• Tag Archives pre-Raphaelite

  • Collecting

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                       Valentine Moon

    Tumblr.  Addictive in a sense I don’t fully understand yet.  I’ve selected bloggers on Tumblr, largely where folks post images of one sort or another, who present art.  Over 100 of them at last count.  At any one time only a handful might be posting, so keeping up, or at least staying roughly abreast is doable.  The range of images that folks select is wide, one of  the charms of Tumblr for me, a chance to both get inside people’s heads as they choose images to post and an opportunity to see art that I wouldn’t have found on my own.  In that sense it’s a very eclectic museum.

    (folder: architecture)

    The addictive part for me is that I’m saving images, image after image, in those files I talked about reorganizing a while back.  Many, many art folders:  art contemporary, art Russia, art Symbolist, artist Blake, artist Matisse.  Cinema and television.  Natural world.  Cities.  War.  Travel.  So on.

    Like a squirrel delighted with finding an abundance of acorns, I pluck these images up in my digital cheeks and carry them over to the small holes I’ve dug in my hard drives memory to cache them.  The folders have begun to grow fat with image after image.  Perhaps a hundred images or more in some instances.

    (folder, art photography.  the pope’s apartment the night before his announcement about his retirement.)

    My question is, why am I doing this?  Part of it is a desire to see again striking images or historically significant images or funny images or moving images.  That’s true, but mostly, like the squirrel, I dig the hole, then go on to dig another hole, often forgetting the one I dug before.  This is what oak trees count on.  How oak forests grow.  Of course, I know where all my folders are and I can open them whenever I want, but my point is that I’m more engaged in stuffing them full than utilizing them.

    Utilizing them for what?  My first approach to answering this question will come on Thursday when I start reading the catalog for the Pre-Raphaelite show at the National Gallery.  I have a folder filled with Pre-Raphaelite art and will find images, I imagine, of most of the pieces in the show.  Perhaps I’ll curate them myself, re-organize them in different ways, trying to emphasize different aspects of this 19c phenomenon.  Perhaps I’ll use the images for comparison, for tracing the history of certain themes and techniques.  Or, I might just open the folder and look at them, one after the other, taking in their color, their subject matter.

    (folder History England.  a 1920 poster for the tube.)

    This is an activity only possible with the internet and large hard drives.  And a lot of time.  It feels important; that’s why I’m writing about it.  But why?  No idea.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture GeekWorld Humanities Media 📎and tagged

  • Echoes of Narcissus

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                     New Moon (Awakening)

    An all day Latin day, this time 3rd conjugation verbs, the notorious bad boys of Latin grammar.  Due to a weak vowel they got jiggered around by spoken Latin until they’ve become most unusual, irregular in some ways.  Got remember the paradigms for present, future and imperfect.  Just gotta remember.  Latin has become easier and harder, reflecting, I suppose, past learning and present state of ignorance.  It is true though that I have begun to be able to read sentences without looking up a single word. That’s pretty exciting.

    Ovid here I come.  Of course, that’s Owid to English speaker’s ears.  I have a plan to put my Latin and my affection for Ovid to good use.  When I get closer to its realization, I’ll let you know.

    Talked to Mark Nordeen.  He has some pollen patties and has agreed to give me one for the live hive.  I’m gonna see him tomorrow.  Then, in April, I’ll hive the package bees and wait until mid-May to divide the new one, feeding and caring for both of them in the interim.  Kate has volunteered to be assistant apiarist.  Her first job involves whacking together ten hive boxes, eight supers plus frames and foundations.  It will be fun to have help.

    All the fruit trees are now visible.  No rabbit or vole damage on any of them.  That’s a relief because I was exasperated at the end of the last growing season–trying to keep Rigel and Vega in the yard, then out of the gardens.  As a result, I didn’t put up the hardware cloth protective barriers around them.

    It hit 64 here yesterday and its 56 today.  Geez.  The sun feels good.  When I walked out to pick up the mail today, I felt warmth on my neck.  It surprised me.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Bees Garden permaculture Weather +Climate 📎and tagged

  • There is one ring

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                   Waning  Summer Moon

    Day 1:  the one ring that binds her passes further through Vega’s digestive track.  This evening the hunt for the prize in the Cracker  Jack box begins.

    Kate and I ate breakfast at IHOP before going to the grocery store.

    While at the grocery store we refilled our pantries after the kids visit and found foods for Kate’s work lunch tomorrow.  Kate takes special foods on Sundays that she works.  Her mission is to expand the culinary imaginations of her co-workers.  By the disappearing food in her basket when she returns home it is clear she’s achieving her goal.

