Paradigm erm what? A word adventure.

I have been thinking again.................. I know, I know, what am I doing that for?

It all started with a simple tweet from @zebraspolkadots, and a link to her blog post Claiming A New Paradigm...For Myself. This post intrigued me, in fact just the word 'paradigm' grabbed my attention. So then she wrote this post Claiming A New Paradigm For Myself-Part 2  and finally part 3.

Paradigm is/was one of those words that registered somewhere is this brain of mine, but I wasn't sure why and it what context I had heard the word previously. So I decided to go on a google adventure of sorts, find the origin of my paradigm memory and then try to understand the context in which @zebraspolkadots intended in her posts. My brain has felt more than flabby lately and I fully admit to not knowing everything, even though at times I act like the worlds biggest smart arse. Why pretend to understand something when I plainly don't?  It is exciting and challenging learning new things,so hold onto your hats, because I may confuse you, as much as I confuse myself with this post.

First I insert 'Paradigm' into the great googly moogly and trawl through the results until I get a 'Bingo!' moment. That is when I read something that either tickles a memory and/or makes sense to me.

The bare bones definition is:

The word paradigm ( Greek:παράδειγμα (paradigma),composite from para- and the verb δείχνυμι "to show", as a whole -roughly- meaning "example") has been used in linguistics and science to describe distinct concepts.

A more realistic definition for me:

The most annoying and misused word in the English language; used intentionally by stupid people to sound smart or by smart people to sound unintentionally stupid. Urban Dictionary

The first thing that tickled a memory was seeing these images whilst reading about 'Paradigm Shift'

Old Woman and Young Woman My Wife and My Mother-In-Law, by the cartoonist W. E. Hill, 1915 (adapted from a picture going back at least to a 1888 German postcard)

Duck/Rabbit Source: Jastrow, J. (1899). The mind's eye. Popular Science Monthly, 54, 299-312.

Both of these images, show how you can look at the same thing and in turn 'see' two different things. Nothing about the image changes, just your perception of it. A dude called Thomas Kuhn, knows a lot more about this subject than  I do 'Paradigm Shifts'.

But that is not the paradigm you are looking for.....(said in Obi-Wan Kenobi stylee)

So on I plod in search of this elusive Paradigm definition that would make sense to me and I try not to get ahead of myself with 'paradigm shifts', before I actually know what a Paradigm really is.

It seems that I have wandered into the world of, god forbid, buzzwords... You know those horrid things that sales and marketing people love to use, as they target us poor members of the public. People really don't like buzzwords and jargon, as seen here , but underneath all the bullshit, they are metaphors that can be applied to all sorts of life situations.

Heard of the term 'Thinking outside the box' ? Did you ever wonder what the box was, what was inside that box? Well it turns out the 'box' is in fact a bloody paradigm! Who would of thunk it, that bloody box holds a lot of information. In that box a lot of things lurk, dark nasty things, like:

• The World is flat
• Creation instead of Evolution
• Moon is made of cheese
• Other evil things 

Outside the box, lives Blue Skies and all sorts of lovely things, in fact, outside the box the possibilities are endless. It even holds the key to solving the Nine Dots Puzzle! woo hoo.

So it seems, that I am in fact leaving the science behind and in fact talking about labels that people stick on you, as you plod through life. Think of yourself sat in the box, what labels, or to be fancy, what paradigms have been stuck on you?

Nobody puts Claire in a box! ( Must be said in a Patrick Swayze style R.I.P Mr Swayze)

Actually I am pretty sure people have put me in a box, in fact I have put myself in a box many times over my life. The 'I am ugly' , ' I am worthless', 'I am stupid' and 'I am fat' box, to name but a few. I also know that other people get labelled with damaging things like 'You are mental' 'You are crazy' 'You are broken' 'You are damaged goods' and I am sure you can add a shit load to that list.

People eventually accepted that the earth was not flat, does this mean that eventually people will accept that the labels you are given in this life, are not stuck on with superglue and you can rip them off. I am sure ripping the labels off can be painful, but surely once the sting has gone, the scab really heals over the wounds left by those labels and you can flick it off? Was that a scab metaphor to far? 

I created the doodle during the weekend just gone and to decided to test my twitter followers doodle guessing skills,to see if they could guess what one word prompted the above doodle, without any other information than the actual doodle itself.

After quite a few guesses, one person got it right, so I am sending them the doodle for their hard work, lucky them?

Paradigm Doodle explained: It makes sense to me and that is what really matters......

