goodbye 2010

So the year finally draws to a close. Can't say I'm sad to see it go for me it's been a difficult year, at least in my memory. It's not been as bad as I remember it but the memory is stronger than the reality. Allergies made summer hell, endo made everything hell and a general malaise and ennui made me wonder why I bothered at all. Only in December did I find some mojo again. Crows...it was all about crows.

This year saw many deaths but one that will probably not be noticed by many is the death of Kodachrome. last roll of kodachrome developed . Photography as we ( I) knew it is dying quickly. No more polaroids, no more kodachrome and it gets harder and harder to get normal film developed and actual pictures from photographic paper developed. It's all digital. Both good and bad.

The above photo was done via the Van_dyke_brown method. It was a joy to learn alternative methods of printing and see the results. More info here alternate photography processes .

There's a lot to be said for the slowness of analogue photography. And while I find myself entering the digital slr world kicking and screaming I know I will yearn for the darkroom and solace of time taken to get it right uninterrupted by facebook and pms.

end of the year...

One of the things I missed when I lived in Ticine was the horizon. We were surrounded by mountains and hills and we lived in a valley. Sunsets and sunrises were hidden from us and such scenes as this photo were not really possible. North Germany is pretty flat they call it the land of the unending horizon. In winter we get only a few hours of daylight and the sun sits very low causing such amazing shows as this one. A fantastic sun halo with sundogs.

mixing it up

crow standing

I experimented with water colour paint and ink and this is what I got.

a life in pictures

the polaroid project!

Add caption

the last days of the year...

Once upon a time there was a crow and a snowman...

This picture looks like it should belong to a child's book doesn't it? It's a small painting, that was done quickly. Whimsical.

where am I again?

So usually we have a green Christmas here, if we are lucky a slight sprinkling of snow to make it feel a little like winter but usually North Germany borders on cold and gray this time of year. Not so for last winter where we had snow from Dec through until March and this year where we have had snow from early December and today it is bordering on minus 10 degrees C.

It looks and feels like I recall winters in Canada except this year at my mum's there is no snow at all. Weird but also wonderful and I am not complaining about the cold and snow because it feels like a real winter and it's beautiful.

This morning , boxing day, we woke to cold and still with a lovely sunrise, similar to this one. While sitting at the computer we were treated to a strange knocking sound out by the living room and when we went to investigate we saw a woodpecker at the wisteria that's on the house side searching for food. So I guess when the woodpeckers are trying to eat the house I need to get my rubber boots on and go out and fill the feeders.

It's hard for the birds here when it's this cold, they are not so used to it. Everything is frozen solid and covered with centimeters of snow. They rely on people putting out food for them and it's cool to watch them at the feed house.

And apart from that it's quiet. Christmas has come and gone again. Presents were given, food was eaten and stories were shared. The surprise this year was how well the North American tradition of stockings went over in a German household. We'll be doing that again next year.

I'm glad it's over. I'm not a big Christmassy person. It's a lot of stress and fuss and overly rich food. I like the family part of it but the rest ...not so much. Our next big stress will be heading to Sweden for 12th night in 2 weeks. I don't travel so well any more and the last two weeks have been rough on me for some reason. But we're heading to an SCA event to celebrate for friends who won crown after at least 8 years of trying. So it's a big deal. And it will be nice to see people again, it's been a while since we were last at an event.

Anyway, here  I am on my 3rd cup of coffee, being bathed in winter sunlight enjoying the quiet time.  I hope everyone else can say the same.


Until then, be excellent to each other and dress warm.

Merry ho ho

From snowy North Germany.

The Christmas spirit

I had a big long post about the idiocy of being politically correct about the holidays so as not to offend non Christians but you know what I could care less. ( started by a big huge dose of stoopid on a Burt's Bees facebook post because someone called a Christmas tree a holiday tree).

It's Christmas and this is a Christmas tree. If you call it a holiday tree well that's okay too. I call it a dead tree but that's just me. To all those of you who celebrate Christmas have a good one. To all those of you who celebrate something else have a a good one.
In the end, no matter what you call it, the bottom line at this time of year is to Be Excellent to each other.

