Time for Art exhibitions
December 4, 2015
Feeling like visiting some art exhibitions with me ? The Season for various cultural events is on again.
So let’s follow the curious chickens into the galleries…
Albert Chavaz was a Swiss painter (1907-1990) who left a great amount of oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, drawings; he was a sculptor as well as a Master glassmaker; so many beautiful windows he created in churches, chapels and official buildings. I visited his studio with one of his daughters. Everything has been left untouched since he passed.
In another gallery, I admired other sculptures created by Pierre Loye, an artist living in the Valais area in Switzerland. “The Travellers”, as the artwork below is named, has been carved in a single piece of wood (lime tree) A few people are on the road, their house is turned upside down definitely meaning: “We are away and will not be in for a long time”! Imagination and talent !
Pierre Loye is also a painter. Two of his inimitable characters stand on their window like on a flying carpet…opening to the wide world. At least this is what I imagined !
To end our visit, let’s go to the Museum of ancient wallpapers in Mezieres, near Fribourg, Switzerland. It is installed in a lovely restored mansion of the 14th century.
Photography (especially with flash) was not permitted for obvious reasons. These old wallpapers, painted, drawn or made out of silk would be damaged by too much artificial light. Here is a postcard of part of a wallpaper called “The two Doves” in the Blue Room.
No flash was needed in a brightly lit room to show you a ancient chest or writing table ? It was lined with a decorative wallpaper.
A surprise in another room ! An old Korean bicycle carrying a huge load of colorful bundles of various objects and materials called “Bottari Tricycle (2008)” This old tricycle was loaded with about twenty “Bottaris” which are multicolored sheets used in Korea to transport the basic tools of a household. Kimsooja (*1957), the artist, describes these Bottaris as symbols of a nomadic world, a form of simple and mobile life. This is becoming more common in our global society.
Here are a few examples of ancient wallpapers of the 19th century… in the form of wrapping papers and postcards.
It was a lovely autumnal Sunday afternoon, hardly anybody but me in this small museum. Who could blame them when the landscape was so inviting for a walk ? Which I did later on.
Thanks for joining me !
Best wishes to all
December 31, 2013
For a HAPPY NEW YEAR with light and colors on the horizon of your life.
A boat in the sunset cruising on the Bosphorus strait last November. A short but most pleasant stay in Istanbul with my family. It was a surprise trip for our eldest son and the most enjoyable experience for the four of us.
May your New Year fit nicely in this colorful year cycle. This is how I interpreted this painting in the astronomy section of the superb Museum of the History of Science & Technology in Islam from the 9th-17th centuries through a series of replicas of its greatest achievements and inventions (Gülhane Park in Istanbul).
The objects displayed serve to honour a number of the sciences including astronomy, geometry, chemistry, physics, optics, mineralogy, architecture, time measurement and war technology. They attempt to show how discoveries made across the Islamic world were adopted, altered and assimilated into European culture.
Thank you to each and all of you for sharing with me your own pictures and experiences here and there, your own beliefs, traditions and cultures. I really believe that it is in communicating with others, all over the world, that we start understanding one another better. Less fear of the unknown and more peace all around.
Bonne et heureuse Année !
Isabelle
Cameras
May 1, 2010
As I visited a photography museum a while back, this small black cube in a show case attracted my attention. And memories started coming back in waves. Lovely ones. My grandfather Ulysse owned such a camera, I never saw him using it though. Books were what he mostly had in his hands. He probably gave it to my father who used it quite a lot when the family travelled abroad or simply when he felt like taking a shot wherever we were. The result were tiny b/w pictures with a large white indented frame.
This small camera really saw a lot ! and experienced just as much too… oh, the drama when my sister and I forgot it on the table of a restaurant in France (we were in charge of it) ! My Dad simply turned around his old Chevrolet and off we went to look for it. And we found it 🙂 Françoise and I kept a low profile about the incident but never forgot the place and the table ! And my Dad’s smile ! So precious was his camera. The first one I ever remember seeing in the family.
While on a journey to the North of Switzerland, I stopped in a pretty old town close to the German border, Rheinfelden, near the Rhine Falls (our Niagara 😉 . It was midday, all shops were closed and as I walked through the narrow paved streets I spotted this second hand place with the most striking ancient cameras behind the window. I wish I could have gone in and get a closer look. Instead I took pictures from the street. This particular camera was an Ensign, Selfix 20. This is what I could decipher on my picture later on. A real beauty !
As I took the picture, another camera came into view… one from another century, digital, my own camera, a Sony DSC-W5. A meeting of photographic generations, eyes/lenses’ contact.
A friend of mine experimenting in the Swiss Cameramuseum in Vevey
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