Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who nominated Black Witch for the Black Weblog Awards. I am now in the voting rounds for the faith category (#6) and have been invited to attend the Black Weblog Awards! I am very excited indeed. Here’s the ballot, if you want to donate to send BW to LA and the BW post containing all the necessary details.

Now go out and vote! The Arts for the month of May:

The Shy Witch
Here’s a quick fact about me: I do read what my readers are doing. If you subscribe to my blog, twitter or fan page, I will and have scoped you out. Y’know, “Put your buckets down where they are, there’s diamonds in your own backyard.” Even if you comment and leave your website down, I will look at it. I like to see what other people are doing, who am I attracting and well, I’m just super curious(/nosy).

I really like the Shy Witch because I think it is a wonderful personal blog of a Black Pagan and little bits and pieces of useful information such as her post on flowers and their magickal qualities or even on Italian nuggets (a recipe that I shall be jacking for my own uses, it is teh aweshome).

Her blog is very expressive, there’s poetry, stories, reflections, recipes, a very well rounded Black Pagan blog, which is very hard to come by.

Check her out yourself!
The Shy Witch
The Shy Witch Fan Page

Yak Ballz
I actually happened upon his music through a late night radio station listen. It was the song “Hello Eyes” which I thought was pretty amazing in sound. I prefer music that says something and of course as you can see emcee after emcee on here, this should be no different. The guitar loop is striking and the song is very late-night in feel. Take a listen, it’s really cool. Another song that I liked from Yak Ballz is “Dirt Empire”. The chorus is captivating, Yak Ballz is being directly honest and political and it is just a cool video and song

He been working on some new stuff, I like the fact he develops his sound instead of staying stagnant and on the same track, same note, same gig forever and ever. Definitely an emcee indeed

He’s been workin on some recent stuff, here’s his latest official video of his song “Compass”

Wanna get more Yak Ballz or even buy some of his music? Here you go:

Yak Ballz
Twitter
Yak Ballz Tv

Atra_mental
I found his work on the international Lolita community EGL and this was the picture he posted up: (Click for clearer image)

Starry Sky

And I thought his work was stunning. These pictures are not done with computer but the old-fashion way, by hand and with talent. Everything is acrylic on canvas and they are so marvelously stunning. I love the detail that he has an amazing eye for and most importantly, the figures are diverse in skin, body, expression and theme. There is plenty of lolita art out there but usually the subject is White and doesn’t often stray from that or if so, more in a tokenized fashion than anything. Atra_mental mentions about his artwork, “Someone asked me why I paint space with the figures and I said because space is full of magic, creation and beauty.” Good answer

Here’s more of his works. I can’t say enough that Atramental has stunning work of detail. He has several lolitas wearing brand prints (click on Lolita Fashion on “Links of Interest” to understand what I’m saying) and they’re unmistakenable. (Click to see clearer image)

GMO Apple

Yrtaloihpo

Majestic

Want to see the rest of his gallery? Here’s where you can find him:

Portfollio site
Deviant Art
Tumblr

That’s all The Arts for the month of May! Next week is Ask Black Witch, send in your submissions! Use the submission form on the side, email me, tweet me, post on my fan page, mail me, just get it in and it’ll be on here, just look on my contact page for info if you don’t feel like using the form. (Why not use the form? It’s right there at least.)