CELEBRATIONS START: AFRICA IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Posted in africa, handmade January 18th, 2008 by piablog

Before I get on my self-indulgent week of celebrations, I implore you to ALL to head over to Beverly’s Afropolitan blog. This morning she has posted about a guy who has just filled my heart with hope, it is overflowing actually, and all because he created a windmill from backyard scraps! THIS is what I call handmade, what a champion – this guy is our future!! And he has not even half of the wealth of one of us. I am jumping out of my skin with excitement and inspiration and I just had to share it with you. Go and take a look at the video, post a comment, and while you are there, read the article called “Africans to Bono: ‘For God’s sake please stop!'” from The American. BRILLIANT article. IMISO!

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image courtesy of Bob Sherman.

in the meantime…
Posted in photographers, quotes January 18th, 2008 by piablog

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While you guys hunt and gather your ideas for my heart wanders, i have some fabulous inspiration for you in the coming week. And when I say fabulous I mean FABULOUS!
I’ve been busy contacting some of my favourite artists from all over the world in my stylist’s little black book. And being the lovely people they are, they’ve been obliging by sending me some rather exclusive pics of their latest projects. Oh it’s been killing me not to share immediately, but this blogging does take time! So what have i got up my sleeve?

  • An INCREDIBLE African design delight, I nearly fell off my little bird perch when I was sent this work.
  • A floral sculptor to the stars! This woman has been one of my biggest inspirations ever since (absolute hunk of a) photographer Anson Smart introduced me to her at their joint exhibition a few years ago. I’m sorry did I just say something?
    I cannot wait to share with you some of her latest work.
  • In the kitchen will be some sweet recipes on a rather exclusive menu designed by a rather talented soul that I can’t wait to introduce you to.
  • And starting from tomorrow, it will be one week-long party here in the (blog)house! Want to know why? Demain, à demain!!
  • I will leave you with this trés fabu quote found on Anson’s website to get your little hearts into action. Please continue to spread the word on the project – the more people involved the more spectacular this project will become…

    “you can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus”

    Mark Twain

    My Heart Wanders: Q & A
    Posted in handmade, my heart wanders January 17th, 2008 by piablog

    2189312950_c84bddc96b.jpgfrom 3 continent family – beautiful setting: evocative and simple, a perfect place for a little wandering heart…

    I am so thrilled with your responses with this project, and I’ve been having a little stroll through all your blogs and I could not be any more excited about the talent out there! Oh you all have so much creative ability, I’m speechless at the thought of how beautiful this book can be. Here are your questions answered and don’t hesitate to ask more – this beginning stage is all about discussing the idea and getting your creativity flowing. Just like a pre-production meeting, we can communicate our ideas and get the look, style, feel and concept in our minds and then we will get to work!

    With my introduction of the idea yesterday, the first part of the creative process is that you start to think about heart shapes and start to see them out and about – either in your minds eye or in spaces and settings around you. This is vital to the creative process as it will guide you into your own direction.

    At this stage here are your first questions answered:

    1. I will not set a deadline yet as you need a little time to get your ideas flowing. We want this to be as beautiful as possible, it is not going to be a spit-it-out project: this is a real production with a real result, it will be treated with professional hands. BUT there will be a deadline set at my discretion when I see you are ready. I will give plenty of notice.

    2. Your heart shaped object must be placed inside a setting – a table setting, a floor setting, a room setting and so on. It must be ‘seen but not heard’. In other words, I want the image to contain your object but not be too loud in the image – not be screaming out saying ‘look at me look at me!’. It will be subtle. Why? Because I want readers to be drawn INTO the image. I have found a few images of room settings amongst you that I love, and this will give you an idea of what direction to head into.

    3. The images you submit must be hi-resolution JPEG or TIFF images, 300 dpi, appx 2,400 pixels x 3,000 pixels which is appx 8″ by 10″ – if this is not possible then let me know but we must aim for the best quality for the images to be of publication standards. If you simply do not have a camera that is good enough then perhaps your image can be smaller in the book but it will not be one of the features. Remember you can ask a friend who has a better camera to help you take the shot. This is a collaborative project so collaborate away!

    4. Send your images to this address: myheartwanders@gmail.com
    Make sure you state clearly your name, your contact details, and a brief description of your work and your image. If you have a little story or poem or some text to compliment your image that would be great.

    5. ALL LANGUAGES WILL BE ACCEPTED FOR TEXT, so if your mother tongue is not english that is absolutely fine and is even more welcomed!! It will be the diversity of this project that will make it special. And we all know how much we LOVE fonts and other languages. Please translate your work if possible into english so that I know what it means!

    Here are another two spaces I found that might help you to think about where you might like to place your heart shape. These images are from Livvia’s beautiful blog – a great source of photographic inspiration for ‘my heart wanders’…

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    Can you imagine seeing a little heart shaped object in here somewhere?

    I’ve enjoyed going through your flickr sets too everyone, there is loads of inspiration amongst you and I will post a few shots here and there in this beginning stage to help other participants with their own work.

    CALLING ALL TO THE ARTIST STUDIO…
    Posted in handmade, my heart wanders January 16th, 2008 by piablog

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    image from the Underwood Photo Archives

    I have a rather special announcement to make!

    If you’ve wandered the rooms of the (blog)house you may have noticed that one room seems, well, a little empty, be that my Artist Studio (apologies for the funny language, I’m currently reading Robinson Crusoe be that written by such one Daniel Defoe who writes in the tongue of the 17th century man, viz. almost unreadable English).

    So although the Artist Studio has been a little vacant, it is only because I have been busy writing and planning my next art project and I am very pleased to reveal that it will be collective and it involves ALL OF YOU. So now, I invite you to come for a little wander with me as I pour my heart out and tell all…

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    Image by Clarence S. Bull c. 1925, from the Underwood Photo Archives

    (Click here to read more…)

    Tomorrow.
    Posted in photographers January 16th, 2008 by piablog

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    I found this brilliant photograph amongst Mr. Peterson’s collection on flickr. It was shot in 2006 in Kenya. This is a beautiful image to remind us all that the Kenyan people are still in crisis and need the support of us, the international community. So how can we help at this stage? Just talk about it, mention it amongst your friends, be aware of what is going on and be supportive.

    This stunning image also leads me perfectly into the collective project that I am about to launch here tomorrow. See if you can guess what it might be as I put the finishing touches on it, I’d love to hear what you think it could be (I think I’ve unwittingly lead you off the track!). I am rather excited by this project, I LOVE collaborating and I think we are really going to have fun with this. See you tomorrow!