while you're ahead...

– 2018/148 – 48 years of books (2006)

Monica Dunkley

August 28, 2018

The Road by Cormac Mc Carthy

Time is a funny thing. If you’d asked me about this book before last week I’d have told you that the my first attempt at reading it was during college… but that is not possible because when I looked into it was published 11 years after I graduated. Weird, you see… I distinctively remember sitting on my little single bed in the tiny room opposite the college gates (best address ever) and trying to make heads or tails of it. And then getting rid of the thing because I just didn’t get it. Must have been a different book. Or a different room.

I don’t know why I didn’t like it the first time around, because now… I loved this novel. I read it on holiday on my phone using the kindle app after I ran out of real books and I still loved it. Absolutely brilliant.

Father and son are walking… just walking in a word that has ended as we know it, it’s cold and grey, there is only fire and ash blowing in the wind. They have no food and no real place to go.. they walk… and talk very little and try to stay alive. There are ‘bad’ people that do unspeakable things… and they hide and look for food and they walk…

We know nothing of them. We know they’re father and son but we don’t know their names, or where they come from, or where they are and we don’t know what happened to the world, why everything is gone and there are no birds in the sky or fish in the sea, no electricity and not many people at all, just fire and ash and cold.

And yet… amongst the horror and the suffocating, strangling fear… there is this ‘something’, tiny something that keeps them going… nobody even dare to call it hope because hope it’s too big a word… but it’s there, makes them cling on to life when really… there doesn’t seem any point in doing so.

“Nobody wants to be here and nobody wants to leave.”

Stunning. Compelling. Heartbreaking. Chilling. It stays with you long after the last page.

A must.

The list so far:

2018 Mr Hanckock and the mermaid

2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)

2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)

2015 – Reasons to stay alive (Matt Haig)

2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)

2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)

2012 – Wonder – (R J Palacio)

2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

2010

2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)

2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

2007

2006 – The Road (Cormac McCarthy)

2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

2004 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)

2003

2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)

2001

2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)

1999

1998

1997 – Paradise (Toni Morrison)

1996 – Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)

1990 – Darkness visible (William Styron)

1989 – Like water to chocolate (Laura Esquivel)

1988

1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)

1986

1985 – Oranges are not the only fruit (Jeanette Winterson)

1984 – Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner)

1983 – Heartburn (Nora Ephron)

1982 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)

1981

1980 – Emmeline (Judith Rossiter)

1979– The bloody chamber (Angela Carter)

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973 – the honorary consul (Graham Greene)

1972

1971 – Reunion (Fred Uhlman)

1970 – A slipping down life (Anne Tyler)

– 2018/147 – postcards from Croatia

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

August 27, 2018

I’m back!!

The suitcases have been emptied, the first load of washing is in and I’ve put away the grocery delivery (genius move on my behalf, no trips to the supermarket on the first day back home…), so coffee in hand I’m going to show you the wonderfulness that is Croatia, Southern Croatia, the Dalmatian coast to be precise…

We rented a house just North of Dubrovnik, in a small hamlet (just houses clinging on to the rocky coast) called Luzica. The view was breathtaking. The wifi on the other hand was pretty weak so all my uploading photos to the blog attempts were in vain. Prepared to be spammed. Our house too was build on a very steep rocky coast… the bedrooms were upstairs and the living area/kitchen/terrace and garden were downstairs. There was a small but gorgeous pool and steep steps to a small cement platform from which you can access the sea directly. (We rented it through ‘Croatia Gems‘).

It was a very relaxing holiday, the teenagers got a bit bored (nothing new here), I read four books, we had gorgeous food in a variety of local restaurants, tried to get a tan with some people having more success than others (not me…), we only lost one pair of sunglasses in the whole week , had a gorgeous day and night on a boat… and came back refreshed.

Whilst I could bore you with the 207 photos I’ve taken… here are a selected few, just to whet your appetite for the place; we’re kind of thinking we might be heading back next year…

Dubrovnik – the old town at least – is a gorgeous place to visit. I highly recommend a walk along the old wall that still surround it and then take your time wandering along the small streets. It will be crowded unless you go off season, but still charming. (Our rep suggested going when not too many cruise ships are docked in the port… if in doubt you can check with the local port authority).

