Art&Ghosts

A Wolvish Revolution

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Back to nature....

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The Sympathy of Wolves

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I was deeply moved during the creation of these works. Now you are about to witness my soft side, which is impossible to avoid if I am to write anything relating to the conception of these images at all. My sympathy (not pity, I should prefer to liken it to an affinity) for the 'wilderness' and all integral to it can be a painful experience at times. Nature itself creates and destroys; all that is beautiful, all that is wild has, at the same time, a definite aspect of terror. We are all aware of this, if not consciously. But it is the senseless, even willful destruction of this precious, terrifying wilderness by human hands that causes me a great deal of discomfort. And these concerns are becoming more and more apparent to me through my work. I consider the fate of wolves, tigers, trees....the fate of the earth beneath my feet, the air that I breathe, the inhabitants of endangered forests...and I feel impotent.

Sometimes I think that my images, some of them, the more obviously connected-to-the-wilderness pictures are a sort of feeble attempt at a quiet, dignified natural revolution. My own revolution; a savagely emotional affair. My girls and their curiously unpopulated landscapes are something of a testament to this. They are at one with the rhythms of the earth. And so are the occasional creatures that accompany them. They are the visual manifestations of my adoration and respect for all that we have lost, but they are also a symbol of beauty and hope - powerful and resolute, they are beyond the machinations of man(kind).

And it is this very beyondness that connects them so perfectly to the realm of fairytales, folktales, and myth. We all go hand in hand:)

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Equinox

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Please view large (click on image)

This just grew, and grew, and grew...........and before I knew what was happening, there it just was.

Vernal Equinox. The passage from winter to spring. I was a winter child.... I am very much a winter child, but I can still tip my hat to the beauty of nature's most celebrated season of renewal...rebirth. Beginnings and endings; there have been many this past season, for myself and for the people that I care about. For all that is lost, there is something that shall be rediscovered, if you know how to look. If you care how to look.

And here, the birds that once inhabited those old cages, they knew how to look:)

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Pepper and Sky

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Pepper, a horse I used to know. But I cannot remember him.

Once upon a time there was amnesia....and large sections of my life are still missing. Sometimes they come back, with an almost supernatural force (both the good and the not so good) creating a curious combination of sensations. Wonder, trepidation, amusement, disbelief. Amnesia is the strangest of things. I am not so sure that I should call it an 'affliction', for I am sure that it has only protective intentions (in some cases). In fact, i know it does! But for the most part, it is the most extraordinary thing, at its worst the most isolate thing, the most curious, terrifying, surreal thing that I have ever had the (mis)fortune to endure.

It's a pretty mixed bag.

Memories, some, return at intervals. Haphazard intervals at that. When they return they are like the delicate music of starlight on water or like an earthquake that shatters the heart. And it follows me around, the amnesia; it renews itself every six or eight years, so that many fragments of my 'present past' are also invariably whisked off into the great unknown.... whether lying dormant for a time, or lost for eternity, I am still too young to know.

Oddly, amnesia does not hinder my quality of life. There was a time when it did, when I sought too many answers, when falling down rabbit holes had become my stock in trade.....but thankfully, I am an adaptable little minx, and I am comfortably happy with my lot.

As for the details, the cause of my amnesia, this is rather personal, as I hope you will appreciate, but I will go so far as to say that it began in early childhood. The result of shock. The above image depicts a journey. A journey forward - which (quite ironically) will often lead us backwards in time. But don't get me started on 'time', because I don't quite believe in it, in much the same way that some people don't believe in ghosts.

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Here Come the Girls

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Inspired by certain reviews that I have read concerning a book called The Great Big Glorious Book for Girls. I haven't read this book, nor have i even seen it offline, but I was amused and intrigued by the vicious arguments that appear to have sprung up around it. The issue appears to have something to do with the eternal 'gender' segregation fiasco-type-thing (which I generally steer clear of ever becoming involved with), but my attention was piqued by the idea of a book which informs sweet little girls how to build fires and administer Chinese burns. I am also thinking of the stories my mother often relates to me concerning her own, madly adventurous childhood escapades.

These girls are naughty.

I intended to celebrate naughtiness. Unabashed naughtiness. Long may it prosper! (please note, no rats were harmed during the making of this picture)

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Seremonia #1

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Seremonia #2

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A musical affair. One of many.

Part Little Red Riding Hood, part something else entirely. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it is of a similar ilk to the Sympathy of Wolves.

