Red
by Ted Hughes
Red was your colour.
If not red, then white. But red Was what you wrapped around you. Blood-red. Was it blood? Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead? Haematite to make immortal The precious heirloom bones, the family bones. When you had your way finally Our room was red. A judgement chamber. Shut casket for gems. The carpet of blood Patterned with darkenings, congealments. The curtains -- ruby corduroy blood, Sheer blood-falls from ceiling to floor. The cushions the same. The same Raw carmine along the window-seat. A throbbing cell. Aztec altar -- temple. Only the bookshelves escaped into whiteness. And outside the window Poppies thin and wrinkle-frail As the skin on blood, Salvias, that your father named you after, Like blood lobbing from the gash, And roses, the heart's last gouts, Catastrophic, arterial, doomed. Your velvet long full skirt, a swathe of blood, A lavish burgandy. Your lips a dipped, deep crimson. You revelled in red. I felt it raw -- like crisp gauze edges Of a stiffening wound. I could touch The open vein in it, the crusted gleam. Everything you painted you painted white Then splashed it with roses, defeated it, Leaned over it, dripping roses, Weeping roses, and more roses, Then sometimes, among them, a little blue bird.  |
Day 14 of 2012
-------------------------------------------------------------"Red Diva"
Kazuya Akimoto Art Museum
 
This art work has been done in my Upstairs Art
studio by one of the artists, Leanne Ward who I
have been mentoring for some 12 months. I purchased this work of Leanne's recently. It reminds me of the "Fauvists" art done early last century. The Fauvist artist I most admire is Van Dongen. One of his works is below.
 It is no coincidence that all the women in the art works in this section are all wearing red. It is such a luscious and sensuous colour to use, and in all these works adds such vibrancy and richness.___ __________ | ||||
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 has once again has me feeling an eerie nervousness about 2012 The following article is very telling:
D-days for the Europe Experiment.
" Sixteen million people in the euro zone are unemployed and voters are becoming angry and disaffected as austerity bites. In Greece, poor people who are diabetics cannot get insulin, cancer sufferers are missing out on drugs and even paracetamol is in short supply. The Greek Orthodox church this week reported cases of parents abandoning their children into care because they could no longer afford to support them."
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In their New Year addresses, the French President,
Nicolas Sarkozy, said Europe was ''without doubt [in]
the gravest [crisis] since the second world war'', and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said 2012 ''would no doubt be more difficult than 2011''.
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"For some, pessimism has spiralled into utter despair. Across Europe, the number of people committing suicide has jumped. Figures published in The Lancet show the British suicide rate increased 8 per cent between 2007 and 2009. The Greek Parliament reported its national suicide rate rose by 25 per cent in 2010."
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But, as ordinary workers see the pension age
extended to 67,jobs disappear and workplace
rights eroded, an estimated 2800 bankers in
London are each earning more than£1 million a year.
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Saturday, January 14, 2012
14 of 2012 -
A Red Letter Day - just a day in red . . . .
Friday, January 13, 2012
Day 13 of 2012 - omens and superstitions
So this was Friday 13th.... do you suffer from triskaidekaphobia
APOLLO 13
Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the American Apollo space program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft was launched on April 11, 1970, at 13:13 CST.
rupture of oxygen tank no. 2 in the service module. The explosion ruptured a line or damaged a valve in the no. 1 oxygen tank, causing it to lose oxygen rapidly. The service module bay no.4 cover was blown off. All oxygen stores were lost within about 3 hours, along with loss of water, electrical power, and use of the propulsion system. |
Day 13 of 2012
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Thursday, January 12, 2012
Day 12 of 2012 - capturing those moments in "images"
Life is full of fleeting moments which if not captured vanish forever.
Several
days ago I arrived at the beach a little earlier
than usual. As far as I could see in all directions I was
the first person on the beach that day.
This ‘moment’
inspired many thoughts including this poem.
24
July 2011
On that Day
On that day,
when the
jagged palms stood stark
against
the pink glow of morning light,
and the
birds slept;
when the drained tide could recede
no further
and grey
seas chopped and rolled before a final
froth-edged
spreading;
when the
smooth-washed beach curved
and
merged with the distant
brooding
hills;
when
silvered leaves and shells lay bedded snug
with
piled pearls of glistening sand
crabbed
from the world beneath;
when the
full moon welcomed the first shafts of light
that
would soon shape the rim
of
the world:
on that
day,
when the
sea sang its song of hope and renewal,
mine was
the first footprint
in the
sand.
Tim Murray
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Day 12 0f 2012
 
I currently have some fixation with the Kodak Brownie
camera. I have made considerable reference to it in my
previous posts. The one below is identical to 'the Brownie'
my father used to take all photos (and too seldomly) of
our family when I was a child. I think this is the reason
I am so obsessed with this camera. I have some very
significant photos of my early life, which on those rare
occurences were 'snapped' on the brownie.
