Surprise and More

Wonderful Wednesday From Maria

For her brother's birthday, Maria knitted a set of half mitts, socks and pillbox hat in Black and White. It has been an extremely wet spring - as in two months of rain - so we do not have hot summer; so thinking about being warm for winter was not too out of bounds here right now.

 

Surprise Package

I got the most delightful surprise in the mail. Look closely on the label, and to the right ...

... see the green?

It looks Chinese to me.

And inside were these packing papers. (Yes, I am saving them for future projects.)

Underneath were these.

A Chinese calligraphy brush set! With practice books, charts, and a lovely long letter about the culture and art of Chinese calligraphy. This was from Laura's sister, who is in China with her husband for work for awhile. Such a nice surprise. And I like the idea of trying this art.

At the end of the letter was this picture with the explanation: Chinese people highly value their writing art. It is also used as a meditative pastime - like this: People take mop-size brushes and buckets of water and write on the sidewalks, in a pretty park, like this. I think  it is marvelous that they value the art of writing so highly and take the time and effort to do it well. Would we all would do so.

Look for some Chinese practice writing to come. As for speaking.... well, some of us have tried it, and with the four voice inflections, I am not sure I would ever get it right. But learning a few of the 40,000 written characters could be a worthwhile challenge.

Italy Continued

Here are a few more photos from Italy, these being an introduction to Pompeii. We went there on a Sunday afternoon, when it happened to have free admission. Nice. The site is much different from when I was there about thirteen years ago. It is more developed. More area seems to have been excavated (with much still to go); the entrance was moved and expanded into a Visitors Centre; and art works were added - I think they weren't there before.

But first....

This rose was not in Pompeii. It is at home. All my flowers were blooming in glorious profusion when I returned, so I will tuck pictures in here and there, because with our so rainy days, we need the warm color.

Approaching the entry gates of Pompeii. We had lovely weather, not so scorching hot as when I was there before.

Around the entrance area were these huge bronzes, very well made, but not, I am quite sure, dug from the rubble, but evocative thereof.

And, yes, there were lots of people. The architecture is old, the art not.

Little insets on large sculptures.

More. I like this concept of positive and negative forms.

These were enormous, considerably more than life-sized.

This shows evidence of being modern works.

This though is all of the two thousand plus years old of the original site.  And isn't the form very fine?

Another modern work.

That is all for now, with more to come.