February 6, 2020 at 4:59 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Flowers, fpj-photo-challenge, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Surprises, Weather)
Tags: art, California, exhibits, Garden, museums, Redwood City
Self loves the idea of REST.
REST is crucial to her creativity.
Recently, she had an opportunity to see an amazing exhibit at the Bakersfield Museum of Art:
Night. Rest. Nocturnes. What a beautiful theme.
Not to mention: The paintings she saw were otherworldy, powerful in their depictions of this special and mysterious time of day.
For instance, Jessica Dunne’s, which showed a San Francisco street in fog:
Just after she drove down to Bakersfield, the Bay Area had a brief string of sunny days. Gorgeous! Self went to the backyard, for the first time in weeks, and saw an eight-foot-high bush completely covered in bright, yellow flowers. So many flowers, she could barely see the green.
What is the reason for such a ridiculous display, flowers? She never fertilizes and barely waters. This is a common euryops, which is the landscape plant of choice for new subdivisions. But she’s never seen them throw out flowers in a display so in-your-face! That’s the ony way she can think to describe it. It is so overpoweringly extra. She took this picture early in the morning:
Euryops, February 2020
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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January 2, 2020 at 5:58 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, fpj-photo-challenge, Holidays, Links, Lists, Niece, Places, postaday, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: art, Bacolod, Christmas, Cork, Cornwall, Events, Filipino food, Fowey, Ireland, London, memories, Menlo Park, Oxford, Prague, Redwood City, restaurants, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Great theme!
In 2019, self traveled the world. Her life triangulated between home in Redwood City, California, to England and Ireland, to the Philippines. Side trip to Prague with her niece, Irene!
Here goes, all the images that mattered most to self in 2019, arranged from most recent — December 2019 — to the earliest, January 2019: Starting with her home in Redwood City in early December; to London’s Blackfriar station; to Manggapuri Villa in Don Salvador Benedicto, Negros Occidental, Philippines; to Prague; to Oxford University’s Exam School for Alice Oswald’s first reading as Oxford’s first woman Poet in Residence; to Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park; to the Main House of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig; to the fire pit in Manggapuri Villas; to the Daku Balay in Bacolod City, the Philippines; to self’s bedroom; to the Blue Room in Café Paradiso in Cork, Ireland; to Fowey in Cornwall; to Courthouse Square, Redwood City; to the cover of last winter’s issue of Prairie Schooner, which included her story Things She Can Take
Prague, May 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Republic of Ireland, last week of October
Manggapuri Villas: September 2019
Daku Balay, 50 Burgos Street, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, The Philippines
Self’s headboard in Redwood City, CA: Made in the Philippines
Paradiso, Cork, May 2019: She bought the Converse sneakers in London a few weeks earlier. Now they are scuffed and smudged, everywhere.
Stay tuned.
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December 9, 2019 at 12:38 am (Artists and Writers, Memoirs, Publishers, Recommended, Sundays, Women Writers)
Tags: art, literary awards, Literary Magazines, nonfiction
Look at this beauty!
Featuring the 2018 Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing, Michelle Cristiani’s Blessed Are the Breathing.
From Senior Editor Brenna Crotty:
- This is the issue of transformation. I knew it would be as soon as we accepted two pieces with the word “Molt” in the title. Although they addressed very different themes — the pain of recovery versus the new freedoms of young adulthood — they both flung the windows open on deep feelings of change. And the more I looked for it in this collection of poems and stories, the more I found it. From the grief and catharsis in Ingrid Wendt’s “Blue Morpho” to Michelle Cristiani’s unfolding account of life after a stroke, this issue is filled to the brim with the challenging and exhilarating work of becoming something new.
It isn’t just the words, though. The featured visual art is stunning as well.
Submissions are open through Dec. 31.
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December 3, 2019 at 7:34 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, Places, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, inspiration, London
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 74 is ABSTRACT. The quote from P. A. Moed’s blog:
“Abstract art is uniquely modern. It is a fundamentally romantic response to modern life — rebellious, individualistic, unconventional, sensitive, irritable.”
— Robert Motherwell
Just two weeks ago, self was in London, one of her favorite cities in the world. She took a walking tour of Spitalfields (East London) with Ken Titmuss, whose guided walks of London self highly recommends.
