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Frances Livings

Songwriter | Multi-lingual Singer | Author | Poet

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- Waters of March und der Zyklus des Lebens
New Release Coyote Moon

The Butterfly

The Butterfly

Pinned like a butterfly
drowned in formalin
caught in your net
like a specimen

I stare at the ceiling
wings spread out wide
an object of study
but not of desire

Frances Livings © 2006

Emmanuelle-Brisson_Lair-frissonne-des-choses-qui-senfuient-08 — © Emmanuelle Brisson

Emmanuelle-Brisson_Lair-frissonne-des-choses-qui-senfuient-01 — © Emmanuelle Brisson

Emmanuelle-Brisson_Lair-frissonne-des-choses-qui-senfuient-07 — © Emmanuelle Brisson

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frances_livings

❖ Jazz in French, Spanish, English w Ipanema Lounge
❖ Author, poet & songwriter
❖ Voice-over actor
❖ Listen to 🌙 Coyote Moon here ▼

🌿 Avoir un cœur d’artichaut 🌿 Meaning: t

🌿 Avoir un cœur d’artichaut 🌿
Meaning: to fall easily in love

Literal translation: to have an artichoke heart

There are so many magical fruits (I had written about pomegranates a while ago) so imagine my delight when I came across this French proverb! Artichokes, you probably know, are a vegetable where layers of leaves protect the edible part – its ‘heart’. 💚 Originally, the French expression was slightly longer, "cœur d’artichaut, une feuille pour tout le monde", which translates to “artichoke heart, one leaf for everyone”, the meaning being “lots of leaves, lots of loves”. ❤

Makes me also think of the beautiful jazz song "I fall in love too easily" by Chet Baker.

#vegetables #magicalmoments #songwriting #artichokes #artichaut #lovesongs #foodinsta #foodart

🌿 I have to be really honest: Being a "messy pe

🌿 I have to be really honest: Being a "messy perfectionist" and an HSP is a great recipe for under-estimating and over-doubting oneself. A psychological double-whammy, which is why I often struggle with finishing things.
I've never had a creative block in whatever genre I've worked in, it's more like an overwhelming sense of being sensually and creatively over-flooded with ideas and possibilities. So I'm working on it and have to start patting myself on the back when I have the courage to decide; be slightly bored and “just” do the nitty gritty and – FINISH things!
One song I recently completed (and am actually very happy with 😳) is "Prussian Blue", which is why I thought I'd share this colour chart with you – having just posted about the colour yellow. Prussian blue is the third colour from the top.

From top to bottom: Ultramarine Blue (PB29), Cobalt Blue (PB28), Prussian Blue (PB27), Viridian (PG18), Cadmium Yellow (PY35), Yellow Ochre (PY43), Burnt Umber (PBr7)
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#pigments #art #artist #artwork #painting #kunst #malerei #peinture #fineart #yellow #blue #colours #colors #ultramarineblue #cobaltblue #HSP #perfectionists #Prussianblue #Viridian #Cadmiumyellow #Yellowochre #Burntumber #colourpalette #songwriting #songs #femalesongwriter #indiemusic #indiemusician #lyrics #lyricist

🌿 On this date exactly, only 136 years ago, on

🌿 On this date exactly, only 136 years ago, on September 28, 1888, Vincent van Gogh sent his brother Theo a description and a sketch of one of his latest compositions saying:

“…a 30 square canvas representing the house and its setting under a sulphur sun under a pure cobalt sky. The theme is a hard one! But that is exactly why I want to conquer it. Because it is fantastic, these yellow houses in the sun and also the incomparable freshness of the blue. All the ground is yellow too. I will soon send you a better drawing of it than this sketch out of my head…”

🎨 It is apparent and well-known that he was quite obsessed with the colour yellow in Arles, where he had rented four rooms in a house on Place Lamartine (southern France). You can see it in the painting: the building with the green front door, next to it a window to the sitting room and upstairs, famously the two bedrooms, one of which he invited Paul Gauguin to stay in. This is the very bedroom for which he painted his sunflowers, to adorn the walls and to greet his guest. Van Gogh was exited. Thus, the friendship culminated in tragedy…

This painting is now on a very rare loan at the very recently opened exhibition, Poets and Lovers, at the National Gallery in London from 14 September 2024 until 19 January 2025.

