May 22, 2017 at 1:46 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Food and Drink, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: art, happiness, Mondays, museums, Paris, postaday, postaweek, Wordpress
It was a gorgeous day!
Self strolled down the Champs-Elysees. She saw a shrine on the sidewalk, draped with French flags and flowers. Oh. So that’s where the policeman was shot.
She bought a salad from a brasserie and decided to eat in the Tuileries, right in front of the Musee L’Orangerie (where the Monets are) but she did not bother lining up for a ticket. She hates lines.
Instead, she sat outside, watching people:
The Tuileries, Monday Afternoon: Is that a Brancusi? Or a Picasso? Or a Henry Moore?
The wide avenues were alive with strollers, and the trees were so green:
And guess what she saw, over on the other side of the Place de la Concorde:
Iconic: 22 May 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
May 14, 2017 at 3:01 pm (Food and Drink, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: art, dance, discoveries, England, London, postaday, postaweek, restaurants, Saturday, Wordpress
The Daily Post Photo Challenge this week is REFLECTING.
Can self just say she arrived sick and barely able to keep upright. But damn — the Royal Opera House!
Seeing it for the first time was — awesome.
Plus, the adjoining bar/restaurant: All that glass! All that light!
Perfect for this week’s Photo Challenge!
Before the start of the ballet, self dashed to the bar to order some hot tea. She wound up sharing a table with an American woman, a ballet aficionado who has season tickets to the New York City Ballet and watches “thirty ballets a year. At least.” Self confided that she wasn’t feeling well and might leave during one of the intermissions.
And the womans said: The pas de deaux in Act III are spectacular. Don’t leave.
The Bar at the Royal Opera House, 8 p.m. Saturday, May 13
And then, the interior of the Royal Opera House itself:
Waiting for the beginning of Kenneth Macmillan’s beautiful, stunning ballet, “Mayerling”: Saturday, May 13
More of the Royal Opera House Bar. At intermission, self went up an escalator to the “Bridge” over the bar, from which she got a jaw-dropping view of Covent Garden, at 8 p.m.:
Center Top, the “Bridge”: A side escalator takes you to it, and from there you can see all of Covent Garden. SPECTACULAR. Especially at sunset.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
3 Comments
May 12, 2017 at 12:22 pm (Artists and Writers, Links, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, England, exhibits, Fridays, inspiration, London, museum, poetry
It is Friday. The British Museum is open late. Right now, it’s full of schoolchildren. They slouch all over the galleries in their jeans and backpacks. Some are French. One French schoolgirl calls an elevator by pressing one sneakered foot against the down button. Remind self never to touch a button in the British Museum. Ever. Another sits on the floor of a gallery, just staring in a kind of daze. Two of her friends come sit next to her. They don’t ask her if anything’s wrong.
The Hockney sketches are in a room right next to the British Watercolors, 1850-1950. Self walked all through the watercolor exhibit yesterday. It was so amazing.
She went back today for the Hockneys.
She loves Cavafy. So does Hockney.
Hockney’s sketches of men are simple pencil, or pen and ink. They are so evocative. Two men lie naked in bed together. There’s one simply entitled “Peter, 1966.”
How beautifully he captures the form of these men in repose! Some of the schoolboys in the gallery were giggly, though not to the point of disrespectfulness.
There’s also a sketch of a shopkeeper standing at the door to his business. Beneath that sketch is a Cavafy poem, “In the Dull Village”:
In the dull village where he works —
as a clerk in a shop;
very young — and where he waits
for two or three months to go by
another two or three months till business slows down,
to go then to the town and throw himself immediately
into its life and entertainment,
In the dull village where he waits —
he went to bed love-sick tonight,
his whole youth afire with fleshly passion,
beautiful youth beautiful in intensity.
And pleasure came to him in sleep; he sees
and has the body he desires in his sleep.
— C. P. Cavafy
Further background on the exhibit is here.
It runs through this Sunday, May 14.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
2 Comments
May 9, 2017 at 1:55 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Links, postaday, Sayings, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Cork, discoveries, humor, Ireland, memories, postaday, postaweek, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Wordpress
Self must admit, this past week’s Photo Challenge — DANGER! — has been tricky. She’s decided to keep her interpretations straightforward and focus on signage or warning symbols.
- Detail of a nautical map in the Time Traveller’s Bookshop, Skibbereen, West Cork: This is one of the most intricate maps self has ever seen. But of course, it had to be. Lives depended on the correct soundings.
Detail of Nautical Map Showing, Self Thinks, West Cork
- A Sketch by Bernadette Burns, Artist from Sherkin Island, off Skibbereen, West Cork: It’s a study for a work-in-progress.
