Tag: post a week 2013

iPhoneography Monday: Nature

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waitingthe postman never rings twice

It is in his nature to wait patiently, anticipating, ready for the daily flip-out directed at the man in blue who unluckily has our house on his route…

Shot with the iPhone 5 with the iSight camera, no edits for iPhoneography Monday: Nature.

Have a look at Frames & Focus, Lens and Pens by Sally and Watching Photo Reels to see the originators of this challenge and their interpretation of the theme.  You may also join the challenge by clicking here.

F is also for Friday: A tradition of Sanctuary

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the-goatherds-of-castel-gandolfo-1866

the goatherds of castel gandolfo
jean-baptiste-camille corot – 1866

Benedict, Pope Emeritus, awoke this morning to look out on Lake Albano one of the flock rather than the shepherd.  Gone is the life in a style to which he had become accustomed, the weight of the world as it were lifted from his shoulders, the red shoes and the Ring of the Fisherman accessories no longer in his service to the Church. Castel Gandolfo will be his place of respite until an awkward return to the monastery Mater Ecclesiae in the Vatican when a successor is elected.

The small coastline town southeast of Rome, which Benedict is no doubt familiar with, has a history long associated with not only the papacy but the European artistic community as well.  Painters, many considered Old Masters, from the French, British and Italian schools found a source of inspiration in the area’s rolling hills and classic vistas. It provided all the elements that more northern climes could not –  a softness of light from mediterranean skies that kissed the ground with warmth, dusty variegated greens that knew little of seasons with snow and the requisite peasants with their animal charges seemingly dropped by the muses into an idyllic setting waiting to be immortalized on canvas. The Castel Gandolfo is often small and blurred in the distance, an architectural feature that is the only hint at man’s imprint on the face of nature.

It is has been for centuries a place of sanctuary, a bastion of solitude in a world torn by war and strife  – may it bring to Benedict, as it did to generations of artists and writers, divine inspiration.

More on Castel Gandolfo in art next week.

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Graffiti

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graffiti

many hands make light work

A few decades ago musicians playing a gig in the city would roll into a little motel with an exotic name just off the highway. It was far enough away from the downtown core that they could kick back after a show with a bottle, or something more nefarious, and make some noise long into the night without incurring the wrath of any neighbours or a visit from the police. Originally built to resemble its classic American counterparts complete with two-tier attached guest rooms, lots of parking and the requisite umbrellas and beach chairs around the pool, it never seemed to attract the wholesome family tourists its architecture aspired to. As the years passed it came to be known as that seedy place at the end of the strip where businessmen in ill-fitting suits with bulging breast-pockets, card sharks and other creatures of the night could skulk in and out in quiet anonymity.

At one point, the motel was taken over by new management but a change of name and a taller sign by the side of the road did little to change the sketchy nature of the place. With the passing of the seasons things got a little more run-down, the paint on the guest room doors started to fade and peel and the little restaurant that had once boasted a “home-cooked” breakfast served its last cup of coffee – we knew the end was near when we could see mattresses stacked against the walls of the now empty party room through the long-unwashed windows. From one day to the next it closed – no fanfare, no hue and cry from the long-time residents who had been swindled out of their trust funds, the shady ladies long-past their prime or the substance abusers with no where else to go. Like so many landmarks it just faded, still visible on the perimeters but a hollow shell of another more prosperous time. Various plans to convert the boarded-up buildings into a small hotel or condominiums never materialized and soon it was completely abandoned.

Or so most people thought. The squatters and vagrants found their way in, the homeless kids with their dogs, the junkies unable to get any further, all found a room for the night or in some cases, longer. The sheets of plywood covering the doors and windows must have seemed like a canvas in search of a saviour for one day the first tag appeared in bright, roiling cursive. It wasn’t long before each door and window was covered in spray-paint, its bold colour reclaiming the urban landscape as invasively as the weeds in the asphalt of the parking aprons. It began to look somehow … better and while waiting for the lights to change at a newly installed intersection we would peer across trying to pick out which new tag or message had appeared overnight.  In what the insurance companies like to call an Act of God, the motel was struck by lightning and went up in flames like so much kindling.

What’s left will soon be demolished – construction on an overpass progresses slowly as the cold concrete threatens to take over the last bits of green but already the first aerosol artists are laying claim to their very own Two Cents Tuesday Challenge with – Graffiti.

