A couple of weeks ago I got “A sense of wonder” by Katherine Paterson from the library again (for the 10th time*). This book always makes me want to write… I love the way she talks about her work – and children’s literature.
… I came home from first grade on February 14 without a single valentine (…). My mother (…) asking me once why I didn’t write a story about the time I didn’t get any valentines. “But, Mother,” I said “all my stories are about the time I didn’t get any valentines.”
… There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.
Quotes from A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children, Katherine Paterson
Now, I am hopeful that it might even be more helpful to still be a little weird kid at the my age, but I am not so sure about that.
—
*) you won’t believe how hard it is to buy some books in New Zealand.
“It’s story time for adults with PRI’s award-winning series of short fiction read by the stars of stage and screen. Recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in NYC and on tour. A co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC, New York Public Radio.” (Quote PRI)
“My drawings inspire, and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.”
Odilon Redon about his work
Somebody came to our exhibition today and saw my painting “Above the Forest”. He asked me about Odilon Redon; I had not heard the name before (shame on me), so the vistor showed me some images on the net:
Odilon Redon, Spirit of the Forest, 1880.
Redon, Eye-Balloon 1878
Redon, The Smiling Spider 1881
I have to go to the library and get some books soon!
A couple of reasons to watch this lecture by swoon from 2007:
1) ”I’d bee pasting work on the street for a long time and been thinking about how does this gesture translate into a gesture of not just “me”, “me”, “me”, “I want my name”, “I want my image on the city”. But to sort of make it more of a statement about the permeability of these public spaces and to open up and democratise these public spaces. And how you make this gesture a real gesture.” /quote end
I flinch about tags (including rough images of men’s private parts) on fences and bus stops as most people, but I am running round cities to make images of street art I like and I see as “Art”. One can’t draw a line on “It’s all about me” to distinguish between annoying scribbles and art. For me “Art” is all about the “Artist”. However if one puts his/her/its art into the public space, should there be more than ”me”, “me”, “me”? Something to think about… ^_^.
Having said this I have some issues with her using the word “democratise” and with the example of pasting children’s drawings on billboards. That’s too easy or simple…
2) Jeeeeeeeeesssssss ! I am a printmaker myself. To cut images like this into lino or wood (with or without a Dremel), to make prints to put them into the public space for everybody to enjoy and in the end to decay… you at least have to respect this ^_^…
3) From the street into the gallery. I think that Swoon’s art translates smoothly from the street into the gallery without loosing any imagination or context. It seems to me her art just develops and grows wildly inside a protected environment.
^_^...
