Some works by Carmen Anzano

Another artist whose work I was quite attracted to:

"According to our data, Carmen Anzano is a contemporary artist. Carmen Anzano is a spanish female artist born in Barcelona (ES) in 1960.

Carmen Anzano’s first verified exhibition was Carmen Anzano at Galeria Juan Silió in Santander in 1993, and the most recent exhibition was Terra / Aqua at Museo de Arte Moderno y Contemporáneo de Santander (MAS) in Santanderin 2020. Carmen Anzano is most frequently exhibited in Spain, but also had exhibitions in Italy, Morocco. Anzano has at least two solo shows and 9 group shows over the last 27 years (for more information, see biography). Anzano has also been in no less than two art fairs but in no biennials. A notable show was Imago Mundi. Luciano Benetton Collection. "

What an amazing statue!

The photo and comments came up on FB by someone called "Emma"

 "Don't know why this hasn't received more publicity, but this fifty-foot sculpture was unveiled recently in South Dakota.

It's called 'Dignity' and was done by artist Dale Lamphere to honor the women of the Sioux Nation."

And this from Wiki if you want more information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dignity_(statue)

More photos from the Lunar New Year parade

 So many wonderful entries.

                                           It wouldn't be a parade without the bagpipes.

Looks like an interesting read

 Behind the Crown: My Life Photographing the Royal Family Hardcover by Arthur Edwards

304 pages / Hardcover Order Here Now: http://bit.ly/3H9gcLm

A breathtaking collection of photographs capturing the modern British monarchy as never before seen, taken by the Royal photographer for the The Sun (UK) who has covered them for nearly half a century.

“For 45 years I’ve chronicled the Royal Family for the Sun newspaper with my camera. I’ve witnessed their triumphs and disasters, their laughter and tears, when they’ve found love and when their relationships splinter. I’m there when they emerge from the maternity wing as wailing newborns and I’m there again when they marry before a joyous nation. And when they’re laid to rest on those solemn occasions that this country marks so well, I’m on hand to capture history being made.”

Arthur Edwards has been The Sun’s (UK) Royal Photographer for over 45 years; the longest serving of any newspaper. Originally from the East End of London, he is the man behind the most iconic photographs of the most famous family in the world. With commensurate skill and unprecedented access, he has captured the candid moments when protocol is put aside, revealing the true personalities behind the Crown.

This beautiful book is a treasure trove of glorious photography, along with Arthur’s own warm recollections of the stories behind his iconic shots. It is the perfect glimpse behind the scenes of the last 50 years of the British monarchy, from a truly unique perspective.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Pinatas in Mexico

Pinatas are such fun. What a wonderful tradition.

 El Castillo de las Piñatas

A traditional part of Mexican culture for centuries, piñatas have become a reliable indicator of popular cultural trends. Over the past few decades, piñata makers have slowly drifted from traditional forms in favor of cardboard representations of characters from movie franchises or cartoon series. To avoid copyright infringement, they are never exact replicas. As pop culture trends increasingly move online, memes, emojis, TV series and gaming-related characters, and even tech companies have inspired piñata makers to keep up with the times. These new designs have transformed the piñatas’ religious symbolism into objects that represent modern global culture, and are being used not only for collective celebrations, but also as individual markers for background décor in social media videos. In the process, they’ve helped a centuries-old tradition of craftsmanship survive.

Eiffel tower replicas

I've had a love affair with the Eiffel Tower in Paris since I saw it on our first trip to Europe in 1971. I didn't realize there were so many replicas around the world until I read this article. I get daily pleasure from seeing one of our table lamps that has an Eiffel tower base. 

The largest replica (165 meters), which is also the most known, is that of Las Vegas. Two American cities named “Paris”, in Texas and in Tennessee, also have their replicas of the Iron Lady.

I love this one in Paris, Texas.

http://blog.lodgis.com/en/top-10-eiffel-tower-replicas-in-the-world/

Now this would be a fun car to have

We've never been very interested in cars...just something reliable is fine by us but I could see buying this one if I had money to spare.

" Following last year’s event where the carmaker unveiled its colour-shifting iX Flow, the i Vision Dee is a medium-sized sedan, and enables its owner to either switch between - or combine - 32 different colours. It will be on the market for consumers from 2025."

Yep....don't mess with librarian for sure

 

Many thanks again to Richard

 Richard came and did many things for us yesterday.  We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful son.

