In 1867, Caroline Shawk Brooks and her husband, Samuel, had a farm in Arkansas. Life on the farm was not easy. From sunrise to sunset, Caroline and Samuel milked cows, gardened, and picked cotton. This left Caroline no time for her dream of becoming an artist.
Time was not the only problem. Money was a worry too. The cotton crops were failing. What could Caroline and Samuel do?
Caroline decided to make butter from their cows’ milk and sell it at the market. But other farms also made and sold butter. How would Caroline set her butter apart from the rest? This is where Caroline’s artistic talent came in. To draw attention to her butter, she began making small butter sculptures (雕塑). She used many different tools, such as broom straws, and tree sticks. She also put the butter in a small tin plate, which sat in a larger tin plate filled with ice to stop the butter sculpture out of shape.
Caroline’s butter sculptures were a huge success. Before long, she was showing them at markets and exhibitions. One of her largest butter sculptures was a life-size statue called A Study in Butter. It was transported all the way to Paris for the 1878 world’s fair.
Caroline also made sculptures using marble (大理石). She finally opened a studio in New York City where she created many marble sculptures, some of which were shown at the 1893 world’s fair in Chicago.
But Caroline never stopped making butter art. She considered butter an excellent material to work with. At the 1893 market, she also displayed her butter techniques with a sculpture of Christopher Columbus.
Caroline Shawk Brooks died in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1913. She is remembered as the first known American butter sculptor (雕刻家).
1. According to paragraph3, why did Caroline make butter sculptures?A.To realize her dream. | B.To make her butter better known. |
C.To make her farm famous. | D.To show her sculptures at the market. |
A.Caroline made her art works all by machine. |
B.The sculptures were all made from cow’s milk. |
C.Ice was used to keep the butter sculptures in shape. |
D.Caroline stopped making sculptures after being world-famous. |
A.Hardworking and curious. | B.Responsible and competitive |
C.Talented and successful. | D.Confident and caring. |
A.A Farming Pioneer. | B.A Great woman. |
C.The Butter Sculptures. | D.The Butter Artist. |
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【推荐1】Do I Know You?
Cecilia Burman has always had a problem with faces. As a child, she fought to pick out her own face in school photos, and she is hard pressed today to describe her mother’s features. Over the years she has offended (冒犯) countless friends, passing them on neighborhood streets or in office half ways like strangers. “People think I am just snobby,” says Burman, 38, a computer consultant in Stockholm. “It makes me really really sad to lose new friends because they think I couldn’t have trouble to say hello.”
There is a name for Burman’s condition: prosopagnosia, or, more informally, face blindness. The disorder was thought to be extremely rare and mainly a result of brain injury. “Until a few years ago, there were perhaps 100 officially recorded cases,” says Ken Nakayama, a professor of psychology at Harvard.
Within that group of sufferers, however, the condition varies widely. For most people, the problem is not so much about checking a face. Prosopagnosics can see eyes, noses and mouths as clearly as anyone else. It is about recognizing the same set of features when seeing them again. While mild prosopagnosics can train themselves to memorize a limited number of faces (it is said to be like learning to differ one stone from another), others fight to recognize family members and, in extreme cases, their own faces. Gaylen Howard, 40, a homemaker in Boulder, says that when she is in front of a mirror in a crowded restroom, she makes a funny face so that, as she puts it, “I can tell which one is me.”
For now, it is enough for face-blind people like Burman, who has spent a lifetime being misjudged as lazy and uncaring, to know that there are many others out there like her. Burman made her first contact with fellow prosopagnosics on an Internet mailing list in 2000. “It was only then that I really recognized my own situation in theirs,” she says. “It was such a relief (宽慰). I cried for days.”
1. The underlined word “snobby” in paragraph 1 most probably means “______”。A.strange | B.superior | C.cruel | D.stupid |
A.The disorder results from brain injury. |
B.Prosopagnosia is in fact quite common. |
C.Face-blind people are not necessarily snobby. |
D.Burman has no difficulty recognizing her own features. |
A.Prosopagnosia can finally be cured now. |
B.She got fully understood by all the people around her. |
C.She realized she was not alone who suffered from face blindness. |
D.She gained the ability to recognize the same set of facial features. |
A.there are more and more face-blind people |
B.Burman contributed to the Prosopagnosia platform online |
C.the cure for Prosopagnosia led to relief to suffering people |
D.face-blind people will be offensive by those knowing little about situations |
【推荐2】“I have cancer.” Mom said and held me in a tight hug. I could feel her chest shaking as she tried not to cry but failed.
For all of my twenty-four years, my mom had been supportive. Strength and protection had always flowed from her to me. Now I knew it would have to flow the other way.
Mom didn’t stay down for long. After the shock of breast-cancer, she armed herself with a notebook and a pen and a thousand questions for the doctors. She took notes on white blood cell counts and medications (药物) with long names as though she were studying for entrance exams into medical school. “The not-knowing is the worst.” she said.