Arguing over political correctness of the names of religious holidays and their icons vs secular ones so as not to offend non Christians is lame... get a life and move along.

and oh yeah happy holidays.

sharing the crows

I have a savage headache today so the crows will have to speak for me. -enjoy.

white world.... blue smoke.

I find myself without much to say today. I'm tired from a busy weekend of highs and lows. The company christmas party was both good and awful. Good up until after the delicious meal when smoking was allowed in the main hall and the freaking craptastic band started playing at a volume they could hear in outer space. It's a company party not a fucking hard rock concert man, I'd kinda like to keep my hearing and be able to talk to my co workers without going hoarse, that and the cigarette smoking did it for me. Nice that smokers had freedom to light up but not so good for those of us who chose not to die of lung cancer or some other smoking related disease. Around a 1oo ppl lighting almost at once did me in and that was that. Ignorant and rude are two words that come to mind. Anyway we left at 10 and didn't look back. It was a nice party up until the smokers and the hearing aid brigade took over then it was a nightmare. It's not much fun when I can't breath and my ears hurt from the decibels.

We wandered around for a while in Hamburg's famous red light district, struggling not to slip on the icy sidewalks, marveling at the moon boot and Micheline coat clad prostitutes grabbing at an single man they saw. We poked our noses into various clubs to find someplace warm to have a drink but since we had just come from one loud smokey place I didn't feel like going to another, eventually we found a little pub had a bad irish coffee and then went to the hotel and slept.

Saturday we spent shopping in Hamburg but 4 hours of crazy gormless punters was too much and we eventually shoved our way through the idiot crowds and drove home to peace and quiet and the couch, which lulled us both into a nap.

So what I have learned in the last 36 hours is that smokers are remarkably selfish, I am too old for too loud. ( okay I have worn ear protection to clubs and concerts since I was 19) and people generally have no concept of what is going on around them  Yes, I am talking to you the fucking twat who stopped not once but 3 times in the doorway of the bathroom to search her purse for 50 cents to pay the toilet cleaning woman. Meanwhile myself and three other people are trying to find a way around you to get out. If you have to search your purse for money do it to one side. It was the same story all over the place. people it seems have lost the ability to see five centimeters in front of their faces either that or they think they are the only people on the street so stopping dead in front of me and then getting annoyed when I walk into them....I have two words for you and they ain't merry Christmas.

Funny thing is I love cities I just really have a hard time with the stupidity of the people in them.

We did manage to find our traditional labradorite stall at the market in Hamburg and got caught up on my traditional necklace buy. Beautiful examples of northern lights trapped in stone.

Now we are tucked up at home recovering. The world outside is minus 10 and white all over thanks to the snow, the hoar frost, and frozen fog. I fed the birds, watered the plants and now I am off to make tea and be grateful I live in the middle of sleepy nowhere.

Until then be excellent to each other and wear a scarf.

ow

So I woke up this morning to the delights of pain. Hexenschuss, the Germans call it, witch shot. Stiff and spasming muscles on my left side of my neck make for painful anything today. Which is great really seeing as how I have the company Christmas party to go to and get to spend the night in a hotel in Hamburg.In short I feel like crap. Which pretty much sums up the week. It's been artistically productive but the lingering in the back ground cough just tired me out. The cheese reaction made my life difficult and now this. I'm being punished for the painting of a million crows I think. Though more like it's drafty in the studio bu I don't really notice until I get sick.

I started experimenting beyond just black ink on paper. Using older left over water colored pieces of paper I painted crows on them just to see what it looked like. I'm fairly happy with the results so I might do this again. I like to experiment, salt on wet paint, mixing different coloured inks, lots of wash and water.There is something rather magical about learning how to push a medium.

And crows make for great subject matter. They are easy to capture in essence though there are a set number of crow poses to paint each one, like each bird, is slightly different. I have quite a stack of these paintings now and I don't quite know what to do with the, Some I know will get given away the rest....not sure.

