Dear Bogger, the end is nigh. I will be signing off to concentrate on earning money. My conscience will not allow me to complete registration. Blogging has been enjoyable, but I also keep a diary, so the blog experience won't be missed that much. Thanks to all contributors. Here's wishing you top marks, yours blogfully,
Patricia.X
Personal Blogs
Bye For Now
So What?!
Features, stories and poems are enough. Whilst studying for an M.A. Art History there would not have been enough time for journalism and comps. I've sent one proposal for an illustrated feature this week and another's almost ready. I've also been working on two short stories and two poems. Had coffee with friends yesterday. Maybe I'll do the M.A. Art Hist. later - when I'm rich.
4am
Poetry. Sent the list poem to W.N. comp. Plan to edit 'Alhambra', continue with a narrative poem for the National Poetry Competition. Also hope to edit a short story before eating with friends today.
Limbo
Shall I or shan't I? I must know by tomorrow. An M.A. only takes two years to complete. I've enjoyed reading about Raphael and David haven't I? The course book interesting, and absurd has given me ideas for essay and dissertation. I haven't got any family or employment committments.
I cook, walk, read, everyday, socialize occasionally, so there's time to study isn't there?
New blog post
I sent a poem of forty lines to Mslexia Poetry Competition, and two poems to the editor of Evergreen Magazine yesterday. I'm very pleased with the interloan library service but furious with my computer which keeps sticking on certain commands such as Italics and Bold, and sending me spam that I can't delete. As if that is not bad enough, the keyboard V is wonky so I've requested a visit from an IT consultant and he plans to come this afternoon.
Meanwhile, I've a story to edit and send to Writing Mag.
The National Poetry Prize is open for entries. Last year's winner was a marvellous stream of consciousness poem about a flower. My entry for this year's comp. begun this morning is about people and places.
Raphael Sanzio (1483-1620 )
Vasari's account of Raphael ( Penguin Classics ) and his art is personal compared with later critics and art historians.
'Eventually Raphael's father', a painter, placed his son with Pietro Perugino, 'not without many tears from his mother'. ... 'Raphael imitated his work so exactly' ... 'that it was impossible to tell the difference between the copies he made and his master's originals.' Did Vasari know Raphael intimately? According to him Raphael, gradually, developed his own way of painting which, it seemed to his critic was 'utterly realistic and' 'inexpressibly beautiful'.
It had never occurred to me that Raphael's portrait of Baldassare Castiglioni, ( c.1514 ) according to V., was influenced by the Mona Lisa, ( c.1504-6 ). If that was so and it seems likely because Raph., apparently, went to Florence after his apprenticeship and met Leonardo and Michaelangelo. Titian's Man With A Blue Sleeve (c.1509) might also have been influenced by Leonardo, given the dates.
Peter and Linda Murray's Dictionary of Art and Artists gives an account of Raphael. Have not read Gian Pietro Bellori on Italian Renaissance art yet.
Refs;
1) Penguin Classics, P. and L. Murray, Dictionary of Art and Artists
2) Penguin Classics, Vasari, trans. Bull, Lives of the Artists Volume 1
Wednesday 4th June is LIBRARY VAN day.
Panic!
The voice on the radio at seven fifteen this evening, I had been looking forward to hearing all afternoon was that of a gruff old swinger. Please come back Tom Sutcliffe! I'll never fall asleep during one of your progs. ever again!
Blogella Gintrap: Welcome to the show Bloggard.
Bloggard Blogall: Pleasure to be here Ella.
B.G. This is the first time we've spoken since you released your last blog isn't it?
B.B. 'Unbloggable You'. Yeah. That was a blogifficent, bloggingfull event wasn't it?
etc.
Ref; universallystudentinterviews.co.uk
'When We're Dancing'
Sent my list poem ( c.f.n.) to the Writers' News Competition yesterday. Today I read it to a group of friends and there was a burst of laughter after the final line. I assumed that they were amused by the poem, but they may have been embarrassed, or hysterical with relief.
