The remains of today

5.20 tonight, and as the cooking smell of tangy sweet marmalade mixed with new-baked bread infuses the house, the sun drops gently off my horizon ... perhaps to enter yours. It's been a lovely winter's day. Earlier I fell asleep in the sun, stretched out on a pile of stacked firewood. What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon, eh?

Centre City Dawn

This morning, as soon as it was light enough to fly (6.50am) a hoard of gulls descended en mass on the waterfront at the park. Perhaps they know it's Sunday and there are always good fast-food pickings from Saturday night car-parkers. Or maybe they do it every morning. Within minutes these scavengers had done their clean-up and were gone. It was like a scene from a Hitchcock movie.

The sun rose at about 20 past seven.

Keep calm

I've just bought a rather fun and useful drink bottle. It is very efficient as it not only assists me to drink more water when I am beavering away on some absorbing painting project, but reminds me not to panic when things don't go according to plan. I love it!

It came with a little card with the following words:

"It was 1939 and Britain was on the brink of war. In anticipation of this the British Government's Ministry of Information commissioned a series of propaganda posters to reassure the population they would be defended at all costs.

The posters were to be displayed all over the country once war was declared. Using only the crown of King George VI, this particular poster simply read "Keep Calm and Carry On". It never actually made it onto the walls of Britain and was never officially issued.

A crumpled copy of the poster was however rediscovered by chance many years later amongst a pile of dusty old books in a book store in Northumberland, England.

This simple poster with its simple message is just as relevant today as it was back in the 1930's."

Water bottle made by Wild & Wolf Limited. www.wildandwolf.com

PS. No, I am not receiving a commission from the makers. But if Wild & Wolf happen to be reading this, I would not refuse any fiscally-oriented input to my bank account.)

PPS if you are still reading this Wild & Wolf, I think it flows better with the comma after 'King George VI'.

In Search of Jazz

I went to the library today to browse the art section. I was looking for some inspiration for a theme or subject for a jazz café mural. "Something jazzy" I thought predictably, as I perused the shelves.

I rejected anything before the Impressionists because it didn't look risky and syncopated enough, although I was momentarily distracted by a tile pattern in the Imam Mosque in Isfahan:

The Impressionists themselves were too boating and picnics and green, only one small step away from gallant William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites, really. What I needed was a dose of rebellion.

John William Waterhouse Gather Ye Rosebuds While ye May 1909

Berthe Morisot Eugene Manet et sa Fille au Jardin 1883

Dada began to look promising but they were too anarchic and random - the antithesis of what I was looking for: the tight/loose, individual/cooperative blends of a good jazz band.

Raoul Hausmann ABCD 1923-1924

Balla, of the Futurist movement was getting me warmer, and I could have stayed with the Futurists, with their interest depicting sounds and movement;

Giacomo Balla Mercurio Passa Davanti il Sole 1914

....but the radical Cubists were calling me. I stayed with them for a while, turning over the pages. I looked at the multiple simultaneous viewpoints of Picasso - it seemed like the weaving of the muted trumpet and the dance of the bass. I looked at the African masks of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and I could sense the African blues roots of a jazz band. But something was still missing. The cubist's lines were too similar - all scratchy and unsure. Where was the tip-toes and sinuous confidence of a clarinet? Where was the peggy plonks of a piano? Where the confident power and slurs of the solo sax? I needed a variety of marks. And much more variety in colour. Begone dull browns and fawns of the Cubists! Bring on the Bauhaus! We need the underlying discipline of the melody even if the interpretation varies every night.

Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907

Then I spotted it: I picked it up - a small book with a painting of Pure Jazz on the cover: Yellow-Red-Blue by Wassily Kandinsky. Ah. He's the Man.

Wassily Kandinsky Gelb-Rot-Blau 1925

Unknown plant

OK, flora sleuths out there. Here's another unknown plant/weed. It was found in a suburban garden in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. This area experiences frosty days in winter and dry hot summers. Soil is fairly shallow and there is a clay pan near the surface.

This is the information sent with it:

"...grows to about 30cm. in about a month in spring and very quickly puts out conker-like pods that have hundreds of black seeds within. The plant has a very pungent smell.

Found a couple of plants in the garden here at no:60 when we first got here. Carefully lifted them and didn't get any seedlings last year."

So, does anyone recognise this one? You can see a couple of the seeds in the image.

Brownies

Credit: http://artsammich.deviantart.com/art/Brownies-133958121

Thanks for finding it to: http://lookaroundyou.posterous.com/

Uzu - ipad App.

Wow. Look at this alluring, intoxicating application for ipad!

Thanks Flatattack!