Bernadette said she did this “for fun”!
- London City Airport attached this to self’s suitcase, when she was on the way to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, in March. Self’s suitcases are always heavy: they’re filled with books. One Irish cabbie dubbed self “a book addict.”
London City Airport attached this warning label to one of her suitcases, last March.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
1 Comment
April 28, 2017 at 3:53 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Holidays, Places, postaday, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Albion, Annaghmakerrig, art, California, happiness, inspiration, Ireland, memories, writing process
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is
WANDERLUST
- Have you traveled anywhere exciting lately? This week, let’s see where you’ve been. — David W., The Daily Post
Self is still in Ireland! Which is a long way from her home in northern California. Here’s a wee artwork that artist Bernadette Burns (who lives on Sherkin Island, West Cork — self met her at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre) left behind in her studio. Self taped to it to her MacBook Air as an emblem of what she is: a wanderer.
On Self’s MacBook Air: A Memento From Another Artist
Here’s a shot of Annaghmakerrig Lake in early March. The wind was blowing hard that day. Self was fascinated by the ripples on the lake’s surface and by the outline of trees on the far shore. She would never have known this lake if she weren’t seized by such wanderlust:
Annagmakerrig Lake: Cold Day in Early March
And here’s a picture of the view from Albion River Inn, California, where she spent New Year’s. And began writing a new story, called The Rorqual, which is about a sea invasion of Earth (by creatures called Longnecks). It was the first New Year’s she spent completely by herself, and she made the most of it.
Albion, California: January 2017
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
April 28, 2017 at 10:01 am (Artists and Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Women Writers)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, Fridays, inspiration, Ireland, poetry
Vona Groarke, from her poem Maize, in the Annaghmakerrig book:
(Self will copy this poem into her journal, so that a year or five years or 10 years from now, she will remember she read it today, Friday, the 28th of April 2017):
The Faber Castells ripen in your hand.
You’ve been drawing since breakfast:
sky after sky, face after face, but something
in yours says they’re not quite right.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
April 24, 2017 at 8:40 am (Artists and Writers, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Recommended)
Tags: art, Canada, England, environment, postaday, postaweek, websites, Wordpress
English fields in Chris Beebart’s What’s (In) the Picture?
Beautiful paintings by Pain(t)h.D.
Beautiful picture of High Park, Toronto in crafts.feelings
A day at Griffith Island, Port Fairy in Sukies Original
Earth Day community tree-planting in Do What You Wish
Anjung Kampiun’s picture of Kaolin Lake, Indonesia
Protect our Earth. Once her resources are used up, they can never be replaced. Never.
Leave a Comment
April 22, 2017 at 4:59 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Explorers, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended)
Tags: art, environment, inspiration, praise, Saturday
Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill (Flying Eye Books)
This is a grrrreat children’s book which gives a clear picture of the difficulties faced, through spare illustrations that evoke the truly epic nature of Shackleton’s journey.
There’s a quote from Roald Amundsen on the publication information page:
- No man fails who sets an example of high courage, of unbroken resolution, of unshrinking endurance.
— Roald Amundsen
Self absolutely loves it.
Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
April 17, 2017 at 10:19 am (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, inspiration, Ireland, Mondays, writing process
Writing. Writing and reading. Like mad.
Also, checking Facebook, lol
The card on the MacBook is from Jacinta Oreilly, an artist from Dublin.
The small picture taped to my keyboard is from Bernadette Burns, an artist from Skibbereen, West Cork.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
April 4, 2017 at 7:37 am (Artists and Writers, Places, postaday, Surprises, Weather)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, artists residency, discoveries, inspiration, Ireland, postaday, postaweek, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Wordpress
Self loves looking at things up close. Very, very up close.
But she also loves looking for patterns.
And she also works (in her writing) through layering, which is more the way a visual artist works.
And this week, in Annaghmakerrig (more specifically, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre), she found many, many opportunities to elaborate on The Daily Post Photo Challenge this week, DENSE:
Pillows and bedcovers:
Pillow and Blanket: Self loves the saturation of color. Also, she’s never seen a white so blinding as it is here in Annaghmakerrig.
More trees! This shot self took yesterday evening. It had rained all day. Suddenly, around 7 p.m., sun!
Annaghmakerrig, After a Day of Constant Rain
Bernadette Burns: Whether it’s because she lives on an island (off Skibbereen, West Cork) and self’s father came from an island (in the Philippines), self saw so many affinities with her work. Look at the dark boat, floating on an ethereal sea. The boat looks amazingly DENSE, yet it floats.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Leave a Comment
« Older entries
