Bubbles, Piazza De Ferrari, Genova

I'm one of those creatures who, to learn a new thing, need to repeat it until it becomes familiar.

Actually, that's one of the reasons I have begun offering one-on-one photography coaching, for women. I suspect I'm not alone in being overwhelmed over years, as well-meaning, engineering-minded people have tried teaching me photography via their beautiful minds of order and logic.

My mind doesn't function along the lines of order and logic ... there is some logic there but in a form that is more about 'my logic', as opposed to logic that makes maths and physics obvious.  Ask my first husband, the physics guy ... there were some stories about my way of portraying the theory of relativity and other things. 

So here I am, bending my mind into the 'obvious' in photoshop, creating these small collages and having the nicest time before going back to my work.

I hope your day is a good one, where ever you are.

Stepanka Ceramics

Last year, my daughter gifted me two of Stepanka Horalkova's beautiful ceramic mugs and I made a  note to write of them, with photographs, but never felt satisfied with the photographs I had taken. 

So I put it aside, knowing I would finish the job sooner or later ... but I didn't. 

So much time has passed that I feel ashamed because I loved the gift of them and because I wanted to share the beauty of Stepanka's work with everyone. 

Finally, here I am with the news. 

You can buy Stepanka's work over on her Etsy store or visit her website to read more about her.

 

 

Of course ...!

Still idealistic, aimless and broke, nothing stopped us from becoming adults.

Found over at idiomill blog.

I loved that sentence. 

I thought, 'Yes, despite all that. And despite mad choices, bad choices, the choices made by others ... I still became an adult.'

'Idealistic and broke.'?

Oftentimes.

Delighted by life so far?

Of course! 

Fertal Lahcen, artist

Imagine, always traveling, meeting people ... hearing their stories. 

Alex and Mina have their blog, ...sending postcards. Who could resist reading them: 'During the autumn of 2009, we sold our house, quit our jobs, and were married in the sun. We left our life-long home on the prairies of Canada to run away together and see the world. This travelogue was created to document our extended honeymoon - the often mundane, seldom peculiar, and sometimes extraordinary details.'

I found this artist over on their website.  Turn the volume up when you watch Fertal describing the materials he uses to create his artworks.

take-root, a blog

Just woke up thinking of some of my favorite faraway places, and how I carry them around with me, like home, wherever I go. 

And how when I settle in someday, plant my roots for good (or nearly good) I want that place I make—wherever it might be—to be a testament to all these other quietly loved places that have made, and continually make me awake to the world.

Found on take-root blog

Whoever writes this blog made me say, 'yes!' as I read the above.  I found it over on facebook, thanks to Diana.  I recommend you calling by to check out her blog, A Certain Simplicity.

When I settle down one day, I'll know it's the place because there will be something of every other place I've loved, woven into that home, that location, that country ...

I took this photograph from the lawn of my funny little cottage, located on the edge of Otago Harbour, Dunedin ... in 2001 maybe.  The dates are imprecise now but it was after that divorce, way back then.

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. 

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Recollecting my Life Lived in Other Places, with a Dog

I spent years wandering within the confines of whatever worlds I found myself in, with a dog by my side ...

In Cromwell, New Zealand, Sandie-dog and I would travel through the gorge to the Arrow River, or disappear to a favourite bend on the Clutha River.  In Blenheim, we were just as likely to wander over to Anakiwa and spend hours in the cove there.

In Te Anau it was McKay Creek, on the edge of Fiordland National Park, our secret destination, with its backdrop of mountains just a kilometre away,  Or Lake Manapouri, Lake Te Anau ... a chocolate box selection.  

In Dunedin, it was a case of mood leading us to whichever beach - we had a huge number of choices.  Long Beach was a favourite, even though it took us off the peninsula where we lived and back up the other side, then over a hill.  On the peninsula, we were careful not to bother the sea lions found lounging on those rugged beaches, and other times, there were penguins.  But Sandie was a dog of great wisdom, with an overwhelming passion for water.  She would even swim amongst ducks, caring only for the swim, willing to share with anything else that was out there.

Dogs are succour for the soul, companions of the heart ...

It's quite difficult not having one yet.  I've been 10 years lonely.

Note: all but the Anakiwa photograph were taken by my lovely friend, and talented photographer, David Wall.

Petrichor

Erik gifted me a new word, in response to the post about rain just below.

I think that word needs a post all of its own ... Petrichor.

petrichor (PET-ri-kuhr) noun

The pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.

[From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology). Coined by researchers I.J. Bear and R.G. Thomas.]

"Petrichor, the name for the smell of rain on dry ground, is from oils given off by vegetation, absorbed onto neighboring surfaces, and released into the air after a first rain." Matthew Bettelheim; Nature's Laboratory; Shasta Parent (Mt Shasta, California); Jan 2002.

"But, even in the other pieces, her prose breaks into passages of lyrical beauty that come as a sorely needed revivifying petrichor amid the pitiless glare of callousness and cruelty." Pradip Bhattacharya; Forest Interludes; Indianest.com; Jul 29, 2001.

A day in the life of ...

I usually arrive here at my office desk around 8.30am and begin.  But it's a slow easing into my day, trying to clear email, catch up on any new (and inspirational) posts that have come in on my google reader overnight, and then there's facebook too.

But this morning, I deactivated that seductive thief of time. Facebook is gone for now.  I love the social nature of that particular space but it's too much when I really look what I have in front of me.

In 5 weeks, there is a huge business launch party that must be prepared, with accompanying workshop offer.  There is the book I'm putting together on Genova, using my photographs taken since 2008, and channeling my huge passion for that city.

The final touches are being put on the photography e-course but I'm also preparing a series of one-on-one photography coaching and wandering options, as well as more flexible times on journeys to other places for the website.

I'm interviewing Minske Van Wijk about her film in the days ahead.  I'm also writing for two other websites but details on the second site still to come. 

There is the continuing saga of manually uploading my posts from the old website to the new website.  Only 800 or so to go...

Actually, truth be told, I dream about arriving here in the office and saying to assistant, 'Hey there, how about you work on this project this week, and I'll develop this one.'  But that's not for now ... that's just a wee dream.

I really hope that your week is a good one.  And below ... a photograph I took back in those Istanbul days.

4 April, 2012: An update.  I lasted outside of Facebook for just 24 hours.  A huge filling broke and I was left with a need to distract myself while I waited for an emergency dental appointment.  Facebook, like google reader, brings interesting things into my world at times when I can't create for myself and waiting for a tooth repair did, so very much, interfere with my muse.

My tooth was repaired today but too late, I'm back in the Land of Facebook, although attempting to be measured in my time wandering there.

 

 

Time ...

"Gradually my perspective on time had changed. In our culture, time can seem like an enemy: it chews us up and spits us out with appalling ease. But the monastic perspective welcomes time as a gift from God, and seeks to put it to good use rather than allowing us to be used up by it.

A friend who was educated by the Benedictines has told me that she owes to them her sanity with regard to time. "You'll never really finish anything in life," she says, "and while that's humbling, and frustrating, it's all right. The Benedictines, more than any other people I know, insist that there is time in each day for prayer, for work, for study, and for play.

" Liturgical time is essentially poetic time, oriented toward process rather than productivity, willing to wait attentively in stillness rather than always pushing to "get the job done."

Kathleen Norris,  extract from The Cloister Walk.
The truly lovely Diana, introduced me to the blog of Sofie and I believe I may have found a delicious new blog to add to my google reader.  I particularly enjoyed Sofie's post titled The Liturgy of My Hours ... oh yes.