“What does graffiti look like to you?” –  Political comment, die-hard declaration of love or mash-up missive to the world, cursive or abstract, community code, floral ode, tag on a train, scribble near a drain, Art or eyesore…

We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, here are some guidelines for the challenge: HOW DOES THIS WORK?

  1.  I will post some commentary on a random topic that pops into my head (such as the above) and then ask you to respond on the same.
  2. Your point of view on the current week’s challenge can take any form: a quote, a motto or saying, an essay, poem or opinion of yours or attributed to someone else, a piece of music, a song, a video, a work of art, photograph, graffiti, drawing or scribble – but it has to be about the topic!
  3. Please, don’t just link to an old post… challenge yourself.
  4. The Challenge will be open for 14 days (there will be a reminder post at the 7 day mark) after which I will post another.
  5. ENJOY, have FUN and TELL your friends and fellow bloggers.

 SO – Create your Two Cents Tuesday Challenge post

  1. Then add a link to your blog in my comment box.
  2. To make it easy for others to check out your post, title your blog post “Two Cents Tuesday Challenge” and add the same as a tag.
  3. If you would like your reader to see what others are presenting for the same challenge, add a link to the “Two Cents Tuesday” challenge on your own blog.
  4. Feel free to pick up your badge on the Two Cents Tuesday Challenge page
  5. Remember to Follow My Blog to get your weekly (hopefully) reminders.

200 and counting…

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200th postIt is snowing… again.  The house is quiet for the moment and we are mulling over the sequence of this last week’s events that have brought us to yet another interesting crossroads in our present adventure.  It is in our nature to lament the fact that we get into ruts with some of our routines – wishing them otherwise, weighing the possibilities, sometimes taking subtle or glaringly extreme measures to create change, all this is the stuff of daily life and yet we still have the opportunity to complain that just when we get comfortable doing things or having events, people, even furniture arranged and behaving in that certain way where it all runs smoothly like the proverbial well-oiled machine all hell breaks loose. Domestic chaos theory at its finest…. whatcha gonna do?

We like to think that we exercise a modicum of control over those initial conditions that make getting up in the morning, being productive in our work and building harmony in our home and social lives satisfyingly worthwhile but introduce random factors like, say, anyone else who is not playing by the same set of rules and you have what Edward Lorenz built an entire career upon and has had theorists scratching their heads over for the last 50 years. It is not a matter of if but when and sometime, somewhere, someone is going to bugger it all up. How dramatically horrific the reaction to this kind of stimulus is, of course, temperament and age-sensitive. Where once the resultant roller coaster ride on the learning curve of experience used to be gut-wrenching, heart palpitating and nausea inducing with explosive duck and cover repercussions, it has quiesced into more of a slow train where the conductor raises an eyebrow, holds out a hand for the fare and offers the pragmatic approach of how do we solve this and get on with it.

Granted, this is all easier said than done but it does remind us of the oft-chanted mantra “Could be worse”  – after all, we are still Masters of our own Blog Universes and all that entails…

zanetti-kongThanks to Across the Bored’s challengers, followers and visitors
for getting us to 200 and beyond.

Restating the Obvious

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obviousIn the store that shall not be named there is a sign: we are sure that there is a small, very willing child who would be more than happy to take a ride on this shopping cart escalator – we know we would…

F is also for Friday: Antonio Lopez

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missoni lopez

The original enfant terrible and darling of couture royalty, Puerto Rican born Antonio Lopez was a graduate of FIT in New York and parlayed a talent for dazzling illustration into a lucrative career and heady lifestyle.  Incorporating the current trends in art into his depiction of fashion in the late 60s, he was not averse to mixing media within the same piece sometimes using a combination of pencil, pen and ink, charcoal and watercolour to achieve the desired emphasis on detail. His life in Paris in the 70s was the gateway to the beautiful people and served as inspiration for much of his work – credited with having discovered Jerry Hall, Grace Jones and Tina Chow, when he wasn’t drawing he was a more than willing participant in the riotous extravagance that was the dawn of the disco era. gowns_for_anna_piagi_vanity_66830406_north_545x

