Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red

Posted by RZ on Aug 9, 2014

— By Anon – Unknown Soldier —

The Tower of London has strong ties with those that fought in the First World war and to mark the current centenary of the start of the war it has commissioned an art installation on a hugely impressive scale.

Deborah Shaw, Head of Creative Programming for Historic Royal Palaces describes her role, at least for this project as “bringing artists into a dialogue with the palaces”.

In this case,  the dialogue has turned into an installation involving thousands of people that is quickly becoming one of the most memorable art works the city has seen, and will continue to capture the public’s imagination until its completion on Armistice Day – November 11th.

Ceramic artist Paul Cummins and set designer Tom Piper were commissioned to bring to life the concept Cummins had of ceramic poppies steadily filling up the famous moat around the Tower “To commemorate all those great fallen heroes who lost their lives in the First World War.”

 Each poppy represents one of the fallen soldiers and each flower is unique as all 888,246 have been handmade, using traditional techniques with a minimum of machinery involved with 3 shifts of people working over a 23 hour day to get the volume of work out on time, under the watchful eye of the artist.

Olivier-Award-winning theatre designer Tom Piper has helped to bring the concept to life by designing how the poppies flow out of the Tower to fill the moat – pouring out of a bastion window, flowing down tower walls to turn the green moat into a blood red sea with over  8,000  volunteers  helping to install the poppies – “if one person planted 200 poppies a day, it would take them over 12 years to install them all”

You can get involved in the project by volunteering via the website, by buying a poppy, or just by  going along and seeing it.

The installation runs from 5 August – 11 November 2014 (Armisitce Day)

Money raised from the sales will be shared equally amongst six service charities

 Artist Paul Cummins was inspired by a line in the will he found among old records in Chesterfield, of a Derbyshire man who joined up early in the war and died in Flanders.

“I don’t know his name or where he was buried or anything about him,” Cummins said. “But this line he wrote, when everyone he knew was dead and everywhere around him was covered in blood, jumped out at me: ‘The blood-swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread.’

The Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

By Anon – Unknown Soldier

The blood swept lands and seas of red,
Where angels dare to tread.
As I put my hand to reach,
As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell,
Again and again.

As the tears of mine fell to the ground
To sleep with the flowers of red
As any be dead

My children see and work through fields of my
Own with corn and wheat,
Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting
Fields so far from my love.

It be time to put my hand up and end this pain
Of living hell, to see the people around me
Fall someone angel as the mist falls around
And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear
Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss
The flower of my people gone before time
To sleep and cry no more

I put my hand up and see the land of red,
This is my time to go over,
I may not come back
So sleep, kiss the boys for me

http://www.paulcumminsceramics.com/

http://www.tompiperdesign.co.uk/

The Tower of London and the First World War

The Charities to Benefit from Sales of the Poppies:

Cobseo

Cobseo maximise the charitable support to the Armed Forces Community through co-operation, co-ordination and collaboration of organisations working in the Service Charity sector.

www.cobseo.org.uk

 Combat Stress

Combat Stress is the UK’s leading military charity specialising in the care of Veterans’ mental health, treating conditions including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.

www.combatstress.org.uk

 Coming Home

Coming Home is the fundraising campaign for Haig Housing Trust, which provides specially adapted homes for seriously injured and disabled Servicemen and general needs housing for ex-Servicemen and their families. 

www.coming-home.org.uk

 Help for Heroes

“It’s all about the blokes” Help for Heroes Inspire Enable and Support those who have made sacrifices on our behalf to achieve their full potential. 

www.helpforheroes.org.uk

 The Royal British Legion

The Royal British Legion is the nation’s largest Armed Forces charity, providing care and support to all members of the British Armed Forces past and present and their families.

 www.britishlegion.org.uk

 SSAFA

SSAFA provides lifelong support to anyone who is currently serving or has ever served in the Royal Navy, British Army or Royal Air Force and their families. 

www.ssafa.org.uk

Art Everywhere for Everyone

Posted by RZ on Aug 6, 2014

Five leading US art galleries selected works of art that represent American history and culture. The public voted for their favourites, and the final selection of 58 works are appearing across the country on billboards, bus shelters, subway posters, buildings and other public places.

