Shells

Marc Quinn

Marc Quinn

Cast

noun

noun: cast; plural noun: casts

1. an object made by shaping molten metal or similar material in a mould.

   "bronze casts of the sculpture"

   • a mould used to make an object by casting.

     noun: plaster cast; plural noun: plaster casts

     "the artist's casts and moulds became the property of the museum"
   • a bandage stiffened with plaster of Paris, moulded to the shape of a limb that is broken and used to support and protect it.
      noun: plaster cast; plural noun: plaster casts

     "I had to spend a month in a cast"
     
2. an act of throwing something forcefully.

   "he grabbed a spear for a third cast"
   
3. the form or appearance of something, especially someone's features or complexion.
   

   "she had a somewhat masculine cast of countenance"

   • the character of something.

     "this question is for minds of a more philosophical cast than mine"
4. a slight squint.
   

   "he had a cast in one eye"

Sunday Tune

Saturday Poem

"We are made of all the things that broke us just to keep us alive"

--Anthony Anaxagorou

Audrey Louise Reynolds

Audrey Louise Reynolds, A Fashionable Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.

Shedding Skin

“The skin biopsy was the first stage to creating the artwork. It was the moment when I thought OK this is real. It was a proper procedure. It wasn’t overly intrusive – it didn’t hurt or anything – it’s just a case of sterilising a part of my arm and cutting out a chunk of skin.

About two weeks later we converged at the Institute of Neurology to look at the stains and the actual skin that had been processed. They were stained in particular colours; a purple, minty green, blue and a pinky colour. They looked amazing – they just looked like paintings. I was really blown away by all the detail. What we created was me!”

-- Ghostpoet on the making of his latest album Shedding Skin.

Found via it's nice that. 

Maryanne Casasanta

But what if the truth is neither in the represented nor in the representation? What if the truth is in its material configuration? To participate in an image rather than merely identify with it could perhaps abolish this relation. This would mean participating in the material of the image as well as in the desires and forces it accumulates. How about acknowledging that this image is not some ideological misconception, but a thing simultaneously couched in affect and availability, a fetish made of crystals and electricity, animated by our wishes and fears, a perfect embodiment of its own conditions of existence? It doesn’t represent reality. It is a fragment of the real world. It is a thing just like any other—a thing like you and me. 

--Hito Steyerl

Work by Maryanne Casasanta.

Sunday Tune

Saturday Poem

Among the Rocks

Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,

      This autumn morning! How he sets his bones

To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet

For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

      Listening the while, where on the heap of stones

The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

      Such is life’s trial, as old earth smiles and knows.

If you loved only what were worth your love,

Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:

      Make the low nature better by your throes!

Give earth yourself, go up for gain above!

 

--  Robert Browning

one old and one new

by Lauren Spencer King for ArtBookStand

There are impossible scribblings in nature, written neither by men nor by devils ... Who knows whether this tumult of triangles inscribed in stone, first brought about by nature and then by art, does not contain one of the secret cyphers of the universe?

Roger Caillois, The Writing of Stones. 1970.

Apophyllite specimen from bijoux et minéraux.

Katie Paterson

‘Fossil Necklace is a string of worlds, with each bead modestly representing a major event in the evolution of life through a vast expanse of geological time. From the mono-cellular origins of life on earth to the shifting of the continents, the extinction of the Cretaceous period triggered by a falling meteorite, to the first flowering of flowers, it charts the development of our species and affirms our intimate connection to the evolution of those alongside us. Each fossil has been individually selected from all corners of the globe, and then carved into spherical beads in a secondary process of excavation.’

Guy Haywood, Kettle’s Yard.

(See more of Katie's work here)

a piece of quartz

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. He held it up to my ear. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘life and no escape.'

Anne Carson, Plainwater.

Sunday Tune

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

Saturday Poem

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them,

They think I’m telling lies.

I say,

It’s in the reach of my arms,

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,   

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.   

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.   

I say,

It’s the fire in my eyes,   

And the flash of my teeth,   

The swing in my waist,   

And the joy in my feet.   

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered   

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can’t touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them,   

They say they still can’t see.   

I say,

It’s in the arch of my back,   

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

Now you understand

Just why my head’s not bowed.   

I don’t shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.   

When you see me passing,

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It’s in the click of my heels,   

The bend of my hair,   

the palm of my hand,   

The need for my care.   

’Cause I’m a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That’s me.

 

-- Maya Angelou

Sheila Hicks

sheilahicks.com

The House on Coco Road

For this years International Women's Day I am doing something each day this week to honor and recognise the women that help move humanity forward.

Today I backed 'The House on Coco Road' by Damani Baker through kickstarter. I am all for people telling their families female history!

Veronica Ryan

Veronica Ryan

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."

— Virginia Woolf

Claire Curneen

Works by Claire Curneen

I choose, just a crown

I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being Theirs—
The name They dropped upon my face
With water, in the country church
Is finished using, now,
And They can put it with my Dolls,
My childhood, and the string of spools,
I’ve finished threading—too—
Baptized, before, without the choice,
But this time, consciously, of Grace—
Unto supremest name—
Called to my Full—
The Crescent dropped—
 Existence’s whole Arc, filled up,
With one small Diadem.
My second Rank—
too small the first—
Crowned—Crowing—on my Father’s breast—
A half unconscious Queen—
But this time—
Adequate—
Erect, With Will to choose, or to reject,
And I choose, just a Crown

-- Emily Dickinson