Those designers at Holstee have been busy again, this time revving up their Manifesto Poster into a awesome new video. Love it! Via Brainpickings.
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Cirque de Nomades
Cirque de Nomades; Art & Travel Omnibus
To Cirque de Nomades Readers,
Sometimes I have trouble writing, I have trouble drawing, I struggle to get in touch with the creative energy inside. Now I’m sure you are all aware of this in your own ways – it’s often known as ‘Writers Block’ that almost physical pain you feel when looking at a blank page. I found a few articles on the subject; there’s some interesting advice around but it is quite generic and I feel, not aimed at the traveling artist.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself
- Try to have a schedule
- Walk away and come back to the project later
- Set yourself reasonable deadlines
etc, etc. I found these and other’s in a quick google search (http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingroadblocks/tp/block.htm) but they all end up with the same advice, what I want though is real advice from the traveling crowd of artists that are out there because our world is detached from the ‘Art as a Job’. Please leave me a comment below the article.
Now, let’s see where my mind takes me, how do I deal with things.
I know that I first started writing in my teens, on various home grown blog’s to my wordpress account and then finally I left it all to boil away, the reason for this was, depression. Not from the writing but from my own realities, my own life. Looking back now I can see in my writing the emotions I was struggling to deal with, don’t get me wrong, it is very typical of teenage angst and the normal trouble with growing up. Unfortunately I couldn’t cope with the pressure anymore and ended up writing for my audience rather than myself (300~ish unique readers per day) this was my personal blog.
Now I am back to writing, when I sit and look at a blank page I have a ritual. To start I think about the past, the present and the future. I do this so I can understand who I am, where I came from and where I am going next. I find to get in touch with my individuality allows me to then pour that onto the page. The next step is to find my inspiration, luckily I have books surrounding me at all times, from my novels I read to my diaries of my travels, and then ofcourse – photo’s. Type, let my fingers do the talking….Oh and send to editor.
Thank you for surviving to the end of my little bit of self examination. Please leave us a comment – we really do love to hear from you and I would love to know how you beat writers block.
Posted In: Inspiration
He’s juggled and journaled from one half of the globe to the other. But alas, with a broken hand, there isn’t much juggling for the time being. From Cirque de Nomades, get well soon our Juggler!
The Golden Age of Travel – Rediscover travel destinations both nearer home and far away. Sit back and wander around this huge and extensive collection of fantastic travel posters from the early half of the 20th century.
The five images above are a small selection from the 350 posters that you can navigate online courtesy of the Boston Public Library’s Print Department’s flickr page.
Posted In: Inspiration, Art
Husband and wife musical duo, Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou, are no strangers to travel. They have toured their folk music in village halls, tin tabernacles and last year by boat on the Kennet and Avon Canal – Trevor’s short film of which ‘On Big Water’ can be seen here.
Having myself been travelling since Trevor and Hannah’s village hall tour a couple of years ago, sadly I missed out on tabernacles and boats.
But to mark the release of their album ‘Quality First, Last & Forever’ in the USA (and obviously in compensation for putting on two excellent tours while I was out of the country) the couple are offering their single ‘Spin Me A Rhyme’ for free download. Thank you guys! Visit their news page here for details.
Posted In: Inspiration, Music
Imagine if your eyesight was suddenly taken away from you. For a brief time your world would fall to pieces as you awaken to the extent you rely on sight to interpret what is around you. But then may come a sense of calm and confidence as you become re-born, discover new ways of seeing and realise that through sight it’s all too easy to perceive the surface and miss what is underneath.
‘A Sense of the World’ by Jason Roberts is a dense historic biography peppered with poetry and humour revealing the life of one of the worlds most extraordinary travelers, “The Blind Traveler”, James Holman.
Who is James Holman? Jason Roberts, Author of ‘A Sense of the World’:
“James Holman was a whirlwind of incongruities: an intrepid invalid (at times simultaneously incapable of standing up and standing still), a poet turned warrior turned wanderer, a solitary man who remained deeply engaged with humanity. His adventures were neither acts of machismo nor self-aggrandizing stunts – they were, as he put it, a means “to enter into the business of life… communion with the world and its multiplying delights.”
