Story Mountain

Mountain by Alison Day 2014

Day 2 - my illustration for theme - Open Spaces - Prompt: #Mountain. #Spoonchallenge  via #spoonflower

Behind the Women

A short film about my series of artworks: '9 Women' - As they hang now on my living room wall in the way I had envisioned.

Film is not my forte, but in this short representation you will hear the story behind them plus get an idea of how they look from closeup 

© Alison Day Designs

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Blue Train Mural

Below is a short (amateur) film of a hand-painted mural (1 x 1 metre), I created for the wall of a young boy's bedroom. When asked what he wanted, he said: a blue train, with ten carriages, filled with animals and him driving the engine.

Although the mural no longer exists, I’ve written and published the story to the mural accompanied by a series of illustrations, which will soon be self-published as a children's storybook.

© Alison Day Designs

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What if...

... we weren't at the top of the food chain?
Via: Street Art Utopia

What's Hot, What's Not! - BMI – Travel the Bungling Mindless Idiots way!

Having notched up a fair few air miles over the years to a multitude of destinations around the world, I generally assume that when I touch down again so will my luggage.

Oh, how wrong can one be? This Christmas, what should have been a short jaunt from Schipol airport Amsterdam to London Heathrow turned into a guess where your luggage is marathon and an insight into what lying toads BMI are when they claim: ‘yes, madam your bag will be with you within 24 hours.’

Two of us were left standing helplessly at the carousel at Heathrow without our luggage. The helpdesk assured us that our luggage would re-appear and be delivered to wherever we were in the UK. At this point, I wasn’t that worried and was mildly amused by the jokes from the BMI personnel, who said that two missing bags was nothing per flight and that one had to experience everything in life at least once!

So, I continued my onward journey to Oxford and in the interim time bought some new makeup and borrowed underwear. But three days later, on Christmas Eve, when my luggage still hadn’t turned up I was getting worried and disappointed as I hadn’t planned on wearing the same outfit for three days.

After many frustrating phone calls, to what turned out to be a call centre in India, of all places, visits to the BMI website to track my luggage (totally useless, as it never seemed to get updated), and the attempt to find a real person to talk to at BMI in England, instead of a computerized voice, my luggage finally turned up.

The case was delivered by a man in an unmarked, white van: ‘Which one is yours?’ he said, as I peered into the back of the van, choc-a-block with lost cases. Ignoring the bumper deluxe Chanel suitcase, relieved, I dove for my own black suitcase, which incidentally was also full of my Christmas presents.

The story doesn't end there. A friend of mine, Kim, was less fortunate. Going through the same bungling procedure, her bag didn't turn up at all, even after 10 days. Yes, on Christmas Day she had no Christmas presents to give out BMI! Finally, being pretty annoyed she phoned BMI and offered to come and pick it up herself. At Heathrow she was ushered into what turned out to be an enormous hall filled wall to wall with thousands of suitcases. Here she found her luggage but what about the fate of the other bags? In a blonde moment BMI had removed all the labels with the baggage numbers, so now their job of re-uniting the lost bags with their owners was made even more hopeless.

In these high tech days it doesn't really promote ‘peace and goodwill to all men’, when one is unable to get an honest answer as to where ones luggage went from a computerized telephone voice. Also, wearing the same clothes for longer then two days and going out to buy interim underwear is a bore, when you know your case is full of all those lovely clothes specially packed for the festive season. So BMI, at the very least you owe me, Kim and all the other owners of the mislaid bags an apology and if you were feeling really generous…the next flight should be on you! 

Original Cartoon: Matt, Daily Telegraph, GB

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #19 Spring 2008 

Bollywood

My own experience of a Bollywood film came as a result of a trip to India and a visit to the local cinema in Jaipur, one evening. Treated to a fantastical spectacle in a cinema decorated with incredible opulence, I enjoyed a film, which was totally contradictory to the harsh realities of life in India.

Named after a combination of the name of the city Bombay (now known as Mumbai) and Hollywood, this is the Hindi film industry. Featuring a cast of thousands these musical glitz and glamour productions, often with a ‘boy meets girl’, storyline are perfect in their use of opulence and total escapism.

Starting with the first screening in 1899, Bollywood as an industry has grown to such an extent that it makes up to 800 films per year, with 14 million Indian people visiting the cinema every day in India alone. The same popular actors are featured in most of the films, which results in an actor/actress often being busy filming for more than one film at a time.

Seemingly, Bollywood’s appeal is on the increase as this has led to big US film companies, such as Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox setting up offices in India with obviously an idea for future collaboration.

With an Oscar nomination for ‘Lagaan’, in 2002 Bollywood films have been gathering momentum and have managed to cross over to the extent that they are now not just viewed by Indian families alone, but are also being shown in cinemas throughout the United Kingdom. Here, in Groningen at the Noorderzon Festival, a performing arts festival (and shortly to be seen at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival), the ‘Bollywood Mysterie’ was to be seen. A musical and visual feast of Indian music and film as portrayed by Gerry Arling with support from The Mondriaan Quartet, traditional Indian musicians and the spiritual music of the Californian composer, Terry Riley.

It is also possible that if you like the idea, you can sign up for Bollywood dancing lessons.

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #17 Autumn 2007