Magpie Days
Magpie Days
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
100 days 2001 Q3: (posts 051-075)
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
051. Travelling With Susan Gibb's wonderful piece "The Plane" and Steve Veilleux's "The Cube Unplugged No 2", the theme was really set for travelling half way across the world today. I put their pieces together, not really sure it's doing either of them justice, but I wanted to embellish on the box theme rather than planes being plucked from the sky... Against that, an early morning (very cropped) picture in the airport; not this morning as I was there some hours after sunrise, but a morning last week..
Steve Veilleux Susan Gibb
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
051. Fragile I folded my wings today too, not around you, not enveloping you in my prickly feather warmth. I folded them around myself, overheating in the warmth of my thoughts, the flames that are only fantasy. I left the ground, I flew, but it was cheating, not under my power but that of petrol fired whirlwinds.
Sunday, July 10th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
052. Floating Kevin Calisto's Day 48 brought some gentler travelling to mind, after the hustle of airports and aeroplanes and conveyors and buses and trying to go up and down (especially down) escalators when you have large bags... Travelling by water is, I think, my favourite way to travel. I do like driving on a sunny breezy day with the roof of the car off, but travelling by boat, whether under your own steam in a kayak, or on a ferry, there is just something more relaxing about it...
Kevin Callisto
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
052. Floating The sea here is warm, and filled with life, the tall legged birds dip their beaks below the pearly surface and come out with full throats. The rope ties the prow to the shore, bowing gently, not straining to keep the boat tethered there. Everything here is just where it wants to be. If it wants to be somewhere else, it will drift there, peacefully but purposefully. But here is where it wants to be, now.
Monday, July 11th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
053. Stripes Sina still keeps coming up trumps with the zoo residents, and today I have stolen away her zebra patterns from Day 54. I am eating striped (crinkled) crisps and drinking wine from a glass with striped indentations, crenellations at it's base. And to go with it I pulled a picture from 2009 that was taken in a hotel bathroom the other side of the world from here, in the Indian Ocean. I was experimenting also with overwritten asemia, but I am not really satisfied with the finished product yet, more playing required...
Sina Evans
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
053. Stripes this is what happens if you insist on seeing it all, and cut me complete, bisected, you at last believe that I am multi-layered, striped through.
Tuesday, July 12th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
054. Foam Billie's "stay calm but alert" sent me back to look at a group of photographs taken at the end of June in the Netherlands, of foam that lay on the beach, and the idea of developing more asemic writing from them. I didn't quite get that far today but I like the image as something to be developed further...
Billie Williams
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
054. Foam the water flows and churns, encapsulating the air in iridescence. ... and fades
Wednesday, July 13th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
055. Distemper Working on 100days2011, I usually browse through everyone's contributions, saving the images or links to those I really like and think I might be able to do something with, and sometimes it takes me a while to find the right images to pair together. I saved Nicolette's "Disquiet" nearly a month ago, and only through further experimenting with the foam pictures did I find something that balanced.
Nicolette Wong
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
055. Distemper plaster over me, lay down the foundation, smooth me out touch me up make me look like something you want a line here, a blurring there mould my features until until they are what you expect
Thursday, July 14th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
056. Words swirl Away for a long weekend with a group of writers, we get up in the morning and reach for notebooks, laptops, novels. Up in the hills with trees hiding the sky and clouds; the weather not exactly keeping us inside but encouraging us to gather in groups for discussions and chat and laughter & drinking. Picking up images, I chose Stephen Hastings-King's beautiful photo of sand dunes; and developed more foam/sand writing images.
HoW Stephen Hastings-King
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
056. Words swirl reason redolant incumbent detergent tenterhooks obvious disagreeable black caresses recluse blonde off-white paprika argent tidal in truth (word prompts used for 10minute stories - each writer had to use the words in a unique story)
Friday July 15th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
057. Green Rain, hot tubs, tequila, bourbon, late arrivals into the early morning. The greenness of the trees and the mountains here in North Carolina is surprising after the spine-sapping heat in Michigan last weekend. And so Sabin Aell's Day 48 image of tangled jewellery with it's green threads appealed to me today... and yes, more development on the abstract foam theme...
