Filmic doppelgangers

Over the Christmas Break I would tease the ‘Art-man’ with the phrases: ‘Has he been yet?’ and ‘I can hear something can you?’  Now, the ‘Art man’s’ affection for me resulted in him either running to our new front window or cocking his head in a spaniel fashion. He’s stoic in the way he plays along to my silliness. Of course, all these questions were in relation to St. Nick’s arrival.

Remembering the feelings of Christmas anticipation through these phrases are some of the loveliest memories of Christmas 2012, especially as we had our house keys on the 21^st December , Christmas activity was somewhat frozen.   

This activity of packing/moving boxes altered the dynamics of our conversations too. Rather than long chats about all things, it started a series of Q & As posed when carrying a box for the answer to be returned on the trip back into the house.  The famous question of: ‘Who would play you in a film? Or which character is most like you? Much debating resulted in the answer: Dick and Anaugh from ‘High Fidelity,’ we do the nerdist chic rather jolly well we think.

So who would play you? 

Smart(ie) Pants

I have always been curious about the idea of a ‘Key text’ for a course. Expectant students are poised with their sharpened pencils ready to make notes for the term ahead. The ‘Key Text’ reveals more about the lecturer in some ways than the reliability of the tomb.

Over 10 years ago I was privileged to meet (somewhat vicariously) the author of the greatest ‘key text’ for my undergraduate degree, his name was Ninian Smart. Smart’s dimensions of religion are burned upon many a trainee-Religionist’s brain, World faiths are divided into:

Narrative

Ritual

Emotional

Social

Doctrinal

Material

Ethical

It is possible, according to Smart, to see these dimensions in most belief systems and philosophies. Quite often when I have to do something horrid:  vaccination, leg wax, boring meeting, CAT scan, waiting in traffic etc.,   I try and remember  the ‘dimensions’ and what we remembered through route in University.

Sad I know but this is how I roll….

I typed earlier that this was a somewhat vicarious meeting and it was, during his inaugural lecture I happened to sit next to his wife, Lubushka, who was, even more of a delight than her inspiring husband. She sat so neatly at the back of the lecture theatre, hands crossed in her lap and as her husband talked, she moved in the musicality of the anecdotes, supplementing information I’d never have known. It really was one of the most interesting lectures I’d ever been too.

Graphic re-design

It gets to a point where art starts imitating life, life starts imitating literature I’ve read and I’ve now got to the point where I’d like to sink into the graphic design of our work/home in my very image. It is clichéd to wish for a graphic make over but essentially that is what I’d like. I’m lucky in the respect I have the Summer to prepare for another academic year, and every Summer I try to immerge for a chrysalis of drudge to start a fresh, from ducking to erm…….mid-century modern swan.

Etsy! Etsy! Etsy!

Exciting News! We are about to launch our very 1^st Etsy shop. Check back for the details soon…..

A return to Clarke

I think I’ve already eluded to the fact the 'Art-man' and I have a lot of books, many of these are on the subject of cooking. Whilst I/we enjoy cooking I’m conscious of not becoming too curvy, something that seems to have happened recently…so action needs to be taken.

A nutritional ‘fairy godmother’ I often turn to is nutritionist, Jane Clarke.  Clarke’s take on food/diets/complaints is akin to that of a gentle friend, observing the situation and stating the last thing we need to do is panic- just nurture. To do this common sense and gentle exercise is the key-obvious but often hard when you are not happy with the skin you’re in.

Check Jane out, and begin to breathe:  Love you Jane!

 http://www.janeclarke.com/index.html

Living Well Is the Best Revenge

 

This weekend, a ‘Bank Holiday’ weekend in the UK, we decided to pop into Oxfam Books for a mooch and I stumbled upon a book which this Blog post is dedicated to. “Living well is the best revenge” is the memoirs of Gerald and Sara Murphy, champions of the ‘Lost generation’ writers.

Upon a recommendation we recently saw Woody Allen’s ‘Midnight in Paris’ and it ignited a forgotten teenage interest in: Hemmingway, Stein and the Fitzgeralds’ crowd. The book title was a beacon in a collection of ‘arghhhh’ moments this month.

The advent of social networking sites has wormed its time-sapping way into my mind. I like to catch-up with friends/colleagues’ news but I often find that the time I’d like to be dedicating to creative pursuits is marred by update reading. This fascination with other people’s lives often leaves me feeling, ‘Blimey, they’re achieving so much, travelling to so many places, experiencing a life that I’m not conscious of.’ This acknowledgement is sometimes shocking because it makes me question my own life in comparison.

The ‘Art man’ and I live a good life, a quiet but good life. We enjoy theatre trips, eating out in exquisite restaurants, reading, talking, creating, seeing good friends sporadically and we’re both very close to our families. In a time when we’re trying to streamline/minimalise our creative endeavours, our social/familial life is there already.

So perhaps the Murphy’s title is fitting and something we’ll endeavour to continue to do in the face of such ambitious activity online…..

A room of one’s own (to fold)….

The nature of platonic/modular origami means stepping, although tentatively, into the world that is mathematical formulae. I may have hinted in a previous post that this is an unknown and often confusing land that I can’t seem to relate the pleasurable act of folding with.  I often look at a new model (paper form) for quite a while before starting, re-reading the images and miming the folds with ghost paper between my fingers. I do find doing this eases the frustration when attempting it in real time, as do the little notes I annotate new instructions with.

I remember reading an article written by Nigella Lawson about how she was left her Grand/Mum’s old recipe books when they’d died.  A recipe book is as much a social commentary as any found in the Lancet: finance, frustration, families etc. but all the more accessible as it is written in a familiar hand.   I am a natural cook. I suppose that instinct comes from learning by mistake; there have been a number of inedible meals produced by these origami-active hands that for want of a better phrase have to be put down as an experience.  Now I like the challenge of producing a meal fit for the ‘Art man’ out of fridge remnants. I enjoy that. In much the same way I enjoy forming paper modules for bits of paper that arrive in the slipstream of junk mail that arrives daily. I separate the paper/envelopes into 3 piles:

1^st: Urgent post to be dealt with 

2^nd: Crap to be recycled 

3^rd: Crap but with potential to be folded into something beautiful.

The only issue with the art of Origami is just that, appreciating it as an art as opposed to a craft. After a productive day I’m left with a plethora of forms that just sit there on our table looking unkempt. The ‘Art man’ can produce a painting and as it sits on the coffee table in its noble sketchpad there is almost an arty/elevator soundtrack to accompany it. Uber-cool!   My paper forms look as if a German designer has opened his Dyson and stuff has fallen out.

So, I plan on solving this dilemma. I like the form of hung origami (think 1000s of cranes) or paper tessellated quilts, strung across a wall. I’m lucky in the respect that I have near enough carte blanche to display work in our home, really the walls would be better if I did. But my idea is to decorate with folded wallpaper on the walls or generic landscapes turned into the leaf/tree design the paper started off from.

Wish me luck…