Artsy impressions

We are staying in a little place called Hardin. It is mainly one street (Mainstreet I suppose) with some obviously outdated businesses, where spoiled people like us could not even discover a coffeeshop, how is that?! But still I liked it, just for a while, I think this is the real, rural America! Nothing has been done to beautify or make it a touristic goal, so for me it is what it is, no frills, no nonsense...

Call of the Wild

Montana series #1

As always there is printed information galore to be found. From this I made the above collage, just used a gluestick, torn out bits from a touristic brochure and some white paper as a canvas.

Last year I brought with me more materials and tools, but then I hardly had a chance to use it. That is the reason that this year I decided to challenge myself using just a gluestick and found papers! I think those limitations will work for me...

In a trading post I suddenly discovered this! It is a detail of a leather jacket that caught my eye, that is still focused on dots/lined dots, I simply had to show the resemblance to my collage

and old fashioned this little place may be, while walking back to our car I spotted this. It is the back of a billboard indicating towards a sewing shop where there seemed to be only peacesymbols in the window, but for me this was the attraction. I am sure you will understand, I know!
Tomorrow there is a big chance of storm and lots of rain. In that case we will stay safely here. In case the weather is permitting, we will go to the Bighorn Canyon and stay there until Tuesday. It is NPS there, so primitive camping, no electricity, let alone WiFi. So I expect to be back on Tuesday earliest.

You all have a great Memorial weekend,

from our small, but very complete and cozy motorhome
Ciao!

Regina

In Montana

detail of a mural in Denver Int'l Airport

Hi all!

Already one week en route, and we're still in Montana. As last year we had some customizing planned for our motorhome and now we are waiting for the last part, being a spare tire kit. Hopefully UPS can give us positive answers this morning and in that case we can leave in a few days. In the meantime we are enjoying the Montana countryside that is so beautiful. Yesterday we visited Little Bighorn Battlefield, where colonel Custer and his US Armytroops were encountered and killed by the warriors of Lakota, Sioux etc. Quite impressing and interesting to walk on the fields where this all happened in 1876. Pictures follow later, as I am now in a hurry and have not yet uploaded these. Hope to be back soon, if WiFi is letting me...You all enjoy your day!

From Billings to Buffalo...

this is my favorite 'furniture' at home; I will change it for the next two months for this,

our home on wheels in the States. Saturday we will pick up our motorhome in Billings and then we head eastwards, through North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin etc. We made our travel arrangements back home from Buffalo (NY). I intend to post regularly, hopefully there are enough hotspots out there...

Thanks for visiting!
Regina

Dotted spiral

Today I am very busy, LOL, it will be my last day on the beach for a while!

Though it is raining big cats and even bigger dogs at the moment, I still can say I'm going to the beach. This weather will be gone in an instant and the sun will be shining brightly as ever, one thing I love about living in the Caribbean...

I just made this digital collage, felt I had to play some in PS since I will certainly miss it during our 2 month trip in our motorhome. Stayed with my dots and circles some more

Enjoy your Wednesday, thanks for visiting,

Regina

Circles and dots everywhere...

The more I focus, the more I see!

So it is time to continue my series of blogposts on the circle, on dots and also spirals. Not necessarily in the mathematical sense, but the circle as a design element. It all started for me with reading this book. Though this post might be too urban for the esthetical aspect of the circle, I think the design in itself has to do more than being esthetical. In my opinion design is about functionality also, which is clearly visible in the following pictures.

you can clearly see it in these cable-drums

and this manhole cover

We saw this one in Banff (Alberta, Canada) last year and I was thrilled by its beauty!

There is a lot of information about manhole covers on the web, just google the word and the most beautiful examples show up. On this blog you can find pictures of very artful Japanese manholes!
These are the huge wheels of the biggest truck in the world that we saw in Sparwood (British Columbia Canada) Image is clickable so you get an idea of its dimensions.

logo's are often made in a circular form

and the circular pavement around a tree is quite common in the urban world

I could, again, go on and on with this, there is so very much to see around, wherever you may be in this world!

But now it's time to prepare our vacation that will start in one week, only one week and so much to do...

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting today!

Regina

Celebration

in between the dots, spirals and circles

collage 5 x 7"

magazine cut-outs on watercolour paper

Dots and spirals

(click!)

