This one's for you

Howdy, howdy, howdy

Because I've been meaning to send you some photographs for quite some time now I thought that, instead of putting them in an email, I could blog them (in case there were restrictions on the total size of the email).

I've taken some shots of the apartment, notably the bedroom, cuz I thought you and your lovely wife might like to see. Credit here is, in the main, Jennifer's for her sense of style. This first picture is an overview with ceiling fan included in the shot (which was a royal pain to mount).

We had recently got a new bed from Ikea, one that hinges up from the bottom so that the underneath is for storage (and it's amazing just how much you can fit in under there). The headboard on the bed however is a lot shorter than the one we had with the old bed and so it left a gap in the wall, ah, art. The large panel was already there and I didn't want to have to move it. I had added my Appalachian dulcimer just to the right of it. There were a couple of smaller prints (dragonflies) to either side.

On the far right of the shot, where the back wall dips out a bit, are two prints in a similar theme that I've been carrying around with me for literal decades, having belonged to my Aunt Fran.

I added a few prints, the frame with 5 geishas and the moon art on the right. In order to balance out the dulcimer I ordered a Chinese violin, an erhu with bow, and added that onto the left side matching some of the scenes in the panels as well as complimenting the dulcimer.

I apologize. The previous stuff is kinda' out of sequence. 

Not long after we initially moved in (and this is on the opposite side of the room from what I've already shown), Jennifer had the idea that she'd like to have a silk kimono mounted on the wall over her dresser. We sourced one at one of the oriental stores (on Dundas West, the one that has the huge ceramic dragon mural outside) then I mounted the drapery rod to hang it on. She added the flowers to either side and then, from another foray, added perfume bottles in the display cases we had found and modified. Shortly after that I got her the mirror to set on the dresser. 

When we were working on that wall opposite (you can see the panel in the reflection of the mirror here) I had ordered a geisha doll for Jennifer. It took some time to arrive and so it was really a surprise when it finally showed up. Jennifer loved it and gave it pride of place in front of the mirror. 

The doll is playing a samisen which ties in to the musical theme of the images on the black panels and the instruments to either side.

In the living room, the pit as we call it, I recently added another figure to the top of the book case. 

It's another marionette, a male one this time, to match the female figure I had picked up the previous year. As far as I understand these are wedding figures but they really set off the bookcase.

The big mask in the middle I picked up at a place in the beaches. The two big silk pictures were a gift (from long ago). The other two smaller prints we picked up in St Jacobs of all places last year as well. You never know where you'll find stuff.

And speaking of finding stuff (how's that for a segue) this gives me the opportunity to plug one of my favourite places, a great place to browse and pick up unusual items. It's located near Pt Hope so it's a bit of a drive east of Toronto but it's worth it. The place is called Primitive Designs. You can check them out on the web if you wish. Anywho it's here that I found the female marionette last year and the male one this year.

We also found a glass bowl that we liked, one that was blown over a piece of wood, which was unusual enough for us to pick up for a table centrepiece. 

Now you could use it as a fish bowl, except we have cats. You could also use it for aquatic plants, except we have cats (particularly Max von Cat). That's okay, we like it as it is.

So Primitive Designs is a cool place to go.

It's also where a rather full figured Campbell can sit the iron throne.

And also where a three headed metal dragon meets you in the parking lot.

And where Imperial robots patrol the Buddha statuary.

Every time I go there I think of you, particularly for the metal bits and pieces and what they're built into (like the dragon previously shown). I always take some shots of things I think you'd like, like...

gears and wheels and rods, oh my.

They must have access to one hell of a scrap pile on the originating site.

I particularly liked this shot. I cropped in just a bit to hide a bit of the deck detail (as shown below).

The sailing ships were actually fastened to the rafters and at the side of a second level balcony sort of thing that allowed me to get the unusual perspective on it. And there were large carved spiders there as well, I swear they came from 

And out in the yard there were still hundreds of other cool things to look at and to photograph, like this driftwood horse (to scale).

And that was about where I was going to leave things off, having typed my pingers to the boney bits, until...

I bought a drum kit. Here it is.

Hopefully by now you know I like Gretsch. Two of my favourite guitars are Gretsches. And now I have this.

I'm actually not 100% sure if you are aware that I used the drawing figure that we used for the Allegory of the Cinema project back in school to make into a guitarist on stage. I actually went to some pains to put, you guessed it, a Gretsch logo on the guitar that I had picked up in Burnaby, at the Carousel, and then built a stage for him to stand on complete with amplifier and microphone.

Check out the match sticks on the snare.

Oh, as a side note, the sticks that came with the kit are way too big. Clipped wooden matchsticks are much closer to scale as you can see but need to be shaped a bit. I'll have to dremel some.

Well it turns out that it looks like I'm putting a band together. I already have another drawing figure which I've placed on the drums and, for Jennifer, I've ordered a scale model saxophone (likely to be played by another figure) which is on order and I may not receive until next month sometime.

