Currant Fare

I wasn't planning on gardening today, but you know how it goes? Pick up a leaf and throw a twig in a bucket and before you know it, you have a pair of secateurs in hand, you're on a mission and everything gets pruned!

The blackcurrants certainly did need picking, but it doesn't end at that. The plant then has to be cut back right back, leaving the new branches for the next season. In the moment, I thought why not—take the time? Repetitive, mantra-like, as I plucked the tiny, purple, vitamin C bombs from the branches, I found myself thinking about how, I inevitably was destroying the habitat of some bug or other. I could feel the reproach, from an enormous grey spider, swinging from the remnants of her web and of the bright green grasshoppers, pinging all over the place. A plastic-looking earwig looked quite pissed off, or maybe it's just their demeanor. All had to relocate, with one consolation, I left the berries that fell for any passing takers. Immediately, a big fat slug, smelling the berries, advanced, amazingly fast for a slug, out of the poppies, to claim and gorge itself on a berry bigger than its head.

My prize, the berries you see in the photo above, weighing in at a grand 340 g. As I sit on the garden bench relaxing, I wonder what will be next on the harvest agenda, before the leaves start to fall: tomatoes, grapes, blackberries...

Currently, I'm writing an E-Course. It's for anyone wishing to take time for themselves creatively, develop their knowledge, as well as meet others of a like mind. Regardless your artistic experience or creative level—so that includes you!

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© Alison Day 2018

Alison Day Design 

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Geometric & Organic

Geometric & Organic by Alison Day

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Breadtopia

“Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread. Without it, it’s flat.” - Carmen McRae

There's nothing more disappointing, whilst on the run, than grabbing 'a-sandwich-to-go' only to find that the bread is less than acceptable. 

The momentary illusion of a tasty sandwich, created by the attractive packaging, its filling promising satiation, is immediately dashed by the first bite; the filling runs off in terror, the bread shrinks into a glutinous lump and then proceeds to stick to the roof  of one's mouth. Swallow, and it dawns on me that this 'bread' has only just started its journey, and has a long way to go... Ugh!

It is with this in mind that I rejoice at the movement of the real bread movement, where the baking of bread is artful - the use of the best organic ingredients, perfect preparation, and the pimping of the worn out old homely-style bakery establishment to one befitting the sale of real bread.

Photos of Blé Bakery on Agias Sofias in Thessaloniki, Greece 
Via: The Cool Hunter
Blurb: © Alison Day Designs

Cocoagraph

What a super idea for a gift... 

A Philadelphia-based confectionery company, Cocoagraph, will take your precious photo moments and create a handmade chocolate bar printed on edible ‘Polaroid-style' photo paper. Available in four flavours milk, white, dark or organic dark chocolate. All you have to do is upload your photo, choose the frame size and design, and they will do the rest.

Via: DesignTaxi 

Squirrel it Away

This unique masterpiece of a female torso is realised in birch wood and includes a set of small velvet-lined drawers. Multifunctional: furniture; sculpture and jewellery box. Using only natural materials in his designs, his work is a challenge to 'your perceptions of traditional furniture
For more: Peter Rolfe

The 'Monkey Rock' Groningen

The building of the Gasunie (Gas Corporation HQ) or ‘Apen Rots’, (Monkey Rock) sits defiantly on the outskirts of Groningen in all its 87 metres of blue and sandy coloured glory. This is the head quarters where the distribution of natural gas is controlled.

Consisting of two wings each with seventeen floors, the two wings form one angle of a pentagram at 108 degrees with each other. At the adjoining point of these wings the complex is opened up by lifts and a staircase. The staircase leans on a column in the form of a tuning fork, the stairs of which are turned 4.5 degrees per floor. The effect created by the interior gives rise to the building being named the ‘Monkey Rock’. The building covers an area of 45.000 m² and, from initial design to completion, took from 1989 to 1994,at a cost of € 63,50 million.

The Gasunie was designed by architects Alberts & Van Huut Ltd., in Amsterdam. Their vision before starting a project is to envisage the human being as the inspirational starting point, and then to design around this idea, so that the building not only fits in with its landscape but with the city it is placed in as well. It is most important that its human occupants can relate to the building and feel comfortable as they use it, either as an environment to live or work in. 

This organic style of building started in 1925, and continues to the present day. The style of this expressionist movement can be found to have influences from Art Nouveau and the architecture of the anthropological movement. Use of the mathematical Golden Ratio or Phi is often used in the construction. Also the relation between exterior and interior as well as the use of natural materials and colours, as opposed to monotone colouring, are an important part of the style.

Other architects who not only used the organic style in their work, but also were inspired by man and the natural world were, Antoni Gaudi, as well as a few of the modernists, such as Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Hans Scharoun.

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design

First published in the Connections magazine #11 Spring 2006