For the eleventh year running, the Salford Lightwaves Festival is wooing onlookers for free. The popular walk along the riverside boasts a great atmosphere and a generous dose of culture all year around. For a handful of days this December, the popular promenade will showcase 14 illuminated installations designed by local, emerging, and internationally-acclaimed lumiculators (I did make that up).


From the 5th to the 8th of December the illumination exhibition designed by Quays Culture will be on display after dark. With regular guided tours including a BSL version at 7pm on the 7th, visitors can either have a mosey along at their own pace and discover what they find in their own way or can be shuffled along and given all the inside scoop. Perhaps both sounds like the best option.  

No booking is required so you can show up when you like and see what it has in store. There are bound to be some interesting messages and thought-provoking ideas for you to take home with you.

Via BBC
    
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When we think of art sculpture we probably think of marble and bronze. The uniform colour of solid materials always offers a fresh lighting and can even magnify certain characteristics and mannerisms. We’ve probably all laughed at some of the modern sculptures, especially of football players, that seem to miss the mark. A cartoonish sense of impressionism has taken over the agenda with a lot of modern homages. Perhaps in years to come the seemingly skewwhiff expressions will become a source of endearment and something to remember these historical characters for. The ancient statues from antiquity are usually much more lifelike, with attention to detail reflecting the reality of the human form. We don’t know if they really looked like that, or the model at least, but we can still admire the beautiful forms offered today. 
 
When you think of painted statues, you might think of Games Workshop. The adult's and children’s war gaming phenomenon involves buying your characters and painting them before using them in the game. The setting isn’t the same as other sculptures, after-all the mass produced and plastic figurines can hardly compete with an artist’s handiwork. Yes, they are fun and it can be something for everyone to enjoy, we don’t play chess to admire the king. Painted sculpture in the art world is often termed polychrome sculpture, which means multicoloured. The art of painting and the art of sculpting can unite in the form of vivid and three-dimensional objects. 
 
In Prado, Spain, the art of polychrome sculpture is taking the forefront in a new exhibition. The Roman Catholic culture in Spain is renowned for its iconography. Images of religious figures are used to help people connect with their ideas of God and faith. Some churches see these as so-called graven images, which are forbidden, however other churches see them as essential tools for bringing people closer to the creator of everything. As the artist creates the shapes then uncovers their reality with life-like colour, the people from stories and history are almost brought back to life. 
 
Hand In Hand- Sculpture And Colour In The Spanish Golden Age is a new exhibition in the Spanish area of Prado. Including the work of Luisa Roldan, the first female polychrome sculptor in the Spanish royal court, the exhibition demonstrates the exquisite and iconic imagery multicoloured sculpture has to offer. The scenes depicted are varied, with many religious figures from various cultures making up the majority. This showing of art wants to highlight the discrimination the medium has received in recent years. Not only the gender of the artists but the art form itself has often been dismissed as not proper or an imitation of the real masters. Hand In Hand wants to put this concept to bed and show the true mastery behind the empathic and narrative depictions.  ​

In its fourth year, the Egyptian art festival that takes place at the feet of the Pharoah's resting place, Forever Is Now showcases some of the best contemporary art the region has to offer. As the inspiration arises from the creativity of their ancestors, and the constant influx of ideas from around the world, a moment of awareness is made material by trusted artisans who best represent the movement.  
 
As the cartography of the sand can change overnight and the patterns nature designs can reveal stunning novelty and inventiveness, the output of the day’s artists can shift and fold over on itself as various ideals and motivations make themselves known, needed, and open for exploration. For the first time in the Forever Is Now open-air exhibition, Asian participants have been included in the roster of talent to showcase their ideas and messages.  
 
The artists have been given the setting and the wealth of imagery it entails to work with, and as usual they have not let Egypt down. In their clever and intuitive reflections of the culture, aspects of the ancient civilization meet the modern day as locals and visitors can enrich themselves in the extra layers of transient time. Autumn is a great time to visit Egypt, as the summer sun has fallen back, temperatures are more reasonable. Africa is famous for being hot before anything else, so exhibiting the world’s talent during the milder months makes a lot of sense.  
 