We had dinner (twice) at a place called ‘Azur‘… an interesting place with fusion food… ‘Croatian’ you could call it. Very nice.

As you know I get itchy feet if I stay still for too long so one afternoon I drove to ‘Trsteno Arboretum’… mmhhh, what can I say… if you’re a fan of Game of Throne it might be worth it… I just thought it could have been an amazing place but it needs some major tlc… it kind of look like an abandoned park and it’s a shame because it could look amazing.

The best thing that we did was renting a boat and cruise amongst the many islands, mooring in deserted coves and swim and snorkel in the turquoise waters. We sailed past our house too on the way out…

We had storms

and amazing sunsets

and dinners in cute harbours…

and a really good family time…

– 2018/146 – 48 years of books (1982)

Monica Dunkley

2 comments

August 18, 2018

The colour purple by Alice Walker.

Published in 1982, it won the Pulitzer Price for Fiction in 1983.

It is such a well known and famous book I’m not going to sit here and critique it… it would be ridiculous, I’m just kind of ashamed it took me so long to read it, although to be fair I was 12 in 1982 and I wouldn’t give it to my 12 yr old to read it. (Especially because I don’t have a 12yr old anymore… he’s 13… but I wouldn’t give it to him yet anyway).

Powerful stuff. Violence, racism, explicit content, social inequality, female inequality, it’s all there. Not for the fain hearted even though, at the end of it all it’s a great book about humanity and love and friendship and integrity…

I was really bowled over by it.

I had seen the movie years ago and I thought I was prepared for the more hard hitting themes/scenes… but I forgot how more real words on a page can be… how they can enter your mind and stay there, simmering and singeing, scarring your brain. It had the same ‘punch to the solar plexus’ effect that Toni Morrison’s book have on me all the time. Makes me ashamed to be human… make me terrible proud to be human too. Hard to explain.

A must read.

2018 Mr Hanckock and the mermaid

2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)

2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)

2015 – Reasons to stay alive (Matt Haig)

2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)

2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)

2012 – Wonder

2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

2010

2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)

2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

2007

2006

2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

2004 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)

2003

2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)

2001

2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)

1999

1998

1997 – Paradise (Toni Morrison)

1996 – Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)

1990 – Darkness visible (William Styron)

1989 – Like water to chocolate (Laura Esquivel)

1988

1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)

1986

1985 – Oranges are not the only fruit (Jeanette Winterson)

1984 – Hotel du Lac (Anita Brookner)

1983 – Heartburn (Nora Ephron)

1982 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)

1981

1980 – Emmeline (Judith Rossiter)

1979– The bloody chamber (Angela Carter)

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971 – Reunion (Fred Uhlman)

1970 – A slipping down life (Anne Tyler)

– 2018/145 – music Friday

Monica Dunkley

no comments

August 17, 2018

… it was never in doubt what today’s music choice was going to be…

… watch out for an emotional Presiden Obama and Carol King going crazy…

– 2018/144 – FoQ 2018

Monica Dunkley

no comments

August 16, 2018

More quilts. Hang in there… I wrote this post yesterday and then managed not to press ‘publish’… so today you’re getting a long double one effectively. Grab a cup of tea and let’s go

So first up Ruth Singer , who had a residenship at the Staffordshire Record Office and researched and created artworks inspired by female criminals who’d been imprisoned in Stafford Prison from 1877 to 1915. First of all let’s ignore for a moment the horrible things that go on in society right now and marvel and rejoice for the fact we live in a world that still makes space for art and where a Record Office has an artist in residence. There’s hope after all, right? Second… what an interesting job!!

The series is called ‘Criminal Quilts’ and it’s strangely (or perhaps not) moving.

