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Posts from May 2014

Keep moving

Granny-goes-to-paris

"Her face was beautiful from every angle..." [John Glassco writing in his memoir Memories of Montparnasse] / "All I need in life is an onion, a bit of bread and a bottle of red wine, and I'll always find someone to give me that..." [Kiki of Montparnasse]

"In old age wandering on a trail of beauty lively may I walk ..."

~ American Indian Chant


The poetry of hands, 54

photo.JPG

Mountain house glow

"But how are you to see into a virtuous Soul & know its loveliness? Withdraw into yourself & look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful yet, act as does the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful: he cuts away here, he smooths there, he makes this line lighter, this other purer, until a lovely face has grown upon his work.

So do you also: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty & never cease chiseling your statue..."
 
~ an excerpt from Beauty by John O'Donohue (via Mitza)


What they call abstract is what is most realistic

Preying Mantis on the porch one evening

"Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god."

~ Romanian sculpter Constantin Brancusi who made his career in Paris (he grew up close to the Carpathian Mountains, an area known for its traditional folk crafts like woodcarving; geometric patterns of the region can be seen in his works)


Pursuit


An enhanced design from the Rijksmuseum

“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”

~ Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez


A purposeful art

Blvd-du-palais-paris_1870-1889Image of the Boulevard du Palais in Paris, circa 1870-1889 from the Rijksmuseum

Indeed, the city has a centuries-old tradition of solo exploration, personified by the flâneur, or stroller. Flânerie is, in its purest form, a goal-less pursuit, though for some it evolved into a purposeful art: Walking and observing became a method of understanding a city, an age. Baudelaire described the flâneur as a passionate spectator, one who was fond of “botanizing on the asphalt,” as the essayist Walter Benjamin would later put it.

~ an excerpt from Solo in Paris