The old ruin...

Some time ago I discovered this old ruin

in a neighboring village...

 

 

this is the view of it, seen from the road



 

 

places like this can ignite in me fantasies

of times gone by, of times when life was

hard, but overseeable

...

 

I decided to enter the plot and was surprised how easy

it was to get to the old finca

 



 

as for me remnants of buildings like this will remain untouched

forever, for me they represent pure beauty

 



 

for how could one ever recreate a picture like this?



 

 

the weathered door led into a small, secluded patio

 



 

that I want to investigate another time...

 

but for today this was it: my world of fantasy

so very close...

 

Am I the only one who has a crush for ruins like this?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Regina



Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

Hi!

Considering the success of our first trip, we went on a second motorhome vacation throughout France, Belgium and the Netherlands. I now finally have the energy and time to post again.

 

But this time I am not going to apologize, since this is my blog, my space to document my life and of course, if there is still someone out there (hello!) who reads it that would be great, but seeing all blogs rapidly making place for Instagram and who knows what else, I think it is only good of me to not give up..!

That being said, I revert to our holiday in Spain.Visiting the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao was certainly one of the highlights of our trip! Boy, what a building, what a fantastic design! The building itself would have been an absolute goal to travel to, but of course there was art inside...

When we visited this summer there were three exhibitions running: one was of Andy Warhol's prints, one of Louise Bourgeois (Cells, quite interesting) and The Paris School. We visited the last two exhibits. Beside that there was Richard Serra's permanent installation: The Matter of Time, consisting of several huge kind of labyrinths of Corten steel. These were absolutely stunning!

 

The pictures give only a slight impression of the splendor of this museum, I can recommend it to everybody should you have a chance...

 

by architect Frank Gehry

 

Guggenheim inside

 

 

ah, the construction of it all!

 

 

outside, just looking up



 

 

a model of Serra's work

 

 

look at the human at the right, the work was huge

 

 

patina at the inside of one of the installation's parts

 

Well, this was it, I am back at blogging at last and look forward to any comment.

Thanks for reading!

 

Regina

Savannah

 

 

As I am preparing a number of dyptichs and tryptichs from pictures of our USA trips, I browsed the map 'Savannah'. This was the last city of our 2012 trip and we had ample time to enjoy its beauty...!

 

The tryptich above is composed of details I captured with my camera; simply walking the streets and looking, well, everywhere; there was such an abundance of stunning architecture and lovely details in this historic city.

 

 

I have a love (and a collection)of lanterns, the porch in the centre speaks for itself, with the wrought iron poles and gate, and the street signs in the historic part of this city were totally in style

 

 

Savannah...

precious memories and just some eye candy on a sunny winter day in Spain

 

Regina



 

Dear reader,

 

 

 

 

Finally a post from me in Spain...

 

Renovating a house is once again encompassing, it takes the utmost of me and after dinner at night there simply is no energy left to blog.

 

I must say that I am beginning to really miss the artsy/creative side of life before moving!

 

It is over a year ago that all my stuff has been packed in boxes and only little has been unpacked, firstly because of our temporary living and after that because of the renovation of our own house.

 

But hey... a few more months to go and we will live in a beautiful and very comfy house, I reckon it is worth waiting...

 

 

So in order to change our minds for a few days, and to accompany our daughter who was visiting, we made a midweek trip to Valencia. This old city on the east coast of Spain is about an hour's drive from our village, which is situated more southern.

 

Valencia is a gorgeous, very beautiful old city. We visited the old historic city centre, which is full of cathedrals and churches, the central market, the old silk trading place, and of course many lovely village squares. In the southern part of the city there is a ultramodern 'city' that was designed by the famous architect Calatrava. In the storyboard above you see parts of the roof and other structures of this ' Ciutat de artes i ciencias'.

 

On this day we visited the science museum, which was located in the building to the left. The huge aquarium we did not visit, since it was a very hot day and many families with little children were visiting that day.

 

The rest of our trip we spent shopping and we left the area of Valencia with a dinner in the National Park of Albufera, where rice for the famous paellas is grown.

 

Thus far our little escape from renovating...thanks for visiting my blog!

 

Regina

Benissa in pastel

This morning I had some shopping to do in the village, so after I parked my car

I walked to the village square;

 

this is what I saw on my way, come walk with me!

 

 

just a look to the right: surprise..!

 

it was a sunny, colorful walk today

 

 

my footsteps resonated in this alley,

must be difficult to enter the houses unseen...

 

 

my absolute favorite, such beauty, and to be able to witness it on a November day

 

 

mandarinas galore, nobody takes them from the trees,

they are everywhere around

(notice the downside of the balcony, with the tiles I wrote about in yesterday's post)

 

 

I so enjoyed my little stroll! Then came home and had some sunbathing on our terrace,

again, in November!

Feeling truly blessed...

 

See ya!

Regina



Chicago - a fantastic day

On with my report about our recent USA-trip:

Without knowing, we had chosen the very right day to visit this famous city! I usually have mixed feelings about big cities: I am fond of them because of the shopping possibilities, the often big amount of culture and unexpected strange things you can see, but on the other hand I can't stand being much longer in such surroundings than a few days, because big cities wear me out!

But I am glad we visited Chicago this Friday June 11, because we were lucky to witness a few very special events. The Chicago Blues Festival 2010 was kicking off and there happened to be a ticker tape parade in honour of the Chicago Blackhawks that had won the Stanley Cup, there are some great videos on Youtube.

( photo courtesy Donald Peterson)

In the Millenium Park was this well known 'thing', of course we also made our pictures, but they got lost somehow. I especially liked the music theatre by Gehry, more Millenium Park pictures are here

these folks were just sitting on the pavement, not saying, singing or doing anything else but holding their black umbrellas. Was it a demonstration, a performance, art maybe??

