iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

I'm taking action on June 14 to remind Trump and his enablers that America has No Kings. Join me in Portland, OR to reject authoritarianism and show the world what democracy really looks like. app.sosha.ai/s/exP6atkC

app.sosha.ai

Join me on June 14

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Michael @mdstamper.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Portrait of Amália Rodrigues by Eduardo Malta (Portuguese) - Oil on canvas / 1949 - Museu do Caramulo (Portugal) #womeninart #art #portraitofawoman #fineart #womensart #portrait #oilpainting #EduardoMalta #PortugueseArtist #MuseudoCaramulo #beauty #style #Malta #portraitofalady #PortugueseArt #1940s

The talented and beautiful Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues, known simply as Amália Rodrigues -- or popularly as Amália -- was a Portuguese fado singer (fadista). Dubbed "Rainha do Fado" (Queen of Fado), she was instrumental in popularizing fado music worldwide and traveled internationally throughout her career. In fact, Rodrigues remains the best-selling Portuguese performing artist in history.

Fado is a deeply emotional and evocative musical genre from Portugal, often described as the country's "national treasure." It's characterized by mournful melodies, often about themes of fate, longing, and the human condition, particularly the experiences of the poor and the sea. Fado is traditionally performed by a solo singer, usually accompanied by a Portuguese guitar and a classical guitar. The term "fado" is likely derived from the Latin word "fatum" meaning fate or destiny.

Rodrigues was hailed by Variety as one of the voices of the 20th century and remains one of the most internationally known Portuguese singers ... and in Portugal, a national icon. She put Fado in the world map, and her works continue to inspire other performers and singers.

Portuguese artist Eduardo Augusto d'Oliveira Morais Melo Jorge Malta, better known as Eduardo Malta, was a prolific painter with an extensive gallery of portraits for some of Portugal's most legendary leaders and icons including Amalia. Despite his fame as an artist, he remained true to his academic painting principles while not particularly embracing modern art styles sweeping the art world in the middle of the century. In fact, his 1959 appointment as director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon was strongly contested, including a petition, due to his assumed opposition to modern art; however, he held the post until 1967.

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Liberal Resistance @liberalresistance.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Keep those signs close. One of the organizers of “Hands Off 2025,” @50501movement.bsky.social, announced that Saturday, April 19th will be the next national day of action. Keep in mind, all of these protests are organized by humans, so accounts and websites won’t immediately have all dates.

April 19th.
@50501movement.bsky.social
announced on their Bluesky account that
Saturday, April 19th
will be the next national day of action.

Follow:
@50501movement.bsky.social
@indivisible.org
@liberalresistance.bsky.social

On the left of the image is an illustration of a flag with the resistance symbol.

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Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 04/04/2025

Looking at the headlines, April 4, 2025 #sqrlpix

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CZEdwards @czedwards.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Hey, noting here that some update turned off the “Require Alt Text” and “Large Alt Text” settings under Settings>Accessibility. You probably want to check your settings and re-configure for best bsky citizenship practices. (Yes, require alt-text; Large Alt Text is at your discretion.)

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Very honored to have 2 pieces accepted to this show. Friday, April 4, 2025, 5-9 pm, First Friday Opening reception for NO / STALGIA for artists, family and friends. Art at the Cave hrs: Tues-Thurs 11-5 & Fri-Sat 11-6; 108 E Evergreen Blvd, Vancouver, WA 98660, (360) 314-6506, www.artatthecave.com

Digital flyer for art show: NO/STALGIA. April 4-April 26, 2025. 88 collage artists hosted by the Pacific Northwest Collage Collective. Opening reception, first Friday, April 4, 2025, 5-9 pm. All ages welcome. Collage meet-up, Saturday, April 5, 2025, 12-4 pm. Both events held at Art at the Cave Gallery, 108 E Evergreen Blvd, Vancouver, WA, 98660.

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Briana Mills, LMFT ♿️🏳️‍🌈 @brianamillslmft.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

If you believe that only the “fit” should survive and the rest are excusable deaths, that’s eugenics. Every life is important. Every disabled person is worthy of life. Disability is part of nature. If you live long enough, you will become disabled. We’re all vulnerable and all valuable.

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

NO / STALGIA show: artatthecave.com in Vancouver, WA opens Friday evening, 4 April 2025. Gallery attendance is free. Features many collage artists from the PNW Collage Collective. Stay tuned for more details. Excited to have two of my pieces accepted; here is one.