After reading a story to the Scriptores last Monday I decided to emphasize the climax. Originally, after being assaulted by a rival whilst dancing the heroine rushes into the arms of her date who is just arriving. Now she falls to the floor during the assault and is rescued by the manager when the lights go up and the music stops. He accompanies her to the bar where the farmer she dated is clad in muddy boots and a stained overcoat waiting for the uproar to subside.
The heroine now has to wait, after the brutality, for the hero's embrace; a more satisfying ending I trow.
I read a story by Ruth Rendell last night about a man and woman who are holidaying in Africa whilst attempting to revive their marriage. The jungle made an interesting setting. There were some spooky moments and an exciting climax but after a subtle reversal the ending seemed weak to me.
Who is M C Chapman B.A.?
Two letters from the OU arrived this morning addressed to M.C. Chapman.
We were discussing Homer at the Writers' Group but not Chapman's version. I was the M.C. if that has any bearing on the subject.
Now for Something Completely Different
Discover Your History June 2014 is the last paper version . Subsequently, the magazine will only appear online and I'm very, very disappointed as the feature I wrote about our village chapel will not be available for elderly friends, who haven't got computers, to read.
Experiment
No amount of tweaking a dull story is going to make it more exciting I decided and set about dismantling the structure. The end is now the beginning and the beginning the middle. The narration was 1st person, present but now the protagonist tells the back story using the past tense and the present is reserved for what is actually happening. In this way greater tension is created.
Summary of original plot;
Woman invited to dance incurs vicious wrath of rival and rushes from the ballroom into the arms of the man she had been waiting for all evening. They had met online exchanging emails, no photos. He dressed in working gear having just delivered a calf, introduces himself but she does not reveal her identity. She goes home alone trusting that he'll continue corresponding and ask her for another date.
2nd Draft
They meet outside the Corn Hall and he erupts when she tells him her name. As they get to know each other during the course of the evening she tells the back story and they finish up dancing cheek to cheek.
The second version comparing then and now allows the most important relationship to develop in relief as it were against the raffish back story and there is a satisfying climax.
Publication Imminent
One of my features is due for publication in June/July and another is scheduled for October. Meantime I have been writing a poem and editing a story. Yesterday I trailed ( sometimes this blog reminds me of 'News' I used to write at the Wesleyan Infants School ) into the next village via the barley fields.
On the way back I found a nest on the path. It was about the same circumference as a coffee cup lined with white down of some sort, and at first I thought that was what it was. After picking it up and seeing the twigs on the outside, I climbed into a hedge, and placed it on a branch next to the trunk of an oak tree, thinking the while that the bird who built it had probably taken a mortgage out on somewhere more substantial.
Mobile Library
Birds scattered, as I opened the door, and I galloped in slippers, waving my toothbrush, across the lawn.
"Stop! Stop!" I yelled but he did not hear. It'll be another month before the van comes here again so I can change my books.
Must take this opportunity to praise BBC Radio Four's production of Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles. The episode that was broadcast last Sunday afternoon had me enraptured. Will the aristocratic Cambridge student and the doctor's daughter, overcome the heartless opposition to their romance? I can hardly wait for next week's episode.
List Poem
That Explains It
I went to the doctor. He x-rayed my head.
He stared for a moment and here's what he said.
"It looks like you've got a banana in there,
an apple, an orange, a peach, and a pear.
I also see something that looks like a shoe,
a plate of spaghetti, a bottle of glue,
an airplane, an arrow, a barrel, a chair,
a salmon, a camera, some old underwear,
a penny, a pickle, a pencil, a pen,
a hairy canary, a hammer, a hen,
a whistle, a thistle, a missile, a duck,
an icicle, bicycle, tricycle, truck.
With all of the junk that you've got in your head
it's kind of amazing you got out of bed.
The good news, at least, is you shouldn't feel pain.
From what I can see here you don't have a brain."
