 21 of the top-notch shows screened at Brooklyn Web Fest 2016 for you to binge the next time you’re jonesing for a new Netflix miniseries:

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A Korean short film takes a poignant look at the relationship between a bisexual woman and a lesbian. 

Directed by Han Sang-Hee, “Daymoon” follows Se-in, a lesbian who is involved in a romantic relationship with Su-jin, who identifies as bisexual. Se-in must confront her feelings of mistrust and insecurity when Su-jin catches the eye of a man, Kyung-chul. 

When it was first released in 2013, “Daymoon” broke fresh ground in Korea for its portrayal of a bisexual character, according to press notes. 

You can catch a sneak peek at “Daymoon” above, and then head to Viddsee, an Asian site that curates and shares powerful short films, to view more. 

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On July 17, 2016, on the day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, 100 brave women ― Democrats and Republicans ― posed nude to celebrate their bodies and protest the hateful rhetoric spewed by Donald Trump’s campaign. The massive photo shoot was organized by photographer Spencer Tunick and his wife, artist Kristin Bowler.

Talk about true heroes. 

If you were not one of those 100 women, but are nonetheless interested in the individuals who took part in the demonstration and their reasons for doing so, you can go behind the scenes of the triumphant day with this newly released documentary by filmmaker Joshua Louis Simon.

Needless to say, Trump’s disrespect and disdain toward women has only become more apparent in recent days. In the words of participant Jennifer Dienes, who traditionally votes Republican: “Sometimes you just have to stand up for what’s right. I’m proud of what I did.”

Click here to see how women are fighting back against misogyny and intolerance with beauty, light and a whole lot of woman power. 

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from
entering the U.S.

Get all the news that matters to you. Sign up here for HuffPost’s morning email.

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If you’re a card-carrying Republican or a die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter, it’s likely that you’re not thrilled with either of the leading candidates in this year’s election.

Donald Trump has proven that his bigotry is more than a rabble-rousing act; he says harmful things behind closed doors, too. And Hillary Clinton ― while hardworking enough to earn praise from her opponent ― has been characterized (rather unfairly) as “the lesser of two evils.” 

If you’re still undecided about where you stand, we suggest supplementing debate coverage with fact-checking, if you haven’t been doing so already, and indulging in some good, old-fashioned political satire, courtesy of very funny Englishman Douglas Adams.

In the fourth book of the classic “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” series, Adams skewers the democratic process by implying that voters are just too lazy or unimaginative to educate themselves or to dream up an alternative to their less-than-thrilling ballot options.

A woebegone planet is described as such: “The people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” But the lizards aren’t overlords; they’re elected democratically.

The citizens “all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want [...] because if they didn’t vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in.”

To make sure the wrong lizard doesn’t step into the White House next year, make sure you vote on Nov. 8.

Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly
incites
political violence and is a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-911_565b1950e4b08e945feb7326"> style="font-weight: 400;">serial liar, href="http://www.huffingtonpost
.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b"> style="font-weight: 400;">rampant xenophobe,
racist, style="font-weight: 400;">misogynist and href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stephen-colbert-birther_56022a33e4b00310edf92f7a"> >birther who has
repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from
entering the U.S.

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Halloween is fast approaching and already draining parents’ wallets, but dad La Guardia Cross says he’s not spending a penny on costumes this year.

In his latest comedy video, Cross and his daughter Amalah get into the Halloween spirit and demonstrate “10 incredible, DIY, cheap, at-home things you can do with what you have laying around the house already.”

All you need are items like garbage bags, tape, empty cardboard boxes and toilet paper,  and you can transform your toddler into a princess, a Kanye West runway model, a “Ninja Turtle on the cheap” and more.

LOL at the “Intelligent” costume.

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Ghana will move a statue of Mahatma Gandhi from its main university because of his “alleged past racist comments”, the foreign ministry said, while paying tribute to Gandhi’s role as a civil rights leader.

A group of lecturers and students began campaigning for the Indian nationalist leader’s statue to be removed shortly after it was installed at the university in June as a symbol of friendship between Ghana and India. They argue that Gandhi made comments that were racist about Africans and that statues on the Accra campus should be of African heroes.

In a statement late on Thursday, the ministry said it was concerned by the acrimony the campaign had generated.

“The government would therefore want to relocate the statue from the University of Ghana to ensure its safety and to avoid the controversy ... being a distraction (from) our strong ties of friendship,” it said.

Noting that Gandhi had inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world, the statement urged Ghanaians to “look beyond the comments attributed to ... Gandhi and acknowledge his role as one of the most outstanding personalities of the last century.”

A senior Indian diplomat said the ministry’s “very good statement” had sought to set the life and work of the advocate of peaceful resistance in a broader context and that the statue would be moved from the university to a safer place.

Amar Sinha also told reporters in New Delhi the two governments had discussed the debate over Gandhi that had flared in Ghana and South Africa.

He said comments interpreted by some as racist had been made relatively early in the life of the Indian protest leader.

India’s struggle against British colonialism under Gandhi was an inspiration to a generation of African independence leaders, including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1957 managed to persuade British authorities to grant Ghana independence ― one of the first African nations to get it.

Gandhi lived in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century, where he campaigned for rights for the descendents of Indian indentured laborers brought there to work sugar plantations in its northeast Natal province, now KwaZulu-Natal.

Although his philosophy of peaceful protest would later inspire the African National Congress in its resistance to white Apartheid rule, historians say Gandhi himself was no believer in equality between races, at least not earlier in his career.

In his book, Gandhi: the True Man Behind Modern India, broadcaster Jad Adams quotes him as referring to black people as “kaffirs”, a deeply offensive term, in a speech in 1896:

“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw kaffir,” he quotes him as saying.