Click image to make it BIG

Other interesting and far more sensible paradigm like articles are here and here, also a fascinating video featuring Ken Robinson here (really worth a watch).

I don't know what the point of this post was really, I just found the subject rather bloody interesting and would hate to be sat in a box all alone, never to be shifted.

Too Hot Too Cold

Doodle Weather

I wouldn't be British if I didn't moan about the weather, so here it goes! By Cripes it is bloody hot! It has been in the 20's (Celsius) for the past week or so. That is in the 70's for those that use Fahrenheit as the measure of your weather. While some people may piss themselves laughing at the idea of this temperature being scorchio, for me it is!The UK normally operates around the strict temperature of 'Meh' Degrees , neither freezing nor sweltering, just Meh. Any deviation from this and the country grinds to a halt, there is mass hysteria and the Mr Whippy van gets looted.
Okay a slight exaggeration on my part, I know, I know, shocking that moi exaggerates at times. I have actually been making the most of this nice weather and been gardening with the mumborg. By gardening I mean that I have been doing the grunt work, while she decides what plants go where and what seeds are getting propagated. I have not took any photographs yet, as I am still in a period of mourning over losing the DSLR. If things start to grow, look pretty and all that shit, I may take some. If we are lucky, we should have courgettes, radishes, carrots, potatoes, basil and some other crap that I can't remember. I actually thought I was getting a tan, but it turns out it was just soil, so it went after I had a bath.

Doodle Stuff: Those that follow me on twitter may have seen my tweets about doodling in the garden? I took all my drawing stuff outside and had a great time, but I can't share those doodles with you, as they were for a secret project. Maybe one day I can, but at the moment, tough! Not sure why I decided to share or not share that with you all, just excited I guess.
What was good about doing this project, was the time I got to spend using different pens and paper, taking my time and really enjoying the process. My doodle mentor TJ, gave me another great tip about inking the doodles before I apply the colour. This turned out to be great for me, as the lines ending up being a lot cleaner than usual. It was also a revelation that the ink is in fact waterproof, which I found rather cool. So I have started doing that for all my doodles, including the daft one above. So if you have any doodle tips, feel free to pass them along! Or if you want to know anything, please ask!


Music of the moment: Not sure if people even listen to these videos that I post, or give a shit about what music I love, but for the one or two that do, here is my next recommended artist.....Damien Jurado. He is an artist that has been around for a long time, but for some reason is not mega famous, which he should be. I like to think he is my own secret find, but of course he is not. This track is from the 'Caught in the Trees' album, which is brilliant. You should also check out the latest album 'Saint Bartlett' and the project with his brother 'Hoquiam'.


Damien Jurado - sheets from bluelinestyle.com on Vimeo.

Balls flying everywhere

Tis that time of year when people go footie mad and not just because of the Vuvuzela's, although they are feckin awful, click the link if you haven't heard them.World Cup fever has struck again and England are playing a bloody awful game at the moment. Wednesday will either produce a big sigh of relief as they scrape through to the next stage or the swift removal of the all flags and other paraphernalia, with mumblings of 'there is always next time'.
Not that I am even a huge football fan, I just get caught up in all the excitement and then kick myself for wasting time watching the daft game. Unless we win (as in England), then I am a big hairy hypocrite and am all 'IN YOUR FACE WORLD' and 'GET IN THERE, YOU BEAUTY' or something.

Wedding Photographs: I am having a break from editing the wedding photographs at the moment. Suffering from nightmares about your own sisters face is never a good thing! Only joking (sort of). I need to concentrate on some other stuff at the moment and the PC hamsters (Herbert and Sherbert) needed a break from heaving that amount of data around their hamster wheel. I can't afford to turn them into hamster butties just yet, so I am being kind, before they set RSPACPCH (Royal Society for the protection against cruelty to PC hamsters) onto me.

Doodle Stuff: A while back the ever so lovely TJ sent me some paper samples, so I have been using them to practice some more watercolour doodles, some for a secret project and some daft ones, like the one above. Watercolour paper is uber expensive! So I have ordered some cheaper stuff for now and shiny new pens that will make it easier to add the finer details, the Pigma Micron Pen #005 0.2mm Black Ink to be precise. As the Sharpie ultra fine, is nowhere near fine enough and I have made a right pigs ear out of some doodles using the Sharpie.

