black eyed angel

moving home

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 11:10:00 +0000

I've not been here for a long time. Black-eyed Angel has been my internet home since way back in 2009 when I started it out of idle curiosity about this blogging thing everyone was into. But it's just not been the right fit for me, since maybe even a couple of years and it had become messy and uninspired.

But to be honest I’ve missed keeping writing about my work and life, and so I've made a new start with blogging, and you can find me here. I shall keep this old one published as an archive.

See you in my new home!

suziechaney.com

Lately

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 08:34:00 +0000

This recent roll of film was the last in my freezer stash of Solaris, that was made for the colours and light round here. If you hear of any going spare...

{Mamiya DSX/Ferrania Solaris 200}

stories from the city

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 07:38:00 +0000

{Mamiya DSX/Solaris 200}

Start the day

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 14:55:00 +0000

While the rest of the world was yawning and stretching and making the coffee, I went with Luna down to the river. The need to take off my shoes, feel the rough stones underneath and the icy cold water tripping over my feet, watching the tiny fish nibble, dart and collide. A stone reminded me of a precious and privileged experience - the incredible cave paintings we recently saw. These were not mock-ups, but the original pre-historic paintings in the caves at Niaux. Only 20 visitors allowed, we walked through deep and sometimes vertiginous caverns of stalagmites and stalactites with nothing but the light of our handheld torches to guide us to the paintings of bison and horses. I wish I could show you, but then again, to not photograph but to just be in the moment, made it feel so very special.

mute monday

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 07:00:00 +0000

{Olympus XA1/Ilford FP4+}

mute monday

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 26 May 2014 05:43:00 +0000

{Praktica PM3/Agfa Vista 200}

modern and ancient

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Tue, 13 May 2014 15:30:00 +0000

I distinctly remember telling you I went to Nîmes for a few days, I just forgot to upload the scans of the film I took. Previously, although I've been told it's a great city it's only ever meant one thing to me, namely Radiohead. Twice actually. Sigh.

We were staying in an bizarre 80s villa of pale blue and beige florals, feasting on crisps and white wine in bed while watching The Wild Thornberrys on youtube. There was an incident involving dried lotus pods but it will take too long to tell. It was very funny though. While Milla did her exams I had a blissful time wandering the streets, stopping regularly for tea in the sunny and leafy cafés, to read the map, jot down notes and get hopelessly and utterly lost. I went to the Carré d'Art, but much to my annoyance I wasn't allowed to take photographs of the exhibition, which was a crying shame. Choreographies Suspendues was a superb collection of work by contemporary Vietnamese artists. Nguyen Thai Tuan's paintings were so moving, charged with sadness and loneliness and I loved Lena Bui's drawings. Well, at least I can show you Norman Foster's building which is nothing to be sniffed at.

Directly opposite Carré d'Art is the Roman Maison Carré

In fact, if you ever wondered what have the Romans done for us? Nîmes is your go-to place. Personally I'd rather hang with the Ancient Greeks and their love of art, music and Bacchanalian feasting, I can't be doing with that self-agrandising, slave-abusing, over-inflated egomaniac Augustus Caesar but even so...

The ancient Arena and inside the Temple of Diana a gigantic pin d'alep leaning 45° after centuries of wind battering...

Beautiful public gardens...

...and quite the most weird Natural History museum I've ever seen. Like a 19th century wunderkammer of skeletons, very badly stuffed and stitched animals, things in pickle jars and test tubes, dioramas that convince no-one, ethnological trophies and the relics of slavery. And I have to say, the funkiest of smells. I mean a really stomach lurching formaldehyde and decaying leather cocktail. But it was worth it just to see it all rammed in there, with the original little handwritten labels behind old chipped wood and dirty glass cabinets, in all it's horrifying and intriguing glory.

{Pentax Spotmatic/Fujifilm400}
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Neglect

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 16:09:00 +0000

Clearly once much-loved but now suffering from the owner's lack of time to nurture and tend. Pots of the dried out and dead; wild plants reclaiming the land back from the cultivated; the fickleness of weather bleaching out colour and encouraging rusting, a grey bloom and encrustation. Like my beloved cameras gathering dust and my fridge now containing more food than film.

{Pentax Spotmatic/Expired Fujifilm 400}

Ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 07:41:00 +0000

I'm picking up where I left off here. I suppose the jig is up, I am indeed on an 'art' hiatus. Voluntary or involuntary I'm not quite sure, but I often fall in and out of love with my work and right now I'm just not feeling it.

Let's just say that sometimes life takes you off in certain directions and in my experience it's best to go with the flow. My herbal medicine/herb garden are such an immersive project, both exciting and exhausting me. Nearing the end of my studies now I suppose I should perhaps think about direction. Also, did I tell you my husband had another accident?

