Fish for Dinner?

Fish Stall at the Brixton Market

Outdoor Hour Challenge #16 Growing Sunflowers

“Many of the most beautiful of the autumn flowers belong to the Compositae, a family of such complicated flower arrangement that it is very difficult for the child or the beginner in botany to comprehend it; and yet, when once understood, the composite scheme is very simple and beautiful, and is repeated over and over in flowers of very different appearance……The large garden sunflower is the teacher’s ally to illustrate to the children the story of the composites.”
Handbook of Nature Study, page 574

This week I am going to challenge you to start some sunflower seeds growing in your garden or in a pot. If you purchased some sunflower seeds back in challenge #12, you are ready to go with this challenge. If you are still in need of some sunflower seeds to plant, take another outing to the garden nursery to let your child pick a packet of their own. The idea behind starting the seeds is to provide a “laboratory” for your child to observe and learn in all summer long. Even if you just plant the seeds in a pot and watch them grow on your front porch, this is a valuable activity. If you don't have a sunny spot in your yard, ask a friend or relative if you could plant a few seeds somewhere in their yard. Be creative.

Note to those working on the earlier challenges: You may wish to do this challenge in addition to whatever other challenge you are working on this week. Sunflowers take about 12 weeks to mature, depending on the variety you choose. You will need to get your sunflowers going fairly soon or you will not have any sunflowers to observe later in the summer.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #16 Sunflowers-Summer Project

1. Read the Handbook of Nature Study pages 574-576-The Sunflower.

Find a sunny spot in your yard or on your porch to plant your sunflower seeds. These seeds will eventually sprout and grow and provide a late summer challenge all of its own. These sunflower plants can be subjects for your nature journal as well. After the seeds have matured, you will have something for the birds to enjoy. Follow the instructions on the seed packet and get your seeds growing this week. Make sure to keep your seeds moist as they germinate.

2. Take your 10-15 minute outdoor time to look for some garden flowers in your own area. If you already have some of your own garden flowers blooming, pick one to identify and see if it is listed in the Handbook of Nature Study.

3. Add any new garden flowers to your list in your nature journal.

4. Provide an opportunity for a nature journal entry. Practice your flower drawing skills that you worked on in challenge number 15. Record your flower seeds’ growth and/or record your sunflowers growth for the week. You may wish to sketch your sunflower seeds before you plant them, looking at them carefully with a magnifying glass.

5. Continue making field guide cards for your garden flowers.

6. Add flowers to your press from you nature time. (see challenge #14 for more information)

7. Post an entry on your blog sharing your experiences and then come back to the Outdoor Hour Challenge post and add your blog link to Mr. Linky.











This challenge is part of my Garden Flowers ebook. This ebook has ten garden related challenges that will walk you through a study of garden flowers using the Handbook of Nature Study. In addition to the challenges already written, there will be more photos, nature journal examples, book lists, and totally new notebook pages designed to go with each of the Garden Flower Challenges.
Follow the link below to view the ebook! Over 50 pages for $6.95

Skywatch Friday - Postcard from Orkney

Just for those who wanted a glimpse of Orkney. These prehistoric standing stones of Stenness are the remains of a 30 metre circle within a henge. Probably from around 3000BC. No shortage of history in these parts!


Check out other contributors to Sky Watch Friday on Wigger's World.

Weekend Video

The flow of talented young British female singers continues unabated with 20 year old newcomer Adele (born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins). A neo soul/jazz singer, Adele was the first recipient of the Brit Awards Critics' Choice, given to an artist who yet to release an album. A few months later, Adele released her debut album 19, which went straight to #1 in the UK charts and was certified platinum within a month of its release.

This weekend’s video shows Adele performing her hit single "Chasing Pavements" live on BBC 1's "Friday Night With Jonathan Ross"

Sweet Peas-Green Hour Challenge #15

My daughter helped me out this week by drawing sweet peas in her nature journal. She used colored pencils to make this beautiful drawing.

