perlemagi!

after years of making "perleplader" with the child and never having them really hang together, i spent yesterday playing with hama beads. i saw someone doing very creative things with them a few months ago at upcomers in vejle and bought a couple of her how-to books. she calls her technique perlemagi.

her technique involves melting them much more than we ever melted them back in the day. luckily, i saved my old iron that was spitting chalky residue on all of our clothes. turns out if you turn off the steam, it's perfect for melting little plastic beads.

i went a little nuts. and couldn't stop making them. i even made husband eat smørrebrød for dinner, because i couldn't be bothered to stop and make dinner. it's kind of magical how these geometric shapes just melt like that. and how melting them this much makes them actually stick together. 

i made these as buttons for the cushions i'm making for our new outdoor lounge area. i needed 36 of them. it was fun. i could have kept going, but i restrained myself. ok, i did make a few extra, as i have to figure out how to make holes in them so i can sew them on. it was a great activity for a rainy day. 

 

a rainy sunday afternoon

it's raining at last, after an entire month of sunshine. we've never had an entire month of sunshine in a row, so it was very welcome, but so is the rain. the rain has made me slow down - i can't be in the garden, picking strawberries or weeding or mowing or hoeing, so i'm in the plant-filled front entry with a cup of creamy coffee, a book, my journal, my camera and the kittens. i must admit it's bliss and precisely what i needed. i've been reading some more of knausgaard's small autumn essays. it's a book i've had on the nightstand for some time - you can just pick it up, read one or two as you wish, and then put it down again for some weeks. it lends itself to this slow way of reading it; each essay is shining, deep and luminous and i must get the rest of the seasons to savour as well (as you might guess, there are four volumes in all). they are small musing on single words - words like badger, war, labia - very diverse - written by knausgaard to his unborn daughter, as they awaited her. they're not exactly micro-memoirs, which i've also been pondering since hearing about them on the bittersweet life podcast, more like little perfect essayistic musings on being human. in looking for more small, perfect essays, i came across brevity, an online magazine filled with them. check it out if you're looking for something to read on a rainy sunday afternoon.

there's nothing like a really great bookstore

london's daunt books in marylebone oozes with atmosphere. it's quiet and was cool on an otherwise sweltering london day. i only had about 10 minutes to pop in on my way back from lunch with the wonderful beth and kristen (where yes, i made them build lego). there are tables heaped with inspiration for what to read, beautiful papers to select and take home, gorgeous old wooden floors interspersed with tiles, inviting chairs and an enormous curved window. i would love to have spent the rest of my afternoon there. but alas, i didn't. instead, i grabbed, without thinking too much, a few books from the delectable displays, feeling a bit like i was choosing macaroons in a fancy bakery. vasily grossman's an armenian sketchbook, audur ava olafsdottir's butterflies in november and one mistake, a pretentious crime novel called don't point that thing at me by kiril bonfiglioli, which i selected due to an attractive cover and an endorsement on said cover by none other than stephen fry (a mistake i made previously when i bought hugh laurie's atrocious attempt at a novel, but somehow conveniently forgot in the heat of the moment in daunt). the bonfiglioli was an utter waste of time, but i'm 80 pages into the grossman and savoring every word. the icelandic novel waits patiently beside my night table, still full of that mysterious possibility that all books you haven't yet read possess.

i miss bookstores. most of my books these days come from the library (which is awesome, but i do feel guilty writing in their books) or from amazon (mostly work-related), but there is still nothing like browsing a bookstore, especially one as charming as daunt, which i'd oddly never visited before on all my trips to london. it had a library-like hush and atmosphere that i breathed in during the few minutes i was there. the clerk behind the counter, with wrinkled shirt and ruffled hair, looked as if he'd just roused himself from a book to wander over to wait on me. he placed my purchases into a reusable cloth bag (not the green one, i didn't manage spend that much in 10 minutes) and i regretfully went on down the street. we just don't have any bookstores like that in my part of denmark (there are a couple still in copenhagen that fit the description, but i visit them far too seldom) and i miss them. we can do a lot on the internet these days, but there really is nothing like visiting a really great little bookstore.

