The old fire station

I saw this recently – this funny little building with its self evident statement of introduction. Oddly cute!

 

A story from many pictures or a picture from many stories?

Birds. Horses. Feathers. Victorian images. Buildings. Beaches. Poetry. Ancestry. Such a strange collection of images, words and thoughts…yet they are not random, but are all starting to come together for a creative project. I can’t tell you how it ends yet, as it’s not finished, but here is a mash-up of the concepts, the thoughts, the ideas and the images that helped to inspire me. Out of all this randomness will come two digitally composed images of a “creature”. Each made from a composite of at least ten other photographs I have taken. The two images will also be linked by a story, a thread of a poem, the use of text and symbols shared between the two images. Will they turn out as I imagine – ethereal, beautiful, whimsical, curiously macabre, proud, strong but fragile…or will my idea (or my technical skills) fail in this project? Will the images make sense? Will they convey the sense I wanted to create? Only time will tell…

Going green.

Green is good. Green is the colour of life, nature, vibrancy, goodness, fertility and growth. It is also the colour of grass. And glorious trees. But not the sky.

Green, Grein (Scot) also means to long [for], to yearn [for].

And Greengage is a green and very sweet variety of plum. As well as a great sounding name for a fruit.

The sharing of a word or two…

As you know, I collect words. These are some of my recent additions to my collection in my journals. Some have been titles of recent blog entries or art pieces. Others are words I have heard, seen, used, thought or found and just feel compelled to record them, to collect them. I don’t know what it is that appeals about these words, but for some reason they resonate with me. The words come from many places, experiences, and sources, yet always mean something quite profound to me. Maybe they inspire you too?

Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…

It could be some words found, cut out of various (damaged and discarded) poetry books, reassembled and turned into a collage. Or…it could be our thoughts – trivial and the not-so, the conversations we have had, and importantly, those left unsaid… all circling in our mind, then floating out into the sky above us as we dream, and finally disappearing into the blackness…

Who knows what secrets the stars hold?

Amongst the ghosts of friends…

I came across these today in an old book, amongst a pile of old collected books and miscellaneous papers we have inherited. I know what they are. They are called “the ghosts of friends”. These ones date back to 1910 – 1920’s, I know, as they are dated and signed. They are fascinating, a tiny bit spooky, and mostly very elegant and beautiful pieces of a lost art…an oddly strange, whimsical but weird combination, I think.

If you know what they are, you may enjoy them. If you don’t, well, I’ll leave you guessing…why spoil a perfectly good mystery?

Once upon a time…

I love the slightly macabre feeling I get from this photo which reminds me of fairy tales I loved as a child. It has a dark, eerily spooky feel to it, like all good fairy-tales have.

Once upon a time there was a.. secret garden? Or a dark forest? A little girl? Or a tiny fairy? Is she running? Or Flying? (if you look closely you can see her wings). Where is she running to? Or…what is she running from… a wicked witch? What is the little house in the forest made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice? Is it a cute little fairy home? Or a witch’s hide-out?

So many questions..I just take solace in one last point, all fairy tales have a happy ending.

On a wing of plovers, do such bird’s fly..

Birds have been a recurring theme in my art, especially in my mixed media art pieces. There is something about groups of birds…their freedom of graceful flight, their strength and contrasting vulnerability, their stunning and distinctive songs in the mornings, the communities they keep as they chatter in the trees and seemingly keep watch out for each other. But I never knew there were so many graceful, unusual and whimsical names for groups of birds…I especially like a “troubling of goldfinches” and “a wing of plovers” for the inherent beauty of the names…who named them, I wonder?