The memory of water ...

During the past few years (with my aim of getting to where I am now), I started to keep a notebook of words & phrases that I'd been thinking & which may be useful for me to use in the future. The title of this post is one of these & seemed quite appropriate for these images (others I've recently come across whilst continuing with 'digital housekeeping'!

To explain: About 15 years ago, I painted my 'studio' walls with a totally imaginary landscape & using just emulsion paint. The room & no specific view from the windows & as a 'studio workroom' I decided to paint what I would like see when working. (I have a vivid imagination & the scene can easily become quite realistic.) The 3 pictures (above & below taken when moving out) show a secluded 'beach' (image above) with some trees on a hillside to the right (image lower left) & flowers on a 'mound' to the left (below right shows overall view from the doorway).

I thoroughly enjoyed using this room at all times to work in & it was always 'bright & cheerful. When it was 'tidied' for the intending house move (& much of my equipment was boxed up), it was 'altered' to become a bedroom where the landscape became a focal point. (I hope to do something similar in my new studio at some time in the future.)

Anyway, to get back to "The memory of water" (written in my notes mid 2011), within several hundred yards of where I now live, I have this view which I find not very different from the one I painted from my imagination.

I have yet to be here on a summery day - when it comes I'll take a shot to see how it compares! By the way, I've never been to this place before I came to live here or ever seen a picture of it. However, the place name is relevant - it links to a tray (from another country) that was one of my earliest childhood memories. Spooky or not ?!

Momobay, Slideshow & End of year housekeeping !

This is my father's Lafayette communication radio receiver manual. I inherited this & the radio several years ago, had it repaired & hope to  'have a play'  with it here. Looking at it yesterday, it reminds me of my interest in 'communication' albeit very different from that above. The e-side of MY JOURNEY is "knitting together" more or less as planned ... different uses & mind-sets co-ordinating well. Although at this stage perhaps a bit 'labour intensive' on my part (log-ins, slight repetition & locating lost e-files), I'm quite certain that over the next few months things will settle down & it will all be easier to locate & navigate. (A New Year updated phone should help with this.) I'm using an Apple OS10 system (very different to the above!) & very happy with how it's currently set up for my use - both for hardware & software. It has seen much better 'formal creative days' but now it too is taking things easy & doing what it does best! It's easy & quick to use ... I know all the software on it & can't be doing with re-learning it all over again! Maybe in a few years time!!

With the computer side of my creations high on my current agenda, I've been busy over the past couple of weeks doing that awful computer chore of "end of year housekeeping". I've done it somewhat religiously every year for the past 'X' (except last year with the move) after suffering a huge data loss when I hadn't kept copies of things & spent many hours having to re-create it all. Never again to have it happen - especially when a good percentage of the files were supposed to have been backed up by someone else!!

In carrying out this nasty chore, I often notice that many ways of doing things have suddenly become either out-moded or redundant. In particular this time, my library of current photos. In a bit of a mess - very badly arranged - often difficult to locate - unlabelled. Also, many of them had been taken with my new camera - adding with it many more photos!! I thought the time had now come to split them up into creative usables & ones for reference only. The entire old library will be archived onto the Momobay (good use for this old piece of hardware) so I can dip into it as & when. My mobile laptop (a bit elderly & in need of a possible update) will then be used for accessing it as well as having it run in the studio as a creative slide-show.