Creativity as Frippery?

My grandmother is accomplished. She's fiercely bright, high-spirited and decisive, she's a doctor and a giver, and she's creative and thoughtful. She's also from one of those generations that doesn't exchange complaints all the time. A short while back, she helped my family move house (and sort through thirty years of encumbrances) and was, I recall, the only one of us not to grumble. Part of this package deal is modesty - she would see my description here as possibly gushy or improper and definitely unnecessarily fussy.

One of her hobbies is photography, and from time to time she worries that it amounts to mere frippery. I think it's interesting how certain types of creativity are harder to justify to oneself than intellectual pursuits or the service of society (or the market!). But I guess there is a scale of things in life, right? And pure commitment to aesthetics would preclude so many other possibilities in life. Although, I am not sure who has the authority to judge the useful from the (merely aesthetic?) rest. Do we need to justify these things? Some claim that usefulness is hideous, and that art is serious. How do you guys see your creative endeavours, including, for instance, your blogs? Is it essentially about having both in your life, about covering both bases - the useful and the aesthetic?

In the meantime, these are some of her beautitful photographs that were recently highly acclaimed by her peers. How delightful are those droplets?!

Pretty, Floaty Thing

"Tender is the Night" by: KT Lindsay

This is a picture of and by one of my closest friends, Kate, in the angelic dress I bought her (on behalf of a few of us ladies) for her birthday last week. The detailing on the front is a collection of black roses. She is watching over Istanbul as part of her celestial duties.

Peak District Bliss

The boyfriend and I escaped to the Peak District for the weekend. We stayed at Cotesfield Farm, Parlsey Hay, a working farm managed by Andy, a welcoming bloke from Scotland. From our window, we could peek at the dairy cows in the barn. Andy's only advice before we set out to explore the farm was to avoid the bulls who would "not mind if you were dead, like."

On Sunday, we cycled over 20 miles (or just over 32 km) from Parlsey Hay Cycle Hire, where we picked up our fancy mountain bikes (and stood out because we were not wearing any lycra) to Tissington and back again.

How magnificent are the dry stone walls? I cycled for the most part with my face at right-angles; the views were dreamy. This meant riding through many limestone potholes and happily copping mud spray all over my back.

I said to my boyfriend that this is surely England at its most beautiful. He agreed. I asked him where he thought Mr Darcy might have proposed to Elizabeth Bennett, even though I knew in my heart that our bearings were a little off. This kind of romantic absorption reminded me of my mother who is deeply attached to English landscapes (her father having been English) and I recalled how, in my early teens, my dad said, in relation to a converstion about our (Australian) home renovations, something to the effect that my mum still thinks she is "in some English novel where she can go and sit on a large swing set up in a rose garden."


By the time we reached Tissington, we had transformed. We felt as though the wind had blown blocks of stress off our bodies. Everything around us seemed perfectly lovely and I started to think about poetry and vowed to read more of it.

Tissington itself is a very proud, untouched village that has been managed by the FitzHerbert family for over 400 years.



Can you see the sweet little cats in the window? They've been there for 150 years.

Our half-time reward was cream tea in the Old Coach House across from St Mary's Church (built in the early 12th century, heavily restored in the 19th century). There was a bunch of very senior ramblers also enjoying the spot. Good on them, I say.



(We were far too famished to take a pre-scoffing pic.)

The scones gave us enough of a boost to make it back (uphill!) to Parsley Hay, although my boyfriend commented that perhaps I could have done with a low-GI lunch as I became a bit scrappy two-thirds of the way. Of course, once the end was in sight, I began doing mental wheelies and in fact did a skid-style brake outside the hire shop. Happy times.

A Little Biscuit for Being so Good

click images to zoom in

I have finally had a major breakthrough with my thesis. Up to this point, I was a slave to both my data (allowing it to live in a cave in the mountains) and the pre-existing literature (worrying about the significance of every finding). I have finally written up the terms of their arranged marriage and they are to be wed in the next week. They will just have to learn to live together.

To celebrate, I have reproduced (with permission) a selection of delicious pics from She's Jack, a prodigious (high school!) photographer. Some of the images are clearly depictions of adolescence, but they do represent aspects of how I am feeling right now and the imaginations and silliness that are keeping me going.

It was a Cold and Frosty Morning

photographs by me and The Boy

I have recently had two chapters returned to my supervisor, marked 'Redo' so I am desperately trying to rewrite and polish them before I head off to Paris and Budapest for my Christmas holiday.

I am working hard, sometimes clinical, sometimes infatuated by my topic. It's difficult to avoid all the distractions though, the farewell parties and drinks, formal dinners at Colleges, conversations about holidays, romances, the reduction in VAT, and, as always, Africa. Then there's that uneasiness that comes each year with the dark afternoons, when you have to stop yourself from hopping into bed at 5:30pm.

This morning's walk over frozen mud and grass and pools was a nice change, a distraction that was quiet, delicate and primal. Brought me to the feeling of states of nature changing: water turning into solid, breath turning into liquid.

This is what my mind looks like today.

1. Punts, 2. Maybe I'm Just Tired 20/365, 3. Tired, 4. Oxford uni parks, 5. St Giles, Oxford, 6. Oxford in winter, 7. Untitled, 8. There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness., 9. Cornmarket Street, Oxford (Christmas 2008), 10. Christmas tree, 11. Onlookers, 12. Untitled, 13. Bridesmaid Rose BOUQUET, 14. ephemeral, 15. Good night, 16. today's gift, 17. golden age, 18. Stand Beside Me, 19. if you forget me, 20. too darn hot, 21. my bohemian gala, 22. apple for the day, 23. as a fairy, 24. Sunset Grove, 25. The Dancer

Nature's Treats

A school friend asked me for a hot tip for her weekend in Montreal. It took me back a couple of years to this gorgeous morning I had with a Professor-friend of mine at a food and flower market in Little Italy.

Mmm...

Fresh produce displays are perfect for photographs - kaleidoscopic, sumptuous, and, importantly, slightly haphazard and therefore cheeky - and should be distinguished from nature's nightmares: snake skin, rare skin diseases and wasp eggs.


Kate - it has come to light (by you) that you love symmetry (see last post), but would that include naturally tessellated patterns? If so, you are of sick mind and I am not sure I can help you. Actually, Kate, can you please show me some pictures of symmetrical things as phase one of my self-imposed cognitive behavioural therapy? No, really.

Best of Autumn Weather Series

Two posts ago, I mentioned that Oxford had been playing the 'Best of Autumn Weather Series' on loud speaker. I thought I would put up some pics to illustrate just how lovely it has been, and for over two weeks as well! These are just a few of the many photographs I snapped happily on my way from College to my Department one morning last week. The backs of those North Oxford houses above can be seen from an adjacent street which I use almost daily. A few minutes further along towards town and I find the walled path leading to the University Parks shown below, one of the most delightful parts of Oxford. I have heard many students comment on what I too have noticed: the healing (re-energising, soothing, grounding) properties of a walk through the Parks...

Do Something Pretty While You Can!

More CowGummy Goodness

Some more enchanting photographs and designs from CowGummy, including a picture of the Radcliffe Camera, Oxford (top), part of the Bodleian Library, and where I spent loads of time during my first couple of years here.

I have started my next chapter...so, yeah, about those six things below...um, ahem...yeah. I am a little smoothie!