Hello, Mars.

Look at that little brick-red star to the far left of the moon. That's Mars, that is.

I cropped my photo for a bit of a closer look.

Yesterday somebody announced on a social media network (guess which one) that the red tinted star to the left of the moon was Mars. I got so (unexpectedly) excited when I saw it. It was clearly redder than the rest of the stars and I would even say it twinkled a different kind of shine than the rest. I took these pictures from my window. To the naked eye Mars looked more like a star than these photos. I was delighted when I downloaded them onto my computer. That is clearly not just any star!

I just read on Wikipedia that the closest approach of Mars to our planet "will occur on March 3, 2012 at a distance of about 100 million km."


Here's a photo of Mars from Wikipedia:

Global mosaic of 102 Viking 1 Orbiter images of Mars taken on orbit 1,334, 22 February 1980. The images are projected into point perspective, representing what a viewer would see from a spacecraft at an altitude of 2,500 km. 

At center is Valles Marineris, over 3000 km long and up to 8 km deep. Note the channels running up (north) from the central and eastern portions of Valles Marineris to the dark area, Acidalic Planitia, at upper right. At left are the three Tharsis volcanoes and to the south is ancient, heavily impacted terrain. (Viking 1 Orbiter, MG07S078-334SP).

I need to meet somebody with a telescope for the 3rd of March!

Did you know (I didn't until now) that Mars has the tallest known mountain in the Solar System, the Olympus Mons. 

It is 22 km high, almost 3 times as tall as Mount Everest.

This is what they would look like side by side:

Source of this mountain comparison: http://www.space-art.co.uk/en/artwork/illustrative/olympus-mons.html

Below 0ºC.

It's been over a week of below-zero.degrees temperatures here. 

Pottenbakken.

I've joined a pottery course! This is the result of the two first lessons. The nice spheric
one on the far left is by my teacher. Making one like that all by myself is the goal of the next lesson. 

New project: Openfabric house style.

I have started developing the house style for Openfabric, a landscape architecture studio run by Francesco Garofalo here in Rotterdam. Visit my site to see more:
http://rachelsender.com/#2760128/OPENFABRIC

For now we have the logo, business cards and site. We will go into further applications for the studio's projects presentations. 

Andrea Wan makes me jealous.

Wowowow. I'm taken away by Andrea Wan's work.

Ice and fun.

Skating at Goeree Overflakkee.

On our way to the island, we stopped to buy fresh fish and oysters. Conxa tried
oyster's for the first time. She was a happy, happy woman. 

Kibbeling. 

Conxa ordered a few more oysters. 

In case of emergency. 

Winter Wonderland. 

Conxa and Gerard are pro skaters. 

Crispis guapa. 

Loads of skaters. 

Real high end pro skaters skate without socks. 

Coffee for 0.75 eur. Glüwein for 1.50 eur. 

Chillin in the sun. 

Having a game of ice hockey. 

Feeling small. 

Gerard's home town.

(A video is on its way!)

Oracle Mum.

Amy translating her mum's predictions of the year.

(Photo by Conxa. )

As part as the Rotterdam Film Festival, Amy had live skype sessions with her mum at WORM. In Amy's words:

On Feb 2nd WORM hosts a night revolving around one of Ai Wei Wei's latest films in the IFFR program. The event will be a 'full-on Chinese meatspace-rip a la fake' extravaganza in typical Hajo style. Quite possibly owing to my Chinese genetics, I have been invited to 'something'.

So here it is…..
 Streamed live from Australia, my mum and I will form the TLANSATLANTIC OLACLE MUM act. (Hopefully) Divined in the twilight zone of the wheelchair elevator shaft, mummy Ling Qing aka Maria will calculate the lucky visitor's fate while I interpret it. So please come along, if not for your destiny, at least swing by to enjoy some phonetical karaoke in one hand and eat some dim sum in the other!

It was a fun night, with karaoke, cumbia, Chinese decorations and silliness.

If you can't wait until summer to visit Rotterdam, the Film Festival is definitely the best time of the cold part of the year to come and visit.

Thank you Conxa and Gerard for the great company!

“… it’s always February 2nd and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

(We made it.)

Source: http://fuckyeahdementia.com

Book exchange with Ryan Gillet.

Ryan Gillet made a little screen printed book that folds out into a poster. 

I thought it would be nice to exchange my booklet "Things I'd like to Share with You" for his "Little Poster Book". 

So I proposed the exchange to him and he accepted. Yesterday I received it, yay! Thank you Ryan! Hope you 

enjoy my booklet!

It looks great next to my Berlin Golden Bunnies from Jannetje. 

Sheila Hicks.

I didn't take any photos of Sheila Hicks' installation at the Boijmans, so these are just found on google. I loved her work and recommend a visit if you're in town, stunning little compositions with all sort of textures and unexpected objects woven into the fabric (feathers and bones amongst others).

Since the 1960's, Sheila Hicks (1934), trained in the modernistic Bauhaus tradition, has a unique way of mixing autonomous art with the traditional craft of weaving. She makes 'paintless paintings' - also called textile graffiti - as well as architectural installations. In Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Hicks presents a selection of small woven works (minimes) she made as some kind of diary notes over the past fifty years. These works of art are created on a home-made manual loom that is not bigger than a canvas stretcher. The designs depend on her inspiration at the time. As well as these minimes, some parts of her sketchbooks, a few photographs and other sources of inspiration are also on display.


Text source: boijmans.nl

Gatos que ladran.

He soñado que estaba en Buenos Aires, en un
 pequeño comercio, y había un gato que ladraba. 
Pero se asustaba de oír ladridos y ladraba más 
y así entraba en una espiral de pánico.


Argentina tiene tal capacidad creativa, mágica 
y surrealista que influencia los sueños de los 
demás a miles de kilómetros.


Xavier Alamany (Facebook status on the 30th of January, 2012)

Temperature drop.

Source: Facebook

(https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=339912492695555&set=a.339912302695574.80205.100000304214919&type=3&theater)

My fingers had never been as cold as last night, cycling home. Painful.

New Energy in Design and Art.

Monsters.

The insides of one of the monsters. 

It stared at me.

Not really sure who these monsters are by, I will let you know soon. 

This chandelier is called "Fragile Future II", and was one of my favourite pieces of the exhibition. It's designed by Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta. It's made of LED lights and dandelion seedlings. LED lights don't warm 
up when lit, so they allow this delicate design to work. Beautiful!

New Energy in Design and Art is an exhibition about energy and the search for a new balance in our living environment. Artists, designers and progressive thinkers present their (alternative) ideas about our 
consumption of energy.

More info here.