For now, I take photographs when I feel like it. That's good enough for me. Remember the thing I had where I picked up old cameras with exposed and undeveloped films still inside that I then process? Yup, I still keep a look out for them and I found a Pentax PC35 not so long ago. More ghosts of the past revealing themselves. I'm happy to liberate them yet I feel quite sad too, for exactly what I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps I can but I can't put it into words.

desertion

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 17 Mar 2014 07:52:00 +0000

{Yashica 35-ME/Ilford FP4+}

Perturbations

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 09:01:00 +0000

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at Les Abattoirs, Toulouse. Sound and vision, performances without performers. A helium balloon producing a soundwave; a drumkit played by an intermittant waterfall and 3 motorised pianos skimming each other, their movement governed by the viewers position. Do spare 2 minutes of your life to watch this.

Human Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 08:53:00 +0000

After a 2 year ~ 2 year? really? hiatus, Monica and I have undertaken another double exposure project. Started last summer (her) and completed last week (me) we merged landscapes and environments with people from our opposite countries. Lots of misalignment of film has given us some crazy but appealing results.

You can see the whole project on our shared blog 45N61W, love to know what you think!

winter landscapes

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 17:18:00 +0000

Like bony skeletons, the bare trees and the mountains jut their pointed ribs and backbones; the sharpness of shadows softened by lower and weaker winter sunlight. An occasional brilliant blaze of white as the same sun hits the twinkling, still water or the dusted snowy peaks. Tranquility, freedom and a space to breathe, I could stay in these landscapes for hours, feeling my feet growing deep roots beneath me.

{Yashica 35-ME/Ilford FP4}

P.S. Talking of wild landscapes...

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 10:40:00 +0000

At the tail end of last year I took the train to Marseille to visit my Man-child. There are no words for me to describe Marseille to you; it has to be savoured, absorbed and processed at your own speed otherwise the energy and thrum of this beautiful, sleazy city will exhaust you. Perhaps I can just tell you it is nothing like Paris and leave it at that.

{Mamiya DSX/Fujifilm 200}

2014

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Fri, 03 Jan 2014 10:02:00 +0000

2013 was the year of my tipping point. The year my perpetual shilly-shallying, fence-sitting and chronic fear syndrome reached critical mass and I actually, *gasp* made some decisions.

Hello Suzie 2.0, I think you are going to be quite happy.

The cold and crispy mornings are so beautiful, giving promise to what lies ahead. And so too I'm looking forward very much to the coming year and spilling it all on here. Hope to see you around, either here or on my herbal tumblr.

{Mamiya DSX/Fujifilm 200}

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 17:10:00 +0000

I found me a new walk yesterday. A blissful wander in winter sun and gorgeous shades of evergreens, from the yellow tones of mistletoe to the blue-green firs. Perhaps it was my pagan ancestors whispering in my ear, but I couldn't resist picking myself plenty and collecting more juniper, rosemary and rosehips along the way back down.

Together with catkin-laden twiggy branches from the hazelnut in the back garden I plonked all my treasure on the table and got to work. I hung the hazelnut from linen twine on little eyelet hooks screwed into the ceiling and simply poked and weaved (wove?) the greenery in. Fell off the stool, yelled a load of swear words I didn't even know I knew, rubbed in some winter oil and got back on that horse, yee-hah!

Feeding in bits as I went along as it spontaneously grew and spread. It looks delightfully natural, no need to garnish it with baubles, tinsel or even fairy lights. However, I do wish you had scratch 'n sniff computers, the juniper makes the room smell of Bombay Sapphire gin.

stitch

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 03:00:00 +0000

Repetitive, slow, rhythmic, thinking about line and texture and allowing the stitch to find it's own form. This is a whole new activity for me, a new way of drawing; I have never been taught, shown or even been remotely interested in embroidery before. I bought some cotton thread and needles on an impulse, drawn to the beautiful shades of sage green and teal blue. I suppose something bigger than my consciousness led my feet into the mercerie while I was distracted.

Pulling out the strips and left-behind scraps of woad-dyed old linens and threads, stitching them intuitively but carefully with no conclusion required. Fire, check. Red wine, check. Perfect music, check.