“And whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy his wife with and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

He later seems to have changed his views, saying stereotypes of Africans as “barbarians” are wrong, the author writes.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine in New Delhi; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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The Sao Paulo state government unceremoniously announced in October 2015 that dozens of schools would be closed by 2016 as part of a “reorganization” program; a decision that would affect hundreds of thousands of students. The teachers union and students — who hadn’t been consulted about the authorities’ decision — organized protests to raise awareness, but these largely went unnoticed. By early November, Brazilian students boldly decided to occupy the Fernão Dias state school — a move replicated in 200 more schools across the state in the span of a week.

“We won’t give up!” was the students’ official motto. They were forced to repeat it as they continually faced violent confrontations with local security forces.

Following weeks of resilience, the movement succeeded in halting the state’s scheme to shut down 94 public schools and pushed Education Secretary Herman Voorwald out of his job.

Three Brazilian researchers ― Marcio Ribeiro, Antonia Malta Campos and Jonas Medeiros ― conducted interviews with the protesting teens and visited a number of the occupied schools. Their work culminated in a book, titled Escolas de Luta (Combative Schools), published earlier this month. The book, which documents the student protests, is interspersed with images shot by Brazilian photojournalism collectives.

Scroll down to see some of the photos.

This post originally appeared on HuffPost Brazil and has been translated into English. 

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”To me it is a thing of beauty and every morning when I see it ― it’s like it’s for the first time ― it puts a smile on my face.”

That’s how 62-year-old breast cancer survivor Sue Cook described her badass mastectomy tattoo to The Huffington Post. When the London native was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, her doctor told her she had about a 40 percent change of surviving another five years. She underwent chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a single mastectomy, and in 2010 she had a second preventative mastectomy. 

Today, Cook is cancer-free. 

Eight years after her diagnosis, Cook shows off her breast cancer battle scars with a stunning tattoo that spans both her shoulders and stops right below her sternum.  

“After reaching my unexpected five-year remission I began reclaiming my body to show that cancer doesn’t always have to leave the last mark,” Cook told HuffPost. “I decided the tattoo would transform my scars into art. Now, every morning I can wake up to see a beautiful piece of body art.”

Cook, the chief examiner for Foundation Art and Design at the University of the Arts in London, says she chose not to have reconstructive surgery because her body had been through so much. 

“I decided that I didn’t want to put my body (or mind) through an extensive process of reconstruction,” she said. “I had already lived through a big enough battle, now was the time to acknowledge that fight.”

Undergoing reconstructive surgery after having a double mastectomy is a very personal decision. Cook said that for her she simply didn’t want to “deny the impact” that cancer had on her. The surgery itself can also be extremely invasive: “I didn’t want to re-arrange any other parts of my body,” Cook told HuffPost. “Taking a flap from my back with muscle and then implants to recreate what is no longer there was a step too far for me ― it wouldn’t be me as I am now.”

Cook said the tattoo took a total of 30 hours to complete, but it was “worth every minute.” 

“During treatment you are told what to do, when to be still, to breathe in, what to take etc... The list goes on,” she said. “But this was me making a decision for myself about my body. It is empowering and gives me a feeling of strength.”

While Cook said mastectomy tattoos aren’t for every survivor, she urged women to explore all of their options after breast cancer. 

“Listen to your heart, what do you want now? There is going to be the right solution for you ― if one doesn’t sit well with you or feel right, find another,” she said. “Above all don’t forget to find some way to celebrate and rejoice in your own victory. Cancer doesn’t always have to leave the last mark!” 

Amen, Sue.  

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All this mom needs is a little face paint and she can turn kids into “something magical.”

Lynn Hetherington Becker of Columbus, Ohio, is a self-taught artist, muralist and face painter. After face painting for charity and church events, Becker decided to offer her skills professionally and learned she especially loves using people’s faces as her canvas.

Becker said she loves using her face painting talent to turn kids into “something magical.” The mom of three has painted her own kids’ faces, as well as kids’ faces at events. She said her favorite face-painting piece was for her friend’s 3-year-old daughter in which she made her look older. 

Now that Halloween is right around the corner, Becker said she is “booked solid” with costume sessions for both face and full bodies and huge Halloween events.

The creative mom, who said this year she likely won’t have time to dress herself up, has previously painted herself as a shark, tiger and cheetah for Halloween. 

Spook-tacular!

See more of Becker’s face-painting work below and head to her Facebook and Instagram for more. 

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Dreamers and travelers wandering the streets of Paris for the annual Nuit Blanche art festival would be well-advised to make their way to the historic Saint Eustache Church. Once inside the church’s hallowed walls, lie down, let your mind go, and watch as the ceiling is engulfed by swirling, electric lights.

The installation, called Voûtes Célestes or “Celestial Vaults,” is a work by artist Miguel Chevalier, who programmed 35 vibrant, colored networks that glow in dancing succession on the cathedral’s ceiling.

The color patterns are accompanied by musical improvisations played by Baptiste-Florian Marle-Ouvrard, the church’s resident organist.

On his website, Chevalier describes the installation as a network of “sinuous webs” produced in realtime to highlight the site’s architecture. He writes:

Visitors are invited to stroll around, to sit in the pews, and to lift up their eyes toward the heavens. These digital constellations of pixels immerse visitors in an atmosphere bathed in light while opening unto infinity. The installation releases radiant energy into this space of plenitude. Amplified by Saint Eustache’s organ music, the installation induces a spiritual and contemplative feeling of elevation. Light, color and movement create a poetics of matter and elaborate a new aesthetics of virtuality.

Watch a video of the installation in action below:

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