Amsterdam - the late fifties

This is a photo my father took of his sister Katinka Bruin-van Rood and me when we were visiting 'home'- Holland in about 1959 I think. It was Amsterdam, my grandmother's house, as far as I can remember.

My aunt was also known as Toos, and much loved by all of us. You can see here what a very beautiful woman she was. Full of life and intelligence. She loved her brother (my father, as you can see here too).
She was a great sculptress,  and probably inspired my to take the career path I have taken. My parents would leave us in her
studio for a day, and she would give us clay and set projects for us.
I once spent a whole day making 'a glass of water' out of clay. I was so excited that you could make anything, anything out if this wonderful pliable substance. I can still smell that wonderful earthy smell when I think about her studio. And the pale Amsterdam light flooding in through the tall windows.

On the left here is one of her bronze cast sculptures which I treasure. She adored cats, and always had them in pairs.
But even though that's what this depicts, there is a lot more going on, it has something about it which reminds me of the 'Tree of Life', something ancient and magical.

Katinka lives on in all who knew her, she was luminous and unforgettable.

wow in 1936 Edward Weston rocked

And not only with this photograph or in this year!
I first came across Edward Weston's work when I was at art school (about three hundred years ago..hmmm) and was struck by how his nudes had a painting sensibility about them: his eye somehow stroked every surface, rather like the brush wields paint to bring light and dark to the senses...a tactile surface translating into a vision of the Soul inhabiting the flesh..oh, I can't find the words...
I suggest you just allow your eye to linger over this image for a minute, or any of his images for that matter, and your Soul will be nourished.
The 'design' of this, imbues the elegant, rhythmic minimalism of that time, but could also have been taken today.

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• Edward Weston Photos & Biography (brighthub.com)

Shirin Neshat Montage

Shirin Neshat Montage from sam neave on Vimeo.

I first saw Shirin Neshat's work in an exhibition at ACCA here in Melbourne. I thought about it for days afterwards. And every now and then over the years her work pops into my mind, the power of images and almost emblematic gestures and actions is transporting and exciting. She's an extraordinary woman who inspires many, as well as making changes to consciousness.

an ode to Matisse's dance

I first saw this painting 'in-the-flesh', when I visited MOMA in NYC in 1999. I didn't expect to be quite so profoundly thrown and moved...It was a painting I had often soaked in from reproductions in books and on posters. It is so very famous. When I was a child, I thought it might be some kind of tarot card, its magical impact on my psyche had already begun by the time I was about eleven, when I saw a book my aunt, the Dutch sculptor, Katinka van Rood-Bruin, had in her Amsterdam studio.  

Her brother, my father had died just months before, and that day my heart was aching and heavy with grief.  So when I stood in front of this work, the tears flooded and I had to take deep breaths so that I didn't wail with passion and emotion. I was in front of it for about half an hour. All the wonderful works in that Museum were calling me, their voice faint and easily put on hold while Matisse's dance and I communed. 

I felt so deeply held and healed by the Spirit of this extraordinarily rhythmic and beautiful work.