 The exhibition is inspired by Art Everywhere founder, Richard Reed who first produced Art Everywhere UK. Both shows are running until the end of August to make this into the biggest art exhibition ever.

Reed describes the inspiration behind the show”

“I used to walk across Shepherd’s Bush Green and on a poster site someone had put up a beautiful picture. There was no logo; it wasn’t an advert. It was really mysterious, but it was a beautiful thing to see and I would stop and look at it for 30 seconds on my way into work. It just gave you a bit of lift.

 I was telling my wife about this and she said, imagine what it’d be like if there were things like that everywhere. What would it be like if all the posters across the country for two weeks showed art not advertising? So we went to the big poster companies and said this is our idea – to turn the UK into the world’s largest outdoor gallery for two weeks.

  And they loved it and decided they wanted to work together as an industry to make it possible: we’ve called it Art Everywhere.”

http://arteverywhereus.org/

http://arteverywhere.org.uk/

Joanne Harris: Changing The World One Story at a Time

Posted by RZ on Jul 12, 2014

— JOANNE HARRIS —
Blackberry Wine

Author Joanne Harris describes the Butterfly Effect of a story she once read in a dentist’s waiting room, which would help save lives decades later, half way across the world.

She  has always had a particular interest in the power of words, having been brought up with French as a first language among a Yorkshire family who spoke no French and a Breton family who spoke no English.  

She considers the inconsistencies in the ways we are taught to regard the power of words, and the power of story telling in our lives. She also shares shares the wisest thing she has ever been told.

Joanne achieved world wide recognition with her third novel, the award-winning Chocolat which translated into the hugely popular film starting Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Since then, all her books have been best sellers in the UK.

Joanne Harris is a patron of the charities Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and Plan UK, and has travelled to Togo and to the Congo to report on their work. An account of her visit to the Congo was published in Writing on the Edge, a collection of essays by noted literary figures, with photographs by Tom Craig, in 2010. She has also donated short stories to a number of charity anthologies, notably Piggybank Kids, the Woodland Trust, the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition and Breast Cancer UK.

In 2013 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/ 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The Evil Seed (1989)
• Sleep, Pale Sister (1993)
• Chocolat (1999)
• Blackberry Wine (2000)
• Five Quarters of the Orange (2001)
• The French Kitchen, A Cook Book (2002)
• Coastliners (2002)
• Holy Fools (2003)
• Jigs & Reels (2004)
• Gentlemen & Players (2005)
• The French Market (2005)
• The Lollipop Shoes (2007) (US title: The Girl With No Shadow, 8 April 2008)
• Runemarks (2007 in the UK, 2008 in the US)
• Blueeyedboy (1 April 2010 in the UK)
• Runelight (September 2011 in the UK)
• Peaches for Monsieur le Curé (May 2012) (US title: Peaches for Father Francis, October 2012)
• A Cat, a Hat and a Piece of String (October 2012)
• The Gospel of Loki (February 2014), as Joanne M. Harris

Stories featured in the following anthologies:

• Magic (2002)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
• Bosom Buddies (2003)A collection of stories in aid of Breast Cancer UK.
• Journey to the Sea (2005)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
• Mums – a Celebration of Motherhood (2006)A collection of stories in aid of Piggybank Kids.
• Dads – a Celebration of Fatherhood (2007)A collection in aid of Piggybank Kids.
• In Bed With… (2009)A collection of erotic stories by well-known female writers.
• Because I am A Girl (2010)Charity anthology in aid of Plan UK.
• Stories (2010) A collection of fantasy tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio.
• Writing on the Edge (2010): A collection of eyewitness

Awards and Honours

Harris’ books are now published in over fifty countries and have won a number of UK and international awards, including:

