Category: collection

Twelve Men Living Their Lives

Twelve Men Living Their Lives

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality 

Winston S. Churchill: “A Nod of Recognition”

Parva Scaena (Brief Scenes): Set Eight

“If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle, or as it were, fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.”

― Winston S. Churchill, Painting as a Pastime

Harriet Horton

Harriet Horton: Sleep Subjects

Repulsed by the fusty impala torsos procured by macho trophy-hunting and goths shrinking squirrel heads to wear on velvet necklaces alike, taxidermist Harriet Horton has gone on her own way. Strictly ethical about procuring already deceased animals, she takes regular trips to her parental home in near-rural Stratford-Upon-Avon and makes use of a deep-freezer in her east London home.

Horton’s approach to taxidermy has always set out to explore animals in a foreign environment from their original habitat. The animals are stuffed, dyed then positioned on marble and concrete plinths, lit by luminescent halos of neon. The site-specific installations are then soundtracked with eerie industrial-classical music. Horton’s 2015 “Sleep Subjects” exhibition, shown in a crypt in Euston, was very successful.

“I was playing around with different aesthetics and thought of incorporating neon. When I used it, I realised its warm temperature and how relaxing it feels. It changes both your mood and that of the piece, and it makes the taxidermy less about death. I really don’t like the gothic side of taxidermy, it’s not for me. So instead I’ll place a magpie under simple white neon arc and the wings are down but the body’s curved perpendicular to the neon. It’s surreal but unless you know a lot about ornithology it wouldn’t look very weird; it’s just a subtle change to its posture.”- harriet Horton

Ardmore Ceramics

Ardmore Ceramics, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Ardmore Ceramics in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa has grown into a vibrant art pottery making unique pieces of ceramic art. Since 1985, artist Fee Halsted has created modelers and painters from the local community and they have become renowned for their exuberant use of color and their distinctive modeling of African flora and fauna. Each of the unique ceramics are made by several of the artisans working together; one modeling the basic form, one creating the minute details, one painting. On the bottom of each piece are the signatures of all who participated in its creation.

The sale of these wonderful pieces of ceramic art uplifts and supports the Ardmore community and their families. New pieces are selected for exhibition at the Pescoe Gallery in northern Miami, Florida. Special commissions are also undertaken for collectors.

Friedrich Nietzsche: “I Sail with All Winds Straight Ahead”

Finding Ten and Two

“Understanding what makes you ‘tick’ isn’t half as much fun as finding out what makes you ‘tock’!”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“Since I grew weary of the search
I taught myself to find instead
Since cross winds caused my ship to lurch
I sail with all winds straight ahead.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Christopher Fowler: “Filled with Mistifying Figures”

Phtographers Unknown, A Collection: Faces of Eleven Man

“It was true that the city could still throw shadows filled with mystifying figures from its past, whose grip on the present could be felt on certain strange days, when the streets were dark with rain and harmful ideas.”

― Christopher Fowler, Ten Second Staircase 

Marcel Proust: “He Spent Long and Charming Hours Reclining”

Photographers Unknown, Collection: Inclined to be Reclined

“He spent long and charming hours reclining and have a tete-a-tete with himself, the only guest he had neglected to ask to supper in his lifetime. He tried to adorn his suffering body, to lean in resignation on the windowsill, gazing at the sea, a melancholy joy. With ardent sadness he comtemplated the scene of his death for a long time, endlessly revising it like a work of art and surrounding it with images of this world, images that still imbued his thoughts, but that, already slipping away from him in his gradual departure, became vague and beautiful.”

-Marcel Proust, Pleasures and Days