Fireflies on Water

This is something most people would deem 'a good title for a short story'. Or something out of a Japanese folk tale. It's close enough, it's the title Kusama gave to an installation she ingeniously put together a few years ago I came across because, a few years ago, that is, she exhibited in Madrid. Regretfully, I missed it, but I am absolutely awed by the pictures alone. I mean, wow. 150 lights over a shallow pool of water in a darkened room where the walls are covered in mirrors. Sounds simple, no? The brilliance of the idea actually is far from simple. It's simplicity is actually mind blowing, as the endless echo of images around the panorama gives way to a sense of absolute endlessness, as Yayoi Kusama provides a porthole into a different dimension we can only dream about-and she makes it tangible. I linked it into my art personal study, particulary within the exploration of blue in art, and focusing on the way blue represents the elements. Kusama could not have done a better job in depicting nature-air, water, life. It's blue all over, in spite of its colour. It shouts out 'I am alive, this is where I am, I am absolutely surrounded by magnificence.' I wonder what she'll come up with next...

The Night Circus

Having not picked up a book in...too long in August, and despairing on my trip to Paris because this meant I had nothing to read over the weekend (for those of you reading between the lines, yes, it's Sabbath), and I had to do with tatty comics at the hotel lobby, I was relieved when my brother purchased a copy of a random bestelleling novel at the airport coming back to Madrid. That, and a Time magazine to get some 'serious' update on the Syria problem (the article is pretty good, but more like a historical article rather than an opinion column or whatever. I thought Time was deeper than that...but anyway). The book he bought was 'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern (there was a Rabbi names Morgenstern where I studied in Israel this summer. HiLArious.) The front cover was intriguing enough, if not a little girly, and taking advantage of my brother's interest in Time, I started reading as soon as I pulled it out of the bag. I's five hundred pages or so long, an easy and quick read, and I must say, like Cloud Atlas, I devoured it. It's a love story in a fantastical atmosphere where magic and lve intertwine to hold our planet together in ways we can only imagine. If I had to describe the book in one word it would be: goosebumps. Because that was the word that was stuck in my brain all through the book. Goosebumps. The richness of the language had such an elegant flow to it, the metamorphosis of each character so subtle yet clear by the end of each seciton, and the beautiful colours and dense description. The world I got lost in in 'The Night Circus' was utterly luscious and delectable. It's definitely a book I'll be reading again, just to get lost in the circus' black-and-silver tepees, and see the colourful acrobats do their thing, and fall in love with Marco. No, it isn't a book that makes you think, let alone draw any insightful/deep conclusions, but it's a gorgeous read, and truly inspiring in the sophisticated way it's written.

'Why on Earth did you read 'Cloud Atlas'? No one else did.'

A legitimate question posed to me by someone regarding my Personal Statement (eek.) Why DID I read Cloud Atlas? Because we read the first two chapters in class and I found it fascinating how Mitchell could possibly link in two seemingly COMPLETELY different ideas, characters, scenarios, and actually make a novel out of it. A best selling one, mind you. It had to pose some deep and meaningful question to the reader, no? Curiosity overwhelmed me, and yes, I asked this same someone for the book and I devoured it in a matter of days. It was not the best book I ever read, it probably doesn't come in top five best either, but it was impacting. Why? Because I identified on so many different levels. So much was going on, I find a bit of every world around me: this reminded me of that and this of that and both, although completely different, are part of the same book! It's the architecture of the novel. It's utterly fantastic and brilliant and so, so sophisticated and elegant that one streams through the novel without even realizing. I fell in love with the world of the amanuensis in particular, and I fell in love with him also, just one example. Even the film isn't so bad, though the repetitions of actors for the reincarnations bothered me to the extreme. Why did I read the book? Curiosity. But like everything...

Universities in the UK are unsurprisingly obsessed with their applicants reading. Reading is great (evidently), but I truly had absolutely NO idea what to read for an architecture application. So, I did what any UK university applicant thinking about embelishing their personal statement would (probably) do; I went onto the Cambridge architecture course website and searched for recommended reads. Amongst the list, 'Body, Memory and Architecture' by Kent C. Bloomer and Charles W. Moore. My dear mother purchased a second hand edition in perfect conditions on Amazon (Yale Univesity Press). I had read the first chapter twice, but it was only today chilling at the beach that I actually grasped the essence of the book; the way in which space interacts with not only the person, but the human body, how the home is the extension of man, and every part of a home represents something human. Beautiful, no? Next is the definition of beauty. The chapter seemingly has little to do with aarchitecture, but soon goes into arguing the fact that architecture used to be considered a mere science, not an art, and only later was pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose considered beautiful. And only after THIS was the pragmatic mechanics of a building with a purpose combined with basic aesthetics to create an alteration of space which can be considered art in the eyes of everyone who encounters it. It's really well written, no joke, especially for those who think about studying the art of altring space...

