Tag: Octopus

Random thoughts (and drawings)

January and February have never been my favorite months—it’s still SO DARK! Usually I’m a morning person, but I find myself feigning sleep so the dog doesn’t ask to be let out at 7 a.m. She also has to be dressed, alas. See below the latest in dachshund winter fashion…


We have been deprived of many little pleasures of normal life: sharing a bottle of wine and a nice meal with friends (preferably prepared and served by someone else!), wandering around an art exhibition, taking in a show…Moreover, in any wanderings we are surrounded by people wearing masks, so even exchanging a smile is not the same.

We are lucky at least that we can enjoy some entertainment at home. I really enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit (about chess) and Dickinson (a very amusing takeoff on the poet’s early life), and a wonderful documentary called My Octopus Teacher. Remember I wrote about An Octopus in my House (A strange Pet)?Well, this one is even more remarkable, since it is filmed in the wild, underwater, in a kelp forest. Highly recommended. Unfortunately, it has quite put me off eating octopus, which I used to love. But, it inspired me to make an ink drawing.



There is only so much screen time I can take, but I’m a bookworm, so I’ve devoured some of my TBR pile: Where the Crawdads Sing,  by Delia Owens, about a girl growing up in a swamp—wonderful), two cozy mysteries: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Oscan (very entertaining) and The Guest List by Lucy Foley (a page-turner), a thriller called Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins (another page-turner). On a totally different note, Fresh Water for Flowers by Valerie Perrin (about a woman caretaker of a cemetery). And finally a memoir called The Lightless Sky, by Gulwali Passarlay, describing his journey, as a twelve-year-old boy, from Afganistan to the UK (mind-boggling). 

I do love to have a couple of books on the go, so now I’ve started Girl, Woman, Other, which won the Booker Prize for writer Bernadine Evaristo, together with The Mirror and the Light, the last in the Cromwell trilogy by Hilary Mantel (a huge slab, but I loved the first two, so I will persevere). I’m also dipping into The Lemon Table, short stories by Julian Barnes. Hope this list will inspire some of you.

Apart from chilly walks wrapped up in layers like an onion, I’ve also been drawing. I finished up a few Christmas present comissions.



The ones above inspired me to make a large elephant pencil drawing.

 



I find I’m more in the mood for drawing than painting at the moment. I added a couple of drawings to my ‘Travelers’ series.

 



My resolution for this year is to include more human figures in my work, and even, dare I say it, some portraits. I find I always collect portrait photos because I so admire the capability of artists to reproduce likeness and expression. I’m also drawn to portraits in museums because they show so much about each era. So perhaps it’s time to try for myself.



A strange pet

Octopus makes a frequent appearance on the menu in a Greek diet, either simply boiled and served with vinegar, or grilled over charcoal. It’s offered in fish tavernas as part of the starters, and tentacles hanging on a line to dry in the sun can be seen in seaside villages and on the islands. It is delicious. 

My taste for it, however, was somewhat diminished after watching a fascinating documentary called An Octopus in my House. Marine biologist Professor Scheel of Anchorage, Alaska, finding himself with an empty living room after his ex had absconded with most of the furniture, brings in a huge saltwater tank into which he installs a large blue octopus, which is treated as a pet by him and his 16-year-old daughter, Lauren. They proceed to observe its behavior and, basically, make friends with it.

 

 

 

The film does not try to be strictly scientific, although it is interspersed with footage from studies of octopuses in Sidney and Indonesia. It marvels at the amazing properties of an astonishing animal, which has three hearts, blue blood and no skeleton. Heidi, as Scheel and his daughter name their pet because she spends the first few days hiding in her den, soon joins in the fun and seems to enjoy their company, glueing herself to the glass wall of her tank while they watch television, wrapping her tentacles round Lauren’s hands and sending sprays of water up her sleeves, as well as playing with various objects they introduce her to, such as the LEGO house below. Being a day octopus means she is active in the daytime, and she entertains her hosts with dramatic shifts of form, color and even texture. Watching her change colors while she sleeps, they even guess she might be dreaming.

 

 

I watched the film with two 12-year-old boys who  found it as riveting as I did (it also made a change from anime!). One question, however, was not addressed in the film: how they cleaned the tank, which always looked pristine, with crystal clear water. Also they never seemed to worry about being bitten, although octopuses are fearsome predators with venomous beaks. 

Should you come upon this BBC Two documentary, I highly recommend it. Here is a taste below.