A little tidying up on the website

At last I'm adding links. I spent ages debating whether to have them in categories but that got difficult when some websites don't fall into easily defined ones. Happy browsing! I'll keep adding as they come to me.

I've got a great idea....

Lee Goldberg's writing blog has a few tart things to say.

Support for new writing

article in the Guardian

hours of fun

at least 15 mins...

From the editor of Lenswork

Advice to photographers

Never forget that all the great photographs in history were made with more primitive camera equipment than you currently own.

Ultimately, your real work is to connect your Self to the world.

Think clearly about your objectives. Which is more important to you: earning an income or getting your work distributed? Which do you care about more: making images the public loves or making images that you must? If you are lucky, these are the same, but if they are not, clearly knowing which is more important to you makes everything else easier. There are no right answers here. There is only confusion when you work at cross-purposes to your objectives.
Learn to work alone. Learn to work without distractions. Turn off the music. Surround yourself with silence. Each one of us has a muse within us who tries to communicate and advise us on the creative path. There are no exceptions to this. But there is also a universality that all muses tend to whisper. To hear them clearly one must reside in a very still place.

Finish it... There is a universal Law of Audience that says if you finish work, the universe cannot stand that it remains unseen.

Shoot more than you do; print more than you do; and be a ruthless editor. I'm serious. There is a great deal to be gained in sheer volume - not that volume itself is any virtue, but practice is. Besides, relentless practice does have a twin sister known as luck.

Art is supposed to have meaning, emotion, power, or magic. Don't merely show what the subject is; show what it isn't, show what it means, show why it is, how it is, for whom it is, where it is, and/or when it is.

Remember art is not about artwork. Art is about life. To become a better artist, first and foremost become a better person - not in the moral sense, but rather in the complete sense. Remember that the greatest artist is not the one with the best technique, but the one with the most human heart.

Via Crossroads Dispatches

Lenswork

"You know how sometimes you're in bed, and you get an idea, and you have to decide whether to get up and write it down? Writing a novel is a lot like getting out of bed a hundred million times. I want to be someone who doesn't lose things. Writing is less about creating things than keeping them."

Jonathan Safran Soer from Swirly Girl

All things creative

you can follow Esther's journey to sell her hand made soap

| was weeding my patio yesterday

I couldn't find the old screw driver my mom uses to remove the weed roots. And instead I poked about with a fork mostly getting just the leaves off. But I still did it. I thought what the hell when they grow back I'll weed again. Gardening is like housework - it returns. But there was that awful moment when I thought 'if I can't do it right I shouldn't bother doing it' aaaaarrgh Perfectionism rearing is persistent head. Luckily I marched or rather knelt right over it wielding my fork and the place looked a lot better in less than an hour. I left some of the more prized specimens of fox glove as a feature. There are some creative projects which are languishing due to 'not enough time' 'not the right time' vibes which need a bit of what the hell do it anywayness. This is a timely prod.

You Are Beautiful

I've got to try this cake recipe

from Visual Chronicles via Michael Nobbs- one can of coke and a packet of cake mix. Living in Scotland where coke is outsold by Irn Bru *- (one of the few things one can be proud of here) perhaps I should try a Scottish verson?


*Scotland's other National Drink - Made in Scotland from Girders

I missed in London

Terhan Plane Trees at the V&A.

If you need to clear your head

think clearly and get out of a rut.

Then take a long train journey. Staring out of the window with fields zipping by. Isn't the planting of fields of rape wonderful? I love the big swathes of yellow colour across the landscape. Jogging along, no tv, no radio, certainly no ipod or music, mobile stuffed to the bottom of my bag all there is - is space - headspace - to noodle and via that make connections which one would normally never make and the courage to connect to what one really wants instead of what one rejects as being too outrageous too unlikely too unrealistic. Travel is an adventure which connects with the braver and more expansive parts of oneself.

We all need to hear this

over and over again.

Bit overwhelmed

back home a million and one things to blog about so can't think of anything. I'm sure overwhelm will subside in the next few days.

Knitting 2 exhibition at the Design council in London

has been extended to the 15th due to the unprecidented demand to see it. I was there on Friday and really enjoyed it. Especially being in an art space where there was so much bonding amongst the spectators.

Do you know how much I need a holiday?

This much: I brightly said to a friend yesterday about my upcoming trip to London 'I'm really looking forward to doing a walking tour about Christopher Robin's buildings.' Of course I mean Christopher Wren.

Blogging will be light until mid next week.

how to make moss graffiti

I thought you might like to know via Kottle.org

Moving image links

If you look its amazing what you can find, what resources will appear. Its too easy to stomp along saying ‘I can’t I can’t I can’t’. Often we stomp along saying that of course because it means we don’t challenge ourselves and if we don’t challenge ourselves then we can never fail, never be afraid, never be uncomfortable. On Sat I went to meet a friend up from London for lunch. On the way to meet her I picked up 5 pieces of invaluable information to somebody without even looking for them.

Information about Peacock Digital Arts based in Aberdeen. Access to digital film making equipment from cameras to editing at banded rates – also a training programme.

