As it seems, the Crate is going to float a bit from one day to another now, due to the general busy-ness of the season, but have no fear, it’ll be here providing its usual eclectic oddities and perhaps adding a few new ones. As the South America series has progressed, a number of interesting artists from the region has surfaced, so instead of finishing it off as initially planned, I’ll continue and remind you of some you surely already know and introduce you to some artists that you most likely encounter for the first time. So, let’s get to it without further ado.

1. Maria Izquierdo is the most ‘classically Mexican‘ artist if Diego Rivera, her teacher at the Academy of Fine Art is to be believed. As a student at the school during 1927-28, she already had a different type of life experience to draw upon than most of her peers – having been forced into marriage at the age of 14, she had divorced her husband in 1926 and become in effect a single mother of three in Mexico City. She also had embarked on the road of fulfilling her dream to become an artist – in 1930 she would become the first Mexican woman artist to have a solo exhibition in the United States.

2. Self-improvement can sound like an utterly daunting task – the Kaizen method, however, makes it look quite manageable.

3. Do big cats like water? Big Cat Rescue made a little experiment to find out.

4. Wonder, which cities on Earth are the most polluted? At least in 2020 most of the top 20 was occupied by just one country.

5. We tend to think of ancient Greek cities as pristinely marble-white, but as the recent reconstruction of the ancient city of Ephesus shows, they were anything but.

6. And to finish off for this week, have a look how your favourite genre of music would look as a chair. (by Wrong Hands)

And that’s it for this time. Happy reading and until next week!
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