Bryan Islip's Blog, page 51
January 9, 2011
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Some years ago Dee bought me for my birthday the 1935 innustrated edition of T.E.Lawrence's (Lawrence of Arabia's) Seven Pillars of Wisdom. This is a massive tome with old style torn edged pages and a hard cover somewhat enigmatically imprinted "The sword also means clean-ness and death".
This is a very valuable volume and even though I have long become interested in things Arabia I hesitated before starting it. I read mainly in bed - which is great for a paperback but not for this - and I am a very slow reader. I like to dissect the language, often going over a passage two or three times to get its meaning clear in mind and/or to understand the writer's use of words - his/her tecnique. So for twenty years or so The Seven Pillars has reposed, unread, in our bookcase.
Six weeks ago I ran out of reading material and Dee plonked this great big thing down in front of me on the bed covers. Since then I have become completely absorbed in it. T.E.Lawrence has to be one of the most individualistic men of any race, especially the English. I'm not about to go into what I know about his life and his death. Many a learned professor has done that and still there are more questions than answers. But about his book ... absolutely brilliant and more later about that when I finish it.
I have read that a writer should not read the works of others whilst he, himself, is writing. It is said that the style of the work being read will pollute or warp his own individual style. It is not said that reading a truly great work will tend to make the reader give up on his own more ordinary writing efforts but I have no doubts that this also is true.
This is a very valuable volume and even though I have long become interested in things Arabia I hesitated before starting it. I read mainly in bed - which is great for a paperback but not for this - and I am a very slow reader. I like to dissect the language, often going over a passage two or three times to get its meaning clear in mind and/or to understand the writer's use of words - his/her tecnique. So for twenty years or so The Seven Pillars has reposed, unread, in our bookcase.
Six weeks ago I ran out of reading material and Dee plonked this great big thing down in front of me on the bed covers. Since then I have become completely absorbed in it. T.E.Lawrence has to be one of the most individualistic men of any race, especially the English. I'm not about to go into what I know about his life and his death. Many a learned professor has done that and still there are more questions than answers. But about his book ... absolutely brilliant and more later about that when I finish it.
I have read that a writer should not read the works of others whilst he, himself, is writing. It is said that the style of the work being read will pollute or warp his own individual style. It is not said that reading a truly great work will tend to make the reader give up on his own more ordinary writing efforts but I have no doubts that this also is true.
January 8, 2011
Being washed away by the sea
How grand the sea! How steadily it eats away the land. This is the beach at MellonCharles, (as if you aren't feeling cold enough already) ...It puts me in mind of my favourite quotation from the days when I used to address various business gatherings to try to inspire greater effort or cement that all important team spirit. From memory now:-
'No man is an Island complete unto itself. Each is a part of the Maine, a piece of the Continent. If a clod of earth be washed away by the sea is not Europe then the lesse? Or thine house, or the house of thy friend? Because I am involved in Mankind every Man's death diminisheth me, therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.'
Not too bad for a 17th century country parson, poet, womaniser extraordinaire called John Donne. Powerful words evoking powerful emotions. By contrast how pitiful are the effortsof our modern poets, writers (me included) / orators - whether political, royal, military, religous or secular.
January 7, 2011
Selling books - imagine!
So far as I know imagination is something very mysterious which we share with absolutely no other species of life on earth. All we humans are of course born with imagination to a greater or lesser extent. (Although too great a dose of it can, as we all know, run right past genius and on into mental illness). Imagination is a prerequisite for the reader of fiction and it's the writing and promoting of fiction that's occupying my time whilst the Pictures and Poems and B&B micro businesses are sleeping. Have a look into my new website www.bryanislipauthor.com to get the flavour of it.
I said there's a mystery here, and it's exemplified by the fact that some people can 'lose themselves' in a well written novel whereas others of equal, or lesser, or greater intelligence simply cannot, and so find no value whatsoever even in trying.