GMAC Glasgow Media Access Centre newsletter out of date but offering similar in Glasgow

Edinburgh Mediabase - equipment and comprehensive training programme varying from Documentary Workshop, Working With Actors, Scriptwriting, Producing a Short Film, Intro to Special Effects Make-up

Future Shorts – Launching at The Left Bank 37 Guthrie St Edinburgh 20th April BUT another screening in May. ‘Future Shorts passionately believe in developing a wider audience for short film. We have established a network where filmmakers can have their work seen on the largest platform in Europe and where audience can see an original and inventive slate of films.’ London / Paris / Brussels / Lisbon / Berlin / New York / Moscow
BBC Writers Room- info on accepting unsolicited scripts, opportunities, competitions, guidelines, free formatting software, script advice, events for 5000 writers a year. Leaflet came with cool postcards with quotes on them.

Write hard and clear about what hurts – Hemingway

… get it out and get it said, get it on the page. It’s just about telling the truth, I think, your truth. – Tony Marchant

When people ask me how I write I usually say one word at a time – seat of pant to seat of chair is the only way to write. – Alison Pennells

You get knocked down, you get up again. I also think writers must have great courage, the courage to trust your own life and your own voice. – Ashley Pharoah

Most of the workshops offer free use of equipment/training in exchange for volunteer work as well

foodies!

The 1000 recipies project is releasing another moleskeine notebook to wander through the world collecting recipies. Go to the website now to sign up.

love lists

1. Vanish stain remover - it really does work!

2. My tulips flowering

3. High Street gutters with drifts of pink cherry blossom from Canongate Kirk

4. Late Junction

5. Jam making inspired by reading 'The Domestic Goddess' by Nigella Lawson

Loathe lists

1. Hello / Picassa 3 days trying to upload a picture

2. the election

Cherry Blossom Admiring Time

is something I think happens in Japan - I've not had a huge amount of luck finding any info about it online. I think people gather in parks and have picnics drink saki and write haikus.

There are some spectacular blossom displays in Edinburgh at the moment, St Andrew Square, Gordon St in Leith, and in the ususal suspect parks. Waiting in Portobello High Street last night for a bus a group of children had great fun scooping up handfulls of pink petals from the pavement and flinging them into the air.

A friend of mine talked in a very scathing way about a friend of hers who would take his bicycle and take a tour of trees in blossom 'He goes to see the same trees every year'. So ??? Like the Japanese the wonder of a cherry tree in bloom after the gray of the winter is a miracle and I'm happy to rediscover it every Spring.

a memo to myself

to write something about Derek Jarman - Michael's drawing made me haul out the Tony Peak biog from my shelf last night

I'm a sucker for this kind of thing

penguins going through security - probably a publicity stunt. Via Caterina.

Tchainova Czech Tea House Otago Lane Glasgow

Romancing yourself

Stitch & Bitch Cameo Cinema Bar

thursday 6pm - we're the ones with the needles! If you want to learn come along. Email me if you need to borrow some wool & needles in advance.

Cake man & Cup cake boy

Whether by happenstance or design, Cake Man Raven has become the city's most visually strident opponent of the restrained preciousness that has overtaken the baking world. Few would confuse the results of his labor with anything found in Real Simple. Instead, Mr. Dennis's cakes and Mr. Dennis himself - or Cake, as he identifies himself over the phone - have a sense of the epic about them. For the Rev. Al Sharpton, he once made a model of the Bible turned to Timothy 2:15 ("Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved"); for Cab Calloway's 80th birthday, a songbook with a grand piano resting on top; for Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn Borough President, a replica of its Borough Hall, twice. When the rapper Jam Master J died in 2002, he made a cake in the shape of a large Adidas sneaker with a gold chain and two turntables on it.

more here

A little bit here A little bit there

quick link via Superhero Designs as my computer is being slow and weird... spring convulsions?

Local artist dies

Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, the artist once interned as an enemy alien who later turned the entire country into an open air gallery of his work, died yesterday at the age of 81 after a long illness.
His last outing was a few days ago, to his retrospective at the Flowers East gallery in London - but anyone interested in him only has to look around the streets of the capital and dozens of other British towns and cities.

"He was a vital member of the Independent Group and can be regarded as one of the fathers of pop art. His public works, including the designs for Tottenham Court Road underground station, reinvigorate images drawn from comics, design and advertising and place them back in the public domain."
Wilfred Cass, founder of Sculpture at Goodwood Park, West Sussex, described him as "one of the greats, unquestionably". The park holds London to Paris, his last major piece, a 25ft bronze and timber train based on fond memories of childhood trips to the Continent: it filled the Royal Academy courtyard in 2000, before steaming on to Goodwood.
"He could do so much," Mr Cass said. "Other artists are one-string fiddles, but Eduardo was good at everything he turned his hand to."
The artist, who was knighted in 1989, once described himself as "an old poor pro", and accepted hundreds of public commissions.
He enjoyed the unique distinction of having thousands of commuters tramp through a creation every day in his spectacular 1980 tile decoration for Tottenham Court Road tube station. He also gave a major collection, including most of his archive and the contents of his studio, which instantly re-filled with new work in progress, to the National Galleries of Scotland.
He was brought up in his Italian parents' ice-cream shop in Leith, Edinburgh - where he later claimed he had to work from the age of four - but his world changed drastically when he was 16 and Italy entered the war.
His father, grandfather and uncle all died when the ship carrying them to internment in Canada was torpedoed, and the boy was himself jailed at Edinburgh's Saughton prison.
He collapsed in his studio in the late summer of 2000, when London to Paris was completed, but he was still deluged with work. He never fully recovered. Many who knew him thought overwork contributed to his collapse.
At the time his youngest daughter, Emma, said: "The poor old thing, I think all artists like to go out with their boots on."

From The Guardian

*~*~*~*
At the top of Leith Walk you can see Paolozzi's scuptures the big foot and hand.