We also spent some time planting more seeds in the garden this week. We are using a fantastic idea I found on Cocoa's blog for challenge number 12. If you go over to her blog, make sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the entry to see their flower garden project.


We prepared a small flower bed next to our morning glories, put some potting soil in the wheelbarrow, opened the packets of seeds and sprinkled them. We mixed up the seeds and the soil and then took handfuls and spread them on top of our new garden bed.

Here is the flower bed all seeded and ready for some water and sunshine.

We are hoping that we get a sort of wild looking mix of flowers here over the summer.

Here is a beautiful bloomer we have in a pot on the back deck. I just love the bold colors of this flower.

We are getting quite a collection of garden flower drawings in our nature notebooks. So much color and variety are found right in our own backyard.

Have a great week,
Barb-Harmony Art Mom

The First Mugshot

This photograph (top) has been somewhat incongruously making its way around the internet recently. However, I guess this should not be altogether surprising as it’s a powerful and seductive picture. It appears heroic in a Che Guevara kind of way, and it’s very chic! However, it is in reality 143 years old and a precursor to the mugshot, being a prison portrait of Lewis Paine (who attempted unsuccessfully to murder Secretary of State William Seward as part of the conspiracy in which John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln).

The photograph was taken in 1865 by Alexander Gardner, the famous civil war photographer also known for his definitive portraits of Lincoln. He photographed Paine and his co-conspirators on board the prison ship on the Potomac where they were incarcerated. Three months later they were hanged.

What is so haunting about the picture is the confidence and poise with which Paine looks at the camera and the modernity of his whole look. As you scroll down, you can see in the picture where the guard is standing beside him that he was enormously tall and if you study the photographs closely, there is certainly a kind of jock arrogance about the man. He’s a fanatic and a fashionista at the same time.

But as we all know pictures can be deceiving. While Paine failed in his task of killing Seward, he brutally stabbed him as well as injuring his two sons Fredrick and Augustus. And while Booth was the only assassin who succeeded in his task, the conspiracy not only robbed America of one of its greatest presidents but set a path of violence that continues to haunt America.

Bodies of the four condemned prisoners at Fort McNair, Washington, following their execution on July 7, 1865. From left, Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, David Herold and George Atzerodt. Photo by Alexander Gardner.

High Street Blues

Wet day on the Marylebone High St

Assisted

I’ve been incredibly lucky to have great assistants and last night Samantha Contis, my first assistant when I opened Danziger Projects, and Julia Baum, my current assistant, presented an irresistible photo-op. The occasion was the opening of the Yale MFA Photography 2008 exhibition at Danziger Projects which included Samantha Contis's work. If you want to see what the other eight graduates of what is generally considered the top photography MFA program in the country are up to, the show runs through this Saturday.

One other thing that Samantha and Julia have in common is that both have extremely good websites. Samantha’s features a range of her work which is both pastoral and cinematic. She’s terrific at landscape, great with skin, and given any opportunity to combine the two she’s off to the races!

Julia’s website features an ever growing body of portraits of redheads, shot in a luminous outdoor studio she has found for the project. Any genuine redheads living in or passing through New York and wanting to be photographed for the project should contact her via the site or at juliabaum@gmail.com.

Samantha Contis's photographs:





Julia Baum's photographs:

Sneason Season

Such lovely parks, such beautiful trees, but those little white flowers make my life a nightmare. Going out at present means I have to carry a suitcase full of tissues. Try and cross the road before I am crippled by a burst of 30 or more sneezes. My eyes, well lets just say I could easily be an extra in a horror movie at the the moment. Oh and the experts tell us this will be a particularly bad year because of the strange weather we have been having. Yippee!

Spring Walk: Thistle, Ladybug, Daisy

Yesterday afternoon was a perfect time to take a walk on our local walking/biking trail. The weather has been rainy the last few days and we were ready to get out and enjoy some fresh air. The clouds kept drifting in and covering the sun but it was still warm and spring-like.

Three of the children decided to come and we had an enjoyable time walking and talking and just spending time together....as they get older that doesn't happen as often as I would like. My middle son brought his scooter and he was zipping in and out as we just walked along.

