In Touch With Our Inner Child Through Books

I love books. Books have always been my comfort and have helped me get through some of life’s difficulties. My genre is all over the place, I can read historical fiction one minute, and switch to a data science book, and ending the day with a children’s book. I am also the kind of reader who leaves stacks of books all over the place, and read multiple books at the same time (just because I can).

Throughout the pandemic, my reading has significantly increased. I go out less and I try to read before I sleep. So far I’ve read 34 books and have had engaging and eye opening conversations with my friends for some of the books. I also started reading the Shadow and Bone trilogy, along with the Six of Crows duology and instantly fell in love with Leigh Bardugo, its author. I watched the Netflix series and had in depth conversations with my friends about the difference between the series and the book. This is also the reason why I love to read, you get unexpected friends. I made new friends just because I love to read, and isn’t that just an amazing way to connect with someone?

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A trip to the “Future World”

Who misses travelling? I sure do! and with the pandemic still going strong (sadly) it doesn’t seem that travelling will be in our calendar anytime soon. As someone who takes inspiration from travelling, I have recently found myself struggling to create. So, a few weeks ago I decided to take some time off of work to “travel”! I decided to visit the Art Science Museum with a friend of mine. After living here for almost a decade, I surprisingly had never stepped foot inside the lotus shaped building before this trip! Oh and yes, I had only just realised that the Art Science Museum is shaped like a lotus while I sat waiting for my friend! And it all made sense, why it was surrounded by lotus flowers!

The Language of Flowers, an Inspiration

Did you know that in the Victorian era, flowers were used as a way to communicate? Every flower has a meaning, and flowers became a means to convey a certain message. I always knew some flowers had meaning, like how different coloured roses meant different thing. You don’t give a yellow rose to a crush as it’s commonly a sign of loss of affection instead (unless you want to be friend-zoned that is! Haha). However, I had never given much thought of the meaning of other flowers. Not until I stumbled upon Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s novel titled, what other than, “The Language of Flowers”. I had previously obtained this book through a book subscription box two years ago, but only had the time to pick it up and read it recently. I believe the book came to me at the right time, I’m currently obsessed with gardening and flowers has become my favourite object to paint.

Artificial Intelligence and Art

I work in in the field of Computer Science. I mainly play around with data warehouses but these days one can’t help to read and learn a little bit about Artificial Intelligence or AI for short. AI has been making headlines everywhere, I don’t need to give you examples, I am pretty certain that you can think of some examples yourself! This is the era that we live in now, though we don’t have flying cars just yet, we can see how advanced we have become (technology wise at least) compared to 100 years ago. Just a week ago, I was browsing through my Instagram search and saw an Instagram profile of a celebrity robot?!! The robot looks legit, I literally thought there was a new singer I didn’t know about, but NO it was a celebrity robot? Do I call it “it” or “she”? I was baffled to be honest (especially that the robot has waaaayyy more followers than the average human!).

The Best of Art Jog

Art Jog is an annual art show in our home town Yogyakarta. It is an event that attracts many people, including those outside of Yogyakarta. Each year, local artists as well as a few international artists, submit their very best work to be showcased at this prestigious event. The committee of Art Jog changes the theme each year, including the setting, making this extremely attractive to art lovers as well as selfie lovers (unfortunately so). The last two years, I wrote on my social media how I was disappointed with the amount of people using the art works as photo backgrounds. In my opinion, this issue has really downgraded the quality of Art Jog. However, it is still an event that I look forward to each year (I always try to come at an unusual time, hoping it would be a little quieter than usual – it doesn’t always work though). I feel a little sad that this year I won’t be able to go. They did a virtual opening some days ago and there will be a virtual tour available too. Apparently they will also open the gallery and limit visitors. For me personally, I won’t be coming, my health is way more important than coming to see this beloved event. In this post, I thought I would do a round up of my favourite art works from Art Jog 2017-2019.