How to make the world a slightly better place

Get a book of stamps - find some postcards - I pick up free ones all the time at bars and cafes - 1.Write to people you would love to hear from but never have time to contact
2. People you always think about phoning late at night when they will be in bed and you don't want to wake up
3. People going through a hard time - a bit of real post instead of another 23 missives from the Bank of Scotland.

Post them forget about it. The good karma from this is incalculable.

Once you have got into the swing of this and really it only takes about 10 mins out of your lunchtime you can expand the good karma exercise. For no reason whatsoever except that you found a packet of teeny tiney green envelopes send your female friends a rose sented tea bag, a creative partner a Darth Vader chocolate lolly ' You saw a lolipop of the Dark Lord of the Syth - the embodyment of all that is evil and corrupt in the galaxy... and you thought of me?' was the email I got back... one of the nicest envelopes I got in the mail was a selection of hot chocolate sachets.

In dire necessity great ecards here. But remember some real mail is a wonderful thing.

Hand Knitted Superhero costumes

why ... because you can

Local Heroes

How the people of one small Scots fishing village launched their own record label - and became a global phenomenon. From The Guardian

surfers at dusk

no good wrong day

Ever had one of these? Saturday I'd had all planned out a series of diverting pleasurable events starting with sleeping in, getting some wool from the charity shop... then it all went wrong. The garden centre I'd planned to buy some tomato plants was closed (permanently) I'm a militant non driving public transport taking pedestrian so buying plants would now be problematic. I went to the funky wool shop only to have my quiet browsing of skeins interrupted by someone I really did not want to talk to. I fled across the park muttering to myself trying to talk myself into enjoying the new spring leaves on the trees, the fresh air, spring blossom etc etc. And the more I tried to look on the bright side of life ta da ta the grumpier and crosser and grouchier I felt. I thought I'd salvage it by going to an independent bookshop. I know the owner slightly and the last time we'd met was at a funeral so I relived that funeral then she said an aquainance of both of ours who had died recently had committed suicide. I hadn't heard. I went home and gave up on trying to have a pleasant day.

Interestingly I only began to feel better on Monday when I met someone told them about the terrible terrible day and she sympathised and said how frustrating and how painful to hear about the suicide. And after the sympathetic and accepting response I began to feel so much better my mood lifted and I went to the beach and walked alongside the surf and felt my equilibrium return.

What is interesting is how often we try to talk ourselves out of our authentic response to life's events. And in pushing them away they persist all the more just turned into a grouchy irritable out of sortsness. Acknowledging the real feelings behind made it possible to leave the irritability and move on.

TV Turn Off Week

starts next week. More info here

How to change the world in

12 steps.

Brandon Mably

another knitting site to explore

Holgas and mermaids

great tips on using a Holga camera.

spring?

Knitters against Bush from the fabulous Knitty - great archives

more than just a pretty pixel...

Goddard's Knock

It's something about the quality of attention. WH Auden says that curiosity is the one human passion that can be indulged without satiety. And he's right, there's always something to be noticed and then noticed more deeply. It's a self-replenishing source of energy. If we move through the world touching things with delicate attention they come alive under our fingertips. In the snowlit corridors of mountain hotels and long journies across the white plains of Turkey, people and things seemed to sparkle and thrum.But it also struck me that it's not enough to be attentive. You need to pay attention to the kind of attention you're paying. Otherwise, the quality of our noticing shapes what we notice. That's apparent in this photography thing. Over the years I've been taking pictures with my camera, I've noticed that I've started to take the same sort of pictures. Framed things in a certain "aesthetic" way. Picked certain objects to photograph and ignored others. I was talking to Laurie and Rob, the camera and soundmen on this shoot, about how boring this was getting. There's a great story about Jean-Luc Godard. His Director of Photography would get on set before shooting, spend hours setting up lights and camera angles to create a perfect, beautiful shot. Then Godard would step up to the camera, look through the viewfinder, and before calling 'Action' he would kick the tripod and shoot the whole scene on a random skew. Of course, in the film it looked weird but wonderfully correct. Similarly, Lars von Trier says that the best thing an actor can do for him is to fuck up. Sometimes the crap, the ugly and the random generate new beauty. So towards the end of the Turkey trip we started to deliberately mess-up shots. Holding the camera up in the air, vaguely pointed at people to get an fresh frame. Photographing random things. My patron anti-saint, Oscar Wilde, said that art is a raid on the predictable. And the skew-whiff art that I think is the best art makes life less boring. It stretches the perceiving eye to perceive more. It's like when I watched Godard's Alphaville on the way up to Haworth and suddenly Yorkshire train stations seemed like 1950s nouvelle vague. Knocking the tripod can surprise us with stuff we didn't expect to notice.

From Do Buddists Watch Telly?

Stitch & Bitch Edinburgh

7.30pm Cameo Bar Home St

If you want to learn to knit come along. We're the ones with the balls of wool - easy to spot.

Film Premiere !

In Kirkcaldy Fife tomorrow night at the Adam Smith Theatre. Children are going to be bussed in to see my friend Stuart's feature length documentary on 700 years of the Kirkcaldy Fair. As the doc has tied up the use of my camera for about a year and half I consider myself at the very least an executive producer. Sadly no links. Google fails us.

You know some of my friends think I'm

some kind of workshy refusenick because I'm so reluctant to purse more paid work in the tv field - read this and be put off for life... it perfectly reflects my experience and of friends of mine.

