Artist found dead on Rio mosaic staircase he spent 20 years creating

The ceramic street artist who created one of Rio de Janeiro’s most distinctive landmarks was found dead on Thursday on the spectacular mosaic staircase in Lapa that he decorated with brightly coloured tiles and mirrors over more than two decades.

Jorge Selarón, a Chilean artist who transformed the 215 steps of the Convent of Santa Teresa as a “tribute to the Brazilian people”, had reportedly suffered depression and was being threatened by a former colleague connected to local drug gangs.

No verdict has been given on the cause of death but friends said they had feared he would kill himself because he felt betrayed.

Photographs showed that passersby have already lit candles near the body as a mark of respect for the much loved artist, who went from obscurity to fame but never left the gritty neighbourhood that is at the heart of the city’s Samba culture.

Selarón was primarily a painter in 1990 when he started a small scale renovation of the steep steps that ran outside his house up into the Santa Teresa favela. But the part-time project became a life work.

Sometimes selling his paintings to fund his obsession, he changed the tatty path, tile by tile, fragment by fragment, into a blaze of colour and a globally recognised symbol of Rio.

His steps – often referred to as the Selarón staircase – were designated as a city landmark and appeared in fashion magazines, music videos and films. The artist was declared an honorary citizen of Rio de Janeiro.

As his notoriety increased so did the value of his paintings and, more recently, the pressures on the artist in an area that is also notorious for crime and drug use. The Globo newspaper said a dispute over the proceeds from his art sales had made him suicidal.

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UAE-based RAK Ceramics are the world’s largest ceramic tile and sanitary ware manufacturer and they are synonymous with providing the highest quality products and services.

Managing Director of TradePlumbing, Peter Clayton comments, “We have been stocking quality RAK bathroom products for some time now at TradePlumbing, so it was a natural choice to carry some of their stylish kitchen sink ranges also. I’m a particular fan of this simple and elegant square sink. Its pleasing shape makes an interesting change from the ubiquitous rectangular sink and we carry a fantastic range of kitchen taps to compliment it, including the chic Aurora kitchen mixer tap in chrome from Kirby Sebastian. All RAK products carry a 20 year guarantee so you can be assured of quality, all at unbeatable TradePlumbing prices.”

This attractive design is made from top quality ceramic and its style statement square shape is sure to make it the talking point of any kitchen. The Gourmet Sink 6 is designed for the contemporary space-saving kitchen – it can be fitted as over or under mounted options to maximise work space and comes with a 450mm x 475mm specific waste.

UAE-based RAK Ceramics are the world’s largest ceramic tile and sanitary ware manufacturer and they are synonymous with providing the highest quality products and services.

Managing Director of TradePlumbing, Peter Clayton comments, “We have been stocking quality RAK bathroom products for some time now at TradePlumbing, so it was a natural choice to carry some of their stylish kitchen sink ranges also. I’m a particular fan of this simple and elegant square sink. Its pleasing shape makes an interesting change from the ubiquitous rectangular sink and we carry a fantastic range of kitchen taps to compliment it, including the chic Aurora kitchen mixer tap in chrome from Kirby Sebastian. All RAK products carry a 20 year guarantee so you can be assured of quality, all at unbeatable TradePlumbing prices.”

“We’re seeing more desire for wood throughout the entire first floor,” said Christopher Shaxted, executive vice president for Right Residential, which buys and rehabs existing properties throughout the Chicago area. Buyers are drawn to the longevity and durability of wood — the fact that it can be refinished over and over again is a distinct plus, he said.

Many also like the ability to see what’s collecting on their floors, particularly if they are allergic to dust or pet dander. It’s often difficult to know what lurks unseen in a shaggy or particularly dense carpet. “Hardwood just seems cleaner and fresher somehow,” Shaxted said.

Customers of Orren Pickell Building Group continue to request hardwood floors, but some want different types of wood to keep things fresh. “Acacia is a beautiful wood and it’s incredibly hard,” said Orren Pickell, who is president of the homebuilding firm. Still, good old white and red oak remain the most popular choices for hardwood flooring among his customers.

While those building homes today tend to be careful with their choices, buyers will make a well-considered splash if they can afford it, said Brian Hoffman, vice chairman and chief financial officer of Red Seal Development, which builds semicustom homes in northern suburbs such as Lake Zurich and Wilmette.

Hoffman’s clients mix wide-plank hardwood with stone, crafting eye-catching patterns in public spaces or creating special private spaces where they can unwind in style. Wood planks are installed on a grid that is filled in with tile or stone.

“We’re seeing (these designs) in the entryway and master bath,” Hoffman said. “People often like to match their flooring to the tile work in the bath.”

