Oddity Central |
- Jason de Graaf’s Works Look Like High-Resolution Photographs, But They’re Not
- The Dog Cafe – South Korea’s Answer to Japan’s Popular Cat Cafes
- 11-Year-Old Boy Leads Church as an Ordained Minister
| Jason de Graaf’s Works Look Like High-Resolution Photographs, But They’re Not Posted: 22 Jun 2012 08:32 AM PDT
Canadian artist Jason de Graaf creates hyperrealistic paintings that look more like carefully composed still-life photographs. We’ve featured many artist who can easily fool you into thinking their paintings are photos, but Jason de Graaf really is in a class of his own. Just so you can understand how incredibly real de Graaf’s paintings look, you should know they’ve inspired the term “Magic Realism” as a description. The talented artist born in Montreal says: "My paintings are about staging an alternate reality, the illusion of verisimilitude on the painted surface, filtered so that it expresses my unique vision. Though my paintings may appear photoreal my goal is not to reproduce or document faithfully what I see one hundred percent, but also to create the illusion of depth and sense of presence not found in photographs." Jason de Graaf currently lives an works in Oka, Quebec, where he spends hours on end in total isolation, painstakingly working on his awe-inspiring masterpieces. He begins by photographing his still life compositions, then proceeds to draw them on the canvas with a pencil, before coloring them with acrylic paints. The whole process takes several days to complete, but the final results are always breathtaking. Jason mentions M.C. Escher and Johannes Vermeer as some of his artistic influences, but says it was watching a local illustrator paint with acrylics that really inspired him to develop his own unique style.
For more hyperrealistic goodness, be sure to check out our previous posts on Thomas Arvid, Paul Cadden, Tom Martin or Denis Peterson. Photos © Jason de Graaf Jason de Graaf’s Works Look Like High-Resolution Photographs, But They’re Not was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| The Dog Cafe – South Korea’s Answer to Japan’s Popular Cat Cafes Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:16 AM PDT
There’s a place in South Korea where you can relax by bonding with about twenty dogs of different breeds and sizes, all vying for human attention. It’s called the Dog Cafe and it’s awesome! If you haven’t yet heard about Japan’s famous cat cafes, they’re venues where stressed businessmen go to relax by surrounding themselves with dozens of purring felines. Cats are very popular in the Land of the Rising Sun, but the concept has been adopted by other Asian countries and recently, even Austria. But animal lovers in the South Korean city of Busan decided to take a different approach and opened a dog cafe, where visitors can surround themselves with furry canines who love human attention. According to Jürgen and Mike, from for91Days.com, Busan is a busy place, with tiny apartments where owning a dog can be considered a luxury, so a place like the Dog Cafe was just what the city needed. Photo: Busan for 91 Days Located across the street from Exit 3 of the Jangsan Metro, on the upper floor of a pet shop, the Dog Cafe is any dog lover’s dream come true. As soon as you walk through the door, you’re welcomed by a bunch of pooches who can’t wait to jump and drool on you. Sometimes they even wrestle each other for your attention, but I guess that’s normal when you put this many dogs in an enclosed space. There are gates in place to separate the smaller dogs from larger ones like Labradors and Golden Retrievers, but the pooches don’t seem to respect boundaries very much. They pretty much run the place, running around, playing, jumping on people’s laps and of course, pissing, but that doesn’t seem to bother anybody. After all that’s what they’re all here for. Photo: City Awesome In order to enjoy the canine company at the Dog Cafe, you have to pay an 8,000 won ($7.20) entry fee, but that includes coffee or a smoothie and a delicious-looking buffet of cakes and donuts. You can stay and play with the dogs as long as you want, but the longer you remain here the harder you’ll find it to leave when you see your new four-legged friends looking at you with those puppy eyes as you head for the door. Photo: City Awesome The canines at the Dog Cafe of Busan are strays or rescues, but they are all very well trained so you really shouldn’t worry about anything else than being knocked down by the bigger ones or having to wash their smell off your clothes when you get home. Photo: Busan for 91 Days
Sources: Busan for 91 Days, City Awesome The Dog Cafe – South Korea’s Answer to Japan’s Popular Cat Cafes was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| 11-Year-Old Boy Leads Church as an Ordained Minister Posted: 22 Jun 2012 05:52 AM PDT
Is there anything kids nowadays can’t do? Well, there may be a few, but becoming an ordained minister and leading a church isn’t one of them. 11-year-old Ezekiel Stoddard recently made headlines after he was ordained a minister at the Fullness of Time Church in Maryland. We’ve featured a few prodigies on Oddity Central, like the world’s youngest computer wiz, the 9-year-old Monet, a 10-year-old sake expert, but we’ve never had a child minister. That changes today, as we introduce Ezekiel Stoddard, an 11-year-old ordained minister who has apparently been writing his own sermons since he was seven. ”It doesn’t matter the age that you can be licensed. It just matters … how much word do you have and how much God has called you,” the enthusiastic child of God told the Washington Post. Still, he admits sometimes adults don’t take him seriously and “look at me like I’m a joke and I need to sit down.” Photo: Washington Post video caption Ezekiel officially became a minister last month, at his family’s independent Pentecostal church, in Temple Hills, Maryland, where his parents are also pastors. The young boy says knew he was destined to become a pastor after God called him in a dream, two years ago, when he was just 9 years old. That was about the time when he started studying the Bible and writing his own sermons. Ezekiel and three other siblings are home-schooled by his mother, who says ”He can go to the bible and pull a text and prepare a sermon. That’s in his heart.That’s how he feels about the ministry, about Jesus, about the community.” She has a lot of confidence in her child’s abilities as a pastor and says that although he does child-like things, when it comes to God he is very serious. Photo: Adrienne Smith/ABC Zeke, as his family calls him, has lots of normal hobbies for his age, like basketball, tennis and going to the movies, but he also spends about 3 -4 hours a day studying the Bible and preparing his sermons. He is aware that many people believe his parents are forcing him to do it, but he’s quick to dismiss these rumors, saying he wants to do this for the rest of his life. The 11-year-old minister preaches the 11 a.m. service at the Fullness of Time Church, a growing congregation in Capitol Heights, but he also preaches the word of God at other churches around the Maryland region.
Richard Balmer, professor of American religious history at Dartmouth college, says cases of children becoming ministers are unusual, but not unheard of. He warns that ”there have been child preachers through the decades, and more than one of them has grown up to be quite embittered by the experience and turned away from the faith.” This should serve as a cautionary tail for anyone who to be ordained at a very young age. ”Just as you don’t have 11-year-old lawyers, or 11-year-old positions, there’s a general sense that you need a certain maturity in order to function effectively in that role,” Balmer adds.
via: Washington Post, ABC News 11-Year-Old Boy Leads Church as an Ordained Minister was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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