The painstakingly produced and thought-through work of fourteen internationally renowned artists have made the cut to be exhibited this year. These include sculptures, paintings, and installations. A partially submerged chariot by Khaled Zaki, stylistically designed with a steel interpretation of a struggling horse, a clay constructed Vessel of Time by Jean-Marie Appriou, multicoloured hieroglyph temples adorned in ancient Egyptian and Modern-day Korean scripts by Ik Joong-Kang, and many more intriguing and surprising displays are situation in the UNESCO heritage site.  
 
As Egypt has been playing a role in reducing tensions between Likud in Israel and Hamas in Palestine, both of which want to destroy each other's culture, the nation’s tourism has suffered genuinely because of this. Polarised minds from both sides will see Egypt as a thorn in the side of the agenda when it comes to ironing out the creases and putting a stop to the senseless and murderous campaigns of both parties. A nation as ancient as Egypt, with its fair share of ups and downs, can stand proud and experienced in the field of international politics. We should listen to ancient cultures, especially ones that have been so successful. Although there are only a few days left for this year’s Forever Is Now exhibition, we can assume that next year will see something just as grand and equally as inspiring. Maybe it’s a good time to visit the land of sand and Pharaohs. 

​Via The Guardian

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If you were in possession of a once looted piece of antique culture from Nepal, would you give it back? What if there was nothing stopping you from keeping it? Put yourself in the shoes of a collector, who values their possessions on a scale that actually measures up to the “right thing to do” and often wins. It’s a tough one, we know that in the harsh reality of this world, most people would not give their antique back. After-all, Nepal is not in a position to enforce or pay for the return. So, what’s next for the rightful custodians of local heritage? A deal. A battle between the part of us descended from apes, reptiles, amphibians, and fish and the part of us descended from heaven.  
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Nonsense, I can imagine some of you thinking. Let’s look at it another way. Freud spoke of the subconscious and the id. The subconscious is the bit of us descended from nature, it wants and needs, it desires. The id is the part of us we have built ourselves from the most powerful wisdom we can find. Our morality and our notion of what is right comes from this, it’s in the brain because as we learn through life, our brain creates the proper connections. Pitting these brains against each other is exactly what Nepal are doing with their new exhibit.  


“Give Us Back Our Gods” is an exhibition that recreates a batch of artefacts that was looted between the 1960s and 80s. Each piece has been meticulously recreated and includes a description, just like the real thing would in a museum. The collection is about to go on display in Nepal, with the one purpose. To offer each highly crafted exquisite replica as an exchange for the original, no questions asked. Now, you might think that surely the real thing is much better but remember what Machiavelli said, “A man of good character is difficult to conspire against”. Imagine the replica and the story of how upon discovering the history, the family decided to exchange the piece. The story is worth a lot more than the artefact.  


Well, we can only hope. At least the rest of us can visit Nepal any time we like in the next few months to catch a glimpse of what could have been. A mirror image of reality, but it’s the spirit that is backwards. Or is it? If the originals were intended to appeal to Gods and these new pieces are intended to appeal to the God within us, is there much difference after all? The Museum of Stolen Art is set to open in 2026. 
 
Interested in the scene? Check out this book: The Nepal Festivals:: Articles on Nepalese Art, Culture and Deities
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Finding the solutions to the problems we have and those that others share with us often requires a creative approach. It’s not often that we have an instinctive and no-brainer answer to a genuine problem, mostly because by the time we get to this point we’ve likely solved it or made it a lot worse. We take the tools of the moment, the ideas surrounding the moment, and make something useful out of it. If you remember MacGyver, he’d often construct something out of little bits and bobs in a technical engineering way. The A-Team would do something similar, building various machines and traps that usually made use of their indestructible van and a cunning disguise.  
 