The operation was successful. The chemo (化疗) was the harder part. I went with Mom to every chemo treatment. She rarely complained, though her hair was gone and her toenails and fingernails fell out one by one. She joked that she could save money on nail polish and put it toward the doctor bills, even though she never wore nail polish. “Cancer can take my hair, my nails, my health, my very life. But it can’t take my smile.” Mom said.
Mom learned to share her fears with me, and it formed an even deeper bond between us. Yet I am certain there were fears she didn’t share because she was still protecting me — worries she only shared with Dad. Even in the darkest hours, she would just joke about the cancer. Mom always said, “When you look your greatest fear in the eye and laugh at it, you take away some of its power.”
Mom was one of the lucky ones. She did beat her cancer, though not without scars. From her, I’ve learned I may not get to choose what I face, but I do get to choose how I face it.
1. What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 mean?
A.There were other ways to treat cancer. |
B.I should be the one being there for Mom. |
C.Mom had to stay stronger to beat cancer. |
D.Knowledge of cancer would be helpful. |
A.Optimistic and determined. |
B.Considerate and ambitious. |
C.Humorous and generous. |
D.Caring and knowledgeable. |
A.She only shared with Dad. |
B.She would just joke about the cancer. |
C.She wanted to protect the author. |
D.She formed a deeper bond with the author. |
A.Luck counts in beating diseases. |
B.Complaint does no good to one’s health. |
C.Sharing feelings helps reduce sufferings a lot. |
D.Positive attitudes get one through hardship. |
【推荐3】In a recent heartwarming story, Mr. Sun has touched the hearts of many by using AI face-swapping technology to create a video message from his late father.
The touching video captures Sun’s emotions as he replicates his father’s appearance and voice to convey a message of well-being to his grandmother. The entire process of face-swapping and video creation took a lot of effort and lasted nearly half a month, during which Sun couldn’t help but shed tears as he missed his deceased father.
In 2022, Sun’s father was diagnosed with a rare condition known as appendiceal mucinous adenocarcinoma (阑尾黏液腺癌). Despite Sun’s efforts to seek medical treatment for his father, the disease progressed rapidly, and his father passed away in 2023.
Concerned about his grandmother’s fragile health, the family decided to keep Sun’s father’s passing a secret. They fabricated (编造) a story, telling the elderly woman that her son was still receiving treatment in a Beijing hospital. The prolonged separation depressed the grandmother a lot, who continuously expressed her longing to speak with her son.
In a creative attempt to comfort his grandmother, Sun, inspired by science fiction films, decided to use AI face-swapping technology to create a video message from his father. Prior to recording the video, he even shaved off his bear d to look more like his late father. By using AI software, he successfully transformed his appearance into that of his father, delivering a heartfelt message to his grandmother: “Mom, it’s Jihai. I’m doing well in Beijing.” Despite the relatively low pixel (像素) quality, the grandmother believed the well-intentioned fabrication.
Sun admitted that his emotions almost broke down within the half-month, as every mention of his father’s name or a glance of his photograph brought great sorrow. He also expressed uncertainty about how long he can keep up the fabrication and whether he will make use of face-swapping again. Nevertheless, he is determined to follow in his father’s footstep to be a strong support for his family.
1. What does the underlined word in paragraph 2 mean?A.Copies. | B.Paints. | C.Recalls. | D.Preserves. |
A.By seeking medical treatment for his father. |
B.By making up to look like his father. |
C.By showing his father’s previous photographs and voice to her. |
D.By telling a white lie and giving his father an online rebirth. |
A.It was a laborious process. | B.Sun will employ face-swapping again. |
C.Sun got inspiration from science-fiction films. | D.The images this technology made were unclear. |
A.Creative and honest. | B.Optimistic and generous. |
C.Considerate and responsible. | D.Talented and courageous. |
【推荐1】For the creatively minded, snow represents a large blank canvas (空白画布) for art. But often, it’s limited to snowmen or other snow statues. Simon Beck had a different idea, and over the course of a decade he has carved a path for himself in the snow art world. He creates large land art by walking across soccer-field-sized areas covered in untouched snow. Combined with light and shadow (影子) , his artistic designs can only be fully appreciated when viewed from above.
Beck, 59, a former map maker turned into a snow artist, thanks to his decision late in life to pursue his hobby.
“It started just as a joke one day really,” Beck explained. “After skiing one day, I decided to make a drawing on snow to seek pleasure...”
“I really had no idea how good it would look when I made that first drawing, but it really went beyond my expectation,” he said of his first ever creation that he looked down on from a ski lift.
To create this work, Beck stepped his way through the snow using only snowshoes and a ski pole for measurement with nothing else but the image of a design idea in his head. It was not challenging at all due to his previous work experience. But as his designs developed and became more complex(复杂的), Beck said he began to start drawing them on paper first.
Beck’s paintings have become a huge hit since his work was first shared.
“Most of the time I had been doing failed careers, and people around me are asking what's the quickest way of getting rid of (摆脱) this person,” Beck said. “And for the first time, I felt people actually wanted me. I felt like a more valued member of society.”
