Photo by Carol Ann Kauffman
Some walks need to be taken alone. The introspective, calming strides down the street or along the beach need to be a solitary endeavor. You can't hear the yourself think when you're talking to somebody else.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Interview with Author Rosanne Licata
Rosanne Licata
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Good morning, Rosanne. Welcome to Vision and Verse, the Place for Art and Authors. It's a pleasure to have you here with us this morning. I LOVE the Albuquerque-Santa Fe area. We try to get out that way whenever possible. So, tell us, what have you written? Blood Bonds: The Caravan, Blood Bonds: The Castle. and Blood Bonds: The Cavern. Ten more 10th-century books are planned. I also have a 21st-century series in the works. My nonfiction parenting book is almost ready to go to my beta readers.
What is your favorite genre to write?
Apparently, my work defies a conventional label. It would fit into all the following genres: young adult-historical-adventure-paranormal-romance.
Favorite food?
I had to think about this one. After hours of narrowing it down, my answer is Tillamook Extra-Sharp Cheddar Cheese. Doesn't mean this is what I eat most often, it's just my favorite single food.
Tea or coffee?
Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon.
Pizza or ice cream?
Pizza. Sicilian deep-dish, to be exact.
Where would you like to visit?
Ireland and Sicily, where my parents came from.
Favorite musical artist:
Several. Gordon Lightfoot, Loreena McKennitt, Suzanne Ciani, The Beatles, and others. Then there are the classical music, and movie and TV soundtrack composers.
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Do you listen to music when you write?
Yes.
What?
I make a soundtrack of instumentals for each book I'm working on; one that fits the emotions my characters are trying to express.
That is an excellent idea. What makes you laugh?
Happy ironies.
How old were you when you started writing?
Eight years old. I let my writing go for about forty years. I finally get to write full-time, now, though.
Describe your perfect evening.
Good company, good wine, good food, privacy. The evening develops its own momentum from there!
Where do you get your inspiration?
My characters tell me their stories and I write those stories down. That's as close as I've ever come to getting inspiration.
What do you do when you get a writer's block?
Switch to a different project. As my mother used to say, a change is as good as a rest. This works for me.
Who is your favorite author?
Dick Francis.
Best book you ever read.
Shogun, by James Clavell.
Who is the one person who has influenced your personal life the most and why?
Challenging question! So many more than one person have influenced me in profound ways, some of whom are historical figures. I'm not being coy or cute when I say I can't give a one-person answer.
If you could sit down and have a conversation with ONE person, living or dead, real or fictional, who would it be and why?
Provided we could speak the same language and be able to understand each other, I'd love to converse with Jesus and learn where he was really coming from.
What advice would you give someone who aspired to be a writer? Write. Write the kind of stuff you want to read. Write every day. Read everything you can get your hands on. Write. Oh, yes. WRITE!
Do you have any links so we can follow you?
Here are the Amazon Kindle links to the first two books.
Do you have any links so we can follow you?
Here are the Amazon Kindle links to the first two books.
Here are the Amazon Kindle links to the books.
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Bonds-Cavern-Book-Spirit-ebook/dp/B00I92FL7I/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391641053&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=rosanne+Liccata
http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Bonds-Cavern-Book-Spirit-ebook/dp/B00I92FL7I/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391641053&sr=1-1-spell&keywords=rosanne+Liccata
https://www.facebook.com/BloodBondsTheCastle?hc_location=timeline
WHAT'S UP WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2014
Jewels by JAR
November 20, 2013 - March 9, 2014
Born in New York and educated at Harvard, Rosenthal moved to Paris soon after his graduation in 1966 and began to experiment with jewelry making. JAR opened in 1978 on the Place Vendôme—the same space he occupies today. Very early in his career, Rosenthal revealed his superb sense of color, whether in the hue of an exotic violet sapphire, the shimmer of topaz and ruby, or the simple clarity of a perfect diamond. His works quickly became known for their unique design, the quality of their stones, and their remarkable craftsmanship, but above all for their fearless beauty. He is known for his pavé technique—the setting of small stones so close together that they appear as a continuous surface of jewels—and uses subtle gradations of color to create a painterly effect.
The exhibition is the first devoted to a contemporary artist of gems at the Metropolitan Museum and features a selection of JAR's finest pieces—from jewels in classical flower forms and organic shapes to witty objets d'art—all executed with the most exquisite gem stones including diamonds, sapphires, garnets, topazes, tourmalines, and citrines in an original combination of colors. Rosenthal's one-of-a-kind creations place him among the ranks of history's greatest jewelers.
The exhibition is the first retrospective of his work in America; the only other major exhibition of Rosenthal's work was held in 2002 at Somerset House in London.
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art website 2014.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Interview with Author Cynthia Kimball
Cynthia Kimball
Good morning, Cynthia and welcome to Vision and Verse, the Place for Art and Authors. Tell us, what have you written?
My writing crosses several genres though my favorites are fantasy, romance, and
life improvement. My current available works are:
· Your Dimension Or Mine?
(Dating Service Series)
· L'Amore Perfetto
(Dating Service Series)
· In Search of the Drasta
(new adult fantasy)
· Green Cleaning: Save
Your Money, Save Your Health, Save The Earth (recipes to clean your house using
items already in your pantry)
What is your favorite
genre to write?
Fantasy. No, romance. No, Fantasy. No, romance. *sigh* I can't
make up my mind. Let's combine them into fantasy romance. :D
Favorite food?
Chicken
spaghetti. I used to love spaghetti with meat sauce but found red meat didn't
agree with me. I substituted chicken breast and yum!
Tea or coffee?