Gowns for Anna Piaggi Vanity

Lauded during the 1980s as one of the foremost fashion illustrators, Antonio’s highly stylized work integrated echoes of iconic artistic genres, a vibrant palette and sculptural dimension – capable of pushing the envelope in terms of acceptable sexuality, he captured the heroic attitude and excess of the times in his models’ proportions and poses while maintaining an aura of accessibility that drew the viewer into the fantasy.  Adept at tailoring graphic styles for individual designer’s campaigns, the prolific Lopez counted Norma Kamali, Yves Saint Laurent, Valentino, Missoni and Versace among his clients.

missoni 2 lopez

It is twenty-five years since Lopez passed away from complications related to Kaposi’s Sarcoma during the height of the AIDS epidemic and fitting that both a retrospective exhibition, “Antonio’s World”, at Suzanne Geiss Company in Soho and a book by Rizzoli, “Antonio: Fashion, Art, Sex, & Disco”, are presenting his work to the generation that had forgotten of his existence and those who never knew of his incredible legacy to the art of illustration in the fashion world.

For more on this illustrator visit:

Antonio Lopez
Slideshow: Antonio Lopez Opening

Two Cents Tuesday Challenge: Brilliant – Week 2

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old black phone

because the telephone was and always will be brilliant

Times used to be that one could find a reasonably priced public telephone on street corners every so many blocks, in the entrance of our favourite greasy spoons or the danker parts of the local drinking establishment. It was a given that in most situations one could scrounge up a quarter and call home for a lift, make an excuse about being late or dodge an awkward appointment without being tracked, traced or found. The tel-com companies thought that it was a wise idea to provide a dependable service that was available to everyone – not so much today. What is not brilliant is that payphones are getting increasingly harder to find and asking to use a telephone in a public establishment gets one looks once reserved for lepers. Those without mobile phones are considered pariahs, luddites, not cool or even worse, old-fashioned….

Not being one to jump on the technology bandwagon as quickly and vehemently as other members in our household, the whole cell phone kafuffle always seemed a bit of an over-rated non-issue and not very high on our list of priorities. The old one always worked well after repeated dropping, appropriation by the dog or frigid overnights in the cupholder of the car and when we were finally upgraded we somewhat unwillingly bequeathed it to the Ghost and gave in.  We now understand why some think these new fantabulous “phones” are as integral to their existence as underwear (or shoes) and the greatest thing since sliced bread. Our favourite toy and a funky tool, although admittedly we use it the least to actually talk to people, it exemplifies this fortnight’s Two Cents Tuesday Challenge theme – Brilliant. Last week, Across the Bored asked “What is brilliant to you?” –  The gloss on a Cadillac or chrome of a luggage rack, Benny Hill on a roll or a crystal bowl, an amazing shade of blue, slick patent-leather shoe, Mozart or Beaux Art … We would love to see your vision.

For all those who are new readers to Across the Bored, some great entries and the guidelines for this fortnight’s challenge can be found here. Need more info or want to browse past themes? Have a look at HOW DOES THIS WORK.

F is also for Friday: 1980s Fashion Illustration

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antonio lopez

we were young – heartache to heartache we stood
antonio lopez for missoni

In another lifetime every living breathing minute was devoted to fashion, art and the pursuit of activities that were somehow design related – it was the 1980s and everyone we knew, or at least the ones we admitted into the sphere filled with such rarified air one walked at least a foot above the ground, was oh-so-cool and doing something big, bold, shocking and usually public.  It was the beginning of the glorification of brands, of celebrities becoming the poster children for trends and the public developing an unsatiable appetite for the latest thing that has brought our credit-dependent economy to where it flails about bloated and helpless today.

We’ve had some discussions recently with the Ghost and Miss Z about how much of what they see, hear, wear and take for granted comes out of the 80s – not to say that this was the most fabulous era, for many of us there are great chunks of it missing from our memories, but it was one in which extremely creative people thrived and produced and influenced others without the bonus of readily available internet. Sometimes it is hard to imagine that we ever got so much done…

Print media was huge and we spent more than our fair share on glossy publications from Europe and the States to feed our cravings. Loaded with enough inspiration for a hundred lifetimes, these magazines also made us fall in love with those who were capturing the essence of the era. Antonio  Lopez, a prolific artist with an unfortunately brief but meteoric career, was one such object of adulation: he changed the way the world saw art, design  and clothing as inextricably intertwined and some say, singlehandedly revived the art of fashion illustration.

More on the work of Antonio Lopez next week.