Category: Dreaming

Dreaming

sometimes at the bottom

i feel like this
Jason deCaires Taylor

Jason deCaires Taylor grew up in Europe and Asia with his English father and Guyanese mother, wo nurtured his passion for exploration and discovery. Much of his childhood was spent on the coral reefs of Malaysia where he developed a profound love of the sea and a fascination with the natural world.

Later, he became a scuba diving instructor in various parts of the globe, developing a strong interest in conservation, underwater naturalism and photography. During his teenage years, work as a graffiti artist fired his interest in the relationship between art and the environment, fostering an ambition to produce art in public spaces and directing the focus of his formal art training.

He graduated in 1998 from the London Institute of Arts, with a B.A. Honours in Sculpture and Ceramics. His experience in Canterbury Cathedral taught him traditional stone carving techniques while five years working in set design and concert installations exposed him to cranes, lifting, logistics and completing projects on a grand scale.

With this range of experiences he was equipping himself with the skills required to execute the ambitious underwater projects. Carving cement instead of stone and supervising cranes while in full scuba gear to create artificial reefs submerged below the surface of the Caribbean Sea, the various strands of his diverse life resolve themselves convincingly in the development of his underwater sculptures.

His international reputation was established in May 2006, when he created the world’s first underwater sculpture park in Grenada, West Indies, leading to both private and public commissions. Taylor is currently founder and Artistic Director of the Museo Subacuático del Arte (MUSA) in Cancun, Mexico.

Dreaming

Sheila Chandra

why do i like this?

But don’t go away yet. In all fairness, listen to this. She can make beautiful sounds! her voice is an instrument, isn’t it?

Listened to her on NPR years ago. I was amazed at the sounds she could make! A comment under one of her speaking in tongues videos: she must have been a drum in a past life!

From Sheila Chandra’s site:

Born in South London to a South Indian immigrant family, Sheila Chandra discovered her voice at the age of twelve and whilst at Theatre Arts school. From this moment her chosen path was to be a singer. Lacking any real contacts or access to the music business, she nevertheless honed her vocal skills as a labour of love, spending up to two hours a night throwing her voice into the tall, draughty and uncarpeted stairwell of the family home: “I didn’t know how to manufacture an opportunity, but I was determined that when a chance came my way I would be ready.”

THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES ARE TRUE

the eighties:
* In 1981 Sheila Chandra met Steve Coe in London and became the lead singer of his Asian fusion band Monsoon which then signed to Polygram.
* Monsoon had a UK Top Ten hit with their first single “Ever So Lonely” when Sheila was 16.
* After Monsoon disbanded, Sheila signed Steve Coe’s Indipop label in 1984 and went on to make her first four solo albums in two years.
* Sheila retired when she was 20 to take a sabbatical that lasted 4 years and re-emerged with her fifth solo album on Indipop.

the nineties:
* In 1991 Sheila decided to give concerts for the first time and developed her distinctive voice and drone approach — drawing on vocal cultures from around the world — so that she could perform alone on stage.
* Sheila formed her own music production company and went on to write a trilogy of albums in this style, each of which she licensed to Real World as one-offs, in order to retain creative control.
* In 1999, to mark the 10th anniversary, Real World put out “Moonsung” — a retrospective collection drawn from the trilogy.

the noughties:
* Sheila signs to Indipop for a one-off album “This Sentence is True” (The previous sentence is false) which is released April 2001 by Indipop/Shakti (Narada).
* Jakatta, fresh from their success with ‘American Dream’ use Sheila’s 1982 ‘Ever So Lonely’ vocals and completely * In 2007 Sheila returns to live performances after a gap of 14 years.
* In 2009 Sheila signs her first book to Vermilion Books (Random House) entitled ‘Banish Clutter Forever – How the toothbrush principle will change your life’ Publication date 4th March 2010. Ffi go to http://www.thetoothbrushprinciple.com

I can’t wait to find out more about her banish clutter book. The way she organizes her music is so interesting, I am looking forward to seeing how she organizes her life!

Dreaming

Working for Santa

thin santa by Mimi Kirchner

You are not going to believe this, but I dreamed I was hired by Santa Claus the other night. And, by the way, in my mind at least, he is not fat (and now  that I think about it, not all that old, either).

I was working on some really stupid assembly line (where the workers actually took a conveyor belt to get to work), and Santa saw me, pulled me off the line, and gave me a job. I’ll be darned if I can remember what he actually had me doing, exactly, but it was challenging and satisfying (It might have been marketing, or something like that — that would be great, wouldn’t it? Marketing for Santa? With his renown and popularity that would a fun job!

Santa let me think for myself, be creative and come up with solutions. He was not a micro-manager.

In the dream, being allowed to work this way, changed me. I became a nicer person! Oh, Santa!

I woke up happy.

Santa! Where are you? Do you have a job available?

Got the thin santa picture from Mimi Kirchner’s web site, which i plan to go back and read. On her homepage, I saw the sewing machine that my sister just handed over to me. I may want to make one of these dolls. I don’t know what my thing about dolls is all about, but I have always liked hand-made stuffed dolls.

So, maybe I’ll end up working for Santa after all!

Oh, I just realized how funny this is! Santa’s Mean Old Bitch makes dolls!