Creativity is the process of taking what we have and using it to make something new, for a purpose, or simply for the pure enjoyment of it. We can apply this principle to nearly every aspect of life, with an infinite number of dimensions that can be aligned to the process of finding something new. The various disciplines of life make use of time-served techniques and methods that become the solid foundations for new ideas, novel practices, and particular answers to very specific one-off problems. The more dynamic and shifting an industry is, the more creativity is required to stay in the centre ground. To be at the top of the league, creativity and technique must work together to the point of excellence. The more honed and experienced a technique has become, the more polished the individual components of it will be for creative uses.  
 
Although creative processes can take place in every walk of life, there are some people who are more suited to creative activity than others. As we all come with different personalities, each one with its virtues and weaknesses, creative individuals are more likely to seek out new paths and better ways. Rather than shying from problems, they like to solve them. The creative process can be summed up simply as listening to ideas and problems, applying what we know to them, and then acting on the problem with our application. Often, it is our own problems that we listen to or those in our family. Professional creativity involves listening to the recurring problems of the wider world. Sometimes we are asked to provide bespoke answers and sometimes we’re asked to solve problems with an answer already given but not working.  
 
Human creativity is about the governance of the line between reality and fantasy. An idea that doesn’t have substance can be turned into a material object or process of value in a cultural context with the applied creativity of one or more people. It might sound simple; however, this is an incredibly powerful part of our toolkit that has enabled us to progress from the canopy. Finding purpose in our creativity means listening to the issues that matter and the desires that are relevant. When we have linked our process to the tangible reality the real work can begin.   
 
To create things that have intrinsic value, the result needs to have a clear purpose. Not only this but the purpose has to resonate with human needs. These stem from mind, body, and spirit. We need to keep all three of these things happy, mental, physical, and emotional nourishment are important for all of us. Creative processes tap into these fundamental requirements to offer new and interesting ways to sustain and improve the wellbeing of these aspects. From practical things like a new way of banking to spiritual things like a book about God, the human being is sustained and nourished with a continual diet of beneficial creativity.  
 
Many people are psychologically motivated to be the best they can be, to make the most of their given attributes, and become successful by doing the things they enjoy and are particularly good at doing. We like getting good at being good. It is rewarding for us and gives us a sense of self-esteem that may have been lacking before we applied ourselves. Even if we don’t rank in the top of the group, winning little battles against our previous selves makes the art of progress beneficial. Some of us are better at pure creativity and can apply it to whatever is put in front of us. Innovators, entrepreneurs, inventors, (the decent) supply teachers, they all have highly creative jobs. Creativity by its nature changes the social and economic landscape. Depending on your own level of reach, the level of reach of your creativity will follow. If your idea is valuable, then it’s likely to travel beyond as more people adopt it or at least come up with something based on it.  
 
It isn’t a simple thing to be creative. The whole process requires not only a strict process but a strict mental regime. Things that put a stop to creativity are the things that put a block between our subconscious and our conscious mind. Stress, anxiety, fear, and monologue all stand between you and your brain’s inner computer. The idea is for the two to talk to each other in ways that make the subconscious conscious. Naturally, the inner landscape of our subconscious mind is not fit for purpose when it comes to conscious expression, however the motivation is on our side, and it can offer insights and missing pieces that we feel make sense out of the situation. Once we consciously process the various concepts and ideas that come to mind, we can put them into physical use. Our evolution is as ancient as life itself so when it has a good idea, if it really is a good idea, then you should listen to it. You know you can’t maul your problems in a dark cave, so you can be the judge of your own ideas and once they’re out in the world, it’s up to the rest of us.  
 
The best creativity happens when you're relaxed and stress free. A good start might be browsing this awesome comic and toy shop, it's safe for grownups and kids.
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Many people will remember the devastating fire that ripped through the historical York Minster back in 1984. The building boasts some of Britain’s finest period architecture outside of London with roots dating back to pre-Viking times. The Minster of today was built over a staggering 250 years during the early Middle Ages, when life expectancy was around half as much as it is today. Designed to fit the needs of the Entire North of England when the nation was still under King and God, the magnificent Gothic building represents the first example of the style ever built in the land. Westminster, Exeter, Sheffield Town Hall, they all take the second row.  
 
