I know, I know, it’s been far too long since I last posted on Less Ordinary. Life seems to have a habit of becoming extremely hectic and I struggle to make time for my much neglected blog.
I really wanted to share some of the things I’ve been getting up to though, as it’s all quite exciting! Hmmm… now where to start? Think this may require some bulletin points!
I’ve been asked to convene a course on Digital Media at the University of Stirling. It’s an interdisciplinary course run with Film & Media Studies and Maths & Computer Science, and I’ll be giving 3 lectures, leading a few tutorials and helping out with some computer labs. Will probably write more about this on the other blog giving details of my lecture topics etc.
I’m involved in a joint project with the lovely Lea Woodward & Sharon Hurley-Hall which just launched a couple of weeks ago called Location Independent Parents. It’s a blog aimed at helping families live a location independent lifestyle, and I’m writing the articles on home education. The response to it has been phenomenal – really exciting. My latest post there was on home-education and whether you’re qualified to teach your children – please do check it out!
I’ve started to give archetype readings which follows up a lot of the spiritual work that I’ve been doing recently. I’m intensely fascinated by the Greek gods and goddesses and my work is informed by their narratives and myths. I’m probably just as surprised as anyone about this development, but I’m absolutely loving doing this work, and the readings really seem to resonate with people. If you’re interested, you can read more about them on my business site.
Oh yes, my business site! Another new development! For many years now, my husband and I have had a business partnership called PASS, through which we conducted our tutoring service. When I started the social media side of the business our name no longer suited our services. So, we’re now Pomegranate Services! Pomegranates are the fruit of knowledge, and as we provide a variety of knowledge-based services from education to consultancy, we thought it worked as a good metaphor for our business
OK, saved 2 of the biggest pieces of news for last!
Firstly, I am going to be co-hosting a series of 4 women’s spirituality workshops in France throughout 2010. I’m doing this in conjunction with Jackie Walker, Vena Ramphal and Gill Taylor and it’s going to be completely revelatory! I’ll be doing another post on this soon, as there’s just too much to say about it here. If you’re interested in finding out more though, please drop me an email at amypalko at madasafish dot com to make sure you’re added to our mailing list!
Secondly, I am launching a joint project with my dad, Bob Leckridge, who blogs over at Heroes Not Zombies. This is going to be really quite major, and I really hope you’ll join me on the new site once it’s launched. We’re going to have monthly themes, and dad has already put together a truly stunning calender to accompany the project. Please do buy yourself a copy, and join in with all the great things we’re planning throughout the year! Both dad and I have worked on this already for a number of months and we’ll be blogging both on Less Ordinary & Heroes Not Zombies about some of the core concepts of the new project. Can’t wait to share them with you, cos I know you’re just going to love them!
Phew – Didn’t realise there were so many great things going on till I wrote them all down! But how exciting, hey? You know after I finished my phd I really felt lost for a long time; I felt as though there was nothing to fill the void that the completion of the thesis had left. What this year has taught me is that there are so many opportunities out there – you just have to make sure you’re open to accepting them when they come your way!
OK – I promise not to leave it so long till next time. I’ll be blogging soon to fill you all in on the women’s weekends, the archetype readings and on the big new project with Dad. Until then, why not tell us all what opportunities have come your way? What are you setting up for 2010?
Just finished putting together my November full moon dreamboard. I started collecting images at the new moon and today I chose to assemble it. Now the observant amongst you will have noticed that the full moon isn’t till Monday, but I decided to do it today for a couple of reasons: Halloween, and my upcoming birthday.
The combination of all three (the full-moon, Halloween and the week before my birthday) have resulted in a particularly powerful dreamboard. There are quite a few recurrent images, as with last time, but in this instance they seem to be even more pronounced. Will need to spend some time thinking this one over I think!
Here are a few more close up images…
To find out all about the Full Moon DreamBoard Circle, visit Jamie Ridler Studios!
Ok, I know the title of the prompt sounds a wee bit obscure but bear with me…
When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the highlands of Scotland, we visited Alex Mann’s studio in Braemar. Towards the end of our visit we decided to buy a piece of his art – something that would help us to connect with the memory of our time spent there. We bought a pair of small paintings called Moonlight Sonata, named after the music that Alex interpreted through the medium of paint.
Here’s a wee excerpt from his bio to help explain…
One of the turning points in Alex’s early career came while watching a concert by Louis Armstrong in London. “I went to London to watch the concert and afterwards, I painted him. His music was an inspiration to me. I decided I needed to put some colour to his music, in fact, I put some red into his trumpet in the form of waves of colour – because that is how the trumpet sounded to me”.
Alex became fascinated by the thought of trying to capture the sound of musical instruments in colour. He asked some fellow artists for advice and they all kept telling him that it was connected to the “atmosphere” of the event. Alex reflects, “It was very expensive going to concerts and so I bought a stereo and started listening to records. I talked to several people and they said to me that listening to a stereo did not give the same atmosphere. I started to think about atmosphere and what it meant; after all, I could listen to the same music at home on my stereo as I could in the concert hall – so what was atmosphere?”
His fascination with atmosphere became so intense that he started painting lots of different sounds. He painted an orchestra and tried to imagine the sound that each instrument made and how each one interfaced with the others. He looked at how musicians “see” music. He imagined violins as yellow waves, cellos as orange, brass instruments as having long flowing red waves and woodwinds as having short blue waves. His work started to sell and his first exhibition was held in 1950 in Stratford on Avon. Alex remembers one moment when people came into the gallery, looked at his work and exclaimed, “come and take a look at this – you can actually see the music”.
Here’s an example of his work:
So, what I thought would be interesting for our next project was if we could take one medium and transpose it into another. You could do as Alex does and paint music, or you could photograph poetry, write collage, crochet choreography… the choice is yours.
I’d probably advise you to choose a piece of art, music, architecture, literature etc. that you feel particularly passionate about. Love Stravinsky’s The Fire Bird? How would it look as a painting? Enthused by Christina Rosetti’s Goblin Market? Could you capture its essence in a photograph? Moved by Gaudi’s Barcelona Cathdral? Turn it into poetry.
Transposing art from one medium to another requires us to make a creative leap. Want to give it a go? Hold my hand & we’ll jump together…
P.S. If you want to read all about the creativity circle, you can find the launch post here: Do You Dare
P.P.S. As last week’s prompt was our first, I’m still tweaking things. Please do let me know if there are any changes that you would like to see implemented? Was a week long enough? Did you feel that you got the support you needed to join in? If not, what would make the difference? I look forward to hearing your thoughts & seeing your contributions!
Last week I launched the Less Ordinary Creativity Circle. I was overwhelmed by the positive reaction it received, and I’m so looking forward to this becoming a regular feature on Less Ordinary.
Responding to the first prompt, the following people bravely shared their contributions, and I want to thank them all for daring to do so
I hope everyone who joined in this time found that it was a good experience, and I also hope that, if you didn’t join in this time, that you’ll be feeling a bit braver next time
In the meantime, I’d like to encourage everyone to go and check out the contributions, leave comments and join in this celebration of creativty!
