Poetry Wednesday; Amrita Bharati

Amrita Bharati

This is not the sort of poetry I have ever posted before, I came across this by accident and really liked it. I know very little about this poet (Amrita Bharati born in1939) but love the simplicity of her work. She is a Hindi poet, she studied  Sanskrit and has a MA and a PhD in Sanskrit from Benares Hindu University. She is a writer, a poet, a translator and a publisher. This poem has a vey spiritual quality, it is called

In the Stillness of a Word
by Amrita Bharati

Both
are so alike -
his earth
my sky

I wanted
to follow him
wherever he went
But our paths
were so different -
he was on one

I on the other
with a line between us -
his
and mine
We
were one
in our soul
But
he walked
on the low peaks of the earth
And I
in the high chasms
of the sky
Maybe
these two paths
will turn
one day
in my poetry
so we may walk together
in the stillness of a word

Mosaic artist Sonia King

Artist Sonia King creates one-of-a-kind, contemporary mosaics for gallery, architectural, community and home settings. Her award-winning art is exhibited nationally and internationally and represented in private, public and corporate collections. Mosaics are created using the finest materials gathered from sources around the world: smalti, gold, marble, vitreous glass, ceramic and more. Sonia is a founding member and past President of the Society of American Mosaic Artists as well as instructor in mosaics at the Creative Arts Center of Dallas.

http://lauritasita.multiply.com/journal/item/1364/Poetry_Wednesday_070109_Sign_in_and_take_the_tour

I need your ideas. I recycle all of my plastic bottles but no one will take the little round coloured lids for those bottles, apparently they are a 'different' plastic. SO..........what can I do with them?? Any creative ideas for coloured plastic bottle tops??

Art Sunday; David Mach

David Mach

This mans work is not to every bodies taste but you can’t help but admire the ingenuity of the man. He uses every thing and any thing to create his instillation art. He uses old tyres, telephone boxes, wire coat hangers, old bricks and even matchsticks.

Davis Mach (born 20 March 1956)
 Scottish sculptor and installation artist.

Mach's artistic style is based on flowing assemblages from the age od mass production. Typically these include magazines ,newspapers, car tyres, match sticks and coat hangers. Many of his installations are temporary and constructed in public spaces.


One example of his early magazine pieces, Adding Fuel to the Fire, was an installation assembled from an old truck and several cars surrounded and subsumed by about 100 tons of magazines, individually arranged to create the impression that the vehicles were being caught in an explosion of flames and billowing smoke.

An early influential sculpture was Polaris, exhibited outside the Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London in 1983. This consisted of some 6000 car tyres arranged as a life size replica of a Polaris submarine. Mach intended it as a protest against the nuclear arms race meant to stir controversy. A member of the public who took exception to the piece tried to burn it down; unfortunately, he got caught in the flames himself and suffered fatal burns.


In the early 1980s Mach started to produce some smaller-scale works assembled out of un struck match sticks.
These mostly took the form of human or animal heads and masks, with the coloured tips of the match heads arranged to construct the patterned surface of the face.
After accidentally setting fire to one of these heads, Mach now often ignites his match pieces as a form of performance art.


Recently Mach has produced some permanent public works such as Out of Order in Kingston upon Thames, the Brick Train (a depiction of an LNER Class A4 steam engine made from 185000 bricks, which can be seen near a supermarket on the A66 just outside Darlington)
and the Big Heids visible from the M8 between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

A second strand to Mach's work are his collage pieces. Partly as a result of having access to thousands of reproduced images in the magazines left over from many of his installations, Mach began to experiment with producing collages.

He has also produced many pieces of work made out of wire coat hangers.

Mach studied at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art (now a school of University of Dundee), Dundee, Scotland from 1974, graduating in 1979, then at the Royal College of Art, London between 1979 – 82.
This is an instillation piece from his degree show at Dundee
Following several shows and public installations, Mach was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1988. In 2000 he joined the Royal Academy of Arts as Professor of Sculpture.

Out of Order, 1989
telephone boxes, steel, concrete
Twelve telephone boxes, first one upright, the rest gradually falling over like dominoes. The upright one should have a working telephone providing a constant public performance with a highly visible landmark for Kingston upon Thames. The telephone boxes are not just a parody of artists minimal boxes they also have a huge public recognition factor.


Figure by David Mach at the Charing Cross hospital, which is not in Charing Cross but in Hammersmith.


The sculpture "Down Under" is hanging over and into the promenade deck on Freedom of the Seas. The installation is made by the artist david Mach

Le Monstre Constructeur, Paris- David Mach

My favourite bit of this 'new look'..............decided I like the way all of my contacts are listed clearly and I can see at a glance who has posted something new, think this makes it easier to catch up with friends..........................10/10 *************

Who can find this song??