Born in 1786 and raised in Exeter, Holman had a brief career in the Navy during which he was taken ill and became blind (which for the reader of this book preludes a disquieting account of medical practice and supposed cures of the era).
Although this put an end to his Navy career, after struggling with the loss of his sight and learning to be blind, Holman went on to be one of the worlds most prolific and accomplished travelers and writers – even though his work was ridiculed by other travelers of the time who denounced his work as nothing more than rumour and hearsay due to Holman’s lack eyesight.
Holman’s response to this criticism:
“I am constantly asked, and I may as well answer the question here once for all, what is the use of traveling to one who cannot see? … The picturesque in nature, it is true, is shut out from me, and works of art are to me mere outlines of beauty, accessible only to one sense but perhaps this very circumstance affords a stronger zest to curiosity, which is thus impelled to a more close and searching examination of details than would be considered necessary to a traveler who might satisfy himself by the superficial view.”
The message that flows from Holman’s life story seems to be relevant to modern day travel. Higher awareness of the social and environmental impacts of physical sight seeing is inspiring modern day travelers to seek something more than a journey that fades from the present moment into static snapshots, tagged and imprisoned within an online photo album.
As the world becomes seen and documented in it’s entirety, accessible in virtual form to anyone with an internet connection, physical sight seeing becomes more of a checklist – seen it, been there, done that.
The next step becomes a shift of consciousness, to journey beyond sight, the visual sense and the superficial. To journey for experience, emotions, feelings and achieve a deeper connection with the places and people captured in the photographs. It starts to matter little where we are visually when the emphasis of the journey moves from seeing the physical world to the experience and interpretation of it.
Jason Robert’s fantastically thorough account detailing the life of the previously little known ‘Blind Traveler’ is a rewarding read and just the beginning of a further literary journey.
For those who wish to read more, thanks to the marvelous ways of the modern digital world, Holman’s original work lives on. Being out of copyright, six of his books are freely available in digital format through Project Gutenburg and the Internet Archive.
Posted In: Inspiration, Book
Here’s a great music discovery made a few years ago amid the rolling green countryside of Monmouthshire at a fantastic little festival called the Croissant Neuf Summer Party. Nice to see The Travelling Band still going strong. Here they are performing their single, Sundial, at Shambala courtesy of Secret Sessions. I’ll definitely be looking out for them on this years festival circuit.
Posted In: Inspiration, Music
Branded bookmarks for book exchange & some fliers too!
Un missionnaire du moyen âge raconte qu’il avait trouvé le point où le ciel et la Terre se touchent … (A medieval missionary tells that he had found the point where heaven and earth touch). Also titled “The Spiritual Pilgrim Discovering another world.”
This woodcut print, our latest headline artwork, is from an unknown artist of the 19th century, illustrating a journey and discovery of a world beyond.
An attractive and suitable illustration that expresses being open to learn, that there is always something more to gather from experience but only if we allow ourselves to see it. The same journey may be taken over and over again but with an open mind we cease to impose the limitation that there is nothing more to realise or attain from our own course of life.
The Pilgrim, first published in the Frenchman Camille Flammarion’s book ‘Popular Astronomy’ in 1879, has been coloured over the years including the form you see above and has been used by many people, including Carl Jung, to illustrate astronomical and spiritual themes.
See our previous headline art here: Caspar David Friedrich’s The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog.
Art inspired by a Journey? Journeys inspired by Art?… Show us here
Posted In: Headline Art
Encountering the Artist by The Professional Hobo is a short story of artistic discovery through travel… Having the courage to step forward through an unfamiliar door, by chance revealing the creative world of Spanish painter, Toro Bravo.
“Feeling a streak of shyness, I sidled up to the doorway in a way where I couldn’t be seen, to read the sign on the door…drats – all in Spanish, of course.