• Chocolat: Creative Freedom Award (2000); Whittaker Gold Award (2001). Shortlisted: Whitbread Novel of the Year Award (2000), Scripter Award (2001); film version nominated for 8 BAFTAs and 5 Oscars.^[7] Whittaker Platinum Award(2012).
• Blackberry Wine: 2000 Winner of both the Foreign and International categories of the Salon du Livre Gourmand (France).
• Five Quarters of the Orange: Shortlisted: 2002 RNA Novel of the Year; Author of the Year 2002; WHSmith Award 2002 (UK).
• The French Kitchen: (a cookbook with Fran Warde): 2005 Winner of the Golden Ladle for Best Recipe Book (softcover) in the World Food Media Awards.^[8]
• Gentlemen & Players: Shortlisted for the Edgar Award, 2007 (USA)^[7] and the Grand Prix du Polar de Cognac (France).^[9]
• Flavours of Childhood: (a piece co-written for the Radio 4 series First Taste with poet Sean o’Brien) Winner of the Glenfiddich Award, 2006.^[10]

In 2004, she was a judge for the Whitbread Prize (now the Costa), and in 2005, was a judge for the Orange Prize.^[11]

In 2013 she was on the judging panel of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science ^[12] and chaired the Desmond Elliott Prize.^[13]

She is the holder of honorary doctorates in literature from the University of Huddersfield and the University of Sheffield, and is an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

She works from a shed in her back garden ^[15] and is active on Twitter, where she is known as @joannechocolat, and tumblr, ( http://joannechocolat.tumblr.com/ ) which she uses, along with her website’s message board, to answer questions from her fans. She is married, and lives in Yorkshire with her husband Kevin and daughter Anouchka.

Sting: Rediscovering the Muse as The Last Ship Sails

Posted by RZ on Jun 28, 2014

— STING —

Sting grew up in the shadow of the shipyard, with giant ships rising into the air at the end of his street. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was at the heart of the British shipbuilding industry.

 The Dream

But instead of wanting to follow in the footsteps of generations of Tynesiders whose lives were inextricably linked with the docks and the shipbuilding industry, Sting had a different dream. It was one that grew exponentially with the discovery of a guitar in the attic at the age of 8 . “I was bequeathed a guitar and realised I had found a friend for life.”

 The dream would become his life and Gordon Sumner would become internationally known as the musician Sting, but first he had to turn his back on his roots and travel away. He had no desire to return to the traumatised society he witnessed during the closure of the ship building industry.

— STING —

 The muse Sting chose to follow as a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist was one that would bring us such unforgettable songs as   “Roxanne”, “Fields of Gold”, “Message in a bottle”, “Every Breath You Take” and “Englishman in New York”.

 Sting’s astonishing success both as a member of “The Police” and during his solo career, together with his prolific song-writing ability made it particularly difficult for him to come to terms with a long period of “writer’s block” which  stretched into years of self-questioning.

 He eventually acknowledged a need to return to his roots in Newcastle, a decision which was to reunite him with his muse and he has spent the past few years working on a theatrical production called “The Last Ship” – inspired by the demise of the shipbuilding industry in the North East. 

Sting released the album “The Last Ship” in 2013 and the musical production launched its pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago last Wednesday with songwriters Paul Simon, James Taylor and Dennis DeYoung watching from the orchestra seats, according to the review by Chris Jones in the Chicago Tribune.

Political Activism

A sense of the injustices caused by corrupted power led Sting along the path of political activism, participating in many of the focal moments in which creative artists have joined forces to raise international awareness of major issues: Band Aid, Live Aid, Feed the World”, Live8 etc.

 His long involvement with Amnesty International which  began with his appearance at the “Secret Policemen’s Other Ball” in 1981 has inspired some of the songs he has written.
“Before that I did not know about Amnesty, I did not know about its work, I did not know about torture in the world” .

