Blogging Archives - Page 6 of 13

by Marja-Leena

a new day

Tom Montag and I have collaborated once again to create a postcard with a short poem called A New Day for Postal Poetry. Though they accepted this some time ago, the editors Dana Guthrie Martin and Dave Bonta have cleverly chosen to post it today, an exciting new day and the start of a hopeful new era in the USA. Thank you!

This gives me a perfect opportunity to offer congratulations and best wishes to President Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughters, a lovely first family in Washington. Congratulations and a big thank you also to all the people who voted for him!

Yes, I caught some of that Obamamania even here in Canada. I watched the inauguration on television with awed fascination over the immense crowds, the huge staging and organization, the pomp and ceremony like nothing we have here in Canada. This unique and historical inauguration moved me though perhaps not quite as much as that fantastic night in Chicago. It was the first one I’ve ever watched, says something, eh?

January 21, 2009 in Blogging, Current Events by Marja-Leena 9 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

cease the fighting

Pablo Picasso: Guernica 1937 (from artquotes.net)

I rarely write about politics and wars here yet I must say that I’ve been unable to put out of my mind the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. Mainstream and alternative media are full of varying opinions, understanding and sometimes truthfulness. I struggle to understand the complex history and struggles of the region with some compassion for all sides. I’m helped in the task by looking at artists who portrayed war, learning about artist activists and of course, reading many eloquent and well-informed bloggers. Through some of them I’ve learned of some petitions for peace that I have then signed, even as I wonder if it will help. One voice, many voices…what’s that quote I’m trying to recall?

As many know, some of the most famous art about the horrors of war are Picasso’s Guernica, Goya’s Disasters of War, and works by several German Expressionist artists such as Otto Dix and Max Beckmann…. even Käthe Kollwitz who lived through two world wars. There are of course many contemporary artists who speak up against war through their work and activism such as the Artists for Peace in Vancouver.

I could not begin to list all the many bloggers I’ve read who have written well on this subject, so I’ll limit my short list of articles that moved me the most to a few by those who are Canadian or live in Canada.

1. Beth Adams of Cassandra Pages, an American writer living in Montreal, wrote this most eloquent and heart-wrenching post Every One Precious.

2. Taina Maki Chahal of northshorewoman, a Finnish-Canadian PhD student and university lecturer living in Thunder Bay, writes on a variety of subjects such as Finnish culture and First Nations and Sami issues. Now she has been writing passionately and knowledgeably every day about the Gaza crisis. Do check out all her articles, for starters I recommend war is a friend of binarisms (an eye-opener for me) and Canadian government votes against human rights. This latter includes a plea to write an objection to Harper and the party leaders.

3. Naomi Klein, a well-known Canadian, award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist, author and speaker wrote this very powerful message: Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction.

4. Alison of Creekside, a Canadian political blogger living on Bowen Island near Vancouver, also writes a lot on the subject, such as Gaza: “an eye for an eyelash”, another thought-provoking article. She includes the Amnesty petition which I hope you will all sign.

Speaking of petitions, here’s another via care2

Last but not least and not Canadian is today’s article in Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat, Destroying ghettoes in Gaza by Olli Kivinen. For me, he seems to summarize clearly and briefly the major issues on both sides, concluding with this:

One dimension was offered by the Israeli Ambassador to Helsinki, who asked in a television news interview how Finns would feel if rockets were fired into our cities.

It is difficult to answer that question, because Finland does not occupy any foreign territory, and has not created a ghetto of a million and a half people next to it, where people live in extreme misery, and which is bombarded, and isolated from land, sea, and air, and where even now people are dying not only of bombs and bullets, but also as a result of a shortage of medicines, difficulties experienced by hospitals, and of weakness caused by cold and a shortage of food.

In the past, ghettoes were places where Jews were oppressed and annihilated.

Added later: the Gaza Call For Peace Petition organized by the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW)

Even later: I almost forgot the excellent Avaaz.org and their petition. Please sign and share with friends and family.

Added Jan.16th, 2006: Beth’s post today has more reading for us in the links to some excellent articles.

January 14, 2009 in Blogging, Current Events, History by Marja-Leena 8 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

99 things to do

I rarely do memes any more but this looked like fun.
The rules are simple: bold the things you’ve done.
* NOTE: Edited Dec.2013 to use stars instead because Bold does not work in WordPress)
Explanations are optional. Fun is guaranteed.

