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Gabriel Orozco – Tate Modern

Someone just shared a link to this exhibition in the UK, and as I was watching the video below I remember I had seen his work before.

It turns out I saw it on Art21 via Netflix. It is quite interesting to see his point of view of many objects, streets and environments that he encounters, many of which we have encountered as well thorough out the years.

Perhaps this video or the link to Art21, can inspire you to think or view the world different from what you are accustomed. I know that personally I have appreciated the various artists presented in the PBS show.

If there is that one artist that has made an impact on your life and you don’t mind sharing, please add a comment and let me know. Thank you

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Stargazing in November

Every year around this time (mid November) I have wished for a clear night sky, as it has been my desire for the last couple of years to catch a glimpse of the Leonid meteor shower and as far back as I remember it has always been cloudy.

This year my wish finally came true as we had clear skies for a couple of days including the peak period of the meteor shower.

Before the peak period I spend the early night surveying the sky, trying to figure out the name of some of the less known (to me) constellations,  their movement, taking note of the time and so on. Also surveying any areas that might offer a bit of darkness, as the place where we live is well lit, a negative aspect for stargazing (and a positive one for safety). Even with the light pollution the wide view of the sky is amazing when not cloudy.

During the various times I looked up at the sky I thought, hmm how about a night time SketchCrawl, catch where the constellations / stars are at various times of the night but frankly I was afraid I would miss a meteor and it was too cold too!  🙂

I did wonder if others had venture to sketch the night sky so I did a couple of searches and came across a site which contains quite a lot of information including a section for Astronomical Sketching Resources.

The other tool that provided great help was the StarDome found in the Astronomy Magazine site, as it gave me the ability to figure out exactly how the sky would look at certain times, and took some of the guessing (and freezing out in the cold) away from the experience.

Another application that proved helpful was Google Earth, as it has a Night Sky option. You can really spend some time exploring the constellations, and various other stars, etc.

Twitter of course was also helpful, by searching for #leonids I got a glimpse of what others were experiencing and/or commenting about the event (almost in real time – not a popular topic it seemed), it even allowed me to find another interesting site (Space Weather Radio – spaceweather.com) which allows you to hear the meteors and satellites as they pass by. This last site was quite interesting… continuous static and ping sounds every so often and once in a while a long beep sound (I have not idea what that was but it was exciting to listen to it).

Listening continuous static reminded me of the trips we would take to visit our grandparents when we were kids, my dad would drive practically all night so we would get there in the morning due to limited vacation times. We would often stay awake for as long as we could and would listen to the various radio stations as he drove from town to town. Back in those days, there weren’t many radio stations and you could practically hear static in between towns, we also got a few glances at the wonderful night sky.

While I managed to listen to various pings through that site, my many trips outside didn’t offer me any visual discoveries. I looked and looked, and tried for three days and nothing! hehe Do I regret the experience? not at all, I enjoyed it immensely and now that I have found the sites mentioned above I look forward to the next night sky event, who knows maybe the skies will be clear again.

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Amazing Clouds

During yesterday’s walk (my little dog tagging along) I got to view some amazing clouds. It was as if I was looking at one very large layer of cotton (thought of cotton candy too 🙂 ) covering the sky.  My dog typically likes to stop here and there to do his business, and I have to wait for him, and today was the other way around.

It occurred to me that people might be thinking something odd was happening to me, standing right there looking up… turning my head to the left and then to the right and might even wonder what is he looking at? there is nothing to see! lol

I thought about videotaping the clouds, and wondered if that would make them look two dimensional. I think to a non artist, it may seem trivial, to observe nature and really pay attention.

As I was looking up I kept thinking how could I replicate what I see (and feel) in pencil, or watercolor, or even with the program e-on Vue.  Thoughts started to flow through my mind… I must really pay attention to the texture, and to the various layers of clouds… and how far are they from me…from the ground, and pay attention to the light.. how it passes through the clouds, can you still see the sky… yeah a little bit over there.

I was really having fun, and my dog didn’t seemed to mind… I guess he must have been lost in his thoughts too.

I didn’t go back for the video camera, but did manage to take some pictures before the magical time disappeared.

The picture below is the first one I took.

Taking a closer look at the picture below, doesn’t it look like there is an upside down spider formed in the picture below top-mid left? or just my imagination.

The one below shows an undulating layer of various layers of clouds.

This last picture was taken by looking straight up.

Many years ago I set to create an image for a magazine cover with a program called Vista Pro, similar to Vue but certainly not as advanced.  The image contained clouds, a few trees and a hill, and it was quite the challenge to come up with something that looked ‘real’.

Yesterday reminded me as well of that day, the attempts to try and duplicate what we have before us artistically by various different methods.

Enjoy!

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