The photos in this entry are an experiment in uploading for me so forgive me if the captions are not exactly with the photos. :)










This is some kind of flowering clover...I think. It sure looks like some kind of clover but this is really close-up.
















Look at this guy....after all my observations yesterday of the ladybug larva, I was happy to see this shiny insect as we walked along.

Then there was this daisy and I am pretty sure this is a Mariposa Lily.



































Okay, this was definitely some kind of thistle.

Don't you love the view from this part of the trail?









"The thistle is covered with sharp spines, and these serve to protect it from grazing animals. It has beautiful purple flowers, arranged in heads similar to those of the sunflower."
Handbook of Nature Study, page 526

There is a whole section in the Handbook on thistles starting on page 524.

"Every child loves this flower (daisy), and yet it is not well understood. It is always at hand for study from June until the frosts have laid waste the fields. However much enjoyment we get from the study of this beautiful flower-head, we should study the plant as a weed also, for it is indeed a pest to those farmers who do not practice a rotation of crops."
Handbook of Nature Study, page 522

There is a section on white daisies in the Handbook starting on page 522.

"The clovers enrich with nitrogen the soil in which they are planted. They are very valuable as food for stock. Their flowers are pollinated by bees."
Handbook of Nature Study, page 594

There is a section on clover in the Handbook starting on page 591.

Sorry for all the vague descriptions but I didn't have a lot of time this morning to get a firm identification on all of them. I will try to come back and update as I have the time to research.

This is a life project I decided.

Barb-Harmony Art Mom

Erupted

At the beginning of this month, the Chaiten volcano in southern Chile, which had been dormant for many thousands of years, began to erupt. Fortunately, there was time to evacuate the town although the ash has now begun to spread its way south across the entire country.

Photographer Carlos Gutierrez of UPI took these dramatic photographs. If you’re a fan of these “hand of god” kind of pictures, which I most certainly am, there’s an apocalyptic element to these images that’s literally incredible. In reality, however, the drama has been caused by the erupting ash and smoke colliding with a lightning storm.




Nevertheless, these kind of images have always had a place in the history of art. The eruption of a volcano was in fact so compelling that it spawned an entire subgenre of landscapes - Vesuvius paintings. Sir William Hamilton, English ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (as Naples and Sicily were known) from 1764 to 1800, was the great patron of this school. In addition to guiding an entire generation of wealthy and artistically inclined young Englishmen up the slopes of the volcano, he commissioned the artist Pietro Fabris to do paintings of the mount in all its moods. Fifty-four of the resulting works were gathered together with Hamilton's own notes and published as Campi Phlegraei: Observations on the Volcanoes of the Two Sicilies. This became a highly sought-after collector’s item as soon as it appeared in 1776. At the same time, Joseph Wright of Derby (one of the greatest British painters of the time) journeyed to Italy to paint Vesuvius and his painting “Vesuvius from Portici” is generally considered the masterpiece of the genre.

Remember that in pre-photographic society an event like this could only be experienced directly – no National Geographic, no evening news. The burning desire to see and record was the force that drove artists to cross oceans, trek the desert, and hack their way through jungles in search of the sublime, the mysterious, the unstoppable force of nature. While today we can travel further, know more, see more second-hand, our opportunity to experience this kind of wonder has changed and become more rare. So when photographs like Gutierrez’s come along, un-photoshopped, unconstructed, and looking the cover of a Meatloaf album, they are a reminder and a warning of the turbulent times we live in and the deceptive sense of connectedness we feel to the planet.

Joseph Wright's “Vesuvius from Portici”, painted 1774 - 1776.

A detail from Joseph Wright's “Vesuvius from Portici”.

Wright's "Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples" painted on his return to England.

Also taken on the first day of what turned into a five day eruption in Chaiten was this photograph by Alvardo Vidal, below.

