A Pilgrim, a Castle, a Tree

 And on Monday back to work. Happy New Year!

Paper heads

I like this artist (the last two images), she has made great illustrations for children's books, besides she is a painter, a kind of Neo-constructivist. The only thing about her illustrations for kids is that kids generally don't really like them. I imagine, and I also recall from my own childhood that they were too freaky, I could not figure out what they represented, they were too surreal. The colours have been always appealing though. Today I appreciate them and I like her books conceived as objects, which I had not known before. They are both hard to get or find at all. I needed to give a try to some of her paper heads. The little guy took over the job soon after I started. He said it was a good way to pass the time while he waits to go to see his friend. He made another one, more to his style and interests.

what is important

We said to the little guy: All that Minecraft stuff you rattle around... But what is really important for you in the real world? ... Except for love to mummy.
- Love to Daddy.
- Ok, I don't mean that. Is it basketball? Guitar? Maths? Sarah? Rosa?
- Happiness, he said after little thinking.
And seeing that we liked it he added: Happiness and love to mummy and daddy.

The parents have been satisfied.

outing in the fall

Chrudim? Why? They asked us after we said we had gone to Chrudim. Such a normal town. Just two or three medieval churches with sculpture work and renaissance tombstones around the walls, crazy plaque column composed like a cylinder of clouds with putti and Eucharist on top of it (two Christs, before and after) and ... a puppet museum in a Renaissance merchant house. Not counting everything else, like old houses, sculptures, a mill, streets, shops and so on. It was overcast that day, rainy, windy, the city deserted, the square empty. Perfect day for a discovery.

Paris

Paris in 2006

Project of the future house (of mine)

I started thinking some time ago what I would do if I end up with nothing. This has been haunting me as my worse nightmares, by the way, the picture is me living in a student dormitory again, brrr. So I started saving money for a little wooden cottage that I would build in my dad's garden which is kind of small, one of many in a larger garden colony, on the edge of the town where he lives. And I comforted so much to this idea about a small wooden house (see? not cottage, a house) that I actually like thinking about it and I think I am going to build it no matter what, or at least if the circumstances are in my favor. I have the perfect image of a sort of mini modernist villa, really a mini one, with a living area opening to the garden and two lodgings in the back, one for me and L. and the other one for D. (maybe when he is visiting, because this is going to take a while). And I will need to include a studio space in there too. This would go on the first floor or even in a separate building, this I leave for other decisions. The house could be a nice summer house, after all.
So you are probably wandering whether I am serious that I want something like I show in the pictures. Almost something like that. I made it while attending a kid's workshop in a kid's theater with Domík, the kids were supposed to build romantic houses, Domík did not want to have anything to do with it at first but I delved deeply in. The outcome much owes to the materials that I had at hand. But it still kind of resembles my vision. I am not going to have a cheetah, though.
I have collected some ideas for the house here.

...

The other day I was taking Domik home from the school, he was walking next to me, with his schoolbag on his back, a hat with a pompom, and he said: "I was telling the boys about the book your friend has in a bookshop [nudes by Helmut Newton], I was telling them there are breasts and buttocks there and maybe even the fronts..." He was popular that day at school.

Bubny

Today we walked around this part of the city, where a grand rebuilding is planned, at the place of the abolished train station and little around too. The plan is big and scary. Last month they pulled down several historical technical buildings that had been monuments and under the care, the resolution was later cancelled for obvious reasons. I am amazed how much they enjoy building. It might help the neighborhood at some places, that is sure, the rest will be just filled in.

edited:
The whole open area at Bubny train station, where the tracks are now, will be mostly filled in with large blocks of houses and supposedly a park. I don't know how the park will function. Will it be surrounded by apartment blocks or offices? If the second the park might turn into a ghost zone in the evenings and weekends. Some lift-up, on the other had, would do good around Holešovické nádraží, where they had smashed the old Holešovice back in the 1970s and 1980s, a typical periphery from the 1920s, mostly single houses and courtyards and small gardens. My dad liked walking there, he told me only recently. I have liked it too but I actually never saw it in real. Now the Holešovice railway station stands there, and wasted land around. It is obvious they had destroyed more that they could deal with. The first picture shows a house from the old Holešovice, it is and it has always been a pub, maybe a hotel long time ago.

Palace

Abandoned palace in the centre of Prague, opened for a couple of weeks on the occasion of a theater performance and an art show. Here are a few pics of details from the inside, the building is from the 19th century. We were walking in somebody's former apartments, the palace had been turned into separate living units and offices with immensely large rooms, high ceilings, white window shutters and views over the elevated highway. The stairway is fancy. The chairs - who knows where they come from, most likely they have been there since they were ultra modern.