Also new, Velas said, is an emphasis on texture. She’s favoring natural flooring, such as sisal that’s installed wall to wall and dispensed from rolls like carpeting.

Flooring today is anything but uniform: Carpets are sculpted with patterns in the weave and with loops cut to differing heights. Wood floors wear distress marks, wormholes and scrapes like badges of honor. Topsy-turvy housing market aside, buyers are willing to embrace imperfection, at least, when it comes to their floors.

Truck disciplinarian answerable in deaths of 2 boys in tent

A North Dakota man accused of killing two adolescent brothers from Texas if he collection over their covering at a bivouac afterwards blow ascendancy of his dispatch auto barter was answerable Monday with assassination and bashed driving.

Juan Acosta is aswell answerable with adventuresome chance and crooked use of a motor vehicle, Bottineau County prosecutor Swain Benson said.

The 30-year-old was arrested afterwards the Sunday blast at the Hahn’s Bay Bivouac at Lake Metigoshe in Bottineau, abreast the Canadian border. The blow aswell afflicted the children’s ancestor and addition boy.

“He was active too fast on a bivouac road, absent ascendancy and ran over the covering and comatose into a tree,” Highway Patrol Trooper Capt. Gary Orluck said.

The blast dead 5-year-old Alaries Ruiz and his 9-year-old brother, Cyris Ruiz. Their 28-year-old father, Juan Ruiz, was aureate to a hospital in Minot, 85 afar southwest of the campground, breadth he was advised for austere but not life-threatening injuries, Orluck said. The boys’ friend, 9-year-old Anthony Tabarez Jr., of Newburg, has accessory injuries, he said.

Acosta, of Newburg, was getting captivated in the Bottineau County bastille Monday and is accepted to arise in cloister Tuesday. Benson didn’t anon apperceive if Acosta had an attorney, and there was no acknowledgment Monday black at a buzz advertisement for him.

The brothers had catholic from their home in El Paso, Texas, to appointment their ancestor who formed in the oil application arena of North Dakota. Their bodies were beatific to Bismarck for autopsies and their mother, Sandy Hernandez, was branch to North Dakota on Monday.

Orluck said Ruiz knew the disciplinarian of the barter who, forth with his two passengers, had been blockage at the bivouac too.

“We accept an adumbration that they were all camping calm and all parties were at atomic acquaintances,” Orluck said.

The bivouac is amid beneath than two afar from the Canadian border, and aural the Turtle Mountain Accompaniment Forest, a 12-square-mile bindle that is a allotment of the most-wooded areas of North Dakota, a prairie state.

Jon McLeay of Chaos Surfboards has a boutique and baby branch in Brookvale, an breadth of Sydney accepted as the Detroit of surfboard making. He said a abatement in arbitrary spending is affliction the business. “If you’ve got your bills at home, your wife is not traveling to let you go buy a surfboard,” he said.

Australia’s abridgement is bifurcating. It is advancing forth the west coast—thanks to what the government calls a “once-in-a-century mining boom”—and disturbing forth the east coast. The abandoned amount in Western Australia is 3.8%; it is 5.7% in the Gold Coffer accompaniment of Queensland.

Mines accept become a assurance valve for some workers. Kayne Ginger, 32, was active a disturbing cabin in the eastern city-limits of Brisbane, in Queensland. In November, he confused with his wife and three accouchement to Perth, the basic of Western Australia state. He now earns $150,000 a year operating abundant accessories for mines.

“Everything was just petering out,” said Mr. Ginger of his above-mentioned career. “Now, I will be a millionaire soon.”

So far, China’s appeal for assets is holding. Trade abstracts for May showed a 16% account access in Australian iron-ore exports and atramentous sales falling hardly by 3%.

That antipodal a bottomward trend in the aboriginal division if the amount of Australian atramentous exports fell 10% and ores alone 11%, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

But a analysis by National Australia Coffer Ltd. put business altitude in May at their everyman akin in three years, in allotment because of a arrest in mining. “The amount of abrasion in action over the accomplished brace of months suggests that the abridgement is struggling, with altitude in some of the ahead able industries—namely, mining and finance, business, property—also searching somewhat backward at present,” said Alan Oster, the bank’s arch economist.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard, adversity from almanac low abutment in assessment polls, hopes tighter budgetary measures to restore a account surplus and a abatement in aggrandizement will accumulate the axial coffer acid ante and advice win aback votes in a accepted acclamation due backward next year.

But so far, the RBA’s cuts accept brought little relief. The Australian dollar charcoal stubbornly about adequation with the U.S. greenback, just about breadth it sat if the coffer started to cut ante in November.