Knitti Politti

Sister, Can you sapre a square? A 4x4 inch kitted or croched square to be exact. Artist Cat Mazza needs your patricipation in her 'symbolic gesture of awareness and intolerance' against corporate giant Nike's sweatshop abuses. Mazza and her collective microRevolt.org are stitching upa a social protest made up of hundreds of orange knitted and crocheted petitions quares to form a huge blanket, comlete with familiar white whoosh, that she expects to deliver to the company by next holiday season. This may seem emphemeral at best, but microRevolt's strategy is based on French philospher Felix Guattari's idea of 'molecular revolutions' where, Mazza explains, 'social change happens through small acts of resistance.'

'MicroRevolt is using knitting as a way of talking about an economic crisis', states Mazza... 'Knitting can be considered a radical practice in a culture so used to buying things,' she explains, 'and knit hobbyists are a meaningful group to mobilize on the sweatshop issue because they understand thelabour process that goes into making a garment.' Knit yourself a place in the political revolution at www.microrevolt.org.

via Bust

3 degrees of separation

Just got an introduction to someone via email in a foreign country for a project I'm working on. And it only went through 3 people. There is a famous study which I can't remember the title which consisted of someone trying to get a package personally to someone in another state (it was done in the US) and the average number of people the package moved through was 6 - hence 6 degrees of separation - and its modern equivalent 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon.

So asking for things how does it work? You have to be specific and clear and ask as many people that you know. So instead of being all British and self depreciating when you meet an aquaintnace and they ask what you are up to. Tell them and follow up with 'I'm really looking for a Tibetian speaking person to help me subtitle my footage' and with any luck they will remember their flakey friend who disappeared into the Buddist monestry and dig out their contact details and they will hopefully know someone who knows someone. Of course now with the internet and the great god google the world really has shrunk - though a referral through someone always is easier as you come with a kind of stamp of approval.

Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet travel writing opportunity

"I am currently building and serving as the editor for a guidebook on the Himalaya region, specifically Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. It is for Things Asian Press, a small publisher in San Francisco. The book will be eclectic and anecdotally-based and feature the writings of inspired travelers from around the world.
If you can recommend anyone you know who has traveled to any of these areas in recent history and might be interested in contributing to this project, send them my way. I'm looking for seasoned travelers who are also skilled writers (evocative, humorous, academic, etc.), who can offer this book some excellent insight and soul. Expats or former expats are also a bonus. Naturally I'm working with deadlines so if you have anyone in mind, please forward their contact info soon, or have them contact me."
Thanks very much for your help!Kimkim@kimindresano.com

via superherodesigns

throw more pots ! - quantity not quality

process not product - always banging on about this in my classes.

*******

In their book Art and Fear, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland tell a story that illustrates how lowered expectations encourage the repetition necessary for creative skill development. A ceramics teacher divided a class of novice students into two groups. One group was told that their final mark would be based completely on the number of pots they produced. More pots, higher grade. The other group was told that they would be graded purely on their ability to produce one perfect pot. The perhaps not-so-surprising outcome was that the best-quality pots were all produced by those who made the largest quantity of pots - those who, without attachment to the result, had set out to make as many pots as possible. They had learned how to make better and better pots. It seems that even when we are not deliberately trying to do so, we inevitably learn from our mistakes.
...
Slowly it begun to sink in: I had to be willing to keep at it, to learn from the doing. If I wanted to learn how to write or paint or do any form of creative work, I had to be willing to do it over and over again, even if the results were not what I wanted. - Oriah Mountain Dreamer, What We Ache For: Creativity and the Unfolding of Your Soul
The freedom and spaciousness allowed by "simply start - it's alright to do over...again and again" process yields the treasured pot. And not the paralyzing tension of "it must be perfect and innovative." There's a lesson here for business.
I heard Oriah Mountain Dreamer speak Sunday and if you have a chance to hear her speak on her current book tour, go (book tour calendar). She presents a fabulous eight-point template for creativity sprinkled with Rilke and Rodin stories, Rumi and William Stafford poems all topped off with a writing exercise.

From Evelyn Rodriques's Crossroad's Dispatches

film/doc folk in Edinburgh

mouse down to my entry about the Idea Factory Events at the Cameo cinema. I went to the first one tonight and found it quite helpful was able to renew a few 'network' links and get some info which is helpful for a doc project. Another two events one tomorrow night and one on Wednesday. Both FREE!

blue sky thinking

At last !

got my 'Compare and Contrast' with Alan Wilson's photos up. Sorry about the delay but I seem to have some kind of jinx on the technology.

Obviously I use colour film unlike Alan and a Lomo camera. Tiny fits into my coat pocket and very very basic. I mostly use it on manual. It has a nice iris like effect which you can see on some of the photos and because it light leaks it occasionally does extraordinary effects in colour like the first one I posted. Of course its all entirely arbitary and accidental. I'll go through a few rolls where everything is pretty pedestrian and then others when the photos come back rather 'eccentric'. Its nice to get surprises. I've also got a photo of 'Wall. Huh. What is it good for' but seems to belong to my prescanned phase. More info about Lomo's here.