Rectangular collage with black background for the top half and white background for the bottom half. Features magazine cutouts: a 1950's woman in a dress and heels leaning back on a striped mattress; her head has been replaced with a woman's head from the 16th century in a ruffled collar and lace cap; the bed is perched on a stack of stones, with the smallest, round one at the bottom painted green like a pea. Cutout magazine letters adjacent to the image read, "The Princess & The Pea."

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Fierce little storm on Wednesday night caused hundreds of these brilliant blue Velella velellas to wash up on the beach in Oceanside on Thursday morning. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella #OregonCoast

Scattered rocks on the sand with a bright blue sea creature called a Velella velella in the middle. It is oval shaped and has small tentacles around the entire edge.

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Beachcombing haul from a mini-vacation this week in Oceanside, OR. Mostly small agates (chalcedony) and cool rocks including a nice green jasper, with a few sea-polished shell fragments. #beachcombing #agates #OregonCoast

Variety of ocean rocks in an oval basket with textured surfaces and a range of colors including red, green, black & tan. Large oval pile of small mostly white agates. Ocean-worn shell fragments & sea glass. Rectangular orange ceramic dish with a small piece of smooth driftwood next to a speckled orange and brown rock. All objects arranged on top of a striped, multi-colored piece of fabric in autumn hues.

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Michael @mdstamper.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Corina by Niki Tong Yuk Ying (Hong Kong) - Oil on canvas / 2020 - Paintings in Hospitals (London, United Kingdom) #womeninart #oilpainting #art #womensart #portrait #healthcare #fineart #nhs #hospitals #NikiTongYukYing #womenpaintingwomen #PaintingsInHospitals #service #portraitofawoman #oiloncanvas

This oil on canvas painting of "Corinna" by Hong Kong artist Niki Tong Yuk Yin is from the "Healthcare Heroes" exhibition, an incredible series of portraits painted to celebrate the staff, caregivers and role art played during the COVID-19 crisis.

The artist said about the portrati, "I am very honored to paint Corina who is a frontline NHS staff. The portrait is a gift to surprise her once she finished her self-isolation and be back with her daughter. I was moved when I heard her story, being isolated with her daughter because of her job. I would like to say thank you to all the NHS who support the patients in this difficult time."

The exhibition was part of the "Paintings in Hospitals" national charity dedicated to using world-class art to inspire better health for people in the UK. Founded in 1959, the "Paintings in Hospitals" art collection holds over 4,000 artworks and is the first and only national collection curated with the specific purpose of improving people's mental and physical wellbeing.

Corinna is depicted in this close-up portrait as a female healthcare worker wearing medical protective gear, emphasizing her dedication and resilience during the COVID-19 crisis. Her face is partially obscured by a light grey surgical mask and clear protective goggles. The eyes, visible above the mask, are large and expressive, conveying a sense of both determination and weariness.

She is wearing a dark blue surgical cap, and a dark blue scrub top visible around the neck and shoulders. The background is a blurry wash of pale pink and peach tones, textured and blending with her clothing and gear. The style is impasto -- giving the portrait a dynamic texture and a slightly abstract quality, further enhancing the mood of quiet strength and solemnity in the face of adversity.

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AltSpaceForce 🚀🇺🇲 @altspaceforce.altgov.info · 17/03/2025

📢 #Altgov Announcement Coming to you live & in living color - and also occasionally on yellow parchment... and that one time from a bathroom in Florida - is @altnatarchives.bsky.social Put on your white gloves and press that follow button!

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Barry A Parks @barryaparks.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Walk along the quay just west of the San Marcos ferry dock, and this view across the Grand Canal to the Basilica Santa Maria Della Salute opens before you. Perhaps you'll want to take a gondola over this Baroque landmark. (Acrylic on 11"x14"x1.5" wood panel) #acrylicpainting #veniceart #gondola #art

Gondola prows line the waterfront, connected to the quay by wooden piers. The teal-colored Grand Canal extends to the bank of the Dorsoduro District beyond. Most notably, the towering domes and bell tower of Santa Maria della Salute rises above the waterline, into a lilac sky

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Erin Richardson @erinrichardson.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

This is going to kill many public libraries, especially in rural areas. If you use a public library, you will be impacted. #imls is a dust mote in the federal budget. It also provides things like internet at your local library so people can apply for jobs and kids can do homework.

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

TFW you hear the metallic clink of your mailbox and you rush outside to see what great new collage images and bits are there in your junk mail. (Today: SCORE!) #collage #AnalogCollage

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Ronald AKA DJ Regularity @djregular.tech · 11/03/2025

Semi-regular reminder: Please use alt-text, especially for screenshots of flyers, letters, text posts, etc. For people that use screen readers or the like, those sorts of posts are like throwing up a blank wall.

