Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
We had reason to hang some pictures today. I mean, rehang. We’ve been slowly rehanging pictures that we took down off the walls in January. They’ve been stashed around the place while we repainted the house. One of the things we agreed was that nothing could go back up without mutual agreement.
I’ve been asked more than once about what I consider to be my favourite post so far. It’s hard to remember them all and besides, I’m uncomfortable selecting let alone rating my own stuff. Perhaps Dream might be the most satisfying favourite or recently, I enjoyed writing Time Reverses. I also enjoyed being the lead in the story of failing to get a good shot of the moon in Sea and Light, only to get a better shot than I could have imagined. Who knows, perhaps readers might one day tell me their favourites?
The proud parents showed us her sketch and we were taken aback. This was back in early September. Then, a few days later, we were talking about it while hill walking during one of the inter-pandemic lockdown respites. We talked with the artist about her sketch and how art can involve many media. We joined the artist sketching smiley faces on soft slates with hard glacial dropstones and left the faces by the trail to cheer other walkers.
We went to an art exhibition today. While it was the first ever exhibition of Piet Mondrian’s work to be held in Ireland, it was also a jewel of an exhibition, a worthy treat after ten months of isolation from what are today considered unnecessary activities.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Mondrian because it was through his art that I came to appreciate the path of deconstruction from realism to abstraction, something my father pointed out to me. This show featured early landscapes and a progression to his abstracted geometric paintings. I suspect that it’s because of Mondrian that my favourite items to photograph are reflections and other distortions of reality.
I come from an island where bigotry was entrenched. I grew up with bigotry occupying the thoughts of many who surrounded me. So many forms of bigotry that today we break them out into prejudices that can be defined and proscribed in law. I don’t think that one or two generations is enough to purge any society of bigots. Time may work but I doubt prejudice can disappear. To be human is to want to belong to families, tribes, corporations, gangs, nations, isms and factions.
Another experimental scan of leaf decay. This time I used some fallen Liquid Amber leaves that we found blowing around in the Windy Ridge Nursery. Scanned once, I left them on the scanner for 24 hours and scanned them once again.
I’m failing better now.