Anonymous ( Wikipedia )
Tee hee!
Started a list poem of my own for a Writers' News Competition
M.A. Art History
I received an email from admin. stating that my quals. are okay. Now all I have to do is pay. Sent my entry for the Bridport Prize, a heartfelt poem of thirty six lines about an injured bird. Invited to a surprise party. The birthday girl will be ninety years of age and she likes shopping in M&S. So, I plan to attend the party with a voucher for her.
Yesterday bought my course book; Anne D'Alleva, Methods and Theories of Art History, Laurence King Publishing. I've read two and a half chapters. Thought provoking questions are printed at the end of each section and titles for further reading which I'm sure will be useful not only for the TMA, but also the dissertation.
Divertimento;
Goofy ( friend of Micky Mouse ) shoots heavenward holding the stick of a firework rocket he just lit.
Goofy ( with Hollywood drawl ) "Dunno no where am goin' - but am on my way,"
P.S. Those words of his, admirably, express my feelings on preparing for the Art Hist. M.A. Don't demand the reference for the above extract. I was about six when I first read the book, which is no longer in my possession.
Ooh!
I stopped in surprise on seeing a blackbird with white feathers on the neck the other day. On my way home from the shop today I met a couple of birdwatchers. We stopped for a chat and one of them said that the bird I described was probably a ring ouzel.
'Skilled in dragon management and virgin reclamation' ( U.A. Fanthorpe ). I have been reading about Saint George because he is, iconographically, to art what the golly was to Robertson's Marmalade. Finished Alpers's The Art of Describing, Dutch art in the seventeen century. I'd like to read a book that is less about what artists might have meant and more about what they did. The facts, m'aam, are more interesting than theory. By that I mean, I want to know about the commission, the materials, tools used and the way in which they went about composing and painting or sculpting. Did they hack or splat away freehand or do preliminary drawing?
I have ordered a copy of Anne D'Alleva's 'Methods and Theories of Art History, Laurence King.
Au Courant
I have reserved a course place and plan to begin the Art History M.A. in October. I want to write features for Art journals and therefore need to increase my knowledge.
Happy Easter!
Reading Svetlana Alpers - the art of describing art -
P.S. My buns were so cross they would not rise.
'The Art of Describing'
With the Art History M.A. in mind I have been reading Svetlana Alpers book titled, The Art of Describing. Sent an entry for the Daily Telegraph 'Just Back' Competition today and I've edited my poem for the Bridport Comp. The poem concerns the story of two pigeons who fight until one of them breaks a wing. The working title is 'Pigeon Pie'.
My Yahoo is misbehaving today. While I was writing an email to an editor the page vanished and an irrelevant message appeared. Is that what Yahoo does to try and get customers to pay for a screen without adverts?
Scriptores
They were quarter of an hour late due to one member's difficulty getting off the sack this morning. We are preparing poems for the Bridport Competition 2014. After taking turns to read them aloud and commenting we watched a film of John Agard reciting his poem, 'Listen Mr Oxford Don'. They were amused by that and quite keen to read and analyse the poem using four criteria; effect, context, technique, meaning, suggested in OU Y180.
Next meeting 6th May 2014
Obligada!
While on holiday in Madeira I read John White's Art and Architecture in Italy 1200-1450 and 'An Introduction to Art' by Charles Harrison and all but lost contact with terra firma on learning that painting is considered more visually effective than sculpture by some critics.
An artist to whom I put the theory replied,
"That depends on the works of art in question." I agree with that up to a point but surely the three dimensionality of sculpture, and the fact that you cannot see all the facets immediately is mystifying and therefore more visually effective than a painting. A painting is flat like a page of a book and does not occupy space in the same way as you and a sculpture.
Imagine viewing The Dying Gaul Lifesize, ca.230-220 B.C. Museo Capitolino, Rome and Ribera's Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew ca.1639, Prado, Madrid in the same room. I know which work of art would most intrigue me.
