Tag: dailyprompt

#1250 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why?

I think I would be the character or role that might be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. I think they always seem a little more interesting and perhaps better written than the lead roles. There is also a good chance that your character survives for most of the narrative. I like survival and longevity.

Having had a week of really interesting conversations with artists and art lovers at an exhibition for the last week. I am certain the book or film would need to be literary or arty. I don’t think I have action or thriller in my bones, although they are genres I can enjoy.

If this question was, what plant would you be? The answer would always be a border perennial, by the sea.

#1242 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment
Bull Lane, Fowey

Which aspects do you think makes a person unique?

What a question! Every cell in our bodies and every experience in life makes us unique.

I am like an old rock. Created by the gift of genes donated by my parents and then shaped by my life experience. Every day I am shaped by the previous day and every day before it. My pleasures and harms altering the way I bend towards the next day. Every person on earth is affected in the same way making us both unique compared to each other and indeed unique compared to ourselves of the past. I would suggest we continue to evolve in unique ways until our last breath. When just like that our uniqueness is altered by the love and memories we left behind. Unique again depending how every person recalls us, both good and bad.

Unique for ever, all of us.

Bull Lane, another back street, explored.

#1240 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Devon, dog walks, Hybrid Printmaking, Serendipity1 Comment
The Bents, Bantham ©theoldmortuary

Yesterday was the perfect Spring Day so we set off to a perfect beach for a long meandering dog walk. The beach and surrounding estate were sold over winter.

Sold for an undisclosed sum. The asking price was £30 million

It is alleged that the previous owner had wanted to turn the area into a millionaires play ground. If that is true,that would have been rather sad. Bantham is a spectacular place enjoyed inhabited and visited by regular humans since the Bronze Age.

What makes you laugh?

Now it has to be said that I laugh at most normal things, but the idea of a natural paradise being turned into an unnatural paradise also seems to be so laughable that I can quite see why local people protested with enough vigor to stop such a scheme. I hope the new owners don’t give them cause to protest again. For now all seems peaceful. We paid our £5 parking fee, had the beach mostly to ourselves and the dogs made themselves giddy and exhausted with play and paddling.

I took some deliberately bad photographs to reprocess into Hybrid images and was once again surprised and  puzzled by my results. Just two of my chosen images worked. Jenkins Boathouse turned out pleasingly vibrant.

Jenkins Boathouse ©theoldmortuary

And The Bents, or sand dunes worked out as peacefully mysterious as I planned, but I am unsure if the blue sky or the pink is better.

So I stuck them together and got an entirely different feel.I am learning to enjoy the serendipity of bad photography.

#1238 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn ponderingLeave a comment
Pondering. ©theoldmortuary

What’s something most people don’t understand?

If I had the answer to this I would almost certainly be far too busy to live a normal life. Explaining the ‘something’ to most people would take a lot of time and effort.

Better to concentrate on the things that I don’t understand and give myself a little mental upgrade. Most of my contemporary understanding arrives accidentally at my door. I often wish I had understood something better years ago.  But am always grateful that late enlightenment has arrived.  Pondering helps.

#1230 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, South West Coastal Path1 Comment

What is one word that describes you?

In defence of my inquisitive nature I would say I never slip from curiosity into prying.

These steps had been away to be refurbished over winter. I was curious to know if they felt any different on their return. They form a vital link on the South West Coastal Path near my home.

The sound of my feet on the metal structure has changed very slightly. More importantly a favourite circular walk has been restored to me. Curiosity satisfied.

A prying person might demand to know  exactly what Civil engineering and refurbishment tasks have been undertaken.

Curiously inquisitive, but not in a prying way.

For curiosity’s sake I flipped these two images. I don’t think I can begin to describe how uncomfortable these stairs feel to me running in the opposite orientation.

Curiosity taken one stage too far.

#1227 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Hybrid Printmaking, Serendipity1 Comment

How would you rate your confidence level?

I believe my confidence levels are at about the right place. But I would say that wouldn’t I?

Like many people I am a little in awe of hugely confident people but I am wise enough to know that massive confidence in others is built on foundations that are often less than desirable or wealth and status.

I am a lover of moderate confidence x compassion and interest in alternate ways of doing things. With a specific ratio of 35:65

35 being confidence and 65 being all the other elements of thinking, including doubt.

Clearly I sit comfortably on this ratio in my own opinion. It doesn’t mean a 65% lack of confidence. More like 65% opportunity to learn new things, see a different point of view or be flexible.

These images are 35% of my creative output of the last 2 months. The other 65% will never see the light of day but that 65% made these what they are. Less is more in confidence and creativity.

#1229 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Stonehouse1 Comment

Which animal would you compare yourself to and why?

For the last two days, a busy bee. Yesterday with fun stuff and creativity. Time spent with a two year old is never dull.

Drakes Island from Stonehouse Lawn Tennis Club

Drakes Island, in the rain from West Hoe.

This morning’s busy bee stuff is far less interesting. Trips to two industrial estates and the dullest of shopping lists done in my least favourite supermarket. The afternoon will not have to work too hard to liven things up. I will let you know how it goes.

And then nust like that the day perked up.  My wallet, missing for a week turned up. Misplaced and overlooked not, as secretly feared, lost forever.

#1224 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Serendipity4 Comments

What is the last thing you learned?

That a pause, even for fifteen years is still a pause. This painting was started and paused 15 years ago when I was doing a painting course. It was painted using only my fingers. A technique I never tried again until this week when I realised what I needed to do to make it exhibition-ready.

The Wheelhouse proportions needed to be altered and the moon tweaked with copper leaf. Having tweaked the moon the ponies required a little tweakment and then with all that bling the shadows needed darkening and on and on it went. All the time using my finger tips!  All well and good until they start to get sore and the top layer of skin is worn away. Really not a technique I ever need to use again. Useful if I ever need to enter the world of crimes created with two fingerprintless fingers, but really not so smart for operating my smartphone with its fingerprint recognition.

Tweaked moon.
Tweaked ponies

#1216 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

A little extra blog with a prompt.

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

Not for a whole day . Just a morning or afternoon or evening would be enough.

I would love to experience actually being the conundrum of humanity that is an Alpha male.  Potus or Putin perhaps if I were aiming for infamy or more humbly, any regular Joe who just sees women as inherently inferior. I could wear the invisible Stag Horns of a person who actively seeks out confrontation and domination in the tiny details of life as well as the more significant ones. Actually, any horn would probably do.

Just a portion of a day would be enough to start with, to give me some level of understanding. It would also give me plenty of time to make my apologies and relax my jaw from all that jutting both real and metaphorical.

Meanwhile the Alpha male I have briefly inhabited could perhaps enrol on a Lambda ( Lovely) man course and we would both have been enlightened.

#1212 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity3 Comments

What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?

A WordPress blog suggestion I am happy to respond to.

Having lived for more than 130 six month periods I know with some certainty that what I imagine my biggest challenge may well be eclipsed by a bigger but unexpected one. I would also not bore you all with my greatest challenge on an open public blog if I could identify one, which I can’t.

But it is one of life’s great mysteries that what we perceive as challenges often turn out not to be remotely challenging and yet seemingly mundane or benign moments can suddenly be challenging.

Sun setting through a skeleton leaf.