rainy day ponderings

early mornings like a painting. the rest of the day, one wonders if one probably shouldn't have gotten to work on that ark. the wind yesterday was crazy, whipping leaves and loose branches from the trees - leaving the road strewn with debris and husband's half-finished sawmill a bit in disarray. today, there's just steady rain, but not so much wind. and we battened down the hatches of the sawmill, so it will be ok.

after a busy few weeks, things have slowed down a bit. i'm writing proposals and developing new ideas. and even writing a press release for my local photo walk that's a part of scott kelby's worldwide photo walk october 13! it's interesting, getting used to the rhythms.

i'm participating in stephanie levy's creative courage course. it just started yesterday and already it makes me feel both peaceful and purposeful. there's a link to it on the sidebar if you're interested, i think it's not too late to join in. i haven't been making anything lately and i can feel that's not a good thing. why is it that the creativity (actual physical creativity) is always the first thing to go when i get busy? i know that's bad for me and yet i let it happen.

the first exercise in the creative courage course asked us to write down what we'd like to create in the coming weeks and what we'd like to release. we should actually physically get rid of the piece of paper with the things we'd like to release...a sort of symbolic release of the words. i think these are powerful acts. and while i haven't done it yet (i'm still pondering and wondering if i can fit everything on one piece of paper), i will. i think i'll burn up that piece of paper when i'm done - what more cleansing way to release than fire? tho' i have an image in my head of a rain-spattered piece of paper as well, with the ink rinsing away. goodness knows we've got plenty of rain.

one of the things i want to release is negativity - yesterday, i ended up coming across several articles (i will admit to a certain fondness for the phrase rugbrød fascists) and blogs about expats living in denmark who were very unhappy and after reading them a bit too long, i found myself feeling negative and unhappy as well. and tho' some of what i read rings true, not all of it does. and even tho' i do occasionally despair that i will ever understand the danes, largely, i like it here and it definitely doesn't do me any good to read a bunch of arrogant, bilious ranting from someone who doesn't.

what's interesting is that one of the proposals i'm working on is for a program which helps alleviate some of the things described on that blog, tho' i do have my doubts whether danes will ever behave nicely in a queuing situation. and i have little hope for my little troglodyte buddy (who behaved even more abominably than ever last evening). i do think there's hope in other ways.

~  *  ~

do you have a method of physically getting rid of the negatives in your life?

do you burn or rip up or bury or scribble them out or release them on the wind?

just another rainy sunday in june

raindrops on the terrace roof.
a special quality of light - summer light, even tho' it's cloudy.
it has a greenish cast to it, as the trees drink in the needed rain.
kittens racing around, tumbling.
a mug of steaming tea and a fresh, light bun slathered in butter.
a moment of quiet contentment. 
the day hasn't yet really begun.

i need this moment.

the days start to feel busy, rushing headlong into one another.

as my calendar fills up.

in a good way, as the projects are now of my own choosing.

a photo class for kids at the library.

helping shape a new school.

writing about travel.

editing a book.

sharing a bit of my culture.

being part of creating new surroundings for the culture where i live.

just being more solidly where i am.

and always time with a horse.

it's the healthiest time.

and the greatest gift you can give your child.

because you can't fool a horse.

it knows if you're scared.

or if you're trusting.

or if you're bluffing.

they can just see right through to you.

the real you.

you can't hide from a horse.

and as always, dreaming of what's next.

a refuge in the garden.

a long, narrow, rustic building,

where the light floods in from windows along both sides.

but a safe, dark cocoon in which to work at one end.

and room for a long table.

where we could have meetings,

and not be ashamed to invite people from outside.

reshaping what an office means.

i'm unused to a full calendar.

and that means i mess things up sometimes.

like yesterday, when we showed up for a wedding at 2 p.m.

and found out it had started at 1 p.m.

and all that was left at the church was the rice on the ground.

i was very surprised and a little embarrassed.

but i find myself laughing about it now.

if you throw a whole lot of balls up in the air,

you're bound to drop a couple of them.