I have sat here and searched for a video of Van Morrison singing Ballerina..............and I've failed. Can any one find this song? It's a really nice early Van the Man song and I'd love to post it. I really wanted to post it today as my Song Saturday

Ballerina

Spread your wings
Come on fly awhile
Straight to my arms
Little angel child
You know you only
Lonely twenty-two story block
And if somebody, not just anybody
Wanted to get close to you
For instance, me, baby
All you gotta do
Is ring a bell
Step right up, step right up
And step right up
Ballerina
Crowd will catch you
Fly it, sigh it, try it
Well, I may be wrong
But something deep in my heart tells me I'm right and I don't think so
You know I saw the writing on the wall
When you came up to me
Child, you were heading for a fall
But if it gets to you
And you feel like you just can't go on
All you gotta do
Is ring a bell
Step right up, and step right up
And step right up
Just like a ballerina
Stepping lightly
Alright, well it's getting late
Yes it is, yes it is
And this time I forget to slip into your slumber
The light is on the left side of your head
And I'm standing in your doorway
And I'm mumbling and I can't remember the last thing that ran through my head
Here come the man and he say, he say the show must go on
So all you gotta do
Is ring the bell
And step right up, and step right up
And step right up
Just like a ballerina, yeah, yeah
Crowd will catch you
Fly it, sight it, c'mon, die it, yeah
Just like a ballerina
Just like a just like a just like a ballerina
Get on up, get on up, keep a-moving on, little bit higher, baby
You know, you know, you know, get up baby
Alright, a-keep on, a-keep on, a-keep on, a-keep on pushing
Stepping lightly
Just like a ballerina
Ooo-we baby, take off your shoes
Working on
Just like a ballerina

song Saturday; Under the Sky

Another song from the same album I showed a couple of weeks ago, Still by Pete Sinfield, found here

http://forgetmenot525.multiply.com/journal/item/329/Song_Saturday_Pete_Sinfield

This time the song is called ''Under the Sky'', another peaceful piece of music.

Under the Sky

Smile at the smiling man
Tear in your eye
Dance in the morning sun
Under the sky.

High in the hawthorne tree
Bee and butterfly
Seek fortune in the leaves
Under the sky.

Follow the road that winds up to the sky,
There's no reason do not wonder why.

Dappled green summer glades
Where swallows fly
And laughing children play
Under the sky.

Smile at the smiling man
Tear in your eye
Love in the morning sun
Under the sky.

Follow the road that winds up to the sky,
There's no reason do not wonder why.

Soft on a mossy bank
Silently lie
Everything's everything
Under the sky.

Everything's everything under the sky .



 

Degas and the ballerinas

self explanitary................Degas and his dancers!!

Art Sunday; Degas and his Dancers

Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917)

He was a French painter, graphic artist, and sculptor, one of the outstanding figures of Impressionism. He exhibited at seven out of the eight impressionist exhibitions, but in many ways he was an ‘outsider’ and stood apart from the rest of the group. He strove to create scenes of spontaneity  and movement, and like the other impressionists, he was influenced by photography and Japanese color prints. This influence is seen in his use of unusual angles and the way his figures are often ‘cut off’ by the edge of the canvas.
Unlike the other impressionists he had little interest in landscape and did not paint out of doors, therefore he didn’t share the Impressionist trait of portraying the changing light and atmosphere. The apparent spontaneity of his work masks the careful composition of each of his scenes, his paintings were all very  carefully composed. He said that 'Even when working from nature, one has to compose' and that 'No art was ever less spontaneous than mine'.

Degas always showed a preference for pastel and when his sight began to fail in the 1880s his preference for this medium increased. He also began modeling in wax, and during the 1890s-as his sight worsened-he devoted himself increasingly to sculpture as opposed to painting and drawing. His favorite subjects remained horses in action; women at their toilet, nude and of course his famous dancers. The figures that were carefully modeled in wax prior to his death were later cast in bronze

The saddest thing about Degas was; for the last 20 years of his life he was virtually blind and led a reclusive life. There can be nothing worse than blindness to a man who operates so visually. He was a powerful personality and his complete dedication to his art made him seem distant and reserved. He was an undisputed  genius who evoked universal respect from other artists. 
Renoir ranked him above Rodin as a sculptor, and in 1883 Camille Pissarro wrote that he was 'certainly the greatest artist of our epoch'. Although a bit of an outsider to the group he  was the first of the Impressionists to achieve widespread recognition. His work has influenced subsequent 20th-century art by those artists he knew personally, such as Sickert, and also on later admirers and followers.
He was an excellent draughtsman and his work has great appeal to other outstanding 20th-century draughtsman, such as Hockney and Picasso and his mastery of pastel has been an inspiration influence on Kitaj.