Other Stuff: I am finally tackling the humongous task of turning this blog into a book, no not for publishing or anything ridonkulous like that. I need to print it out for my personal development folder (for counselling diploma) and it is far too big a job to just print off and bind myself. So I have been looking around for ages to find the easiest and cheapest way to do it. I have looked at Blurb, Lulu and Blog2print so far. It seems there is no easy and cheap way to do it, especially when your blog is nearly 4 years old. Blurb's software looks the best, but it wont even 'slurp' my blog (blurb lingo for uploading). Using Lulu meant converting blog to something else and then uploading and then something else, so I was already switched off. So finally that left Blog2print, this one uploaded the blog easy enough, but seems expensive and have split blog into three books so far...!

Update! Since starting this post I have fixed the blurb issue and it has now slurped! So I am now going to see which ends up being cheaper, will it be blurb or blog2print?

If you have used either please let me know! Or if you have printed off your blog before and made it look lovely, also get in touch.

Music of the moment: I just love the imagery of pines dancing, as a tree hugger, this tickled my fancy indeed. It also doesn't hurt that his voice is beautiful. I give you Mr AA Bondy: I can see the pines dancing.

Tis all the bloody hamsters fault or something

This is herbert and sherbert, they are the hamsters that control my PC and they are feckin useless. I have tried putting hamster pellets in the air vents of my PC, but still it runs like shit. So it must mean the hamsters need replacing or something? Hamster butties anyone?

Doodle news: 

I totally forgot to pimp out this post about yours truly, so if you want a slightly better insight into the inner working of my doodle brain, then please read this 'Artist Profile: Claire Pitt'. Being the modest mary that I am, I am not all together comfortable, if at all, with the title 'artist', but I am a million percent flattered by it.

I should be going on a Intro to Art Therapy day sometime in the near future (if I can find that ruddy piece of paper), so no doubt that will be fuelling more doodle like thoughts and ideas.

Wedding Photography update:

By Christ! Editing wedding photographs is a long job! I am about half way through and I am rather chuffed with some and not so chuffed with others. There are so many things one would do differently, but that is for another post. Hope you like this one? Tis one of my favourites so far.

Music of the moment:

Not sure I have any business writing about music, but I shall plod on nonetheless. For a while now, I have been on folk vibe, listening to music that plucks at your soul ,as well as the odd ukulele.  I have never wanted a triangle and tambourine, as much as I do right now, but luckily for the rest of the world I haven't gotten any (yet).
In the last post I mentioned Evening Chorus, who still need your Vote by the way. In this post I shall mention the next band that has been played rather a bloody lot in my playlist of late..  
                                                 Black Atlantic



They can be found here, here and here

Music news sort of...

Twitter led me to Slowcoustic which led me to Yer Bird Records, which then led them back to me. This is because Yer Bird Records is now run by Slowcoustic and his wife. Anyhoo it is the mother load of Fanfolkingtastic music (including Black Atlantic) and I was over the moon that they wanted to use a few of my photographs for the latest album 'Folk Music For What Lies Ahead' . At last I shall have a teeny tiny claim to fame and glory at last! Ooops it appears to have gone to my head already.

I should have the album in my grasp soon! (Shouldn't I Folk Gods?) and then I can gush more about the fanfolkingtasticness of it all.

Toodle Pip!

The Wedding, the death of Frank and the loss of the DSLR

 This was a doodle I did for Heather and John's save the date cards

Warning this is just a splish splosh of grey matter, garbled together in post like form:

I got back the Highlands of Scotland last Saturday and have been editing the wedding photographs ever since. I took over a thousand myself, then my older sister Jemma acted as second camera, so I have about a 1000 from her camera too!

Here is a one that Heather has seen already:

When I have eventually finished editing them all, I will blogging about what it is like to photograph a wedding as a rank amateur, sweaty palms, feeling sick and all that fun stuff. Also how I felt about having to give back the DSLR camera (boohoo)

On coming home I found Frank, my deformed fish, dead in his plant pot. I know what are you thinking, of course he would be dead if he was in a plant pot! But Frank was very happy in his ceramic plant pot, he was the last fish to survive the deadly fish tank of doom (long story, too tragic).

Really missing blogging of late, the words trapped in my grey matter are really better out than in, well for me anyways. There is WAY too much crap floating around in this noggin of my mine at the moment.


Other stuff:
Being without proper music for nearly two weeks was bloody awful. I think spotify has been on non stop since I got home. It is bands like Evening Chorus, that become a soundtrack to your life, in particular this track in the video below is very relevant to me at the moment. I discovered them via twitter and I am chuffed to have found them before they get uber famous, which they will.

They are in a competition at the mo, so please vote for Evening Chorus HERE if you get the chance, they are a bloody fantastic band.

Evening Chorus: