Colours of Tokyo. No.1 : Old and New

Tokyo is know as an electric, neon garden of lights and delights:
aglow, dazzling the inhabitants with all the hues of the illuminated graphics and screens
that populate the night landscape.
It is a 21st century world city. 

But the old world and all the elements of its style and grace,
which includes such beautiful things as kimonos, are ever present in the electric wonder land.

Colour Audit No.2: Colours of Frienze

The colours of Frienze (Florence, Itlay) are not like it's sunny, southern sister, Roma.

An audit of the colours of Frienze found that it was a city of soft tones and hues.

It is all Ice and grey, silver skies, crisp, defined, still, objective classical.
In refinement, measured and reasoned. Sharp like the ice that clings to the facades.

Wallism_Peeling back time

‘Triumphs and Laments’ is comprised of a 550 meter-long frieze along the urban waterway of the River Tiber in Rome.

It is the South African artist, William Kentridge’s largest public work to date.The figures, which are up to 12m high,
chart the city’s historic victories and defeats, ranging from Romulus and Remus to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder outside Rome in 1975.

The dark silhouettes were created from the layers of accumulated grime on the naturally pale travertine embankment wall by
applying high-pressure water jets to giant plastic stencils, a technique better known to street art as “reverse graffiti”. 

It will, sadly, fade away as grim returns.

The Light and The Shadow

The physicality of light and shadows has always been such a great visual seducer to shiftazine’s eye and sensibilities.
Does not really matter what the subject matter is, it is the interplay of the light and the subsequent shadows that yell, whisper, sing to me.

It is an archetypal theme, response, connection from both a physical and a psychological consideration.
One of the best pieces of contemporary art of this century was based on the notion of simply light and dark when Martin Creed created Work 227 “The lights go on and off”, Tate Britain 2001.

So much has been said about the presences of shadows, real or metaphoric,
so many beautifully turned observations and reflections, shiftazine felt it was a great opportunity to bring some of them to you.

“Shadows, sometimes people don't see shadows.
The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures, oriental art never deals with shadow.
But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.” David Hockney

“How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole”. C.G. Jung

“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…” Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“What would your good do if evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows disappeared?” Mikhail Bulgakov

“Stop in somebody's shadow to rest and cool down, and you are lost. No one can make anyone else happy.” Petar Dunov

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“Everything that is,casts a shadow”. Neil Gaiman, American Gods

Yellow spot

It is no secret that yellow is an oft featured colour in Shiftazine.

It is such a universal colour that generates similar emotions from the viewer regardless of the culture one comes from.

It always communicates the notion of energy, life and positivity.

"Yellow is my favourite, but what is yellow? Handmaiden to white, it is a slight tarnish of pure light.

Take away a bit of white's absolute luminosity, and what remains is yellow -- 

sunlike, golden as a crown, buttercups in a field, marsh marigolds, 

a finch's wing, a plastic flute." RICHARD GROSSINGER, The Bardo of Waking Life

Drunk like Sinatra: Hip Bars of Athens:- No.1

So here are some stats that were found on Trip Advisor about Drunk like Sinatra that might be of use to you.

Traveller Type:

Friends x 26
Couples x 8

Solo x 2

Business x 3

Travellers rating:

Excellent x 14

Very Good x 22

Time of year:

March – May x 15

June – August x 13

September – November x 8

December – February x 9

Language:

English x 45

Greek x 41Italian x 2

Everyday is Women's Day

It's Women's Day.
It is women's day every day.
It is men's day ever day.

Why is there one day a year that is focused on women, when women are half of everything that is constant and half of everything that exists, and half of everything that has been before and will be in the future. 

In making a 'special' day, we are still saying that women are not equal.

Women and men are equal in their potential.  

The inequity is born out of fear and ignorance.

So it is time for all of us to celebrate both the Anima and the Animus in everyone and everything equally.  

But in the meantime, we need to protect and support our sisters (and our brother sisters) who have to struggle just to be safe because they live in places where the male energy hates the female energy.

Peace and respect is what we yell for...not too big an ask.

It is all good.

There is a cafe, a maker of the finest coffee Shiftazine has enjoyed for a long time, operating in Islington,a Newcastle inner urban area, called Suspension Cafe.

The cafe was featured in a Shiftazine article several years ago, with the focus on its inventive interior design solutions.

In the past few years, Islington and Suspension have grown in sync. Both are flourishing.
Both are becoming more sophisticated, more urban, but have not left their authenticity behind.

So when you are in Newcastle, NSW, Australia, go to Islington and go to Suspension Cafe on Beaumont Street just around the corner from Maitland Road.

You can have a coffee and something truly yummy to eat there or you can do take away, or you can buy a bag of their own special coffee beans.

It is all good.

There for wall to see: February's Wallism

Wallisms are an important part of any society.
Walls are canvases, they provide a platform that is available to all within a society to utilise in whatever way an individual, or group of individuals choose.

These Wallisms, which use to be viewed as vandalism, are vital to the health of a society.
They make statements, either personal, or political.
They allow the rest of us to see what others are thinking and or feeling.

So whether you agree or disagree with the content, or the technique of the image making, just be grateful that we have the freedom to be allowed to create them.

Wallisms are important to all who take time to look.

Draw upon good thinking

Hello!

We are back and ready for another inspiring and engaging year full of JOY and unrecognised beauty.

The first article is full of both. It is called 'Chest of Drawers'.

Just a pile of unrelated, unwanted drawers that do not belong to anything, can still perform their primary function, that of storage and provide order.

As always, it is just how you choose to see a thing that makes it valuable or not. 

The design is by Tejo Remy and the article about it is in a book called 'Visual Conversations' AVA Publishing, Switzerland. It is a great read BTW.

Reflection and projection

So it is that time of the year, when reflection of the year that was and projecting of what may come is front of mind.

Thank you to all who have jumped into Shiftazine throughout 2016.

Heres to new possibilities that are positive, constructive and empathic to all things in our world. We have only got the one, so let's care for it.
See you  on the other side. Peace.

The lightness of life

The joy of that soft Summer light that fills a room early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

The glow that is absorbed within.

A small gift from Shiftazine to you at this time of year...Sydney light.

Broken but beautiful

The Japanese practice of repairing a broken object, referred to as kintsugi, is solid shiftazine thinking. 

Something that is chipped, or broken into pieces, or cracked should be, if possible, glued together. It should be kept.

How many times have you reluctantly thrown out that beautiful cup because of a chip, or that bowl because of a crack?

It is the flaws that give it a history, a personality, a sense of unique. 

Like all things in life, nothing is perfect. 

As a philosophy, kintsugi can be seen to have similarities to the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, an embracing of the flawed or imperfect. 

Japanese aesthetics values marks of wear by the use of an object. 

This can be seen as a rationale for keeping an object around even after it has broken and as a justification of kintsugi itself,
 highlighting the cracks and repairs as simply an event in the life of an object
rather than allowing its service to end at the time of its damage or breakage.

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