The woman is in a red shirt, white sneakers, and blue shorts, her outfit unintentionally matching the colors of the American flag. She's on the West Park bandshell in Ann Arbor, painting on a large white sheet taped to the wall between the stage-left doors.

The first thing she writes on the sheet is "Black Lives Matter" in blue.

The time-lapse video she later posted to YouTube shows her fleshing out the mural with protestors presented in a stencil-style, the BLM slogan crafted into pixelated form, and the old rising-sun flag of the Imperial Japanese Army painted behind everything.

Ann Arbor artist T'onna Clemons is the person who created this graffiti-inspired piece and it just about encompasses everything in her style: politics and pop-art mixing with Japanese imagery and the African-American experience.

The Lawrence Technological University's Detroit Center for Design + Technology has launched a free online art exhibit and symposium on climate change, and five artists from Ann Arbor are featured.

The project is called Yeah, What Lester Said, is named for Lester Brown, a pioneering environmentalist pioneer who was one of the first people to sound the alarm about global climate change. “Saving civilization is not a spectator sport," Brown said -- and the artists in this exhibition are anything but spectators.

Yeah, What Lester Said, which runs June 1 to August 15, explores climate-change impacts through architecture and built environments, exploring how the art and design worlds are addressing the issue. It was supposed to be held at the Detroit Center for Design + Technology but was moved online due to Covid-19.

The Ann Arbor artists exhibiting in Yeah, What Lester Said include exhibit co-curator Leslie Sobel, Paul Hickman, Brenda Miller, Margaret Parker, and Dominique Chastenet de Géry. Here's a sampling of some of their work in the exhibition:

The breakup of The Stooges' original lineup is always pinned one person and one event: bassist Dave Alexander was fired from the band after he showed up at Michigan's Goose Lake Festival in Jackson County too drunk to play.

But a newly discovered soundboard recording of The Stooges' concert shows that Alexander not only held down the low end for the entire show, he mostly played just fine, including the band's full performance of the Fun House album, which came out almost exactly a month before.

Third Man Records is going to release The Stooges' Live at Goose Lake: August 8th, 1970 album on August 7, and preorders are open now.

The label states that the 1/4” stereo two-track soundboard tape of the show was found "buried in the basement of a Michigan farmhouse amongst other tasty analog artifacts of the same era." It could be more Jack White & Co. mythmaking, but it's certainly possible. I've heard rumors of master tapes and other "analog artifacts" by the likes of Blackfoot and Brownsville Station in the basement of 312 S. Ashley, which was the former location of the recording studio under Nalli’s Music Store. (The current tenant is Ann Arbor Music Center.)

You can hear the radio edit of "T.V. Eye" from Live at Goose Lake above, and below is some rare footage from the concert featuring The Stooges performing "1970."

Perhaps you’re finding that you have watched all the TV and movies that you can and you’ve read all your books. What to do? I suggest the eminently bingeable genre of webcomics, which are pretty much just like regular comics but just posted online. For free.

Even if you generally don't read comics and graphic novels, I suggest looking through a few webcomics and seeing if you like them -- most are very different from traditional superhero comics. And, hey, this pandemic is leading a lot of people to try something new. I tried savory oatmeal because I ran out of bagels and found out that it was great, so maybe you’ll get sucked into the fantastic art and stories that these comics have to offer.

You can split webcomics into roughly two categories: daily strips and graphic novels. Certainly, there are a lot of comics that don’t fit into either category, but a lot of popular webcomics like XKCD, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, Strange Planet, and Dinosaur Comics feature one-pagers frequently. These are like popcorn and you can easily spend a day or two reading the massive backlog of these comics. But the comics I’m going to feature here are mostly of the graphic novel variety. They are long stories in which each page contributes to an over-arching plot. 

This is just a teeny sampling of the webcomics out there and those linked below are my personal favorites. When it comes to webcomics, there really is something for everyone and a growing diversity amongst stories and creators. Comic artists are generally very generous about promoting each others' work, so if you find an artist you like, see whose work they recommend. 

Also, blanket advisory: with a few exceptions, all of these comics deal with mature themes. If you are in the (very understandable) mood for mindless fluff, this is not the list for you. But if you want to find some stories full of complex characters, adventures, ethical dilemmas, and amazing art, any comic listed here is a great place to start.  If a comic sounds intriguing but you’re worried about disturbing content, you may want to do a bit of research about it first.

The link to each comic goes to the first page of the story.

I hate winter. Especially Michigan winters. Gray, muddy, relentless ugliness.

But in the hands of Jared Van Eck, a recent Michigan winter day was turned into beautiful art.