Yesterday's fun

I am being ironic. I began the day with a dentist appointment and that meant four hours without drinking anything since I had a flouride treatment. I guess it isn't surprising that I felt an immense thirst for a nice long cold glass of water. I wrote this blog yesterday so at the time of writing I have one and a half more hours to go.  A walk seemed like a good idea but it is raining quite hard.

Jim is cleaning up the basement and finding some useful items.

When I went to post this for tomorrow I see it's Friday, the 13th. I had some vague recollection that the number 13 was lucky and unlucky in France. I decided to google that and brought this up:

"France: 13 was traditionally considered a lucky number in France prior to the First World War, and was used in numerical form as a good luck symbol on postcards and charms."

I couldn't really find why it became unlucky after the First World War. I didn't look too hard.

Loved the Elvis Presley special

 This was on Sunday. He is still "The King" for me. He gave a great performance and I loved that he took the time to kiss lots of adoring ladies.

Old friends...

 We had a lovely time with Liz yesterday. We so appreciate her friendship and it's great to be a few minutes away.

Thanks, Liz.

Table tennis

Yesterday we went to Brock House to play table tennis. The people who participate are very nice and we are all pretty much at the same level. This makes it fun for everyone. Jim and I seem to have maintained the level we were at when we played years ago.

Movie we watched the other day

 " From Wiki:

I Know Where I'm Going! is a 1945 romance film by the British-based filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey, and features Pamela Brown and Finlay Currie."

We enjoyed this movie and especially loved all the scenery of Scotland. It brought back lots of memories.

 

Loved the colours and simplicity of this painting

 

Jess Ackerman

Noshin' on 'Em, 2022

Acrylic and gouache on canvas

24 × 30 in | 61 × 76.2 cm

Includes a 

US$1,400

A lovely visit with old friends

 Stan and Nicki came for tea yesterday and we all had a wonderful time.

Great to see you guys and look forward to heading out your way with Brian and Susan.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Richard

 Richard spent several hours yesterday getting getting all sorts of important things organized for us. 

We are blessed to have such a wonderful son. 

What a cool present for booklovers!

 From FB:

The origin of nachos...who knew?

We haven't had nachos for quite a while. This photo is making me hungry for them.

From: "Interesting Facts"

" The origins of nachos can be traced back to the border town of Piedra Negas, Texas, where the dish was invented in the early 1940s in a frantic effort to please customers. Ignacio Anaya, who went by the nickname Nacho, was the maître d’hôtel of the Victory Club when a group of women arrived at the eatery outside of business hours, after the cooks had gone home. Not wanting the customers to leave, Anaya ran to the kitchen and gathered up a few ingredients that he had lying around — fried tortilla chips, colby cheese, and jalapeños — which he combined and baked until the cheese melted. The diners loved the concoction and requested seconds, so the restaurant added it to the menu. Capitalizing on the local success of his new snack food, Anaya even went on to open his own restaurant. 

It would be an entirely different person who popularized nachos on a national level, however. Frank Liberto took Anaya’s concept and changed the delivery process so that the cheese “sauce” didn’t need to be refrigerated. Liberto’s version of nachos was introduced at a Texas Rangers game in 1976, and today nachos are a staple at sporting arenas across the country."

A lovely visit with Richard yesterday

 And he helped us with many things.

Thanks so much.  You are a wonderful son.

New Year's Day

 The beginning of the new year is starting very quietly. We heard no revellers last night. So glad not to see snow so everyone can get around easily.

Happy New Year!

 To all my blog readers. Recent years have been "interesting" in good and bad ways. Let's hope this year brings more good than bad for all folks around the world.

Some photos from our Boxing Day dinner....thanks Naomi and Ray and Grace and Richard!

 

A wonderful Boxing Day dinner

 Ray cooked a wonderful Prime Rib for us all. We started with shrimp cocktail (one of my very favourite things) and ended up with a pumpkin pie Grace cooked.  It was great being with Richard and Grace and Ray and Naomi. 

Thanks so much!

So nice to have all the snow gone

 We're having our Christmas dinner today with the family at Ray and Naomi's. Ray is doing his famous prime rib. I'm glad we don't have to battle weather conditions. 

Merry Christmas to all

From 2008...