However, today will be about rest and trying to free myself of pain enough so that I can be social tonight and enjoy the party with y work friends and my husband. This and enjoying the white world outside my windows. The frost painted trees are really something to see.

until then be excellent to each other and avoid the shooting witches.

snow day

It's supposed to snow like mad today. In fact it's already begun and it's kinda windy so I'm thinking it's going to be a snow day. I am Canadian, not by birth but definitely in heart and soul. I grew up in a place that was more winter than any other season so one would think that moving to a place with less winter would make me happy and it does but no winter at all or a soggy gray winter also did not make me happy. I missed snow. I missed cold. In short I missed real winter.

The last few years in North Germany we've had snow, a fair amount of it by here standards and oddly enough it made me really happy. Winter should be white.

So today winter is making itself known. My world is white with a touch of blowing snow thrown in for good measure. It will cause chaos on the autobahn and various roads here and most people will complain about the weather bitterly. Later on I will have to shovel the walk and it will be cold but that's okay.


So until then be excellent to each other and carry a snow shovel.

back in the scribal seat...so to speak.

my dear friend Andrew ( Robin)'s AOA. This was a joy to do.

So after a considerable break from the quill I took a scroll assignment on for coronation. We have not been to an event in a long time, so long in fact that I can't actually remember what the last event we attended was. ( if you are now confused then I should explain we ( husband and I ) sometimes play in the SCA, a let's pretend to be in the middle ages costume recreation group)

For a very long time I have been a scribe, a person who sets ink on paper in the form of calligraphy and illumination creating a certificate known as an award ( there are many kinds) for a person also in the SCA.  It's a form of thank you, or an achievement certificate done in the style of books of hours pages. It's not strictly medievally accurate but no one seems to mind a whole lot because usually they are quite pretty and people like to hang pretty on their walls. I supposedly got good enough at this stuff they gave me an award for it too but that's another story.

I love this craft, let it be said. It took me a horrendously long time to get to the point where I thought I was any way decent at it. I struggled with calligraphy for a long time and it was hard. This particular art form did not come naturally to my hands. So I paid my dues. And now you're asking if I loved it so much why did I stop? Well that too is a long story....

The bottom line is I stopped because I began to feel used. As an artist there is a point at which giving my art away seems wrong especially when the people who receive the art do not bother to ever say thank you.  I know it's hard to say thanks, you have to pick up the phone, or write a letter or gosh darn it type a little email ( yes my email address is on the back of all the pieces I do) but you know I usually spent about a week or so on the piece of artwork in question so I figured 2 minutes of time for a week would be an okay trade off but I guess not. People, it seems, do not really think about thank yous any more.

And because I felt used and very unappreciated I decided to stop doing this for free, and since being paid for it wasn't an option I decided to stop doing it at all. After all other artists actually make some money from their art work and people tend to say thank you. And you know, i didn't miss it which is always a sign that stopping is a good thing.

I could rant about this for years, it's my biggest pet peeve with the SCA in general but this is not what this post is about. This post is about the fact that I took on a scroll assignment for coronation and it's a big thing for me to get back at it. I hope can remember how to do a batard hand ..( good thing I have how to books) and I need to come up with a design. It's a lot of work, the planning out, the research, the text, the lining of the paper, the sitting down to calligraph, the inking of the illuminations the painting of the illuminations...if I do gold then the gold leaf is a LARGE amount of work and let's not forget about the costs of the materials.

We do this for free because the SCA is basically run on the hope that people will volunteer their time but volunteers are never treated very well and usually it's the same people who do the work while the same people complain eventually that gets tedious. Then eventually, the volunteers use a bad word and leave. No one likes to be treated like a drudge no matter how medieval that may be....we only pretend to be medieval we don't actually want to go back and live there.

So I am heading back into the studio to set up a piece of art of a different kind, one not about crows, or freedom to slosh paint and or ink about in a wild manner but one that requires a lot of thought and exacting technique.  I love the precise nature of the work I just don't really like the lack of appreciation. This may or may not be a 1 time deal, we'll see how I feel about it in the end and I will keep you posted on the work itself.

Until then, be excellent to each other! ( and don't get frostbite)

salt, ink and watercolours

Pretty amazing what salt can do to a water colour. I have had the background painting hanging around the studio for a goodly while now but today I added the flying crows. I think its' kinda cool.

tree of crows...

am really really proud of this one.

new medium, same subject

Crows,  Sumi ink on water colour post cards.