More Bette Davis

No actress has emerged since to challenge Bette Davis’ status as First Lady Of The Screen. Market realities no longer allow for such opportunity. If we’re to recognize women who achieved legend status in movies, it will now and forever be necessary to turn clocks back to a studio era when career longevity was put first and careful handling assured popularity over (hopefully) more than just a handful of vehicles. Davis did have rivals at her peak. Their legacies have faded beside hers, but Greer Garson at Metro and Betty Grable at Fox were bigger earners during that wartime peak for female stars. Davis began slow as a money name above the title. Jezebel actually lost $78,000, while forthcomers The Sisters (profit $120,000) and Dark Victory ($580,000 in black ink) pale beside enormous monies the Greer Garson series earned once she caught on at MGM. A Now, Voyager clicked by Warner standards with $4.1 million in worldwide rentals, but Garson in Random Harvest got $8.1 from its worldwide total, and Mrs. Miniver took an astounding $8.8 million worldwide. No Davis film approached such figures. Her biggest for Warners would be A Stolen Life, and the $4.7 million that took worldwide probably has more to do with its all-time boom release year (1946) than any intrinsic value the picture had. Betty Grable musicals at Fox were enormous wartime attractions. Their value then as now seem linked to their necessary function boosting morale and rousing service camp audiences. Few think of Grable or her films offering as much when great musicals are considered, but no one’s did better while the conflict was on. Most wartime Grables realized at least four million worldwide, and two vaulted past five (Coney Island and The Dolly Sisters). Such numerical realities count for nothing toward diminishing Davis’ standing. The fact we’ve had numerous DVD box sets devoted to her and only one (said to have undersold) between Grable and Garson settled clearly the winner. That all three went into sharp decline once peace was declared is attributable partly to moviegoing veto power servicemen exercised once they returned home, plus conditions unrelated to the actresses’ appeal or sudden lack of it. People had other things to think about besides going to films, and many personalities who’d attracted during the war (especially women) saw careers headed for diminuendo.

Greer Garson may have been a commercial dominatrix on the home front, but Davis was the truer alpha female (here’s a rare charity event candid of them together). As to musical supremacy, I wonder if BD’s accompaniment didn’t have Grable beat as well. The latter sang and danced, but her music had not the narcotic effect Max Steiner conjured for the Davis pictures. His scores provided flow to link most BD melodramas and comforting familiarity that made them not unlike radio programs one might listen to from week to week. Themes from Now, Voyager spun off into pop vocals and RCA as late as 1974 would successfully market an LP top-lining Steiner’s compositions. Much of the dynamism we associate with Davis might as easily be credited to Steiner. How many of BD’s big scenes play in our memories apart from musical support we remember as vividly? Take away Max and some of Davis’magic goes with him, though it might be as easy saying the same thing with regards all the features he scored. The war that sustained Davis and her brand name in women’s melodrama conferred power upon her no female artist at Warners came close to achieving before or since. She’d fight with weak directors, but resist strong ones as well. Finally it became a matter of assigning helmsmen based less on ability than endurance of her tirades. William Wyler said no more after quarrelling through much of The Little Foxes. From this point, outstanding films would come mostly of chance and Warner polish so expert as to disguise cliché and absurdity otherwise noticeable. Davis recognized the latter and attributed much of the compromise to stringent Code enforcement. For drama trafficking in relationship issues, her output had as much to do with sex as an Abbott and Costello farce at Universal. Dialogue assured innocent outcomes for clinches fading to black, Davis and romantic vis-à-vis confirming later they’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. It was a timid formula bound to catch up with BD once the war ended and audiences demanded content more suggestive of real life. Had the PCA surrendered (or at least relaxed vigilance), she might have hung on to the summit a little longer. As it was, the harder edge of noir sensibility and a reborn Joan Crawford to exploit it would dethrone Davis and finish her stay at the top.