Snug as bugs...Susan and Alan's cats.

https://janicesextonart.blogspot.com/2008/12/susan-and-alans-new-cats.html

Glad to be able to get some shopping done

 We will at least have food in the house.

Jim did venture out

 We needed to water the plants at Liz's place. Toni across the street drove him over. What a great neighbour!

Sitting by the fire

 That was just about all we did yesterday. We hope to venture out today.

A sunny day and the snow has stopped

 Well, a bit of respite today but wonder if it's safe to drive. We still have an awful lot of snow on the roads around us.

We are completely snowed in now

 I would love to have this all disappear but we do still have power and we have a fair amount of food. We have our candles and flashlights ready. I'm sorry for the folks stuck in airports and other places. I hope the homeless have been housed.

Watching the snow fall Sunday.....

Makes me think of the Blizzard of '96 in Victoria when it wasn't really predicted but we got completely snowed in. 

And another lovely visit...

 ...with Richard. Great to see him!

A lovely visit

We had a lovely visit with John and Carol yesterday. So nice to see them.

Good on New Zealand

This seems like a pretty innovative way to stop people smoking. I hope it works!

" New Zealand has passed into law a unique plan to phase out tobacco smoking for the next generation by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes.

The law states that tobacco can't ever be sold to anybody born on or after January 1, 2009 - and from now on, the minimum age for buying cigarettes will keep going up and up. 

In theory, somebody trying to buy a pack of cigarettes 50 years from now would need ID to show they were at least 63 years old. But health authorities hope smoking will fade away well before then. They have a stated goal of making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025."

The French baguette

' UNESCO has just made the French baguette part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of humanity, and the French delegation is wildin out there.'

We have had many wonderful baguettes in our time in France. In our first trip to France we were surprised that households bought bread in the morning for breakfast then fresh bread again for the evening meal.You really did need to do that as there weren't any preservatives.Local bakers got up early to make the morning loaves.Things have changed but our wonderful little village of Carqueiranne had 5 bakeries.I'm sure that has changed too.

Italian Christmas decorations

 Who couldn't love these?  Being sold as part of Modernism Week in Palm Springs.

Fioccodineve e Uffoguffo, Delightful Italian Christmas Baubles To Cheer Up Your Holiday Decor

We love Italian designers, and particularly love almost anything that Alessi produces.  No longer available through Alessi, they did have these adorable Christmas baubles in stock last year, but not now.  These are hand decorated, dimensions are 2.36 x 2.36 x 2.36 inches. They are hand painted on an internally mirrored glass base to give the decoration an effect of luminosity and depth. 

 

Fioccodineve e Uffoguffo were designed by Marcello Jori, who was born in 1951. He currently lives and works in Bologna. Having obtained his degree from DAMS (Drama, Art and Music Studies, Bologna), in 1977 Jori embarked on his career as an artist, exhibiting in national and foreign galleries and museums.

A wonderful library in Finland

Jim and I both love libraries and have visited many in our travels. Only the really famous ones are in the travel guidebooks but we find almost any library interesting. 

 

Oodi Library provides a radical and increasingly rare service: a free and egalitarian public space. Credit: Kuvio

Two steel arches span over 100 meters to create a fully enclosed, column-free public entrance space; the timber facade is clad with 33-millimeter-thick Finnish spruce planks. There are all manner of curious, Alice in Wonderland-esque places to sit — or indeed, lie down — while leafing through a book.

Among the vast number of amenities, what caught Johansen’s attention were the library’s 3D printers, laser cutters and equipment to digitally sculpt wood. But over time, he realized that there was a more radical and increasingly rare service that the library provides: a free and egalitarian public space.

“Students can sit and study and just hang out,” he explains. “Or you can have your kid walking around, playing around. I always spend time there with my daughter. It’s more of a cultural space. You don’t need to consume anything.”

Lucky New Yorkers

I would love to see this exhibition.

" The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York revealed it will hold a landmark exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh next year focused on the sinuous cypresses that dominated the Dutch artist’s compositions in the last years of his life in the South of France, from his first sightings of them at Arles to works he made at the asylum at Saint Rémy.

The major exhibition—which will be on view from 22 May until 27 August 2023—is one of several shows worldwide commemorating the 170th anniversary of Van Gogh’s birth next year, but the first ever to closely examine the distinctive trees that became emblematic motifs of his work.

