Author: A. G. Moore

Catching Up

This was adapted from two Pixabay pictures: one of a tree and one of a man sleeping. It was the closing picture on a story I wrote recently (see below).

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I’ve been absent but I’ve been writing. I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve done.

In the political season, Twitter gets a lot of my traffic. If you care to check that out: https://twitter.com/A_G_Moore. My political beliefs are strong, but never hostile. As is true with many people these days, I’m looking for alternatives to most of the choices we are offered.

The world is always in flux–it just doesn’t look that way from a rear view mirror. Often, people speak of the old days as though issues were settled. But they never were. It’s just, sometimes things are a little more unsettled.

Besides Twitter, I’ve been blogging on Steemit. I wrote some nice stories, I think. I’ll cite the two most recent here, if you’d like to check them out. They are both sort of character sketches.

I think there are enough stories now for me to put together a collection. Nobody reads collections, particularly from unknown authors. But, anyway, I still might like to put them all together. You never know how something will work out unless you try it.

My latest post on Steemit is a research article about pigs, if you can believe that. My posts on Steemit alternate between creative writing and research. If you care about your health, my pig article might interest you. So many issues with pigs can impact other species, including humans.

Here’s the link:

Radioactive Pigs, Wild Pigs, Sick Pigs: The Trouble with Pigs Today

This is a hybrid piglet, descendant of wild boar and domestic pig

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I’ll put a link to my most recent stories here, also:

Larry: A Family Album

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And the other one:

Samuel: An Illustrated Story

Some of the pictures for the story were adapted from photographs I found on Pixabay. Here’s one of them:

This picture was derived from the landscape picture below. I just imagined the scene I wanted and used the original as a guide.

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You can find a lot of interesting material on Steemit. I know some people are suspicious of the blockchain. I’ve been blogging there since February of 2018. So far, nothing bad has happened to me.

I have met some interesting people. Here’s an article by one gentleman who has a WordPress blog, and a Steemit blog. His latest blogs featured a video by a clever young man who demonstrates how to create a blockchain. This really takes the mystery out of the technology.

I’ll post links to the WordPress site, and the Steemit blog:

First WordPress:

World of Chapper

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And then Steemit:

@chappertron

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I hope you don’t mind my extremely casual catching-up post.

I’ll be back soon!

by Categories: A G Moore, Blogginh, Creative WritingTags: , , Leave a comment

Playing Around, Having Fun

If you look closely at these lovely animals, you’ll see that they’re blinking. This is another one of my collages, created for a collage-making contest on Steemit. I wish I could share what some of the other participants in the contest came up with. Some entries are absolutely brilliant.

The contest, edition #20, is in progress right now. I haven’t got a chance of winning, but that’s not why I enter. I enter because it’s fun. Writing uses one set of muscles. Creating a picture, coming up with a concept and putting all the elements together, that calls on another set of muscles.

I just love looking at the animals in my collage, who are looking back at me. The picture is made of three parts. The wistful animal at the top was provided by @shaka, who runs this contest most weeks on Steemit. The lamb was taken from a Pixabay picture, and the resting cattle were from another Pixabay pixture. The hard part was getting the grass from the separate pictures to blend. I used GIMP (photo manipulation program) to do that.

If you’ve read this far, you deserve a treat. So here it is, a video of a sweet, very young goat that really wants to get another pet under the chin:

Thanks for reading. I’ll try to be back soon!

by Categories: A G Moore, Art, Blogging, SteemitTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Literati Painting: A Synthesis of Art and Meditation

This is a digitally constructed collage. I put together pieces from different classic Chinese paintings and tried to mimic the style of a fourteen-century literati artist.

I’ve done research on China in the past, especially Chinese traditional art, and have written about it here and here. This week I decided to start writing a new book about China. I will use art as a reference point and bracket that reference between two centuries–the fourteenth and twentieth. And I will focus my attention on one city that just happens to straddle the Yangzte River: Chongqing.

Credit

It was Chongqing that became the last stronghold of the free Chinese in WWII (Second Sino-Japanese War). And it was there that fierce resistance by the Southern Song Dynasty held invading Mongols off for years.

Why art? Because in China, art has been a vessel for culture and tradition. Through conquest and revolution, art has endured. I find that to be especially true in the literati tradition.

A Word About the Picture at the Top of the Page

The picture was prompted by a contest on Steemit, which I enter every time it’s open. In the contest we are challenged by a fellow Steemian, @shaka, to make a collage from one of his photos. Rank amateurs (like me) and graphic artists participate. Sometimes a good idea prevails over skill…that gives me hope. However, I don’t enter to win. I enter to have fun.

Here’s @shaka’s photo, as it appeared before I made the collage:

Here are the elements that went into my collage:

[By the way, emulating, or even copying an artist is considered to be an homage, in the literati tradition]

The tree was extracted from this picture:

Wu Zhen Fishermen section.steemit 2,5x562,2cm._ca._1340._Freer.public.jpg

Fishermen, by Wu Zhen. China, fourteenth century. Public domain.

The meditating gentleman was extracted from this picture:

Ni_Zan_Portrait_Yuan2.jpg

Ni_Zan_Portrai_Yuan, unknown author. China, Yuan Dynasty (approximately fourteenth century). Public domain

The lotus flowers were extracted from this picture:

lotus.jpg


Pink and White Lotus, unknown artist. China, Yuan Dynasty. Public domain.

The birds were taken from this picture:

Loquats steemit and_Mountain_Bird anonymous public.jpg

Loquats and Mountain Bird, by anonymous. China, fourteenth century. Public domain.

The ducks, reeds and characters were taken from this picture:

Ducks_steemit and_Reeds_MET_47_18_19.jpg

Ducks and Reeds, by Lin Liang. China, fifteenth century. Public domain.

The hint of chrysanthemum was extracted from this picture:

chrysanthemum steemit public Xian'e_Changchun_Album_08.jpg

Xian’e Changchun Album 08, by Guiseppe Castilione. Between 1722-1725. Public domain.

If you’d like to see the blog that accompanied this collage, you can find it on Steemit. It’s called The Brain: Meditation, Flow and Literati Art.

I’ll try to post a new chapter for my book once a week. That’s going to be a challenge, but I might as well aim high 🙂

by Categories: A. G. Moore, Art, Blogging, China, History, WritingTags: , , 3 Comments