Personal space

My studio is a large room in the center back of the house. The windows look out on to the lake and the view is gorgeous. This is the room that looks like a junk dealer moved in and stored all his stuff. I have a lot of stuff because you never know when you might need something to make stuff with, paint with create something or anything. I am a collector. I am a magpie. I like shiny things and I really, really like boxes.

My favourite box is sitting on the shelf in this picture. It smells like linseed oil and it was given to me by one of my very best friends. I don't keep much in it, but what is tehre is precious to me.

All the paintings on the wall are significant and have meaning as well.  There is a story behind each and every one of them. I hang them where I can see them because they inspire me.

seven crows

One of the new paintings that I did today. It's based on a photograph that was taken from my kitchen window when I lived in the South st. apartment in Halifax.

Geek goddess or as close to it as it comes....

This is me now, well actually on Friday Dec 10, 2010. I'm 44. I have gray hair which I hide with henna not nearly as regularly as I should and I am a geek. Being a girl and being a geek are not the world's best combo in the eyes of the normal police but at 44 I don't give a rat's ass anymore what people really think of me. I know who I am and I like who I am but it took a very long time to get here.

So this is me wearing my one and only 501st T-shirt, the Imperial Officer's Corps which I am totally proud of to support the Geek Girl Pride day, or let's stop bullying each other shall we day. Wha??? you ask... well unless you've been hiding under a rock I am pretty sure you have heard about this story some place. Katie Goldman   is a little girl who got bullied at school for liking Star Wars. The message was Star Wars is only for boys but the deeper message was she is different and different is bad.

She is not alone. Bullying is something many any children, teens and adults deal with every day. It takes many forms and it ranges from upsetting to deadly.

If you've never been on the wrong side of the bully fence then it's hard to image what it must be like. To be shunned, physically and verbally abused, to be NOT ONE OF US. Well I know, as do my siblings. We know. We've been there and it left its mark. I was teased my whole childhood. In Scotland I was picked on by the kids because my last name wasn't typically Scottish and I was sensitive about it so it upset me and the more it upset me the more I got teased and picked. One of my teachers in primary school was particularity brutal with this weapon using it to publicly humiliate me in front of the class because I was slow at math. Though oddly enough when I actually got the sums right and did well she was mean about that as well, saying I must have cheated and so on. A Messer always messes things up was her favourite sentence when it came to me. She was an absolute bitch and I hated her and school and math because she made it a terrible experience. No wonder I freaking hate anything to do with math today.

When I was ten we moved from Scotland to Canada, Northern Newfoundland to be exact. I was terrified because what if they hated my name there as well but my folks assured me that in Newfoundland people's last names were just as different if not more so so this wold not be an issue anymore. And they were right in that respect because Messer fit right in with the Rowbottoms and the Noseworthys. However what didn't fit in was everything else.

I had a Scottish accent which I quickly learned to hide but not before I was singled out in class by my teachers to say words that were so very different making everyone laugh. It was utterly humiliating. I wasn't born in St. Anthony and my dad worked for the hospital so I was one of them. When I was ten or eleven, while getting off the school but at lunch time Eddie Patey grabbed my hand as I was waving to a friend and said as he twisted it. "I hates the way you talk" He broke my pinkie finger and to this day it's crooked, a reminder to me that it's better to blend in than be different.

My brother and sister received numerous beatings, stonings as well as being spit at. We were different and hated for it. I didn't have many real friends growing up. One girl liked me but not at school, she was a year ahead and didn't want to be seen with me in case her classmates teased her for it. Another friend was also shunned for what ever reason and my folks didn't like her very much, she was a bad influence though really all I remember of her was sitting in her house listening to Abba, for the most part my so called school friends only really liked me when it was around my birthday so they would be invited to the party and my mom put on a great party, but aside from that they were not very nice.

Maybe I was standoffish and maybe I was too different. I don't know maybe I was not very nice either. I don't know. I only know that I didn't fit in and never would.