The cypresses are the “most famous trees in art history”, which Van Gogh captured with “fierce power and expression, painting them in such a distinct manner”, the Met’s director Max Hollein said in a press conference today (6 December)."

A violin made of chocolate

 

This was on FB. It didn't say if it was playable or not. It looks like it is.

Who would have thought...Internet via your glass windows

I seem to think "Who would have thought" a lot these days with so many technological developments. When I first started using a 300 Baud modem to connect to the world I would have laughed at a wireless signal powered by my glass windows.  

By Camille Bello  •  Updated: 07/12/2022 - 18:33

Windows are fast becoming portals into the future.

Scientists in Switzerland are already paving the way for electricity-generating windows that could help power our homes and devices. But now researchers in Saudi Arabia have developed a technology capable of transmitting a wireless Internet signal powered by the Sun through specialised glass.

"I hope that [in future] smart modern office buildings with gigantic glass windows will work with the Internet based on this technology," Professor Osama Amin, lead researcher on the project at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, told Euronews Next. 

So nice to see Richard yesterday

 Richard came over and did all sorts of technical stuff for us. Thanks so much!

Paddling down the Seine

This would have been quite something to see.

" Organized by Nautic Festival SA for the Nautic Paris Boat Show, the 12nd Nautic Paddle is scheduled on December 4th. 

 

The race will take place in Paris, with an exceptional setting on the Seine River between the National Library of France (Bibliothèque Nationale de France) and the port Javel Bas. 1000 riders, consisting of professionals and amateurs alike, are expected to be in attendance for the competition. 

 

Reminder: since 2018, 14' boards are allowed to compete."

Virtual travel thanks to the folks at Brock House

 I really enjoy these presentations and especially now when we aren't doing any travelling. I hope that will change before too long.

Welcome to Brock House's Monday Morning Travel Series.

This Monday (Dec 5): Rio de la Plata: On the South Side, Argentina’s Buenos Aires and on the North Side, Uruguay. Two side trips to the Seaside City of Mar del Plata and Argentina’s NE Province of Misiones. with Stuart Miles

Next Monday (Dec 12): Hiking and Sightseeing on the Sorrento Peninsula with Dorothy Glover 

People make art from the most amazing things

 By Remy Tumin Nov. 17, 2022

Thomas McKean has noticed a number of things New Yorkers don’t do anymore: leaving business cards on windshields, using plastic “Thank You” bags and hailing yellow cabs. Soon, Mr. McKean, an artist, will add another ubiquitous piece of New York history to that list: swiping MetroCards to ride the subway or bus.For more than 20 years, Mr. McKean has used MetroCards, along with gloves, business cards and other found objects, to make art. Using small scissors and glue, Mr. McKean cuts, stacks and arranges the thin plastic cards into yellow taxis, New York City streetscapes, abstract designs, miniature buildings and, of course, reconstituted MetroCards.“I was amazed how, from this one little flimsy piece of material, there really is a universe,” he said. Mr. McKean declined to give his age but said he was born in New York City and has lived in the East Village for more than 30 years.

Lunch at The Sylvia Sunday

 It was a lovely sunny afternoon and we enjoyed our lunch and the view as usual. Then back to sitting by the fire. 

Love these murals

I'm sure these murals are going to make travelling and all the hassles more fun. 

"A series of enormous mosaic murals by Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith, first announced in October, have been revealed inside the new Grand Central Madison train terminal, which opens to the public later this month in Manhattan. The glass mosaics are the main public art attractions in the terminal, which is part of an $11bn project to connect the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to Grand Central Terminal that stretches between 43rd and 48th streets along Madison Avenue."

A lovely afternoon with Bev

 Yesterday, Bev came over for tea. She was a neighbour when we lived at McKenzie House on Toronto Road and Western Parkway. Her father was Hal Strait and we had fun talking about old Vancouver times. She mentioned "The Betas" (the frat across the street) have been making a lot of noise during the pandemic so we're glad not to be there anymore.

Sitting by the fire enjoying the quiet.

Heygo Tours

 I've been enjoying these tours and you can get "postcards". Well, I managed to get one. Perhaps I'll get more next time.

1. The Magical Jewish Town of Prague and its Fascinating History

Thu, 1 Dec 2022

•

1 postcard

•

Leonard Cohen

Last night we saw a great program on Cohen by someone called Nick Broomfield. It's been a long time since we've listened to his music. 

We'll have to fix that!