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eolaí the artist @eolai.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

A #painting for you. "Cobh II" came from a day I spent cycling from one online friend to another, stopping in the Cork Harbour town to paint this view of the town from the pier. At one point my stool collapsed and with my dodgy knees I was like an insect on its back. Good times. #SpeirGorm #ArtYear

Landscape format in painterly acrylics on canvas. View of town on a hillside from pier. Under a yellow painterly sky a gothic blue cathedral with a steeple on the left end sits on top of the town. Below it and to the left is a row of tall dark blue supporting arches under the green stone boundary wall and walkway which drops down to a jumble of blue slate roofs. Along the bottom across the full width of the painting is the front street scene of 7 buildings, each with 3 stories though of varied heights, and joined together save for one gap. They have shop fronts at street level, upper stories are coloured, left to right, pink, white, yellow, orange, red, teal, and yellow, with contrasting window frames and details including dormer windows. Buildings are 3 or 4 window bays wide, all narrow windows coloured in a blue or a black. A couple of small trees with a ball of bright green foliage are on the left, and up beside the cathedral there is one at the left end and 2 at the right. Parts of the fronts of other buildings are visible in gaps up the hill to the top on the right. Signed top right: Liam Daly

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Liberal Resistance @liberalresistance.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

April 19th, 2025. createtoliberate.org is organizing a day of national art activism. @abbetuck.bsky.social #LiberalResistance #Artivism

Text on top says “Create to Liberate,” black text on a pink banner.
Main text says:
April 19th, 2025.
createtoliberate.org
is organizing a day of national art activism.
Register your participation or check out the website for ideas.
@abbetuck.bsky.social
The liberal resistance symbol is free to use.
The image has a flag with the liberal resistance symbol, a combination of an “L” and an “R,” white symbol on black.
There is an illustration of a cup filled with paintbrushes.
On the right there is an illustration of colored pencils in a cup.

@liberalresistance.bsky.social

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

An album cover for the moment.

Several naked Barbie dolls confined in a gold-colored bird cage, trying to get out. Cage is on a dirty urban sidewalk.

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Rogue SSA @alt-ssa.altgov.info · 12/03/2025

Just to be clear, a big reason @altssa.altgov.info and I are here is because it's painfully obvious to employees that SSA is being sabotaged. They want it to break so they can kill it and blame us. We need all your help to spread the word far and wide so these people can't escape responsibility.

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 12/03/2025

The ADA was won after a series of battles. This was one of them. 🖤🖤🖤

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Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

From a poetry collection by Mary Oliver, where after a hundred poems showcasing gentle observations on nature and animals, she hits you with this

OF THE EMPIRE
We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness.

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

For anyone who wants to nerd out about writing alt text for artwork, this is a great post: "Alt Text for Artwork, Alt Text as Artwork" by someone at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. It contains best practices & four practical tips. aestheticsforbirds.com/2024/05/02/h... #accessibility

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No More Freeways @nomorefreewayspdx.com · 10/03/2025

🗣️🗣️ ACTION ALERT: 🗣️🗣️ Help us tell regional leaders at JPACT/Metro to oppose an upcoming MTIP Amendment for the proposed $1.9 Billion Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion. Now's a critical moment to tell local elected officials how you really feel about this expansion: www.nomorefreewayspdx.com/MTIP2025

Action Alert: Tell JPACT/Metro: Reject the RQ MTIP Amendment! The Portland region can't afford this $1,900,000,00+ freeway expansion!

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Cathy A @cathyaster.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

Link has details. “ART FOR A CAUSE” CALL FOR COLLAGE ART Check it out: The Georgetown Lombardi Arts and Humanities Program (AHP) at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital’s second Call for Art, “Art for a Cause” for World Collage Day, May 10, 2025. www.instagram.com/p/DG4ZPs1RTW...

instagram.com

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

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David Noll @david.noll.org · 08/03/2025

Pro-tip for university administrators: when the government illegally cancels your grants, your first response shouldn't be "you kind of have a point."