Up until the year I went to high school in Halifax, ( QEH) I had no idea what it was like to have a group of real friends, to be really liked for who I was and that being a bit weird and artsy was okay.After that my life changed. I began to find out who I was and slowly discovered that it was okay to be different sometimes.

I know that, as a child, bullying left me feeling alone and confused. It made me afraid to be alone after school or at the post office where I remember being surrounded by a group of boys who really wanted to hurt me and if the bus had not come at the right time it would have been bad.

Now at 44 I feel rage when I hear stories of kids being bullied. He's gay, she's a geek, they're poor... the reasons for it are endless but they all boil down to one thing this person is not like us and we are afraid.

I have no big message here, just sharing my own story. Bullying is wrong on every level possible. Picking on the weak, the different is truly an act of cowardice, especially since it's usually done in packs. Easy to be a bully when you have back up.

Some where along the line my difference made me special and enough people saw that and cherished me for it that I came to cherish myself. I am different. I am an artist and a geek. I love all things computer and techie. I game. I can understand L337 sp34k, I know how to google and I can work the DVD remote better than my husband. I am kind and I am giving and I like to help and do a good job. At the same time I am also self centered and I look out for me. I have had to learn that but it's okay.
I speak 2 languages fluently and have an understanding of several more. I am unafraid to jump off the deep end, I take risks and try new things. I married the love of my life whom I met over the internet before it was cool.  I don't have or want kids and I am very vocal about everything including the incurable illness I have which no one understands because it's a female thing. I am the very person I was meant to be, flawed and perfect.

So Katie and all the other kids out there who have been and are being bullied in the end you will be the ones who win. Being bullied won't necessarily make you stronger or help you be a better person but it leaves its mark and one day you will hopefully understand that you are an amazing person in your own right. That being different is far more valuable than being one of the sheep who follow the norm. Believe in who you are and become who you were meant to be and do not let the bullies drag you down. In the end they are the ones who lose because they have to live with their actions forever and you cannot undo what has been done, you can however, move beyond it.

So... until then Be excellent to each other.

non crow post

This was yesterday's sunrise. ( sorry for the dust artifacts on the image they are inside the camera and I can't get them out) Some mornings are just stunning here and I try to capture them as best I can. This is the view from my studio window ( zoom lensed in ) We may live in the middle of nowhere but it does have its perks.

itty bitty little crows

crows. Acrylic on canvas.

Two very small paintings around 5cm by 5cm. I'd have done a whole lot more of these small paintings but I ran out of canvases to paint on. They are kinda cute.

Where do you draw the line?

TSA= travel sexual assault

I am not a big fan of flying and haven't been for some time. My all time worst experience was on a trip coming back from Germany. Hamburg-Amsterdam-Boston-Halifax. The trip from Hamburg to Amsterdam was fine but things started to go awry when I began the Amsterdam Boston leg.

1st there was the 20 minute some what invasive stand before official looking dude to answer a list of questions that made me RAHT exam look like a joke. About half way through this bizarre experience I asked the guy if something bad was going on. I had traveled from Europe to Canada and back via various routes for many years and never had this sort of thing happen before. He said no this was routine when one flies to the USA.  My next question was "Oh, should I be worried?" This was September 6th, 2001.

Eventually I got through the American inquisition and boarded the skankiest, oldest plane I had been on for a while. They mixed up my seat reservation and screwed up the meal plans. Things were broken and my seat didn't work properly. I sucked that all up because I just wanted to get home. I had said a tearful goodbye to my beloved and was heading back for the last leg of school and life in Canada.

We landed at Boston and it was chaos. Utter and absolute chaos...when I asked about it I was told rudely this is normal. I went through customs and had to pick up my suitcase, even though it was booked right through, just like in Montreal that's a lie. It isn't booked right through you have to go to the luggage claim and rebook it. I got asked multiple times about my reason for my visit to the USA. ( just passing through) and then the next question How long woudl I be planning on staying in the USA always made me double take, my answer... as long as it takes to catch my next flight ...around 3 hours. and it went on.

When I finally got through the hellish line up and stupidly inefficiant security to travel through to Canada things got worse. American Airlines, my next plane out to Halifax showed me how utterly rude people could be.

