Fiery summer has come
Theatrical interludes are fun
Read 1001 Nights, please
And enjoy the... fleas...
...The 1001 Nights reading group starts in July...
...This is it:
1001 Nights: An Achievable Artistic Reading Project for the Arabian Nights
Nights 1-31
£31 per month
Each week in class we discuss 7 nights.
You read 7 nights per week. (Or as many nights it takes to make up the full month of 28, 29, 30 or 31 nights.)
We meet online once a week, 4 times per month.
Then we talk.
All of life is here.
You get inspired.
Fill your cup in a structured half hour.
We are all Dunyazad.
I’ve read the entire Nights a few times now: it’s part of my Slade School of Art research and epic project - a contemporary visual interpretation of the Nights. I have favourite stories; I am excited to share those. I’ve thought about the Nights now for the better part of a decade and it was the first book I remember as a child and early reader.
This is an artistic reading group but you need not be an artist to join. The Nights tangent several spheres apart from art and literature including theatre, film, dance, music, opera, ballet and more. There are several translations and there will be several more: like that other world-famous book that changed the course of Western civilisation forever (the Bible), the Nights are a work in progress.
We’ll use the Malcom C Lyons Penguin translation, the current most complete translation into English. As new translations appear we will take them into account; if you read other languages I encourage you to read those concurrently (for instance there are good French, German and Italian translations; of course they are translated into many of the world’s languages including Chinese).
Midweek Wednesday nights, 10.30pm London time. Join here: https://www.vaishaliprazmariteaching.com/service-page/1001-nights-an-artistic-reading-project?referral=service_list_widget
Join 1001 Nights Reading Group
…It's hot now, and I hope it'll be a fiery summer. Still time to book the in-person FIRE class at the School of Traditional Arts, here: https://www.kings-foundation.org/school-of-traditional-arts/open-programme/persian-miniature-painting-fire-2c7268...
...we'll paint Siyavush's trial by fire, one of Persian painting's most iconic images, as well as dragons and simurghs/phoenixes...
Join the FIRE class at The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts
...above are a column of Gayumars rocks in progress, and some columns in progress...
...the Islamic Bookbinding class was wonderful. Mr. Prazmari did this year's class with red leather - painting gold on red leather is gorgeous. He demonstrated both blind and gold tooling on black leather...
...July classes start next week. The final class in the 'Elements' series is Siyah Qalam - we could say it represents the 'wild'. For the books we have the Harlequinade book. There is a toy theatre thread that runs through the current crop of books. Between the Peepshow and the moveable books there is the Harlequinade book - also known as a lift-the-flap book. On the stage the Harlequinade was a precursor to the Victorian pantomime, itself part of Victorian theatre and then toy theatre tradition, so the motif of dressing up and cross-dressing runs through this too.
The Harlequinade book is an important link in the history of moveable books which we are tracing. Monsters and metamorphoses are a good subject for these 'changing faces' types of turn-up books. Having done a Medieval Islamic bestiary (the Book of Useful Animals), we now turn to one of the 4 great classic novels of China, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, also thought of as a Chinese bestiary, similar to the wonder genre of books such as Marco Polo's Travels or Il Milione. This book about mythic geography tells of fantastic creatures and wonders such as a 9-tailed fox, people with 3 heads and pigs that fly. We'll take inspiration from this ancient book and the Harlequinade format will also allow new creations to be made and bring these into a new dimension. And of course we will also add colour.
Then a Book of Fountains: in celebration of summer after the Topiary book and after the spring Book of Delights we continue with the Fountain book. Who doesn't love a fountain? Fluid dynamics in watercolour paint. We discuss flow, laminar and caustics. Water can do so much more than spray. It can seep, leak, trickle, drip, burble, gurgle, bubble, spout, foam, froth, splash, gush, spew, jet, crest, wave, eddy, ripple, roll and whirl. And many more - there are lots of words to describe watery movements. Water fun in the sun!
And I was racking my brains for an image to sum up the entire 1001 Nights. I couldn't think of one, but a pink camel did pop into my head so I used that for my reading group. All here: https://www.vaishaliprazmariteaching.com/book-online...
