Art and Artists
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, NaBloPoMo
Plinky asked, “Do you have a favorite work of art?”
No, I don’t have a favorite work of art. My favorite artist is a young lady named Katie Armistead, and I couldn’t possibly choose just one of her works as a favorite.
Other than her work, I have several favorite artists, from the well-known ones like Monet to lesser-known people such as Carl Lundgren and Lucy Synk. I’ve gone into more detail about them at http://technomom.com/sff/art.shtml .
I also enjoy Susan Seddon Boulet and Susan Van Camp’s work, and Ansel Adam’s photography among others. Some of the Raphaelites also appeal to me.
Whether…
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Blogging, NaBloPoMo, Relationships, Writing
Such a word that is, indicative of choices big and small. I’ve faced more change than choice in the past 30 days or so, thanks to a major relationship change.1 But there have been choices, and there will be yet more choices in the future—choices that I will be making alone, for the first time in many years.
Choice, reflected in that word, is the NaBloPoMo theme for March. And I’m making a change, by making a choice to return to blogging.
I’ve been journaling privately these past weeks as a spiritual practice and have found it rewarding. I’m not quite doing writer’s pages à la Julia Cameron, but perhaps I’ll return to that discipline at some point. To be honest, my spiritual life has suffered greatly in the past six years, and my writing has suffered along with it (as well as my music, needlework, and everything else).
So, perhaps I’ll write about choices this month. Or about changes. Or about anything else that strikes my fancy. I’m just making a commitment to posting a bit each day, for now.
1 One not yet reflected everywhere on my web sites, because it takes a lot of time to track down all mentions of a 14-year partnership
Tags: Changes, Choices, Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way
What is the first thing you see when you walk in your house?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Critters, Home, NaBloPoMo
The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
What is the first thing you see when you walk in your house?
Right now, the first thing anybody sees is Sam’s desk. No, that isn’t precisely right. If you’re looking straight ahead at the wall, you see a collage by Katie, which is much lovelier.
Tags: Art, cats, Home, Katie Armistead, NaBloPoMo, Sam Chupp
Oh No, I Have That Itch
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Blogging
No, nothing like that!
I’ve been looking at WordPress themes. Again. Lots of them.
I have lots of tutorials bookmarked about creating your own themes, too. I even have a couple of books on the subject.
One is quite new.
Danger, danger, Will Robinson!
Tags: Blogging, Changes, Templates, themes, wordpress
September 2010 NaBloPoMo Theme: Art
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Blogging
I received the NaBloPoMo newsletter today and learned that this month’s theme is Art. On the one hand, I thought, “I have nothing to say! I’m not an artist. Blah.”
On the other hand, I’m coming to realize that I must have order in my life or I start dying, bit by bit. “Enemy of Entropy” isn’t just a fanciful blog title. Disorder is painful to me. Dull colors, harsh lighting, loud sounds, poor ventilation, and pervasive odors can drag anyone down, but they make me ill very rapidly.
If you find me surrounded by chaos you can be sure that either I haven’t been in that space long enough to impose order, or that something is very, very wrong.
I’m healthiest and happiest when I’m when I find ways to increase the amount of harmony and beauty around me. There is beauty in order, and art, for me, involves order — some kind of order, even if it isn’t always obvious.
I’m never going to be an Artist in any classical sense of the word. I have, however, established peaceful, joyful spaces for my family and friends to live in and visit. I put together fabric and fibers to create unique works of embroidery. When I sing, alone or with others, the result is no less beautiful for its ephemerality.
I’ll be trying to explore my own kind of art this month through blogging, my identity as an artist. And I’ll be working on getting back to blogging regularly, obviously. This is a new sort of blog post for me, more introspective. We’ll see how that goes.
Tags: Art, beauty, homemaking, NaBloPoMo
Pretty picture, meme, etc.
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Blogging
Sam started a meme!
Tags: jakerome, John's Background Switcher, Sam, WebShots
What? Huh?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Reading
There was something specific I was going to post. I know it. I remember thinking, “Oh, yeah, I want to blog about that!” But I didn’t do it immediately and now, of course, it’s gone, gone, gone. Blah.
So, instead, you get a little hodge-podge update of books and pictures. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Adrienne Barbeau, Botticelli, C.E. Murphy, Laura Anne Gilman, Laura Resnick, Michael Scott, Modigliani, Mucha, Patricia Briggs, photomanipulation, Stephanie Meyer
Sunrise? Sunset?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art
I don’t know which. But it’s lovely!
Tags: sunrise, sunset, WebShots
TotD: Freya Stark on Beauty
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Thought of the Day
From Perseus in the Wind by Freya Stark:
If loveliness is so engaged, as I believe, in the skein of our universe, it is sad that it should be little cared for in our schools. The whole of the industrial world proclaims its unimportance, and millions and millions of people spend their lives looking almost exclusively at ugly things. This surely will pass. What is more insidiously dangerous at the moment is a timid heresy which believes that the ignorant can be trained to beauty by the second-rate. The fallacy of our age maintains it better to do things badly than not at all. As a matter of fact there is very little harm in doing nothing: to do things badly is an active getting in the way of the few necessary people who might do good. To adapt beauty to “the man in the street” is to use the bed of Procrustes with a vengeance and to mutilate divinity: it is better to remember that the man in the street himself was made in the likeness of God. To him beauty is simple and easy, a natural hunger which all can assimilate in elementary or complicated form, provided they are not cluttered up with mediocrity already. Mediocrity will never lead to beauty: the two roads are not even parallel; they are divergent.
Tags: beauty, Freya Stark, mediocrity, Perseus in the Wind
Graphics. Gah!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Geekery, Needlework
There are times when being graphic-impaired really does annoy me.
I’m finally moving forward with porting the Heartsong Handicrafts site to WordPress. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve done the same many times before with other sites.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a logo. I mean, I have a simple logo, but it isn’t very good. It doesn’t sing, that’s for sure. I just want a nice, simple logo that isn’t terribly busy, but that doesn’t look (like the first attempt) as if I made it from clip-art and standard fonts. My utter and complete lack of drawing ability is a serious handicap in this endeavor.
I did sorta customize a WP theme to match the crappy logo, but that part is easy. The harder part is having something to give the site visual interest, and that doesn’t exist right now.
On the other hand, the cross-stitch patterns themselves involve graphics, so I don’t want things to get too busy. It’s a balancing act.
I may have to throw myself on Katie’s mercy, or something. She’s pretty busy, though, and prefers to draw whatever she feels like drawing rather than creating something to suit a particular theme.
Tags: cross stitch, Design, graphics, Heartsong Handicrafts, logo, themes, wordpress