Posts Tagged: Women

Songs set to photographs: a challenge

On 24 October 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

Continuing to put Malcolm Guite's beautiful songs on YouTube with photographs.
His songs are so full of images, it seems a real challenge.
But I do what I did with some of his poems before, I just listen to the feelings that those images summon up for me and then choose photographs in what I have. Sometimes I will take a picture specifically or make a composite picture but I try to not make it too busy so the beauty of the song remains central.

Redemption Song (A song for Ruth)

Sing a song of sowing
Carrying the seed
A song of hopeful planting
To meet a future need
Sing a song of letting go
And falling to the ground
Of burying that feels like loss
Still waiting to be found

There are no songs of famine
Hunger has no voice
The poor must scavenge what they can
While the rich are spoiled for choice
The stones of fear and anger
Will strike you from behind
Hunger hates the stranger
And cleaves to his own kind

Sing a song of exile
Loneliness and loss
A song of broken bridges
Nobody can cross
A song of desperation
For a word you can understand
A song of fearful labour
On someone else’s land

Then sing a song of marriage
The grace of bride and groom
The fruitful vine around the door
Joy within the room
A song of love and longing
For the children yet to be
A quiver-full of future hopes
Aimed at eternity

Sing a song of mourning
The shadows and the tombs
The bitterness of broken hearts
And disappointed wombs
Sing a song of empty words
And unexpressed despair
Of reaching out at midnight
For the one who isn’t there

Sing a song of waiting
Weeping on the earth
A song of expectation
Longing for new birth
Sing a song of patience
Of watching through the night
Sing those hours before the dawn
Then sing the coming light

Sing a song of harvest
Of one who bind the sheaves
And one who gleans along the edge
The good another leaves
Sing a song of winnowing
And taking into store
Of Barley heaped like glowing gold
All on the threshing floor

Sing out before the Lord of Life
Your songs of joy and pain
Sing of the years the locusts ate
That cannot come again
Sing to Him your hopes and fears
Your tales of right and wrong
And He will make your voice a part
Of His Redemption Song

©Malcolm Guite 2011
From the album "Dancing through the fire"
Cambridge Riffs Records
www.cambridgeriffs.co.uk/records

PHOTOGRAPHS
©Margot Krebs Neale
www.margot-krebs-neale.co.uk

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Equanimity

On 24 August 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Peindre avec un appareil photo

On 19 July 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Looking for the dream home

On 30 May 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Uma dona lisboeta

On 11 April 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Who are you beautiful statue behind grilles ? a writer ? A poetess ?
Are you trapped or are you free?
When I saw you I was struck by your beauty and took this picture,
but then I tried to make a portrait without the wires and I managed
but in the process your expression changed,
it looked more controlled, less thoughtful.
The quill became less visible and you became a tame lady with a book.
Now I prefer this picture
maybe you are not so tame
and this would be the reason for the grilles ?
Or do they make you feel safe to be less tame?

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Women’s day

On 8 March 2016 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

À la magicienne

At the Woman-Magician’s

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This is a poem inspired by a corset lace I found in my great-aunt’s attic never used with the price still on it. The brand name is “At the magician’s” (magician in the feminine).

À la magicienne
Un corset
Un lacet
De quelle magie parlons-nous ?
De quelle magicienne ?

De celle qui opprime
Déprime
Contraint
Astreint
Ou de celle qui embellit
Affermit
Définit
Enrichit.

C'est peut-être un choix
A chaque fois
Savoir combien
Quel équilibre
On s'astreint
On retient ou on est libre.

At the Woman-Magician’s
A corset
Its lace
Which magic are we talking about?
Which She-magician?

The one who oppresses
Depresses
Constrains
Restrains
Or the one who gives beauty
Tightens
Strengthens
Defines

It may be a choice
Each time
To find the balance
Between
How much one controls
Or one lets breathe

This poem is part of the book To be a Woman which you can have a look at Here.

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St Lucy’s day

On 13 December 2015 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Brixton

On 6 December 2015 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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Advent

On 29 November 2015 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

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ATTENTE

WAITING

Marie, c'est le Christ que tu portes dans l'ombre de la chair
Il est encore dans les entrailles pour un peu de temps
Tu vas le donner à la lumière du monde, lui la lumière éternelle.

Marie, quel fruit lumineux portons-nous dans l'ombre de la chair ?
Aide-nous à le porter encore une peu de temps sans le voir

Donne-nous aussi la joie d'une naissance
La naissance d'un fruit éternel, enfant de la chair et de l'Esprit
Porté, mûri, attendu, donné
Noël

Mary, it is Christ that you carry in the shadow of the flesh
He is still in the womb for a while
You're going to give to the light of the world his eternal light.

Mary, what luminous fruit do we bear in the shadow of the flesh?
Help us carry it a while longer without seeing it

Give us also the joy of a birth
The birth of an eternal fruit, child of the flesh and the Spirit
Carried, ripened, expected, given
Noël

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Exhibition 2015 – Reflections

On 1 November 2015 by Margot Krebs Neale - Uncategorized

I approached the theme of the exhibition in three different ways:
A reflection on passing from Life to Death as both my parents died this summer
A question : Was the naming of the planets a reflection of man’s observation of himself, or does each man/woman reflect all the planets?
Looking for reflections of light and objects, I also found a reflection of a dream I had had ten years previously.

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Reflection on passing from Life to Death

Both my parents died this summer. My mother, unconscious in the last days of her life, seemed to draw from her own source but she also seemed anxious. To my eye, her hands shaped a question mark.
My father, also unconscious, held the hand we gave him with surprising force. There was a strong sense of communication, of receiving and passing on.

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Vigil as dusk is reflecting on the table

Reflecting the Planets?

Is there a set of qualities that can be described very powerfully with the name of one planet?
Could I make ten self-portraits, one to reflect each of the planets?

Click on the cover to see a preview (the photos are a little distorted)

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Too desirable Madam? or HRO IN(2015)

More than ten years ago, I had a dream in which my family was robbing a bank, looking for a treasure in underground passages; it felt half-heroic, half-dishonest. A man stood up and died. Then a young woman and I had to hide in a flat and as we were trying to enter unnoticed a small crowd was looking at a yellow sports car. As I was describing this dream in the following days, I was asked what that yellow sports car could represent. More than one idea came to mind. After this dream whenever I saw a yellow sports car I was reminded of the dream and thought of a more showy, more visible part of me, and why not?
In May 2015, I had to collect my passport from South Kensington and saw this car in a showroom window. As I was trying to photograph it without my reflection the woman on the photograph said goodbye to the man and turned; she must have seen me and this was her reaction.
It is only when I was working on printing it that my friend Peter commented on the number plate. The name of the showroom is
H.R. Owen but of course it could be heroin or heroine.

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