Those childhood photos are my only visual connection with
my infant days, and the occasional photo after that. Those
photos were always kept in a special wooden box which
would appear on rare occasions, and each photo was treated
with wonder and respect. I still have some of those photos.
Now that we live in the digital age, where photos are so
common and readily available, the mystique surrounding
my childhood photos is no longer felt with today's "snaps"'
However, the capturing of moments in my life still leaves
me with an enchanting feeling, which has the magic of
holding still the fleeting moments which are forever
vanishing unless we somehow hold on to them.
 And it is this little Brownie, in all its unpretentious simplicity, which has enabled me to see my past and reconnect with visual memories which would have otherwise been lost... forever....and that is a long time and an almost frightening thought. In fact those early photos are my memories!! |
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Day 11 - 2012
Did you know?
The Channel-billed Cuckoo is the largest parasitic cuckoo
in the world. Australian Magpie, Gymnorhina tibicen, the Pied Currawong, Strepera graculina and members of the crow family (Corvidae). Unlike many other cuckoos, the young birds do not evict the host's young or eggs from the nest, but simply grow faster and demand all the food, thus starving the others. Often the adult female will damage the existing eggs in the nest when she lays her own andshe may even lay more than one egg in a single nest.
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A local artist in Murrurundi, Barry Bryant came to my art studio on Wednesaday evening for a class. He has been doing a self-portrait in oil pastels.
I gave him some technical advice on painting eyes in a portrait. He had never had any tuition in this area.
Barry was amazed at the changes in the eyes in his portrait when I applied the techniques I use. He said he lean't in 10 minutes what he could never do himself in a life time.
Below is his self-portrait and a close up of the eyes
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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Day 10 of 2012
For some reason I have been totally staggered by the real significance of 'digitisation' and the digital revolution. I am surprised how much this technology has moved so stealthily into our lives, and yet its implications are enormous. The digital technology behind this blog is amazing!!
|   The impact of the digital revolution on our lives is probably the most significant technological phenomena ever. If this sounds like an exaggeration, then the next two decades will see the most far reaching changes digitisation will have on virtually every level of human existence. Digital describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in terms of two states: positive and non-positive. Positive is expressed or represented by the number 1 and non-positive by the number 0. Thus, data transmitted or stored with digital technology is expressed as a string of 0's and 1's. Each of these state digits is referred to as a bit (and a string of bits that a computer can address individually as a group is a byte).
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 every aspect of our society and our lives. | ||
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Monday, January 9, 2012
Day 9 2012 (holiday mode finishes tomorrow)
A full blog for today will be published ASAP
Above Lobster Beach is this unique house built by one of Australia's finest photographers, David Moore (1927-2003). Designed by architech Ian McKay and built in the early 1970's, the house sits on a rocky outcrop on a ridge, surrounded by twisted angophoras. To the west it overlooks Broken Bay and to the north it takes in Brisbane Waters The land to the south beyond the outcrop is part of the Bouddi National Park near Gosford in New South Wales. "Moore recalled that he 'didn't want the house to interfere with the landscape'. He considered the land to be more precious than anything that might be built on it."
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Sunday, January 8, 2012
Day 8 of 2012
Apologies for the delay. I am away on a short holiday, and will publish today's full post ASAP.
 We are now living in the 'digital age' where the famous Kodak brand will not survive. The Los Angeles Times writes: This digital age is now on the verge of claiming its most iconic victim: Kodak, itself one of America's great innovators and the erstwhile king of film and photographs. The real tragedy, though, is that Kodak helped invent the technology that gradually wiped out the demand for its main products, but couldn't capitalize on it. And much of the entertainment industry is facing the same dilemma. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Kodak was trying to sell patents in an effort to stave off filing for bankruptcy. It's conceivable that the company could rebound, but its fundamental problem is that it was built around the practice of physically capturing, storing and copying images. Digital cameras and online photo albums don't just threaten Kodak's raison d'etre; they render it obsolete. 
Clive James makes no bones about the fact that he believes
the most beautiful sight in the world is a beautiful woman.
These are some of the thoughts that prompted this poem.
25 June 2011
For a fleeting moment their paths cross as the city comes
to life.
Her deft fingers play freely over the compact screen
as she toys with worlds of
trivial fascination;
his gnarled hands reach deep into the pockets of his overcoat,
a threadbare fortress against the
chill air.
She jogs lightly on the spot maintaining the momentum of her
morning workout,
tongue of blonde hair gently teasing the hollow of her
arched neck;
he grasps the street sign to anchor
against the giddy rush of
early traffic,
his haunted face
gaunt and grey.
Her smooth shoulders curve and glisten in the
early light;
he bows beneath the burden of
another day.
She does not notice him,
and when the lights turn green
she bursts into the full rhythm of her stride,
a silent symphony of
ease and grace.
He watches her disappear across the
aching years.
Tim Murray | 
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