Neither. I'm a water-aholic. Though when I'm really stressed I've been known to
guzzle a Pepsi.
Pizza or ice cream?
Hmmm. Hard choice but I would have to go with Pizza. Ooh, in fact make it a
dessert pizza and put ice cream on it :D
Where would you like to
visit?
Europe. I want to see the Sistine Chapel and taste chocolates in
Switzerland. Attend the Living Human Chess Festival in Marostica, Italy and
climb Florence's Duomo. Go to England and take in everything Shakespeare I can.
I'm a Shakespeare fanatic. If he was alive I'd be a Shakespeare Dead Head.
Favorite musical
artist?
Usually whomever I happen to be listening to at the moment. I listen
more to audio books than I do music, even though I do have an extensive music
collection from every music genre except rap. Do you listen to music when you write? No, not
at all. When I'm writing, music is a distraction.
What makes you laugh?
I
like to find humor in almost everything. The unexpected makes me laugh, but for
a pure guffaw kind of laugh it takes me being very tired and then anything can
set me off and I'll laugh for twenty-thirty minutes flat.
How old were you when
you started writing?
I was seven. I even have one of the first stories I wrote
of a Martian (complete with stick-figure drawing.)
Describe your perfect
evening.
To me a perfect evening is curling up under a nice bright light, a
fireplace crackling in the corner while I read a really good, can't put down,
book. In the future, I hope that includes a wonderful man reading at my side.
Where do you get your
inspiration?
It can be from anything. Usually just from some small phrase I
hear. Most of my stories aren't even thought of ahead of time. They don't come
out until my pen hits paper.
What do you do when you
get a writer's block?
One of the tricks I have is just to start writing and
keep writing without stopping until it jogs my characters into action. Another
is to switch to another work in progress, turn my mind away from the other
work. Sometimes you just need to let characters and plot lines be until they
behave. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. My characters are laughing like
loons in my head right now.
Who is your favorite
author?
Probably depends on genre. My favorite of all time is Shakespeare, but
I also like J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, M.L. Ryan, and Douglas Adams.
Best book you ever
read
Oh, that's difficult. Just one? Ummmm. One of the first books I remember
is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But as far as 'best book', I am taking
that as a book that lit something within me that has stuck around and that
would be Macbeth by Shakespeare. It still captures my attention every time I
re-read it.
Who is the one person
who has influenced your personal life the most and why? Me. Don't laugh. Wait.
No, laugh away – laughter is good for you. I have made major changes in my life
for the better and it was all through personal choice. I think I'm doing pretty
good at the moment. :)
If you could sit down
and have a conversation with ONE person, living or dead, real or fictional, who
would it be and why?
I used to have a quick answer to this as I had a question
I wanted answered. And then I kept researching and found out the answer. After
that? I haven't wanted to chat with anyone from the real past. Fictional,
though…I really have no idea.
What advice would you
give someone who aspired to be a writer?
Write. Keep writing. With every story,
every book, your writing will improve. Take writing classes. Don't be afraid to
put your writing out there for others to read. Never wait until your book is
perfect to submit it, because it will never be perfect to you the author. No
matter how many edits you do, you will always find something to tweak, change,
or update. And most of all? Believe in yourself.
Do you have any links for us to follow you?
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/cynthiakimball
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCynthiaKimball
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/cynthia_kimball
Author Blog: http://www.cynthiakimball.com/
Life Improvement Blog: http://www.thisthoughtcounts.com/
CURRENTLY AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART
Ink Art: Past As Present In Contemporary China
December 11, 2013 - April 6, 2014
The first major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art ever mounted by the Metropolitan, Ink Art explores how contemporary works from a non-Western culture may be displayed in an encyclopedic art museum. Presented in the Museum's permanent galleries for Chinese art, the exhibition features artworks that may best be understood as part of the continuum of China's traditional culture. These works may also be appreciated from the perspective of global art, but by examining them through the lens of Chinese historical artistic paradigms, layers of meaning and cultural significance that might otherwise go unnoticed are revealed. Ultimately, both points of view contribute to a more enriched understanding of these artists' creative processes.
For more than two millennia, ink has been the principal medium of painting and calligraphy in China. Since the early twentieth century, however, the primacy of the "ink art" tradition has increasingly been challenged by new media and practices introduced from the West. Ink Art examines the creative output of a selection of Chinese artists from the 1980s to the present who have fundamentally altered inherited Chinese tradition while maintaining an underlying identification with the expressive language of the culture's past.
Featuring some seventy works by thirty-five artists in various media—paintings, calligraphy, photographs, woodblock prints, video, and sculpture—created during the past three decades, the exhibition is organized thematically into four parts: The Written Word, New Landscapes, Abstraction, and Beyond the Brush. Although all of the artists have challenged, subverted, or otherwise transformed their sources through new modes of expression, Ink Art seeks to demonstrate that China's ancient pattern of seeking cultural renewal through the reinterpretation of past models remains a viable creative path.
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art website, 2014.
Monday, February 3, 2014
February Giveaway of Echo of Heartbreak, A Recipe for Life
For Vision and Verse Readers only! I will be giving away a copy of "Echo of Heartbreak, A Recipe for Life" to one lucky reader here. To be eligible all you have to do is leave a comment in the comment section below.
By CiReid
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Sunday, February 2, 2014
#5 IN THE FACES SERIES BY PARKER KAGAN-KAUFMAN
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Hello Readers! Today I'm sharing with you, the 5th in my series FACES. The composition is titled "DEMON", 8.5 x 11 inches, textured cardstock and computer enhanced images.by Parker Kagan-Kaufman, 2014. This piece was inspired by characters in Japanese animation. Available on parkerkaufman.net soon.
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