Month: January 2017

Blue Sage Global Education!

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Some new developments for the SiroccoBlue community!

SiroccoBlue started with many services, all derived from the Sirocco as a rich metaphor for cross-cultural exchange, diaspora, an enlarged concept of translation, and the ability of the arts to unearth obscured histories. Things have gotten much more simple and focused.

Blue Sage Global Education is my new study abroad development consultancy. It has one major focus: to build new study abroad programs or improve existing overseas study centers for universities and providers. The mission is to create and enhance programs and to make study abroad more inclusive. Blue Sage Global Education will soon become a non-profit. Please join the Facebook page to learn more about the mission and the “Study Abroad: A Guide for Program Developers” e-book project! I will also be posting about scholarship opportunities on Facebook.

So what is going to happen to SiroccoBlue? The blog will now be dedicated to all types of creative writing & visual arts projects that involve the Sirocco, diaspora, and memory and movement between Spanish, Portuguese, and English (some short stories coming!). I’ll keep exploring Flamenco through the lens of Sirocco and I’ll continue posting the work of creative artists who invoke the wind system. Much of the writing pins on translation as a metaphor and that too will continue!

I have re-written the most widely read posts from 2016 and will soon be posting them on SiroccoBlue along with lots of new writing. And for those of you who like to see visual interpretations of transition inspired by the Sirocco, check out the Instagram page!

Thanks to all for your ongoing readership!

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“Sirocco” by Sheryl Roberts (2014)

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On a cold New England day, I came across the work of another artist of the Sirocco, Sheryl Roberts. This piece, Sirocco, captures the movement, fluidity, and complete rupture of space and time through the winds that this blog has been following since early 2016.

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Rippingham Art Gallery sells of Roberts’s work (see here) and writes, “Born in 1971, Sheryl taught art in schools and colleges in Yorkshire for 15 years before becoming a full time artist working from her studio in Hyde Park. Fascinated by the mystery of the moving skies and visions of light on windswept landscapes, she aims to capture the imagination of the viewer and invite them in to this eccentric world. Her work has been much acclaimed through exhibition and sale throughout the UK.”

On Roberts’s personal webpage, her latest series is described as “directly inspired by the changing chaotic skies in imaginary lands – a place she finds mysteriously fascinating.” She continues that it is ‘ A place that evokes emotion as reflective light seems to divide light in every direction.’

“Sirocco” is the ‘place’ and moment that I have been attempting to photograph on the SiroccoBlue instagram page. I hope to one day capture light, reflection, and transition, and the seas as Sheryl Roberts has in her wind-inspired collection!

“Like” SiroccoBlue on Facebook for the next writing on the Sirocco, Flamenco, and themes of movement and translation across cultures!