‘Field Notes for Curious Minds’, celebrating others, weekly.
In a world where volume drowns nuance, and over-assertion parades itself as discussion and debate, we hunt out and share the quiet voices. We are unashamedly optimistic and positive, hoping to lift spirits. Expect art, photography, architecture and insights to the world around us. Follow our trails of breadcrumbs to find moments of calm, kindred spirits, and ideas to be woven into your life well-lived.
Not many years back, we would have associated cottages with an old-fashioned sensibility, something slightly ‘chintzy’ and cluttered, perhaps. This collection by Dezeen turns that perception on its head; cottages with modern twists.
We had Samuél Lopez-Barrantes to stay … a proper, super-talented writer on a short writing retreat. It felt like a good time for me to dust off a draft short story that had been languishing for a while, a tale that Dolores was itching to tell:
Read Stopping Service here
Extract:
“You wanna see life? I mean, really see it? Take the damn bus. Not because you choose to, because you have to. Buses are for the folk who don’t have no choice. They’re for people who can’t hail yellow cabs, and the kind who ain’t never rode an Uber; hell, these folk don’t even got a fancy phone to call one up even if they could afford it. Buses are for the guys who drive those Ubers but only when they’ve handed their car to the guy they pool with, the fella who does the 12-hours after the 12-hours the guy drove before he got on the bus. Those two have whizzbang phones cos it’s the smart way to earn a living, the only real Apples in the Big Apple. Old models. People on buses ain’t got the latest of anything. Well, they got the latest cuts to welfare and the latest rules from Homeland, the ones that mean they’re always looking over their shoulders. Yeah, they got the latest of that alright.”
There is a boundless joy about the huge murals created by artists Ella and Pitr. Imagine living in a high rise apartment and being able to look down on these.
STREET ART
~ A. A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)
The incredible JoJo Thomson is hiking the final (tenth) day of her Tour du Mont Blanc challenge as I lounge about typing these ‘Field Notes’. I cannot wait to see her on Friday and to hear HER field notes about the sights and sounds plus the ups and downs of this epic adventure.
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.”
― John Muir, The Mountains of California
Photographer Fernando Maselli raises fundamental questions with these montages that create fantastical - infinite - ranges of mountains, a blurring of the reality of nature and the nature of creativity. Lose yourself in the endless range of his imagination.
Every week we seek out and highlight writers who stop us in our tracks with their words and ideas.
Do, please, click a link or two and discover some amazing folk
If you cannot travel to new locations, you can always read about them. If you can travel to Italy, there’s no harm in reading up about it beforehand (or maybe just pop a volume or two in your luggage). Why not relish a literary journey to Italy with La Bibliotrek | Read the World
Travel heightens our awareness and recognition of other lives lived in parallel with our own, reality and imagination blurring like these intriguing images by Alex Corvin
That recognition of other lives lived is known as ‘sonder’, a theme at the heart of poetic prose by Mitalee … we love these memories woven deeply into place, the story of a closing chapter and the opening lines of the next.
Perhaps it is not important where your memories end up being made; it is just vital that they are lived and gathered. We were touched to read how Suleika Jaouad has created positivity and optimism from disappointment:
“I realized that what I had wanted from a residency wasn’t simply uninterrupted time. I craved a new routine. A little healthy urgency. The feeling that this particular stretch of time matters. More than anything, I yearned for a way to organize my days around something besides illness.” Suleika Jaouad
If Suleika can bring her planned art retreat to a space closer to home, there is no reason Victoria K. Walker should not imagine herself into a painting.
My personal twist on Victoria’s question about “what painting would you like to live in for a day” is to imagine what is happening just ‘off-stage’ in a recognisable artwork and to write a short story about it.
There is a small collection over at ‘Just Write, Right’ if art-inspired fiction sounds like it might be your kind of Summer read.
ART-INSPIRED FICTION
That’s it for today. Back next week, same time, same place.
Barrie and JoJo
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