She was fascinated by the energy of the street art. Here are three examples. They are abstract, modern, raw, and powerful.
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November 28, 2019 at 7:39 pm (destinations, Flowers, Holidays, Links, Lists, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, exhibits, London, museums, Redwood City, Thanksgiving, The Philippines, websites
This week, Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge is WHITE.
Self loves having an excuse to go back through her photo archives. Here are her selections:
- Greek antiquities, British Museum
- Self’s Iceberg roses, last summer
- a shell from the Philippines, in a wooden bowl from the Philippines
Love the prompt. Self doesn’t often think of white as a color.
Stay tuned.
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November 28, 2019 at 5:24 pm (Books, destinations, Food and Drink, Holidays, Memoirs, Niece, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Publishers, Recommended, Relatives, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, art, England, Events, Fowey, Fowey Festival, Ireland, Liverpool, London, memories, Oxford, Prague, Thanksgiving, The Philippines, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Prague, May 2019
Two Handmaidens, London’s Canary Wharf: November 2019
Waiting for the Alice Oswald lecture to begin, 13 November 2019
Currently Reading
Christ Church, Oxford: Remembrance Day
Prague Castle, Last Week of May 2019
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October 9, 2019 at 10:00 am (Family, Food and Drink, Links, postaday, Relatives)
Tags: art, Cee Neuner, Garden, memories, nostalgia, Redwood City, summer
It’s been a while since self has done Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. So happy to join the challenge this week: CIRCLES, CURVES, AND ARCHES.
Dropped by Diane Varner’s El Granada studio, about a month ago. She’s growing succulents!
Self’s Plum Tree in August, 2019
Cleaning Out Closet in Son’s Room, Found These Old Toys!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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October 8, 2019 at 9:41 am (Artists and Writers, Links)
Tags: art, exhibits, Ireland
For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, FILLING THE FRAME, self chose to focus on a large painting by Irish artist Jacinta O’Reilly.
The painting is called “Masks” and was in her recent exhibit at the Naas Public Library in Ireland.
Jacinta told self that she painted “Masks” on her birthday, Sept. 8.
The impact is emotional. But it is even more rewarding to look up close, where one can examine the painting’s textured surface. To think all of this was painted in one day!
Jacinta O’Reilly, Naas Public Library, 5 October 2019
Detail, “Masks”
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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August 27, 2019 at 12:44 am (Artists and Writers, Family, Links, Surprises)
Tags: art, memories, Mondays, nostalgia, Redwood City
The prompt — Framing the Shot — is Lens-Artists Photo Challenge # 60: “Explore different ways of framing images.”
Viveka has some great framing shots on her blog, my guilty pleasures.
Self’s home in Redwood City was built in 1939. It’s a very wee house, only 1250 square feet, but she loves the arched spaces (between the living and dining room). Arches are a kind of frame, aren’t they? But here the frame is off-center.
The painting above the bookshelf is one she brought from the Philippines: a collage by the late, great Filipino artist Santi Bose. It’s called The White Room. There’s a kind of “frame within the frame” thing going on.
Redwood City, Sunday, 25 August 2019
The next two pictures are recent finds from son’s closet. The building blocks date from when he was a toddler. The pieces were all neatly arranged in the original wooden box:
And here’s another find from son’s closet! Clay on cardboard:
Cryptic Grade School Art Arrangement
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 6, 2019 at 5:13 pm (Artists and Writers, Holidays, Links, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, discoveries, Dublin, exhibits, Ireland, Mondays
Walked around Dublin with visual artista Jacinta O’Reilly. We were going to check out the Chester Beatty but, disappointingly, the museum was closed.
While waiting for Jacinta, self checked out the Surface Matters exhibit at Dublin Castle. Amazing show. Featured stunning pieces by, among others, Alan Meredith, Cecilia Moore, Jack Doherty, Coilin O Dubhghaill, Ciaran McGill, Mike Byrne, Joe Hogan, Grainne Watts.
The medium used in Picture # 1: wood
- Alan Meredith’s preferred material is the wood of the national tree, Irish oak . . . He turns, hand-distorts, steams, ebonises and fumes his pieces . . .
Took pictures of several “three-of-a-kind.”
Alan Meredith’s “Wood”
Mike Byrne, Limerick Artist
Joe Hogan’s “Venus Figure Pods”
Stay tuned.
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