That's one of the main reasons why selling a work of fiction is so much more difficult than selling motor cars or cans of beans or, for that matter, works of non-fiction. i.e. whereas 'the market' for a car or a can of beans or a book on beekeeping can easily be identified, a work of fiction by a new writer does not exist and cannot be created other than by one on one individual recommendation. Putting a giant billboard up in Paddington station or ahead of the ITV News at Ten saying 'Read Bryan Islip's Fantastic New Novel, Going with Gabriel' would merely evoke one of two reactions, equally negative. The habitual novel reader - perhaps one in eight observors: 'Why should I spend my nine pounds and a couple of weeks of my valuable leisure time on that when I can buy Stephen King's latest that I know I shall enjoy?' The other seven in eight observers would have no interest and would no more buy my novel than Stephen King's latest or indeed purchase any pig in any poke.
That's why the first handful of readers of a novel by a new writer are so absolutely critical to its sales success. These pioneer ladies and gentlemen must, firstly, find the book 'first rate' and secondly must say so, and why, to as many fellow readers as possible.This takes time. Even Harry Potter took plenty of time to achieve top selling status. In an age of instant gratification that's not good. Having said that, I would rather have one reader in year 2025 than 2025 readers this year! (although the former would probably not be a possibility without the latter.)
Imagine!
I said there's a mystery here, and it's exemplified by the fact that some people can 'lose themselves' in a well written novel whereas others of equal, or lesser, or greater intelligence simply cannot, and so find no value whatsoever even in trying.
That's one of the main reasons why selling a work of fiction is so much more difficult than selling motor cars or cans of beans or, for that matter, works of non-fiction. i.e. whereas 'the market' for a car or a can of beans or a book on beekeeping can easily be identified, a work of fiction by a new writer does not exist and cannot be created other than by one on one individual recommendation. Putting a giant billboard up in Paddington station or ahead of the ITV News at Ten saying 'Read Bryan Islip's Fantastic New Novel, Going with Gabriel' would merely evoke one of two reactions, equally negative. The habitual novel reader - perhaps one in eight observors: 'Why should I spend my nine pounds and a couple of weeks of my valuable leisure time on that when I can buy Stephen King's latest that I know I shall enjoy?' The other seven in eight observers would have no interest and would no more buy my novel than Stephen King's latest or indeed purchase any pig in any poke.
That's why the first handful of readers of a novel by a new writer are so absolutely critical to its sales success. These pioneer ladies and gentlemen must, firstly, find the book 'first rate' and secondly must say so, and why, to as many fellow readers as possible.This takes time. Even Harry Potter took plenty of time to achieve top selling status. In an age of instant gratification that's not good. Having said that, I would rather have one reader in year 2025 than 2025 readers this year! (although the former would probably not be a possibility without the latter.)
Imagine!
January 6, 2011
The risen tide
You know how Christmas comes at you like the rising tide then ebbs away just as smoothly, just as certainly? You know how it always leaves little bits of itself like jetsam on the high water mark? There's that tree lying all forlorn with its bits of tinsel outside the back door, the pile of cards some of them bearing messages that really do need your response, and what to do with all those food and drink remnants 'too good to throw away' but now steadily becoming unconsumable and unfreezable (the freezer won't take anything else.)
On Christmas Eve we received a beautiful bunch of red carnations. Two problems. Firstly they were frozen unto death and secondly we couldn't decipher the name/s of the sender/s. Dee dealt with the former beautifully. She cut off the dead heads and floated them Japanese style on a wide bowl of water. The latter remains a mystery - an old shoe amongst the seaweed on the high tide line.
The label with the flowers says, and I quote; 'Dee and Bryan. Festive Greeting, hope you both have a lovely Christmas. Love M & J,' Now, we only know three 'M&J's' even allowing for a little verbal misunderstanding between sender and label typer. All three thank us for our thanks but do not, to their credit, claim the credit. So if it's you we should be thanking, a heartfelt thank you! Otherwise this last sign of the festive season will lay undisturbed until the next high Christmastide.
p.s. Here come de snow - again! We had a B&B booking for later this week but our prospective guest has seen the forecast .... Oh well. A quiet weekend. Time to finish writing my February short story.
On Christmas Eve we received a beautiful bunch of red carnations. Two problems. Firstly they were frozen unto death and secondly we couldn't decipher the name/s of the sender/s. Dee dealt with the former beautifully. She cut off the dead heads and floated them Japanese style on a wide bowl of water. The latter remains a mystery - an old shoe amongst the seaweed on the high tide line.
