Poppytalk Handmade

Spotlight by Jo Bradford

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I am showing work on Vancouvers own Poppytalk "affordable art market" this month, it runs from February 16th to March 13th.

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Poppytalk Handmade is an online street market curated by Poppytalk to showcase, buy and sell handmade goods of emerging design talent from around the world.

Etsy Front Page

My Build Me Up Buttercup picture was featured on the Front Page of Etsy today.
Thanks to JenniferBurkin for making the treasury.

Monkeys Wedding

Sun Showers by Jo Bradford

Growing up in Africa, there is a funny describing those weirdly wonderful weather moments when the sun is shining and it rains lightly as a "monkeys wedding". As kids, we would shout this with glee, whenever we experienced a sunshower. I always pictured in my minds eye a host of well dressed monkeys celebrating their unions in the trees, wearing white lace and top hats and tails.

The expression is what linguists call a loan translation of the Zulu "umshado wezinkawu", meaning a wedding for monkeys. Similar sayings or proverbs exist in a surprising number of languages it turns out. A great many of them have animal associations, often to do with marriage (or that activity for which the word marriage may be considered a suitable euphemism!).

Michael Quinion, in "World Wide Words", goes on to say that in Arabic, they say “the rats are getting married”, while Bulgarians prefer to speak of bears doing so; in Hindi it becomes “the jackal’s wedding”; in Calabria, it is said that “when it rains with sun, the foxes are getting married”, for which there’s a similar phrase in Japanese; Koreans refer to tigers likewise; there’s even an English dialect term, “the foxes’ wedding”, known to come from right here in the South West of Britain it seems.

No-one seems to know how, where or why the expression arose. There’s clearly a common association understood and in use by widely divergent language communities, so it seems to be something at a level below that of superficial culture. But what is it?

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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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Whiter than White

My new work....

Unforgettable by Jo Bradford

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Unwritten by Jo Bradford

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Undiscovered by Jo Bradford

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Unspoken by Jo Bradford

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Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

We are rarely blessed with snow in Cornwall, in fact it happens about once every four years. To us seasiders it's such a big deal when the white stuff arrives, that we afford it the same status as a national holiday.

We were lucky enough to have a few inches of snowfall this week, so most people took the day off work and hit the local slopes with anything they could possibly utilise as a toboggan. Great fun was had by all!!

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Darkness

Darkness by Jo Bradford

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air

Taken from "Darkness" - a poem by Lord Byron

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curious and delicate

Feathery Frost by Jo Bradford

It has been unusally frosty here this week!!

Frost: Definition~Atmospheric moisture that freezes directly on the ground and on exposed objects.

Frost Facts:

Frost formation occurs when water vapour in the atmosphere passes into the ice-crystal phase without going through the intermediate liquid phase. Frost forms under conditions that would form dew if the temperature were above freezing.

Ice formed by the crystallisation of atmospheric moisture (water vapor) on a surface when the temperature of the surface is below 32°F (0°C).

Frost often appears as a light feathery deposit of ice, often of a curious and delicate pattern.

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Etsy Front Page

My Race You Home picture was featured on the Front Page of Etsy today. Thanks to lazytcrochet for making the lovely ski themed treasury that did the FP honours

Silent, and soft, and slow....

"Race You Home!!" by Jo Bradford

Out of the bosom of the air,
Out of the cloudfolds of her garment shaken,
Over the woodlands, brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

~~By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.~~

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7 things about me

I was blog tagged ages ago by Karen Faulkner, and (better late than never) I finally got round to listing 7 little things about me..........

1. I grew up in the Transkei, in Southern Africa, a place full of weird and wonderful sights....

2. I live in wild and wonderful Cornwall, with my husband, whose mistress is undeniably the Ocean, but I don't mind sharing!

3. My dog Charlie, is a beautiful, chocolate brown, German Pointer. Charlie Brown goes everywhere with me. He is chief security officer at Green Island Studios and his other duties involve running for miles and miles on our local beaches, barking at passing birds, and wreaking havoc on photoshoots. He's not so little now, but he is still as cute now as the day I brought him home just over a year ago (below)

4. My studio is my home away from home, I have a large colour darkroom and studio on the ground floor, but at this time of year I spend most of my time in my office up on the mezzanine, with the heater and the stereo on full blast. I have a steady stream of visitors drop by, so I spend hours in the groundfloor social area, eating, drinking, browsing the books, chatting and getting inspired, while the morning sun shine creates projections on the walls.

5. I teach alternative processes, particularly the cyanotype process to people aged from 4 to 74, I love the hands-on lo-fi wonder of mixing my own emulsions and coating them onto all sorts of unusual surfaces, but for me the best part is sitting in the sunshine with them while they "cook".

6. Mum's hand-me-down Polaroid 600 One Step in my teens was the first camera in my ever increasing polaroid camera collection.

7. I have been making, using and selling TTV's for a few years now. These fabulous contraptions are unique and akward and rewarding and frustrating all at once, the results are worth the challenge though!!

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Together You and Me

Together ~ Jo Bradford

Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—

But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!

Life in a Love ~ Robert Browning

(For My P)

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Happy New Year!!

Bright Lights by Jo Bradford

Happy New Year to my all friends, here's to a joyful 2009

xxx

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A crystal veil

Crystalline by Jo Bradford

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The Snow

It sifts from leaden sieves,

It powders all the wood,

It fills with alabaster wool

The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face

Of mountain and of plain,-

-Unbroken forehead from the east

Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,

It wraps it, rail by rail,

Till it is lost in fleeces;

It flings a crystal veil.

On stump and stack and stem,-

-The summer's empty room,

Acres of seams where harvests were,

Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrist of posts,

As ankles of a queen,-

- Then still its artisans like ghosts,

Denying they have been.

~~By Emily Dickinson~~

Join The Dots

Join The Dots by Jo Bradford

This is one of the other new lines I have created for the winter season. I made these about a month ago to list specifically as Christmas Card Designs, but have had so many enthusiastic requests for prints of these, that I have decided to list them as fine art photographic prints on Etsy as well. I am madly in love with the colours and shapes, and very pleased with this work, definitely some of my favourite new work of 2008.

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