Actually, it wasn't even winter -- see the word "relentless" up there -- it was on April 15, 2020, when the snow visited us again.

Van Eck, who's the technical director for the Michigan Theater Foundation, grabbed his fiancée's iPhone 11 Pro Max and a gimbal on that day, went to a west-side Ann Arbor nature preserve, and filmed the snow falling on fields, trees, and a pond. He edited the footage together, added some subtle effects, and composed a dreamy score on his iPad using the Cubasis and Korg Gadget apps.

The result is The Motions of Stillness, a lovely black-and-white, 60-minute meditation on nature.

The film is available to view for $3 via the Michigan Theater's virtual screening room or free for members.

I asked Van Eck about the inspiration for the project, his soundtrack, and some of his influences.

Chien-An Yuan's art -- be it music, photography, or design -- immerses your eyes and ears in a world that feels at once orderly and hazy, referential and singular, dark and light. Contrasts are this Ann Arbor artist's forté.

Yuan also runs the 1473 label, which is filled with deep-listening tones that can fill a room with a strange and beautiful ambiance, but most of the music works even better with over-the-ear headphones so you can immerse your brain in mind-expanding sound-art.

1473 has released 15 records so far -- including Yuan's Teeth Marks on the Everett, which features five piano improvisations run through effects and then reassembled in post-production. You can find more of Yuan's music, DJ mixes, photography, design, and his multimedia collaboration IS/LANDS (which was performed at AADL last year) on his website, chienanyuan.com.

We talked to Yuan about his work and his track recommendations for diving into 1473's world of sound.

As Spotify continues to put a minuscule amount of its earned money toward the revenue stream it comes from -- musicians -- Bandcamp has promoted days where the company waves its sales fees so that 100% of the money goes to artists and labels. 

Through midnight Pacific Time today, you have a chance to help musicians whose income has been impacted by COVID-19 -- and many of the records labels and artists are then forwarding the money to social causes.

The previous Washtenaw County artists list we put together for the March edition of Bandcamp's fee-waiving day is here.

We've also been documenting new music from Washtenaw musicians during the time of quarantine, and many of those releases are on Bandcamp:
Volume one is here.
Volume two is here.
Volume three is here.
Volume four is here.
Volume five is here.
Volume six is here.
Volume seven here.
Volume eight is here.

New releases are coming quickly with artists being at home and having access to recording gear, so we weren't able to feature every Bandcamp release we came across only because the music can't stop, won't stop -- but this blog post has to end, so apologies in advance. But you can check out all the releases with Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti tags here and here, along with our quickly curated list below:

The names have changed, but the song remains the same.

Nearly five years ago the Men's Glee Club at the University of Michigan debuted a performance of "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed" by Atlanta-based composer Joel Thompson, written to honor seven people killed at the hands of the police: Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Kenneth Chamberlain, Amadou Diallo, and John Crawford.

But with the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor as recent reminders of police brutality, "Seven Last Words of the Unarmed" has renewed urgency. 

Dr. Eugene Rogers, who commissioned the work when he was director of the Men's Glee Club, has been working on compiling educational resources that complement the composition's focus, and now that material is available at sevenlastwords.org.

Brian Walline's work is instantly recognizable. The Ann Arbor artist creates Michigan scenes in the style of vintage travel posters, using bright colors and bold typography to convey a deep love for his home state.

While Walline takes freelance commissions -- he did the art for AADL's 2019 Summer Game -- a significant part of his income is derived from tabling at art shows across Michigan. But most of the major art shows for the summer have been canceled, and since they all take a while to organize, it's unlikely any will attempt to reopen even in a modified fashion that's in line with the current phase 4 guidelines for the way businesses can operate.

With his fellow artists in mind, Walline took it upon himself to create The Great Michigan Online Art Fair as a virtual way for creators to display their wares in a playful, interactive environment.

"We are trying to uncancel our livelihoods," Walline writes on the art fair's website.

Artists and vendors can apply to be a part of The Great Michigan Online Art Fair through 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, June 7. The site will host 31 artists and 16 vendors between June 15 and July 13, and the art fair is also accepting sponsorships.

We emailed with Walline about his creation of The Great Michigan Online Art Fair:

Volume one is here.

Volume two is here.

Volume three is here.

Volume four is here.

Volume five is here.

Volume six is here.

Volume seven here.

Volume eight is below and features music/mixes from Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band, Mike List, JTC (Tadd Mullinex), Mike C, Gray Scot (Child Sleep), MEMCO members, Hannah Baiardi, Little Traps, Kirsten Carey, King Micah the Infamous, Charles Trees, Sean Curtis Patrick, and Mark Lansing and His Strange Brotherhood.