Lepopisana

While reading The Lace Reader I remembered a film we watched in art school. It was Bergman's Persona. I remember thinking two women in the film were in fact one. Out professor explained that one of the film's working titles was Sonata for Two Women. In spite of this I still thought it was only one woman. He let me retain my opinion and said something like: What does Bergman know? What does the author really know about their book? Or what does the reader know? I found the story a bit slow to develop but it didn't bother me. I was reading it slowly. When I read too quickly, I tend to forget equally quickly.  The book takes place in Salem, which is known to me by the witch trials in 17th century. There are modern witches, a sect, religious intolerance, abuse, loss, connection of twins, obsession. And lace reading. Each chapter opens with an excerpt from The Lacer Reader's Guide, a made up manual for an equally made up method of fortune telling. There's a point ...

“Books are not meant to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn’t ask ourselves whet it says but what it means.” Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose I was ten when I first heard of Umberto Eco. It was a radio broadcast about the Slovenian tran slation of The Name of the Rose we were listening to at lunchtime on a Saturday. I was too young when I tried reading Foucault's Pendulum so it was no wonder I failed twice. Instead I read The Name of the Rose and quite enjoyed it. At fifteen I read Foucault’s Pendulum and it became my favourite book. I read it again at thirty and it was a different book. I think I'll read it again sometime just to see what happens. Will it still be different ? I hope so.   In my local library I stumbled upon The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, which I rather liked and found at time quite witty. For example when the hero's wife asks him to bring some flowers from the market and he...

Sečovlje saltpans is a place where for me, time stands still. Especially now, out of season, when there are few visitors. We have been there before, so taking photographs of always the same things somehow isn't interesting. This time I was drawn to textures. * Sečoveljske soline so kraj, kjer se, vsaj zame, čas ustavi. Še posebej izven sezone, ko ni obiskovalcev. Obiskala sva jih že prej, tako da fotografiranje stvari, ki sva jih že prej fotografirala in ki jih lahko vidiš kjer koli na internetu, nekako več ni zanimivo. Tokrat sva soline gledala skozi teksture.  

Winter isn't my cup of tea. It never was. Every year I pretend to think that snow would make winter bearable, but then I see it doesn't work like that. In the morning the freshly fallen snow looks beautiful. By the time I leave work in the afternoon, it's grey and dirty. It's been a strange winter this year, too warm, with spring flowers already here. I should think it would fool me into thinking spring came early, but it doesn't. Darkness comes too quickly and with it come my demons. They are like waterbirds, slowly, silently freeing themselves form the water, coming to distract me. They smell of water, the air around them is cold and blue and they demand all my attention. The worst thing is I don't feel like painting and it rather annoys me. I've got a whole sketchbook full of ideas. I read what I have written about them, I keep looking at sketches, thinking about them, picturing final paintings. And yet nothing happens. Like a part of me is a bea...

They come in the morning, but not too early. Usually they sit on the benches on the bridge. They talk and drink, once I heard them singing. It was the national anthem they were singing and I remember wishing they would stop. We call them "our boys". They have the most colourful vocabulary when it comes to getting money out of people and always the same words after that: fat old cow. If they get anything, it is always too little, if not, a person, usually a woman, is a fat old cow. Sometimes I overhear those women talking among themselves, not understanding the lack of gratitude from these men. I read Down and Out in Paris and London for an English book club I attend once a month. Judging by the blurb and the fact that it was listed as nonfiction, it wouldn't be my choice of reading material. I'm glad I read it though. I liked Orwell's writing and the story made me think about the people living in the streets and about those working in horrible conditi...

"Good painting makes its way through the eye and reaches our mind, but it is our heart that understands art, because painting is a question of love."  Castor Siebel   M asked me how I understood Miró's paintings. In trying to explain, it dawned on me that I never ask myself that. For me it was never a question of understanding, but of feeling. I want to observe my reactions to the paintings I look at, why they make my heart race, why do all sorts of associations spring to mind or why they astound me. Sometimes I feel understanding the paintings would be sort of trespassing on the artist's mind. I don't need to understand the paintings, I want to feel them and I want to understand me.  But perhaps it is the same thing ... The other thing I often think about is purely technical: how the painting was made. And this is where inspiration comes in. Joan Miró - Soli di notte is another excellent exhibition at Villa Manin in Codroipo, Italy. It is one of the e...

Moja mama * imenuje knjige podobno kot lovci jelenjad. Tiste najboljše, predvsem pa vsebinsko najkvalitetnejše se po navadi imenujejo Kapitalci. Jasno, K je namenoma velik. To so tiste knjige, ki imajo največji vpliv na strokovno podstat posameznika, razgledanost in napredovanje.    Leksikon likovne teorije Jožefa Muhoviča je nekaj takega. Obsega več kot 800 izčrpno obravnavanih gesel na skoraj 900 straneh, trda vezava formata 210 mm x 280 mm. Namenjena je profesionalnim umetnikom, študentom umentosti, pedagogom, skratka vsem, ki jih umetnost zanima. Zajema pa čudovito obrazložene pojme likovne teorije: barvnih študij, svetlobe, likovne analize, kompozicije, semiotike in podobno. Čisto zlato! Z leti ugotavljam, da sem vedno bolj podobna mami, kar zadeva knjige. Duško Radović, sem mi zdi, v enem od aforizmov pravi, da naj starši tepejo otroke takrat, ko otroci postanejo podobni njim. Na stara leta, upam, da ne dobim batin, če jih že prej nisem. :-) ...

In the case of Agatha Christie's novels it often happens that I forget what the story was about pretty quickly, so I like to reread them from time to time. I read Murder in Mesopotamia before and I saw the television film as well. When I chose this book for a reading challenge I thought: "Isn't that the one when ..." It was the one. I chose it because of Mesopotamia, a country in the title, as required by What's in a Name 2016 reading challenge hosted at The Worm Hole . Why did I reread it, when there are lots of books that comply with said rules which I haven't read, out there? I wanted to read it not as a murder mystery but differently, I wanted to give the book a chance to tell me something else about it. I don't know if Murder in Mesopotamia told me anything new, but it certainly raised some questions, the most about the narrator, so this review will be mostly about her, her reactions, opinions and expectations. Murder in Mesopotamia is narated ...