The mythbusting £95 wall
With financially hard times affecting nearly all of us these days, I have been doing my very best to produce works of art that are ‘affordable’ with no loss of quality or workwomanship or meaning. And so for the Eynsham Winter Artweekend – which is next weekend, Art Lovers – I have hung an entire [...]
Happy Birthday Edward Lear
Today we visited the Happy Birthday Edward Lear exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford. Edward Lear is best known for his nonsense verse, (who hasn’t heard of the Owl and the Pussycat?) and although this is quite brilliantly original and what he’s best remembered for, I especially wanted to see his paintings of birds. Woo! [...]
Harper Lee publishes To Kill A Mockingbird – 11 July 1960
“…Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing … [...]
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and the first photograph
This blog also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. Look at the camera and say ‘cheese’ and ‘thank you’ to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who died on this day in 1833, for it was Niépce who changed the way we view the world. Born in France 1765 into a middle-class family Niépce was well-educated [...]
The extinction of the Great Auk – 3 July 1844
The Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) was once a common and magnificent sight in the sparkling waters of the North Atlantic. About 30 inches (80cm) tall and weighing in at a whopping 11lbs (5kgs), this handsome bird was the northern equivalent of the penguin. Its closest living relative is the razorbill which has a similar range [...]
Amelia Earhart disappears – 2 July 1937
“…first lady of the skies, she had no guy holding her down, no one could clip her wings, she was no bird in the hand, she is no living thing now…” from the poem ‘Amelia Earhart’ by Patti Smith When 10-year-old Amelia Earhart saw an aircraft for the first time at the 1907 the Iowa [...]
Professor John Alexander Tomlinson: obituary
Plant pathologist, virologist, saviour of the British watercress industry, BSc, MSc, PhD, DSc My father, who died on Tuesday 12 June 2012, was born into a working class family in Birmingham in 1927. What he lacked materially in early life was made up for in brains, courage and determination. (Pictured below, on HMS Queen Mary [...]
Second prize in the Big Oxfordshire Artweeks Vote
I’m both pleased and disappointed to report that my painting ‘Towards Uffington’ came second in the Big Oxfordshire Artweeks competition to find a painting that best sums up the spirit of Oxfordshire. That’s not bad out of 32 pretty good paintings, is it? And the best thing is that it was the opinion of general [...]
The Pill first becomes available to American women – 9 May 1960
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. “No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother” - Margaret Sanger The most revolutionary and liberating act for women is surely the availability of The Contraceptive Pill. Before The Pill contraception was a [...]
Europeans discover Easter Island – 5 April 1722
This article also appears on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity. The rise and fall of Easter Island is a parable for our times; a warning from history of what happens when our selfish species doesn’t pay close attention to every detail of Planet Three’s precious natural resources. On Easter Sunday 1722 Dutch sailor Jacob Roggeveen [...]
keep looking »-
Shopping Cart
