Magpie Days
Magpie Days
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
100 days 2001 Q2: (posts 026-050)
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
026. Fragile Today's post is inspired by two of my favourite-so-far participants in the 100 days project, and a newbie. I know there is so much to see in the project, and with the type of pieces I am doing I do have a bias towards the visual artists when posting; I hope to be able to use others words more to inspire me in the future, but here is a joint attempt... Stand up Sina (Day 26 - just gorgeous) and Catherine (Iceland slipping through my thoughts, and allowing me to bring out this picture of twigs growing alongside a waterfall); and a handclap to George Sebastian-Coleman (Conversations 3) for the following words of wisdom. Woman: Routine. Routine kills everything. When you date, the other person is the thing that makes things special. When you marry, they're just part of the everyday.
Catherine Singer George SebastianColeman Sina Evans
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
026. Fragile He will not take a risk to be with me because sparks fade, he says. But, oh, how fragile is his world, their world if it must be protected from the real world? It is spring, he cannot help but send out those tendrils, seeking sweetness and lightness and fun and escape. They look so pretty, so hopeful, I don't want to yank them up and put them on the compost pile, but I know it is easier now than to hew at a thickened trunk. Unless, like me, he is a baobab; hollow insides waiting for a glut of water to ride out the parched seasons.
Tuesday, June 15th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
027. Veils I am tired today, and my mind is foggy. The perfect simplicity of Nicolette's "Corner" is my inspiration, and I paired it with an image called "Light Curtain". It was a visual poem, the original can be seen here, but today the words don't feel right. The last couple of pieces I've done have included some fiction, but I am not 100% satisfied with them, and yet, they were the best I could come up with at the time, which is probably why I am not satisfied... vicious circles... like the mosquito bites on my arms... just at table top height , so irritable when typing.
Nicolette Wong
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
027. Veils I showed youI everything that was behind the veil but, now, I think we both prefer that I put it back
Wednesday, June 16th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
028. Dancing I'm putting together Edition #7 of the >language>place blog carnival at the moment, with the theme unwritten language / unnamed places; and I have been browsing through some submissions on the subject of the sound of words and the language of music. Very appropriate then that I choose Dorothee's "Dancers" image for today...
Dorothee Lang
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
028. Dancing The waves dance, the tide is coming in and they push each other on to greater feats of daring, reaching further and further up the beach, dazzling each other in sparkling splashes, iridiscent in the glowing northern sunlight. And oh, the sun, its light flirting with the water, its warmth felt bodily, pressing against the sea in the dance. Over and over, the rhythm of the folding, spurling water. Sun, oxygen, water; drawing the red rust jewels from the abandoned axle, and who knows how that ended up here being rocked in the slamming beat of the waves, which unfortunate tractor met its end on a nearby coast? But it is all one now, the swirling shimmy, a primal waltz. Fall in with me.
Thursday, June 17th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
029. Restrictions Sabin Aell has some fantastic photographs on the beauty of everyday things - if you haven't seen this series I won't spoil it by telling you what the image is, but urge you to get over there and have a look. I love the restricted colour palette of her pieces, and so I've paired it with a limited colour piece of my own; a not-an-everyday object, the less-than-obdurate stonescapes of the Burren. A longer poem of mine inspired by the Burren landscape is at The Camel Saloon.
Sabin Aelll
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
029. Restrictions It is more exciting, when it shouldn't be at all. I can't explain the pull any other way, it's not me that is holding the thread taut, not this time, don't you agree
Friday, June 18th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
030. Skirts Today, so much choice, I didn't know where to start, and so I procrastinated half the day away... head in novel, snoozing in bed, watching repeats on DVD... More playing with the dozens of lily photographs, more interesting shapes as they fade, dessicate. Finally I got it whittled down to Beth Stone's "Wedding Bells are Ringing", as it occurred to me that despite the bells ringing at 7am, 7pm, sometime around teatime on weekdays and Saturdays (and a lot more on Sundays); I have never seen a wedding at the Evangelical church across the road. Pfff... bury my head back in the books... pick out the wisdoms that I will continue to ignore.