At the desk to check in I was told rudely I was not booked on the flight. I had positive seating booked, ticket in hand and had already confirmed once. I told the bored, rude young man this and he simply repeated the same sentence and added you are not on this flight now go away. Eventually after me getting very upset and raising my voice, something I rarely ever do, I was told the best they can do is put me on standby. I took that and wen to wait, and wait and wait until it eventually came out that they had over bo9oked this flight by 20 people and Air Canada would pick up the slack. Please go to the AC desk to get a seat. I was 1st in line and there were no discussions. The very friendly and I might add kind agent  booked me through no issues or problems. After all I had a ticket in my hand.

After 24hrs travel and no sleep, a delay of over 5 hours at Boston eventually i was on a Dash 8 headed home. I was so late that I was certain my pickup taxi would belong gone but you know what, Dave the taxi driver I always called to do pick ups was there. He had waited for me the whole time. I don't know that I have ever been so grateful to see anyone in my life as I was at that moment.

After this experience I vowed A: Never to book or fly through the USA again. WAY too much hassle just to get to somewhere else.  and B: Never to use any American run airline either. ever. I will pay extra to fly with Lufthansa ,or Air Canada before I ever step foot on a US run airline. 

Now it's gone from bad to insane. It's no longer just a hassle to fly it's terrifying. I get the need for security but sexually assaulting people before they get on a tin can is a bit over the top. I don't want to be felt up in an invasive manner by strangers. I don't want to run the risk of skin cancer either. X-rays are bad. We teach our children not to let strangers touch them in an inappropriate manner yet there are videos online of a 3 year old girl in hysterics screaming "stop touching me" to a TSA agent who doesn't stop touching her. So it's okay for a person in a uniform at an airport to touch you, little girl just don't let anyone else do the same thing.

People justify these actions by saying, well it's for our good,we need to be safe, the terrorists are out there. In reality you have as much chance of being killed by a terrorist as you do by falling space junk. Drunk drivers in cars will probably kill you before the terrorists do.

So what is this really about? It's about control, it's about personal freedom vs governmental control and it's mostly about power and money. What is going on in the airports especially in the USA has little to do with security. It's been shown time and time again that should someone want to do a bad thing and get bad stuff through a check up they can. That little rule about liquids? Useless and stupid but really good for the pocketbooks of the people who sell water and other drinks behind the red line.

Those safe to use we'll never keep your naked pictures scanners they now have are not safe, no one knows the long term harm they dish out with their x-ray doses but doctors are concerned and you should be as well. Terrorists won't kill you but skin caner will. And you have to ask... the company that's  making them what sort of financial reward are they raking in and what backdoors have they put into the system? All this security....

So I get the need to check stuff, before anyone says I am being too liberal and naive. Bad people have done and will do bad things. Airplanes are nice juicy targets. They make great weapons when slung into a building at top speed. We've all seen the images, they are burned into our brains. But when does it become too much? What's the next step? We travel naked? We get handed a nice set of orange jammies and an ID bracelet at the gate?

The term Police State comes to mind more and more often as I watch the way things are headed in North America. Freedoms are restricted daily. The police agencies have more and more power, then there is the little thing called Homeland Security which sounds and acts an awful lot like Reichssicherheitshauptamt. And before anyone says there are no death camps I'd point out that Gitmo isn't exactly a good place to be if you were on the wrong side of the fence, so to speak.

I get it, you know, I do. We live in difficult times. People want to blow us all up in the name of (insert appropriate deity name here). We need our governments to think for us because really we're all stupid sheep, we need our governments to do what is best for us because really we can't do much for ourselves. We are all dopey idiots... we plod along without questioning what is really going on. It's for your own good....you know we've heard this before. Last time this sort of behavior started up from a government it led to a world war. ( but mostly after the damage had been done)

In light of what's coming out via wikileaks I find the whole security thing surreal. Yes, airplanes make great weapons, trains, buses, ships not so much but I am pretty sure the people who were blown up and injured during the train bombings in Spain kinda wonder why you have all this crazy security at an airport but NONE at any train stations outside of cameras and standard police patrols. Yeah, you can't run a train into a building but I'm pretty sure a high speed ICE packed with explosives hurtling into a centrally located major train station could do a fair amount of hurt as well. And two ships packed with explosives colliding are also nothing to sneeze at...Halifax harbour....just saying.  It's just not a newsworthy or spectacular. Planes bashing into sky scrapers is better tv.