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Torea @toreajade.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

“Inch by inch” is an 18” x 18” collage made up of 144 smaller (1-inch square) mini collages. This is part of Let Er Rip, on show through early summer. If you’re in Portland, come on out to Up Up Books (1211 SE Stark) tomorrow, Sat Mar 8, from 5-8pm for a reception ☺️ #pdx #collage #portlandart

Collage made up of smaller square collages of colorful ripped paper. There are 144 1-inch collages, unified in a whole to make an artistic statement about the value of community and togetherness, particulrly among those with a shared passion for paper

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AltSpaceForce 🚀🇺🇲 @altspaceforce.altgov.info · 07/03/2025

Next week, most all of North America will be in prime viewing range of a total lunar eclipse & blood moon phenomenon. The shorter wavelengths of light (like blue) are scattered more than longer wavelengths (like red), creating this spooky illumination.

A time lapse visualization of a total lunar eclipse causing a blood moon

The path of the 2025 total lunar eclipse as seen for north America

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Merrymac Farm Sanctuary @merrymacsanctuary.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

Arty has been reading your bluesky posts and wants to see you in his office.

Photo of a small light brown rabbit sitting in a black plastic bin of hay with his forefeet placed on the edge of the bin. He looks grumpy and judgmental even though he is actually the sweetest boy.

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猫好きな人 @valoisdubins.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Inevitably, there are more stories from other women scientists in the comments. This crap needs to have stopped a century ago.

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Lola Jovan @lolajovan.com · 06/03/2025

The Sun Came Up Slowly oil on linen sold The sun came up slowly, taking its own sweet time, doing the job right. It bathed the world in soft pastels, in rose and soft yellow and rich brown. It warmed the ground, the leaves, the grasses. - Chad Oliver #portrait #art #oilpainting

Close-up oil painting portrait of a young woman’s face

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K.B. Wagers @kbwagers.com · 04/03/2025

Please please ALT TEXT YOUR IMAGES. I'm seeing so many cool things lately that I can't share because they don't have alt text. If you want your art, your screenshots, your message to get to a wider audience on here, the simple action of writing alt text for it will help.

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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Many struggle with writing alt text for charts and other other data visualizations. Amy Cesal's "Writing Alt Text for Data Visualization" hammers home the importance of explaining the chart type, the type of data, and the reason for the chart. medium.com/nightingale/...

medium.com

Writing Alt Text for Data Visualization

How do you write text that conveys the whole meaning of a visualization? You probably can’t. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try

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Alt CDC (they/them) @altcdc.altgov.info · 02/03/2025

In times of revolution, many things change. If we are able to rebuild our research bodies, one thing we would Iike to see change is for-profit scientific journals. Scientific publications should be open access if government-funded and journals should at minimum be non-profit. 💙 Aaron Swartz

thenation.com

How Scientific Publishers’ Extreme Fees Put Profit Over Progress

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Bee Zelda 🍉 @beezelda.com · 28/02/2025

This will not be the first economic blackout or the last. But it's a place for new people to start, and for others to continue their boycott. Eat. The. Rich.

A graphic titled "2025 Economic Blackout Schedule" outlines planned consumer blackouts. The word "BLACKOUT" is displayed in bold black letters with a crossed-out shopping cart icon inside the letter "O." A calendar and clock emoji appear in the top right corner. The schedule lists:

Total Blackout (Feb. 28): No purchases at all, with a recommendation to buy essentials in advance and shop local if necessary.
Amazon Blackout (March 7-14): No purchases from Amazon.
Nestlé Blackout (March 21-28): No purchases of Nestlé products, including Gerber, Perrier, Chefmate, Purina, and Friskies.
Walmart Blackout (April 7-14): No purchases from Walmart or Walmart.com. A sad face emoji is next to Walmart's name.
Total Blackout 2 (April 18): Another full no-purchase day with similar recommendations.
At the bottom, three sections encourage people to:

Spread the word – by sharing the information.
Prepare – by purchasing necessities before the blackout days.
Spend $0 – by avoiding purchases on blackout days and shopping local if necessary.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 01/03/2025

I got laid off today, with the rest of 18F. 18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it. We made this website to tell our story: 18f.org

18f.org

We're not done yet | 18F

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Lola Jovan @lolajovan.com · 01/03/2025

Some people might keep candy in fancy glassware. Around here, it’s agates. 😁 #agates #rockhound #ourhouse #photography

Agates glowing in the afternoon sun in Some fancy glassware

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

None of us can be sure what will “work.” You try multiple things and find your way in. Read some histories of the Civil Rights Movement by those who participated. They were never “sure” of what would work. Some campaigns fizzled out. But persistence, creativity, determination, and focus were key.

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Melissa West, Printmaker @mswest-art.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

I haven't posted my own work for a few days. I think it's time to share Stand With Ukraine.

A linoleum block print of two blue ropes intertwined to make one knot, over a yellow background.

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