Beth Stone
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
030. Skirts "I am happy on my own until I hear other people enjoying themselves, and have to compare myself to them. If there were no other people I wouldn't feel alone" - Steph Swainston; The Year of our War "Wisdom never comes from staying at home and avoiding unhappiness. In order to become wise you must go out into the world and be tossed about in its storms, stripped bare by terrible experiences and confused by good ones" - Steph Swainston; The Modern World
Saturday, June 19th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
031. I’m not myself I've loved the inspiring piece for today's since I first saw it on day 11, carefully copied into my inspirations OneNote notebook, waiting for me to come up with something suitable... I'm not sure I can do it justice, but I will try anyway, the piece is Mindy Brays "Almost Dismissed", mine a savaged self portrait. Self image has been a topic of discussion with my friends just recently, so it felt like the right time for an attempt.
Mindy Bray
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
031. I’m not myself Don't, it stings. Her brain ticks, wheels within weals. Let me help No, it's your fault. You wanted to leave. Sighs, almost. Maybe the next time. You are centripetal.
Sunday, June 20th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
032. Peeling I don't know whether it is the done thing to use a piece that you originally inspired as further inspiration, it seems a little incestuous, but ever since I saw Steve Veilleux's Day 20 piece "Reflections in my mind" I wanted to do something with it. Also in the mix, still, Sabin Aell's wonderful series "With Softness it unveiled", the peeling off of layers, revealing themselves as something extraordinary, blended with the twists and turns and glanced mirrors in reflections. And, hopefully, building something a little better out of yesterdays theme...
Sabin Aell Steve Veilleux
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
032. Peeling I thought we were interwoven, that our thoughts and habits were as entangled as our limbs. Your breath and mine pooled together, molecules forever mingled. You spooned behind me, shelter, safety, and because I was you and you were me we protected each other from stray loneliness, spiking outside. Sweat filmed between us and whose it was, no-one could tell, as if which of us it originated with mattered anyway. And you, you spoilt this, you peeled away from me.
Monday, June 21st 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
033. Edges away for a long weekend but trying to keep up / not fall too far behind. Honoured to see the response that day 32 got, thank you everyone, and decided to keep up the "re-inspiring" theme and choose a piece from Billie Williams - "desolation". I'm hoping to build something although I don't know what yet... listening to "Darkness on the edge of town" from Bruce Springsteen, and remembering Michelle Elvy's "On the edge" theme for Edition #6 of the >language>place carnival (Edition #7 is my other current project, in between beach wanderings)
Billie Williams Michelle Elvy
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
033. Edges whether flattened by waves sculpted into "duin" the wind here is what determines me, nothing more
Tuesday, June 22nd 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
034. Shoreline Today I'm continuing with the "on the edge" theme (and making use of the 80+ photographs I took this day!) - and using Katie Bentley's "Fallow Shoreline" as a jump off point.
Katie Bentley
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
034. Shoreline if only... the line between you and I was like this. foaming with life yet fleeting and insubstantial, ever renewing, a constant flirting of the land and sea. you, of course, would be the land, solid and obdurate, me the sea, the forever tidal in-out-in-out of my feelings for you. we won't mention the air.
Wednesday, June 23rd 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
035. Patterns Still beside the seaside, but a less obvious picture today - inspired by found patterns at Sina's blog. Her day 33 piece was called "A dog eared sky"; my companion piece is called "Table top" .
Sina Evans
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
035. Patterns you do not believe in science, in molecules, but in the nebulosity you call nature. a crystal is only for you a shard of pretty stone, brought to sparkles by hard work polishing. if I try to explain, that a thing is not blue, it is simply reflecting that wavelength of light, you tell me that atoms don't really exist. you won't back down but on this I will not defer, and so we both go on believing we are right in our minds. I know that solid matter only seems so, that it is made up of points and space and atomic forces, and space. But no matter how, I can't put my finger into the space...