 Sting’s song “They Dance Alone”  threw a spotlight on the plight of the mothers, wives and daughters of “The Disappeared” (political opponents killed by the Pinochet regime) in Chile. These women, under constant threat from Pinochet’s infamous death squads, were afraid to voice their opinions publicly but would pin photos of their missing loved ones to their clothing and dance in public places in unspoken outrage.

Dendropsophus Stingi and The Rainforest Foundation

Sting, his wife Trudi and Raoni Metuktire, a Kayapó Indian leader in Brazil, founded the “Rainforest Foundation” to help save the rainforests and protect the rights of the indigenous people living in them.  (In recognition of his “commitment and efforts to save the rain forest”, a species of Colombian tree frog, Dendropsophus stingi, was named after him.)

In addition to 16 Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe, an Emmy and several Oscar nominations. Sting has sold nearly 100 million records worldwide, was 62nd on Paste Magazine’s list of 100 Best Living Songwriters, 63rd on VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Rock” and 80th on A magazines “100 Greatest Musical Stars of the 20th Century”

Why is it Always Four in the Morning?

Posted by RZ on Jun 25, 2014

If Aliens were to float around examining our culture for a while, they may well decide that four in the morning has a special significance in our culture. It might take them longer to figure out why.

Which is what American performance poet, storyteller and author, John G. Rives discovered after reading a poem which he couldn’t get out of his head.

Most of us have had that experience but this one was so convincing that what began as a minor obsession ended up as the creation of the Museum of Four in the Morning…

If you doubt the significance, watch the TED Talk presentation.

If you know why this phenomenon exists, please post your wisdom on the forums.

Museum of four in the Morning

http://mofitm.tumblr.com/

In an earlier appearance at TED Talks, Rives performed one of his poems, sharing what it would be like…

If I Controlled the Internet

If I controlled the internet
You could auction your broken heart
on Ebay…

Presentations by Rives at TED  include

• “If I controlled the Internet”
• “A mockingbird remix of TED2006”
• “The 4 a.m. mystery”
• “A story of mixed emoticons”
• “Reinventing the encyclopedia game”
• “The Museum of Four in the Morning”

Your Name on the Arctic Sunrise

Posted by RZ on Jun 2, 2014

PUT YOUR NAME ON THE ARCTIC SUNRISE – HERE

Help protect this important and unique environment and its inhabitants by supporting Greenpeace with a donation to help fund their work. After months without proper maintenance while in Russian custody, their ship the Arctic Sunrise requires a thorough overhaul and refitting  including the replacement of equipment removed by the Russian authorities. 

People who care about the planet believe that there should be a global sanctuary in the Arctic, which will help preserve its unique wildlife and habitat and allow the Arctic to continue to help stabilise the world’s climate.

More Information Available on SaveTheArctic.org

What’s this Campaign about?

What’s a Global Sancuary?

Why does the Melting of the Arctic Sea Ice Matter to Me?

More info on SavetheArctic.org

Rosneft is a massive Russian company whose pipelines spill over 2,000,000 tons per year. Now it’s moving into Arctic waters, where it plans to build over 100 rigs.

Together with Exxon, Rosneft plans to drill in an area overlapping the Russian Arctic National park, a sanctuary for polar bears, walrus and narwhals.

The Arctic could be devastated.

 All for a few last drops of oil.

Environmental Activist

As an exemplary environmental activist, The Arctic Sunrise has taken part in  campaigns and protests across the world, from withing 450 miles of the North Pole, to Antarctica’s Ross Sea, and it has Navigated both the Congo and the Amazon rivers, raising awareness of issues threatening the areas. Among other things, it has campaigned to stop whaling, taken part in protests in support of sustainable fishing, taken action to stop North Sea trawlers fishing cod towards extinction and campaigned against the Star Wars weapons programme.

