It was a scandal !

Dear sistars, This is the building i was zapped into for the last four days with my art gang , we were preparing our joint exhibition that will be there for the next two months but at the same time we had to each intensely talk about our artworks, starting at 9 in the morning and ending at midnight each day. WOW ! I must admit i felt a bit gaga afterwards but luckily Yeti came to rescue me and i was whisked off into the snowy mountains where he comes from. That definately helped clear my head.
Yes and here are my paintings of this first semester. Basically i got good feedback , i was told i they had never seen anything like it before and that it was all very original which is good , yes ? I was also told by the professor that it was similar to his american friend artists so i will have to czech out the american art scene while i will be there. But then i was also told i painted like belgian pralines which i think they only said because i brought a box of magic belgian chocolates at the new year for them all , so if they think i will do that again then they must be joking! hahaha
Anyway , i did not take off my clothes although i did have a little boobie dance prepared just incase they asked me ! But they didnt and i think the most scandelous thing that happened was a bit of cabbage falling on the floor and being eaten in the morning. Apparently if you drop something on the floor for less than five seconds then you can still eat it, thats what the americans say ,apparently.
So here is all the photographic evidence. I include only my pictures for the moment as i still havent digested in czech all the things my school mates told me, so i will save their pictures for the next post!
In the jolly time i am now packing my suitcase, preparing mentally for the big eagle fly towards you dear S1, Joepie !!!
I am just waiting for my swinmming suit to dry as i have been swimming today, but i already have my flower and leopard sunglasses and gardeners raincoat all prepared. I am very much looking forward ! Yes and you can promise a puppetshow for all your dear friends, only i will leave the breadbin at home and improvise with something i can find around your house as a theatrical scene......
So please all take care, keep warm and before you can say Jackrobinsonzebra i will be there to entertain you all !
P.s. we also visited a carpet museum which was very beautiful
All my love and musical harmony
Here i come !
S3

Tattoos on Super Tuesday

Dear sisters,

Instead of sitting with my ear pressed to the radio, listening to the live coverage of Super Tuesday, I was lying on a hospital bed, stripped from the waist up, with my arms raised above my head, various doctors clucking around me, sticking things on my breast, complimenting me on my small scars, marking me with a marker, and confirming coordinates with each other. A green beam moved over my body. I was doing a simulation for radiation - ah yes, patient again. They told me "you are doing great" a lot, which does actually make it better. I was given seven tattoos, nothing like the flying pig or copyright sign I had once considered a good idea. Seven dots tattooed in and around the bad breast to enable them to position me for radiation, which starts next week.

Driving down Market street, Obama supporters stood at all the traffic lights, holding big signs in support of Obama; "Honk for change", and cheering as I went by. It felt like a party.




When I got home Jip's school called that Jip really was not well, could I come and get him? So I shouldn't have sent him to school with a fever then? I felt really bad and have been serving him hand and foot since then. He is starting to like it. Rosie said "No, thank you" when I attempted to brush her teeth. "I choke". Tomorrow a better parent.

S3, have you packed your flower, your raincoat and your swimming costume yet? I am awaiting your arrival.

S1

Le bruit..

Dear Sisters,

For years I have been scouring the newsstands for magazines or newspapers that meet my craving for a certain mix of visual, textual and cultural information. I'd often walk away emptyhanded or wasting money on something second best to what I had in mind.

Now: check this out: Wound Magazine, finally a good fashion/arts/architecture/music magazine with wit, a healthful dose of self-deprication and some jolly good articles too, which are of just the kind of length and filled with bitesized visual and verbal tit-bits you really DO want to know, if you are anything like me, served in elegant portions digestable enough to be enjoyed at the kitchen table, with a coffee by the sofa in between translations or to enliven a solitary moment or so in the smallest room of the house..

This lot are bright, intelligent, endowed with the quality of not taking themselves all too seriously, and thus opening up facets of fashion to those who may have become estranged, or adding a spicy, scope-broadening reappraisal to fashionista diehards of every description. It offers possibilities of cross-polinitation and thereby avoids inbreeding of each presented discipline. Who ever said they were watertight anyway?