The label with the flowers says, and I quote; 'Dee and Bryan. Festive Greeting, hope you both have a lovely Christmas. Love M & J,' Now, we only know three 'M&J's' even allowing for a little verbal misunderstanding between sender and label typer. All three thank us for our thanks but do not, to their credit, claim the credit. So if it's you we should be thanking, a heartfelt thank you! Otherwise this last sign of the festive season will lay undisturbed until the next high Christmastide.
p.s. Here come de snow - again! We had a B&B booking for later this week but our prospective guest has seen the forecast .... Oh well. A quiet weekend. Time to finish writing my February short story.
January 5, 2011
Twelth Night Soon
Taking Christmas down
We put it all up with no problem at allThose bright spiny leaves fixed to old oak beams,And the wreath that we gladly hung in the hallOut of wind out of rain that outside teemsBut now curled by the fire as we had our fill
We drank to the health of every one -And to peace on earth goodwill towards menAnd now when the feast and drinking is done,And we feel the press of the world again,This taking it down is not so much fun.
"What a beautiful tree," they'd ritually said,And we looked with pride on our tinselled towerA star-burst of baubles and lights - overheadA fine fairie queene dispensing her powerSoon all to be boxed, the tree dumped and dead.
What pleasure it was when each post arrivedEach envelope opened, each picture admiredReading who from with the card spread wideThen hanging our trophies from strings multi-tieredBut they're in the bin and so something died.
Some echo of good sounds from distant pastSome simple utopian wish we all feel:Beneath the tumultuous hard sales blast:We all hear the voice, so clear and so realAnd that's why we need to make Christmas last.
Perhaps next yearWe'll choose to leave it here.
Bryan Islip
OOPS!!!
Was it 1st January or 1st April when I sent out e-mails announcing my new 'exclusively writing' web site? To those who have clicked into this bryanislip.com when they should have been directed to bryanislipauthor.com sorry! Please accept this as a re-direction. And when you do land on bryanislipauthor.com I'd love it if you click on to my new, more professionally set up mailing list!
January 3, 2011
Show Champion Russetmantle Seth
This is a sad one. No apologies. 'Life is never', as says the front cover of my Twenty Bites, 'just a bowl of cherries'. Whilst looking for something else in my Word files I came across this poem, written eighteen years ago by way of an obituary to an animal that shaped my life as surely as any human has shaped it. And Seth is still alive in the hearts and the minds of those who knew him...
A Place For Seth New Years Eve 1991
This pact he made with nature for himself,Not Dee nor me, the dog is ours no more.Now here's his place, this heathered grey brown shelf,Strong rocky arm flung round an ochre shoreOn which with her he'd run in flying sandAnd loved the cream-capped swell of ocean wave.Seth knew each salty smell of this sea-landAnd there is nowhere else he'd rather have;He looks across to Skye, as from the croft,And with the calling of the birds his normHe'll sleep through rain and shine of summers soft,In comfort feel each shaking winter storm.
Clean cuts sharp iron spade through root, black peat,We bend to place named urn and champion's scroll.Six rocks we, breathless, bring up from the beach,This celtic place Seth's memory shall extoll.In failing light and our sad task achievedWe go in silence, stumbling down the path.There was no bad in him for whom we grieveBut how we suffer in his aftermath.We ford the stream then pause, about we turnAnd just still see his cairn atop the mound:Already snow-birds drift o'er him we mourn'He's ours,' faint comes their melancholy sound.
As midnight nears the piper holds the stage,In Gaelic swirl brings in another age.Our glasses touch and then at last our eyes,Minds now with he who's gone, we know our prize:His final gift, last comfort, certain truth;The good each does alone surviveth death..
Too soon we leave this hard and long-loved placeFrom rain-swept brae we turn to distant shoreAnd there a dancing light, such wondrous grace -Oh Seth, our friend, we shall not miss you moreFor you will be the upsprung green of spring,Each dusty summer's calm fecundity,In autumn mists you will be lingeringWhite winters too shall hold your memory.Chloe, soon, again shall run fast by your sideAnd best of all for Dee and me it's trueYou'll see us from another puppy's eyes- And always there shall be this place for you.
Now: New Year's Day of nineteen ninety two***We'll soon be taking a walk back to that place by Red Point beach where Seth and afterwards his mate Chloe rest. And then a walk back in time before moving on into the adventure that is 2011.
