Kathy Clay Archives - TheAppWhisperer

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 15 September 2019

16/09/201915/09/2019 by Joanne Carter

“Help I have done it again. I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again today, and, the worst part is there’s no one else to blame. Be my friend, hold me, wrap me up, unfold me, I am small, I’m needy, warm me up, and breathe me. Ouch! I have lost myself again, lost myself and I am no where to be found, yeah, I think that I might break, lost myself again again and I feel unsafe, Be my friend, hold me, wrap me up, unfold me, I am small, I’m needy, warm me up and breathe me….” lyrics to this weeks immaculate mobile photography and art showcase, Sia, entitled ‘Breathe Me’. Be kind, be kind, be kind, this week I learned a dear friend had lost her son, and there are words to say about this, you’ll find them all above… just love, all, support, do not withdraw, be kind.

Thank you to all the talented artists for submitting your works to our showcase this week. If you would like your work to be considered for entry in to our weekly Mobile Photography and Art Flickr Group, please submit it to our dedicated group, here. You can also submit images to our Instagram tag for this section #theappwhisperer.

Eliza Badoiu, mitrydate, jaleyuce4 – Jale Yuce, clau_clara – Claú Clará, yembo, Sarah Bichachi, jenni_bea – Jenni Bea, dinalf – Dina Alfasi, kats_eye_phone, bortolinimassimo, headattacks – Manuella Basselda, pause.and.breathe, piccionistefania – Stefania Piccioni, catalin_gherasim, filizakart – Filiz Art, dinga.diary, Lorenka Campos, ange_ombre, klimtt – M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Peter Wilkin, ritatipunina – Rita Tipunina, daisy.bumstead – , accidental_artist3 – Ransom Candice, michzsimmons, Marian Said Rubin, Francesco Sambati, Jun Yamaguchi, Kathy Clay, David DeNagel, Albion Harrison-Naish, Qingxian Guo, Andy Alexandre, Damian De Souza, Catherine Caddigan, Yasuo Furue, Debara Splendorio, Susan Blase, Rita Colantonio, Barbara Braman, Clint Cline, Jilllian2 – Jill Lian, Laila, Linda Hollier, Peter Wilkin, Jane Schultz, Susan Rennie, p.a. hamel, Gianluca Ricoveri.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 4 August 2019

04/08/201904/08/2019 by Joanne Carter

Sleepy, exhilarated and refreshed, having spent time with talented mobile artist and dear friend, Linda Toki from the United States in Kew Gardens yesterday. What joy! To me, there’s nothing quite like ‘sealing the deal‘ of a ‘social media‘ friendship, with meeting in person. Our intellectual circles overlap, our mutual interests conincide and our views of the world chime together. Supple, incisive with infectious warmth and humour, what a gift of intuitive turns and juxtapositions yesterday turned out to be. My body felt so stuffed with good luck, I almost woke up this morning choking on it. My advice, to anyone who doubts the relevance of true online friendship, is stay open because life only gets richer as it unfolds.

This weeks searing showcase of kaleidoscopic mobile photography and art is a masterclass in tempo, tone and character. Apoplexy ebbs to stunned disbelief, as you contemplate each one of these images has been created from artists throughout the world on their mobile phones. Enjoy!

Meri Walker, Rita Colantonio, Vadim Demjianov, Jun Yamaguchi, Fleur Schim, Karen Axelrad, Kat McClelland, Paul Toussaint, Hanni K, woltarise, Jeremy Cassell, Russ Merz, Linda Hollier, Susan Blase, Klaudi Cechini, Kathy Clay, jillian2 – Jill Lian, Yasuo Furue, Peter Wilkin, Barbara Braman, aka Tman, Catherine Caddigan, Rob Pearson-Wright, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Marina Sergeevna, Gianluca Ricoveri, Judy Wahlberg, before.1st.night – Jane Schultz, David DeNagel, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Susan Rennie, Clint Cline, Dina Alfasi, titika.vision, rain.is.poetry – Paul Suciu, j.a.graham, theartofmayte, effe5, Sandra B Martins, Anca Balja, Edith Meier, mazetman, reneviolence – Rene Valencia, Diane Neubauer, Nicole Christophe, rklika, Fiona Christian, Eliza Badoiu.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 28 July 2019

