3d illusion arts: Oddity Central

Oddity Central

French Haunted House Auctioned Off on eBay for Just 1 Euro
The Stunningly Beautiful Porcelain Flowers of Vladimir Kanevsky
Downsize Fitness – The Gym That Only Accepts People Who Are At Least 50 Pounds Overweight

French Haunted House Auctioned Off on eBay for Just 1 Euro

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 03:01 AM PST

A listing on the French version of eBay recently went viral after being picked up by major news outlets. Apparently, someone is selling a haunted house in Arbresle, Rhône-Alpes region, for just 1 euro.

It’s true that the place doesn’t look like much, if the photos are anything to go by, but still 1 euro for a 110 square meter home and a 350 square meter piece of land is really cheap. Maud69620, the person who listed the house does have her reasons for basically giving away the house for free. According to the description on eBay, a horrible murder took place there sometime during the 1950s, and now it’s haunted by troubled spirits. Paranormal phenomena observed inside the house include knocks on windows, strange voices and murmurs, weird noises and moving objects. All that’s missing from a complete haunted house package is a ghost. But Maud is not in the mood for jokes. In fact she specifically asks those who think her listing is a fake not to contact her, as the ad is only addressed to those who believe in the spirit world.

Regarding the alleged murder that took place on the premises, the poster says the victims were a couple who owned the house at the time. The ruthless killers were a team of workers looking for some kind of treasure hidden inside. The murder was never confirmed, as the bodies were never found. The owners simply vanished without a trace, but according to the listing, their bodies were buried in a nearby field.

There’s quite a debate going on right now on French websites regarding the authenticity of the ad, but there are certainly those who wouldn’t take the place even if someone paid them a fortune.

Source: Planet.fr

French Haunted House Auctioned Off on eBay for Just 1 Euro was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

The Stunningly Beautiful Porcelain Flowers of Vladimir Kanevsky

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 02:07 AM PST

Ukrainian-born artist Vladimir Kanevsky creates exquisitely handcrafted porcelain flowers that look perfectly natural, but never die.

From hyacinths and chrysanthemums to clematis and hollyhocks, Vladimir Kanevsky makes botanically-perfect flowers from porcelain. Inspired mostly by 17th- and 18th-century European botanical prints, but also by the glass flower collection at Harvard University’s Museum of Natural History, the talented artisan has managed to take this old craft to new heights. He not only models the delicate porcelain himself, but also does all the painstaking painting himself, often adding tiny imperfections like bent stems,spots or insect bites to make his creations look even more realistic. ”He’s one of the few people I know who can almost compete with Mother Nature,” longtime collector Caroline Roehm says about Kanevsky.

Photo: Vladimir Kanevsky

But the Ukrainian artist currently based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, says he’s not trying to create fake flowers, but rather sculptures based on flowers. ”One needs to keep a balance between the real color of real materials and the fiction of painting. I recently discontinued a newly designed line of more heavily painted flowers because it looked too naturalistic, like a theater prop,” he told the Wall Street Journal. To create one of his stunning artworks, Vladimir first consults a stock of hundreds of different blossoms he has sculpted from European clay that contains most of the flowers people usually ask for. Then he starts sketching the plant on his computer, before handcrafting it from clay. He used to make the stems and leaves from porcelain as well, but they were so prone to breaking that he started using painted metal or tole. Part of what makes his work so interesting is managing to combine metal and porcelain to create such amazingly realistic artworks.

Photo: Vladimir Kanevsky

Vladimir Kanevsky’s porcelain flowers have long been appreciated by art collectors and fashion designers around the world, and his custom works are priced from $3,000 for a hollyhock to $20,000 for a complicated cluster of lilacs.

Photo: Vladimir Kanevsky

Photo: Suzanne Rheinstein

The Stunningly Beautiful Porcelain Flowers of Vladimir Kanevsky was originally posted at OddityCentral.com

Downsize Fitness – The Gym That Only Accepts People Who Are At Least 50 Pounds Overweight

Posted: 24 Jan 2013 12:32 AM PST

Have you been wanting to join a gym, but hesitated because it feels weird to work out among all those super-fit people? Well, what you need is a place exactly like Downsize Fitness, the gym chain that only accepts clients who are at least 50lbs overweight. With branches in Chicago, Las Vegas and Dallas, the gym chain was inspired by the hit TV show The Biggest Loser, and aims to reduce the insecurities that larger people go through at regular gyms. So the only skinny people allowed at Downsize Fitness are the trainers.

And it doesn't stop just there. The gym has gone a great length to ensure that its clients do not feel bad about themselves and stay motivated to come back every day. The facility has no mirrors lining the walls, and the windows are frosted so that passers-by cannot look inside. The machines are also specifically designed to suit those who are chronically overweight and obese. 39-year-old Francis Wisniewski, the owner of Downsize Fitness, was once overweight himself, so he knows exactly what it feels like to enter a gym filled with trip and super-fit people. When he finally shed his extra pounds, he identified the gap in the market. He is now the perfect ambassador to promote the business, having lost 60 lbs in the past year with the help of his team at Downsize Fitness. "Large clubs make you feel on display," he said in an interview. "I've been big my whole life, and small incidents probably make it seem worse than it really is. But at the gym, it's all out there for everyone to see. I was embarrassed to go the gym myself, it's intimidating to go in when you can't do all the exercises, when you feel like people are going to be staring at you and people are going to be judging you. And I know if I'm feeling it, overweight women feel worse. "

Photo: Downsize Fitness/Facebook

Wisniewski's philosophy is simple. As he puts it on his website, "It's not just about following a diet or working out; it's about teaching members new habits they will embrace in and outside of the gym." So each member is helped out by a trainer who develops individual workout and diet plans that are both effective and achievable. Limitations that are specific to the overweight, like respiratory problems or joint pain, are taken into consideration while developing these plans. The membership rates are pretty affordable; at just $50 a month, almost anyone can work out at Downsize Fitness gyms. A member who reaches their goal weight becomes a hero of sorts, a kind of inspirational figure and mentor to the newer members. Tara Lawton, from Chicago, is one of them; she lost 20lbs in just 4 months. "My body is responding positively to being pushed," she said. "I want to cry sometimes at how it changed my life." Those who reach their goals continue to work out here, as they have made friends for life.

Photo: Downsize Fitness/Facebook

Downsize Fitness sounds less like a gym and more like an amazing community where everyone has the same goal – to lose weight. As Wisniewski puts it, "You know when you walk in that you're just like everybody else and that makes it easier to join, to come in and get healthy."