where to begin?

another rainy day.

it seems like the world is full of turmoil and uncertainty. stock markets are down. starving people are meandering across africa. the syrian government is killing civilians. there are riots in london. fundamentalists of all stripes are getting bolder. the polar ice caps are melting. and the US congress is behaving like an unsupervised kindergarten. no wonder our television screens are full of senseless "reality" programs - we need escapism. because the world certainly looks hopeless. and it doesn't seem like there are any true leaders in the world with a single clue about getting a handle on it.

we had a lively conversation the other evening about whether it's even possible for individuals to make a difference anymore. i know i certainly can't think of anything that i could do (tho' i did spend some time today wondering if there wasn't an app in it). and a friend, whose job in television puts her in a position to have an effect on the wider culture, admitted that making denmark's next prime minister would be considerably less fun than making denmark's next top model.  and while it made me laugh (i do like me some cynicism), it also hits on a truth...if things aren't fun, we simply don't really want to do them. and saving the world would be some seriously hard work (unless there IS an app for that).

it seems like such a hopeless mess that setting whether or not i'm having fun aside, i wouldn't have a clue where to begin. it seems like even a small amount that you might give towards hunger in africa never makes it to those who need it...the big aid organizations have such a bureaucracy behind them that the vast majority of a donation goes to support that. we talked the other night about if it were possible to get even just a fraction of the food we are wasting in our part of the world to the people who need it, what an impact it could have. but so many regulations and rules and laws and transport issues stand in the way that we talked ourselves out of it before we even discussed it properly.

it must somehow be possible to somehow harness all of these social networks and all of the thoughts, ideas and innovations going on and channel them towards something good, don't you think? but where to begin? (maybe we should ask steve jobs.)

weighing the good and the bad

husband has calcific tendonitis and can't use his right hand. he writes like a kindergartner with his left hand. i find it somehow very endearing. it's pissing down rain. i had a dull caffeine-induced headache all afternoon. i'm not sure if it was from not enough caffeine or too much. and have i mentioned the rain? the bunny chewed off a bunch of the nail polish from my thumb when i wasn't paying attention. the rain made the satellite dish go out (i think it may have drowned) and now that poor lawyer girl from philly will eternally be stuck with her old wardrobe. the dishes are piling up in the sink because i don't feel like doing them and husband can't with his gimp hand. i want to say that it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but i already used that previously and i'm supposed to be getting my edge back, not repeating myself...in all, it was a tuesday that felt like a monday. and i'm glad it's over.

rain, rain go away....

i'm in need of some weekend sunshine, but i'm not sure we're going to get any. tho' it makes for some pretty pictures, it frankly depresses the hell out of me. i hope the weekend brings you sunshine, wherever you are....

the rain is good for something

when i grow up, i want to be one of the gardeners at legoland. that must be a great job.

thank you all for your thoughtful thoughts on my previous post. i've gotten much less angsty about the whole photo editing thing. as a number of you said, photos have been manipulated since they began, it's actually an integral part of the medium. we're just fortunate to live in a time where we can sit at our computers and do it and not have to putter around in a basement darkroom (tho' one of those appeals as well).

spud brought up an interesting point about it being a bit of a cheat to use someone else's Lightroom presets.  i found myself thinking about that quite a lot of the day. then i realized that i use products of other people's creativity all the time - recipe books, sewing patterns - but what i produce with them ends up something uniquely mine. i see the LR presets as no different than that - after all, the photos i apply them to are my own. at the base of it, i'm a pretty pragmatic person and i don't see any reason to reinvent the wheel. so i thank whoever it was who made that oldskool preset i love so much these days  (tho' most of the flowers above are a new one i found called PH bedtime).

and here's to the beginning of a beautiful week....

feeling a little dorothy on a cold and rainy day

four be the things i am wiser to know:

idleness, sorrow, a friend and a foe.

four be the things i'd be better without:

love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

three be the things i shall never attain:

envy, content and sufficient champagne.

three be the things i shall have till i die:

laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

dorothy parker