28/07/201928/07/2019 by Joanne Carter

‘Would you like a cappuccino?‘ the early morning shadow, prickly with dark stubble, leans over, breathes into my ear bushing my lips. I am asked the same question in the same way, every single morning and still I tingle. The answer is always the same, ‘yes, please, x 3‘ . And so the narrative begins, bringing together two lives, in an emotional and intense drama. We have been in love for many years and each day we develop new neural pathways to ensure we keep meandering along in the present, not only with passion and compassion but also with love and humanity. We are promiscuous observers of photography and art, there’s not a day that goes by without our minds deeply conjoined within imagery. I think in pictures and when I play back yesterday, before rising, sometimes I am insouciant but the relief of being loved so intensely is ultimately fulfilling, what’s not to love about passionate love? Fortunately, love is abundant and grows and extends to others. When I view the stunning mobile photography and art that has been contributed to our Flickr and Instagram groups my heart grows. Take a look this weeks showcase, yours will too. Enjoy.

jagraham, Laurence Bouchard, Eliza Badoiu, Marshadraws- Marsha Estes, Oola Cristina, ilemusi – Ile Mont, Fleur Schim, Fichristian – Fiona Christian, wmson2000_art – J Williamson, @badgrowshop, @lorenka – Lorenka Campos, @jormain – Jormain Cady, @vadqcooper – Vicki Cooper, @hipstanitaelle – Anita Ellis, @rejanerubino – Rejane Rubino, @ricardas.jarmalavicius – Ricardas Jarmalavicius, @elizabadoiu – Eliza Badoiu, Jane Schultz – before.1st.light, Susan Rennie, Paul Toussaint, Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Tomaso Belloni, Jill Lian – jilllian2, Karen Axelrad, Jon Arne Foss, Laila, Catherine Caddigan, Clint Cline, Robi Gallardo, Qingxian Guo, Rita Colantonio, Sergiy Beliayev, Mark Walton1, Rita Colantonio, Kathy Clay, Erik Viggh, Larry Lefever, David DeNagel, Deborah McMillion, Anandamoy Chatterji, la Takalandze, Joseph Cyr, Jun Yamaguchi, p.a. hamel, Gianluca Ricoveri, Giancarlo Beltrame.

Mobile Photography/Art Pic of the Day (1,077) via Instagram

25/07/2019 by Joanne Carter

Here’s day one thousand and seventy seven of our mobile photography/art Pic of the Daysection via Instagram. Each day we select one image a day for our Pic of the Day section on Instagram, with this hashtag #theappwhisperer.

Today, we congratulate @kathyc2136 – Kathy Clay with this image, entitled ‘No beginning, no end’.

To ensure your image receives our attention, please upload it to Instagram with this hashtag #theappwhisperer.

To view more of her work, please go here

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 21 July 2019

21/07/201921/07/2019 by Joanne Carter

“Music has charms to sooth a savage breast” wrote the poet William Congreve in 1697 and apparently non more so than Marconi Union’s ‘Weightless’, which I have attached to our showcase this morning. Many of us are aware of the soothing qualities of music upon our souls but now it seems science can back up those claims. Recently, a clinical trial in the US compared the levels of anxiety felt by patients who were prescribed the drug Midazolam and others who were told to listen to this track, ‘Weightless’ by Marconi Union. Those involved in the study were having a spinal nerve block. I’ve had several of these, not recently but following liver surgery, once my liver had regenerated, I found I was still suffering some pain. I am sure the patients in this study were having this nerve block for multiple reasons and to conquer pain with music, seems perfectly plausible to me. Twelve days ago I had day surgery, of which the pain was near on unbearable and I wonder now, if I would have been more comfortable with my headphones playing this music throughout. I’m not sure, I may have just ripped them off as I gripped the surgical bed tightly, but as this English band’s song has been declared the ‘world’s most relaxing song’ maybe it would have helped, next time… If nothing else, I feel a benefit post-operatively and anxiety in this dimension is terribly common and affects the body’s ability to heal. As I’m still experiencing pain, I intend to listen to this music more often and when mixed with this weeks Mobile Photography and Art from artists throughout the world, I am indeed finding it has the unique ability to stop me reaching for painkillers and lull me into a sense of delicious serenity. Enjoy!

