Day 5, Vonnegut and Astatke make Fridays fundays

Day 5 from the Last Light Series by Jo Bradford.

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The week has flown by - today I will be busying myself with the following...

• Writing the text for my piece for Catalogue Of The Night, I may post the finished images and text here next week, but it may give you nightmares so don't say I didn't warn you!
• The final stages of uploading my NASA artwork submission.
• While I work, I am listening to Mulatu Astatke, just loving those sounds of Ethiopiques Volume 4 
• And at lunchtime I am looking forward to reading the last chapter of my current book, Cat's Cradle.  What's not to love about my beloved Mr Vonnegut's writings?  I already know the end as I have read it before, but I can't resist revisiting him from time to time :)
• Toughest task of all today though, is not to shake, prod and generally feel, the pile of packages in the lounge after the postman just did his rounds.....  I will patiently wait till the morning to check out my birthday stash, promise!

See you tomorrow for Day 6, the penultimate day in my series Last Light

Jo xxxx

South Point Style

South Point by Jo Bradford

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I found this picture in my Barbados file a few weeks ago, and just remembered to upload it this morning.   (Now for sale on Etsy and Dawanda).  What I find most striking is how similar the colours are to the Silver Sea Subtleties Pictures I took in Cornwall last week.... posted a few posts below this one {scroll down to see what I mean}.

I have been making Midnight excursions on to the frosty Moor this week with some old cameras and a very warm coat.   More on this later.....

Jo x

Silvery Seas

I have just spent 10 days away from home and my studio, working with the media on a military exercise on Salisbury Plain.  I got so used to sleeping outdoors and being in the fresh air all day that I am actually missing it now that I am home, even though we lived through some unbelievably bad weather, gale force winds and a lot of rain.  While I was on the exercise, I missed the sea of course.  It seemed strange not to have my daily outing to the shoreline with a camera in hand.

First thing I did when I awoke at home after my trip, was to head down to the seashore and drink it all in.  I took an old Argus 75 TLR camera that I have modified to make these TtV photos and an old bellows style polaroid land camera from the 1950's too.  The silvery sea and grey day did nothing to dampen my pleasure at being back where I belong {sigh}

It's good to be home  :)

Meeting Place

Meeting Place by Jo Bradford

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Meeting Place is a brand new listing in my Etsy shop today. I have thought about taking this picture for a long time and finally got round to it on a sunny evening a few weeks before I moved. On the subject of my move to new house and studio, I am finally getting all the boxes unpacked and am happy to be back on the broadband wagon after four long and unsettling weeks without it {scary!!}
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Shop News
To help beat those tight-budget blues for all you recession hit art lovers, I am now offering a new range of my prints at a smaller 5x5 inch size. These cute little prints are still on my glorious textured fine art paper, just like their bigger siblings but are listed in my shop at a credit crunching $12.50 each. So if you ever wanted to own your own piece of Green Island Studios artwork, there has never been a better reason than now to spend those pennies!!

My etsy shop is here... http://www.greenislandstudios.etsy.com/ Come on over!!

Until later,

Jo xoxo

Surfer culture

Afternoon Social by Jo Bradford

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"I think surfers are truly advanced people.

That on any planet like ours,

when you get a culture that gets into surfing ...

it's a sign of maturity on the part of that species."

~

Excerpt taken from Interview: Dr. Timothy Leary The Evolutionary Surfer By Steve Pezman.

Article Originally Published in SURFER, January 1978

Crepuscular Rays

Spotlight by Jo Bradford

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It is interesting that the Ancient Greeks believed that sunbeams drew water into the sky (an early description of evaporation) and so they called this phenomena sun drawing water. Looking at this picture I took recently, you can see why they might have thought that!

These sunbeams are technically called Crepuscular rays. Rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays stream through gaps in clouds the columns of sunlit air are separated by darker cloud-shadowed regions. The name comes from their frequent occurrences during crepuscular hours (those around dawn and dusk), when the contrasts between light and dark are the most obvious.

waves pound the shore

Waves pound the shore by Jo Bradford

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I have just finished reconditioning one of my collection of vintage typewriters. This one is an Imperial Good Companion 4, a lovely little lightweight machine with a retro sparkly metallic turquoise green finish. I love how light the keys actions are considering it is a machine from the early 1960's. After typing up a few poems and to do lists, I started pulling prints off the wall and typing on them yesterday afternoon, as you can see from the TTV picture above. The text on this picture (of my local surfspot known as the Badlands) is a lovely quote (surprisingly, perhaps?) by Mohammed Ali.

Middle Earth

Idyll by Jo Bradford

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Cornwall is a place of rolling green landscape and turquoise sea. It is so enchanting. This land of fluffy clouds, quaint stone cottages and majestic trees are all exactly how I imagined Middle Earth to look, as a child reading Tolkien. His stories of the shires and villages of Middle Earth, were inspired by the British Midlands area where he grew up around Warwickshire and Herefordshire.

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The idea of a middle earth comes from Old Norse Language and appears in ancient Germanic mythology.

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The world of Men is known by several names in Old Norse, such as Midgard, Middenheim, and Middengeard, and is located in the centre of the universe. It was believed that Bifröst, the rainbow bridge, extended from Middle-earth to Asgard, the land of the gods. Beneath Middle-earth lay Hel, the land of the Dead.

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Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements such as Britain, during the Viking Age, until about 1300.

The thrill of the new

Blue Breeze by Jo Bradford

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I have been absorbed with creative energy recently, resulting in much time spent on location and in the darkroom. I always find it a thrilling and pleasurable experience reviewing the results of my many outings with new kit and toys galore from dawn to dusk, and any time inbetween when the light is just right or shows promise. I am now at the happy phase of selecting which of my new works will be included in several upcoming shows over the next few months, my chance to see my time and hard work come to fruition.

So here is a little something to whet your appetite, a little taster for you...

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Lighthouse Lane

Lighthouse Lane by Jo Bradford

"Leaves of Grass"

I stand as on some mighty eagle’s beak,

Eastward the sea absorbing, viewing,

(nothing but sea and sky,)

The tossing waves, the foam,

the ships in the distance,

The wild unrest, the snowy, curling caps -

-that inbound urge and urge of waves,

Seeking the shores forever.

··· Walt Whitman ···

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Sea of Dreams

Sea of Dreams by Jo Bradford

Like summer waves on sands of snow,

Soft ringlets clasp her neck and brow,

And wandering breezes kiss away

A threaded light of glimmering spray,

That drifts and floats and softly flies

In a golden mist about her eyes.

"The Sea Maiden"

Poetic musings by Dowell O'Reilly

(1865 - 1914)

September Joy

In The Dunes by Jo Bradford

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I love this time of year in Cornwall, the skies are blue and the air has that crisp hint of Autumn in it. The sun still shines bright and strong and warms us all as we make the most of those long stretches of empty beach, and deserted dunes which we now have all to ourselves again. Bliss

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The rapture in the lonely shore

White Water, Green Sea a photograph by Jo Bradford

Photograph © Jo Bradford

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,

there is rapture in the lonely shore;

There is society where none intrudes,

by the deep sea, and music in its roar;

I love not man the less,

but nature more.

Author: Lord Byron 1788-1824

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Immersion

Immersion by Jo Bradford

European friends - buy this here

American friends - buy this here

I love the Spring - the warm air and sunshine fills you with the desire to immerse yourself in the salty water and wash the winter blues away.

Life's a Beach

Photograph © Jo Bradford

Blue Beach Days by Jo Bradford

Europe buy this here

USA buy this here

Such a great place to hang out, walk the dog, go surfing, and people watch of course!

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