On an entirely different note go here to see where creativity can go wrong. Link from my friend Lauren.

creatve voyage - Porty at Night

Alan Wilson - Wall. Huh What is it Good For?

creativevoyage Portobello II

creative voyage portyII

Alan Wilson's Porty

creative voyage's portobello

stitch & bitch

7pm Cameo Cinema Home St Edinburgh

the joy of part time work

This is from Keri Smith

"The new issue of Bust is out. In it you will find an article in which I was interviewed by the talented Michelle Goodman, entitled "Wage Slaves -Day job schemes for girls with arty dreams". I haven't read it yet, but we spoke at length about managing a part-time job (and in some cases full-time) and still finding time to create, free-lance or even run your own business. I got very excited about the subject, having done it myself quite a bit (I worked at a bookstore part-time for the first five years of my career). In many ways I still find myself in the position of balancing making a living with doing the work I really want to do. Some of my regular free-lance work can be at times trying, and lacking in personal meaning. Though I do my best to find ways to make it my enjoyable, (experimenting with new ideas, mediums, colors, etc). And in between I work incessantly on my personal projects, (books, products, etc.) I do find myself in new position of seemingly attracting free-lance work that I really enjoy, (products, and articles I respond to, natural healing, children's stuff, etc.), as opposed to the usual slew of computer articles, or business related imagery (which is admittedly not me).
One of the things I mentioned in the interview was the fact that in many ways having part-time work can actually fuel one's urge to create, (granted one needs to preserve the energy to do it, working in a job that is not entirely draining physically and emotionally). I can remember jotting down ideas while working at the bookstore and being so excited to run home to start a project. My days off became precious gifts, and I never took that time for granted. I believe it had the effect of taking some pressure off, you don't have time to think too much about what you want to create when you only have a few hours, you just do it. Sometimes too much time can be a hindrance.
An appropriate quote to this effect from "Reading Lolita in Tehran" by Azar Nafisi (which I'm loving by the way),
"It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom."

~~~
What I think people crave more than anything else is time.

Also what I have observed is that once hated jobs become quite bearable when they are part time - instantaneously one is removed from the dreaded office politics. There is time to either pursue your own passions or creative projects. Many people are terrified to go part time and can't see a way of living on less money. But time and time again I've found that the money balances out. Less money is spent on convenience, take always, more stuff is cooked from scratch and the perpetual buying of expensive magazines, and other crap to treat oneself for a job sucking up ones life abates.

Other ways to gain time

Give up TV (all right then try it for a week)
Give up internet!
Give up automatically agreeing to social activities. Say you need to check your diary first and will get back to them. Decide whether it really would be a joy to spend time with that person or to spend time on a creative pursuit.

mom & documentary maker

Lizbeth

Ideas Factory - Edinburgh Film events

April 4th - 6th Channel 4's IDEASFACTORY is running three events over three days,all created to assist emerging filmmakers.These events mark the final stage of the hugely successful documentary filmmaking project IDEASFACTORY: REAL, supported by ScottishEnterprise, where four shorts were made by first-time directors with the assistance of distinguished industry players including Nick Broomfield and Mark Cousins, and produced by Edinburgh Mediabase.

The final events, supported by City of Edinburgh Council, kick off onMonday 4th April at 8.30pm with SHOW ME THE MONEY. This panel event is a guide to funding your short film through the numerous schemes that are opento new filmmakers.

The second event on Tuesday 5th at 6.30pm is HOW TO GET COMMISSIONED FOR TV. This event is designed to help get ideas commissioned for television broadcast, with a particular emphasis on documentary commissions for Channel 4. Exploring the types o fprogramme ideas that are currently being sought, how the Channel 4 online application system works and what opportunities are available for new directorslooking to gain their first broadcast commission, confirmed panellists include Stuart Cosgrove, Channel 4's Director of Nations and Regions and Maxyne Franklin, commissioner for Channel 4's 3 Minute Wonders. Events conclude on Wednesday 6th April, with IDEASFACTORY OUTPUT: EDINBURGH, a screening of new work from filmmakers who launched their careers via IDEASFACTORY: REAL.

Highlights include Bon Voyage - a poignant insight into the life of an immigrant worker - directed byKapwani Kawanga, and Trompe L'Oeil, which looks at the perception ofParis from a uniquely Edinburgh viewpoint.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Mon April 4 SHOW ME THE MONEY Cameo Cinema 8.30pm
Tue April 5 HOW TO GET COMMISSIONED FOR TV Cameo Cinema 6.30pm
Wed April 6 IDEASFACTORY:OUTPUT - EDINBURGH Cameo Cinema 6.30pm

All events are free to attend, and tickets are available from the Cameo Box Office on the day of each event.

Retreat II

Evelyn Rodriguez of Cross Roads Dispatches is on a retreat of sorts as well.

Creative Retreat

I’ve been rushing about doing too much, sleeping too little and worrying and worrying, Final straw was loosing my purse yesterday, rushing home to look for it, a flurry of anxious phone calls about it, cancelling my cards… then finding my purse.

Classic stressed behaviour – I have a friend who loses her keys I lose my purse.

After my traumatic morning I went to the library and bank and followed it up by buying my Easter Egg for the year. I went home and had a wee lie down, then I dozed away the evening. Properly going to bed at 11pm and waking past 9 this morning. I’ve decided to go on an official retreat for the next two days.

I’m descheduling myself. I’ve got nothing planned outside the house until Sunday. I can go and be cutural or not. I can laze around the house or not. I’m hoping to use the time to get back in touch with myself and fill my inner well.