Jenny Pieters @sodium Light, Robin Robertis, Susan Rennie, David DeNagel, Paul Yan, Russ Merz, Tomaso Belloni, Jose Matos, Clint Cline, Lorenka Campos, Carol Wiebe, Meri Walker @iphoneartgirl, Rosa Perry, Gianluca Ricoveri, Vadim Demjianov, Fleur Schim, @filizart, Juta Jazz, Sukru Mehmet Omur, Jill Lian, Laila, Deborah McMillion, Giancarlo Beltrame, Deborah Field, Judy Wahlberg, Peter Wilkin, Jane Schultz @before.1st.light, Catherine Caddigan, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago @klimtt, Damian De Souza @remintrustions, Hanni K, Yariv Weinberg, Jun Yamaguchi, Kathy Clay, Dina Alfasi, Barbara Braman.

Mobile Photography & Art – Tickle Your Fancy #64

22/06/201922/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

Welcome back to our sixty fourth post in our Tickle Your Fancy section. Tickle Your Fancy includes a round-up of between ten to twelve key links to articles from around TheAppWhisperer over the past few two weeks, ones you may, by chance, have missed.

Just to explain the title for this section Tickle Your Fancy is an English idiom and essentially means that something appeals to you and perhaps stimulates your imagination in an enthusiastic way, we felt it would make a great title for this new section of the site.

Artists cited include: Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Clarisse Debout, Oola Cristina, Deborah Field, Deborah McMillion, Yariv Weinberg, Karen Axelrad, Kathy Clay, Sergiy Beliayev, Catherine Caddigan, Gianluca Ricoveri, Susan Rennie, Lorenka Campos, Damian De Souza, Jun Yamaguchi, borisbschulz2009, Catherine Caddigan, Arko Rayhan, Susan Detroy, Peter Wilkin, Laila, Paul Yan, Dragan Fly, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, Clint Cline, Enio Godoy, Lydia Cassatt, Rita Colantonio, Kate Zari Roberts, Sheldon Serkin, Nick Kenrick, Tomaso Belloni, Eleni Gemeni, Jormain Cady, Elaine Taylor, Shelley Benjamin, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Dr Christophe Christ, Sandra B Martins – Violet Martins, Rita Colantonio, Deborah McMillion, Lisa Mitchell, Dale Botha, Catherine Caddigan.

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 16 June 2019

16/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

“To be excellent at anything, it must cost you something“, a direct quote from ‘In Pieces’ by Sally Field. A book that she spent seven years writing, without ghost writers, unusual for her circle. This book made me weep this week. It’s a beautifully written intimate memoir as well as a gut wrenching self portrait, bordering on a personal investigation. Now at 71, Field felt the compelling need to assemble her fragmented past. Contrast that with ‘Normal People’ by Sally Rooney, another book I have been reading, a future classic by all accounts and a book the BBC are working on for a new tv drama. It’s a story written in less than one year, showing what it is to be young and in love at any time. It too bought me to tears. I’m always quite close, the price we pay… Whilst putting together this weeks mobile photography and art showcase, each carefully chosen image is so fascinating, assuming and expressing the status of work of art. I like to think of these images as characters I compose with and elevate them to stage, with a realist meticulousness and luscious concern for detail, invoking a narrative of uncommon richness and intensity with a radical reframing of the purpose. Enjoy.

Susan Maxwell Schmidt, Clarisse Debout, Oola Cristina, Deborah Field, Deborah McMillion, Yariv Weinberg, Karen Axelrad, Kathy Clay, Sergiy Beliayev, Catherine Caddigan, Gianluca Ricoveri, Susan Rennie, Lorenka Campos, Damian De Souza, Jun Yamaguchi, borisbschulz2009, Catherine Caddigan, Arko Rayhan, Susan Detroy, Peter Wilkin, Laila, Paul Yan, Dragan Fly, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, Clint Cline, Enio Godoy, Lydia Cassatt, Rita Colantonio, Kate Zari Roberts, Sheldon Serkin, Nick Kenrick, Tomaso Belloni, Eleni Gemeni, Jormain Cady, Elaine Taylor, Shelley Benjamin, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Dr Christophe Christ, Sandra B Martins – Violet Martins.