This is a shawl made by photographs of the prisoners… a lot of the prisoners were wearing shawls in their photograph so the link is tangeable. Also… I have a box full of familly vintage photographs… this kind of gives me an idea… mmmhhhhh

hands of prisoners embroidered on vintage linens

Heights

And now for some old ones…

Nothing is really known about this top, provenance nor maker, but these mauve fabrics came into vogue in the second half of the nineteen century, when new dyes were discovered that yielded this colour. In 1856 a gentleman called William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered a dye that turned silk purple: mauveine. Mauve was also an acceptable ‘half-mourning’ colour after a period of ‘black’ mourning… so perhaps… who knows…

Gorgeous, crazy gorgeous crazy patchwork coverlet from 1886

Bratton Baptist Church Coverlet 1913

Topsham Museum Crazy Patchwork coverlet 1889, signed Emily Seward

Printed cotton hexagon coverlet 1780 1820

… and the famous 1718 Silk Patchwork Coverlet… 300 years old…

let’s walk the floor for a while:

Stupidly I didn’t take a note of the author of this wedding ring quilt… but it was made out of paper it seems… absolutely gorgeous.

And check out this quilting! (Deborah Lobban, Where’ s Dave)

Another whose name escaped me… part of the SAQA Concrete and Grassland exhibition

Snow in the desert, Caroline Villars

Then there was the 14th Quilt Nihon

366 days, Yogo Eguchi

Welcome to the heavenly flower garden, Yukiko Nakao

We meet again, Tomoko Tanabe

Card Magic

And to conclude this tour de force a few from the Fine Art Quilt Masters 2018:

Strelitzia, Karen Callaghan

detail of Electric Storm, Ann Barbara Smith

Captivated by nature, Olga Gonzales-Angulo

And that’s a wrap… you’ll be relieved to know. I enjoyed the show this year, I went on the last day and it wasn’t too crowded and the photos I’ve shown you are only a very small percentage of the amazing quilts that were there… the ones that cought my eyes, the ones that rang a bell in my mind… but there were more many more… and I already look forward to next year!

– 2018/143 – FoQ 2018

Monica Dunkley

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August 14, 2018

Today I’m going to show you some of the quilts that caught my eye at the show. No theme… just as I saw them here and there…

First of all the quilt above was the winner of the Art Quilt category, it’s by Jean McLean and it’s called ‘And the Sky Danced’. Not my stile… but you have to admire the ‘skillz’!

Alexandra Kingswell

She uses mathematical sequences when arranging her colours and blocks so even though her quilts might seem random… they’re anything but.

Clever, eh?

These ones for example, entitled ‘Four slices of Pi’ (who doesn’t love a pun?) are a four different visual representation of the Pi sequence.

Let the Forest sing

Sequence 1 and 2 started off as two separate pieces set always to a mathematical sequence but as study of cold and warm colours. They were then re-cut and integrated with each other.

Galaxy

As part of the ‘Contemporary Quilters West’

Secret Geometry (Carla Mines)

Lime Zest and Blood Orange (Christine Seager)

Chorus Line (Angela Knapp)

And now for a few on the ‘floor’ so to speak

Balance (Yvonne Kervinen)

Sanderson Star (Pippa Moss)

Little House no 3 (Roberta LePoidevin)

Forty Shades of Green (Ethelda Ellis)

Sherdley Road (Leah Higgins)

Memorial, Ely Cathedral (Magenta Kang)

tbc…

– 2018/142 – FoQ 2018, Shizuko Kuroha

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

August 13, 2018

This week it’s going to be a quilt party around here… I’ve taken a lot of photographs yesterday and I want to share with you all that caught my eye. Also, believe me when I say that not a lot is going on behind the scene if you discount school shopping and normal holiday life (nobody wants to walk the dog, nobody wants to do holiday homework, nobody wants to do the washing/ironing…)

So without further ado left me show you another favourite exhibition at the Festival. Totally different from the style of Nancy Crow, but equally mesmerising. The show is called Indigo & Sarasa: pieces of my life. Indigo… well we all know about the wonderful blue fabric dyed with the indigo plant, a tradition which is really strong in Japan; Sarasa is the name of the block printed fabric, traditionally in lighter, warmer, earthy colours.

Shizuko Kuroha is a famous Japanese quilter, authors of many books, she works mainly with vintage fabric from her tiny studio in a Tokyo suburb. The story goes that in the 1970s, whilst living in the United States, Shizuko saw an old quilt that gave her such an emotional response and left such a lasting impression that she had to learn how to quilt… when she moved back to Japan she started to explore the rich quilting tradition of her country and these latest work are simply sublime and hasn’t stopped in 40 years. She works on normally just about two quilts a year (look at the following photographs and you can see why) but she spends her time teaching and giving lectures too.