The design is gorgeous, and I only realised this when I read the articles and images: it is a fine marriage of photographic layout and elegant typography: design and editorial policies seldom go hand in hand this successfully.

They set their sights high; the title comes from this quote:

"The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken a mortal wound, that he will never get over it." Robert Frost
But as the quote says it also expects something of its readers.

You can view pdfs of the magazine on their site.
you heard it from me!
S2

Lost and found

Karmel, the one and only.
We love you Karmel!!!
S2

Normal life dooms over the horizon (with symbolic pictures of hair)

Dear sisters,

The chemo is over. Yeah!





I didn't feel yeah, but by just leaving my post in draft for long enough, things slowly sort themselves out.

I had managed to catch a popular cold, which slowed the recovery. I didn't feel up to much at all, especially posting. Fed up, fed up. But now two weeks after the last treatment, my body is starting to realize the poison is finished, so the expected elation is finally coming. I practically feel normal, except for the hot flashes and the afternoon dips. It would feel like a holiday, were it not for the rain.

Rain,rain, rain. Thick drops of never ending rain.

Except today. The sun came out and it felt GOOD!



The parents were here, of course. Mother took every opportunity to teach me new recipes. It is her opinion (and that of her book club) that our generation should be eating more peasant food. We would be sitting in a cafe and the rudiments of a basic roux sauce would be whispered in my ear. We would be in the car on the way to the supermarket and the makings of a nutritious lentil soup would be explained. "..So you fry the onions in the bacon fat..", as I pulled up to the traffic lights. After a few days, she noticed the glazing over of my eyes each time 'nutritious' was mentioned, so she bought a little box with cards and wrote the recipes down for me instead. I am very happy with my box. Really, mam!



On sunny days, we went out for walks, each armed with a camera and sometimes fighting over the same shot. The other days were just rainy and cold. Knitting was a theme this visit, again. The various hand knitted blankets came in useful in our badly insulated house. We compared symptoms, because many had caught the same cold.

Father has been converted to Apple. I have drunk red wine. All this is GOOD, I tell you.

This weekend we had some more old friends over, on their way to emigrating to Australia. Sometimes you have to move far away to get people to visit you.

Twee weeks off, before radiation starts. It feels like a luxury.

Love S1

warm pictures for the winter

Dear all,
Prague is doing well, it is warm inside my flat and warm in my studio at artschool, which is where i am spending all my time at the moment. So not much to report on the wild nightlife and discodancing dumplings but im hoping to make up for it soon. Am also going for longish walks along the river with Yeti after he cooks me lunch now and again.
With our atelier we are preparing an exhibition in the east of Czech republic in a funny named town that i havent quite yet discovered how to pronounce yet : Valasky mezi Ryce . it is suposed to be situated between two rivers.
The theme of the exhibition is Scandal and we are supposed to each do a scandelous painting, piece, performance or whatever we want. I've almost finished my paintings but they are absolutely not scandelous, so i suppose i will do a performance. I do not know what yet.
Do you have any ideas, which doesnt involve poo or being naked ? Please let me know...
A lorry will be arriving on thursday morning to ship all our art works to the gallery ( which used to be a farm house for drying wheat)
And on friday we will post ourselves in a train to the place , which will take four and half hours to get there and we will be staying there for four days and we will each have to talk about our work. In czech, so you can imagine that it will be a very interesting experience for me.
I will give you a detailed account of the whole event and photograph all the scandals !
But in the meantime i send you some warm pictures for these dull winter days.
Sending you all lots of positive vibes,
All my love
S3

Where's Latvia?

Europeans often exclaim in disgust that "US Americans" cannot locate Belgium on a map...the 50 states game in a previous post got me thinking. Here is a similar online game for Europe. I shall leave it to everyone's own discretion to decide how perfect Europeans supposedly are...
S2