the forest of signs

found here: The Forest of Signs (Budding Artists – Detail) 2008.

The Forest of Signs (Apple Record) 2008 

The Forest of Signs (Brake) 2008 

 

color pencils

“Colour Pencils” by Jonna Pohjalainen on environmentalart.net via Handmade Charlotte.

This cheers me up immensely.

a river of words

Poetry River Craft | Made by Joel.

And many more lovely and inspiring ideas for making simple toys, printables and more by Joel.

book paradise

The Art of Reading by Kay Kremerskothen

vineyard by Ruben.d

“Massimo Bartolini’s impressive green outdoor library titled Bookyard was constructed by the artist in the idyllic vineyard of St. Peter’s Abbey in the Belgian town of Ghent. It is part of the  Track art festival, and visitors are invited to take a book along in exchange for a small donation.” The first image and quote were taken from here : The Art of Reading by Kay Kremerskothen. More pictures here: Bookyard 

Shame about the fact that rain and snow usually do not go well together with books. This would be my idea of paradise, a library in the middle of an orchard.

white out poem

Ich male mir den Winter by Lena 9 – Collage

This is such a sweet project from a primary school in Germany. The children used a poem  about winter by Josef Guggenmos as inspiration. A copy of the poem was glued onto a piece of paper and painted over with water colours. The poem was partially covered with opaque white. It gives the impression of snow softly covering the poem. The children only left those words and sentences they liked in particular. This reminds me of Austin Kleon’s blackout poems, these, in contrast are whiteout poems.  You can see the entire series here: “Ich male mir den Winter”

hope

by Rebecca Puig of Sugarboo Designs.

The quote is by Emily Dickinson “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

thinking animals

I have had this idea for a primary school class project, where children paint animals “talking” in speech bubbles, which I would love to see put into practice, so when I found these paintings  by Martin Praska they made me smile. They are called: Bear, thinking of Love, Rabbit, thinking of Beauty, and Fox, thinking of the Universe, respectively.

making things

YES – The Big Art Project.
Campaign concept and creative direction for broadcaster Channel 4’s initiative ‘The Big Art Project’. The series set out to create six pieces of art across Britain with the input of the general public. A 15ft typographic sculpture was designed and fabricated to represent the art that would be created throughout the series. The identity was used in print and and for 20, 40 and 60 second TV spots directed by James Griffiths.

Which reminds me, David Gauntlett has posted excerpts of his new book “Making is Connecting.” Looking forward to this.

field of dreams

by Jason DeMarte.
click to enlarge

hope and despair

This photo appeared in the Guardian along with an article about Obamas visit to the coast, where  he was talking to experts about the oil spill. This was right after new attempts to quell the spill had failed, again. “Obama described the setback as “enraging” and “heartbreaking”, as documents emerged showing that BP engineers were concerned about the safety of the Deepwater Horizon rig months earlier than the company has admitted.” The media seem to love what he is doing, at least for now. Obmama seems to be able to put into the right words the feelings of so many, and this is what people  want, need  and deserve, in times of crisis. (Remember the outrage the Queen’s lack of response caused in the aftermath of Diana’s death?)

And I love this image, so simple and complex at the same time, with the ocean  and the yellow “do not cross” ribbons, which talk of police lines and not just an accident but a crime having been committed. And the way Obama manages to come across as always inpeccable in style, formal but totally informal at the same time. He it not shown wearing some silly hat or ugly windbreaker, no, it’s only the boots, which make the difference in his attire here. And the way he is crouching, thoughtful, humbled (?), in despair (?) in facing the vastness of the problem, against the vastness of the ocean itself. And the gentleness, the delicacy of the pebbles and his finger as he is touching the sand, the earth.

battles

I have subscribed to the Guardian’s art and culture section, and I find many of the things I read there interesting and educational, in a very good sense. What I mean, is that it makes me come across stuff, I would not know about otherwise, stuff which takes my imagination and thinking in new directions. Well, I guess that is one of the things art is supposed to do. But that is rarely what newspapers do.

As an example, here is Jonathan Jones musing about  Why Albrecht Altdorfer’s masterpiece gives him nightmares and the reader responses.

guydenning comments: I think, with the inscription floating around in finest script at the top, it almost predates modern TV (or early 20th century cinema) news reporting of war. Turning the terrible into a visual entertainment under the allegedly laudable excuse of education.

And somebody with the nick damienhurst writes: well, I certainly adore the craft involved in this painting but it really keeps amazing me how people can’t really understand that such paintings are basically equivalent to today’s commercials. this one even has a “brand logo” there on top.

That is certainly food for thought about the relationship between art and war, the human, terror and the sublime and, of course, the relationship (or battles?) between word and image, and their producers and audiences.

