Lojbani Chicken or jbojipci (by sarah)

Just before we moved to the new house I came up with the idea of Lojbani Chicken, a character who would help Jean or anybody else understand and learn Lojban but I wanted it to be more than that. I wanted some sort of all languages web-comic thing which is obviously very complex and so it never happened - there were some biro sketches in the back of a note book and that was that.

Then I saw this year is Lojban's 25th and so I sat down and revisited the idea of my chicken. The result was more biro sketches and Mother Lang and her two daughters Coni and Nat, they live on a farm where Lojbani chicken is one of the animals.

A full first story will hopefully be appearing on Wiggly Pets soon

Once the image above is digitally edited (this is just what I russeled up using my new birthday pens and colouring pencils.) there will be speech bubbles saying such things as fi'i - meaning welcome.

Other existing characters include Esperanto Cat and Toki Pona kitten. I haven't decided yet what creatures should represent any of the natural languages - mainly due to worrying about offending people :/ I might do something like have made up creatures for natural languages and real animals for the constructed languages - suggestions welcome

I am hoping to produce some more of the characters as part of the 100 birds in 100 days challenge I am currently doing over on Orange Monster.

A Snowy Spring (by sarah)

I went out and took more photos of snow - mainly as the sun was now shining.

I have always loved sun beams

The sun seemed to exist in a strip highlighting some lovely buildings in the distance - I liked the contrast as it makes some of the buildings appear to glow.

I found a ruin at the side of the road - I think I was in Leckhampton.

Earlier on in another area I found pig stys that look almost apocolyptic.

I photoed snowy crags using max zoom.

And the best bit was I found woolly pigs! If anyone knows the bred I would be greatful if you would let me know!

Fooling Around With Poetry and What Not (by sarah)

April the 1st and the first thing that happened was Youtube suggested that they were closing down youtube as a five year competition was over to choose the best video in the world. I didn't watch very much of the video and quickly moved on.

Second thing to happen was I saw people lambasting others for pulling the 'I'm expecting/pregnant' joke on Facebook updates.

Third thing that happened was that I decided to hide until 12 when traditionally you stop the April Fool pranks otherwise they are said to back fire. Instead I have been preparing myself for more poetry madness!

NaPoWriMo

I am doing visual poetry books this time - 30 of them And generally going to be spending 30 hrs this month on poetry (not that hard as I am going to be taking part in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival anyway!).

Anyway there will be more exercises and writing inspiration and how to on the WoPoWriMo site and here is the NaPoWriMo site for those interested.

A Style A Voice A Choice (by sarah)

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post about the Art Exhibition was that people were surprised at how much of it was mine with comments such as, 'I would never have thought those pieces were by the same artist' and 'wow that's a lot of variation in style.'

People who actually know me could pick out which ones weren't mine with the comment that there was something me about all my pictures. It was mainly the fractals that gave them a pause for thought with, 'They aren't yours are they?' No they were Alaric's - my husbands but I chose the selection and no they weren't digital renders of my 'fractal style drawings' though that mistake was understandable.

Again I am against the concept that you should choose one specific thing to be your style at least for a couple of years at a time. People expect artists to have phases what they don't seem to be able to cope with is someone who takes photos in the morning, draws in felt pen in the afternoon and knits in the evening and then does painting at the weekends or someone who thinks that mediums and styles are something to understand and learn to add to a tool box of skills.

I love mixing things up as well.

And it is not just with the visual arts or the crafting it is my writing as well. It is hard to know what to push sometimes with me writing novels, short stories, flash fiction, essays, articles, how to stuff and some for adults and some for kids and kids groups in different ages and some of it needs my art and some of it doesn't. And even within something like poetry I have several different types I write from political, to comedic to kids to sci-tech to gothic and abstract.

I love brining visuals and audio into these creations making them something multi media that I'm not sure there is a word for yet.

People who read alot of my stuff again say they can hear my voice in it all but many coming to it for the first time find it hard to connect me to such a lot of 'voices' and this makes it hard for them to recognise me.

Now people in the publishing and arts world and science for that matter have always told me I have to choice to get anything done. And I can see why but I am not like this because I haven't thought about the consequences - I made a choice and that was to be ME and me is a person who likes and is interested in a lot of stuff and who has found it all feeds off of everything else.

I get a new skill it may get a bit rusty but it is easy enough to polish it up again if I need it or want to mix it with something else I now have.

And because I do all of these things I find myself being asked to do lots of strange and lovely and exiting things. Stuff that I wouldn't have been ended up doing if I'd focused on one area.

In the last fortnight I have been described as someone who sits on the divide between art and science and who is a brilliant crafter and a teacher and I sing as well. Such glowing praise made me blush and hide behind my camera to take more photos. A poet and writer, an artist, a knitter and baker and a craft maker.

Then I had a moment when having had a lovely rejection, a not so lovely one and an acceptance with editing and one without of poems and someone I respect as poet tells me I am an Experimental Poet - and I thought YES! that's it isn't it?

My voice, my style is experimental that's my choice.

Now all I have to do is deal with the fact that not everybody is nice about achievement and some feel I am too prolific or a hack or any of a number of other things.

Mods and Rockers (by sarah)

I love motobikes and mopeds and that sort of thing in general - yes I am one of those people that like vintage cars and funky sports cars.

So the other week we were in Morrisions in Cheltenham when I spotted these babies out side the window - apologies for the poor quality of the photographs they were taken through glass.

There was a four wheeler there too The guys the belonged too were sitting not far from us wearing Mods and Rockers T-shirts much to my dad's amusement. I think one of them may have been his age but the others were all younger.

Mods and Rockers as popularised by the film Quadraphenia was a sixties phenomina where those that rode motobikes and those who rode mopeds dressed differently and listened to different types of music. They were seen as gangs and a series of riots were blamed on them.

My dad says it wasn't really like that at least not where he lived. He got teased for riding a moped dressed as a Rocker instead of mod but later on had a motorbike and him and his friends all rode about together with a mash up of vechiles not smashing the place up though they did apparently get chucked out of a pub family room for swearing or something.

This is my favourite track from Quadraphenia.

And this is my second favorite.

The album is deeper than the film in my opinion especially as the film never explains the title. Thought the film leaves me with a lingering sadness, the struggle of disconnected youth trying to find where they fit into society whilst not wanting to end up as nothing but a puppet, a clone and boring person and yet they crave stability.

And of course drugs sort of fluffs it all up but mainly it is a desperation and loneliness that bites the protagonist too the core.

I still prefer just the album.