Time for Art exhibitions

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 !

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Best wishes to all

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

Green ? Did you say green ?

On April 8th, I posted this blog about the colour green in a way of feeling closer to a Spring that was lazying somewhere but definitely not here ! Guess what ? One week later a friend of mine, Karen at

http://karmardav.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/colors-of-your-world/

proposed one of her photo hunts : “Colors of your world”. The deadline is on Sunday, April 28th, please have a look at her blog if you feel like participating. I chose to send this post as my contribution to Karma’s challenge.

St Patrick’s Day has come and gone as well as the green wave that is associated with its celebration all over the world. Originally though it seemed to have been the blue colour. Green is the shade many of us long for at this Season in the Northern hemisphere. Winter is not in a hurry to give way to Spring this year. Personally I cannot dissociate green from Ireland. For having lived there years ago, I remember marveling at  the infinite array  of greens in the Emerald Isle.

It is  a colour I use a lot when sewing. I find it relaxing.  Like in this small scrappy quilt where I put together some Irish memories. Edna O’Brien’s “Mother Ireland” is the first non fiction and most  personal book of the famous novelist. Her memoir (1976)  includes seven essays  written in her lyrical and sensuous voice. E. O’Brien wrote many other works (she is a playwright, poet and author of short stories) and had to see some of her work banned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_O%27Brien

“Irish ? In truth I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual  country. Perhaps it is that, the unmitigated challenge of landscape, of rock, of meadow, of woodland, of rain and of sheer desolating emptiness that makes people hurry there and hurry from it”.

There are magnificent black/white pictures in this book. They were taken specially to illustrate “Mother Ireland” by the acclaimed Irish photographer Fergus Bourke.

Another Irish writer and philosopher John O’Donohue, born in the West of Ireland,  expressed so beautifully  what the colour green meant for him in a book: “The Invisible Embrace of Beauty”. Here are some excerpts of a particular chapter  entitled : “Green : The Colour of Growth”.

“One of my favourite images from childhood is of meadows. Often the sheep would be let in to graze there. When you opened the gate, you could almost feel the meadow breathing. It was absolutely carpeted with grass. The colour of this grass was so rich as to seem blue-green. The sheep needed neither introduction nor persuasion; they simply gave in and became instant addicts !”

“Green is the colour of youthfulness; it is full of Spring energy and direction of growth, urgent on its journey towards the light”.

“Gravity cannot keep it down; the call of light is always stronger”

“Green is the colour of relentless desire. Even under earth smothered over with concrete, tarmacadam (or if I may add, pebbles), the green blade will rise”.

“Nothing can keep grass down, its desire endures. You can find it anywhere, on top of ancient ruins way above the ground or growing in little indentations on top of massive rocks”.

“It rests the eye, and still remains the colour of the day’s desire”.

Christmas mood

Sharing some snowy

CHRISTMAS STARS to wish you all

  JOYEUX NOEL,  MERRY CHRISTMAS, FELIZ NAVIDAD, HYVAA JOULUA, FROEHLICHE WEIHNACHTEN, GLAEDELIG JUL, BUON NATALE

A beautiful little book “Au nom de la mère” or “In the name of the mother”. Erri de Luca tells about what is probably the most well-known story in humanity. The Italian author focuses on  Miriàm, a young Jewish girl engaged to Iosef. Under his hand, the story of the Nativity is seen in the Hebraic context and is a praise of all mothers, body and soul. A wonderful read particularly during Christmas time.

« Grace is the superhuman force to face the world on one’s own, without any effort, to defy it… It is a prophet’s talent. It is a gift and you received it. You are full of grace”.

Iosef to Miriàm, Mary, Marie

If you would like to see more of this magnificent painting by Andrea Solario, “Madonna with the Green Cushion” ( part of it is  pictured on the book cover),  the following  link  leads you to Le Louvre Museum in Paris.

http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/madonna-green-cushion