The picture can be dowloaded from wikimedia

type nesting

Dubi Kaufmann created a webiste on typenesting.tumblr.com showing images of birds nesting in letters. How sweet is that!

reading traces

“Writing, like human language, is engendered not only within the human community but between the human community and the animate landscape, born of the interplay and contact between the human and the more than human world. The earthly terrain in which we find ourselves, and upon which we depend from our nourishment, is shot through with suggestive scrawls and traces, from the sinuous calligraphy of rivers winding across the land, inscribing arroyos and canyons into the parched earth of the desert, to the black slash burned by lightning into the trunk of an old elm. The swooping flight of birds is a kind of cursive script written on the wind; it is this script that was studied by the ancient “augurs” who could read therein the course of the future. Leaf-miner insects make strange hieroglyphic tabloids of the leaves they consume. Wolves urinate on specific stumps and stones to mark off their territory. And today you read these printed words as tribal hunters once read the tracks of deer, moose, and bear printed in the soil of the forest floor. Archaeological evidence suggests that for more than one million years the subsistence of humankind has depended upon the acuity of such hunters, upon their ability to read the traces – a bit of scat here, broken twig there – of these animal Others. These letters I print across the page, the scratches and scrawls you now focus upon, trailing off across the white surface, are hardly different from the footprints of prey left in the snow. We read these traces with organs honed over millennia by our tribal ancestors moving instinctively from one track to the next, picking up the trail afresh whenever it leaves off, hunting the meaning, which would be the meeting with the Other.”

This is a quote from David Abram (1996) The Spell of the Sensuous. New York, Random House. To him the alphabet “is a strange and potent technology”.

heaven and earth

by The Kozy Shack

by dou_ble_you

by jamespayne333

Another exibition I saw earlier summer in London, which left a lasting impression: “Heaven & Earth” by Richard Long at the Tate Britain. I did not bring a camera so here are images found on FLickr . I particularly liked some of the massive installations and large wall painings like this “Mud Wall”.  I felt they had to be experienced by walking around the exhibition space, rather that standing or sitting, as usual. This gave me a better understanding also of his other work about walking landscapes, embodied expierences of land, earth and sky. There are hundreds of photos – more of Richard Long’s work on Flickr.

you are loved

for Mother’s day tomorrow

I’ll keep you in my focus 183/365 by ches jack via  ffffound.

garden

I discovered this multidirectional poem by Amelia Walker – it can be read left to right or down the columns on the first issue of verbeatehim. It is called “garden”.

Through her website I found out that she also does poetry and performance workshops with children and it seems she has great ideas. I wonder how the poetry pets work. Here is also a neat little warm up exercise for writing poetry with children:

fairy tale

I made this a while ago. POV of a heavy hero. It’s all in the imagination.

typographic trees

tony green – accumulations & rosemary and other tony green work in this set from jim leftwich’s photostream

On a larger scale is the work of Gordon Young and why not associates – a series of typographic tree sculptures situated throughout the library building in Crawley.

See and read more on CR Blog:  A Library Full of Dead Trees and here at whynotassociates.com.

participation and creativity

David Gauntlett’s Lecture on ‘Participation and Creativity’ given on the 12th of November, the birthday of the world wide web.

Part two is supposed to be out by the 28th of November.

three graces

es wird frühling auf meinem desktop, by sigrid.

quiet, by sigrid.

three graces, by sigrid.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
e e cummings

This spring and summer I made some pictures in the Austrian country side (in the Weinviertel). Today I found a lovely poem by e e cummings to go with them.

        

sound and music and image

my album cover shot (it would have to be a very different album), originally uploaded by beavers abroad.

Come Fly With Me, originally uploaded by DreamValley.

    

The hills are definitely alive, originally uploaded by HorsesItch.

The words “the sound of music” in my mind are irreversibly linked to an image, the image of Julie Andrews spreading her arms, dancing and singing “the hills are alive …” from the film “The Sound of Music”. Most Non-Austrians usually associate certain things with, Austria – the mountains, and this film rank on top. However, “The Sound of Music” is or at least it used to be not that well known in Austria. I personally had never heard of it until I was in my twenties, went to the US and heard people talking about it. Now apparently every year some 300.000 tourists visit the film locations in Salzburg, so I guess that has changed. As far as musicals go, it is one of my favorites. “One of my favorite things” is one of my favorite things, and of course I like the title song, but not so much for the song but for the images and feelings associated. Maybe it is just because I am born near Salzburg among those mountains. But it is not only me who has the urge to stretch her arms and start singing, when I hit a mountain meadow. I know there are others, and I have proof of it. I have been checking on Flickr for the appearance of a “sound of music” or “the hills are alive” meme – pics like these are still quite rare but they are getting more! The real Maria van Trapp is still alive too, she is 93 and was actually born in the same town as me. I read this today in the newspaper and this random bit of trivia prompted my posting today!