A Place For Seth New Years Eve 1991
This pact he made with nature for himself,Not Dee nor me, the dog is ours no more.Now here's his place, this heathered grey brown shelf,Strong rocky arm flung round an ochre shoreOn which with her he'd run in flying sandAnd loved the cream-capped swell of ocean wave.Seth knew each salty smell of this sea-landAnd there is nowhere else he'd rather have;He looks across to Skye, as from the croft,And with the calling of the birds his normHe'll sleep through rain and shine of summers soft,In comfort feel each shaking winter storm.
Clean cuts sharp iron spade through root, black peat,We bend to place named urn and champion's scroll.Six rocks we, breathless, bring up from the beach,This celtic place Seth's memory shall extoll.In failing light and our sad task achievedWe go in silence, stumbling down the path.There was no bad in him for whom we grieveBut how we suffer in his aftermath.We ford the stream then pause, about we turnAnd just still see his cairn atop the mound:Already snow-birds drift o'er him we mourn'He's ours,' faint comes their melancholy sound.
As midnight nears the piper holds the stage,In Gaelic swirl brings in another age.Our glasses touch and then at last our eyes,Minds now with he who's gone, we know our prize:His final gift, last comfort, certain truth;The good each does alone surviveth death..
Too soon we leave this hard and long-loved placeFrom rain-swept brae we turn to distant shoreAnd there a dancing light, such wondrous grace -Oh Seth, our friend, we shall not miss you moreFor you will be the upsprung green of spring,Each dusty summer's calm fecundity,In autumn mists you will be lingeringWhite winters too shall hold your memory.Chloe, soon, again shall run fast by your sideAnd best of all for Dee and me it's trueYou'll see us from another puppy's eyes- And always there shall be this place for you.
Now: New Year's Day of nineteen ninety two***We'll soon be taking a walk back to that place by Red Point beach where Seth and afterwards his mate Chloe rest. And then a walk back in time before moving on into the adventure that is 2011.
December 31, 2010
A Year of Grace.
Farewell this year of grace, two thousand and ten! I know it is not perceived as a very good one for the nation but looking backwards through our own personal telescope it has not been at all negative. In many ways quite the reverse. And if I'm right 2010 will be written in history as the year the western world woke up; woke, that is, to learning how to live with peace and equilibrium 'stability' in place of that awful shiboleth of continual 'growth' that has all but succeeded in strangling our world.
But specifically ... In January we moved from our beloved Loch Ewe Cottage in Mellon Charles three miles down an ice-bound road into Kirkhill House. I must confess we had our doibts but by the time Dee had finished with it, (me too) Kirkhill proved to be definitely the most elegant and comfortable residence of the many I / we have in our lifetimes inhabited.
A vital part of our justification for moving to such a large house was the creation of Dee's Bed and Breakfast venture. This turned out to be a major success. Of course we needed to invest quite a bit pf money, creativity and energy on TV's, linen, food stocks, websites, signboards etc etc, and the workload (almost all on Dee) proved heavy enough for a lady no longer in the first flush of her youth. But the returns were there and the big bonus was in the interesting people, ninety percent continentals, who we have been pleased to entertain as our guests.
Our Pictures and Poems micro business made steady progress overall, especially in the Poolewe market if not in the local shops. The 2011 calendar proved especially popular. Having said that, the local business scene was much impacted early on by the Icelandic ash clouds and a recession that became more and more evident in declining house prices and pressure on visitor numbers. And a disappointing summer failed to shine often enough on the hills and the lochs and the islands.
It has not been a bad year for my original painting. Helped by a one man exhibition courtesy of the Gairloch Heritage Museum and by a handful of new commissions, sales and prices held up well.
But my personal focus has always been and remains on the writing of fiction. On this front 2010 has been a special year. In February I self-published my novel Going with Gabriel. Although I have thus far failed to get GwG the media attention that almost all who have read it say it deserves, sales have trickled along, and one day ... who knows? Then in November I self-published an anthology of my short fiction called Twenty Bites . This has achieved some outstanding reviews both in the local Press and on-line.
