Making a day

Design in further progress.

Thank you Marion for the flattering You make my day award. It cheers me greatly to know that there are folks out there who enjoy what I ramble on about. I certainly am now well and truly addicted to this magic link. I could not possibly go on to single out ten connections which make my days - all the links on the right bring me delight, chuckles, food for thought, and from time to time positive inspiration.

Sometimes the Fates, Muses, and Harpies are curled up on Mount Olympus leading to quiet days, but recently the Eightsome Reels have been fair pounding my floorboards, and there has just been so much making my days. First I shall mention the blog In a moment ago, which in the past I have only consulted occasionally for Sharon B.'s encyclopedic knowledge of stitching. But I was intrigued by her Take it further challenge for this month (as well as other posts subsequently this year) particularly because I was a little in design doldrums. So, I took her challenge to the design that was on yesterday's post.

I used both parts of the challenge. Matisse's paintings of women have always been a tremendous influence on my own work. I admire the artist in many ways beyond that narrow focus, but something about those women being used as part of the pattern, the colour composition, I have found utterly compelling. I don't wish to reproduce them, because I want my figures to imply a real life, but I thought I'd take that admiration further by using the colours supplied for the challenge. I have cheated because I have not strictly restricted my palette. Anyway, above is the design in further progress.

Second, I received from a friend a delightful postcard of an Inuit drawing of owls. Not only do I love the image, but it reminded me of cards I bought in Montreal twenty five years ago. They too were Inuit drawings of birds. It is wonderful to have nudges like this to return to previous delights, so I Googled and found this interesting site. Life is just too short to keep track of all my interests. Some just spill out of the bag, and folk tales which took up so much of my attention in years gone by have nudged themselves into my day in this way.

Third, music. I am intrigued, transported, and mind-moved by music. Like visual art and literature I respond to a wide selection: classical, pop, folk, jazz, and contemporary classical (which I always think is a dull title). However, I know next to nothing - well, nothing - about music. I just know what I like! I was delighted last Sunday in the Observer newspaper Review section to find a list of contemporary music blogs to try out. As I type this I am listening to Future Radio which I found through the On an overgrown path blog. (Coincidentally, Future Radio comes out of Norwich which is near where Marion is!) Also I like the Zen saying on the header of the overgrown path blog.

Fourth - continuing music I followed up a recommendation in today's Guardian newspaper review to listen to Fernando Otero, and have added his latest cd to my wishlist.

And fifth, back to the visual arts, yesterday I received an invitation to an intriguing looking exhibition of paintings at the James Hockey gallery in Farnham. Separate Landscape is on next week, and I hope to see it. This makes my day especially because the venue is close by and it is usually very quiet.

Sixth is the newly arrived catalogue for the upcoming Cloth and culture now exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre (again in Marion's area!). It is a beautiful catalogue and I'm really looking forward to reading it before at some point going to the show. The other lucky coincidence is that I finished Vol.1 of Richardon's Picasso biography (phew!), and I shall slip the catalogue in today before embarking on the Picasso Cubist exhibition catalogue.

Those Greek Mythettes are a weird bunch: all these positive inputs in the week when a woman smashed her car into the side of mine - no physical hurt apart from the metal - and various other boring things have gone wrong.