Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Internet Friends


Lisboa-Oriente train station

I think the wonder of the Internet is the incredible capability of making friends. Since I began to surf and feeling more comfortable with this communication method, soon I began to develop friends and many have stayed my pen pals -or should we say keyword pals- through the years. We have laughed and cried together, discussed from cooking to politics, from art to the weather in our own corner of the world, while we furiously type our faceless words. Fore some years, I keep these friends who I cherish so much and who have a special place in my life, but it was just until a couple of months ago that I met in person one of them.

Clouds In Lisbon

She was travelling with her husband to Paris; I was working in a project in Germany and found this very cheap ticket who could take me back and forth to Paris in one day.
I was nervous to meet her, the question I always asked myself: “Are we the way we write”, was in front of me. I was nervous in how she was going to perceive me in real life, as I was nervous in how I would feel with her face to face. I was so happy to realize, that not just she was more intelligent and funnier than her writing, but that she was an incredible warm person. It was a great experience and yes I could say, we are more than our writing, the eyes, the dace expression, our voice and body language are there. Yes it seems, obvious all this, but in this age when we many people in this way, I still feel surprised.

Church in Beja

A couple of days ago I met another friend, the same insecurity feelings were there, and the same questions. I travelled to the south, to Lisbon and from there to Beja just to have lunch with him, and the same magic happened. I had a wonderful time and we laughed so much and felt we knew each other for a long time, in a way we do. I was not wrong about him, as I was not wrong about my American friend.
These successful meetings make me curious about gathering with so many others; I would need a ticket to travel around the world.

Clouds in Beja

Monday, February 19, 2007

Thank you Andy

He shared with me this video that I find awesome!
I post other links as well, videos that I have bookmarked, that I find interesting, strange or funny.



This is not a Film, amazing animation based on the paintings of Magritte

Treadmills Dancing, this is very funny and it was filmed in just one take.

Play, part I
, for the ones that like Samuel Beckett

Pachelbel Rant, A comedian rants about how much he hates to play Pachelbel's Canon in D, very funny.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Ideas on Vacation


In La Marmita blog, I posted something about creativity. If I am honest, I am trying to be creative and I am panicking, because nothing comes to my mind and I wonder if there is a moment where ideas decide to go for a long vacation, taking little luggage with items of the imagination. Yes I can see my ideas dressed in yellow (I don’t know why yellow), packing items stored in the shelves of imagination and going out of my brain in a stampede, like little children going to the beach.

Ok. I let them go, but then here I stay with tons of paper looking at me with boring eyes, lots of scribbles that for a strange reason I can’t understand and an effort to concentrate. I talk to myself in this way:

Ok Andrea concentrate!.........Andrea begins to concentrate
Tick, tock, tick, tock……..Nothing
Andrea looks at her watch, waits……Nothing
She decides to close her eyes so that in this relax state some miracle will happen…….she falls asleep.

I just hope that my ideas come back rested from their trip to the Ocean of Inventions.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Advantages of Being a Woman Artist


Working without the pressures of success
Not having to be in shows with men
Having an escape from the art world in your 4 free-lance jobs
Knowing your career might pick up after you’re eighty
Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labelled feminine
Not been stuck in a tenure teaching position
Seeing your ideas live on the work of others
Having the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood
Not having to choke on those big cigars or paint in Italian suites
Having more time to work when your mate dumps you for someone younger
Being included in revised versions of art history
Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius
Getting your picture in the art magazines with a gorilla suit

A public service message from the Guerilla Girls conscience of the art world

Friday, February 02, 2007

Doll Face

I love animation, this one is superb. The idea so simple and so well made. It reminds me of a theatre teacher that used to say: "Don't create something complicated and uninteresting. Create something simple and wonderful".