As the year ends my new writing web-site has come alive, thanks to Jackie West and partner, e-marketing gurus of Achnasheen! My site promises to deliver to subscribers a free of charge, brand new short story each and every month, starting January and throughout 2012. I have to admit this is a self-imposed tall order and there are moments when I feel like a jockey as the starting tapes fly up and I'm looking over the nodding head of my horse at a row of fences getting higher and higher as they disappear into the Grand National distance. (Actually January and February stories are already written so now it's fence three that looms large). So go on site and 'subscribe' and let me know what you think? Please
And please - have a good and a safe hogmanay and a thrilling, prodictive 2012. Never mind what the papers say, it's all down to us. Each one of us.
Should auld aquaintance be forgot ....
But specifically ... In January we moved from our beloved Loch Ewe Cottage in Mellon Charles three miles down an ice-bound road into Kirkhill House. I must confess we had our doibts but by the time Dee had finished with it, (me too) Kirkhill proved to be definitely the most elegant and comfortable residence of the many I / we have in our lifetimes inhabited.
A vital part of our justification for moving to such a large house was the creation of Dee's Bed and Breakfast venture. This turned out to be a major success. Of course we needed to invest quite a bit pf money, creativity and energy on TV's, linen, food stocks, websites, signboards etc etc, and the workload (almost all on Dee) proved heavy enough for a lady no longer in the first flush of her youth. But the returns were there and the big bonus was in the interesting people, ninety percent continentals, who we have been pleased to entertain as our guests.
Our Pictures and Poems micro business made steady progress overall, especially in the Poolewe market if not in the local shops. The 2011 calendar proved especially popular. Having said that, the local business scene was much impacted early on by the Icelandic ash clouds and a recession that became more and more evident in declining house prices and pressure on visitor numbers. And a disappointing summer failed to shine often enough on the hills and the lochs and the islands.
It has not been a bad year for my original painting. Helped by a one man exhibition courtesy of the Gairloch Heritage Museum and by a handful of new commissions, sales and prices held up well.
But my personal focus has always been and remains on the writing of fiction. On this front 2010 has been a special year. In February I self-published my novel Going with Gabriel. Although I have thus far failed to get GwG the media attention that almost all who have read it say it deserves, sales have trickled along, and one day ... who knows? Then in November I self-published an anthology of my short fiction called Twenty Bites . This has achieved some outstanding reviews both in the local Press and on-line.
As the year ends my new writing web-site has come alive, thanks to Jackie West and partner, e-marketing gurus of Achnasheen! My site promises to deliver to subscribers a free of charge, brand new short story each and every month, starting January and throughout 2012. I have to admit this is a self-imposed tall order and there are moments when I feel like a jockey as the starting tapes fly up and I'm looking over the nodding head of my horse at a row of fences getting higher and higher as they disappear into the Grand National distance. (Actually January and February stories are already written so now it's fence three that looms large). So go on site and 'subscribe' and let me know what you think? Please
And please - have a good and a safe hogmanay and a thrilling, prodictive 2012. Never mind what the papers say, it's all down to us. Each one of us.
Should auld aquaintance be forgot ....
December 30, 2010
100 not out?
Who really wants to live beyond their useful, healthy life?Define 'useful'. Define 'healthy'I don't have to; you know what useful is. And its opposite. Ditto healthyToday the government has announced (a) that one in five of the UK population, in the near future, will live for at least a hundred years and that (b) the UK's working population will not remotely be able to afford it / them.
Of course the government does not venture its opinion on the probable quality (or misery) of all these extended, probably unhealthy, definitely impecunious lives. And having stated the problem of course the government has proposed no possible solution beyond changing upwards the UK pensionable age and encouraging business to create more jobs for the old folk.
Laughable! The old folks don't want jobs they want money and security. In any case if jobs were all that 'goverment creatable' how come we have a million healthy but unemployed post-school youngsters and another half a million uselessly wasting their time and the nation's money avoiding unemployment in the universities?
I am a member of the Optimum Population Trust. I came across OPT on-line whilst researching my novel Going with Gabriel. People of renown, far more intellectual and knowledgeable than I, use the OPT to state their concern over populations and population growth, UK and world. For instance one claim is that the UK's population, standing at 60 millions and rising, is not really sustainable; that 17 millions is the optimum for these islands. For instance another claim is that, should all developing nations' populations aspire to our western levels of material consumption - as well they might and why not - 3.5 planet earths are required, not just the one we have. However it seems the worthy membership of the OPT are better at stating the problems than coming up with answers beyond a little anodyne handing out of contaceptives in remote parts of Africa or something.