Music this week is ‘Silver Bullet’ ©Alpha

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 2 June 2019

03/06/201902/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

As humans, we have the unique ability of utilising our skill of habit, to our own disadvantage. We can fail to take note of what is always around us. Thus, we suffer emotionally because we lose sight of the value of what we have and then yearn for imagined attractions elsewhere. We live on auto pilot. As an example, if you think back, to when first learning to ride a bicycle, we become hyper aware of everything, as we sit on the saddle and place one foot on a pedal and the other on the ground, to steady us. As we try to push off and bring up the other foot to its pedal, we are acutely conscious of everything that is going on, we’re highly alert to sound, light, movement, balance and speed. But, after years of practice, we then jump on a bicycle and it’s possible to ride and ride without thinking consciously about changing gears, balancing, breaking or indicating. Our actions become a part of subconsciousness. And it is this autopilot being that can become our misfortune because, we begin to hardly register the important things. So instead of editing out the lesser things, enabling us to concentrate on the road, which is crucial in my example, we end up editing out elements of the world that have so much to offer us. But it is art that can bring us back to a more accurate assessment of what is valuable by working against our habit of autopilot and inviting us to recalibrate what we admire or love. This is called, Appreciation. When an artist creates an image, of an everyday item, objects that we encounter on a daily basis, when we view this image of those same items in a gallery, or look at them in a photograph, our attention is arrested and directed, we start to pay more attention to their shape, design, colour, we see them, as if for the first time. And despite this modest example, in time, we learn to look with kinder and more alert eyes at the world around us. One of the powers of Art is that it enables us to reawaken and value the merit of lives we live.

You’ll see plenty of examples in this weeks Mobile Photography and Art Showcase, as each artists utilises art as a re-sensitisation tool and helps us recover our own sensitivity by finding new ways to view the old. Enjoy!

Poetic Medium, Sheldon Serkin, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, Gianluca Ricoveri, Clare Pickett, Ian Clarke, Catherine Caddigan, Oola Cristina, Jun Yamaguchi, Enoi Godoy, Eduardo Mueses, Lorenka Campos, Laila, Deborah McMillion, Jeremy Cassell, Jormain Cady, Song Hui, Anastasia Potekhina, Clint Cline, Rita Colantonio, jillian2 – Jill Lian, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Damian De Souza, Kathy Clay, Judy Wahlberg, Susan Rennie, Michael Hamments, Kate Zari Roberts, Filiz Ak, Amy Ecenbarger, M. Cecilia Sao Thiago, Becky Menzies, Carol Wiebe, Peter Wilkin.

Music this week is ‘A Love Song’ by Xenia Dunford

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 26 May 2019

26/05/201926/05/2019 by Joanne Carter

“As soon as the vote of Brexit came through, half the people I know were trying desperately to work out whether they had Irish grandmothers. But I would never take dual German nationality because I owe this country too much, and I wouldn’t want to dilute it”. Deeply loyal, Judith Kerr speaking in the Financial Times in 2017. Commonly known, within Britain, as our ‘national treasure’, Kerr led a remarkable life and wrote and illustrated the most enchanted children’s stories. I was so saddened to read that she had died this week, born in 1923 into a bourgeois Jewish family in Weimar, Berlin. Her father, Alfred was a famed theatre critic and essayist and her mother, as well as housewife (no small task), a talented composer. Alfred was outspoken in his prose and it attracted enemies. Not least when it came to mocking the Nazis and as soon as Hilter became Chancellor in 1933, the family fled Germany. Nine year old Kerr and her elder brother Michael, with their mother escaped by train across the border to Switzerland, after a few months, penniless, they arrived in Paris. Kerr wrote how she loved the ‘brevity of the French (language) after the endless sentences in German’. Fortunately, for the family, the film director, Alexander Korda, a Hungarian Jew, working in Britain, bought Alfred’s script about Napoleon’s mother and this enabled them to move to England and therefore avoid the Nazis invasion of France in 1940. The film was never made and Kerr always suspected he only bought the script to save their lives.

A fascinating story and there’s so much more I could tell you about her life. Most of all, I am grateful for the influence she has had on my own small family. Two of my children have serious developmental disorders, along with specific learning difficulties and I read and snuggled up with them relentlessly when they were younger. So, it really warmed me when speaking with my middle son, Jovian (almost 18), who was actually the only child consciously wandering around the house, when I started to compose this Sunday’s showcase early this morning. I said to him, ‘Good Morning Jove, do you remember when I used to read ‘The Tiger Who Came To Tea’, when when you were little?’. He hesitated, but of course, once I showed him the glorious illustrations, he recalled the story instantly and he smiled warmly with the memories and thus his smile ignited me and gave me another excuse to hug him. That’s the legacy that Kerr has left behind, to many families, a warm embrace with enchanted memories firmly planted in our souls. Very often, children’s authors, try to ‘get rid of the parents’, in order to build the excitment of the story, but Kerr kept the parents as central to her work and that’s an aspect that I really appreciated. My tiny family mean the world to me and I really wanted them to feel that parents can actually be fun and enjoy their excitement too. I still recall my children’s eyes widening when it came to the part of Sophie’s parents taking her out to tea (after dark) – because the tiger had eaten all their food – what an adventure, what magic!

