For the Cheetah Lover

For the cheetah lover, and you know who you are:

Two New Beaded Animals

I just bought those today. You don't often see the buffalo.

Beaded Animals - Part 3

Colourful beaded giraffes (sorry I chopped the heads off the larger ones)

Instead of going trophy hunting you can get the beaded heads. I particularly like the trophy-like heads.

You can even get the Rhino without making them even more endangered than they are.

An a protea, obviously not an animal so the title of the post is not quite right. Proteas are very South African though some do occur in Australia.
If you can stand a all "lesson" on proteas you can go to the post I have just about them. On the plus side that post has lots of pictures of different proteas.

Beaded Animals part 2

Christmas Tree Ornaments and Tin Mugs

On Sunday morning in Rosebank ( a neighborhood of Jo'burg) there is The Roof Top Market where there is a lot of local crafts and stuff available. I went there today (sorry no photos) and bought a few things.

Some Christmas tree ornaments (I love Christmas tree ornaments):
Some African angel, I should add that they are particularly inspired from the Ndebele women.

 Maybe a little big for my tree as I like small ornaments, but there was only one size.

The smaller figurines below are meant to be key chains but I thought that once the ring is removed they would make nice ornaments.

You can see they are way smaller.

Things I had bought many times before but somehow gave all away are those hand painted enameled tin mugs. I quite like them and I was please to see that the merchant was still at the market. He actually recognized me and we had a pleasant chat.

They never used to have animals, but this time they had a few.

Mostly they have scenes of village life.

In a way I get the sense that this could be one of my last trips to South Africa so I am making sure that I get what I want, things that I have bought before and given away, or things that I have admired but never bought.

Beaded Animals - Part 1 (possibly many parts to follow, who knows?)

As per request, a close up of the beaded animals:
Those are just the ones I have acquired so far. I love beaded animals and I tend to acquire a few. They come in any size you want if you are willing to order them and wait. The one I have are small because they are one of the typical size of what you can get pretty much anywhere, also they have to come with me. But the goat in my friend's garden is life size.

One guinea fowl and two rhinos. (If you click on the photos you can see them better)

Close up of the white rhino.

The stand I photographed for my previous post had many more but I didn't buy any from that guy. I bought from him the frame of a antelope (a springbok)  head to hang on the wall as they are before they get beaded. I thought it was great just the way it was.

As you can see from the size of my hand, the antelope head is much bigger than the beaded animals I bought.
Honestly those guys are so gifted in the way they can bend wire into a perfect 3-D representation of pretty much anything they want.

Interesting Graffiti

There is always a bit of a dilemma about graffiti art: it is not requested, but sometimes it is so good. Here is one which I think is interesting especially since the only place you can really see it from is the outdoor display of  traditional life ion the north (where the moose hide tanning course is taking place).

This is the setting:

...and here is the text:

Which of course should read : "don't you miss the days no one can remember"

The Roulotte of my Dreams

When I was a kid, and when I first realized that I was going to stop working, both times, the dream was to have a "roulotte" (no idea what the word is in English, goes to show how old the dream is for me because there isn't very many concepts or objects that I first think about in french).
Between Big Bend and Three Rivers I stopped at Balmorhea State Park (and this time it was warm enough that I could swim in the warm springs) and I saw the roulottte of my dreams.

When I was a kid the dream was not practical enough to include a particular way of pulling it. But as a first gut reaction when I was in Jo'burg facing retirement I wanted a little cart like that one (even the shape is exactly right) but smaller and a donkey to pull it.
It is a gypsies dream, it comes from my grand father.

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

While in Texas I went back to Big Bend National Park for a few days. I meant to hit a few more places in Texas but as I was heading north strong winds started and would not stop. I mean really strong winds. Driving against the wind my fuel consumptions was about 50% higher than usual...this kind of wind.

So I ended up back in New Mexico and this time I went to Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. I spent a week there and it was wonderful.
There are 21 thousand petroglyphs so there was a lot of exploring to do.
Here are some of my favourites:
there area ll kinds of weird and wonderful creatures

this one (below) I think is so sweet. It makes me think of an illustration for a kids story. Something about the little creature (who reminds me of Piglet) holding a branch to the sun while his friend the mountain goat watches. I love this petroglyph.

Quite a few bird representations.

Famous sad face.

An animal with antlers above a very common circular design. There are a lot of circular design petroglyphs.

Another one which makes me think of illustration for a story.

This one is quite special I think, and judging from the lack of footprints around it not very often visited.

Arts Alive Festival 2012 in Johannesburg

From Saturday 1st to today Sunday 9th Johannesburg had the Arts Alive Festival. It included Jazz on the Lake which every year takes place at Zoo Lake. The Festival had some great shows, music, theater, dance etc. Unfortunately I was way busy with "stuff" but today I did catch a show.
I caught a dance show at Museum Africa called "Afternoon at a Foehn". Honestly the title has nothing to do with anything that I could tell but it was a FABULOUS show. It was clever, funny, poetic, imaginative etc etc. I loved it.
Here is a photo from the Arts Alive site.

Ancestor Vessels from Nigeria

I have two clay pots that I really like. I never really knew much about them and just started to find some information on them because Kim Sack Gallery has one of them and has a label to go with it.
At Kim Sack Gallery (here in Johannesburg) the piece is labelled as "Jungur Culture - Nigeria / Chad - Wiiso vessel". From this thanks to the internet I found that they are Ancestor Vessels.
The Primitive Gallery in the Us has some good photos of the many ancestor vessels they have. They place them as being from the Mambila People in Cameroon.

 Anyway here are my two little guys as they stand in my garden.(That's my photo of the day)

Stone Grinders - show at Circa Gallery

Recently Circa Gallery had a show on Stone Grinders. To be honest I thought it was a bit disappointing. The light wasn't great. There was really very little text or anything to put them into context. I think for me the worse was that there was no history on any of the stone grinders, where they had been found, where they are now kept and things like this so that they all blended into an anonymous mass which is a shame because stone grinders of South Africa are beautiful things. My Landlady has a few in her garden and outdoors in the rain and sun they have "personality". But anyway here they are.

Exhibition of African Photography in Bamako, Mali

You just have to go to BBC World coverage of this exhibit. How I which I could be there to see it "live".

Here is an example of the photos they show. This one is by Akintunde Akinyele.

Australia, Kakadu National Park rock art - Part 3 my favourite art piece

I am not saying where I found her. She is not indicated as part of any walk and I just saw her high on the side of a cliff.

What a beauty. What a story....Don't ask me what the actual story is, I don't know. I just mean to say: "what story she must have, what a  story I can imagine for her".