Perhaps there really are no answers other than to await the fall of Mother Nature's mighty axe via pestilence or via wars or perhaps both at the same time.
Read Going with Gabriel!
Of course the government does not venture its opinion on the probable quality (or misery) of all these extended, probably unhealthy, definitely impecunious lives. And having stated the problem of course the government has proposed no possible solution beyond changing upwards the UK pensionable age and encouraging business to create more jobs for the old folk.
Laughable! The old folks don't want jobs they want money and security. In any case if jobs were all that 'goverment creatable' how come we have a million healthy but unemployed post-school youngsters and another half a million uselessly wasting their time and the nation's money avoiding unemployment in the universities?
I am a member of the Optimum Population Trust. I came across OPT on-line whilst researching my novel Going with Gabriel. People of renown, far more intellectual and knowledgeable than I, use the OPT to state their concern over populations and population growth, UK and world. For instance one claim is that the UK's population, standing at 60 millions and rising, is not really sustainable; that 17 millions is the optimum for these islands. For instance another claim is that, should all developing nations' populations aspire to our western levels of material consumption - as well they might and why not - 3.5 planet earths are required, not just the one we have. However it seems the worthy membership of the OPT are better at stating the problems than coming up with answers beyond a little anodyne handing out of contaceptives in remote parts of Africa or something.
Perhaps there really are no answers other than to await the fall of Mother Nature's mighty axe via pestilence or via wars or perhaps both at the same time.
Read Going with Gabriel!
December 28, 2010
Arts and the imagination
When colour photography first emerged it was generally supposed to signal the end of handpainted 'artworks'. Wrongly supposed we now know, for paintings and other artworks are still in high - and highly priced - demand. I wonder why this should be. If the camera - especially the digital camera - can so easily produce an instant and exact replication of a subject, why spend days and weeks representing same subject using brush and pigment etc?
Many learned books have been written promoting complex answers to this kind of a question but in my view it's simply about human imagination. The fact is that we all demand more than the physical from our world and from our lives. We demand the metaphysical, which is the strangely abstract intensity of feeling that can only be accessed through individual powers of imagination. These are the same powers that permit us to enjoy 'the arts' in the sense that our imagination meets and meshes that of the creative artist with a satisfying result. (I believe the modern scourge of chemical substances are merely tools to assist those with a self-believed deficiency of imagination.)
I was once told that Harvard Business School undertook an exhaustive study of 'the quality and identfication of leadership'. The result was published in a single sentence. 'Leadership is the quality in a person that encourages others to follow and is only identifiable when others follow.' In the same way, in relation to the arts, we can only say we know not what is art but we know it when we find it, when we experience it. In my own case: walking from a cinema having seen On The Waterfront; closing the book having read For Whom the Bell Tolls; sitting for hours in L'Orangerie in Paris, gazing as if hypnotised at Monet's amazing Water Garden paintings; listening over and over again to the gathering storm in Beethoven's Pastoral.
There is nothing new either in the metaphysical power of the arts or in the human psyche. Take another look at the 15,000 years old Lascaux cave paintings.
Many learned books have been written promoting complex answers to this kind of a question but in my view it's simply about human imagination. The fact is that we all demand more than the physical from our world and from our lives. We demand the metaphysical, which is the strangely abstract intensity of feeling that can only be accessed through individual powers of imagination. These are the same powers that permit us to enjoy 'the arts' in the sense that our imagination meets and meshes that of the creative artist with a satisfying result. (I believe the modern scourge of chemical substances are merely tools to assist those with a self-believed deficiency of imagination.)
I was once told that Harvard Business School undertook an exhaustive study of 'the quality and identfication of leadership'. The result was published in a single sentence. 'Leadership is the quality in a person that encourages others to follow and is only identifiable when others follow.' In the same way, in relation to the arts, we can only say we know not what is art but we know it when we find it, when we experience it. In my own case: walking from a cinema having seen On The Waterfront; closing the book having read For Whom the Bell Tolls; sitting for hours in L'Orangerie in Paris, gazing as if hypnotised at Monet's amazing Water Garden paintings; listening over and over again to the gathering storm in Beethoven's Pastoral.
There is nothing new either in the metaphysical power of the arts or in the human psyche. Take another look at the 15,000 years old Lascaux cave paintings.