(This is an example of what I mean with unexpected things in big cities)

one of the commuter trains,

We had to travel an hour by train again before we arrived in Chicago from Elgin (Big Timber). I know there a zillions of people that do this everyday and I feel so lucky that I am not one of them!

There was a fantastic atmosphere at the bluesfestival, and among all these people in the balmy weather, surrounded by the smell of the numerous hot dog- and other caterers, Mary Jane and the No Static Blues Band performed. Great, great, great!

I am once again convinced that you cannot (and don't have to) plan too much. Why? Because if we would have planned this, we would have had certain expectations, and could possibly have been disappointed. And that day in Chicago June 2010: we just went there and had a feeling that we received some huge presents...

Thanks for visiting today,

Regina

Habaai

Day 4 in my series of 'sunny' collages, to bring a little spring into the homes and hearts where it is much needed...

Do you remember this picture? I made it when I visited an art gallery on the island of Curacao last October. The venue is an old plantation house, Habaai, that is being restored and the wall you see in this photograph is from one of the buildings on the property. I'm not sure if there is going to be built another floor on top, but as it is now it looks very photogenic to me.

it inspired me to make this digital collage

Habaai

I hope you enjoy your day!

Grtz, Regina

Typical Dutch (1)

With just a few more days in Holland before we return home to our island, we are spending as much time as possible with our children. Two of them are living in The Hague (near the west coast of The Netherlands, the other one in the most eastern part of the country. So I crossed my flat homeland by train from east to west and here are some first impressions of a Dutch countryside in winter:

This is a restaurant in The Hague now; buildings like this one are often present in historic cities and have a new destination after having been a factory, storage or other kind of industrial building in the past.

'Knotwilgen', a kind of willow tree whose branches are being completely cut off every 3 or 4 years, which gives the knot. In this trees lots of birds, like e.g. owls, make their nests. You can find them along the waterside in the country mainly.
This is a typical example of a Dutch canal. The ones in Amsterdam are of course the most famous, but every old city in Holland has canals like this one in Utrecht.
This picture was made in The Hague and shows the characteristic houses of an old, big city. In the distance you can see the buildings of our central government.

I hope you liked the first part of this series: Typical Dutch

Have a wonderful weekend!

Curacao - a 'yellow' walk in Punda

Hi, I'm back!

This time during my visit to Curacao, I spent a morning walking in Punda. It is the island's oldest shopping centre and especially in the morning it is very busy and full of activity along the harbourside and in the narrow, historical streets and alleys.

Just walking, and taking it all in...

The 'Fortkerk' (church) in Fort Amsterdam

old colonial influences galore

everywhere you look...

Fort Amsterdam - the entrance

even old architecture in one of the alleys

That is it for today, going to celebrate my husbands birthday now,

will be back shortly, have a wonderful weekend!

Baie Orientale

This morning, on my way to the beach for my daily walk, I came along these lovely houses 

 

Now, who would not get happy seeing these exuberant colours?

I am sure they have been inspired by this...

Baie Orientale, St. Martin, today

It's that time of the year

Message from our Government tonight:

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR DOMINICA...GUADELOUPE...

ST. MARTIN...ST. BARTHELEMY...ANTIGUA...BARBUDA...MONTSERRAT...ST.

KITTS...NEVIS...ANGUILLA...ST. MAARTEN...SABA...AND ST. EUSTATIUS.


Because of the expected high swells, we did not go to the beach today, but went shopping in Marigot, the capital of French St. Martin (capital is really a very big word!)

Dilapidated houses, which I like so much, not to live in of course, but from an artistic point of view...

Here is some eye candy, and some traditional clothing you can still see around here. But to be true, most French ladies prefer the latest fashion from the catwalk in Paris...

In the meantime we have prepared our house and garden, again, and hope that this storm will not bring the amount of rain that is forecasted.

GPP Street Team Crusade no. 31

Michelle Ward has challenged us once again with an interesting theme:

Read all about it here and join the team if you feel challenged too: it is fun, open to everyone and you will meet such nice people there!

Thethird picture I showed in yesterday's post, was the beginning of the digital collage of today.

The possibilities it had were clear to me from the areas with high contrast in the bows and the balcony. After having photoshopped for almost a year now, the layer and blending function of the programm is beginning to feel as a tool I can handle. And for the time being there is enough to explore and play around. Shooting pictures simultaneously has changed too!

Before I started this blog, I hardly ever touched the camera, but these days I always take it with me. Because even a trip to the supermarket could bring me a surprise... One thing I am very reluctant to do until now, is taking pictures of people. Very often I see people walking or sitting along the road that are so beautiful, wearing clothes in colour combinations that really pop into your eye, but they are so picture perfect, these island people. For privacy reasons I am hesitating, have to find a solution for that, but I digress!

The above picture is an example of how I look at my surroundings these days. It was an ugly building, over there in Grand Case, but the billboard held this symbol of creativity (my definition), others say it is a symbol of eternity, but whatever it is: I like it and cropped the photo for the collage below.

Then I browsed through my picture collection and rediscovered this one, fabrics dyed, stamped and painted by 'moi', I layered it with the two mentioned before

and, after the oh so exciting playing with sliders, channels, filters and actions in PS
here it is:
Grand Case
digital collage

I hope you enjoyed this little disclosure of my process of digital collaging, I am certain there are more, much more ways to do it. In case you don't have access to Photoshop, I know there are some free photo-editing programms that might give you similar possibilities. Not sure they have all the functions, but you can always give it a try: one of them is Picnic

A nice and playful weekend everybody!