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 12:18:00 +0000

The day before yesterday Arthur turned 15, a bit of an achievement in itself for such an accident-prone nervous nelly. What make the fact more remarkable is exactly a week ago he was hit by a car. Arthur is deaf as a post, he escaped from the house and didn't hear the car speeding through our village. It didn't even stop. My neighbour heard the bang and saw him tumble down the road. She assumed he was dead and ran to pick him off the road but as she got there he came to. He amazingly didn't break any bones despite being a skinny thing, but got himself many cuts and bruises along with a more discombobulated air about him than normal. A friend remarked that she hopes there's a special cosmic retribution for people who run dogs over and leave them, and I tend to agree with her. So one week on after lots of tlc and cuddles, frequent arnica doses and gentle, short walks he made it to 15, which according to the chart in our vet's waiting room makes him 102 in human years. In those years he's broken his leg, ripped himself open on rusty metal, broken his toe, torn a ligament and ripped his ears and now been hit by a car but he's never had an illness. Please, raise your glass to my sweet boy Arthur.

le maquis

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:22:00 +0000

{Pentax Spotmatic/Agfa APX100}

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:08:00 +0000

Where have I been?

Meandering through the woods mostly, the sunlight striping through the trees. It's uphill, hard going but a good feeling.

The land flattens out, opens up and I'm standing in a meadow of wild flowers. I take a deep breath, close my eyes and fill my lungs with the clean, new air.

But there is further to go so I carry on up the steep track, through fir and gorse, deer and badger track and the fresh air becomes resinous, aromatic and pungent. Then I reach the top and stand on the rocky soil surrounded by thyme, rosemary, lavender, gorse and juniper. I can see the wild mountains stretched out in front of me, the red kite circling overhead and the river snaking through the valley below. It would take a lifetime to get to know this land.

My life has slightly deviated. Not really a detour as such as it runs in parallel. Perhaps rather my life has forked. I have gone back to learning and I am studying for a certificate in herbal medicine. What bought me here is a very long and winding road, but let's just say that life tends to give you the answers you seek if you wait patiently for them to come.

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:00:00 +0000

The Natural History Museum in Toulouse is a complete marvel, one that has me goggling with my gob wide open each and every time. I love this place but oddly, I have to whizz through the taxidermy part at breakneck speed. It's something even my heart, with it's penchant for melancholy, can't cope with. The way the orang-utan stares at me from his glass tomb just does for me and I have to put my head down and quick step out of there.

But I don't feel the same with le mur des squelettes or the wall of skeletons, spread along the length of the museum over 3 levels and backed with glass giving onto the botanical gardens. Oh, how I love these! In a state of suspended animation; a cheetah brings down a gazelle, the monkeys hang upside and chatter to each other, an eagle dives for a hare and a man gallops through them all on a horse. A joyous affirmation of life.

The world dies over and over again, but the skeleton always gets up and walks.

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 15:47:00 +0000

It was so long ago...
these were taken back in August when I took my daughters to the Costa Brava for some relaxation and to catch up on our favorite pastime of snorkeling. A wind down from their exams and some girlie fun before Romy left to study at Perpignan art school.

This is a wild and steep coastline peppered with beautiful and often secluded sandy coves. You can walk a trail along the Cami de Ronda from cove to cove and the pine trees, sea fennel and wild sage cling tenaciously to the rock and punch the salty air with an aromatic perfume.

I've had a time of being lost, unbalanced and confused. It hasn't even been enough just to show up. I had no path, but instead of resisting or trying to force change, I waited. Patiently. I took this holiday, I pottered about, I immersed myself in my family while I looked away and took lots of deep breaths.

And very soon I'll be ready to talk about it. It's going to be a glorious day.

{Mamiya DSX/Ilford FP4}

this summer

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Sun, 08 Sep 2013 13:03:00 +0000

The richness and hidden beauty of the undersea world.

{Disposable camera. Cala Canyelles, Costa Brava. Aug 2013}

we float

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 03:00:00 +0000

{these look much better on tumblr}

{praktica pm3/solaris100}

a quiet place

noreply@blogger.com (Munkie) — Wed, 17 Jul 2013 16:46:00 +0000

I like being on Tumblr. I'm with Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood; Neil Gaiman; Austin Kleon and Thug Kitchen.

Love curated art blogs like this one or this one or this; film photography here or here; pure eye candy; interiors; the thoughtful or the bizarre and a little creepy are some of the few I follow.

The internet can be such a rowdy, busy place and I still find that hard. So I choose silent or minimal noise tumblrs and I choose the same for my own. I am non-commital. Follow or unfollow, who cares? It's a different atmosphere. Dip in a toe or dive bomb off a rock.

I also have another where I keep the things I see that I like online, that feed and inspire me. It's a kneejerk reaction blog, no organised pinterest boards. A kind of scrolling archive of where my head and my heart were at any given time.

My tumblr is my quiet place, that's probably where you are most likely to find me these days. As this blog passed into it's 5th year the other day, my tumblr will be soon reaching it's 1st. I wait to see how things unfold...

{Pentax Spotmatic/Kodak Ektar}