How Location becomes News - because it is new.

Hear this... right... (wait for it...)... HERE!​

EXIT 46;  I-95n To: Long Wharf Drive, Sargent Ave, in New Haven, CT


"Despite inspiration being everywhere, sometimes we at The SpokenRode need to dig to find material… by that, we mean we need to dig to find material relevant to a landmark, factory, or Exit when it connects to something that is relevant today — not just by place (where we excel) but by that old fashioned arbiter of relevance — time.  After all, aside from coming upon a new “place” nothing is "News" unless it is new.    


"For example, let’s just say we want to talk about a person, place, or thing that has to do with the current internet phenomena relevant to the Getty Museum Challenge.  In the COVID Pandemic, The Getty Museum Challenge has gone viral BIG time!   


It challenges families in lockdown to replicate the world’s great art. ​

The problem of course is that the Getty Museum is in Los Angeles and the art is all around the world. So how do we tie the challenge that suddenly has millions of followers to a location along I-95? ​

​Well, that’s easy actually.  We just get on the internet and dig.


The first thing we dug into is who invented this challenge that asks quarantined folks to re-create famous pieces of art using just a few household items that suggest the age of COVID.  For example, recreations of Vincent van Gogh self Portrait (he of the missing ear) must replicate his stance exactly in his self portrait.  Or how about Frida Kahlo posing with parrots? Here the self portrait replaces colorful parrots with brilliant household cleaning products.

Another portrait replaces a massive Renaissance collar with rolls of much in-demand toilet paper.


Absurd right? But genius!   ​

Speaking of collars, a lot of the replicas were re-created by home-bound art counterfeiters substituting their dogs instead of humans.  Stately Vermeers in the 1600’s showed a princess in pearls. The new knock-offs feature pugs — presumably drool and all.

Personally we at Roadspoke think the counterfeits will some day be as valuable as the real Picassos, Michelangelo's, Van Gogh's and Davinci's.  The collective imagination is superlative and in this time of collective distress, truly uplifting.


The challenge has become an unmitigated success with many millions of viewers and thousands of submissions.  People from all around the world have the time and inclination to choose a favorite famous pieces of art and re-create them just by using cleaning products or medical supplies or even, heaven help us,  plundered toilet products.  Describing the images from the esoteric art historian plane…todays interpretations are just a hoot!


So how do we link this phenomena back to this upcoming exit? Well it turns out that the Getty has 2 young digital media marketers who created it: Annelisa Stephan and Sarah Waldorf.  They created the challenge. Ms Waldorf it turns out is an accomplished digital marketer with tons of illustrative accomplishments — but she is 110% a product of Southern California. She does not even have a record of flying over the I-95 corridor. So no go.

Similarly,  Annelisa Stephan is also a child of Southern California. Before she joined the Getty Museum, she was once employed by the Shoah Foundation involved in the recording of thousands of surviving Holocaust Survivors.  

This seems like a dead end too until we checked more of her social media.   By checking her Linked IN Profile we discovered she attended Yale University. BINGO!

So thanks to Annelisa Stephan, a SoCal girl from Los Angeles, we can give thanks in New Haven, Connecticut to the amazingly inspired artistry of COVID quarantined Americans replicating great art pieces all across America.  And if you thought the was amazing, the Getty Iris Challenge  can be only superseded by one thing: Our challenge.


The RoadSpoke Spoken Road Challenge is to say that ten times fast.


Repeat after me… “Give thanks to the amazingly inspired  artistry of COVID quarantined Americans replicating great art pieces all across America… Give thanks to the amazingly inspired  artistry of COVID quarantined Americans replicating great art pieces all across America… Give thanks to the amazingly inspired  artistry of COVID quarantined Americans replicating great art pieces all across America.”


Now, if only that too would go viral and not like the coronavirus… but in the good way.


#Yale #NewHaven #GettyMuseum #GettyIrisChallenge #Art #AnnelisaStephan #SarahWaldorf

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