This is the influence of art and all that you do, all that you create. When creating mobile art, remember, it’s not just you that feels the warmth of your creations, it’s the rest of us. Draw, paint, photograph everything, you’re gifts are priceless.

Candice Railton, Hanni K, Rob Pearson-Wright, Paul Toussaint, Eduardo Llerandi, Arko Rayhan, Jun Yamaguchi, Deborah McMillion, Lorenka Campos, Damian De Souza, Kathy Clay, Judy Wahlberg, Susan Rennie, before.1st.light – Jane Schultz, pa.a hamel, Anatasia Potekhina, TheiPhoneArtGirl – Meri Walker, Woltarise, Rita Colantonio, Gianluca Ricoveri, Yasuo Furue, Michael Hamments.

Music this week is ‘Love Heals Us All’ Dave Tough

Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 28 April 2019

28/04/201928/04/2019 by Joanne Carter

“If you’re paying attention and making your own life as beautiful and rich and fun as it can be, you might just attract someone who’s doing the same thing, you can give up on tracking someone down with your butterfly net.” Words by Anne Lamott, who married this week at Deer Park Villa, in Fairfax, California. She met her husband through a dating site, called OurTime, a matchmaking site for the over 50’s. She had been single for a long period and felt absolutely no wanton feelings to change that. When asked, by the New York Times writer, Lois Smith Brady, 26th April 2019, why she stayed single so long, she replied that she was shy and introverted and hated leaving the house, particularly for parties.“If I go to a party, I become a Roz Chast character with my arms hanging at my sides and I feel like I’m developing a tic,”. Lamott has has published 18 memoirs and novels, many about being a recovering alcoholic, single mother, perpetual worrier and late-in-life churchgoer. I’ve read many of her books, you knew that was coming, right? I read incessantly, there’s only one thing that frustrates me about reading and that is that I can’t write and view images at the same time. I’m good at multi-tasking but not at that. Perhaps, it’s a learning difficulty, yesterday morning I spent many hours supporting one of my children as they undertook an updated private disability assessment with an acclaimed consultant, to enable them to successfully progress onto the next stage of their life. Feeling emotionally, mentally and physically drained post test, we both later collapsed at home, for a while. Disability diagnoses, if necessary, are crucially important when navigating this world. So many obstacles appear very quickly insurmountable without the correct support and often are but with it, you can fly.

What I love about Lamott, is she is a fighter, as I am, as my family are, we are a strong and very healthy, positive, loving unit, that’s not to say, life is easy because it is not but we try to focus on the things that really matter, whilst simultaneously fighting to keep the wolves from the door. Smith Brady, closed her article in the New York Times describing Lamott as ,’A natural cheerleader, especially for underdogs’. Lamott later posted on her Facebook page, “never give up, no matter how things look or how long they take. Don’t quit before the miracle.” And so, I say to all of you incredibly talented mobile photographers and artists out there, I can reveal, very candidly that there is a miracle opening here and I am going to ensure you’re all cordially invited to be part of it, it is coming and I am very excited. Stand by me, there is ecstasy in paying attention.

Paul Yan, Hanna Martins, Anastasia Potekhina, Jun Yamaguchi, Cathrine Halsor, borisbschulz2009, Debara Splendorio, Tricia Dewey, Sherrianne100, Laila, qingxian guo, Eduardo Llerandi, Michael Brunsfeld, Fiona Keyes, Scott Simpson, Kat McClelland, Erika Brothers, F4810P, Susan Detroy, Enio Godoy, Rita Colantonio, Lorenka Campos, Emma Dauvin, Lawrence Lazare, Peter Wilkin, Nick Kenrick, Kathy Clay, Milly M, Tomaso Belloni, Arko Rayhan, Anthony Madigan, jillian2 – Jill Lian, Gianluca Ricoveri, Tuba, Kate Zari Roberts, p.a.hamel, lifequest22, Ioannis Sidirpoulos.