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Glenys Murnane's avatar

This is a most wonderful article, Mari, and I want you to know how much I enjoyed it. I never really had the opportunity to learn much about art and am getting a bit too old for wandering around galleries now, but you have given me a few pointers for even looking at photos of art works.

On a trip to Columbia in 2017 I was bowled over by the paintings of Botero with all of these huge people and some of them so funny - the apple as a symbol of deliciously enjoyable sin, really made me laugh 😃 I can't help but wonder what Ruskin, so shocked by public hair, would have made of Botero? (I had never heard that story before. It is both funny and really sad at the same time. I was so glad to know that his wife did re-marry.) I also loved the Botero sculptures, particularly one I saw in a park of a Chinese face; it was so huge and yet so gentle and delicate.

The Australian artist, Ben Quilty, has also painted some extraordinary powerful - in my opinion - portraits of soldiers in leisure moments, in Afghanistan. I was again bowled over effect on me of these paintings, which I saw at a gallery in South Australia. Thanks again for your article and all your insightful, interesting contributions to the slow reads we have done.

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Candy's avatar

Since Christmas 2021, Rich and I have gotten into collecting fragrances as a means of experiencing world travel destinations within our home. We've sampled and collected fragrances that smell of grass, greenery, wood, flowers, fruits, nuts, amber, vanilla, chocolate,(synthetic) musks, soil, burning leaves, resins, incense, soaps, and many more scent notes. There are expert "noses" who create fragrances for designer fragrance houses and niche fragrances houses: these are the people who create new fragrances for the extensive fragrance market. We have had so much fun learning from expert noses, and online amateur fragrance collectors. Almost two years in, we've become quite knowledgeable about a collection we enjoy right at home every day! 🦋🧡🦋

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