Madeira was hot and the natives are handsome. I perched half way down the rocky hilliside above the shoreline among the cacti to sketch. Met a troupe of wild tabby cats.
Bridport Prize 2014
Closing Date; 31st May 2014
Forty lines of poetry is closer to an ode than an epic but in the end I wrote forty in a form of my own devising. When a friend phoned I read the poem to him and realised thanks to his reaction that the last couplet was de trop. I also crossed out the first two lines which, possibly, gave too much away to soon.
Bussed to Bury S. Edmunds and bought a book, that is recommended reading in preparation for Art Hist. M.A., by the OU
Publisher; Yale University.Press 2009
Author; Harrison, Charles
Title; An Introduction to Art
The first page of the Introduction raises the question how much do you know about art and why should you bother to discover the reasons for art production. Despite the abstract expressionist ant that crawled into my eye the night before and used my eyeball as a canvas, I've almost finished John White's Art and Architecture In Italy 1250-1400 and plan to read the new book while on hol. in Madeira next week. Doctor gave me some eye drops and told me to go see him again.
Countdown!
This time next week and a day I'll be unplugging in final preparations for an eleven forty p.m. departure. The flight to Madeira is scheduled for six a.m.ish on the first of April. I'm taking documents and currency, notebook, pens, camera, and summer clothes including bikini. The weather is usually warm, so swimming in the sea might be fun.
Scriptores are expected tomorrow. The terza rima and ballad forms are on the agenda besides chattering and drinking coffee. Beverley, a new member writes a whinge column, weekly, for the Diss Express. David'll probably accompany himself singing one of his own compositions, with guitar. Elizabeth might have written a poem to read aloud and I have.
This afternoon I'm going to edit a poem that I'm writing for the Bridport Prize Competition 2014. Closing Date; 31st May. First Prize; £5,000
M.A. Art History
Anyone au fait? The diagnostic test does not present me with much difficulty but I bet the cost of the course will be breathtaking.
Poetry Plus!
'He leapt from his chariot, hit the ground at a run
through enemies, Trojan spears, and left his sister
grieving as he went bursting through the lines.
Wild as a boulder plowing headlong down from a summit,
torn out by the tempests - whether the stormwinds washed it free
or the creeping years stole under it, worked it loose,
down the cliff it crashes, ruthless crag of rock
bounding over the ground with enormous impact,
churning up in its onrush woods and herds and men.'
Publisher; Penguin
Author; Virgil, trans. Robert Eagles
Title; The Aeneid, p. 377 - 8, Book Twelve: The Sword Decides All, Ls.791-799
'...whether the stormwinds washed it free
or the creeping years stole under it, worked it loose, ...'
How does Vergil achieve that exciting effect? First he has an irresistible storyline. Then he describes the 'wild' pace of the boulder, which is threatening, leaving the reader in suspense, in its path. The subsequent two lines comment offhandedly like an expert naturalist on possible reasons why the boulder was in full spate. Thus the reader is mighty anxious to know what happens next.
He takes from Homer's Iliad, but reinvents ingeniously.
Norfolk Record Office
Armed with the wrong address which I had seen on their website we went rolling round Norwich totting up a massive taxi fare. Arrived with only moments to spare before the talk began and there was no time for a coffee. Talk delivered by an employee was about manorial history and sent several members of the audience to dreamland within seconds.
The problem was not the subject, but the speaker's enthusiasm, which lead him to over pronounce certain words, and swallow the rest. So many of us were straining in our seats with frowning faces.
The talk lasted for an hour and at the end he must have said,
"Any questions?" Anyway someone in the audience raised their voice and I left hurriedly.
The best bit of my away day was the train journey through the Norfolk countryside. Isolated, thatched farm houses, grazing herds and calm, standing wheat fields like green lakes seen through the window reminded me of my formative years, on a little farm in Essex. So returned knowing no more about Diss Mere, I will ditch the project.
This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.