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Feed Your Head

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Literally.

This is an unfinished piece, there is work to be done on the skirt and the surrounding space, but I was excited to share it if only for the impish joy of infecting you with the concept of a live rabbit masquerading as a hair accessory! I love that!

She is the proud new member of my 'Portrait Alice' series, which I have sorely neglected over the past year or so, so it marks a rather nice little return to an ongoing project for me, a sort of 'hello again' to the collective Alice's of my older portfolio.

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Kindred

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I will be honest. I don't think I like this picture. But I do like the idea.

The idea concerns the girls and their potential to cut ties with each other, the strands of hair that connect them. It is also about the creative process in itself, which has far greater connotations here than the art of self expression or the traditional concept of 'Art' (with a capital 'A' as one of the older Art Historians termed it, I think it was Gombrich, but forgive me if I'm wrong). I was thinking about the creative process in terms of life itself - our relationships, desires, dreams. We live in a stupendously creative universe, our little human-ish selves forming only a sand-grain sized portion of the...whatever-it-is-that's-actually-going-on-out-there.........and I ought to apologise for starting what I cannot finish. I cannot explain what it is that I am trying to explain, but it involves the universe at large, and the universe at large is way too large for me to contemplate with words. So I do it with pictures, sometimes. Or else i try to. It's hit and miss. As for the universe, it manages to stun me at least 300 times a day, every day, always and forever. I am in sheer awe of it, permanently. I am also in awe of my total inadequacy to express this in words!

I will quit while i am still just a few millimeters ahead;)

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Before i go and eat, I would like to share my love for this delightfully dark yet beautiful book - The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. I am sure that many of you will have already read the book (I am always late, unfashionably so), but still......a fascinating read, for me, on so many levels; his rendering of certain emotional peculiarities and his perfectly dark yet heartwarming take on the traditional fairytale greatly appeals to me.

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Enjoy!

And take care.

Oh, and do check the WonderCabinet for more lovely goodies!

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LoveLock

Before I begin.....

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More have been ordered and should be here within the next 14 days. If you are interested in purchasing a book, please refer to this post. Out of the limited set of 10 there are 6 still available. Book 3 is already in process! Yay!

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So, hello there! I hope you have been enjoying your weekend. I have been stupendously busy, but I do have a few more offerings to share..........

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I made two versions of the above image, inspired by the Angela Carter story of the same title. Although it isn't intended to be a 'literal' rendering, I appear to have a rather ambiguous way of creating 'dedications'...they rarely ever appear related! And please suspend any effort of logic, or proportion;)

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I intended them to be a pair, facing each other. Initially, one of the girls had her eyes open, but I decided against in the end. I like the idea of them floating along, somnambulist fashion, as in a dream. I do love how the hair travels in and out of the windows in the second image........the hare head on a stick does appear to be a recurring theme of my own, which I have no explanation of, at present. It will dawn on me, never fear. These works are always twenty or so steps ahead of me.

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Kathy

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(Please view this image at flickr, it appears blurry here for some obscene reason!)

A dedication for a friend. She represents innocence and new beginnings. We all need them sometimes. It has been a rather difficult week, for myself and some of the people i know, so this picture was probably a playful attempt to recapture a sensation of calm, peacefulness and clarity. It is often necessary to have access to two (or more, let's not be frugal!) separate worlds or realities if only to even out certain, emotional burdens. And of course, let us not forget the fact that having access to all manner of other realities is not only helpful, but downright exciting. Why ignore the potential to create them, hence leaving a such a vast territory of the human mind almost redundant? mwah!

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The Tangled Trees of Louise

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Mmm, been playing with the human form again. I rarely state the intentions of my 'self portraits' do I? Well, they are almost always intended to play the same role as the dolls and my other, illustrated characters; they are rarely ever self portraits in the traditional sense of the word. I do not seek to portray my actual 'self' in these works, which are the result of much manipulation and distortion. I prefer to get away from the literal, recreating the body and face in much the same way as I do with the dollies. They are only autobiographical in the sense that they are made by me, expressing themes and imaginary roles that I, myself, have created.

The above was a truly dreadful photograph that i painted into, creating a slightly odd mask to replace the original face and adding those curious little 'tree horns' as an extension of the hair. I love it! I have no idea why, but this image excites me, I think it might be the bold red, the square format, her solemn aspect.

That said, it still needs editing, I didn't take enough care with the brushwork.