Am I jaded? Yes. It's all about power and money and it all has very little to do with safety. We lose personal freedoms bit by bit in the name of staying safe and don't realise what is going on until it is far too late. We live in a world where big money and big corporations hold the world by it's proverbial balls. We live in a world filled with evil and bad people. The terrorist will get you if you don't watch out.

Where do we draw the line? I don't know but I draw mine at flying to a country that allows me to either be exposed to radiation which may cause skin cancer or sexually assaulted by strangers all in the name of safety.


....Secrets are not my concern. Keeping them is......maybe if we had less secrets and more openness the world wouldn't be in such a freaking mess. Me I subscribe to the Bill and Ted philosophy of life...

Be excellent to each other.  ( and find your own personal phone booth to fly in)

twinkle twinkle little crow...

So...in continuation with the crow paintings here is another one. Acrylic paint with acrylic modeling paste on canvas with a sparkily ( some sort of rhinestone decoration). I decided to try out the sparkle stone for the eye because when you see a crow in real life the eyes seem to twinkle, not just because they are shiny but because they have a nictitating membrane that flicks across the eye ball, much the way our eye lid protects our eyes, and it makes it seem as though the eyes somehow sparkle.

Twinkle Crow, acrylic on canvas, 2010

Twinkle Crow II, acrylic on canvas, 2010.

The paintings are quite small and the paint is iridescent so the colours vary all the time depending on the light and the way the paintings are viewed. The crows look wet because the paint / paste wasn't quite dry when I did the photos. Now that they are dry the crows are matte but I might change that with a varnish and some added sheen. I'll see how I feel about it after a few days.

downsizing.

Painting big is easy. You can avoid details in favour of distance, at least I do. I like details, I like the sniggly bits , just look at the medieval work I do to see this, but when playing in the realm of canvas and acrylic messy is better in my world and yes I sometimes paint with my fingers. However every now and then I downsize. I paint tiny and it's fun to try and figure out what to do with a canvas that smaller than the palm of my hand. Here are two new ones.

"Deleated" EPROM with shredded Deutsche Marks on canvas.

"Cash Crow" , acrylic on canvas with shredded DM.

so you get an idea of the sizes.

Unique in art.

"Very Good Friends on a Rainy Day" by Andras Bartos

When we were in Berlin recently we randomly passed this quirky little shop full of seriously quirky art. We paused and looked in the window, took an info card and moved onwards but I was hooked and about half way down the street we turned back to go to the shop.

This is the art of Berlin artist Andras Bartos.  It's unique and it captured my fancy so we bought a print, nicely done on canvas. This print to be exact. This particular piece made me think of my friends far away for what ever reason ( none of my friends look like a blob or a dog-thing) and I had to have it.  I was glad we went back to the shop , it would have nagged at me otherwise as one of those "we should haves..." that sometimes happen when you are on holiday and fall in love with an object but don't get it.

This little print also makes me, as an artist, think a lot about my own art and where I fit into the whole art world. I'm not a very good artist, really, at least not in terms of actually selling my art. I just make it and then either give it away or store it some place, if I really like it I hang it on my walls.  But I am not a selling artist at all. Yet, partly due to upbringing, I feel that I fail because I don't sell. So what makes an artist an artist? Selling or making or both?

To be honest I don't much care if other people buy my art. I mean it's nice to be wanted and to have a piece sell but in the end it's not my ultimate goal mostly because I am not really so hung up on the financial and material side of things. I think, in plain English, I am not hungry enough.  Apparently art goes better with suffering and poverty. ( Or so I have been told).