Thursday, June 24th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
036. Geometry It rained today. This was not a bad thing as it meant I "stayed in" while my friends walked the wet beach, and I got the >language>place blog carnival edition #7 99% completed. I am pleased with it, I like the grid style of the presentation - it's less "stained glass window" than the effect I first had in mind, but the tiles needed to be a certain size for the "about" pieces to be legible ( I don't have a version of photoshop that allows you to slice images & link different parts to different things). Anyway, enough rambling, today I matched a geometric image from Steve Veilleux with a piece done for the carnival.
Steve Veilleux
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
036. Geometry The hard edges are a warm blue and the soft edges cold geometry pushing into the vortex
Friday, June 25th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
037. Circles Inspired by Amrita Mishra's wonderful poem "sundays" and following my nose on the whole circle-pictures thing which seem to be cropping up in my mind recently. It was a circles thing that inspired the picture for "Peeling" - not to remove the mystery but I was taking pictures of circular things in my flat - bowls of chocolates, wide tinned candles, dirty saucepans, yoghurt pot lids...
Amrita Mishra
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
037. Circles I wasted my time sitting on the beach against the warm wood waiting for the sun to come out again, press its warmth into me, and round we go in circles again
Saturday, June 26th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
038. What is between us? today, looking for more circles, to develop the on/off/round again we go theme that has been in my head for a couple of weeks... but no, that wasn't what came to inspire me in the end. A similar meme, picked up from Silvana's "The space between us (detail)", contrasted against a filled space...
Silvana Mondo
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
038. What is between us? you have left a space there for me of course I think it is on purpose you knew I would step into it, after all why is it that I fill you up, should it not be the other way around; but you would not step into what is between us, you would not be that bold, that deliberate;. it is okay for me to take the lead, wait there for me, I am all of your free spirit.
Sunday, June 27th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
039. Petals The sun today, brought to mind all the clichĂŠs about hammers, and saunas; the sheer weight of it pushing me down, slumped in my office with the fan fingering warm air around and I swell like patted dough. 6hours of workshop too, talking about how we should talk more, or talk to different people, or talk in a different way or talk more often. Or just talk to hear ourselves talk. I hate the way my voice becomes strident when I want people to shut up. Picked again for circles, for some edginess, and for the title is Carianne Garside's piece "inside things you hold"
Carianne Garside
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
039. Petals We are not in sync today. I guess that is the way things are but we usually both wilfully ignore that and concentrate on the things we want to see in each other. Today my flower, you do not metaphorically show me your stamen, we are not burst together from the bud where we lay tightly furled, and today it seems as though we do not want that again. Reaching out to the light and time is so short. We let the inside things drop. When the petals fall, we may look back and regret.
Monday, June 28th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
040. Drifting Continuing with yesterday's (somewhat downbeat) theme, I came across Kelli Costa's picture of a drooping lily, her "Day 38" picture reminiscent of an un-cocooning, a metamorphosis where the flower becomes insect, all bedraggled wings. I put it together with a drifting apart image; with petals, stamens drifted from the lilies I had bought for Seville.
Kelli Newton-Costa
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
040. Drifting You drifted unwillingly into my country today. I was not there, I had crawled a little closer to your country, that was once mine too.
Tuesday, June 29th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
041. Don’t look back Change of emphasis today, I went browsing over at Bruce Spear's blog again, and found a load of wonderful images of faces, characters. Among them, the anonymous faces of advertisements, or posters, or who knows what, behind glass. I picked n° 29, I love the condensation on the hair of the bloke. And I have been dying to use the shot below of a graffitied window from Berlin... words - free form god-knows what... Let me know what you think!