Sabin Aell
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
057. Green The porch goes all the way around the house. I walk out of the living room, people converse under the verandah in clusters and I mingle on through to the empty side. I watch the leaves recoil and jump when a fat raindrop hits them directly, and listen to the murmur of conversation from around the corner. I like being alone but I also want to be found, if not by you then I guess one of the others would do. It doesn't matter if it is the tall one, or the sympathetic one, or the one who has trouble hearing, like me; it doesn't matter who if it isn't you, but it does matter that no-one does find me.
Saturday July 16th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
058. Towers Katie Bentley's "Moral Agency" and Dorothee's "names" inspired today's image, the redness and regularity of the triangles bringing to mind the Forth road bridge, and jumping from there via the Eiffel tower to the Tokyo tower. I visited on the day a typhoon came calling, the orange red metal seemed vibrant against the greyness of the sky, wind and rain.
Dorothee Lang Katie Bentley
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
058. Towers I lay on the ground with my arms out, under the tower, looking up at it's foreshortened shape. Triangles turn into curves, hard edges into soft ones. I can't quite see how it is done, but I think about the reverse. If practice makes perfect I can will myself into the armoured cage. There are some gaps that you could get through, but then there are gaps between the atoms themselves and we all seem solid. Orange red threads shimmer around me as I wrap myself in the net. I lay on the ground with my arms out and they think I fell from the tower.
Sunday, July 17th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
059. Missing Back at work today, far removed from the NC mountains and trees and cool rain. Meeting meeting meeting people. Heat and humidity. Early night to try and reflect on HoW2. The pictures helped a little.
HoW
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
059. Missing coolness and water and leaves nature, oblivious to the hurl of writers in its midst, throwing words to the breezes off the verandah into the night, the morning air
Monday, July 18th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
060. Fireflies As the dusk fell last night, I was sitting with my feet in a pool, and the temperature slid all the way down to 95°F. And then a marvellous thing happened.
Dorothee Lang
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
060. Fireflies fireflies evaporated from the lawn as the sun fell down
Tuesday, July 19th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
061. Grasswritten Today, Stephen Hastings-King has a beautiful picture of grasses that I couldn't help but steal and experiment with again. I travelled from the rolling wheat-and-cornfields of rural Indiana back to the baked concrete of Detroit, and the green is still speaking to me... n.b. although reminiscent of grasses, Stephen’s picture is actually a photomicrograph of some japanese paper
Stephen Hastings-King
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
061. Grasswritten there are blades between my toes my fingernails pierce accidental wounds and the grass gets in chlorophyll under the skin you grow into an earth mother and forget me for bigger things
Wednesday, July 20th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
062. Shaped Today the vibrant colours of Dorothee's "pyramide" struck me, and the beautiful crossing lines as you go around and around the image. Of course, in playing with it, I did almost lose these, they are faint and underpinning.
Dorothee Lang Katie Bentley
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
062. Shaped The rules constrain me ironwork corset pulling me into shape
Thursday, July 21st 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
063. As night falls Inspired by Katie Bentley's "Isolated Event", and the Chicago night skyline. The storm rolled into town in a strangely subdued manner. The sky flashed, strobed, clouds were suddenly backlit and then they weren't. Sheet lightning, no forks, and no thunder to be heard either. Whether this was due to the traffic noise, or being in a talking group of people I'm not sure. Later in the hotel, behind plate glass I closed my eyes and the lightning didn't even register as I fell asleep.
Katie Bentley
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
063. As night falls the horizon looking away from the sea human horizon, we build with lights cover the land so that the dark is above us only, build skyscrapers and deck them out with lights too so we push the black away from us turn it to a burning orange
Friday, July 22nd 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
064. Daisies After the Chicago night, the daytime, wandering in Millenium Park and coming across an oxymoron, a cultivated meadow. Despite that, it was lovely to see, I was not quite sure at first if the flowers were meant to be just there, some did seem to be growing wild, but eventually I came to the conclusion that it was meant to be that way. It was lovely, and restful to see, even with the skyscrapers and the sculptured bridge shining, reflecting for all they were worth behind the "nature". I picked one of Valerie's flower images, "Buzzing About" to go with the image (cropped only - no photoshop trickery!)