💛 But the reason I am telling you this is because I am working on a piece – a song, a spoken word piece maybe – about the colour yellow, which has not only got some wonderful paintings to be inspired by but even has an interesting history a as a pigment.

The Yellow House (The Street)
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Arles, September 1888
Oil on canvas, 72 cm x 91.5 cm
Copyright: The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

#pigments #art #classicalmodern #paintings #artist #VanGogh #exhibition #artwork #painting #architecture #kunst #fineart #yellow #yellowhouse #colours #colors

First impressions back in West Hollywood— all th

First impressions back in West Hollywood— all the while trying to beat the heat.

If in Hamburg… don’t miss this exhibition of t

If in Hamburg… don’t miss this exhibition of the Berliner painter Werner Scholz one of the so-called forgotten artists of the 1930s, en par with George Grosz and Otto Dix. It will be closing on Sunday June 9, 2024. Contact me for an exclusive tour of these unusual paintings from 1927-37 - before Scholz was defamed by the Nazis and left Germany in 1939.
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#germanart #neuesachlichkeit #artexhibition #artexhibitions2024 #artingermany #germanartist

Shame, that's it's just been left to rot – a gre

Shame, that's it's just been left to rot – a greenhouse from the 1950s, built on the foundation of an even older one from the 1840s, that housed a collection of orchids and other tropical plants (which were exclusive and expensive rarities in the early 19th century). It's not only one of my favourite parks in Hamburg but it of course inspired me to take some pictures because it also made me think of one of my most popular French recordings, "Jardin d'hiver"!

T'was a cold February day. I'm sitting at my desk

T'was a cold February day. I'm sitting at my desk and watching the sun (only faintly discernable on the right) trying to push through the glum and gloomy fog. The next thing I know, I'm at an art exhibition looking at that very same motif. Only – the sun has actually managed to push its way through the haze in thick paint with circling brushstrokes – like a symbol used in Japanese calligraphy and Zen meditation. It represents the state of mind at the moment of creation and symbolizes absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and the void.

#WernerScholz #art #landscapes #northerngermany #gloomy #painting #20thcenturyart #winter

The pod. The Gisela. The ultimate cloud spectacle.

The pod. The Gisela. The ultimate cloud spectacle.

👏 That smug feeling you have after a rainy day

👏 That smug feeling you have after a rainy day full of bookkeeping, tidying, and cleaning...

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Featured Recordings

<a href="https://franceslivings.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-i-am-livings-in">The World I Am Livings In by Frances Livings</a>

<a href="https://franceslivings.bandcamp.com/album/a-breath-she-took">A Breath She Took by Frances Livings</a>

More Blog Posts

Novembersonne
Moon Songs. Coyote Moon
Moon Songs. Mr. Moon
Livings in Los Angeles – Ant Man, Teddy and Rabbit. Thoughts on the Artist Mike Kelley
Participation in an Audio Guide and Interview for a Podcast
The Healing Powers of Sound
The World I Am Livings In
My Spanish Repertoire

Index

Index

Your Comments

Frances Livings: Weltenwandlerin zwischen Musik, Poesie, Kunst und Natur - MassivKreativ on Livings In Los Angeles. Public Parks and Gardens and their Impact on Mental Health and the Creative Mind
Frances Livings on Aganjú ~ Music and Spirituality
Moon Bourjolly on Funeral Blues ~ Songs and Poems about Death
Songs of the Soul ~ In Memory of Zane Musa (1979 - 2015) - Frances Livings on Songs of the Soul
Reeks on Aganjú ~ Music and Spirituality

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