Bruce Spear
Julia Davies © 2011
Magpie Days
041. Don’t look back the faces say "you want to let us out" at least that's what you think until scrunching the glass under your feet you realise they said only "look at you" and you can't hide from their eyes following that point behind your ear you would turn and look but they would follow and you would look like a cat trying to chase its tail pause paws pause paws pause pause paws you think you are being clever but their expressions are verging on condescending squeak goes the glass crumbs trapped in the pattern on the soles of your shoes squeak squeak skreeeeek as you start to run away
Wednesday, June 30th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
042. I said, Don’t look back Playing catch up again - sometimes life & projects don't mix too well. I have a couple of weeks trip coming up & have to sort out how I will manage to keep up with 100 days. I don't want to peter out, I am enjoying it too much, I guess I am just worried that I will find excuses to. Today's picture from Stephen Hastings-King's wonderful edge effects blog, his day 42 and his wonderful words from "Outside" "When we passed the boundary my mind opened like a fan. I saw words floating on the surface of the water, everything I was going to say."
Stephen Hastings-King
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
042. I said, Don’t look back I know I said the road led nowhere but it was nice to know it was there if your flood-waters drain from here will a path for me appear?
Thursday, July 1st 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
043. Silicate More from Katie Bentley, her "Distressed Base" caught my eye, amoeba-like and stuck in my head while I mulled it over. And also I have brought in some extreme cropping, inspired by Dorothee, but I didn't save the photoshop files in the right versions or something so I can't demonstrate the size of the original... the sand piece below is ~7% of the total picture size, however...
Dorothee Lang Katie Bentley
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
043. Silicate no it does not feel rough against my skin smoothed down shells, rocks worn pushing the grains aside, burrowing, cocooning, things are different under the surface
Friday, July 2nd 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
044. Ladders Inspired again by Dorothee Lang, following her series on cropping and editing photographs. When it comes to experimenting with pictures, I am not organised/methodical/whatever-it-is enough to track the process of editing images that I do in photoshop. I call it playing, I compulsively play around with the different tools (for a while I lost my normal brushes and only had some really weird ones to play with that did not give me any sort of desired effect; but now I found them again I am experimenting again...
Dorothee Lang
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
044. Ladders He showed me ladders to the sky, propped up resting against the blue-whiteness. It was blind faith that led me to put my hand on the smooth wood, not the rungs, the sides. Do the sides of ladders have a name? I suppose, six steps up, that it doesn't really matter. I am already farther away from the ground than I am comfortable with, but I am not terrified today. Slide my hand again, grasping the juncture, letting my fingers curl around the upright. He watches me. I am not sure where he is, sometimes he seems ahead, beckoning me on, sometimes a safety net behind. I think he must be climbing a parallel ladder. The rungs fade into a solid air, not visible, but still I keep climbing. He is not visible but still, still I keep on. More like I stick my toes into the sky and it hangs on to them for me, grasps my wrists. Is this what faith in myself is like?
Saturday, July 3rd 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
045. Self stimulation Sometimes you just get into a loop. I don't go outside as much as I used to, I don't open the kitchen door/window so much, now that he isn't there to wander in and out. His friend and look-alike came to visit again today, when I did open the door. Came into the flat and ran into all the rooms again. Quicker this time. Like he too had lost hope. Oh, well, cropping again.
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
045. Self stimulation Sometimes I just miss him
Sunday, July 4th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
046. Sandwritten Ignoring for the moment that I just had an Amazon delivery of 7 books, that are itching at the corner of my vision... I was intrigued when during my >language>place blog carnival hosting, I came across the concept of asemic writing. Hosting the carnival allowed me to feature Sean Burn, and Dorothee Lang with Karyn Eisler; and led, through there to facebook groups, and a world of half-sensical words. Step on in...
Dorothee Lang Karyn Eisler Sean Burn
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
046. Sandwritten I would have written there, right across your toenails on the shoreline; I knew the waters would lap my words away but I liked the impermanence. You would have gotten the wrong idea, had I crouched at your feet. Or, maybe, not...
