The View From Here

From the Louvre

From the Louvre

Montmartre Hill: The view from Sacre-Coeur

From the path leading to the UN campus along Lake Geneva

From the bottom in Geneva

The Old City in Bern from the bridge over Aare River

Untertorbrücke: Lower Gate Bridge in Bern from the newer bridge above it

From the conference: Be outraged!

Paris in B & W and Grey

Eiffel Tower 

In the Louvre looking up through the pyramid

Louvre stairs and pyramid

CDG Airport

Louvre Lamps

Artifacts of Swiss Society

While finding my way around Geneva I stumbled upon some interesting artifacts.  Here are a few pictures of those treasures.


Giant Chess in Promenade des Bations

No peeing, dogs off leash, graffiti, loud music, or littering! That just about covers it- nothing about taking a photo of the sign, so I am in the the clear.

Protest against the Sri Lanka government at the UN

Sailboats on Lake Geneva

Du bitume au grenier: Histoire d'une rue singuliere a Geneve

This is a wonderful book of images from the members of a housing collective in Geneva.  They celebrated 20 years of successfully running the collective.  I stopped by to see what it was all about and was quite impressed- the collective consists of the housing, a lovely restaurant, a movie theater, and some shops.  I'd love to live there.

Rue Lissignol, the site of the collective

Clémentine, a sculpture of an emaciated, and melancholy girl: On the trees and fences around the sculpture, as in this photo, there are often clippings and messages protesting child abuse, female genital mutilation and domestic violence against women. Weekly, for the past thirty years, Clémentine has been given a flower to hold in her hand. She was missing her flower the day I visited.

Rue de Vermont:  There's no place like home, but this was comforting.

Europe Drawings

A day in Bern; pencil and caran d'ache on paper

A day in Paris; black ink on paper

Man and Bird and HAPPY Ghost; black ink on paper

Naked Man (Bush's Whoring of America); black ink on paper

 some more please....

Switzerland

I had a wonderful adventure in Europe for the past two weeks.  Over the rest of the summer I hope to share with you some pictures and stories from my trip.  Here are a few pictures from Geneva and Bern.


Eglise Russe, also known as the Cathedrale Orthodox Russe, the Russian Orthodox Church in Geneva.

The "Broken Chair" in front of the UN stands 39 feet high; it's huge!  Made of wood by Swiss artist Daniel Berset, it symbolizes opposition to land mines and cluster bombs, and acts as a reminder to politicians and others visiting Geneva. It stands across the street from the Palace of Nations, in Geneva.

The old section of Bern on a Sunday, a good day to visit because as you can see not many people were wandering around.  In Switzerland there are public fountains like this all over the place to fill a water bottle from.  The water is delicious and cold!

Henry Moore reclining woman sculpture in front of the LES MUSÉES D'ART ET D'HISTOIRE 
IN gENEVA

Stone lion watches the Jet d'Eau

I met Alba, an architecture student from Barcelona, on the train to Bern. We had a lovely chat about the world as we passed by Lausanne.  She was on her way to Germany to visit her boyfriend and I was traveling to Bern to see the works of Paul Klee.  I couldn't help myself and had to snap a few pictures of what looked like a heavenly place.

I spent the most wonderful day at Zentrum Paul Klee.  I plan to do a post focused just on Klee, but in the meanwhile here are a couple of shots I took.  While asking for help on how to buy a ticket for the bus I met Martina, who was dressed in the clothes of my dreams.  Turns out she works in a very upscale clothing store in Lucerne.  Anyhow she decided to go to see the Klee show as well, we had a grand time even with the language barrier!

Zentrum Paul Klee was designed by Renzo Piano 

Abstraction of Klee's painting in sculpture in front of the Zentrum

Well that's all for today.  More to follow.

Hampton Beach

Some beach photos from a quick trip to Hampton Beach

Hello Birdie

Pure beach stones

Sarah and Eric came to visit, it was such a lovely time.

Miaou! - Le Roman de Renard - Ladislas Starevitch

So amazing, so amazing! Via TeenAngster

War is Over

We miss you.

Make it so!

Block 1

I visited my sister last week and was inspired by all the creative things in her studio.  Block 1 of a chaos quilt emerged.  More to follow.

Inspiration was also found during my visit with Denny and Chan.  Denny has the complete series of Selvedge textile magazine, whoa very good stuff! I looked at them until my eyes fell shut.  Start the fun.

James Ausfahrt - The Story of the Tree and the Peach

I found this video on the wonderful http://www.itsnicethat.com/ blog.  I haven't posted in a while because I have been traveling, teaching, and shopping. I've missed posting, but this little ditty was worth the wait.

Floating Upward

Up.

Cloud Reflection and Poppy Love

A beautiful sight on my walk today.   The clouds so brilliantly reflected in the water.

Which way is up, which way is down?  Does it matter?

The orange of the poppy makes me smile.  Thank you poppies, I think I love you.

Swoon.

Nick Cave

I came across the work of Nick Cave on the excellent Ignant Blog.

I want one of these outfits! Soundsuits:

Yup, this last one must come in my size.

Puppet Man Rides Again

So my sister put up a picture of  the puppet man I made her. Not long ago I came across my sketches for the puppet and that made me wonder if she still had him in her studio or if he was buried at the bottom of a craft box.  You can catch up with puppet man on her blog onefinepencil.

Here's what he looks like.  I made him a long time ago- but I have lost my timeline so I'm not sure how far back it was. Maybe Gail knows.

Cool, he has a peace sign on his arm.  Otherwise he is kind of strange looking. And I remember he was difficult to make, but for some reason it was important to me to make him.

Birthday Platypus and Carrot Cake

Last summer while Mac and I were traveling across Australia, he became obsessed with spotting a platypus.  They are, as we found out, rare to see in the wild. Yet searched we did. None were spotted so for Mac's birthday I decided to block print him a platypus.

Here is my sketch for the block:

I was inspired by Aboriginal art work similar to Clifford Possum.

I used this image as a starting point:

Mac's Blue Platypus:

I made the block from cardboard and sponge I had around.  I like how it came out. Fabric paint, pencil, colored pen.

Oh! I made a carrot cake too!  Yummie!  Happy Birthday Mac!