So this is the conflict. I create art but I don't tend to sell it. There is a small number of viewers who get to see the art I create because the blog readership is small and I don't show, unless you work at ACER Germany then you get to see a fair amount of it because there are a lot of my paintings hanging there.  They hang in my husband's office, a piece hangs at my desk and there are two pieces in the area where I used to work. There used to be a lot of pieces in the Lugano office as well so I guess this makes me a corporate artist - not that I see it that way. It's just wall space. ( They don't clutter up my house if they hang someplace else.)

So is this unique art? Does it ever inspire anyone else?  I don't know. My own brand of crazy artist was born out of a multitude of things and the end result is a clash of technology and paint. I see progress in the pathway, and the paintings are becoming more complex somehow, but the fun aspect is still there too. It has to be fun, I don't create when I suffer I just suffer. I do create when I am inspired and Andras Bartos inspired me.

The painting of crows is a difficult matter...

So ages ago when I began the whole Re-Cycled art project crows were not high on my list of subjects. I would much rather photograph the real thing than try to paint them. This is partly because I don't consider myself to be a particularly good artist of any kind and not so skilled in the art of all things crow and paint. However, that being said, one day I came across a computer bit that intrigued me enough to to go to the crow.

When one cracks a hard drive  open it looks a lot like a space aged record player and the reader / needle resembles for all the world a beak. So with that in mind I began the crow part of the re-Cycled project. Here are some of the results.

"Two Crows" acrylic on canvas with hard disk readers.  c. 2004-2005

"As the crow flies"  acrylic on canvas with various computery bits.  Dec 2, 2010

"Wheee!" Acrylic on canvas. ( no computer bits, I didn't think it needed any. Dec 2, 2010

wall o' crows

"The Red Crow" Acrylic, acrylic paste on canvas with HDD reader c. 2004. 

 

"In Flight"  Acrylic on canvas with HDD reader. C. 2004

I'm a slow worker as far as art is concerned. I work in small spurts, spending 2-3 days utterly invested in the art then leave it for months. I don't tend to be "inspired" so much as one day I get the need to paint or do something artistic and I just do it. It's as if a second brain takes over the logical boring housewifey brain and says "right let's have at it."  I'm not that productive and once I'm done I'm done. I either hang the pieces some where or shove them away and move on. I am not a salesperson of any sort, I don't push myself to sell my art, run around to galleries and sell my art or anything like that. It feels weird, and somehow wrong and I just shy away from it.  I like to create stuff and that's about it.

On the subject of crows, however, I get quite passionate. They fascinate me, in case you have not already figured this out. So painting them or at least trying to is a big thing, and enjoyable big thing. And to be honest I just like messing around with paint and computer junk.

Until then, Be excellent to each other.

As the Crow...uh... walks??

Halifax crow on the beach at Point Pleasant Park.

 For years I have been a fan of corvids, particularly ravens and crows but mostly crows. For a long time people tended to think I was a bit on the batty side, who the hell, after all, likes crows. Crows are the harbingers of all things bad and big time pests to boot but lately that's been changing or at least the perception has.

I recently saw a tv show about crows, The Nature of Things'  "A Murder of Crows" and it made me realise I am not alone in my love and admiration for these birds. They are smart, intuitive and manage to get along with humans very well-thank-you-very-much.

On a recent holiday in Berlin I was lucky enough to watch the Berlin city crow in action. Bold and unafraid of people these crows are quite at home in the big city doing what they do.

Hooded crow in Berlin looking for food amidst cellophane.

Hooded crows made their way over from Russia and found Germany's capitol city to their liking and what's not to like, there's stuff to eat everywhere as long as one can unpack it and crows don't mind a little packaging. After all a challenge is a good thing when you have a brain and you know how to use it.

Halifax crow unwrapping a bagel.

 The challenge of getting the bagel out of the packing wasn't that hard for this crow. He unwrapped it more or less the same way you or I would have done. People in general are slobs so it's easy pickings for these birds. After all if crows can work out how to use a  vending machine they can unwrap a tossed behind bagel which incidentally they fished out of the garbage bin. Food is food right? And fresh food, still wrapped is a bonus!

These birds are wonderful. They have a complex society and they can recognize faces and they remember them.  We should be far more aware of them in our environment than we tend to be. I think we can learn a lot. I personally love these birds. They never cease to amaze me.