Let's dance

It's the festive season where we may well find ourselves at  parties dancing.

To get dance-move ideas you could always watch Ai Wei Wei do the Gangnam style.

But to see something more old-style go here where you can also listen to the entertaining NPR radio program that talks about Muybridge and his life and work.

Stephen Herbert has collected many more of these animations made from Muybridge's photographs and  very much more (perhaps everything!!) on Muybridge and his work here

 

Your Paintings and your librarian!

The BBC hosts a website that documents all paintings in public ownership-those paintings that lurk in council offices, libraries, and slide libraries as well as the ones we get to see in the major art galleries and museums! The portrait above that a recent Fine Art graduate painted of me is just one of the 212,000 piantings now online and viewable by location, artist name or title.
Here are the FAQ's that answer questions such as who is behind the project, why no watercolours and also crucially  how many are on public display (20%)-a low figure which goes to show how valuable a service this website is...
Next time we have a Welsh Librarians' conference at the wonderful Gregynog Hall I am going in search of this fine specimen!                                         

 
















 

and this beauty painted by the same artist   

 

 

secrets in books

old bookmarks left in secondhand volumes

Wayne Gooderham buys secondhand books as they are cheaper than new ones. They also give him an added pleasure. For many years he has been collecting the inscriptions he finds within these bargain books.  In fact he got so keen to collect more inscriptions that he now uses a network of friendly booksellers who alert him to particularly good ones when they come into their hands.Wayne  blogs with images of the inscriptions here

an Example

To Robert, on his crucial 30th birthday -

hoping for a safe and speedy emergence from adolescence

1/9/1955

Frank & Jackie

One of his network of bookseller helpers from Skoob Books  suggested to Wayne that he might be interested to see the collection of interesting things found left inside their second hand books. In their out of town warehouse Wayne was given permission to photograph some of Skoob Books' marvellously named 'Wall of Found' and you can read about them and see examples in another Guardian article by Wayne here