So many declines begin with costs going up and receipts coming down. Bette Davis was an expensive asset for Warners to maintain, even in the best of times. She was getting seven thousand a week and doing one picture a year by 1946. Each went do or die against overhead her salary generated plus generous budgets allotted the films. And now audiences were beginning to file out. Turnstiles ironically went the other direction for newly signed Joan Crawford, whose Mildred Pierce pointed the woman’s melodrama in more violent directions. Davis had killed before on screen, and would again in Deception, but that 1946 release shuddered beneath a $2.8 million negative cost, twice the amount it took to make Mildred Pierce (at $1.4 million). Deception would be the first BD vehicle to lose money ($190,000) since The Private Lives Of Elizabeth and Essex, and with so much expense dragging in her wake, a Davis picture would have to earn tall rentals to bring a profit, an outcome less likely for an aging star in an uncertain market. BD’s age was an issue now. She’d recall said spectre having come to call around the time of Winter Meeting (and yes, she does suddenly look older here), and that would be another Code-hobbled one with losses amounting to a horrific $1.1 million, Warner’s biggest flop since The Horn Blows at Midnight. The Crawfords were meantime doing better. Humoresque, Flamingo Road, and The Damned Don’t Cry all made profits, and it’s no coincidence that most of her vehicles saw JC brandishing iron and/or immersed in criminal and/or underworld activity. There was still a sex potential in Crawford’s screen exploits, and that plus mayhem supplied a formula for this actress more congenial to rougher postwar appetites. When Davis tried addressing Topic A in Beyond The Forest, results were ludicrous even by her own reckoning, but what self-destructive impulse caused her to make even more demands upon employers at said juncture? Had Warners been willing to open ledgers for talent, they might have shown her rivers of red ink on the final four she did for them. Was Davis aware she was negotiating from such a weak position? If so, she shouldn’t have been surprised when Jack Warner called her bluff (or was it?) and agreed to a termination of their contract during Beyond The Forest. Timing could hardly have been worse for any actress going jobless, let alone one past forty whose alcohol and nicotine habits left imprints of hard-living difficult now to conceal.

You’d have thought All About Eve would be the triumph that would keep on giving, but prospects in its wake were sufficiently grim as to negate whatever benefits that 1950 Best Picture winner conferred. Was it the fact of an ensemble cast and hot director that distracted potential employers? We think of Davis as the big noise in that picture today, but it was, after all, George Sanders and Joseph L. Mankiewicz that won awards, while BD had to share Best Actress nominations with Anne Baxter from that show (and she’d not win). Warner flair was missed in Payment On Demand, an RKO release among few (if any) to turn a profit until Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? in 1962. The interim saw much of her on television. Davis would later admit this was sometimes the only work she could get. The First Lady Of The Screen was now like any character actress for whom theatrical leads came seldom. When she got them, returns were tepid. Another Man’s Poison was BD again mixing lethal dosage for the men-folk, but this independent released through UA was cramped, dark and realized only $601,000 in domestic rentals. Her final lead prior to the Baby Jane inspired grotesques, Storm Center, was good for a measly $196,000 domestic. She was still a prestigious guest on television, and the vid avalanche of her old films beginning in 1956 made viewers that much more aware of who she was and what she’d accomplished. Flamboyant gestures laid end-to-end on late, late shows gave birth to a new generation of Davis impressionists. She could write her memoirs now and people would be interested. Good sport BD played along with jokesters like Jack Parr and gave talk show instruction on how best to mimic Bette Davis. Her sense of humor was as much impetus for the comeback as her remarkable performance in Baby Jane. My own generation thought of Davis in terms of horror movies. She (and they) sure delivered in the sixties. Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte was cranking up as we arrived at the Liberty one afternoon from school, just in time to see Davis (apparently) cleaving off Bruce Dern’s hand and head. That’s the sort of thing that earned BD her bonifides from me. I’d recently been shook up just watching the trailer for Dead Ringer, as Davis here sicced her dog on hapless and bleeding Peter Lawford. Was there any stopping this woman? Stations our way weren’t running pre-48 Warners, so I figured Davis for having been pretty much on a killing spree since the thirties. Things got so bad that a neighbor kid’s mother forbade us to go see The Nanny simply because she was in it, a decision reversed only after I assured her that BD’s title character was a benign one inspired by Mary Poppins. Such were the harmless fibs we told to gain entrance to pics with mature content.