I’ve turned my radio to a classical station and I sit on the sofa contemplating my washing up in a very buddalike manner. I think about sorting out my blogging issues with uploading and images and realise that’s just trying to be productive and ‘get something achieved this weekend’. No the time would be better spent dipping my toe into the waters and walking along sand. I am determined to sleep excessive amounts of hours. Use my answermachine to screen calls. Admire the daffodils on my dining table. Sniff the spring air like a cat inspecting the garden and go slowly and even more slowly.

spoke too soon

picassa gone weird again on me so can't create albums. Will come back to this later in week.

compare and contrast

Alan Wilson's Portobello


Remember way back in February I posted a link to Alan's photographs and said how differently mine photographs of the same place were? And as soon as I did that my CD driver died and my image files mysteriously disappeared? Well in a more mysterious way my CD driver started to work again so I'm going to post up a selection of my Porty Lomos. This is Alan's photograph which started me off.

First Day of S P R I N G !

To celebrate this and the anniversary of this blog I'm going to buy some flowers on my way home.

Time to get a bit of luscious colour into life.

I see myself

not so much a painter than a medium for accident and chance.

Francis Bacon

I watched the BBC 2 Arena documentary on Francis Bacon last night. Maddeningly missing the first 15 mins or so. Interestingly enough Francis Bacon formally had a very spotty 'art education' and drifted well past his 30's before setteling down and becoming one of the premier artists of the UK.

More info here.

I thought

the market would be under cover but its outdoors with awnings over each stall. Rather optimistic for Scotland in Spring. Smaller as well than I expected. I bought a zulu tin mug (covered in beads). Head for Commercial street and turn in where Bar Sirius is and its behind there.All the publicity is remarkably reticent on the ACTUAL address of the market. Its on Sundays as well.

off to

Leith Market - grand opening.

The Spielberg of Hereford

Neil Oseman's debut feature includes a steam-train chase, several laser gunfights and an original score by a full symphony orchestra. Not bad considering his total budget was £20,000. More at The Guardian.

Random Acts of Gardening

I love this a report by 'Captain Hollyhock' on Guerilla Gardening campaigns in Ontario Canada.

I am Meme

following on from Michael's post I'll take up the meme baton...

I am

- tired
- temping
- torn between solitude and gregariousnes
- cinephile
- coffeephile
- notebookphile
- chronic pen loser
- Nip/Tuck fan
- chronically incapable of doing washing up as I go along
- bookhorder
- library fine collector
- magazineoholic (Bust, Bitch, Vogue, O, the shame the shame)
- sister
- daughter
- friend
- careoholic
- internet email dependent (just how many blogs does one need?)
- beach walking
- cafe loving
- budget scatty
- a cat conversationalist
- a person who knows the names of neighbourhood cats but not their owners
- public transport fundie
- non car owning non car driving
- a knitter
- a photographer
- a sometime documentarymaker
- a burned out activist who still wants to change the world
- a developing cynic who needs to rediscover her optimism
- a traveller by choice and circumstance
- an Archers fan (despite loathing 99% of the characters)
- jealous of my lodger who is kittensitting
- trying to do only what brings joy
- trying to avoid duty
- Scottish/South African/Hugenot/Russian
- a freesia lover
- a striped garden hut owner

An Incomplete Manifesto for (creative) growth

Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth.
Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors.
Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process.
Ask different questions.
Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies.
Lack judgment.
Postpone criticism.
Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
Don't be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
Stay up late. Strange things happen when you've gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we're not free.Thank heavens there are inspirations like Bruce Mau among us. From Bob Baker via Michael Nobbs

I like

great blog always has interesting links.

Lists & Living

I made a list last week of about twenty things to do. Some were life maintenance ‘find 0 percent credit card’, friendship maintenance ‘email Susan’, and biz project movement ‘email Iain’, creative project movement ‘find Norwegian Co-production partner’. Anyway I managed to do about 4 items on my to do list. Ordinarily this would plunge me into a gloom of self-beration about my unproductivity. However I’ve decided to take a different tack by treating myself kindly and instead give myself credit for what I have done ontop of a full time job.

So much of our lives are dismissed by ourselves as unproductive or worthless. So I want to honour making several evening meals from scratch, having birthday drinks with a friend who is depressed, finding a lodger and cleaning my flat, having a friend over for a cup of tea, chatting to neighbour in the street for 10 mins, changing library books, meeting a friend for lunch… Even the most ‘unproductive’ weeks contains a lot of ‘living’.

Bookslut

is the place to go to get all the links all the time on matters literary.

Aida

is Edinburgh Grand Opera's current performance at the Festival Theatre in Clerk St. Every September this amateur Opera company starts rehearsals. By day they are receptionists, lawyers and accountants by night they sing, make costumes, and perfect their moves. By Spring they are up to three rehearsals a week. Their opening night was last night and I'm due to see my friend Alison make her annual debut in the chorus on Saturday. I've seen several of their previous performances and I'm always amazed at what they pull of with hard work, enthusiasm and love for singing. Tickets available from the Festival Theatre Box Office 0131 662 6000.

Film Showing

of my first documentary Ethel Moorhead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Film Screenings / Social for International Women's Day
SAT 12th March 7pm till lateRoundabout Centre4b Gayfield Place (top of Leith Walk)Women only/Trans friendly / kids welcome

7pm De Toda La Vida (Spain/France 1986) 52 min Anarchist women of Spain tell their life stories fom 1930's to their still active elderly years.

8pm Ethel Moorhead (Scotland) 15 mins Inspiring locally made tale ofnotorious suffragette who was force fed during her hunger strike inCalton Jail, Edinburgh

Intermission
