26.2.09

Thrift store spring wardrobe*









* plus new shoes...


Berlin`s a city which is - as it´s mayor,
Klaus Wowereit, is fond of stating - "poor
but sexy"... I´d prefer poor but stylish.

The sort of individual welldressedness one
rarely has the pleasure seeing around here
(and which does not depend on money...)
is featured at Advanced Style, a wonderful,
funny and inspiring site which is giving
"proof from the wizened and silver-haired set
that personal style advances with age"...
Ha, ha

24.2.09

(Not) Solid as German Oak

Two big poplar trees have been cut
down in a nearby park...









...and that´s how it looks inside their
trunks - a sorry sight indeed...











...their neighbours, still standing:









That´s why I didn´t have to think twice about
participating too when I learned about
the International Fiber Collaborative´s
Tree Project
through Rough Around the Edges,
where Robin last week showed a beautiful
mossy leaf she made.









So this is my contribution: a 5 x 7 inch
quilted leaf on a felt base, with an oak
leaf on top which I made when I first started
felting years ago...

The International Fiber Collaborative is going to
create a full-sized tree in April 2009 in Huntsville/
USA, using about 30.000 fiber leaves, contributed by
participants from around the world. A gallery with some of
the leaves already sent in can be viewed here -
and the deadline is March 15...

22.2.09

Suitable beautiful ducks

Here´s a glimpse of my latest
spur-of-the-moment-piece. It´s
Number... don´t know, perhaps
6 or 7, if I only count
the truely current ones...
- it´s called Flesh & Blood










How about you? What do you think - how many of
them at the same time is a healthy measure - and
where do ADHD and immoderateness begin to show their
ugly heads...?

Anyhow - better to be a (beautiful) butterfly than
a dutiful duck, I guess...



"dutiful
the drano ducks collide
and mercy
gather-collide-like
fancy tension
pow-wow
dutiful dutiful ducks
than double Elly
Macy
treetops pray
the signal
hay in May
says
dutiful

dutiful
ducks

dutiful

dutiful
dutiful
ducks

dutiful
the drano ducks collide
the maestro
gather-collide-like
condescension
tavlu
dutiful beautiful ducks
than double Elly
Elgar
treetops pray
the signal
hay in May
says
dutiful

dutiful

dutiful

dutiful
dutiful
dutiful
dutiful

dutiful
ducks

dutiful

dutiful
dutiful
ducks

dutiful
the drano ducks collide
amoeba
gather-collide-like
x-extension
Bangkok
dutiful dutiful ducks
than double Elly
maybe
treetops pray
the signal
hay in May
says
dutiful
!
dutiful
ducks
!
dutiful
!
dutiful
dutiful
ducks
!
dutiful
the drano ducks collide
and curtsy
gather-collide-like
fancy sandals
sanction
suitable beautiful ducks
than double Elly
Dundas
treetops pray
the signal
hay in May
says
dutiful
!
dutiful
ducks
!
dutiful
!
dutiful
dutiful
ducks
!
dutiful
!
dutiful
!
!
dutiful
!
!
!
dutiful*
1u2utiful*
1u2u3utiful*
1u2u3u4utiful*
1u2u3u4u5utiful*
dutiful*
1u2utiful*
1u2u3utiful*
ducks
dutiful
the drano ducks collide
and mercy
gather-collide-like
fancy tension
scoundrel
beautiful dutiful ducks
than double Elly
huelga
treetops pray
the signal
hay in May
says
dutiful*/
1u2utiful*/
1u2u3utiful*/
1u2u3u4utiful*/
1u2u3u4u5utiful*/
dutiful*/
1u2utiful*/
1u2u3utiful*/
1u2u3u4utiful*/
1u2u3u4u5utiful
ducks
dutiful
ducks
dutiful
!
!
ducks
ducks
ducks
dutiful
ducks
!
dutiful
!
ducks
dutiful
ducks
dutiful
!
ducks
ducks
ducks
dutiful
ducks
!
!
!
dutiful
!
ducks
dutiful
ducks
dutiful
!
!
!ducks
!ducks
!ducks
!beautiful
!dutiful
!ducks"




! = loud popping hand-clap
— = one beat rest


(Charles Amirkhanian: Dutiful Ducks)

19.2.09

Snow on balcony

(compensation for yesterday´s colour orgy...)












