One of Renee's fav clips......a year has passed and we remember this precious girl and her gifts to us......

Her head was full of flowers and yet....

1. Jeff Koons 2. Creative Cellar 3. Tiger Head Designs 4. Clay Flower 22
Vintage head vases incorporated into digital prints and mounted on panel box by Brent Rodgers at Two Little Fruits

Her head was full of flowers
and yet she craved for more.
Sometimes though,
when she forgot to think,
a softness slipped in,
a nothingness,
she exhaled
and felt content.

Working on doing nothing

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Lifesize figurative paintings by David Jon Kassan, poem by Pablo Neruda, film from Marcia Ong

Going round and round in circles...

....and definitely not looking as elegant as these girls! Yes I know I've been away from the blog for weeks. It wasn't intentional. My place here has been on the market and rather than hang around keeping it pristine I took on a housesitting role on an acreage and there my laptop died. Although I'm still alive and kicking, I did develop pneumonia at this time which has necessitated much laying about. Now, my place here in Brisbane has sold which finds me going round in circles packing, cleaning, throwing stuff out, and looking for a house in Toowoomba. Maybe I could find one with a little fountain to slip my tootsies into....

visit Etsy for some inexpensive but classy duds

Escape

Art and poetry to get lost in - Mixed Media on Canvas from Damien Kamholtz and a poem from Rumi. Thank you to Elise and Janet for sharing these with me.

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like somebody suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You’re covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side.
Die,
and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

Deep....and still

underwater sculptures by Jason de Caires Taylor

The primative sea

A statue rests

Still

Surrealism in the great outdoors revisited

Photos 1 and 3 by Lucy Nieto

I suppose that we all titivate our gardens - some more than others. While watching the ABC series, Around The World In 80 Gardens I saw this garden and it really got me thinking - about art and immortality, art and money, art and power, art and the notion of beauty, art and labels. All this thinking of course just gave me a headache and the realisation that if art mirrors life, then the politics of it will do likewise - whether we agree with it or not - and we each just have to do what is right for us.

The British multimillionaire Edward James made his name between 1920 and 1930, as a surrealist poet and collector or surrealist art - he was a patron of De Chirico, Magritte and Dalí - he collaborated with Dali to produce the Lobster Telephone and the iconic, red-satin Mae West Lips Sofa. But it’s through his own surrealist art work, the gardens of Las Pozas, Xilitla, Mexico that his name lives on.

Photos, 3, 4, 5 from Mexico Woods

In 1948, after spending most of the Second World War in Los Angeles, James went to Mexico with a friend to look for a site to house his growing orchid collection. The travellers came across the pools of Las Pozas, and James's friend immediately stripped off for a swim.

As he sunned himself afterwards on a rocky outcrop, a cloud of smoky-mauve butterflies appeared suddenly and covered his entire body. James took this as a sign and purchased the land. Over the next 20 years, he paid annual visits to Las Pozas, constantly adding new orchids: by 1965, he had 18,000 plants. But a freak three-day snowstorm killed the whole collection.

So James began instead to cultivate giant plants made of concrete - to say nothing of towers, obelisks, pavilions, bridges and spiral staircases. Hidden within the rainforest is a surreal concrete jungle - enormous man-made trees, bamboos and flowers –that range in height from 1.2m (4ft) to 9m (30ft), designed by James and built by Xilitla men. James was also wild about animals of all sorts, travelling the world with snakes in his luggage, and many of the garden pavilions were designed to hold an aviary or a menagerie.


A poem written by Edward James, prior to his death in 1974 -

I have seen such beauty as one man has seldom seen;

therefore will I be grateful to die in this little room,

surrounded by the forests, the great green gloom

of trees my only gloom - and the sound, the sound of green.

Here amid the warmth of the rain, what might have been

is resolved into the tenderness of a tall doom

who says: 'You did your best, rest - and after you the bloom

of what you loved and planted still will whisper what you mean.

And the ghosts of the birds I loved, will attend me each a friend;

like them shall I have flown beyond the realm of words.

You, through the trees, shall hear them, long after the end

calling me beyond the river. For the cries of birds

continue, as - defended by the coretege of their wings -

my soul among strange silences yet sings.

Read more about the interesting background and life of Edward James here.

I find the Las Pozas gardens fascinating, and would love to visit them, to see them up close, to photograph them. Another that I'd love to visit is the Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall, in the UK. The beautiful contemporary piece Mudmaid is installed there.

Photo from JohnnyH

Definitions of any kind can be limiting, and confusing. There's a simplistic easy to understand definition of ‘surrealism’ here and a not so easy but interesting one - an Andre Breton lecture - here.

Below are a few 'surrealism in the outdoors' artworks from the ever inspiring artists of Etsy.

Groundhog Hair Print by Amber Alexander

Not All Good Journeys Are Bad Print by Bryan Collins

Beginnings Print by David V Moore

Black Rose Cameo Brooch by Lush Punk

The Night Belongs to Them Print By Jaime Best of Best Art Studios

Eggplant With Chicken Legs Sculpture by Melissa Sue

[still squatting here in toowoomba and visiting the place for sale every couple of weeks...real estate is starting to pick up so hopefully it won't be long before i sell and can settle in here...with internet access! so a revisiting of a post from last year. i send loving kindness to you all, chrisy]

What's that sound in the bushes...

body art by Pashur, photograph by John Overton

Her umbrella was filled with rain she had collected in her travels & on hot summer days she would open it up for the neighborhood kids & we would splash in the puddles & then it would smell like Nairobi or Tasmania & later on we would sit on the porch & eat ice cream & watch for tigers in the bushes.

[via story people]

All the colors of the rainbow and then some...

Brightly colored art work, placed on neutral colored walls, does it for me. The colorful paintings above, by Heather Galler (available here and here), with their inclusion of black and white, and their abundance of pattern, are perfect for lifting any space. I can't imagine ever tiring of looking at them.

My place

Above are a few photos of my place here in Brisbane, all neat and ready to be sold to a lucky buyer. With the river and ferry a few steps away, Oxford Street around the corner, the pool, the glorious gardens, it’s been easy to be content here. I enjoyed decorating with 99.9 percent thrift/secondhand store finds and am happy with the look I’ve created here. But it’s time to move on and head up the mountain to ‘home’, to the support of family and old friends, and to a place with space for out of town friends to stay over, and a garden, and room for arty activities, and (oh the excitement) a clothesline!

A Letter from Home by Mary Oliver

She sends me news of blue jays, frost,
Of stars and now the harvest moon
That rides above the stricken hills.
Lightly, she speaks of cold, of pain,
And lists what is already lost.
Here where my life seems hard and slow,
I read of glowing melons piled
Beside the door, and baskets filled
With fennel, rosemary and dill,
While all she could not gather in
Or hid in leaves, grow black and falls.
Here where my life seems hard and strange,
I read her wild excitement when
Stars climb, frost comes, and blue jays sing.
The broken year will make no change
Upon her wise and whirling heart; -
She knows how people always plan
To live their lives, and never do.
She will not tell me if she cries.

I touch the crosses by her name;
I fold the pages as I rise,
And tip the envelope, from which
Drift scraps of borage, woodbine, rue.