All of Me

This Jazz player is deaf. Mandy Harvey lost her hearing gradually, and then completely by the time she was 18. She was always involved in music but when she lost her hearing her father persuaded her to sing. She has a beautful voice...she doesn't "audibly" hear the music or the musicians accompanying her. But she can feel the music...like the drums under the sole of her feet, the booming bass in her chest and the high pitch sound of the saxophone on her skin.  Beautiful, lovely music. When the Lord closes a door He opens windows...

I know I have been missing all year...I promise to do better.  Just over here in the forest trying to figure out all of me.

Collage

I want to attempt a collage. One that is around 1m x 1m on canvas. So I have started collecting images of inspiring collages from Pinterest.

Graffiti Vilnius

This one you may know from a previous post I did on the restaurant called Keulė Rūkė, Vilnius. This work is actually on the front/entrance wall of the ribs joint. Trump and Putin blowing smoke up each other's ass.

 By a bridge which bisects the river Neris

Curiously the Lithuanians have no problem with graffiti on their city buildings. It's contemporary art, they think. I hate graffiti and I hate them on buildings.

Years ago, I had a colleague from work who wanted to take me to her favourite hang-out spot in Berlin. She took me to an area called Kreuzberg. I suppose in her mind it was a super-hip (translation vomit-inducing hipster) and artsy, cultural melting point (translation: disaffected and disintegrated/marginalised migrants making it work to the best of their ability). I had many problems in Kreuzberg (the beggars at the train station, the garbage everywhere) but I mostly hated how the locals had desecrated beautiful churches with graffiti. It's like a mark of disrespect in my view. Growing up I learnt that poor should not equate to dirty. Also it's a sure sign that I am in a town where the youths feel disaffected, dissatisfied, under-employed and side-lined when there is graffiti and the garbage is piling up. Simply put, I associate graffiti with ghettos. And I especially hate when the well-to-do glamorise ghetto-living so they can live with the guilt of their wealth. I spent half my childhood living in an innercity/ghetto. There is nothing glamarous about that life.  Don't come to a ghetto neighbourhood to sightsee and for a bit of fun while wanting nothing to do with/not trying to understand the locals.  So I do not think of it graffiti as art usually. And I am never impressed by any of it. Just like I was never impressed by so-called "hipster" Kreuzberg and I certainly do not find graffiti Vilnius to be cool. Just me, I guess.

All photos from Ultimate Travelist @utravelist on twitter.

Artist I'm Loving: Raqib Shaw

London-based, Kashmir origin. He paints with a porcupine quill brush. Something about his work makes me want to recite William Blake: Tiger, tiger burning bright, In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye... It's fanstasy, illusory, hallucinatory. Obviously, I can't afford it. But I love it! More here.

Claudia Rankin Ceramics

Claudia Rankin ceramics. Whimsical or juvenile? You decide.May make for a nice Christmas gift though.

Snow, Old and New

It's very white and bright in my neighbourhood. It's a winter wonderland. Lots of snow. Something very quiet happens whenever it snows, you know. It's like when I was growing up in Jamaica and if we had a power/electricity blackout, the entire neighbourhood went quiet, still, ghostly. That's what happens when it snows, I think. Everything goes quiet, still, ethereal, ghostly.

This morning am still working on putting my living and dining rooms together. This time, I am sorting artwork and pictures. I have an old painting I bought at a Brussels Brocante that was hanging in my living room. And, if you read this blog often, you may know I hate extremely modern homes and I love furnishings of all styles and periods but I prefer a mix of everything (old and new) in my home. So I love old gilt frames (sparingly used) and I love modern lithographs; so I am combining the two. Once the framing is done, it will go back in the living room again. I like the idea of re-purposing the gilt frame. 

The Eyes Want It: Art From Zimbabwe

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was in Harare last week and I visited Zimbabwe's National Gallery. I want everything I see there. I managed to take just a few pictures because once I began clicking away a gallery caretaker came and told me "no pictures please". But still, here you go: see a little of what my eyes want.

Sarah Walmsley

 

 

 

Yesterday, I just passed through JoBerg on my way to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and discovered some art work.  I like Sarah Walmsley's glass and bronze sculptures. Sarah is a post-graduate student at SoMAD, the School of Music Art and Design at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She says she likes capturing poses that are graceful and full of poise yet unself-conscious and unexpectedly observed. Sometimes you pass a coffee shop or a bus stop and you see a lady artlessly arranged with no intention to be elegantly seated and the lines of her body, owing to its arrangement are so sleek and graceful you wish you could be like her. That's what I see in some of Sarah's sculptures. Sarah's work is on sale here. I'll be in Zimbabwe all week.

Plaster Sculptures

 

 

Do you like plaster heads and busts? They are typically made these days with plastic molds, then taken out of the molds, distressed and smoothed. You can have your favourite sculpture reproduced by Holkham Sculpture Reproductions in the UK. The last two are from my living room. This last lady is not actually plaster, she's made from resin. But you can't tell it's not plaster, can you?