These two videos are not ballet performances viewed from an audience point of view. The second is a ballet class similar to many classes Degas sat in on and took inspiration from. The first is a performance, but seen from behind stage in a way that he would have viewed many dancers.
These are the type of scenes Degas used to create his wonderful paintings and drawings, I think these two videos show the inspiration, angles and compositions used in his work far more than a video of a performance viewed as part of the audience. (sorry but the first one is very short and has embedding disabled which is why I have left a link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWZEUGL0Q4

Pebbles from the Beach... (a blog in an album)

Untill 'they' get this problem with enlarging photos in blogs sorted.....maybe this is the best way to do things.
These are the stones I collected from the beach the other day. I poured water over them and as if by magic their colours, patterns, stripes and markings came alive. This is what they looked like when I found them in a rock pool, by the time I got them home they had dried and become dull and colourless, all it took to restore them to their natural glory was a little water. These pebbles are every where on the beach, walking the dog has become like a geology lesson, I would love to be able to name all the different rocks found here. I have been told our beach is a treasure trove full of semi precious stones hiding amongst the sea worn pebbles. When you see them sitting at the bottom of the rock pools they all look precious to me.
I am sooooo tired, the end of term is just a few days away. School's out for summer (as Alice said) next Wednesday. We finish at 12 after prizegiving and then head to the pub. We eat, drink, chill and drink some more. Every morning I wake up tired, I go to bed tired and I go to work tired, busy doesn't come close to the way it gets around here this time of year. OH next wednesday just can't come quick enough for me....................5 days and counting.............

Update on problems with the site. I've been in touch with the customer services team and they have been helpful. Some of my problems are resolved and some persist. I know my pictures in blogs don't enlarge and they are aware of that and working on it. I know several people have complained about this problem. My biggest problem right now is I keep getting 'kicked off' and/or unable to post, pages take forever to load and then the whole thing just shuts down. I lose connection to the site, while retaining connection to email and all other sites. ''They'' are aware of this and I'm waiting fror them to get back to me. It is so annoying, I was trying to get round and leave comments tonight and didn't manage to get very far. This is me just managing to get back after about 2 hours. If I don't visit you..........sorry but it doesn't mean I didn't try :)

The Weather is Wonderful, and still no camera !!

The weather here these last few days has been so hot it's sometimes difficult to remember we are actually on the North East Coast of Scotland overlooking the cold North Sea.

This weather is quite unusual for this area, it's a bit of a mini heat wave but nowhere near as hot as it has been in other places. I spent a whole hour one morning watching a Heron at the waters edge but unfortunatly........with only my mobile you can't see it.

I love the summer, I love the sound of the birds singing, the feel of the warm breeze on the skin, the sight of the grasses swaying and walking along the beach at low tide. There has been plenty of that these last few days and the only little blip on my happiness is my lack of a decent camera.

Even that I am getting used too, I’m learning to make do with my poor quality mobile phone and becoming very thankful for the camera that went every where with me over this last year. I have a good stock of decent shots that will take me forever to sort, edit and file, I’m trying to be very positive about this and be thankful for the year I spent with my camera rather than mourn the loss of it now.
I’ve started walking the cliffs again, I don’t go there in the winter, it can get quite dangerous in the bad weather but at the moment it's a wonderful place to be. Shear Red Sandstone cliffs dropping into a swirling foamy sea, all to the ever present din of the squawking sea gulls.
For the first time this year I’ve spent time on the beach with the grandchildren.

 I’ve walked along the cliff path counting the number of wild flowers in bloom,

 I’ve collected pebbles from the beach. They were picked out of rock pools and while wet, they had vivid colours, stripes and patterns.

 Once they dried out the colours dulled, but all it takes to bring back the colour is a quick splash of water.
I have my daughters dog for the week while she is in Spain and every day I've come home from work and walked the dog along the park overlooking the beach. Today it was so hot I stayed indoors untill almost 7pm but still  there was a heat haze over every thing. Then the haare  (sea mist) came in from the sea and swirled around over the  beach and fields like a rapidly moving fuzzy pale shadow.

 It is fascinating to watch and I tried to take a photo of it with my mobile phone, unfortunately you can’t see the full glory of the Haare with my little mobile.

 It is now well past midnight and the house is hot. My windows are all open but the air is still and heavy, soon I will have to try to ignore the heat and sleep. Work again tomorrow and I think it’s going to be just as hot tomorrow as it has been today.