    My first two pre-Raphaelite tours are under my belt.  I learned from companions:  Joy, Antra, and Allison, who contributed to the tour.  Joy convinced me of the utility of a good flashlight.  Gotta find mine.  The three of them also helped me see that the reason guards admonish me a lot about getting too close to the paintings is that I get too close to the paintings.  All three added observations, commentary and good humor.  Thanks, gals.

    On my tours I tried to take folks on Hunt’s journey as a person and as an artist, focusing as much on a works biographical locale as its specific art historical significance.  Since Hunt had a long spiritual journey that began with an early work,  his most famous piece, The Light of the World, and since that journey was a dialogue with 19th century understandings of Christianity, my seminary training helped me.  I was comfortable discussing the theological implications of his paintings in a way others might not be.

    Both tours were well-received and I felt good about them.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture 📎and tagged

  • Innocence and joy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                     Full Summer Moon

    Ruth (grand-daughter, 3) has a voice that is innocence.  Her pitch, her earnestess and her imaginative conversation all draw me to a time when life proceeded with leaving home in the early morning, going down the street to pick up my pals, deciding whether to go to the field, play baseball, ride bikes or hunt for pop bottles to turn in for spare change.  Her voice carries the sweetness of cotton candy sold under bright lights at a county fair, pink dresses with lots of frill.  When I hear her, I remember the garden before the fall when we walked with the sacred unclothed and wide-eyed.

    Gabe has a smile that lights up the room and makes everyone glad.  Innocence and joy are great gifts children offer to adults, reminders of what the world has on offer if we can shed the mantle of maturity, even if only for a little while.

    Today I’m going to put the finishing touches on my pre-Raphaelite tour.  I’ve changed my focus a bit with more attention to Hunt’s evolution as an artist and as a spiritual seeker than an examination of pre-Raphaelitism per se.  In that regard I will start with his Light of the World, started when he was only 23 and finished a year later.  This painting made him famous and rich, but, more important, it ignited a life-long spiritual journey that took shape in his art.  This is a trial run for this tour, so we’ll see how it goes.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Faith and Spirituality Family 📎and tagged

  • New Puppies Make Selves at Home

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                          Waxing Summer Moon

    So I spent a couple of hours this morning lining the base of the chain link fence with used wooden fence railing, then wiring those rails to the bottom of the chain link.  This is in an attempt to prove that I am human, Vega dog.  Me smarter.

    Tonight Vega looked around the living room, hopped in the Stickley arm chair, made herself small and occupied the same space usually taken by a whippet about a third of her size.  Quite a performance.  No wonder she can slither under the fence.  Later, Vega hopped up on the couch and plopped herself down, just like the whippets.  I used to have a firm no dogs on the furniture policy, but it went by the wayside long ago.  They like a good chair as much as I do and the couch, well, hey, that’s for all of us, right?

    Research today on the pre-Raphaelite show.  The more I learn the more I respect the work and thought of these guys as it pertained to the purpose of art and the craft of art-making.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Family 📎and tagged

  • Decipher Hunt

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                      Waning Dyan Moon

    My e-mail accounts have slimmed down after post-vacation bloat.  It always takes me a while to delete and save e-mails after a time away from the main computer.  Done now and feels good.

    The whole pre-Raph show work has begun to heat up and I plan to do some library time on the paintings I plan to feature on my tour.  Not sure yet, but I’m leaning toward:  Awakening Conscience,  Sheep,  Mary Virgin, La Dolce,  Afterglow, Finding the Savior, Light of the World and Lady of Shallot.  As to theme, not sure yet, but something to do with sight, like New Sight, Clear Sight seems possible or symbol, Decoding the PRB, or Decipher Hunt.

    Right now I’m trying to kick my weather console and its data-logger (internet link) back into consciousness.  Gonna  try it again right now.  Looks like its back.  I missed its linking to the national weather observer network.  Now it will get back on in a bit.

    I have finally learned my cell-phone number.  My sons will be so proud.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • The Victorian Subversives

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane              Waxing Dyan Moon

    The pre-Raphaelite crew met today at the MIA.  We discussed the peculiar social habits of this genus of artist, their wonderful paintings and the meanings of their careful constructions.  Their jewel like paints make their canvases leap off the wall and a book page.  Their often medieval subject matter brings back the whimsy of knights and chivalry, while some classical allusions, the Two Gentlemen of Verona, Hamlet, and Jesus, for example create odd artistic resonance.  They are beautiful and rich with meaning.

    Wendy, Allison, Joy and Antra were in attendance.  Allison presided with her usual vigor, taking us to places to see her new discoveries.  We all peaked in at the exhibit, just now being hung, craning our necks over the barrier like groupies at a rock concert.

    This will be a very fun show, I hope it finds an audience.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture 📎and tagged