Ever seen a sunset and a rainbow at the same time?It was much better in real life.

You can't take the sky from me...

"You're not a man.  You're God."
"No, I am not"
"Yes, You are!  I've been waiting for You.  I've been waiting for You to speak."
"God has spoken.  This world.  This is what He's said."

- Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

A rant concerning Art

-Stolen objects in a display case

-Question

-Statement or just trying to mess with people.  Mess with perception?  Does being display make something art?  Or is the art in the taking, the action?  Banksy.  Graffiti.  Is the art what is left after the act or the act itself.  Disobedience.  Rebellion.  Upsetting the status quo.  Would Banksy be as revered if his art was in a gallery as opposed to on the streets.  Would he be as admired if anyone knew his name.  Her name.  It.  Is the point the result or the idea.

-Cezanne.  Popova.  Braque.  The fracturing of form.  The disintegration of reality.  Duchamp.  A wheel on a stool, made useless.  Does effort make something art or does meaning.  You don’t have to like it, you just have to think.  Does beauty make something art or does realism become useless in the face of change.  Changing ideals.  Changing purpose.  Changing world.

-Van Gogh.  Monet.  Colour or form.  Is what we see what is there or is there something else.  Impressionism was rebellion at one point, and now – art made to shock?  Art made to laugh in the face of progress or to place it on a pedestal?  The Untimely Transmogrification of the Problem.  What problem and what change.  Bombarded by images – is there too much to deal with in this world?  Television.  Sexuality.  How long ago would this have been insane.  What makes it acceptable now.  In 200 years will this pointless, passé, quaint?  Past.  Present.  And future.

-Pablo Picasso.  Can something be at once so real and so fractured.  Can a person?  In one image, reality and delusion, intangibility.  Redundancy or contrast.  Light or dark.  Life or death.  Free or crucified.  Are we alive.  Is art.  War or peace.  Freedom or slavery.  Is ignorance bliss?  Are choice and change a blessing or a curse.  Are we doomed to be free, or were we ever?  Is this why art exists?  Is art the question or the answer.  What is the question?  Or is there more than one?

-To be, or not to be?  How can such a question be so simple?  Why is it a question at all?

-Why do we create?  Why do we destroy?  Epstein.  The rock drill.  What is the point of war,  Machinery or nature?

-Why paint in black and white when you can have all the bright shades of uncertainty.  And why did Van Gogh see what others cannot in the sky?

natural dyes

Natural dyes!

Mordant
-alum and cream of tartar

Dyes
-logwood
-hollyhock
-lichen
-cochineal
-lobaria
-woad
-weld

And....

one iron afterbath

Swansea

Swansea, Dylan Thomas Land, Etcetera.

I loved Swansea.

I don't know what else to say.

I want to live there.

It was fairly hilly.   I don't see how one could be unhealthy walking around those streets.  You could see parts of the city from other parts of the city.  It wasn't as flat as it is out in the Canadian prairies.  I love the prairies, but it was neat that it was different.

There was one skyscraper.  British Telecom building, I believe, and it led you downtown.  Downtown itself was like Whyte Ave, except Welsh.  There are areas where cars don't go, and therefore the buskers are more audible, which is nice.  One day there was a guy with an electric guitar playing Piano Man, right outside of the Market.  

The Market is beautiful.  It was, again, like the Farmer's Market in Edmonton, except bigger, and with more things.  There were also Welsh flags hanging off the ceiling.  But there were butcher's stalls and a watch store and a fabric store and needlepoint store and yarn and fruit and fish and a large jar with millions of different buttons in it and a tailor and WARM WELSH CAKES.

Welsh cakes are wonderful things.

Imagine if a pancake and a cookie gave birth to a child, with the added bonus of raisins, and covered in sugar.

There's a square that isn't actually a square just a block away from the car-less area of downtown with a fountain, a big screen (where people apparently gather to watch rugby games), the remains of Swansea Castle and a MacDonald's.

The fountain is encircled with a Dylan Thomas quote.

We sail a boat upon the path

paddle with leaves

down an ecstatic line of light

They seem to be extremely proud of their Dylan Thomas.

There's also a statue of him in the marina, a community theatre where he used to act that operates in a building that holds his name, and a museum about him.

In the museum you can find the suit he died in.  It's a very nice suit.  It has apparently never been established if the ink stain in the right trouser pocket is his fault or not.

You can't say pants in Great Britain.  They'll think you're talking about underwear.

If you stand in the right place, the British Telecom building is positioned perfectly in a dip (or hole) in the remains of Swansea Castle.

I liked the irony.

One of the roads that leads off of the square that isn't actually a square is a road dedicated entirely to pubs.  Wind Street.

Not Wine.  I made that mistake.

And a little space between buildings called the Salubrious Passage

Salubrious:  favorable to or promoting health; healthful.

According to dictionary.reference.com

I would also like to take a moment to point out the physical buildings.

It may be cramped, it may not be beautiful, but it's people sized.

And then on occasion you get a building with stone winged babies hanging off the sides (it was a sandwich shop) or a castle, and I actually love the little rowhouses.

I'm done.

Also, it's by water.

The beach is beautiful.

Water is my love, and water is my god.

And that is why I want to live there