Categories
Uncategorized

My 20 Books of Summer 2023

Terrific effort!!

imogen's avatarImogen is Reading and Watching the World: On Books, Film, Art & More

Here’s my summer reading list, now I’m all set up to take part again in Cathy’s annual 20 books of summer challenge.

My first five selections were inspired by reading The Shelf, a 2014 book by Phyllis Rose subtitled Adventures in Extreme Reading. I’ve been much-derided for enjoying this book by my children – reading is hardly bass-jumping – but the premise really appeals to me. Rose went to the New York state library, and picked a shelf (almost) at random, pledging to read her way through it. The book was a fascinating exploration of the results of this exercise, and took her away from reading directed by reviews, hype and the canon.

So, off I went to Dulwich Library in South London, and picked up 5 random books off the very first shelf, comprising authors from ABB to ALL.

I know next to nothing about these…

View original post 368 more words

Categories
Uncategorized

Autoportrait Day 340~ Dana Scruggs

Christy's avatarThe Misty Miss Christy

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

American photographer Dana Scruggs

Self Portrait, 2020 / Inkjet print / Image: 28″x38-1/8″ / Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX

[2 embedded links above]

View original post

Categories
Uncategorized

Marie Berrio: A Universe of One (2018)

At Sunnyside - Where Truth and Beauty Meet's avatarAt Sunnyside - Where Truth and Beauty Meet

Marie Berrio, A Universe of One (2018), Collage, watercolor, and charcoal on canvas, Image Source: Whitney Museum of American Art

Hat Tip

Many thanks to Deborah J. Brasket for introducing me to this artist in the post Maria Berrio and the Art ofMyth-Making

Read More

“María Berrío”. The Georgia Review.

Maria Berrio at wikiwand

Marie Berrio, The collage artist creating women she wants to see in the world

At The Guardian: ‘Like magical realism’: María Berrío on her surreal collages

See More

Tag: Maria Berrio At Sunnyside

Maria Berrio Portfolio – free pdf

Maria Berrio at Victoria Miro

Maria Berrio at Kohn Gallery

Maria Berrio at Christie’s

Maria Berrio at Sotheby’s

Thanks for Visiting 😎

~Sunnyside

View original post

Categories
Uncategorized

Autoportrait Day 336~ Eliza Ransonnet-Villez

Very elegant!!

Christy's avatarThe Misty Miss Christy

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

Austrian painter Eliza Ransonnet-Villez
or Eliza Nemes-Ransonnet (1843-1899)

1. Self portrait, 1873 / Oil on canvas / Hungarian National Museum Historical Gallery, Budapest

2. Self portrait, 1878 / Oil on canvas / Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy

[3 embedded links above]

View original post

Categories
Poetry West Cornwall (and local history)

The Seasons being Out of Joint

Three ladies settle in front of the Portugese Coffee House
in Market Jew Street.
I'm glad in a way,they are only taking drinks.
A teapot heralds a certain degree of bourgeois comfort, whilst the lady on the left sips her milkshake like a teenager.
They seem oblivious to the marauding prospect of seagulls.
The effect this sunshine spell on older skin doesn't bother them.
Above pound-stretcher a gull stretches his wings.
The black and yellow pennants flutter wildly in the in the incipient breeze.
A single-decker spreads a cascade of pollutants.
The outspread Guardian announces Johnson to be referred to the police by his own lawyers.
To me it feels like a temporary delicate interregnum.
Categories
Uncategorized

St Giles from Wallside, Barbican EC2

Very lovely and interesting!

Jane's avatarJane Sketching

Here is St Giles’ Church, Cripplegate, seen from the public walkway at Wallside. The church is surrounded by the Barbican Estate. Cromwell Tower is in the background. The City of London School for Girls is the lower building, centre and left. Through the gap between the church and the school, you can just glimpse the Barbican Centre.

The magnolia was in bloom!

St Giles from Wallside, Barbican, 1 April 2023 12″ x 9″ [Commission]

I painted this as a commission, for some clients who wanted this particular view. A special request for this commission was that I showed two ducks. These are small, but they are there!

Ducks on the lake.

