People Become Stories and Stories Become Understanding

I've spent the last few days researching, photographing, and writing up Monday's blogpost for Fans of Flanders.

I'm working on a series of interviews that are absolutely related to this blog's reason for being ... the whole people become stories and stories become understanding thing. 

With that in mind, I'll be talking to more than a few Flemish people I know over the next few months, taking some photographs and writing up stories because they're interesting people and because I love hearing people tell their stories.

Here's one of the images for Monday's blogpost.  I'll cross-post here once it's published.  Any ideas of what it might be ...?

New Directions ...

And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Wilke

It's like that ... this year.  It's full of the promise of things that have never been.  Exciting things.  And if I can just work through this winter thing, this frustration with ice and snow, the isolation of working alone and without colleagues or friends After 5 fabulous weeks back amongst my people, then all would be grand.

It's been a rough week, one where I picked up more responsibility than I like, cleaned the house more often than usual, and struggled to juggle all of the balls/projects I seem to have up in the air.

And I've been on a mission, trying to work out what is possible, which projects are feasible when it come  to time and what might lead to employment ... the usual angst but with a clearer head.

I'm developing an exquisite project with a much-adored and respected friend ... to be unveiled as soon as it's ready to fly.  And I'm interviewing the people in my neighbourhood here.  The Flemish people I enjoy doing business with ... enjoy knowing, and I'm loving their stories. I need to pick up and start running Camera Journeys again ... but need to wait for the new direction to be confirmed, with dates and a place to book.  There's a newsletter to get out soon ... there's stuff to be done and no more time can be spent on my knees, feeling sorry for myself.

It's been like that ... I needed to give myself a bit of a talking to.  And it helped that I was reading Diana Baur's superb book titled 'Your Truth'.  It's been the perfect companion through these challenging days.  At only $5.99us, it's the best kind of read.

And the quote at the beginning ... I found that over on Cynthia Haynes website ... via the truly lovely Leonie Wise.

So, there's a vegetarian lasagne to bake now, and some bread too.  I was going to make a pavlova for dessert but I think that might be raising the bar higher than I want to commit to longterm.  I don't love housework.  I'm more like Erica Jong in her poem Woman Enough. 

I'll leave you with a favourite subject ... an image that I think best sums up the promise of things to come.  Tot straks.

Winter in Antwerp ...

These mornings, returning from the 7.30am school run, I stink of the pollution that's out there in this city. 

It was -10 celsius today, with frozen snow everywhere, and the 100,000+ per-day highway that cuts the city in half was roaring with traffic from all over Europe.  My hair and my skin stink of the fumes.  It reminds me of Istanbul on its worst polluted days, that city of 14 million+ but here there are no sea winds to blow the hugely polluted air someplace else.

They tell us that the weather will continue to hover around minus 10 overnight, rising to zero celsius, if we're lucky, with some more cold-cold coming over the weekend.

And so it is, winter in Belgium.  I might just concentrate on those photographs taken back in New Zealand.  This plant was spotted down in the garden of Christine's parents ...

 

Neil Dawson, Ferns - Wellington, New Zealand

When I started work on Ferns I saw Ian Athfield's nikau palms as major markers of the Square. What I've aimed for is a sort of delicate intricacy that can float over the top of the palms so the two elements can work with each other.

What I wanted to do with my sphere was to extend Athfield's poetry by adding variety in the form of five different ferns because, of course, the basic form of the nikau is overlapping ferns.

Neil Dawson, Sculptor.

No visit to Wellington city is complete without viewing Ferns, an exquisite sculpture by Neil Dawson.

It hangs 14 metres above you when you're standing in Civic Square and, like so many others, I find it exquisitely beautiful.  

You can view more of Neil's work over on his website.