But this is what travel is about for me; pushing myself beyond a comfort zone, satisfying curiosities, and expanding personal boundaries. I realized if I didn’t go inside, I would forever wonder what this man – and this tiny art gallery – was all about.
With that, I stepped inside, and in a combination of broken Spanish and charades asked if I could take a look at his art.
Take the step yourself, walk through the streets of Alcaca near Madrid and enter that doorway…
read on & discover more at The Professional Hobo.com
Many thanks to The Professional Hobo for permission to feature this story.
Tucked away in Hong Kong Park behind the hustle and bustle of central Hong Kong is Flagstaff House. Originally the office and residence of the commander of the tea sipping British Forces in Hong Kong, this historic building now houses the Hong Kong Museum of Art’s Museum of Tea Ware and a huge range of teapots and tea related items. The selection you see above, which I felt we had to share here, is just a tea-ny tiny piece of the many spectacular and surprising designs on display from the Tea Ware by Hong Kong Potters competition, the winning design and first prize of which can be found here.
If you’re in Hong Kong, add this to your list. Especially as it’s free to enter and – as I found in May – a refreshing oasis away from the heat, bustle and intensity of the busy city. When you’re done head back to the city to discover what Bubble Tea is all about.
Don’t miss this for all the tea in China.
On display until Feb 2012, press release here.
Posted In: Inspiration, Art
We Could Not Agree More with these inspiring words from the designers Holstee who, as they say, ‘wrote a manifesto but never wrote a business plan’. Viewed millions of times across the interwebs, we thought our site would be incomplete without sharing it. Visit Holstee, here.
What’s this? A creation, simple but effective. The particular example you see to the left a sentimental gift from one traveler to another.
The requirements are minimal: a section of old log, a variety of drill bits and if you really want to polish it off, some sandpaper and varnish.
Click below to see some colour images.
Thank you Alex, for this inspirational make.
Inspire us.
Show us your makes, constructs and creations.
Excerpt: “If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest – in all it’s ardour and paradoxes – than our travels. They express, however inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of work and the struggle for survival. Yet rarely are they [our travels] considered to present philosophical problems – that is, issues requiring thought beyond the practical. We are inundated with advice on where to travel to; we hear little of why and how we should go – though the art of travel seems naturally to sustain a number of questions neither so simple nor so trivial and whose study might in modest ways contribute to an understanding of what the Greek philosophers beautifully termed eudaimonia or human flourishing.”
Click to view this book on Amazon
Hang on in there and The Art of Travel by Alain De Botton could just be one of the most mind expanding book you read… Full of snippets of wordage the design of which will have you stopping and thinking; interspersed by imagery from artists including Edward Hopper, Ruskin and Van Gough.
The particularly well chosen cover image says it all: having the world pass by through a window is an ideal compliment to passing your gaze over the pages of this book.
See more from Botton’s ‘Art of Travel’ through the Tate online here. More work from Edward Hopper can be seen at MoMA here.
Posted In: Inspiration, Book
From an artists paradise amid the depths of the Southern Alps, New Zealand, welcome to the opening of Cirquedenomades.com!
We wish for you to discover & be inspired.
You can expect articles, artwork, links & reviews to appear here at times. In the mean time we link you to a video & tune from Katzenjammer and if you’re wondering about the wanderer up top… wander this way.
Keep check… follow us on Facebook & Twitter for teasers & treats. Use RSS to be notified of new posts. You might even want to arrive here the old fashioned black & white way by manually steering your world wide web window towards www.cirquedenomades.com
Welcome to our stage for all things art & travel.
Posted In: News
Kicking and jiving off with a bit of music to accompany your window gazing travels; here’s that Norwegian folk pop band Katzenjammer, understood to have played Glastonbury this year.
This sprightly and vivacious group were introduced to me by a friend met during travels in Australia who is also a good graphic designer and sketch artist. This music became the soundtrack to many nights relating stories around the fire at the Flying Fox Hostel in the Blue Mountains. Definitely a Must have on my playlist of perambulation at the moment. Enjoy.
Posted In: Inspiration, Music