The white shapes on the lakeside wall are gravestones.

Old London Wall is on the left: part stone, part brick. This is the old Roman wall round the City of London.

Thank you to my clients for this commission…

View original post 421 more words

Categories
Uncategorized

Autoportrait Day 335~ Beatrix Potter

Very sweet- I seem to remember she lived near Earl’s Court.

Christy's avatarThe Misty Miss Christy

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

English author, illustrator, mycologist, and conservationist
Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

1a. Self-portrait of Beatrix Potter as Mrs. McGregor, 1902 / Watercolor; included in only the first five printings of The Tale of Peter Rabbit / Found here~ https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/first-editions-of-peter-rabbit/

1b. Original version from self-published edition, c.1902 / Found here~ https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1483146/drawing-potter-beatrix/

2. Self-portrait in The Roly-Poly Pudding, 1907 / Sepia pen and ink / Found here~ https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-roly-poly-pudding-by-beatrix-potter#

3. Self-portrait in The Tale of Pigling Bland, 1913 / Sepia pen and ink / Found here~ https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/242807

4. Tongue-in-cheek self-portrait of Beatrix Potter and a pig, 1924? / Pen and ink sketch / Found here~ https://charminglittlebunny.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/tongue-in-cheek-self-portrait-of-beatrix-potter-and-a-pig-1924/

[5 embedded links above]

View original post

Categories
Book Reviews politics Psychoanalysis

Understanding the Health Crisis -Adam Phillips and David Morgan

Adam Phillips is an intriguing author and psychoanalyst who has clearly stated in an interview his opinions on the crisis following Covid at https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/ces/research/current/mentalhealth/interview/

QUOTE

EW: Do you think the current levels of suffering and unhappiness are the signs of a crisis that is entirely new, or do you think these are problems that have been around in one way or another for some time?

AP: I think that there’s a crisis in the sense of people finding it more and more difficult to live. So there’s a crisis in health, so to speak, and obviously we live in a very polluted environment as well. But the scale of envy and competition in this culture is too much for them to bear.

To put this as crudely as possible: I think that capitalism drives people mad. Once you live in a world in which competition trumps collaboration, it’s as though there’s no shared project; we’re all competing with one another for limited resources. So I think it’s good that it’s become a matter of concern in the public realm that people are really suffering. I think it’s also important that there are many descriptions of what they’re suffering from, because the risk is of thinking that what we need are solutions to mental health problems, whereas actually we need political solutions, and the mental health problems are symptoms of a political catastrophe that is occurring.

END OF QUOTE

Adam Phillips discusses his book “On Wanting to Change” in Paris

Another somewhat similar view is expounded by another Psychoanalyst David Morgan at https://vimeo.com/201127253 and his excellent podcasts that he has chaired can be found at http://thepoliticalmind.co.uk/resources-articles-politics-psychology/6-david-morgan-psychoanalyst-po

Some useful background
Categories
Uncategorized

Birch catkins

vovazinger's avatarVova Zinger's Photoblog

View original post

Categories
Uncategorized

The Rose Garden by Maeve Brennan – the Herbert’s Retreat stories

There must be a whole literature about the preparation and presentation of drinks in American literature. It somehow reminds me of the delightful work of Mollie Panter-Downes whose non-fiction is great as well.

JacquiWine's avatarJacquiWine's Journal

The Irish writer and journalist Maeve Brennan has been enjoying something of a mini-renaissance in recent years with the republication of her brilliant collection of Dublin stories, The Springs of Affection, by Peninsula Press in February and a Backlisted Podcast discussion on the book last November. Many of Brennan’s short stories first appeared in The New Yorker magazine, where she worked as a columnist and reviewer, only to be collected posthumously following her death in 1993. The Rose Garden is the second of these volumes, another excellent collection of pieces originally published in the 1950s and ‘60s.

The Rose Garden comprises twenty stories, divided into four sections, the first (and longest) of which I’ll cover in this review. These seven pieces are all set in Herbert’s Retreat, a private, exclusive community of desirable houses situated on the east bank of the Hudson River, thirty miles from the heart of…

View original post 1,232 more words