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Elf Call

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My recent influences? The more traditional, unfiltered fairytales, reading about the horrors of the French Revolution, Victorian cameo's and the paintings (or more exactly, the colours employed in the paintings) of Greuze and Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. And mirrors.

Elf Call itself is heavily manipulated. I wanted to create an unearthly, disc-like, or moonlike face. A nocturnal being, she hails from other lands. The 'tree forms' feature yet again, this time as a suggestion of her rootedness, to the lands below the earth, ie, elfland.

She might be a queen, perhaps. One not to be crossed, I'm quite sure!

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Portal

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A similar theme, although I like to imagine that this character may be uncertain about what lies beyond the portal. The queen and her kind, methinks.

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Smoke and Mirrors

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Nope, not a cigarette issue, please;) This is supposed to 'reflect' the concept of deception, and to some extent, relating to the Internet in particular. Sometimes we may even long to be deceived, on some curious level, perhaps unconsciously so, as opposed to learning the vile truth about a given situation. Ignorance is bliss, or so they say. I was also listening to the American McGee's Alice soundtrack again.... and so the darkness just slithered right in. I like to keep a healthy balance between the innocent and the downright unsettling. Life is, of course, susceptible to both.

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LoveLock

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I altered the shape of the mouth here, to render 'her' expression more resolute (I evidently cannot muster a resolute look of my own).......she may suggest an illicit love affair, or she might in fact be the sole possessor of a love related secret that must be very closely guarded. These scenario's remind me of, and are likely the product of my own recent love affair with Sherlock Holmes, especially the character portrayed by the gloriously wonderful (yet sadly deceased) Jeremy Brett.

Aside from the fact that these self related works were quite enjoyable to create in themselves, I have had to reacquaint myself with the art of (not to mention my all but neglected) self portraiture in view of an upcoming job for Puella, an Italian fashion and accessories designer who have been kind enough to offer me a creative role as the photographer for their autumn/winter collection, 'Bohemian Afternoon', which should be quite exciting! The very lovely and excellent photographer Elle Moss was responsible for the spring/summer edition - you can view her self portraits here, and the work she did for Puella here.

And speaking of my work getting out and about a bit more often, I would like to thank those of you who have emailed me with such kind words about my recent feature in the latest Somerset Studio's magazine - I appreciate your support! I have not received my copy, as yet, but hopefully soon! ( I am known for being behind the times with almost everything I lend my hand to, so I was a tad slow to even realise that the issue had already gotten out there, duh!)

Tsukiko (School Trip)

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My little Tsukiko returns, this time with her tiny, identical doppelganger. They are about to embark upon a mysterious journey, otherwise known as the 'school trip'. You can imagine, the school trip in this instance will be somewhat out of the ordinary. Somewhere decidedly..... .surreal, enchanted. Not to worry, she has her packed lunch in tow. Not to mention those very lovely, new red shoes:)

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More soon!

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Marionettes........

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It's a strange day...........

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Mignon

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Dreams of ships and distant, icy shores.

Story hair : Fictions, concerning lost lovers and lunar hares. Silent towers of longing, her fairytale gowns, her hair. Mignon is a picture book come to life, for all that she imagines becomes real.

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Marionettes

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Willing captives, the princess marionettes. Birdsong, serenity, the cool, mountain air......I imagine they lead rather a serene, almost enviable life, there.

Hearts flutter like tiny wings, and when the birds take leave....... a perfect symphony of silence and dreams.

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Pastel Muses

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Courage, focus and compassion, respectively.

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Cornish Sisters

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Maritime Haresses. One of these ladies shall be infinitely more obstinate than the other, like most of my twin girls. Just who does the boat belong to, and what might it represent? A sailor boy, perhaps. One thing is certain, they mean business!

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A very strange day indeed.

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WonderCabinet Update!

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A quick update

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Just a quick update........

...............More Limited Edition Books in stock and ready to ship! Yippee!

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Please see this post for pictures, purchase and shipping details.

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I have also updated my image albums (located in the left-hand column) at long, long last!

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Now, back to work....

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The Orchard Twins and more....

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As a child I had an imaginary twin sister. In fact, she remained with me well into adulthood, popping up when I least expected her to, grinning at me in that superior way which often characterises older siblings (she was older than me by a couple of centuries, but that didn't stop her from being my twin), as if to say "Hello again, you moose! Bet you didn't expect to seem me again so soon!". She would settle herself against an appropriately placed fence, wall or tree stump, crossing one leg over the other, oh-so-casually, quite as if she had been there all along, invisibly contemplating my bumbling inferiority with an ill-disguised relish. She didn't have a name that I can recall. She was simply my 'other.