Remembrance of wind, 1996

so many different fabrics…

such tiny pieces…

Echo 1, 2007 (left) – The sun shines brilliantly 2011 (right)

I love how you think she uses a clam shell pattern, but that it’s only in the quilting… it’s all in the clever use of log cabins blocks. Genius.

all hand stitched…

This minuscule logcabin miniature quilt was mind-blowing.

Wind and Tree 2010

The peaceful Sea 2010

And a personal favourite, Wish for a beautiful earth 2000

another ingenious log cabin block in a courthouse step pattern…

Aren’t they magnificent? Her eye for shades and colour variation, her skills in manipulating geometrical shapes almost magically into other make believe ones is just incredible. Fabric dances in her quilts, don’t you think?

– 2018/141 – FoQ 2018, Nancy Crow

Monica Dunkley

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August 12, 2018

I’ve just got back from this year’s Festival of Quilts in Birmingham (UK…). I almost didn’t go because last year was so overcrowded and I ended up feeling overwhelmed and frazzled and frankly didn’t enjoy the experience at all. I almost didn’t make it there because my car tyres were a little flat and at my first attempt of sorting it out I actually -deflated them causing all sorts of bells and whistle to go off … (never confuse your bars and psis when it comes to tyres… just saying)… no worries, we fixed it and with beautifully inflated tyres we made it in time.

The main reason I made myself go though was Nancy Crow. I’ve been a huge admirer of her work for years and I simply couldn’t miss it. I would have regretted it forever.

This exhibition showcased a new direction in her work (for the uninitiated she’s famous for colourful, contemporary pieced quilts, some would say she pretty much started the modern quilt movement)… she’s exploring and mastering the art of mono printing on fabric and the results are mind blowing.

(Mono prints #16/#23 blue, Self portrait: focus)

This is what she says, and keep in the mind she’s 74yrs old…

10/12 hour days… for weeks…

(Mono print #97 red, Self portrait: focus)

She works on a large scale. I admire the confidence of doing that.

So beautiful.

(Mono Print #83 short, Self portrait: focus)

(Mono Print #88 short, Self portrait: focus)

One thing I learnt today about Nancy Crow’s work is that she never quilts her quilts herself but works in strict collaboration with other quilters to realise her vision (she acknowledges this on the back of the pieces). Also, for this body of work she moves away from hand quilting because the strong mark making she required were only possible with machine quilting and thicker wadding.

I couldn’t leave the stand. I kept walking up and down, trying to discover her secret.

She graciously agreed to take a picture with me and as you can see I’m not awestruck at all..

… not at all…

Sigh.

Definitively glad I got myself to the show.

– 2018/140 – here and there and everywhere

Monica Dunkley

2 comments

August 9, 2018

This morning I got all dressed to for a run after taking No 1 to his work experience placement… and then I didn’t. I sat in the car on the driveway when I got back and had this thought that I really, REALLY didn’t fancy running, so why should I? Why should I feel guilty about changing my mind? I’m 48 years old, if I don’t want to go for a run I don’t have to. Right? Instead I grabbed my computer and did a session of yoga practice with a nice American lady called Caren (the video is here, it’s the first one on the page, because… why not start from the beginning right? It’s actually aimed to ‘the new year/new beginning’… but hey, one could argue that every day is a new beginning…). You know what? I loved it. I feel calm(er), more centred and have definitively more energy that if I’d gone for a run! So bring it on! And I don’t feel guilty in the slightest.

Ok, the energy might also have something to do with the delicious slice of freshly baked bread and apricot jam I’ve just wolfed down… maybe. Yoga always makes me hungry, the better the session the hungrier I feel. But it’s a good hungry… a happy hungry. Not a ‘I’m going to kill someone if I don’t ear RIGHT NOW’ hungry. It’s not ‘hangry’.

Also, yes, I baked bread. Go me. With a bread machine but still… go me.