Monday, July 5th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
047. Marks More development of the sandwritten asemic theme today, choosing the sand and water and light from Billie's day 47, and contrasting it against more experimental sand/asemic image stuff. Just practising really...
Billie Williams
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
047. Marks marks washed slates rinsed clean more marks
Tuesday, July 6th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
048. Smarks I have been continuing with the asemic writing/images theme; just because I like the idea right now, I am not convinced of any great merit in the pieces I have been doing so far but I am enjoying playing around with them, being a little self indulgent. I had a thought-thread in my head, about textile design, and the swathes of fabric with texts in "ancient" writing, or vaguely runic; and wondering what the words said, would a cheeky textile designer include an old Roman joke in the texts, as for all I know they could mean anything? And that is kind of the point...
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
048. Smarks your words scratch into me skin peels you see into me
Wednesday, July 7th 2011
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
049. Monochrome The last couple of days I have been happy to see Catherine Singer has some new posts over at 100 Days of Art 2000 - Iceland. I could pick every picture for inspiration but I chose today her "Small 1" for the beautiful simplicity of the image, and the monochrome palette. Paired with a heavily cropped & edited image from Iceland in 2009. The base of the image was a pattern in a bubbling grey mud pool. and some colour/overpainting was added in the editing process. Today I am very concious of time pressures, & the gaps in this 100 days that I need to go back and fill; but I wanted to post today's so that the backlog would not prevent me from keeping going.
Catherine Singer
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
049. Monochrome "They" say Hekla will erupt soon, but soon means different things to journalists and to geologists. Your timescales are different to mine, but the colour in my world is there because of you.
Thursday, July 8th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
050. Shell I have been enjoying Sina's up close animal shots these past few days, starting with the elephants on the run, and when I found the glowing colours of her "Turtle topography" I knew I had to use that too! And finally made it through to number 50! I would be half-way if I had caught up on the backlog... those 3 missing pieces from the beginning are weighing on my mind, and I need to get them completed, but oh, when? I have some strange internal rules about doing them, which is why it's taking me so long... anyway, using Sina's image and adding more asemic text...
Sina Evans
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
050. Shell You think I built my shell to keep the world out. You are not sure if the world includes you or not. It annoys you if I say it is only there because it looks pretty. You do think it looks pretty, it has a certain sheen and you like to think you can see below it to the pink huddled fragility underneath. The pinkness does not look like a shell to you because that is what you expect to find there. The blackness at the end of all the layers would frighten you.
Friday July 9th 2011 Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
100 days 2011 Q2: Acknowledgements Amrita Mishra Beth Stone Billie Williams Bruce Spear Carianne Garside Catherine Singer Dorothee Lang George SebastianColeman Katie Bentley Karyn Eisler Kelli Newton-Costa Mindy Bray Nicolette Wong Sabin Aell Sean Burn Silvana Mondo Sina Evans Stephen Hastings-King Steve Veilleus
http://tattelleteller.wordpress.com/ http://100papercuts.blogspot.com/ http://billielovesdogs2011.blogspot.com/ http://bruiser100.tumblr.com/ http://cariannemackgarside.wordpress.com/ http://catherinesinger.wordpress.com/ http://100parts.wordpress.com/ http://gsebastiancoleman.blogspot.com/ http://snowbirdbentley.blogspot.com/ http://karyneisler.com/ http://kellicosta.wordpress.com/ http://tenweeks.typepad.com/100days/ http://lebleuduciel100.blogspot.com/ http://sabinaell100days.blogspot.com/ http://jkdavies-dailywritingpractice.blogspot.com/2009/06/edition-7sean-burn.html http://stofildzana100days2011.blogspot.com/ http://100daysofsun.blogspot.com/ need ref http://100days2011.blogspot.com/
Julia Davies Š 2011
Magpie Days
Julia Davies Š 2011