1. Started my own blog – (surprise!)*
2. Slept under the stars * (tried for about an hour but could not sleep)
3. Played in a band * (does piano accompaniment for a quartet count?)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower*
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world *(Legoland in Denmark count?)
8. Climbed a mountain * (on trails)
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo (played piano solo though)
11. Bungee jumped (never never!)
12. Visited Paris (maybe next year) (*did it in 2009!)
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (can’t remember, but I have seen many on the prairies)
14. Taught myself an art from scratch*
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning* (bad shrimp at a lunch counter)
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables*
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France (see #12*)
20. Slept on an overnight train* (the last time was from Frankfurt to Prague, and back – a rickety, shaky old train it was, so not much sleep actually!)
21. Had a pillow fight* (with my brother)
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill* (on a bad “time of the month”)
24. Built a snow fort*
25. Held a lamb*
26. Gone skinny dipping* (love it after sauna!)
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (does a vaporetto count?)
29. Seen a total eclipse*
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset*
31. Hit a home run* (when I was a kid)
32. Been on a cruise* (Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia)
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person* (the Canadian side)
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors* (in Finland)
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language* (does English immersion at the age of five count?)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied*
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person*
39. Gone rock climbing* (not the extreme kind)
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David* (I cried)
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant*
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight*
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted* (sketched only)
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person* (wow!)
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris (*see # 12)
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain*
53. Played in the mud*
54. Gone to a drive-in theater*
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business (being an artist count?)
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia* (see # 32)
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching* (on the west coast of Vancouver Island)
63. Got flowers for no reason*
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving (no way!)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy* (my children’s)
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar* (what’s so special about it?)
72. Pieced a quilt* (a jacket, vest and pillow covers)
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job* (had a job disappear under me)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone* (twice)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle* (terrified, with a Finnish cousin)
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican* (the museum only, amazing!)
82. Bought a brand new car* (my first was an orange 1970 VW Beetle)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper* (a few times)
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (unless fish count)
88. Had chickenpox*
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous (define famous)
92. Joined a book club (I’m not a joiner)
93. Lost a loved one* (several)
94. Had a baby* (three times)
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee*

First found at Finnish blogger Anniina’s Mischievous Muse, then seen at Pica’s place.

UPDATES: Kate of Wombat’s World and Wandering Coyote have done this too!

And here is Black Pete’s

December 10, 2008 in Blogging, Neat stuff by Marja-Leena 13 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

an 8th birthday!

at the old Britannia Shipyard, Steveston, BC

I’m absolutely amazed that Mark Woods is still going strong with his blog Wood s Lot! He continues to produce almost daily posts, each full of very interesting and eclectic links on a wide variety of intelligent subjects from the artistic and literary to philosophical and political, frequently including his own wonderful photos of his home region in Ontario, Canada. Each of these posts would be the equivalent of five to ten of mine!

Wood s Lot was one of my early finds and inspirations when I first began blogging four and a half years ago and continues to be a favourite daily read. Thank you, Mark and Happy 8th Birthday to Wood s Lot!

October 6, 2008 in Blogging, Canada and BC by Marja-Leena 2 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

poetry postcards

I’m delighted to share with you that Tom Montag and I have had our collaboration accepted and up at Postal Poetry, an exciting new site for individually and collaboratively created poetry postcards.

Tom has already expressed his pleasure and also mentions our earlier collaboration for qarrstiluni – please visit him for those details!

The co-editors of Postal Poetry are poets Dana Guthrie Martin of gorgeous somewhere and Dave Bonta of Via Negativa, qarrtsiluni and many other sites. They invite submissions of either digital poetry postcards and ‘real’ ones by snail mail.

September 1, 2008 in Being an Artist, Blogging, Found Objects, Photoworks by Marja-Leena 4 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

lovely links

The Yukon Delta taken 5/26/2002 by ASTER
Image courtesy of USGS National Center for EROS and NASA Landsat Project Science Office

1. Our Earth as Art – Landsat-7 and ASTER satellite images of the earth that look like fabulous artworks. Thanks to artist Joanne Mattera, do check out her favourites. I’d seen these somewhere before and am so pleased to see these again so that I can save the link here. Inspirations for my own work?

2. This is an amazing must-see short film: Lena Geiseke’s 3D Exploration of Picasso’s Guernica**

3. Mark your calendars! The second annual International Rock-Flipping Day is on September 7th! Read all about it and plan to participate.

** UPDATE March 4th, 2014: Previous link had expired. Replaced with another that I just came across at Open Culture.

August 10, 2008 in Blogging, Films, Nature, Neat stuff, Photography by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

serenity

Wishing calmness and serenity to friends in emotional turmoil.
Though I know them only virtually, I’m surprised how much I feel their pain.

July 31, 2008 in Blogging, Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

for Beth

July 27, 2008 in Blogging, Nature, Photoworks by Marja-Leena 5 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

a scan test

shell1%40300.jpg
#1. Originally scanned at 300 dpi.

shell2%40600.jpg
#2. Originally scanned at 600 dpi.

My last post on scanning certainly piqued the interest of several readers! I look forward to seeing the results of your play, everyone!

