A heartbroken but defiant Trixie Whitley faces a storm of emotions in the video for her new song, “A Thousand Thieves,” directed by filmmaker Matthu Placek. The daughter of blues legend Chris Whitley, Trixie grew up between Belgium and New York in a family of passionate musicians, artists and writers, learning drums, guitar and piano at an early age. For the past two years the singer-songwriter has been recording and touring with Black Dub, the band of super-producer Daniel Lanois who worked with Brian Eno on U2’s The Joshua Tree and has produced records for artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Willie Nelson. Currently soloing across Europe, Whitley caught Placek’s attention with her soulful, smoky vocals and sensitive tunes while performing at New York salon Le Poisson Rouge. “All of a sudden, she lets out her voice and I just flew against the wall,” says the former V magazine and Vogue photographer. They bonded that night, and soon Whitley was standing in a Balenciaga dress singing into four high-powered fans over a 14-hour day to the single take. “She really knows what she wants,” says Placek. “You’d think she’s this shrinking violet—and she is––but she is strong. She’s very true to herself.”

Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

We admit that our preference would be to see six women and six men waiting for the California Secretary of State office to open yesterday, but four women and eight men — all millionarie businesspeople — are a good launch for California’s launch of social enterprises set to become legal Benefit Corporations. Good reports:

Patagonia founder and CEO Yvon Chouinard was the first of a gaggle of CEOs in line as the office doors opened, according to the company. His firm, a supply-chain transparency leader, had lobbied for the adoption of the law and wanted to make a public show of support by becoming the first to shift its corporate status.

What is a B Corporation? As oposed to an LLC or C Corp, a Benefit Corporation must consider the impact of business decisions on the environment, employees, and the community in addition to a reasonable financial return to shareholders. Investors can’t force founders to sell or act against the original principles of the business, choosing to maximize profit over people and the planet.

An investor who choose to put money into a B Corporation understands this holistic set of principles that guide the strategic decision-making process for the company.New York State has passed a similar bill that will take effect in February 2012, making a total of five states offering the designation.

The twelve California companies that registered as Benefit Corporations today are: DopeHut, Dharma Merchant Services, Give Something Back Office Supplies, Green Retirement Plans, Opticos Designs, Patagonia, Rimon Law, Scientific Certification Systems, Solar Works, Sun Light & Power, Terrassure Sustainable Land & Resource Development, Thinkshift Communication.

Is the Bomb Really Diffused?

Seed Magazine asks in ‘All Consuming”:

With population and per-capita consumpton both on the rise, is humanity’s impact on the earth sustainable. What would happen if we ate less meat? What if we gave women better education and more power?

Demographer Joel Cohen of Rockefeller University in New York asserts that the peak growth rate for the global population—a little more than 2 percent per year—occurred somewhere between 1965 and 1970, when the world’s population was just 3.3 billion people. Dropping steadily ever since to a little over 1 percent today, the planet now adds roughly 78 million people per year.

The global empowerment of women — where it exists — has created a situation in which human population numbers will drop voluntarily for the first time ever in human history in the 21st century. Journalist Fred Pearce writes in ‘The Coming Population Crash’:

The Population bomb is being defused. By women. Because they want to.

More DFR

My Faraway One: Selected Letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz: Volume One, 1915-1933 (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

The New York Review of Books reminds us that by the end of her inspiring, independent spirit life, American artist Georgia Totto O’Keeffe was not only one of America’s most prominent artists, but she had eclipsed crowd-pleasers like Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth.

O’Keefe’s polularity was equaled perhaps by Andy Warhol, writes Christopher Benfey, who admired her, interviewed her and borrowed lavishly from her motiffs. Georgia O’Keeffe is beloved at AOC where we identify strongly with her up-close vaginal flower petals and her evocations of the primeval feminine forces of New Mexico.

Art historian Sara Greenough has undertaken the daunting and exhiliarating task of editing Georgia O’Keeffe’s more than 25,000 pages of letters between her and husband photographer Alfred Steiglitz. The first volume of letters (link above) fills the seven hundred pages of Volume One, beginning in 1915 and ending in 1933.

Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction (Whitney Museum of American Art

In addition to rethinking O’Keeffe’s role in the development of a uniquely American abstract style, Barbara Haskell’s book chronicles the shifts and changes in subject matter and style over the span of Georgia O’Keeffe’s career. It adds significant new insights into her life, reproducing still more excerpts of previously sealed letters written by O’Keeffe to photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz.

These previously unpublished letters, along with other primary documents referenced by the authors, offer an intimate glimpse into the artist’s creative method and intentions.

Georgia O’Keeffe at AOC

Georgia O’Keeffe’s Sustainable, Slow Living New Mexico Lifestyle

Georgia O’Keeffe | Art, Sensuality, Orchids, Divinity

O’Keeffe to Chicago | Women’s Liberty Not Won

Anne of Carversville

Anna de Rijk | Sofia Sanchez & Mauro Mongiello | Tar Winter 2011 | Don’t Look Back

I cannot speak of this Anna de Rijk editorial ‘Don’t Look Back’, loaded in while I was sleeping, waiting for me to awaken after a sleepless night - then deep dreaming at 4am. Not only do I remember drifting out of Venice at dawn, taking a water taxi to the airport at daybreak because I love traveling by boat. I am overwhelmed with emotion related to response to my recent blog post that has flown the digital airwaves all the way to Italy, which was its intended destination. Read on Beauty, Goodness & Self Worth As Female Expressions of God’s Love to understand why I am lost for a response to this editorial, a psychological bullseye into the heart and soul of Anne of Carversville. Anne

AOC Private Studio

Igor Vasiliadis | Depesha Magazine #5 Fall 2011 | ‘Eternal Values’

Martha Streck | Manuel Nogueira | Elle Brazil January 2012

Giedrė Dukauskaitė | Driu + Tiago | Amica January 2012 | ‘Femmina’

Laetitia Casta | Driu + Tiago | Amica January 2012

AOC Apple Valley

Dimphy Janse | Hunter & Gatti | Vogue Spain January 2012

Barbara di Creddo, Vanessa H, Vivian Witjes, Matt Hitt & Mario | Richard Phibbs | Amica January 2012 | ‘Weekend’

Oliver Escardo | Cecilia Austin | The Creatives | Darwinian