The Arctic Sunrise is classified as a “1A1” Icebreaker – the second highest ice strengthening notation at the time of her construction in 1975. She was originally used as a seismic survey vessel, named Polarbjørn (“polar bear”) and was later used by the French Government. Greenpeace purchased the ship in 1995, having resorted to forming a “shell company” called “Arctic Sunrise Ventures Ltd” through which it made the purchase as the previous Norwegian owners had refused to sell the ship to Greenpeace. 

Maya Angelou: The Song Bird Flies

Posted by RZ on May 28, 2014

— Maya Angelou —

Maya Angelou, a voice that inspired generations through powerful prose and poetry and the light of a fiery and shining soul, has died at the age of 86. 

Like thousands of others, I discovered the power of  Maya Angelou’s writing when I came across  the book “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” – seven words that I couldn’t get out of my head, and never left my heart. Why would someone put something as beautiful and free as a bird into a cage? And why would a caged bird choose to sing?

Three year old Maya and her brother Bailey Junior were sent  to live with their grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas after their parents divorce. Maya spent 10 years discovering what it was like to grow up in one of America’s poorest regions with all the prejudice and racial segregation of the Deep South (such as the white dentist who refused to treat Maya’s rotting teeth, even when reminded by her grandmother that she had lent him money during the Depression).

Maya was born Marguerite Ann Johnson in St Louis, Missouri on 4 April 1928 and the name Maya originated from her brother’s way of saying “My-a sister”.

The Silent Voice
At the age of 7, when visiting her mother in St Louis, she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. When she told her family what had happened, the man was arrested, tried and released, but was murdered shortly afterwards. For the next five years, Maya Angelou didn’t speak:

“When I heard about his murder, I thought my voice had killed a man and so it wasn’t safe to speak.
“After a while, I no longer knew why I didn’t speak, I simply didn’t speak.”

During her silence, she read incessantly and was eventually persuaded to speak again by Mrs. Bertha Flowers, “the aristocrat of Black Stamps” who encouraged her reading, and recognising her love of poetry told her that to be fully experienced, poetry had to be read aloud. “You will never love poetry until you actually feel it come across your tongue, through your teeth, over your lips.”

Maya Angelou went on to have an extraordinary career which she writes about in her books, including becoming San Francisco’s first female cable car conductor at 15, the experience of being a young mother at 16, time as a dancer, waitress, prostitute, actor and singer, travelling around Europe and Africa with the Opera Porgy and Bess, her involvement with the civil rights movement, working with both Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and experiencing the trauma of both their assassinations – King was killed on her birthday.

She writes of falling in love with South African civil rights activist Vusuma Make and moving to Cairo with him, practicing as a journalist in Egypt and later in Ghana during the time of decolonisation, her son’s car accident and the years after her return to the US in 1965 and her decision to start writing “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings”.

Other autobiographical books that followed the Caged Bird include
“Gather Together in My Name “(1974),
“Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas” (1976),
“The Heart of a Woman” (1981),
“All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes” (1986), 
“A Song Flung Up to Heaven” (2002), and
“Mom & Me & Mom” (2013, at the age of 85).

Ritual
Maya Angelou used the same “writing ritual” for many years and described her writing process as regimented.

The Ritual involved getting up at five in the morning and booking into a hotel room where the staff have been instructed to remove all pictures from the walls. She has a bottle of sherry, a deck of playing cards, a copy of Roget’s Thesaurus and the Bible, and she writes on legal pads.

She places herself back in the time she is writing about, even when traumatic and plays solitaire she says to reach a place of enchantment and access her memories more effectively. “It may take an hour to get into it, but once I’m in it—ha! It’s so delicious!”. It is not the process which she finds cathartic but rather the relief that she finds in “telling the truth”.

“I try to get there around seven, and work until around two in the afternoon … Maybe after dinner I’ll read to [my husband, Paul du Feu] what I have written that day. He doesn’t comment. I don’t invite comments from anybody but my editor.”

Angelou has credited African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar along with Shakespeare for inspiring her “writing ambition” and the title of her first book comes from Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy.”

— Paul Laurence Dunbar —