My imaginary twin reigned supreme above all of my 'additional' imaginary companions - which included two twin boys, a beautiful immortal called Jake, and a very curious, talking cat - and she knew it. She had a tendency to be smug; an infuriating know-it-all, an exasperating little-miss-fancy-pants, perfectly wise and quite merciless with it. That said, she did have her finer points. She was remarkably loyal, forgiving, amusing and wild. I looked up to her, cherishing her advice at the same time as resenting her weirdly haphazard presence. Where she came from is anyone's guess. Childhood itself, perhaps, a self-created mentor with an infinite store of confidence and courage. Or perhaps she truly did exist, and still does, crouching amongst the densly populated wilderness of an already over-stimulated imagination (my own), biding her time, patiently predicting my next hilarious blunder or misguided judgement, which will inevitably herald her entirely unprepared-for re-appearance, and then.... voila! (she has a tendency to appear sitting cross-legged on the tops of wardrobes or slouched inside of an empty bathtub)

The last time she appeared she was disguised as a portly, mustachioed, Belgian dectective (sat atop a fine mahogany wardrobe, in fact). Not entirely reminiscent of the legendary Hercule Poirot, but similar, quite similar....

So, a homage to twin sisters, both real and imagined:

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Orchard Twins

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I adore their simplicity, that bite out of the apple.

The 'Ruby' girl again, returns with brand new offerings of apples and pears. Her quiet, ghostly, enigmatic little face intrigues me. I'm quite in love with her:)

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Olive Goes Forth

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Striking out on her own. Pear girl.

I had choices. I made a version of this image with her feet embedded in the grass, coupled with a lifelike shadow, of sorts, but for some reason this just didn't cut it for me. She really did seem to want to have her toes on show, and i much prefer this graphic-y version to the murky realism (if a pear headed girl can be said to conform to realism at all) of the edited version.

Her hair is supposed to resemble roots. Of a fashion. No fancy brush work here!ct

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Spectral Twins

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Fairytale ghosts. I love those shadows!

They inhabit the halls of ice and frozen dreams. I can see that this might be influenced by Japanese/Korean horror films, Norse mythology and folktales, combined with a fine appreciation for wintery landscapes and spectres. And black socks.

Their hair, like growing pools of night.

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Lullabye

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I wanted to capture the visual essence of a lullabye. Perhaps I have, I'm not so sure. I do like this image though, regardless. The midnight/twilight hues, the snowy forest and the flowers that appear to be trapped beneath ice, the stars and that unearthly glow - there is something almost reasurring about the unknown, the mysterious - as if without it we might just curl up and die of 'reality'.....the glaring violence of 'known facts', the tragic consequences of a one-dimensional existence.

You never know.

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The Portland Twins

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The Portland sisters, of yesteryear.

I have been reading Sherlock Holmes again.... I doubt that Mr. Conan Doyle had much of an interest in pears, but this should certainly have inspired the curiosity of his infamous, smarty-pants sleuth. I can picture it now, Holmes and Watson arriving at Portland Manor, carpet bags in hand, awaiting admittance (as Holmes twirls his cane, whistling to a little ditty that has been troubling him at the violin), only to be greatly astonished by the sudden appearance (instead of the customary maid or butler) of a pear headed young lady....

"Oh! Excuse me, madam, I did not know....." stammered Watson, uncommonly shaken by this curious apparition that stood so proudly before him.

"That is quite alright, sir," said the pear headed Portland sister, exhibiting a rather charming display of humility, "Won't you please step inside?"

"My good lady!" bellowed Sherlock Holmes, "A pleasure to meet you, indeed!"

"Why, Mr Sherlock Holmes!" cried the pear headed lady with undisguised joy and admiration, " I have heard so many wonderful things about you, I do so hope that you can assist us with our.....little problem."

"We shall try, my good lady, we shall try."

Aside, Watson took hold of Holmes' arm as the pear headed lady rushed through the reception parlour to notify her sister as to the arrival of the two gentlemen.

"Surely," he yelled, in a whisper, "Surely there is nothing that you or I could do to remedy such a ....situation, Holmes! Never in my born days have i been witness to such an anomaly!"