1. Where does Simon Beck create art?A.On maps. | B.On canvas. | C.On soccer fields. | D.On snowfields. |
A.To have fun. | B.To prove his talent. |
C.To entertain the skiers. | D.To develop a new hobby. |
A.Surprised. | B.Unsatisfied. | C.Annoyed. | D.Indifferent. |
A.His passion for skiing. | B.His competitive nature. |
C.His dream to be an artist. | D.His experience of making maps. |
【推荐2】Frederick Phiri, known as the junk-art king of Zambia, set out on a remarkable journey at the age of 22 when he began earning an international reputation for being able to make complex and elegant sculptures from deserted metal found in his community.
Phiri’s path to artistic recognition was filled with challenges. His childhood was marked by the loss of his father and his mother leaving him behind, making him under the care of his grandfather. While his grandfather provided for his basic education, Phiri faced financial struggles when he entered secondary school, forcing him to take on various jobs to fund his studies. Yet, despite these obstacles, his passion for art remained growing, and he dedicated his free time to drawing and crafting in the classroom.
Upon completing his education, Phiri sought to support himself by creating wire animal sculptures (雕塑品), which he sold to tourists. It was during this period that his exceptional talent caught the attention of Karen Beattie, the director of Project Luangwa, a nonprofit organization committed to education and economic development in central Africa.
Teaming up with local welder (焊接工) Moses Mbewe in 2017, Phiri contributed to the creation of a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa during the rainy season. Impressed by his work, Beattie presented Phiri with a challenge: to create art from abandoned waste metal. Undiscouraged, Phiri embraced the opportunity, transforming forgotten keys, broken bike chains, and old metal bottles into attracting abstract animal sculptures, including elephants, cranes, giraffes, and monkeys.
Today, Phiri’s artistic pursuits continue to flourish as he transforms deserted junk into striking sculptures showcased at the Project Luangwa headquarters. His talent has earned recognition and admiration from the community, fueling his dreams of pursuing formal art education at the Evelyn Hone College in Lusaka and creating even more magnificent sculptures in the future. Through creativity and determination, Phiri has turned adversity (逆境) into artistic success, leaving a lasting impact on Zambia’s art scene.
1. What is Phiri distinguished for?A.Serving his community. | B.Collecting works of art. |
C.Being the king of Zambia. | D.Turning trash into treasure. |
A.His struggle to pay for primary schooling by himself. |
B.The loss of his father and abandonment by his mother. |
C.His dedication to part-time jobs while attending school. |
D.His responsibility to support his grandfather financially. |
A.To create sculptures from wire. |
B.To sell his sculptures internationally. |
C.To create art from deserted waste metal. |
D.To design a complex set of doors for Project Luangwa. |
A.Uncertain. | B.Confident. | C.Depressed. | D.Confused. |
【推荐3】Christo Javacheff the artist who worked to turn landscapes and buildings into massive, temporary works of art, died on March 2021 at age 84. Christo surprised the world again and again with the imagination and size of the artworks he created.
Christo, born in Bulgaria in 1935, met his wife Jeanne-Claude in Paris in 1959. Together, the two formed a strong partnership that lasted the rest of their lives. They worked as a team to create huge works of art called installations. In these installations, Christo and Jeanne often changed the way buildings or large areas of land looked — a kind of art known as "land art”.
The two were most noted for “wrapping” things so large that most people would never think to wrap them. Many of their projects used huge pieces of cloth or plastic. For example, in 1969, they wrapped 1.6 miles of rocky coastline near Sydney, Australia and it was the largest artwork ever made. In 1995, they used cloth to wrap up the Reichstag, a famous and historic building in Berlin, Germany.
Being extremely large, their art works cost a fortune to create. The artists paid for the projects themselves by selling the plans, drawings, and models they made for each installation. Many projects seemed so unusual that the couple had to work very hard to get permission to create them.
But, like almost all of the artist's work, it was only meant to last a short time. Most of the installations only stayed up for a few weeks or months before being taken down.
“I am an artist, and I have to have courage," Christo said. "Do you know I don't have any artworks that exist? They all go away when they're finished." Christo himself has gone away, leaving behind an art world forever changed by the memory of his huge and daring artworks.
1. For what were the couple best known?A.Overcoming financial problems. |
B.Tearing down old-fashioned buildings. |
C.Inventing innovative building materials. |
D.Packaging huge landscapes and buildings. |
A.Considerate and humble. | B.Creative and courageous. |
C.Enthusiastic and careful. | D.Demanding and generous. |
A.His artworks were temporary. |
B.His hard work didn't pay off at last. |
C.He regretted exhibiting his artworks. |
D.He didn't expect his works to last long. |
A.Christo's Collection of Massive Artworks |
B.Christo's Enormous Influence on Architecture |
C.Christo: an Artist Who Dreamed and Built Big |
D.Christo and Jeanne: a Couple Who Warmed the World |