More pictures to come?

Stirling Examples

Stirling Castle

The Castle of Stirling was a wonderful place to wander in, around, and a'boot. You talk about a place full of history, well this is the real deal.

I was very much captivated by the many figures that decorated the exterior walls of the castle, from the royal to the demonic, and so I post a selection of them here for your consideration.

The Royals

The Demons and the Grotesque

Devil figure close-up

And the guy with the crossbow protecting the battlements

 Colin

Aging Sculpture

Everything gets older, hell even the stone that we carve our memorials is aging in it's own particular way; it's eroding, it's softening, the figures may be blurring, fading, sometimes to the point of losing the shape
of whatever it originally depicted.

What is it besides likely bovine?

When Sid and I visited York in England we went to the old mediaeval cathedral there, York Minster. I was hoping to wander around the outside of the building and take photographs of the figures on the roofs and walls. Unfortunately the grounds were largely gated off while extensive restoration was going on and the only figure that was close enough to me to photograph was this particular one, on the point of fading to obscurity.

Gargoyles and other hangers on.

I'd like to introduce another theme here that's been one of my photographic interests for years.

Blech

I've always been fascinated by the creatures that sit or cling to walls and roofs, the ones that strive under window casements, and those that are stuck away in isolated nooks and crannies. Often, particularly in this busy world of ours, these silent sentinels are ignored or forgotten. They are also, even though cast in stone, aging.

Here are a few examples from Westminister Abbey (old churches, gothic ones in particular, are often great locations for gargoyle hunting).

The only problem is that they mostly occupy the higher realms.

Figures out of nightmare, figures out of time, many appearing to be quite ticked off.

I spy with my little eye something that is...

And mixed in with the menagerie of creatures are often the faces of people.

Golden Carousel

While we're on the topic of carousels I thought I'd like to add one more to this blog (even though it doesn't quite fit in with a lot of the criteria that I normally use when I photograph them).

I caught a glimpse of this carousel as Sid and I were walking across the Thames River, probably over the Hungerford Bridge, in London. That's the England one, not Ontario.

The ride was located on the walkway along the river embankment near 'the Eye', that big ferris wheel thingy that is located there. I don't believe this is a permanent installation so don't expect to necessarily find it there if you visit.

Okay, so the horses are fiberglass, not wood,

and the horses have names, which is nice I guess,

and it's gaudy as hell (is it just me or do you think that nobody does gaudy quite like the English),

and the horses have no tails,

but outside of all this there is one very major difference, did you notice? This carousel rotates in the opposite direction to every carousel I've seen in Canada and the United States, clockwise instead of counterclockwise.

Those English.

Colin

Guelph Antique Carousel

Last year I was still chasing down old carousels, the wooden ones, that were within day trip striking distance of Toronto. I had already done some research and found out that I had missed one of what I thought of as a 'major' installation, although a minor one (that's supposed to be a joke) nearby.

I had also just financed a new used car and wanted to take it out on a road trip. My son Elliot came along for the ride.

It was a beautiful summer day for a drive. We hit the road and headed in the direction of Guelph, Ontario. I had some printed directions and knew a bit about the layout of the city and so with only a little bit of head scratching and paper consulting (no GPS here, GPS is for sissies) managed to locate the carousel and, at the same location, a small replica train that gives rides around the park.

So the carousel is one manufactured by the Allan Herschell Company (you can tell by the features of many of the animals) and was likely constructed around 1919, at least that's the year painted on the outside wall of the pavilion. There's a bit more information that can be gleaned on-line about where the city of Guelph got it and so on.

The funny thing, at least to me, is that I used to live here, in Guelph, way back when (talking the 70's here), around the time the carousel was purchased.

The carousel is in fairly good shape, considering it's age and the fact that it is still very much a working carousel. I'm sure there are those who would like to see a little bit more funding for the care and restoration of the horses except we seem to be living in the time of the bean counter, where art and culture are often pitted against the bottom lines of city budgets.

 Still it was nice to see. There was one thing that was a bit of a distraction for me and an indicator of possible funding and maintenance issues. Some of the horses once had actual horse hair tails but that day I visited all that was left were threadbare (more like 'hairbare' but I don't think it's a word) butt plugs.

To be honest I don't really know if it was caused by a lack of restoration funds, the lack of horse hair on the market, age, vandalism, or, as is likely, a combination of all the above factors.

 And thereby ends a tail.

The Void

I know I haven't visited here in a while or posted anything to it. I guess I just lost interest. Thanks to my friend Sid and a new blog venture we have initiated I decided to come back, do a little dusting, take the sheets off the furniture, sweep away the cobwebs and leave the address for the new site (kind of like a place to forward mail to).

We decided to put on line some of the photographs taken in various cemeteries we have wandered through during our travels (solo and duo) and and if you are interested you could check out...

http://cities-of-the-dead.blogspot.ca/

Again, thanks to Sid, you may even find an addition or two here.

Colin