Join 1001 Nights Reading Group
More brushes and beautiful tools here
...All brushes here: https://www.theperfectbrush.co.uk/shop and here's the link to my Make a Carpet Page e-course. Once downloaded it's yours to keep forever: https://vaishaliprazmaricarpetpage.thinkific.com/courses/make-a-carpet-page or purchase some easy-watching, relaxing painting films.
You can get your own ALADDIN toy theatre here: https://www.theperfectbrush.co.uk/product-page/aladdin-paper-toy-theatre...
Book classes
... And now, a drum roll please... something I've been waiting 20 years to see. Honestly! During my undergraduate I came across a reference to 'dressed fleas', a curiosity in a museum in Tring https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/tring.html.
Fast forward a decade and I realised that Tring is accessible on the train from London and those dressed fleas are housed in the Tring branch of London's Natural History Museum and I had an acquaintance who worked in Tring. I still didn't visit. Fast forward another decade and I pass the train to Tring almost weekly on my commute. I still didn't hop on the train and just GO.
But: I now have a friend living nearish Tring and last weekend we finally took our KIDS to go see the museum - natural history museums are always a hit with kids - and the fleas! A real bucket list item ticked off for me and I was thrilled to see these tiny fleas all dressed up. 20 years to see a couple of parasites almost hidden to the human eye. Why not?! Have a read below.
The woman who made the fleas used fleas that her children had caught from dogs and cats!!!! It was worth waiting: 20 years ago I would not have had these photos. Now I have an iPhone and only last year realised that there is a macro lens built in to the iPhone (hold and magnify) so it was fated...
...Mexican dancing fleas!
Please note the date change for this month - in fact all normal Tuesday classes will take place at the same time on the Thursday (I will email everyone about this later) - due to travel.
The monthly meeting link is also over at the Forum, which now is a real hub of information and you just need to scroll around or use the Search tool to find information. It's sorted into broad categories too. The Zoom link is via the Forum - https://www.miniaturepaintingforum.com or here's the direct link:
Monthly Miniature Meeting 25 July 2024 at 6pm - 7pm London time - all welcome!
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/82334023615?pwd=7FmEnUoqugL55EQNyzWRe66eo4B8YS.1
Meeting ID: 823 3402 3615
Passcode: 481968...
...A theatrical interlude.
Did you know that Sadler's Wells theatre in London was built on the site of an actual mineral spring? It also featured aquatic plays which were reproduced by the Victorian paper toy theatres. I am a happy member of the UK Guild of Puppetry and Toy Theatre, which is the world's oldest guild devoted to these, and happily chatting to all the toy theatre pros, of which there aren't many: toy theatre or paper theatre is different to the bigger world of puppetry.
Everything in a toy theatre is essentially flat, 2D, like a miniature painting (which is why I originally wanted to combine the two) and made of paper. This differentiates it from puppetry and dollhouses which are 3D, with the exception of shadow puppetry, an art form greatly loved by Chinese and Indonesian cultures among others. Sadler's Wells: the home of dance in the UK. We saw acrobatic ballet. And later, Gifford's Circus came to town...
...A hat interlude. Stephen Jones has been in this location for as long as I remember. I've never been inside (maybe this is another easy-peasy someday-maybe bucket list idea too). I also never go inside the Kensington lamp and light shops, since they look nicest from the outside.
We saw an upside-down globe - perhaps this is the right way up and a good reminder that there are several ways to look at the world. Finally, rolled-up grass. This is super cool. I imagine it like a flying carpet of turf, like a living grass rug that you just plonk on the ground and there you have it, a ready-made lawn. Maybe... maybe it's not that simple to 'install'...
...June was somehow very busy with work, finishing off stuff and planning, and the fun bits were the outings. I am learning to appreciate fun moments in the day when I can imagine alternate realities, like the grass carpet, the 'ordinary extraordinary'. The highlight of these outings was of course the fleas. There were lots of other (much larger!) animals to see at the Natural History Museum in Tring, and I'm glad my kids have an instinct to sit and draw them - I guess as they're a bit older now...
...One also has an instinct for dressing up. I also think this is a super cool photo. Beneath, there is just no totally serious way of eating an apple - surely it is always a little hilarious the way humans (especially little ones) bite into apples? Especially when they take up two thirds of your entire face.
Fleasingly and teasingly yours,
Vaishali Prazmari
