Sunday, June 2, 2013

The Glass Harmonica


I find these instruments made out of drinking glasses amazing. It was invented by Benjamin Franklin, and both Mozart and Bach composed music for the instrument.



J.S. Bach - Toccata and Fugue in D, glass organ (part 2/2)





Played by French artist Thomas Bloch, exhibiting the glass harmonica in the Paris Music Museum, Nov. 29, 2007

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Long time no see...

I disappeared for a long time, too busy studying! But I stopped the end of last year, travelling together with studying was difficult to manage. But I do miss it terribly. But, I suppose, one cannot have everything in life!

I have big news, we became grandpa and grandma with the birth of beautiful Quinn. I am happy to just sit and look at her, but fortunately, I get to do more than that. What a wonderful time this is!

So I will have to brag with a few photo's. Promise not to become a bore!






Saturday, February 25, 2012

In Photography school...

Well, I am still hanging in there. These lectures thinks that one has no life! They come with constant "briefs" just the word makes me shudder. Oh well, I suppose that is why I am doing it? Seriously, I enjoy it tremendously, I even do the awful drive into Cape Town everyday . 

One exercise was to be blindfolded, given a pin to put into the schoolground plans. I was fortunate - I got a place just inside the entrance, because your space was just 1x1 meter big. So here is some of my photos:







As you can see, anything from the plug next to me, to my silhouette!

It was actually great fun.

See you soon.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

I had a book printed of some of my softer macro photo's. You can page through it here, or go to blurb and have a "bigger" look.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Photographic Diploma!!!!

For those of you (and English speaking friends) who are not on Facebook, I did a totally mad capped thing. I enrolled myself at the Ruth Prowse school of Art for a 3 year diploma.

Before you start laughing - I will at first do just the first year, and then see whether I want to, or can proceed. My dearest and nearest, Pieter, is not totally in love with my endeavour. But he is keen to keep me happy, so we will see. Missing out on travelling is going to be the hardest part, but I am sure we will be able to manage something! Having less time for coffee / chat / movies / reading, will also be a pain. The driving everyday to Cape Town and back is going to be very hard.

I shall try to keep you in the loop, by posting some of my photo's that we have to take for class. The second day (I have only had 2 days) we had one late afternoon and evening to do 5 to 10 photo's. They had to be from an interesting angle, lighting etc. Also lots of colour, out of the ordinary. That is enough to let my head go to a standstill. We had a dinner in Hout Bay that evening, so time was short. At tea break I ran around the block at school and got the following:




Marli, my daughter in law, then had to pose for me before the son went down.



Keep thumbs for me, it involves a lot of sitting on the floor, and with an eina knee and old limbs, this takes getting used to. If I think how much I used to sit on the floor...

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Plastic Cherry trees...

British designer Tom Price has made an enchanted grove of cherry trees out of plastic tubes and cable ties. He used special tools to heat the plastic tubing so that he could then bend and twist it into the desired shape. Cable ties hold the bundles of tubing together, forming trunks and branches. The designer fused small cross-sections of the tubing together to form a canopy that creates a dappled light underneath. The designer said: "“I like to think of myself as working in collaboration with materials, processes and phenomena and that the final physical outcome is a product of mutual consent.”











About Tom Price :

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Stromer House

Stromer House by Monicamo
Stromer House, a photo by Monicamo on Flickr.

Stromer House

One of the oldest known intact doll houses is in the Germanisches National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany. Known as the Stromer House, because it was presented to the museum by Baron von Stromer, its original owner is unknown, but it is dated 1639.

Like other famous doll houses which followed it, the Stromer House offers a fascinating view of upper-class life for the time and place it was made. This doll house has 15 sections, with everything from stables and servants’ quarters, to elegant bedrooms and a reception room and hall with intricately paneled walls.

(To see a photo of the Stromer House, click the museum link, then slide the date button at the top of the timeline to 1640. Click on the photo of the doll house.)

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

A few pretty pictures...







Movie, cartoon TV, musical lyrics
The Little Mermaid
Under The Sea Lyrics
  



The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else's lake
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean floor
Such wonderful things surround you
What more is you lookin' for?

Under the sea
Under the sea
Darling it's better
Down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea

Down here all the fish is happy
As off through the waves they roll
The fish on the land ain't happy
They sad 'cause they in their bowl
But fish in the bowl is lucky
They in for a worser fate
One day when the boss get hungry
Guess who's gon' be on the plate

Under the sea
Under the sea
Nobody beat us
Fry us and eat us
In fricassee
We what the land folks loves to cook
Under the sea we off the hook
We got no troubles
Life is the bubbles
Under the sea
Under the sea
Since life is sweet here
We got the beat here
Naturally
Even the sturgeon an' the ray
They get the urge 'n' start to play
We got the spirit
You got to hear it
Under the sea

The newt play the flute
The carp play the harp
The plaice play the bass
And they soundin' sharp
The bass play the brass
The chub play the tub
The fluke is the duke of soul
(Yeah)
The ray he can play
The lings on the strings
The trout rockin' out
The blackfish she sings
The smelt and the sprat
They know where it's at
An' oh that blowfish blow

Under the sea
Under the sea
When the sardine
Begin the beguine
It's music to me
What do they got? A lot of sand
We got a hot crustacean band
Each little clam here
know how to jam here
Under the sea
Each little slug here
Cuttin' a rug here
Under the sea
Each little snail here
Know how to wail here
That's why it's hotter
Under the water
Ya we in luck here
Down in the muck here
Under the sea

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Rain--Priscilla Ahn, Music Video






One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time
and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back
and looks up and up
and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing
and marvelous unknown things happening until the east almost makes one cry out
and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun
~ which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands of years.

