Influence map

Over at deviantart I spotted this great meme where you make your own influence map, of what influences your art. Truth is I have a lot of influences that I barely realise I have. I made my map using my favourite artists and art styles and the ones I would most like to emulate, or go to for inspiration. Unfortunately my art doesn't ever really end up looking like any of them.




See how many artists you can guess before scrolling down for the list.
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Featured clockwise from top righthand corner are:
Aubrey Beardsley
Gustav Klimt
Egon Schiele
Edward Gorey
Friedensreich Hunderwasser
Alphonse Mucha
Traditional japanese art
Woodcuts
JMW Turner


I really should spend less time procrastinating and more time getting ready for my big move. But I'm so stressed I feel like spending all my time with my head under my pillow.

One last hooray

I'm back in Athens safe and sound and earlier than anticipated. Agistri was lovely, but the crowds drove us away. We had completely forgotten that Monday (today that is) was a bank holiday.

I went with my friend Angela who has also just lost her job and who is also flying to London at the end of the month to look for work. We are all emigrating I tell you!

We thought this would be our last chance to see some sun and sea this summer (unless we make it to the English seaside, and unless you actually consider that sun and sea). Also we needed a bit of a break from the business of getting everything in order to leave.

Being short of money and energy we went to Agistri which is really close to Athens by boat and where it is easy to free camp.


(I haven't got a new compact camera to replace the one that was stolen and I was hardly going to take my DSLR camping so I had to make do with bad quality photos taken with my mobile.)

As you can see we took two tents with us because we were expecting company (none of which showed in the end). You might have also noticed we took Angela's dog Bella will us too. Bella is a beautiful two year old mongrel.


Unfortunately Bella is rather difficult (and possibly a bit spoilt too). She barks at everything that scares her (and that is almost everything) and at all other dogs. As you can guess she did a lot of barking. Everyone wanted to pat her because she's so pretty, but were quickly put off by her incessant barking.

Appart from the new experience of holidaying with a dog, we didn't do much. We lazed on the beach. We got slight tans that we will lose during the first week of being in London I'm sure. We ate and walked around aimlessly. We got bitten by flies. Every time I go camping I return with my legs riddled with big red bites. It seems like horseflies love me!

News from the front

Hello all from windy Agistri!

Yes, I run off to the island of Agistri for a week. It's my last chance for a bit of sea and sun before going to the UK.

I have booked my flight! I fly to London on the 22nd of June! Anyone else going to be in London who might want to say hi?

More news when I get home. I'm being very decadent and splurging out on an internet cafe when we are having a shoestring holiday and free-camping!

Cool documentary

Check out this trailer:




It's an original multimedia experimental documentary made about Greece in the winter of 2010-2011. For now you can visit their site theprism.tv to see the 27 little stories they will slowly put up before turning them into a proper documentary later in the year. Don't worry, there are english subtitles!

Gathering in front of the Parliament

Sunday evening I was in Syntagma Square adding to the numbers of protesters taking the streets in Athens. It was the least I could do before I skip the country leaving the revolution to everyone else. So where were you? I heard that the protest gatherings on Sunday were to take part in various European countries over the economic mess and the ridiculous IMF et co directives, because let's not forget that it's not just Greece that's in trouble. How many europeans do I have on my flist? How many who are living in near bankrupt countries? I'm sure they must be lots of us.

Because my pocket camera was stolen in the break in, I went to the protest without a camera and took a couple of crappy photos with my mobile. My mobile's camera isn't thaaat bad (I have a motorola KRZR K1 by the way) but it's not great either.



I also took an even crappier video.

Half way there

Things are moving a bit faster now. The weekend that passed I finally managed to conclude all my packing and moved my essentials to my parents house and all the rest (books -lots of them!-, kitchenware -what can I say, I cook- and furniture to storage. My sister had moved a couple of weeks earlier to an Thuseio where she's renting a room.

So yeah, I'm stuck staying with my parents in the suburbs until I finish the last of my business here and leave. My parents have got cranky with age and there's no space and privacy, but it's not for long.

In other news I got a macbook pro! Yay! Since I'm homeless and will be taking advantage of my family for the near future, I couldn't lug a desktop around. I loaned my imac to my sister who had her macbook stolen in the break in and my mother decided to give me a birthday/christmas and whatever present all rolled into one and got me a macbook!

I'm still getting used to the new screen size. Before getting it I spent weeks obsessing over size (wink wink) and if I could be satisfied with 13" or whether 15" would be better, and how I was spoiled with the 20" I was used to. (You know what I mean?) I was so obsessed with size I kept on asking my friends' opinions on the subject. It got so bad that one day over drinks I asked a male friend of mine point blank "How many inches is yours?" without prefacing that I was talking about laptop screens. I assumed he'd understand what I was talking about. He didn't. Which wasn't surprising, especially considering our previous conversation was about gay politics in Greece and our next one was his sex life. Unfortunately he didn't answer my (unintentional) question. No matter. If I really want to know, all I have to do is ask a mutual friend of ours who is the world's biggest gossip and has first hand experience.

Better go to sleep now. I spent all day tracking down official papers, and I'll be spending all day tomorrow trying to get them translated. (Anyone know what a Hague stamp is on official translations?)

Flying apart

It's been a while. I have been busy and depressed and preoccupied.

I'm busy packing my life into boxes to be put into storage, because for the foreseeable future I will be homeless, and most probably unemployed, dependent on the charity of family. *sigh* In between packing and getting rid of stuff I have also been trying to get my papers, attestations, tax forms, social security and all that other paraphernalia in order. It's not easy.

I find it hard concentrating at the moment. I'm too preoccupied by all the things I have to put in order so I can leave the country and I'm still too stressed by the break in. And well, Athens has degenerated into chaos once more. We've had protest marches, riots, police brutality, murders lately. The other day I went to the center for some business and I had to run through a big cloud of teargas to get into the metro station at Suntagma Square. Really heavy duty teargas, the stuff that stings and chokes.

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I just had a call from a friend to tell me her father's in hospital. I'm very close with her whole family, so I really should organise myself to get over there and see them.