Valerie Hamilton-Brodie
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
064. Daisies "It takes a lot of work to look this scruffy, you know!" she protested... too much...
Saturday, July 23rd 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
065. Green Man Nature and lines intersecting. Is it true that nature has no straight lines? Even the horizon is curved when you take the bigger picture... but of course, crystal structure is full of straight edges, diamond hard or deliquescent salts. Today I was inspired by Emily Ayres' "balloon man" picture of nature with lines, and used this to develop the green theme further in "glowleaves"
Emily Ayres
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
065. Green Man your fingers wriggle through me, tracing lines across my inside organs your breath filled my lungs and you oxygenated me, my blood was redder because of you, chlorophyll creature, sessile one you stay there, I will come by and pick the droops, my reward for tending your blossoms when you drew me to you, and for keeping the birds off
Sunday, July 24th 2011
# Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
066. Loops Tired, so tired. It's 7:30pm and I am already in my pyjamas. Mind not thinking properly, making loops around the whole thinking thing. With coming back from the heat in mid-west USA, to a cool and verdant Germany; and with a number of changes (actual or just scaring myself imagining the potential changes) it kind of feels like something has ended. I am not sure what. I pinched Steve's "Globes" today as it went with the loops in my head...
Steve Veilleux
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
066. Loops l
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Monday,July 25th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
067. Where are the storks? Looking for storks as a celebration today, a new nephew to welcome to the family, and I will see him in a few days... Instead a couple of squadrons of miscellaneous beach bum birds... with thanks again to Billie for her "reflection - swamis"
Billie Williams
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
067. Where are the storks? To the newest little (6lb 10oz) Davies xxx
Tuesday, July 26th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
068. Ripples Today I am taking Janelle Stone's "What's that in the water?" from her 100 Snapshots project; and pairing it with more ripples from January this year. After wandering out to the flooded river to take some beautifully atmospheric photos of pearly silver water and contrasting wet black trees, on the way back I cross a stream, mostly channelled between concrete but in some parts more natural. The ducks were in the backwater, the quietwater behind an island out of the rushing floodwaters, pushing the ripples before them, fragmenting the reflected tree branches.
Janelle Stone
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
068. Ripples it is nice weather for ducks but the rabbits are flooded out of their bijou riviera homes and pile their pellets now above the high water mark
Wednesday, July 27th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
069. Floops Circles and swirls and loops and spirals. Folding over one another, piling on top of each other, kittens nesting, piglets scrabbling for the teat. Going around and around but not really going anywhere. Tasting the air each time you loop, different each time and what does it matter if the perpendicular distance is not great? Movement is all... Inspired today by Silvana's "Dante sitting", my picture is a rendering of a sculpture seen in Millenium Park, Chicago, and I have still to find the name of the artist...
Silvana Mondo
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
069. Floops petals ovals flakes leaves. you peel me like petals. sepals.when does a leaf become a flower? does it acquire the arrogance of the born-to-be-beautiful? my aloof fuschian softness keeps the combat khakis at arms length. i fleer past you, stunning in the moment but the moment is always too short. fold, roundness, circle. soft underside of pale breast. and up again for air and taste the difference of that extra, that repeated experience, does your forked tongue taste two things at once? me in the past and me in the present and my flower is gone in the future.
Thursday, July 28th 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
070. Sunflowers It's not just the huge scale of sunflowers that is striking, although it is because of the scale that you can see so many details of how the flower is built up. Sina's picture (from Day 59½) shows the underside and the gorgeous coloured petals of a prime specimen, mine shows the aftermath...
Sina Evans Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
070. Sunflowers my bloom has become fitful I have to wait that much longer until someone finds me intriguing and always I have to stifle the cry of pick me pick me pick ME
Friday, July 29th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
071. Sunflower variations While staying with my brother, I did plenty of playing in the garden with my nieces. Splashing pools, spraying hoses, swings, playing school, trampolines & hammocks. And taking pictures of some past-their-prime sunflowers, following on from Sina's series yesterday; and as always loving Billie's b&w photography & Dorothee's extreme cropping...
Billie Williams Dorothee Lang Sina Evans
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
071. Sunflower variations come closer, come closer see into the pieces of what I am that is no heart organelles only more details make for more fascination come closer
Saturday, July 30th 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
072. More variations yes, continuing the sunflower theme - I have pictures & I am damn well going to use them...
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
072. More variations light bends colours appear my wavelength sees these things, but yours?
Sunday, July 31st 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
073. Tall Stories Away for a long weekend, seeing the latest addition to the family (a 3 day old nephew) and spending time with the existing nieces so they don't feel left out of the attention loop. Wonderful family times, and it leaves me pondering on my lack of motherhood and all of that; a little deep for my first post back and trying to catch up; I'll carry on pondering and in the meantime let Dorothee's "miles" take me in a different direction... or maybe a parallel one...
