Previous month:
July 2011
Next month:
September 2011

August 2011

Flying away....

 chagford

A little critter I call I'm going to be away for the next two-and-a-bit weeks, and then back again on September 1.

In the mean time, if you find yourself missing your daily slice
of Dartmoor, there are lots of other folks in the village doing interesting work. Follow these links to take a neighborhood stroll....

Nick Baker (naturalist/writer)

Elizabeth-Jane Baldry (harpist/composer/filmmaker)

Danielle Barlow: Notes from the Rookery (mythic artist)

Brian & Wendy Froud (mythic painter & sculptor/writer)

Alan Lee (mythic artist/film designer)

Marja Lee Kruyt (mythic artist/harpist)

Virginia Lee (mythic artist)

Yuli Somme (textile artist)

Shilstone2 Rima Staines & Tom Hirons (mythic artists/writers)

William Todd-Jones (puppeteer/dramatist)

David Wyatt (mythic artist/musician)

Daughters Elvin (medieval music & dance)

The Chagford Filmmaking Group
(their new website is absolutely enchanting)

...and go here for more.

Chagford

Dragon and dad

(For photo titles, place your curser over the images.)


Recommended Reading:

Dulac-elf 2 A few magpie gleanings before I fly away:

* Lev Grossman defends fantasy literature in The Wall Street Journal. It's sad that the genre still needs defending (sigh), but  he does a very good job of it. And not coincidently, Grossman's own fantasy book, The Magicians, is a wonderful read. (Link via Ellen Kushner.)

* Bret Anthony Johnson contradicts the standard advice and tells writing students: "Don't write what you know," in a thought-provoking, beautiful article for The Atlantic

* Steve Silberman writes movingly of the last days of the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, in Long Shot Magazine.

* Carol Ann Duffy, the current Poet Laureate here in England (and author of the gorgeous myth-and-fairy-tale inspired collection The World's Wife), has just published a heart-breaking poem in response to the recent riots: "Birminghamham for Tariq Jahan."

* And speaking of Poet Laureates, I'm thrilled that Philip Levine has been named Poet Laureate in the U.S.. I love his poems, steeped as they are in a working class sensibility.

* Fiona Dunbar discusses Cinderella in the Fairytale Reflections series at Katherine Langrish's Seven Miles of Steel Thistles.

* Andy Lechter revisits some excellent, myth-steeped books during his Alan Garner Season, and posts one of my favorite Garner quotes.

* Christina Cairns shares an intriguing work in progress at A Mermaid in the Attic.

* Check out Keira Rathbone's "Typewriter Art" at My Love for You (via Gwenda Bond).

* Check out today's postcard from those crazy characters at John Barleycorn.

* And finally, I love this post by YA author Sarah Rees Brennan: "Ladies, Don't Let Anyone Tell You You're Not Awesome," on her LiveJournal page. (The link came via Holly Black, from a good post of her own.)


Pathways through the trees

Tree 6

"Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confidence in the storms of spring without fear that after them may come no summer."   - Rainer Maria Rilke

Trees

"A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease."  - John Muir

Trees 3

"In some mysterious way woods have never seemed to me to be static things. In physical terms, I move through them; yet in metaphysical ones, they seem to move through me."  - John Fowles

Trees 2

"It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit."   - Robert Louis Stevenson

Trees 4

"God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, 'Ah!' "  - Joseph Campbell

Trees 5

"And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."  - William Shakespeare

Trees 6

"Going to the woods is going home."  - John Muir


On Your Desk

Karen's studio

Today's desk comes from Karen Squire, who lives just up the road in the city of Exeter. "I noticed that Blog_girl and cat in chair you still sometimes run posts about people's workspaces and working methods," she writes, "and as mine have changed quite significantly since the last time I sent a photo for the "On Your Desk" series, I thought I'd update you...

"I have moved house and studio since Christmas; I'm still living in good old Exeter though, and my new workspace is at EVA Studios on the outskirts of the city. There is a lovely community feel to the place, it reminds me a little bit of art college!Studio witch blog I've also started my own blog, Two Little Pigs, which I try to update as often as I can -- but I'd much rather be painting than scanning and formatting pictures. (I'm sure you can appreciate that!)

"I've very recently signed up with an illustration agency specialising in children's books, so hopefully at some point in the future my work may make it into print. I've certainly been getting a wriggle-on in the past few months and hope to spend the rest of the year progressing further still!"

The charming illustrations here are by Karen. Follow the blog link above to see more. (And be sure to take a stroll through her older posts...there's some lovely work on this blog -- and sketchbook pictures too, which I always love.)

_______________________________________________________________________

All readers of this blog are welcome to contribute to the "On Your Desk" series. You'll find more information (and the address where you should send your photo) in the first post of the series, and you can view the full series here.


Color fields

8

“The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it."  - Hans Hoffman

2

“Colors are light's suffering and joy.”  - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

4

“Color is all. When color is right, form is right. Color is everything, color is vibration like music; everything is vibration.”  - Marc Chagall

3

"Color which, like music, is a matter of vibrations, reaches what is most general and therefore most indefinable in nature: its inner power."  - Paul Gauguin

9

"I found I could say things with color and shapes I couldn't say in any other way -- things I had no words for."  - Georgia O'Keeffe

6

"Color has got me. I no longer need to chase after it. It has got me for ever. I know it. That is the meaning of this happy hour."  - Paul Klee