Sabine Timm VII

Today is sadness, illustration by Sabine Timm.

Sergio Schmidt Iglesias

A dark day, taken out of the EU against my will, against the will of the country I call home, I am hoping against hope for a crack for the light to get in. The art works are by Schmidt Iglesias an artist from Uruguay based in Paris. 

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” Leonard Cohen

"The future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. “Ring the bells that still can ring”: they’re few and far between but you can find them.
This situation does not admit of solution of perfection. This is not the place where you make things perfect, neither in your marriage, nor in your work, nor anything, nor your love of God, nor your love of family or country. The thing is imperfect and worse, there is a crack in everything that you can put together: Physical objects, mental objects, constructions of any kind. But that’s where the light gets in, and that’s where the resurrection is and that’s where the return, that’s where the repentance is. It is with the confrontation, with the brokenness of things." Leonard Cohen

Anthem

The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

We asked for signs
The signs were sent:
The birth betrayed
The marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government
Signs for all to see

I can't run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
A thundercloud
And they're going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

You can add up the parts
You won't have the sum
You can strike up the march
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come
But like a refugee

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in
That's how the light gets in

Brian Wildsmith XII

Brian Wildsmith's calendar produced in Japan in 1971.

Thea Lu

Thea Lu 心远 is an illustrator from Shanghai now living and studying in Cambridge. This is her lovely book about stars and memories.

Paula Metcalf I

A gorgeous domestic illustration by Paula Metcalf from the book 'Perfect Guest'. Perfect Guest was published in 2017 and tells the story of a house proud dog called Walter and his very accident-prone friend Pansy the squirrel.

Mariachiara Di Giorgio II

An image by Italian illustrator Mariachiara Di Giorgio, I love the strength and determination of the mother's stride, that beam of confident light and strength.

Rafael Lopez

A delicious Kite flying illustration by Rafael Lopez created for the cover of the winter SCBWI catalogue. 

Elise Gravel I

Elise Gravel's mineral creatures, I love these because so rarely do minerals get any attention from illustrators.

Hana Akiyama II

There is much to love about the work of Japanese illustrator Hana Akiyama's portfolio, but there is something especially magical about her trees, that have such personality and are almost human especially the ones above with their double trunk legs.

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley (1865 –1931) is renowned for his photographs of snowflakes and alerting people to their unique designs. He also took exquisite photographs of many ice formations in close-up, these beautiful images are his "frost studies".

“Always, right from the beginning it was the snowflakes that fascinated me most,” he said. “The farm folks up in this country dread the winter, but I was supremely happy.”             Wison Snowfake Bentley 

He started trying to capture their beauty in drawings through a microscope, then after many experiments he manages to photograph his first snowflake on January 15, 1885. He went on to establish that no two snowflakes were the same, this captured people's imaginations and his work was widely published in magazines.

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind." Wilson Bentley 1925

However, when Wilson went to publish his first book on snow, he got caught in a blizzard and caught pneumonia of which he died two weeks later.

Brian Wildsmith XI

Two posts for what would have been Brian Wildsmith's 90 birthday. 'Professor Noah’s Spaceship' by Brian Wildsmith published in 1980 but unfortunately horribly relevant today, beautifully illustrated, with the space ship images being very like Kandinsky paintings. 

Brian Wildsmith X

A moose with nesting birds from 'Animal Tricks' by Brian Wildsmith. Published thirty years ago in 1980. Today Brian Wildsmith would have been 90 years old and to celebrate their father's wonderful work his family has been working tirelessly for three years putting together a new website which is launching today.

Shane Drinkwater V

Shane Drinkwater's latest collages remind me of cycles of the moon and how prominent they are in the winter when light here is so scarce.

Tara Cyanel II

Tara Cyanel's journey of life. Tara's work has a folkloric quality that transcends cultures, she uses a variety of materials including woodcut and her works have a strong storyline.

Long weekend

I'm not really away, but I need time to find cool stuff to share and I have many deadlines just now, so I am going to take a few days.

Have a great weekend.

Vilhelms Purvitis

Vilhelms Purvitis 1872-1945 was a Latvian landscape painter who when he was 18 he started studying at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, Russia graduating in 1897 with a grand gold medal. Vilhems then exhibited and traveled across Europe to much acclaim. In 1902 he went to Norway to paint snow scenes which became his passion.

Lisa Berkshire I

I was lucky enough to receive a Lisa Berkshire print this Christmas and I love her prints, after yesterday's beachcombing, here is her 'I love the Sea' print.

Midden

"A 'midden' (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, botanical material, mollusc shells, sherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation."

I collect artifacts from a midden on the North of the Forth, North of Edinburgh, Scotland. I have always gathered as I walked, and now as I walk my new dog daily, the collection is large and growing.
It is the ceramics that I gather mainly and some bits of glass and I like to think of the lives that these objects were part of, right from the person who made it, painted it to the person that chose it, used it and eventually broke it.  I imagine the medicines in the medicine bottles and the people they treated, cured or failed. The teapots and the conversations they overheard . . .

I am no mosaic artist and the last time I gathered a sizable collection I gave them to the local college who incorporated them in a mural at the hospital.

This time I thought I would like to share these little scraps of lives lived, to creatives, writers poets, playwrights, artists, and musicians to set their creative minds to and to see what happens.

So if you would like to be part of this creative endeavor, please email me or message me via Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and I will send you five pieces of 'treasure'.

A little bit of sleuthing and I found the origin of this piece (on the left) one of James M Tod's Ginger beer bottles and it is Seafield Tower, Kirkcaldy that is depicted, wonderful!