One knows it when for a moment or so.

And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset
and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches
seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear,
however much one tries.

Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark-blue at night
with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure;
and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true;
and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.

~ excerpt from THE SECRET GARDEN
by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Serendipity

I have written before about the Korean artist Il Lee, who makes his art work with a ballpoint pen. (see below).

We landed Thursday night (last night) in New York, then I get this lovely letter about an exhibition of Il Lee's work in the Tribeca area of New York. How does this happen?  So tomorrow afternoon, Piet is going with me to see his work. Yay!

Dear Ansie,
Since you have written about IL LEE's large scale ballpoint pen works on canvas and works on paper in the past and we follow your blog, I thought you and your readers would like to know that after the exhibition of a couple of works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, there is currently an exhibition of IL LEE at our new space in Tribeca (see below  photos and press release).
                    http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2010/representation abstraction
Hope you can visit us in NYC.
Kind regards,
Andrew
Art Projects International
434 Greenwich Street
New York, NY  10013
212-343-2599
andrew@artprojects.com<mailto:andrew@artprojects.com>
www.artprojects.com<http://www.artprojects.com



________________________________
IL LEE
Monoprints, Editions and Paintings
October 11 - December 22, 2011
Art Projects International
434 Greenwich Street, Ground Floor
(corner of Greenwich St and Vestry St)
New York, NY 10013
Tel: 212.343.2599
Hours: Tuesday - Friday, 11am - 6pm and Saturday, 12 - 5pm
Art Projects International is pleased to present at its new space in Tribeca, a solo exhibition of new limited edition prints and monoprints by Il Lee. These series of prints, with bright greens and blues and rich oranges and browns, have been created in discrete sets of themes which build on diverse explorations of mark-making. This recent focus on the etching process brings Lee back to a practice that was his initial course of study decades ago. Several paintings made concurrently with the prints also will be included in the exhibition. As his large scale works on canvas and on paper suggest at once the monumental and the fundamental dynamism of nature, these new prints convey scale and movement beyond the possibilities their modest formats suggest.
In the monoprint Hanro - M1, etched lines twist around an area of form created by a dense intersection of those same lines. Some lines corkscrew in or out of view; others seem to halt and turn back on themselves. Lee allows, in all these recent etchings, for his lines to have different levels of energy–to develop their own personalities. In the Sosul edition, Lee uses a brushstroke effect to bring attention to series of parallel lines creating the effect; Lee trades the massing of infinite line he often uses to build massive form for abbreviated strokes that generate a meditation on process, mark making and composition. In the Gogu editions, short brushy stubs and grass-like protrusions or bush-like swirls bring abstractions in, not outright but somewhat close, association with nature. In some editions, Lee’s line is given free reign; it might consume the entire surface, explode from a corner, drop from the sky or rise like smoke. The energy of other prints is evocative of Lee’s earlier ballpoint pen work.
As Lee has done throughout his career with new projects and through experimentation, he extends his lexicon of mark making. On a press in his studio, Lee uses color and the special qualities of the etching surface to play with both line and the suggestion of line as he creates layering, atmosphere and the impression of near and far space. Lee’s prints allow for subtle variations of a different sort than in his paintings, and each practice visibly informs the other.
IL LEE is best known for his pioneering work with ballpoint pen that he began more than 30 years ago and continues today. Lee’s recent oil on canvas work and new prints bring the viewer back to Lee’s early investigations of materials and process.
Critically acclaimed and widely exhibited, Il Lee has been the subject of a retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art and solo exhibitions at the Queens Museum of Art, the Vilcek Foundation, and the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, Texas. His work has, also been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Smithsonian Museum of Art and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea.
For more information please call 212.343.2599 or email api@artprojects.com<mailto:api@artprojects.com>
________________________________
Art Projects International new location
434 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10013
                    212.343.2599
api@artprojects.com<mailto:api@artprojects.com>
www.artprojects.com<http://www.artprojects.com>

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Sleeping beauties (?) in a castle...

We then took the TVG fast train, and I watched the world go by.





When we got to the hotel, or castle,, it was dark, and lots of fog drifted around. It was really spooky, as I will show on a next entry. This light was hanging in the entry, on closer inspection, made of taps! We learned that it was called the Domaine Chateau Du Faucon. It has recently been renovated, and they are still busy with the renovations.


Another light...

We were very hungry and tired, so we were taken to the restaurant, and the food was good.

Our rooms were some of the most beautiful I have ever slept in. It had a sitting room apart from the bedrooms as well. Marli and I raved about the place, hoped that we could come back one day, but after Piet paid the next day, he said he hoped we enjoyed it, but we will not be seeing it again soon. Oh well, it was wonderful, and we felt very spoilt.

Spooky....


The next morning Marli and I spent the morning wandering around in the woods, and when we asked, Nicola, who is in charge of the Chateau, showed us all the newly decorated rooms. There is even a chapel in the chateau.







Marli en Werner.




 Marli en Piet


I got a chance to take photo's of the medallions we each got from Sarkozy's aide:


I presume this is where you play REAL lawn tennis???




Packing up and saying goodbye to a wonderful time! 

We visited a few factories in the afternoon, then took a taxi to De Gaulle Airport, 2 hours 20 minutes, 
568 Euro's!