Barrett tried it out with his ‘cheapo’ (his word) scanner and was very disappointed.

I thought I would demonstrate a test I did for myself as much as for Barrett and any readers interested in more on this subject. I did two scans of the same object, enlarged by 200%, varying only the dpi (dots per inch), the first one at 300 dpi and the second one at 600 dpi.

I placed a handy object, a shell about 10 cm or 4 inches in length, on my open scanner and ran the scanner via PhotoShop. Each comes up as a .psd (PhotoShop) file, better than a Tiff for working with initially. The first scan came up at 3.29 MB in size and the second one at 52.6 MB.

For this test, I made no adjustments for colour, levels, contrast or anything else. On each image, I changed the resolution to 72 ppi, and the image width to 500 ppi. The file size on both then became 455K. Then I proceeded to ‘save to the web’ on each, choosing high quality, 79 (I could have gone higher but this is often the range I normally choose). The result?- both around 48K. The images automatically saved as jpegs. Then I uploaded them to the blog, eager to see if there’s any difference. What do you think? Very subtle to my eyes!

So, the point of this very dry demonstration is to show that if your goal is just to put your scanned image on your blog, you do not have to scan at a huge resolution. I find around 300 is very good, and less would work, depending on your scanner quality.

If you plan to print your image, especially very large, then you may wish to use a very high resolution and magnification to get greater detail. For example, one artist friend of mine did a series of scans of leaves at the highest resolution (1200 dpi?) and after much work on the images, printed them something like 90 x 120 cm (3 ft by 4 ft). They were amazing!

For my own digital printmaking on more moderate paper sizes and with a high-end printer, I’m usually satisfied with less resolution, say at 300. Tests and trials are very much a part of the process for me to determine what works best for the image.

I’d love to hear from others who have a lot of scanning experience and have any tips to share, for I’m always learning!

July 19, 2008 in Being an Artist, Blogging, Photography, Tools and technology by Marja-Leena 6 Comments »

by Marja-Leena

older female geeks

Natalie%26god.jpg
from cover of The God Interviews by Natalie d’Arbeloff

Natalie d’Arbeloff, artist, cartoonist, author of the amazing The God Interviews and blogger with alter-ego Blaugustine continues to inspire me with her colourful career and many talents, her humour and her energy. Recently she won a prize to be a guest editor for the Guardian newspaper’s Women’s section.

Here’s the first fabulous article she wrote: Where are all the older female geeks. As Natalie invites older women to take up blogging, I’m thrilled and honoured to be one of the listed bloggers; thank you, Natalie!

This week must be a very good one for older women bloggers, as I’ve also been mentioned by Virginia DeBolt at the BlogHer conference blog, thank you!

I’m looking forward to checking out the new blogs I’ve been introduced to by virtue of being in their company in this way, via these connections that are made and woven like a giant web. Like Natalie and Virginia and many bloggers, I am an ambassador of blogging, raving about its benefits and pleasures to everyone. Even after over four years of blogging, I’ve never thought of myself as a geek. Blogging software is enabling and easy after the initial learning curve if you are reasonably competent on a computer, plus I believe that a MAC is easier. I’m fortunate in having a couple of ‘geeky’ family members help me in getting started and with any rare problems that occur that I cannot handle.

If you are a new visitor here thanks to Natalie, the Guardian and Virginia, welcome! If you want to know more about why I blog, you may be interested in reading this interview. For a quick look at some of my art work, please visit the gallery (top left bar). Comments are always welcome and appreciated and I try to respond to each.

Finally, on the subject of older bloggers and issues of aging, I wish to point out Ronni Bennett’s excellent and well-researched blog Time Goes By. Today I learn that she is now contributing occasional articles to the Wall Street Journal on the same subject!

UPDATE June 15th: Thanks to Erika’s comment below, I’m eagerly checking out Came of Age Before Computers, a blog by Nancy Strider, an older female new media artist and geek! To quote her byline:

This website looks at some issues faced by “COABC’s”. These are elders, often our parents, who find themselves isolated on the other side of the digital divide because they came of age before computers. Nancy Strider examines the impact on daily life that results from lack of skills, access – or interest – in electronic tools like computers, email, and cell phones. She also makes positive suggestions for using the internet itself to facilitate a more lively engagement in the face-to-face world.

In contrast, I look at our granddaughters, 7 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old, who are already computer literate!

June 14, 2008 in Blogging, Books, Other artists by Marja-Leena 8 Comments »

Marja-Leena Rathje

PRINTWORKS

PHOTOWORKS

RSS Feeds

You are browsing the Blog for Blogging Archives - Page 6 of 13 - Marja-Leena Rathje.

a new day

cease the fighting

99 things to do

an 8th birthday!

poetry postcards

lovely links

serenity

for Beth

a scan test

older female geeks

RECENTLY

THEMES