Today is James Baldwin's birthday

He was born in Harlem in 1924, became an accomplished writer in his twenties, moved to France and got involved in the cultural radicalism of the Left Bank, achieved massive success in his thirties with Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room, returned to the United States and became a social and political activist. Aside from novels, Baldwin wrote tons of essays, plays, and poetry during his lifetime. He died from Esophageal cancer in 1987 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and was buried in New York.

To commemorate Baldwin's birthday, here's I Heard It Through the Grapevine, a free-form, feature-length documentary produced in 1982. The film, made by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley, follows the writer as he revisits the settings of civil rights struggles of the 1960s in the Deep South and reexamines the movement's ideals twenty years later.

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The Adorable Sculptures of Yen Yen Lo

These images are from a series of wall sculptures created by Yen Yen Lo . Here you can see her intricately textured ceramic pieces, looking downright adorable. Yen Yen Lo's eye for the unique and whimsical is delightful. Apparently they are not intended for kids under 16. Fifteen-year-olds cannot be trusted with fragile stuff. Get them a Funko Pop instead.

Eric van Straaten's 3D-Printed Statuettes

I can't remember when I first became entranced with Eric van Straaten 's 3D-printed sculptures. I think I stumbled onto his work through tumblr when I was searching for new artists to follow. Eric's attention to detail is pretty amazing, and the image of the eroticized child-woman is familiar throughout his work. Most of his hyper surreal pieces are 3D-printed in sandstone material, which are created by laying down a thin layer of gypsum powder and using a binding agent and color inks to print a pattern onto it. Once the entire model is printed, it is withdrawn from the print bed and the excess powder is removed. The model is then sealed and ready for display. "I think that the girls I create in my work are visualizations of my own feelings, fantasies and thoughts," the Dutch artist explains. "The girls actually look like someone I (used to) know and the different ‘portraits’ tell something about what I think of myself in regards to her or women ...

Print out and fold your own paper cameras

Totally want to make some of these Olympus mirrorless cameras with my daughter this weekend. They don't take pictures, but they sure would make my little girl very happy. The Japanese company has a webpage for kids , and you can easily create three-dimensional paper models of the OM-D or the PEN Lite by printing and folding those PDF templates in the papercraft section . Enjoy! [h/t: Pop Photo ]

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