I had bought a book about making sourdough bread… but I lost it. Vanished together with a book about raising pigeons that my brother wants to take to South Sudan to a friend of his who’s like a pigeons whisperer or something.

Also, (repetition I know) I have watched the last episode of Wallander on Netflix and now I feel stranded… what should I watch now? I have mountains of ironing – I have always mountains of ironing… – and I need to watch something to keep my brain alive. Any good stuff? not to gory/scary/weird…

And I lost my tweezers. I need them, please send tweezers.

No 3’s new bed has been delivered without the slats. Seriously people? You have ONE job…. They’re going to come a more than a week later this Sunday. I’m going to go to the festival of quilt on Sunday… so Mr M will have to take the delivery and maybe put the bed together which is something he hates. Putting stuff together that is. Really hates. So what will happen is that when I get back with a head full of quilts and ideas and buzzing around with sore feet… I’ll be handed an allen key and brought back down to earth. I’m good at predicting the future, you’ll see. No 3 wanted a new bed because now that he’s a teenager… well teenagers don’t sleep on platform beds. Apparently.

I’m not ready for all this mad growing up that is happening around me. No 1 is learning to drive (quite an experience to get in a car with a 17yr old, let me tell you), and he is thinking at University/jobs/gap years… No 2 is away (again) without me… No 3 is now a teen and is sticking posters on his walls and wants to sleep in a ‘real bed’.

Sigh. Can everyone please slow down?

Also, (shhhh, I know) I have decided to put this sweater on hold. (The pattern is called Leiden from the latest issue of pompom magazine)

Just wasn’t feeling it. There’s no way I can finish in time to wear it this season and I’d rather start something in wool that I get the chance to wear in the forthcoming months. So off in hibernation it goes. Perhaps I’ll pick it up again next year… perhaps not. This is part two of my new ‘no more guilt’ regime (Refer to the first paragraph for the first chapter) and you know what? It feels very good an liberating. You should trying.

And now I’m going to work on my nephew’s quilt, because I want to.

Over and out.

– 2018/139 – 48 years of books (2008)

Monica Dunkley

no comments

August 8, 2018

White Tiger by Arvind Adiga

I’ve been sitting in front of the computer for a while and I don’t really know what to say about this book. Let me begin by saying that I ‘enjoyed’ reading it, it’s well written, it flows, it’s funny, it keeps you engaged… until you stop and realise that you shouldn’t be enjoying this, you should be appalled about the condition he lives in, his work, his prospects, the society around him.

Sigh.

It’s a rag to riches story, it’s a long letter, written on the course of a few nights from the slum dweller/driver/murderer/entrepenour to a Chinese statesman about to visit India, it’s about the state of a society that’s multilayered and complicated and messy and vibrant and frankly almost incomprehensible from out Western point of views. Modern ways, ancient ways, traditions and modern technology, dog eats dog and the smarter win. Sometimes.

Morality? Good, evil, they’re all blurred and impossible to call. It’s not so easy.

Does this book do a bit too much of India bashing? I’ve never been, I can’t say. I’m inclined to say that a lot if not all what he mentions does go on. Is Balram’s voice (he’s the main character who tells the story in first person) authentic or is he the voice of an educated outsider? Indeed the ‘language’ was slated by some reviewer for not being ‘real’.

I don’t know. It’s a good book, I’m glad I read it. It stops you in your track and make you think that there are other realities out there and simply utter judgements about them is not enough. It goes deeper than that.

The list so far:

2018 Mr Hanckock and the mermaid

2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)

2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)

2015 – Reasons to stay alive (Matt Haig)

2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)

2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)

2012 – Wonder

2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)

2010

2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)

2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)

2007

2006

2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)

2004

2003

2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)

2001 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)

2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)

1999

1998

1997 – Paradise (Toni Morrison)

1996 – Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)

1990

1989 – Like water to chocolate (Laura Esquivel)

1988

1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)

1986

1985 – Oranges are not the only fruit (Jeanette Winterson)

1984

1983 – Heartburn (Nora Ephron)

1982 – The colour purple (Alice Walker)

1981

1980 – Emmeline (Judith Rossiter)

1979– The bloody chamber (Angela Carter)

1978

1977

1976

1975

1974

1973

1972

1971

1970