Keep reading.

Having seen the Wasteland performed majestically and rather brilliantly by Fiona Shaw, I regret to say that although her expressions, her dynamism through movement and tone and her enthusiasm when relating the 23-minute poem made it infinitely easier, I still found it a poem seemingly impossible to understand. I read over it once out loud to attempt a further understanding of the complex poem and surprisingly, ideas that hadn’t occurred to me the first time I heard the poem began to bloom, for example the extended metaphor within the section ‘The Fire-Sermon’. The ‘female breasted man’, Tiresias, is something out of the ordinary, as his name suggests, a fantastical character extracted from a Greek or Roman myth or legend. He describes himself, comparing himself to a ‘taxi throbbing, waiting’, again suggesting the idea of the mechanical versus the natural, and the real versus the fantastic. His ‘waiting’ shows his desolate nature, torn between two sexes and unsure of his life’s path. In a completely pure and in no way voyeuristic, he contemplates a man ‘rudely forced’ into a woman, whose boredom is clear. One imagines how tragic it is that one who in lost in the world and who mourns his identity, contemplates the regular mortals and comes to realize that even they are unsure of their lives’ paths. This anecdote amongst so many others within ‘The Wasteland’ is a common problem: the assertion of identity and the strife to assert one’s identity by comparing oneself to others.

Perhaps the song that follows this section is part of a random stream of consciousness, which was necessary within the poem, as it is in itself the running of thoughts of the narrative voice. Or perhaps, as it comes directly after a short story about one’s assertion of identity, it is a medium through which the narrative voice asserts his personality, as music is a common way to identify oneself. The use of places shows, again, the importance of identity.

Having understood the section of ‘The Fire Sermon’ best within the poem, I believe that ‘The Wasteland’ is essentially a poem about identity, about finding oneself, through themes such as the latter, sexuality, death, relationships and time. 

Not only does the above painting have IMMENSE sentimental value for me, but it's also probably the best watercolour I've ever done (not to be inmodest or anything...) I think it was when I was three or four, my parents took a random trip to Las Vegas Nevada and they went to see the Cirque du Soleil there, bringing back with them a prospectus thing with photographs of colourful jugglers, clowns, acrobats... I fell in love with the harmonious colours and the extravagance yet elegance of the pictures, and in particular, with the front cover, which I knew that one day I would be able to draw. And I did, when I was nine or ten. I rememebr I was so proud of that drawing, it had taken me hours if not days to finish! I'm so upset I can't find it now...but anyway. My theme for my externally set assignment for my AS Level Art was 'Covert and Obscured'. To begin with, I looked at the way in which external appearance may differ from what's truly under that outfit, that makeup, that facial expression, body language... And thus, I looked at art within the circus (incidentally relating to my previous entry, using paintings from the Thyssen, including one called 'Chico in a Top Hat' and 'The Fire Eater' or 'The Fire Breather'). 'Dralion' came back to me, and I revisited my past masterpiece by painting an ode to it, in watercolour. It was extremely hard to begin, but I think it's a copy which I've most thoroughly enjoyed completing during my brief life as an avid artist (?). 

I also dedicated it to someone very special, the person who saw me within the process and who saw the final result. 'Our Dragon'.

Keep arting, good sirs and ladysirs. 

Pissarro at the Thyssen

My siblings are away, I have extremely little to do, therefore it was relatively straightforward to convince my parents to come with me to the tomporary exhibition at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid. The museum collects paintings by the impressionist Camille Pissarro in a brief but dense exhibition which I highly recommend to anyone who has the chance to see it.
I am a huge fan of impressionism. Since I can remember, there is a print of Van Gogh's 'St Petersburg' hung up in every different living room we've lived in since I was born. Thus my love for impressionism? Perhaps. Well, Pissarro reminded me a lot of Van Gogh anyway, which is odd because they had little to do with each other. Apparently, though, he and Monet were really close, and worked on sister pieces together. I would not have guessed this if it hadn't been for my Dad who rented the audioguide for the tour of the exhibition!
I realized that Pissarro had an extense love for paths and roads, which dominates most of his earlier paintings, when he painted natural landscapes. He also has an extremely modern way of painting certain things from unexpected oints of view-up in a tree, from his balcony when he was sick, from a difficult angle...This reminded me a bit of Dégas' way of capturing a scene in a photographic way, yet the latter combined with Pissarro's impressionist features beholds something extraoirdinary.