Dorothee Lang
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
073. Tall Stories I saw someone who looked like you today. He was a couple of inches taller than you, your age more or less; Annelise knew him and put him in the same school year as you. A little slimmer and he had more hair too. I think the hair was a mistake, it made him look slightly simple whereas your shaven dome adds some gravitas. I did not say it but "much needed" whispers through my thoughts whenever I think of you and gravitas in the same sentence. I did not stare at him, not overtly, but while he was there I watched from a distance, trying to see what was the same, what was different. I think it was only that he had not touched me. He might have done, I was curious enough to find that an attractive idea, but you took away my sparkle and I did not even try to cast a glimmer his way. I thought about him catching me watching him. Him seeing my confusion and having his interest piqued even though I did not mean to, I only wanted to watch from a distance. Is that true? It is too long since you touched me.
Monday, August 1st 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
074. Dreams I was struck by the dreamlike nature of Sabin Aell's "Anatomy of Time" series of digital images, and wanted to create something similarly ĂŚthereal and dreamlike... Not sure that I am there yet but I like the picture as a step on the way. And yes, more sunflowers, I find them quite an ugly flower when they are cut, no subtlety to them at all, but as they grow and fade in their natural cycle, and of course up close, they are quite absorbing.
Sabin Aell
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
074. Dreams I try to describe the matter of fact weird logic of dreams to him, knowing that he says he does not dream. I have not been at his side long enough to know if this is true, not lain awake and watched his eyelids flicker with the muscular stirrings of the orb underneath. The logic is not if x then y, but and then. Like, I was playing with my brother in the garden and then we were back at school and you were there; and the transition is so seamless it must of course be the logical thing to happen next. In my waking life I miss the transitions, but sometimes I am in a different place to the one I thought I was in, and I don't know how it ended up that way, I say. He thinks that is feeble, he wants to think that only conscious decisions count; I rail against this, inwardly. Us is not a conscious decision, each time he thinks about it consciously, with his conscience, we end, for a while. I wish he would dream..
Tuesday, August 2nd 2011
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
075. Children Not really sure I can get down hugely coherent thoughts about motherhood (for me) here. Being of an age where it is probably too late to start thinking about it, I started thinking about it again. Bruce Spear's "No 52" and a mood shot of small girl (niece) going determinedly to play on the beach are the background for today's thoughts.
Bruce Spear
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
075. Children You realise, when you are around them, the truth of the glib line about children being the future. I am a genetic dead end, my DNA will not carry forward in time. I wonder if I should have a say in shaping the future, since I won't be there and neither will my genes. My familial genes will be there, my nieces and nephew will tread, full of purpose, into the generations as I will not; but the unchanging matrilineal markers that my mother introduced me to in more ways than one, they will not proceed, will not pass Go, they are cut from the pattern.
Wednesday, August 3rd 2011 Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
100 days 2011 Q3: Acknowledgements Billie Williams Bruce Spear Dorothee Lang Emily Ayres Janelle Stone Katie Bentley Kevin Callisto Nicolette Wong Sabin Aell Silvana Mondo Sina Evans Stephen Hastings-King Steve Veilleus Susan Gibb Valerie Hamilton-Brodie
http://billielovesdogs2011.blogspot.com/ http://bruiser100.tumblr.com/ http://100parts.wordpress.com/ http://www.emilyeayres.com/ http://100snapsots2011.blogspot.com/ http://snowbirdbentley.blogspot.com/ http://kevincalisto.blogspot.com/ http://lebleuduciel100.blogspot.com/ http://sabinaell100days.blogspot.com/ http://stofildzana100days2011.blogspot.com/ http://100daysofsun.blogspot.com/ http://100edgeeffects.tumblr.com/ http://100days2011.blogspot.com/ http://susangibb.net/blog3/ http://valeriehamiltonbrodie.com/
Julia DaviesŠ 2011
Magpie Days
Julia DaviesŠ 2011