Mondrian

Laying in bed (if you remember I am quite partial to a spot of clinomania) I was pondering, musing, lightly conjuring ideas for the next cat blanket. I had made a few with two tone squares and was in the process of finishing the sixteen different colour squares blanket, as ever when you’re not really thinking about something an idea usually pops and a pattern began to form.

Hmm, wasn’t there an artist who black lined rectangles and squares, coloured with white, red, yellow and royal blue? Hmm, must google when I arise to settle my curiosity. Google did infact confirm that I was thinking Mondrian.

Rummaging through the stash I had what I needed, except for the white and blue, the other modern deity Amazon handled that and this I became a creative little hooker.

Of course, my brain didn’t stop there! As I was attaching the various shapes another nugget of wonder began, how to tweak the cat toy patterns and style them in the colours too.

The result is pictured above.

I have reached a conclusion after this artistic endeavour

• I hate using black
• I hate tucking ends
• I hate sewing bits together
• The next blanket will be an ordinary, single colour, back and forth one ….ish …..kinda …..maybe with a sliiight adjustment.

 

Pic App-titude

Way back I blogged a list of project jobs, one was the ‘ list Mac jobs’ which involved going through the iMac, my iPads, the external hard drive and flash drives, resorting, relabelling, reorganising all the various files, folders, media (music, movie snips, videos) and documents, the biggest job being the reconfigurations of photos.

When I first started keeping photographs on a computer a mere nineteen years ago, I applied my usual office organisation skills and had folders titled with the event, within was a folder containing the originals and a second folder for any that had been edited for whatever reason, made into collages etc. Slowly the collection grew and I began keeping a back-up on a flash drive and when the collection got considerably larger on an external hard drive.

Then I switched over to iMac with its useful (to some degree) iPhoto app. Initially this piece of kit automatically synced all photos anywhere and lumped them in, to then be divided into ‘events’, later also ‘albums’ and finally the annoying adage of ‘faces’ (it scanned your photos and tagged familiar faces). But the downside was that the photo was held in its library and not as an accessible file somewhere, some events had multiples of the same photo but different size or quality but the info was not instantly there for comparison.

Apple, in their questionable wisdom, revamped and released a new image handling app called “Photos” (dropped the i and added the s, bet that was an intense creative meeting). This new app added in the iPhoto library but as a separate folder and again the individual images had all their info hidden. Also I keep an archive of photos relevant to another project and use the file name as info and sometimes keep a second copy with the relevant ©️ info added for uploading to the web. I didn’t get on with this Mac method of handling images and preferred to keep some photos in organised files and some I uploaded to add to similar albums in either iPhoto or photos. It sounds messy doesn’t it? It is!

So, I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in, I ‘exported’ each album to a folder on the desktop from both iPhoto and Photo, renamed them with the relevant info (exporting creates a whole new image and doesn’t carry over the originals metadata info, nor useful file name). Copied those kept as standard files in my documents into their relevant folders. Upload photos from my old iPad and my iPad Air, named them and sorted them.

The question now was duplicates. I needed a bit of kit to sort through each folder individually and across several folders to highlight any duplicates and show me the details (where it is, what size it is, what file type) so I can decide whether to delete or keep it. After asking Google and checking the App Store reading the reviews I settled on one. Prepped and ready I went through each separate album and then the complete library and was rather impressed that there had not been hundreds to check and check again. Hmm, a seed of niggling doubt crept it. I opened an album “MIAMI 2003” and skimmed through the individual folders, and found a significant number of duplicates! What!! A duplicate finder that didn’t find duplicates, I tweaked the preferences but still it did not find all the obvious duplicates. Back to Google, read more reviews, but I have not run the folders through it yet. I’ve already spent four desk sessions on the job, I’ll leave that for tomorrow. And I’m yet to start on the archive catalogue!

Still, it’s been pleasant flipping through all these photos, being reminded of things I’ve been to, realising what a bad choice that hair or clothes were, coming across that hidden gem.

We have this technology to quickly, easily snap away but do we ever take the time to flip through an album and revisit a memory.

 

The Ying-Yang of Reality

It’s been a twenty four hours indeed. Yesterday, dear readers I was forgotten! FORGOTTEN!! Moi, the indignity.  BFF usually calls me as she walks home from work everyday. Yesterday circumstances meant she went home at lunchtime, but come 4pm no message so I readied myself, tv muted, phone in hand, and waited.  Hmmmm, 4:15 no call, perhaps she’s chit chatting with her boss (not unusual).  Hmmm, 4:30 no call, perhaps she’s calling after getting her prescription. Hmmm, 4:40 no call, perhaps her phone died.  I sent a message, immediately my phone starts ringing “I forgot about you”. Charming! Lol.

Today my niece and great neice popped in for lunch and to help with a chore or two (at above inflation living wage pocket money rates too!) and was bestowed the honour of an original piece of artwork.  We didn’t spend long discussing the modernist take on the abstract theme of the piece, very much leaving it to the fluid thoughts of the viewer.  It could be a statement on climate change and the rising of the blue waves, or it might be Rizzie the cat lounging in the sunshine.  Either way I am rather chuffed to be considered worthy of such thought.

Life – never a smooth road, keeps one in one’s place.