This collage gives me such a good feeling, it almost makes me happy. Can one get happy from something virtual? I think so, yes, at least for a moment it can cheer me up, looking at colours and design elements arranged in a way that pleases. It has everything I love, the colours from warm to cold, the contrast in the dots and the vague spirals in the background...

Pictures of some journal pages layered in photoshop until this emerged!

Have a great day, thanks for visiting,

Regina

Circles and dots (in pattern)

This post is again about circles and dots, as I originally planned to do in my Week of the Circle (see former post). Life with all its complications came in the way however, but my focus remained, so I simply extend 'my week' since this is my place, my very own, where I can do whatever I want, now isn't that fantastic, the idea alone?!

The focus on circles started by reading/browsing the book Elements of Design. And boy, once you focus on this design element (and I suppose this holds true for any topic), how often do you see it around you, in everything, in clothes, in logo's, in jewelry, printed matter, nature, urban structures, I could go on and on...

I have always been attracted to this kind of beads, but never realized why, I just adore it!

But now I begin to discover, it could be because of the contrast, the neutral colours, maybe it is the circle...

this picture from the book gave me a 'pang', love it, love it!

Circles (dots) in a lined pattern even make me feel more thrilled. Soon after seeing this photograph, I discovered Lisa Sarsfield's blog, where to my surprise I saw almost similar lines, now is this focus or synchronity? Please go and have a look at Lucky Dip
Lisa is a very talented lady...

now what's not to love about this?

This is work of Maarten Stuer. Dots, dots and circles, the light falling through so beautifully;
you can find more of his fabulous sculptures here

Another artist I admire is Cristina Guwang, a potter that makes 'bols', which is French for little, round bowls.

Bols are an addiction of me that started a long time ago when I was living in Europe, it kind of stopped when we moved to St. Maarten where I don't see them being made. But the love is still there I realised when I discovered Christina's lovely work.

This one is heading in the direction of my next post that will be about circles in nature.
Guwang's website is here

I hope you enjoyed today's dots and circles, thanks for visiting!

Regina

More circles? Not yet...

A few weeks ago I wrote about another colleague of my husband that was fighting for her life. On Friday April 30 last Oralie died. And so this has been another strange week, with my dengue fever slowly on its way back, some helping out at the office and knowing that Oralie was to be buried today.

Of course I have witnessed the funeral of quite some family and good friends by now (since I'm almost sixty years), but today was, again, very special. Oralie's gasket was at the entrance of the little church on the French part of the island where the service was held. She looked beautiful as always, not scary at all, just as if she was asleep.

In nothing it resembled the catholic church that I grew up with. Not the building, not the people, nor the service itself. Impressive, bittersweet and so good to be there. After church her body was being driven to a tiny graveyard in the neighborhood and we all walked behind the car with her body. All trafic had come to a halt along this small country road near one of our famous beaches at Orient Bay.

At this moment I feel like this whole blogging 'thing' is pretty useless, I wonder if I must go on with it. But I also know that maybe I need some time to recover and get things into the right perspective again.

The digital collage above I made last week: just some simple little shells on some quilted panels, edited somewhat in Photoshop. To me it is the picture that represents my feelings of today...

Thanks for visiting,

Regina

Week of the Circle (textiles)

Though my dengue is not over yet, I'm feeling less feverish and can't wait any longer with working on my blog. This 'all things circular' was inspired by the wonderful book 'Elements of Design', you can read more about it here.

It is funny how often you see something when you focus on it, on things circular in this case. I remember seeing only pregnant women during my pregnancies, of course I did not really see just women with big bellies, but somehow my eye discovered them before seeing anybody else. That, I think, is the same psychological phenomenon! So, focusing it is I guess, on circles around us, to start with textiles, which I still consider my no. 1 love in the field of art/creativity.

this picture is from the book mentioned above, isn't the cloth in which she carries her child adorable?

circles in an old, tie-dyed t-shirt...

and a blouse of ages ago, but for me so beautiful that I cannot throw it away, circles within spirals, black and white, little dots in between, I love it!

more elaborate, but yet: a circle, almost like a doily

and last but not least this detail of a beachwrap, made in India.
Oh, and then there are umbrellas, tree skirts, drunkard path's patchwork blocks, pillows ,...
Next time more circles, thanks for visiting!
Regina