Sing a long a Saturday - People Need A Melody

 

We interrupt this blogging challenge..... FAIL. Sing a long a Saturday

 So I failed to keep the daily blog posts going. 

It's ok I am not being critical of myself. Life is busy with my day job at the moment and I ran out of steam! 

I have been looking for positive acronyms for the word FAIL, as I recalled a reframing of the idea of "failure" that I had come across once which was "First Attempt In Learning."

In my search I found some not so positive ones, and the one I have given myself for the UBC is "Forget About It Loser." Of course I am joking! 😂

I like this one "Forever Acquiring Important Lessons"; and this one "Flawlessly Ascending In Life". 😂 If only ha ha! 

Have you any FAIL acronyms you would like to share? 

Here is a great motivational song to get the energy going this morning..... 

UBC Day 18 - Sing a long a Saturday - Faeland

 Sending love out there into the world today with this beautiful song and the beautiful lyrics. It's like a meditation or prayer. 

Happy Saturday wished to you all. 

UBC Post 16 - Hokusai Exhibition

 

My friend and I visited an exhibition at The British Museum, which is currently showing 103 "lost" drawings by Katsushika Hokusai. This print above hanging at the start of the exhibition, is a portrait of Hokusai from his biography and by Lijima Kyoshin. 

When announcing the discovery of the drawings, the British Museum website press release reported that  

"Hokusai (1760-1849) is considered by many to be Japan’s greatest artist and has been recognised internationally since the Japonism era of the 1870s, two decades after his death. During his seventy-year career, he produced a considerable oeuvre of some 3,000 colour prints, illustrations for over 200 books, hundreds of drawings and over 1,000 paintings. "

"Over 100 newly-rediscovered drawings by Japanese artist Hokusai have been acquired by the British Museum. Created in 1829 as illustrations for an unpublished book, they came to light in 2019 and have now been purchased by the Museum. The acquisition was made possible thanks to a grant from Art Fund.

The existence of these exquisite small drawings – 103 in total – had been forgotten for the past 70 years. Formerly owned by the collector and Art Nouveau jeweller Henri Vever (1854- 1842), they resurfaced in Paris last year, the same city where they were last publicly recorded: at an auction in 1948. The drawings – which were made for a book called Great Picture Book of Everything – are thought to have been in a private collection in France in the intervening years and unknown to the wider world."

I was interested to learn that the drawings, were made, for an Encyclopedia. Encyclopedias were popular at that time in Japan due to people not being permitted to travel out of the country. 

These drawings made for "The Great Book of Everything" only survived due to the book not being published. If it had been the drawings would have been destroyed in the process of making prints. 

The Press Release goes on to discuss how these drawings  

"are especially significant as they come from a period in the artist’s career where he was previously thought to have created relatively little, due to a succession of personal challenges. Within the previous two years he had suffered the death of his second wife and recovered from a minor stroke. And just months after these pieces were finished, Hokusai pleaded destitution in a letter – in part due to gambling debts incurred by his ne’er-do-well grandson. The reason why these drawings were never published remains unclear, but they mark a turning point in the seventy- year-old artist’s career, demonstrating that he was in fact entering a new burst of creativity that would soon give birth to his famous print series, Thirty-Six Views of Mt Fuji (c. 1831-1833).

The print below is one of the most famous of Hokusai's works known as "The Great Wave", and part of the Museum's wider collection from this artist who was 72 years old when he designed this print. 

You can view the drawings and other work by Hokusai on the British Museum Collection Online. 

UBC Post 15 - Thich That Hanh

“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. 

Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes.

All is a miracle.” 

― Thich Nhat Hanh, 

The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

 

UBC Day 14 - Here, There and Everywhere.

 I went to see this exhibition when I was in London last week. It is currently at The British Library and only a very small collection from the new book by Paul McCartney. 

It was good to see the photographs and especially the handwritten lyrics to "Here, There and Everywhere", one of my favourites. Such a simple and beautiful melody and lyrics. 

My friend and I also went to another exhibition(for another post) at The British Museum, which we had managed to book to see in one of the extra slots added in the evening, due to the demand. 

It was quite eerie walking out through the empty museum afterwards. I do love this space. I often used to visit here when I had time when coming to London, as it is near the train station. I have never been there at night before however. 

My friend took these photos as we enjoyed the experience of the Museum at night and I spotted the almost full moon through the glass roof. Stunning!

I feel really blessed in my life to be able to have the freedom and finances sometimes to visit London and enjoy the many free or reasonably priced museums and exhibitions. Being there last week I realised how much I have missed the big city with all of the interesting things to do and see. 

There is lots to do here "up North" too, with Manchester and Liverpool only a short train ride away and in the small towns too there is always something happening, and lots to learn about. 

UBC Day 13 - The history of Protest 1- Peterloo