"The mind is like a richly woven tapestry in
which the colors are distilled from the experiences
of the senses, and the design drawn from the
convolutions of the intellect."

(Carson McCullers, born Febr. 19, 1917)

18.2.09

A colour orgy... or: No naked heart









A "custom made" object, for a little friend
who wanted me to make for her a "red star stuffed
animal with little embroidered orange stars"...


...and speaking of hearts - here´s
3 Quarks Daily´s Wednesday Poem:

"We hardly ever see the moon any more
so no wonder
it's so beautiful when we look up suddenly
and there it is gliding broken-faced over the bridges
brilliantly coursing, soft, and a cool wind fans
your hair over your forehead and your memories
of Red Grooms' locomotive landscape
I want some bourbon/you want some oranges/I love the leather
jacket Norman gave me
and the corduroy coat David
gave you, it is more mysterious than spring, the El Greco
heavens breaking open and then reassembling like lions
in a vast tragic veldt
that is far from our small selves and our temporally united
passions in the cathedral of Januaries

everything is too comprehensible
these are my delicate and caressing poems
I suppose there will be more of those others to come, as in the past
so many!
but for now the moon is revealing itself like a pearl
to my equally naked heart"

(Frank O`Hara: Avenue A)

16.2.09

No. 3

Another one in the Walt Whitman series...










"I think I could turn and live with
animals, they´re so placid and self-contain´d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They bring me tokens of myself..."









Wet snow in Berlin...


Thanks for your comments on friday´s blogging
boredom post - it´s quite a common mood, it seems...
So, as there isn´t an easy way out,
on we go with the "gentle art of blogging"...


And the wisdom quote of the day is:

"I like boring things."

(Andy Warhol)

13.2.09

Vacillating...

In case anybody wondered what
became of the Sozialpalast-project
back from November -
here it is (still WIP, of course):









The machine piecing was downright boring...
I´m going to "decorate" the windows now -
that should be more fun.

Got a trifle bored with blogging too lately.
But, well, who would want to live without it
any more...


"It seems to me that the problem with diaries,
and the reason that most of them are so boring,
is that every day we vacillate between
examining our hangnails and speculating
on cosmic order."

(Ann Beattie)

9.2.09

Tea time with voices










Longer days already - nearly 5.30 and
still some light - blue hour...
Good time to sit back, glas of tea in
hand, and have a look what other people
are up to.
For a visit with german writers, each
of them reading 10 pages from their
novels, go to www.zehnseiten.de (it´s all
in German...)
At www.iseevoices.com (strictly English...)
there are all kinds of "people on topics" -
watch, for example, director Wim Wenders on
"speed", or Berlin-based musician Raz Ohara
on "isolation", while frozen rain hammers
on his umbrella...

7.2.09

I would rather be a painter, but I´m not

Some more orange-centered explorations
(inspired by an image from a magazine)















"I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES"

(Frank O´Hara: Why I Am Not a Painter)

5.2.09

By the fire...









"Real warming virtual camp fire" -
found this today in a November issue
of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
- damned stacks and piles.
And yes, it´s cold in Berlin...

2.2.09

A surrogate labyrinth











...and some "useful sewing":











"Ein Ersatzlabyrinth und das
Gefühl festen Boden unter
den Füßen zu vergeuden von etwas
nicht piep Sagendem durchbohrt
überseeische Dinge ihm in die
Hand gedrückt hier geht's lang
zum Nebel undeutliches Gemurmel
ihm vorgesetzt am Tag an dem ich
von meinem hohen Markenzeichen
heruntersteige dachte er"

(Kurt Aebli: Ein Ersatzlabyrinth)

A surrogate labyrinth and the
impression of wasting firm ground under
his feet of being pierced by something
not uttering a peep
things transoceanic pushed into
his hand this way please
towards the mist of vague murmurs
presented to him the day I
climb down from my high selfbranding
I thought