Field Notes

William Blake : Ah! Sunflower

Ah! sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;

Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire;
Where my sunflower wishes to go.

William Blake (1757-1827)

My friend Mike Berg designed a trellis for other friends, The Lathams. Chris and Alida Latham live here in Seattle, Mike lives in Istanbul.

Alida took some photos of the installation process you can see those here.  It was an impressive process, the location is  four stories above the street.

A few years ago we were lucky to have a large sculptural piece by Mike Berg installed at our home, I have a photo set of that here.  Mike’s work is figurative, imaginative and in the case of these two pieces, very substantial. Mike often works with metal, bronze, steel, copper. Some of his pieces are extremely light and seem to be made of gossamer [link]. He also works with crafts people in Turkey and has amazing weavings done based on his designs [link].

Mike Berg is extremely talented and worthy a little of your time, check him out.

Via: Wild Tigers I Have Known

The Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum,
originally uploaded by snailbooty.

Snailbooty continues to strike gold at Flickr. He is the master of the macabre vignettes and miniature setups. If only he and W.S. Burroughs could have collaborated.

Video by James Houston

Only Internet could distribute such a unique video remix of a song. No traditional medium would have touched this. Read the full accompanying text by the artist or see the original here.

James Houston the creator says:

I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit.
Based on the lyric (and alternate title) “Big Ideas: Don’t get any” I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there.
It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to.

Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums
HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX

Enjoy, I did!

Thanks to Jemima Kiss for Twitting this