![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mar. 1st, 2006
Lifted from the Journaleers
Mar. 1st, 2006 05:43 amA favorite painting.
It so often depends what I'm looking at. There are so many artists I love, and seeing a new work often makes me gasp with pleasure.
But this one is special:
Madge by Hugh Ramsay. There was something about Madge that stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I saw her. Something about her face, some expression. To say she had an interesting face would be an understatement; her face knocked me off my feet from across the room.
Later I learnt more about Ramsay and the story of this and a few other paintings. An artist of enormous talent, he left, like so many other Australians, for England. His portraits have an air of John Singer Sargent, but there is something special. Not quite so much the perfect formality, but a touch of irreverence or something wholly lacking in JSS.
Ramsay learnt a lot and made a splash and knocked around with many noted artists, but eventually he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent home to Australia. He only lasted a short time, but in those few months he painted many of his best paintings. His subjects were his sisters, of whom Madge was one, and what is written in their faces is concern for their dying brother, along with a determination to pose for him, because painting gave him such pleasure.
Lyonel Feininger's Gelmeroda IX is another I love. So very different to Ramsay, but the energy and the intellect shines through in every brush stroke, every not-quite Golden rectangle.
It so often depends what I'm looking at. There are so many artists I love, and seeing a new work often makes me gasp with pleasure.
But this one is special:
Madge by Hugh Ramsay. There was something about Madge that stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I saw her. Something about her face, some expression. To say she had an interesting face would be an understatement; her face knocked me off my feet from across the room.
Later I learnt more about Ramsay and the story of this and a few other paintings. An artist of enormous talent, he left, like so many other Australians, for England. His portraits have an air of John Singer Sargent, but there is something special. Not quite so much the perfect formality, but a touch of irreverence or something wholly lacking in JSS.
Ramsay learnt a lot and made a splash and knocked around with many noted artists, but eventually he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent home to Australia. He only lasted a short time, but in those few months he painted many of his best paintings. His subjects were his sisters, of whom Madge was one, and what is written in their faces is concern for their dying brother, along with a determination to pose for him, because painting gave him such pleasure.
Lyonel Feininger's Gelmeroda IX is another I love. So very different to Ramsay, but the energy and the intellect shines through in every brush stroke, every not-quite Golden rectangle.
Hehehehe. Fly-by Winging!
Mar. 1st, 2006 09:53 pmWell, the story begins with Dunedin, and me packing for my flight out. I was actually pretty well packed the previous night, because I got caught in Fort Worth after the last convention and I had books and papers and clothes spread all over the room. Organising them and packing them away took me a bit longer than I'd planned for, and I had to catch the airport shuttle following the one I was aiming for, with the consequence that I checked in for my next flight with a bit less safety margin than I really wanted.
So in Dunedin I made sure that all my books were organised and everything was pretty much ready to go before I went to sleep.
The next morning I was packing away the last few items, and I was faced with the choice of where to put my cap. My khaki BookCrossing cap. If I put it in my checked baggage, I wouldn't have it available if I had to go out in the sun. On the other hand, space and weight in my carryon is tight, and I didn't really have a spot to put it. So I postponed that decision.
Came eight o'clock and it was time to go. I picked up all my gear, made sure I had everything, locked the door, went downstairs, dropped the key in the slot, put my bags in the car and went off to pick up thebiblioholic and Pixette. As it happened, I pretty much staid inside the terminal all day apart from filling the car up with petrol and returning it, so I didn't need my cap.
It wasn't until I got home that I began to wonder where my cap was. Sitting on the bedspread back in my hostel room, I realised. it must have blended right in with the pattern and my farewell glance had missed it.
I contacted the hostel by email, and they couldn't find it. Bugger.
So I'm down a cap, and that means I have to get a new one from the only source I know. BookCrossing Supply Store. Of course, I had to add a few things until I got to the $50 free shipping point, and that's not reall difficult to do, because there's a whole bunch of goodies available.
And the final part of the process involves selecting a screen name for the month of wings you automatically get when making any order from the Supply Store.
Now, i never wing myself. It's always more fun to find someone deserving, wing them and wait to see if they notice. Besides, a very kind BookCrosser bought me a year's worth of wings last year, and I don't need another month. Not at the moment, anyway.
So I thought of a name, checked to see if she had wings, and when she didn't, I typed her name in. Job done, and I can go through life with a cheerful smile on my dial.
And hope my cap gets here before I have to leave to catch my flight to Perth in a month's time.
So in Dunedin I made sure that all my books were organised and everything was pretty much ready to go before I went to sleep.
The next morning I was packing away the last few items, and I was faced with the choice of where to put my cap. My khaki BookCrossing cap. If I put it in my checked baggage, I wouldn't have it available if I had to go out in the sun. On the other hand, space and weight in my carryon is tight, and I didn't really have a spot to put it. So I postponed that decision.
Came eight o'clock and it was time to go. I picked up all my gear, made sure I had everything, locked the door, went downstairs, dropped the key in the slot, put my bags in the car and went off to pick up thebiblioholic and Pixette. As it happened, I pretty much staid inside the terminal all day apart from filling the car up with petrol and returning it, so I didn't need my cap.
It wasn't until I got home that I began to wonder where my cap was. Sitting on the bedspread back in my hostel room, I realised. it must have blended right in with the pattern and my farewell glance had missed it.
I contacted the hostel by email, and they couldn't find it. Bugger.
So I'm down a cap, and that means I have to get a new one from the only source I know. BookCrossing Supply Store. Of course, I had to add a few things until I got to the $50 free shipping point, and that's not reall difficult to do, because there's a whole bunch of goodies available.
And the final part of the process involves selecting a screen name for the month of wings you automatically get when making any order from the Supply Store.
Now, i never wing myself. It's always more fun to find someone deserving, wing them and wait to see if they notice. Besides, a very kind BookCrosser bought me a year's worth of wings last year, and I don't need another month. Not at the moment, anyway.
So I thought of a name, checked to see if she had wings, and when she didn't, I typed her name in. Job done, and I can go through life with a cheerful smile on my dial.
And hope my cap gets here before I have to leave to catch my flight to Perth in a month's time.
