What's new in Samana?

After a week of settling in to my almost new life in the Dominican Republic, we decided to go on boat trip in Samana Bay to see the Whales.  There is a short window of opportunity to see these majestic creatures during the first three months of the year, when the whales return to warmer waters to mate and calve.

Arriving in Samana Bay on a scorching hot February day.

Leaving Samana by boat.

 We got our first glimpse of a male and female pair (the male later turned out to be 'Bat' after the researchers had identified him) within a few minutes of leaving the coastline.  And we stayed with this pair throughout our trip.

Our first glimpse of the male and female pair was a water spout in the distance.

Bat rolling and saying 'hi'!

Majestic to the end.

During our trip we got the chance to get close to the whales, some of the smaller boats daring to go even closer.  All eyes were scanning the sea to see where the whales would next appear.  One special moment was when the female breached, and we got to see her launch up in the air just metres away from the prow of the boat.  Plenty of people were lucky enough to get a photo - poor me, my camera jammed and all I got was a picture of the inside of the boat!

One last shot!

Leaving Samana Bay

Check  out more photographs at: www.facebook.com/shivakingcreates

Work in progress...

I found this little piece if driftwood on Littlehampton beach along with a mermaid's purse a few months back, and started carving her while staying in Minehead during the recent cold snap.

The first stage was to decide the nature of the sculpture.

Next to mark out a rough silhouette.

 

More detail is added with the tail taking shape.

Now the head and arms.

How she looks now after a quick sanding of the main features.

Creative Synchromysticism...?

Synchronicity is the grouping of two or coincidental events into meaningful events. The idea of synchronicity was first postulated by Jung who wrote a paper outlining the principles of the phenomena. A simple example of this could be, perhaps you are looking through your facebook notifications and you comment on a friends status update, at the same time you receive an email from that friend, and on the same day you are out having coffee and your facebook friend sits down at the table next to you - all seemingly separate events, but put together, meaningful.

Synchromysticism is a recent phenomenon that has swept the internet and online conspiracy community. It is, "the art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance." -Jake Kotze, The Brave New World Blog. Synchromysticism aims to pull together different forms of media and esoteric knowledge to make meaningful connections. There are three main elements which take one form or another in synchromysticism - the occult, politics and the media. Synchromysticism aims to pull together these disparate worlds, to show the underlying collective consciousness of the world - the holographic principle of nature and the universe. A good explanation of synchromysticism can be found here.

Creative synchromysticism is a term I have come up with to describe a creative stream of consciousness, with a starting point and a journey into information, images and synchronistic occurrences. It can be used as an aid to open up creative channels, almost like an organic scrap book of ideas and images.

So why am I babbling on about this? Good question!

Well...I have an ipad, and some free time, and I started a creative synchromystic journey the other day that I want to share, and it all starts with pinterest and Giacometti...

Posted with Blogsy

Testing blogger with Blogsy

Using my new ipad has not been as smooth a transition from using a laptop and imac as I thought it would be. Oh yes! My first few moments with the ipad were infuriating, no firefox, no openoffice, most of the apps you get for free withhold their content so that you end up paying for it anyway. But finally I think I am getting somewhere, with the help of a few choice apps, and a little bit of money.
Take the blogger ipad app, yes you can use it to post a few words and photos, but that's all there is - no formatting. I was beginning to tear out my hair, until doing a search and I found 3 viable apps, two of which you have to pay for - so I plumped for the expensive option, a whole £2.99 for Blogsy. So far so good.


I also tried out a work around for reading/editing word docs, and tried out 'Documents', a free app, which can used for reading word docs, but not much else. So, fed up with having to use an online fix in the form of rollapp, I bit my tongue and went for 'pages'.

There is a lot more to the ipad, than a quick facebook and twitter fix, it just takes a bit of time to get to grips with what this thing can do, and perhaps it hasn't quite reached my expectations because of all the fiddling about and spending money on apps.

Posted with Blogsy

Russet and Green

Lime on blended branch,
Lichen covered; rain soaked.

Streams flow snake-like
Through the sodden earth.
Turning torrent-like;
Cutting a path through and down
To the wind blown sea,
Through and down
The russet and green.

Weaving the land
With shell, heather and stone.
Walking to the beat
Of bone on skin,
Sunlight pierces the cloud strewn sky,
Illuminating the russet and green.

Scrap Stores - a brilliant idea?

Whilst being in the middle of a ceative hub at the moment my friends have introduced me to a brilliant,  craft materials resource scrapstoresUK.   ScrapstoresUK is a charity set up to support the recycling and reuse of scrap materials donated by businesses around the country.  With a joining fee of just £5 you can go along to your local store and fill a box full of stuff (for a minimal fee) any time you want.

So yesterday, with fiver in hand, off we trotted to the local Minehead scrapstore. And what a revelation! Our expectations weren't high before we went, but after the first few minutes of tentatively searching the shelves, there were repeated exclamations of, 'look at this!',  'check this out!', 'wow, you could use this for [insert multiple uses]!'.   And for an extra £1.50 on top of the joining fee, we came away with a bag full of wonderful bits and pieces.
So go on, check out the website and get crafting!

Brilliant, a weaving loom for free, and other goodies!

iPanoramic

One of the aspects of the photography on the iphone is it's fantastic panoramic mode. Here are a few of the shots taken while in Ireland...