8.45 Voice of the Voiceless (chiapatas Mexico) Radio Insurgance ofindigenous peoples in Chipasts (12 mims)9pm The Forth World War (Uk 2000) Intense, immedate & exciting thisfilmhas footage of struggles around the globe.

10.45 Poem (10 mins)

11.00 Suzie Bright Sexpert (USA) (40mins)Rauncy DIY sextalk

Tirade

is a blog by Ronnie Del Carmen

"I watched a lot of cartoons and movies. Sometime later I read books and drew more than I played sports or drive cars or party. I draw incessantly and carry a sketchbook everywhere. I work in animation and self-publish my books. There are monsters in the streets, don't wear red. Mad bulls and monsters hate that color. I still watch cartoons. "

Judith Selby

AHN: What advise do you have for other artists who wish to use their creativity to effect positive change in the world?
Selby: Do something every day. It takes two things to be an artist; a good hand and a good seat. The hand is to craft and the seat is to sit still and remain present. It is a matter of developing the habit, the creative habit. Like flossing, you do it every day. It takes practice, it takes awareness, and then it develops its own momentum.The job of the artist is to attune to mumbllings and mispronunciations, to embrace the ambiguity of things glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Artists must learn to trust what they think they donÕt see. And then, beyond the flash of insight or the thrill of that "first "vision, there is the hard work of bringing that vision into the world. Stamina and skill are required and an unfaltering belief in the vision.Sometimes it is luck, just being in the right place at the right timeÉto make yourself open... to be available to see... the see the baby bottle or the ballot box lid and then to have the wherewithal to bring it to the world.

Interview at Arts & Healing Network

Arts & Healing Network

A somewhat off putting title but their news section of the website has some interesting links.

Angry Chicken

is a fabric/quitling/knitting/felt blog I've just found.

Fantastic sky tonight inbetween snow flurries. I took a photo looking down Johnstone Terrace - which reminds me Scotland now has its own Lomo Ambassador.

Mexico in Kansas

go and see Reconstructed Mind's wonderful photos.

My CD driver

is stuck closed and it seems that it won't get unstuck before the weekend so no more pictures for now.

Powercut last night

when my computer was on -seems to have deleted all my Picassa files so will be a while before I can up load my porty pictures.

Street Photography

is Alan Wilson's site. I'm fascinated because he photographs many places and even people (!) I know (I've never met him) and I photograph them as well and the results are so different. But then he uses black & white film with a Nikon and I use colour film & my lomo. Once I've scanned some of my photos of Portobello I'll do a 'compare and contrast'.

Creative Pooches

'gay' poodle Crown St Surrey Hills Sydney 2004

At least this is what my aunt called it when I described it to her. Even your pooch can be a vehicle for creativity. This one had two compatriots one with a purple top knot and another with an orange do. They lived naturally enough at a hairdresser and slept curled up in baskets under chairs. When I took the photo a member of staff came out and gave me a postcard of the pooches which they use in their publicity. If you ever want to have your hair cut there its called Surry Cutters 525a Cown Street, Surry Hills, Sydney ph 9318 2413.

Quick ! what do you L O V E?

Popcorn pink clouds over the city this evening

Arthur's Seat covered in snow

Friends who will listen to you moan and encourage plans to not take it lying down

Finishing another buttonhole bag

Green & Blacks chocolate

Michael Nobbs' drawings

The novels of Armistead Maupin

Go Fug Yourself

Puff pastry and peach pudding with cream

Friends who email you at work

Hotwater bottles

Liqueur Muscat

(Liqueur Muscat and pudding will accompany ER - hotwater bottle will be used later)

Self - portrait day coming soon!

25th February via Harrumph and I got my fantastic badge last week!

Current creative projects

include the Mason-Dixon Buttonhole bag (the Unpattern) which resulted in a really dinky felted bag. I'm going to try the unpattern again with thicker wool. I've also got another creative film project on the go , currently awaiting finance news so trying to not put all my creative eggs in one basket. Colour Rules of Thumb I thought might give me inspiration for my bag colours - via Apartment Therapy.

Love yourself day

As I walked around London I took lots of photos. Being on old fashioned film they will take some time to be processed (I'll have to wait for the spare cash let alone finish the roll). One of the things that transfixed me was the window displays for St Valentines Day. It seemed to me that the day was becoming far more commercial and the message it was pushing was 'Buy stuff to prove you love someone' and the relentless pushing of the it all together was also a way of saying 'the only acceptable way to be is in a romantic relationship'. So I've now got a series of hideous photos with red hearts to come out soon.

Some years ago I was moved to make a stand against the blatant commercialism and organised a Love Yourself Day at the Turkish Baths with some friends. I was moved to do it again. Last time I was able to organise massages but its the wrong day for it and too short notice. Instead I'm taking cupcakes, a flask for mint tea and I'll search out my essential oils so we can catch up, gossip and lounge. We prove love and care by spending time with people not money.

In the same way we can create objects, things, art we can create the kind of world we want one step at a time. I want a world were we value ourselves and the friendships we have so I created my own 'Day'. Its worth thinking about what you can do to make things the way you would like them to be.

High St Bus stop 2004 lomo

London Trip III

Because I stayed with a different friend in London to the one I normally stay with I was able to experience a whole new area of the city. On my third day we walked to Parliament Hill and across Hampstead Heath. Filled with people 'Pretending to be in country' said my friend sarcastically, dogs, fat squirrels and even a few signs of spring snowdrops, green shoots of daffodils. We walked towards Hampstead village and ambled up and down the streets, passing Keats House and popping into Hampstead's local library. At the door of the library a large orange cat greeted us and consented to ear rubs. This is my favourite kind of travel encounter something that cannot be planned from Time Out but happens anyway.