"Why, Watson!" bellowed Sherlock Holmes, in a whisper, "We have not been called upon to do any such thing. Please, calm yourself this instant. We are here to investigate a rather dispicable and mysterious crime, the theft, in fact, of several rare and exquisite oil portraits of the lady Constance Portland's jack russel terrier!"

"Jack russel terrier!" spluttered Watson, "You mean to say that we are not here to unravel the.....the....that...disfigurement?"

"I have no idea what you are alluding to, my good friend, but please do control yourself." Holmes boomed, in a whisper, then "Ah! the ladies Constance and Araminta Portland! Meet my good friend and faithful assistant, doctor Watson!"

Enough!

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Lady Constance Portland

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Not the sister of pear headed fame. That would be Araminta, darling.

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Through the Looking Glass, Darkly

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More from my Wonderlanders series.

A little bit sinister, I put that down to the girls faces. Not intentional, but some things are best left to chance. This is the Hall of Mirrors, of course, a sort of dimensional 'spaghetti junction'.

The Spades are difficult to pin down, sometimes they might apear to be cold hearted, calculating and humourless, but they are, nonetheless, quite remarkable, talented Wonderlanders. Levitation and superpositional hat-tricks are their stock in trade. Watch them, and they will disappear.

"....Atoms and their kin can do many impossible things before breakfast. For instance, they can be in two or more places at once, penetrate impenetrable barriers, and know about each other instantly even when on different sides of the universe. They are also totally unpredictable, doing things for no reason at all - perhaps the most shocking and unsettling of all their characteristics"

(Taken from the book Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You, by Marcus Chown)

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Well, that took all of three hours! Still on dial up, so......off i go now to attend to my post office duties!

Back soon :)

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Silver Lining

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I do not know who created the above image. I can't remember.

I tore it out of a magazine and pasted it onto the cover of a collage-novel that I created 8 years ago today. A story that has no conceivable ending. And that is the beauty of it. I guess.

Why am i posting this?

No idea. I think that I am becoming more and more sentimental with time. That's all.

Art can celebrate birthdays too, you know:)

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Book 2 Arrives Home!

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Yeep!

So here it is, a second, limited, softback compilation of Art&Ghosts oddities and marvels (well, maybe not marvels, exactly....but..it depends how you choose to look at it)

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Please note: be not fooled by the size of that ludicrous teacup and saucer. The teacup and saucer are anomolies of their kind. To call them oversized would be an understatement at best. The book actually measures 8x8 inches approx.

And if you are wondering what that curious object is that sits within the oversized teacup, well, it is a cloved orange. Of course.

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Party Bear joins the gang!

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The Somnambulist crew...................

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Please click and enlarge to view.

The book will only be available via my blog this time around (which will involve a simple paypal invoice) so please contact me if you would like to order a copy. Unlike the 1st edition, this book is not available for pre-order: the copies are already in stock and ready to ship. At this moment in time I have 2 available, with more to follow (I cannot buy them in bulk, sadly, so I will probably be offering them 2 or 3 at a time).

There will be 10 copies of this edition for sale. Just email me via the link in the sidebar if you have any questions about the book, or would like to order one. If the first two sell out, I can easily reserve a copy for you with my next order.

Purchase info:

Book $80

Shipping $20 International and $10 UK ( both special delivery/Priority post)

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Ooh, and my Moo Mini cards arrived yesterday!

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At first I thought they were just a little bit too tiny, but then I realise that this is exactly what makes them so curiously appealing. What to do with them? Miniature bookmarks, perhaps........

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And speaking of books........I am loving this compilation of strange short stories by Kelly Link. It makes quite a pleasant occasional distraction from my 'unextensive' groundwork in quantum theory;)

That said, I am much more of a 'mystic' at heart than a scientist. I simply believe that the two ought to combine quite beautifully.

Atoms. Let me introduce you to the mystical chicken (below)........

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..............The paranormal kitchen timer extraordinaire. He is also a top notch private detective, better even than Hercule Poirot.

His name, incidentally, is Hercules.

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So, back to work.......I was so overjoyed with the printed copies of my recent images that I had to keep two of them for myself.

You will have to ignore the reflection in the glass;)

Rose Red (10x8)

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The Wonderlanders (10x8)

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Yay!

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Well, the creation of this post was a serious....no, the creation of this post was a severe lesson in patience and perseverence! I was disconected several times and each image took over 8 minutes to upload (I am using dial-up at present, until my new router arrives).

I need to regather my wits right now;)

Back soon!

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