Favas com chouriço

- "Amo-te querida"

- "hum...hum..., pois, olha aquilo ali, que comichão aqui no braço,...ui...tão tarde? já? tenho de ir, esqueci-me...portanto."



Agora imaginem este diálogo ao contrário. Ele chama-se José Cid e desenvolveu a melhor fuga para a frente para este tipo de situações.

Artist In Focus

Waiting for the yellow



Miróllock



Loads of free time



Snowman


4DPict



Kiki

it hurts just there

This is how i see the small muscle spasm that causes me so much pain sometimes. like small, bloody, veined angry knot.

Chamira

arte feroz (ou mulher a dizer palavrões)

Jo

Marmara

My Pollock - collective exhibition

Call opened! I mentioned previously this week the Jackson Pollock website where you can make your own piece of art. You can find explanations in the comments on how to save it as an image. So, the call is opened and this blog will house a collective exhibition of your art, my dear bloggers! Send your Pollock to me by e-mail - babsgomes@hotmail.com, with your name or other name you want to use, with a comment or no comment at all. Shall we share some art?

outrage

Yesterday I was watching a programme in RTP2 which normally irritates me - "Por outro lado". It did irritate me a little bit but I was interested in the interviewee, an architect from Mozambique. You could see he was a bit irritated, like me. Anyway, apart from his clever answers and no fear of saying the truth, one of his projects caught my attention. The Bmuzini Memorial, designed by José Forjaz as a remembrance for Samora Machel. The first president of Mozambique, and other 34 people died when the presidential plane, returning from a summit in Zambia, crashed at Mbuzini in South Africa on 19 October 1986. The cause of the crash has not been officially determined, although circumstantial evidence points to a false navigational beacon placed by the former apartheid regime in South Africa to draw the plane off course.

The monument, sited in a barely accessible hillside, features 35 vertical steel columns -- one for each person killed in the plane crash -- inserted on a concrete platform that tapers into the ground. As one approaches the columns a constant, wind-induced whistling can be heard as a result of the small incisions on each pole, a sound described by some as troublesome. The interviewer insisted “it’s a lament, a cry”. “No, it is rage”, he said. He was a closer friend of Samora Machel.

Today, I discovered José Forjaz on the web and found this. The architect's site opens with an appeal, written with rage about the plans of the South African province to “upgrade” the memorial, in a project that will destroy the initial intent of the creator who was not officially informed about it. I think I’m with him. Worth taking a good look at the pictures of the memorial and the “upgrading”, which will include an amphi­theatre, a helipad, an exhibition centre and a library.

“The memorial has a number of meanings -- symbolic, aesthetic and even acoustic. By adding a lot of stuff to it, the monument will disappear.” José Forjaz

My Pollock

Do yours here. I can show you how to save your work of art, but you have to ask. Politely.

Portugal in the world

International advertising award for this. Institute for Support of Abused Children.

Bay leaf, qual folha de louro

Acontece a muitos projectos. Passam por fases de maior entusiasmo, e de menor entusiasmo. O estrujido também. Não se fiem nele! Às vezes encontram-no acrescentado todos os dias, outras estagnado por meses. Não que a vida não corra lá fora, porque corre. Foram novos países, novas pessoas, velhas preocupações, foi um outono ameno, foram as taxas moderadoras, foram as SCUTs, foi o programinha da Maria Elisa ontem à noite, foi um dia com gripe para me resolver a voltar cá. Confesso que andava com uma certa resistência. Mas nada como algo de novo, umas folhas de louro a acrescentar ao estrujido, para lhe apurar o sabor. Não as deixem esturricar se tentarem! Até breve.


It happens with many projects. They go through phases, some more exciting than others. Estrujido does not stand as an exception. Do not trust it! Sometimes you may find something new on a daily basis, but estrujido can also remain the same for months. Not that life is not running out there. It is running, indeed. New countries, new people, old worries, a mild autumn, the NHS job cuts, the projections for Blair's succession, the amazingly poor movie "The Queen" more about Di's scandal than anything else. It took a day with a cold to come back here. Must say I was repressing that move. But nothing like something new, some bay leaves to add to the estrujido, to strength its flavour. Do not let them burn, if you try this. See you soon.

pois!

