Guten Rutsch!*

Dear ladies, wishing you a "good slip"* into the new year
and may it be a happy and healthy one!!

greetings from sunny Vienna,
where you can already hear the firecrackers for days (poor doggies),
your friend Barbara

happy holidays!

I made this pop-up star following this tutorial on folding trees
It's easy to make and a nice little gift :-)

Wishing you ladies a very Merry Christmas and a Dandy New Year :)

blog link

the home for spontaneous doodle art: doodlers anonymous

busy in december, part 2

last weekend, Jasmin and I attended a screen printing workshop at a place called dasviadukt, it was great fun but also quite strenuous.

you can see a bit of Jasmin's work over here on her blog.

I did a little print of a dead bird (it died in my kitchen a few weeks ago), and a bigger one with a woman's head.

busy in december, part 1

I did a bit of decoration and an advent calendar.

still so much to do...!

Saint Lucia side note

Went to a local Swedish fair today (yummy food!) with friends and made a connection with Saint Lucia...or Saint Lucy as my (Italian) Grandmother calls her. 

Patron saint of eye sight or I guess "the light" which is much less gory than how I knew of her growing up....but I have to admit I have always been fascinated by the eye balls she holds-(ew!) 

anyway It's interesting seeing how religion/culture transforms from country to country.

DIY christmas decoration

instruction here

So Barbara what do you think? 

(new fashion line of chicken jumpers)

this is great

a sort of diary about doing things in London by Lizzy Stewart:

http://lizzystewartdiary.tumblr.com/

more autumn views

I love the tree outside my studio window, and its changes through the seasons.

so I started to take one photo per week of it.

when I have the whole year, I want to make a little movie.

(my panic: who will take pics when I'm on holidays?)

this is it in the last 3 weeks:

The american Morran

The american Morran has done things the swedish Morran never had. Like meeting hens and flying aeroplanes. Now they can share their stories with each other :))

I never said it was from Kristen!! It was so obvious for me. Sorry about that and thank you Kristen :)

this is me right now...

http://3eanuts.com/

Morran

hello ladies, you can see my submission for Camilla's Morran-book on my blog

autumnal views

went to the south of austria over the weekend – this is what I saw from the train:

leuke post voor Morran

You recognise them? They miss Morran a bit.

done

Jasmin made me send my contributions to Camilla.

here's one:

have a great weekend / allerheiligen / halloween etc!

(I'll be away until wednesday)

;)

She's finished and sent in....if you do something for the book can you post here so I can see too :)

briefwisseling

The photo is a reference to the project I'm working on in the museum (http://www.huisvanalijn.be/). It will be about correspondance/mail/leule post etc, yes yes!! I'm breaking my head for a good title. 'Briefwisseling' says it all in Dutch ( but I'm not sure); the project is about sending and receiving messages and the change of perception we experience right now. The tactile letter versus the intangible sms or tweet. The private space of the letter and the open space of internet, the slow ritual of writing and sending a paper letter and the quick mail or sms....and so on and so on. The project won't give an opinion but just wonders at all those changes of meaning.
I've have invited four artists who will reflect on these items all in a different way.
BUT I also like to start a correspondance. The museum will write letters to peole who are invited too respond on the questions I mentioned. I want to fill the INBOX in the museum. All the letters or messages will be shown in the exhibitions space.

What do you think do you want to participate???

It's a beautifull sunny sunday and I will be spending some time in the sun. I'll take my camera.......I have an idea for the 'Morran project'!!

xx

Wondering what Angela would do with this tomato?

Morran book

Hello, lovely ladies! If you have the time - please do a picture to the Morran book! It doesn't have to be a portrait, as long as the mainsubject IS Morran (like yourself thinking or Morran... ...Morran text...something that Morran would like and so on). Here is a little more information.

Is anyone else going to send Camilla something for her Morran book??

"What birds do when we aren't looking" by Marc Johns

http://www.marcjohns.com/blog/2011/10/what-birds-do-when-we-arent-looking.html

spectacular graffiti by ROA

there is a really big and beautiful new graffiti in vienna,

and Jasmin and I went to see it this afternoon.

behind the door she found a hidden rabbit head + skull.

it is by the belgian artist ROA, you can see more of his work here: http://roaweb.tumblr.com/

- Thinking of You

thought I would change my lack of posts by adding this one. It's a very rainy day here and I'm thinking of you :)

part of my day

Hello Knutselers I hope you are all fine. I know some of you have been travelling.

I went to the studio for the last time, cleaning up a little bit after myself, saying goodbye. I picked these on my way back home. Then I forgot about photographing the rest ;))

Morran illustration book.

And again...

Here are a few more shots of the Gehry building in Cambridge. This time I took them from my bicycle, so I was able to stop. No risk taking involved!

Below that is a not-very good picture of a Rothko painting I took last December at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I thought I wouldn't like his black paintings, but it turns out they are surprisingly likable (which you can't tell from this picture!).

Have a great weekend everyone!

For Barbara

Barbara, you are right that there is a sad lack of posts! To make it up to you, yesterday I took this picture of the Frank Gehry building that I see on my way home from work. I think it's not bad to be in if you have a fear of heights, but I heard it's hard for the people who work in there to find a place to put their books and desks. Not only that, it's been known to leak. This is the Stata Center at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

I had to take this from a moving car, which I was also driving, so I didn't get the shot I wanted. I should wait till tonight, when I'll be on my bike and I can stop and do better, but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer!

I'm back

dear friends I'm back from the Basque coast and first I have to say:

WHAT, NO NEW POSTS?

where is everyone?

(there are still some "day in life"-reports missing...!)

I spend 3 days in the city of Bilbao, and 10 days in San Sebastian, both in the north of Spain. the weather wasn't great (it rained for about a week and the rest of the time was mostly cloudy) but the two cities were so fine, I hardly noticed my constantly wet clothes and the cold I caught.

apart from Gene Kelly style singing and dancing in the rain, and trips to the beach (San Sebastian has 3 of them!), I also visited a few museums - so I'll give you a little report...

Bilbao is famous for the Guggenheim, but it also has the Museo de Bellas Artes, a fine museum with lots of spanish work by artists like Zuloaga, Goya, Murillo, Chillida, Tapies, and some international ones.

from October 10th, the museum will also show a selection of Antonio Lopez's work, which I would have loved to see.

the Bilbao Guggenheim of course is a landmark and has a fine collection as well.

the architect mr. gehry did everything he could to make it very difficult for people with a fear of heights like me, but I tried not to be too much of a sissy and made it to the Rothko (one of my favorite artists) on the top floor...

my favorite piece however was Richard Serra's "the matter of time", an installation of 7 giant steel sculptures you can walk through.

in Getaria, a town near San Sebastian, I visited the brand new Cristobal Balenciaga museum, another excample of challenging architecture (...), which shows the work and life of the fashion designer. very stylish!

San Sebastian has the San Telmo Museoa, and the "Kursaal", a place for culture and arts, which also is the headquarter of the annual international film festival, had a small selection of work by Marc Chagall, which, I hate to say, is not really my cup of tea - but I don't know anything about his life and the stories he was telling in his paintings - so please forgive me!

(pics: Serra's sculptures at the Guggenheim, me in front of the San Telmo Museum, Chillida's "Wind Comb" in San Sebastian)

I hope you're all having a great autumn!

love, Barbara

ps: HAPPY belated BIRTHDAY, Camilla!!

the idea of a Morran portrait book is so wonderful, and if you want me, I would love to contribute - and all the other girls from the knutselclub would too, I'm sure!