Afterwards we walked to Berg House and looked at the reproductions of Constable's drawings of cloud scapes from the Heath.

We then warmed ourselves in a chain bookshop looking at books but didn't buy there but went onto Daunts Books and supported independent bookselling there.

The next day a sunday I did the only thing I'd prearranged in London a London Walks Tour of Old Jewish Quarter 'A Shetel called Whitechapel'. Last year I did one of their tours of Clerkenwell and was amazed at what good value they were in terms of interest and unexpected information. The walk was great despite the cold and the early start 10.40am. We left an hour and a half to get to Tower Hill Tube Station my friend saying we'd probably be early in the end we only just made it as the Tower Hill Station was closed and we had to walk from Aldgate East. We managed to meet up with all the other people who had been corralled into the tour friends of ours and finished it off in Brick Lane. Now Bengali not Jewish and had a lunch in an Indian Restaurant. Thus fortified we walked along the river and crossed at the Millenum Bridge and attempted to warm ourselves up at the Globe Theatre cafe.

The next day aware of the vagaries of public transport in London I left 3 hours to get to Kings Cross Station. So naturally I was very early I walked the 5 mins to The British Library. Oh wonderful place! Lockers for a returnable £1 coin v the £5 at the station. Went around the Writer in the Garden exhibition (free!) but somewhat hasty. There were items from both Little Sparta Avant Gardening by Ian Hamilton Finlay and Dungness by Derek Jarman. I hadn't planned to visit this exhibition but was delighted to see copies of Jarman's handwritten notebooks about gardening and being reminded of my visit to Little Sparta last year.

London Trip II

I have a weakness for bookshops and even worse a weakness for magazines. I went to corporate nemisis Borders on Charing Cross Road and bought £20 of mags, Utne, Shambahala Sun and others which I've forgotten. Then I went to the National Portrait Gallery to meet a friend in the lobby. Its central, always has good exhibitions and a fabulous restaurant on the roof. We met and went straight up in the lift, got a table by the window and admired the roof top view. We had coffee only being the afternoon, the afternoon tea with scones is a crimminal £14 for 2 but we got away with £5. There is a panoramic view here. I took photos but it will be a few months before the lomos come out.

We talked so long we decided not to go and see the Lee Miller exhibition which costs £7.50 to get into - we thought we wouldn't get our money's worth so instead we saw the free Frida Kahlo photographs.

We then went and met my hostess and scurried around the streets of Soho to find the Hare Krishna restaurant which is vegetarian and very cheap.

lomo high st Edinburgh 2004

How to Pitch an Idea

here

Pinhole photography of London

Specifically this person has followed the Circle Tube line overground and taken photos.

London Trip

Occasionally it does one good to run away to get some fresh perspective and new ideas.

I went to see a friends exhibition opening at St Martins last Thursday in London. Great drama as we approached the building it was being held in (The London College of Fashion) as a man had climbed some scaffolding in Oxford St and the road had been cleared but the pavements were blocked with people gawping and we had to go the long way around to get in.

On Friday I went into the city using the bus from Highgate. My aim was the arts & crafts store Liberty's in Regent Street. I wandered from elegant room to room admiring and only succumed to Jaeger Fur Wool in the wool dept. A headache sent me in search of lunch .. too expensive in Liberty's so I started off for Neale's Yard where I knew there was an ok veggie cafe. I was able to restore my bloodsugar, and up my caffine levels. London is so hectic with traffic and people I find visiting it unbearable without well timed sit downs. I eavesdropped on conversations and drew in my journal then struggled mightily with my lomo ( they are complete pains to load film quickly) as a woman arrived with a pushchair wearing a floor lenth waistcoat hand knitted in multicoloured squares which I had to get a photo of. I wanted to see the radical knitting exhibition at the Design Centre but after scanning Time Out realised that the exhibition hadn't opened yet.

I walked back towards Charing Cross Road dipping into Stamfords the travel shop in Long Acre and then to The Photographers Gallery in Great Newport St. They have two sites on the street. One with a cafe and an exhibtion of ' Stories from Russia: The David King Collection'.

To celebrate the Russian publication of David King's book, "The Commissar Vanishes", tracing the falsification of photographs and art in Stalin's Russia, The Photographers' Gallery is presenting an installation of haunting images drawn from a discovery made by the author in Moscow. David King explains: "Like their counterparts in Hollywood, photographic retouchers in Soviet Russia spent long hours smoothing out the blemishes of imperfect complexions, helping the camera to falsify reality. Joseph Stalin's pockmarked face, in particular, demanded exceptional skills with the airbrush. But it was during the Great Purges, which raged in the late 1930s, that a new form of falsification emerged. The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents at the hands of the secret police was swiftly followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence"."Photographs for publication were retouched and restructured with airbrush and scalpel to make once-famous personalities vanish. Paintings, too, were often withdrawn from museums so that compromising faces could be blocked out of group portraits. Entire editions of works by denounced politicians and writers were banished to the closed sections of the state libraries and archives or simply destroyed."Soviet citizens, fearful of the consequences of being caught in possession of material considered "anti-Soviet" or "counterrevolutionary", were forced to deface their own copies of books and photographs, often savagely attacking them with scissors or disfiguring them with ink. There is hardly a publication from the Stalinist period that does not bear the scars of this political vandalism. From ilikeyou

Making Happy

has published her book!

The revolutionary art of knitting

The Guardian article includes a recipe to knit a hand grenade.