The cartoon

Final scene

"Esta noche rodamos la escena final. Me he levantado rodeado de un silencio denso, muy especial. Como si mientras me duchaba y vestía estuviera interpretando mi propia historia. En esta última secuencia intervienen los personajes de la Abuela (Carmen), la Hija (Penélope) y la Vecina (Blanca-Revelación Portillo). En la escena sólo se escucha el viento. Los personajes murmuran y no hacen ruido al caminar por la calle o por el amplio pasillo de la casa de Agustina, la vecina.

He planificado la secuencia en mi habitación con un silencio apenas roto por la voz de María Bethanía (Bom día, tristeza) y Maysa Matarazzo (Meu mundo caióu). La escena final es una escena de bienvenida, despedida y condena. No puedo desvelar los detalles, pero de nuevo me siento como el personaje de Kathleen Turner, llorando tontamente sobre lo que escribo. Las tres mujeres se necesitan, se acompañan, se ayudan, pero la soledad de cada una de ellas es profunda como las raíces de un árbol antiquísimo. Y yo siento esta triple soledad sobre mis hombros como un peso liviano y a la vez insostenible."

Pedro Almodovar, Diarios de rodage de Volver
Website, also in English and French

Estrella Morente - La cancion

The initial scene

Almodovar's sensitiveness to very peculiar aspects of the latin way of life. Taking care of the dead. Could be in Portugal. Even if you don't believe in god, it is something that passes from generation to generation, that you see your grandparents doing and find yourself involved in. Suddently, in the Renoir Cinema in London, I was closer from home. But that's just me.

1,2,3 Action

Will give you three reasons to go and watch it. Tomorrow and friday.

curious

about how you feel his photographs. See more.

waiting line

Sometimes life is like that. A calm limbo where the past no longer exists, where the present is led by a sweet expectation of a near future, aware of a much longer and challenging one waiting in the docks upon arrival. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the way we deal with time. Someone asked me if I was given the chance to have a super power, what would it be. I want to be wherever I want by just clicking my fingers. That’s space and time. And wishes. Or control?

Arabic Love

The beginning of a sunday afternoon (rainy) in the British Museum is a happy discovery. The exhibition "Words into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East" sure is of good value, with a perfect timing and good messages. Well done the curator (sorry, have to say - Venetia Porter, a woman)! Above the amazing round reading room (one of the musts of the BM), one navigates through a carefully thought path of discovering Arabic calligraphy, words, meaning, art and modern artists from the Middle East. Fortunately for those not living in London, the exhibition is online through the BM website in partnership with the Birzeit University, Palestine. Have a look. Four parts. First, sacred script, where you can see are first introduced to the Arabic calligraphy. Some of the scripts made me think about the Chinese calligraphy, made with long and single movements producing very human and beautiful traces of ink. If was with confirmatory surprise that I've seen the "Ya Rahim", drawn by a Chinese Muslim artist - after all, the two touch each other. Then, you can see words coming together with meaning, in the second part - literature into art. In here you find the image which I decided to put here, the illustration of a poem written by Ibn al-Arabi, a Sufi master and writter, written as love poems for a young girl (but, apparently, they are in fact allegories to divine love) . In the third part - deconstructing the word, all gets more complex, one sees how words can unfold and become detached from their meaning, turned into abstract art. Very clever, beautiful, revealing, it broadens our perceptions of words and art in a very subtle but terribly meaningful way. Finally, history, identity and politics, seen by the eyes of the artists, on the war in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, amongst others. Leave you with the translation to English of the text in the image: "I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith." The single word hubb (‘love’) is isolated in blue. Interpret as you like.

The return

Back to London after a week in the sun with family, friends and dog, and a cancelled flight. At 3am last night Gatwick airport was packed of police officers with guns running around screaming excuse me!. No need for apologies. Thank you.