A new canvas – commissioned art

Moving the sketches onto the canvas:

Preliminary sketches:

Let the fun begin:

100cm by 50cm

A Room with a View

Bringing in the bees…

Font of Life

A “malangni” in Multan, Pakistan

A “malangni” is someone who is not worldly despite living in this world.

O my Lord,
the stars glitter
and the eyes of men are closed.
Kings have locked their doors
and each lover is alone with his love.

Here, I am alone with you.

Rabi’a (Basra, 717-801) 

El fuente del paraíso (the fountain of paradise)

Made at the end of the 18th or begining of the 19th century, this fountain was designed by Jean Claude Forestier and bought by the Duchess of Parcent (born in Malaga,Spain). It was the source for the irrigation of the entire garden in the Casa del Rey Moro. The Arabic script, which can be read from right to left and left to right means “eternal salvation”.

What I find fascinating is that neither the designer (French) nor the customer (Spanish) were Arab or Muslim. The beauty of the fountain transcends borders of nations and religions as only art can.

Long live art.

Are the “windmills” we fight, real?

“Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.” ~Miguel de Cervantes

Don Quijote fought windmills thinking they were giants. What are the “windmills” we fight? Are they real? Or do they just exist in our mind?

The Conference of the Birds – a ‘crafty’ interpretation of Farid-ud-Din’s literary masterpiece

According to legend, when Satan wanted to enter paradise he approached the peacock. After praising its beauty, he promised it three “spells” for eternal: youth, health, and residence in paradise in exchange for its help. The peacock directed him to the serpent. And the rest, as they say, is history.

We begin with the hoopoe – the bird that guides the multitude of birds who are in search of a leader who they can trust – a leader who loves them.

The sufi who knows, is a servant of the one who does not know.

Our hoopoe is the sufi in this story by Farid-ud-Din Attar. As I crochet the other birds in this story, I’ll add them to the story – and the blanket.

Snails

“The spiral in a snail’s shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it’s also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It’s the same ratio that you’ll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world. “

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

The beauty of tiles

Urban sketching in Málaga

Prehistoric art: preliminary sketches for an attempt to integrate prehistoric art with mystic elements – just the beginning.