When the fire blazed through the South Transept, the right-hand side of the cross shape, the pulpit area and the priceless artifacts were destroyed. Thankfully, work was able to begin immediately to repair the beautiful and hardy structure. Now, with 4 decades behind them, the Minster are ready to recreate the entire experience with a fantastic light and sound show called Phoenix. The Nave, where the congregation sits, and the entrance area at the West Wing, will be illuminated with flickering orange and yellow firelight. The sound of a raging fire and the voices of firefighters will sing out from speakers to complete the effect.  
 
Exhibition creators Karen Monid and Ross Ashton have deliberately put the disaster into vivid detail, incorporating the story of the fire and the continuing work to rebuild the world-famous building. Visitors today may not be able to tell that there are pieces missing and that several traditional elements may not be in their rightful place. Millions of pounds and four long years were spent to get the place back to usability. However, with the full story told alongside the exciting visual and sonic effects, modern-day Minster goers will discover how much is still needed to be done.  
 
From the 2nd of November, visitors can witness the display for themselves and learn all about how human endeavour conquers chaos with the provision of time, effort, and of course money. Ticket prices for this event raise funds to help continue the vital repair work that no-doubt will take place over this generation and the next. With a history such as the one York Minster carries on its shoulders, we can all afford to wait a while to see its completion.   

​Learn about the Gothic Architecture style: ​The Gothic Cathedral: The Architecture of the Great Church 1130-1530
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I love looking through these Aladdin’s Cave stores, with all kinds of so-called junk and unwanted things. The idea of searching through the mishmash of former belongings and sensing the history within each piece as they pass from tabletop to hand to tabletop is magical and captivating. Where some of us see a future bin lorry haul, others see a collected history of modern and retro style, represented in every kind of imaginable way. Books, comics, magazines, furniture, electronics, ornaments, clothes, music, toys, they all come from somewhere and some place in our time. One thing we can usually be certain of, though, is the fact that nothing is worth much. It’s cheap.  
 
Luigi Lo Rosso is one such purveyor of timeless artifacts and mismatched collectibles. Back in 1962, he acquired a canvas depicting a man and a woman. He hung it on his wall in a cheap frame while living in Pompeii. Now in Capri, with plenty of things still packed away in his basement, the junk shop owner’s son happened to mention the painting to someone who knew more than he did. The signature looked a lot like that of Picasso and the image seemed to show the artist himself with one of his many lovers. The unusual image was then shown to real experts who authenticated the painting as genuine.  
 
The esteemed and sought-after graphologist Cinzia Altieri spent months comparing the writing to that on known works by the famous painter. Every little detail was studied and compared, taking into account for the freedom of human writing and the common aspects that run through every example, enough points of reference were found to determine the painter’s true hand. Luigi Lo Rosso must be very proud, and glad he left his business in such capable hands. Imagine how easy it would have been to simply buy the painting for a few Euros, with its retailer unaware of its real worth? Thankfully the due diligence of his son Andrea was enough to uncover this brand-new example.  
 
The painting is said to resemble Picasso’s 1938 work, Bustede femme. Featuring the French photographer Dora Maar with his famous cubism style. Stolen from a Saudi Sheik’s luxury yacht in 1999 and recovered two decades later, Buste de femme has entered cultural repute thanks to its exciting journey through the underworld. This newly found piece appears to be a pairing to the image thought to have been painted slightly earlier and shows the couple appear to melt into one another in an embrace. Valued at over 6 million Euros, the recently discovered Picasso is sure to have interest from all sides of the equation.  

Fancy browsing through vintage brand new second hand clothes? You might find a missing masterpiece. Support Alternative Fruit with any purchase, or just look and see. (WELCOME for 10% Off)

Why should we listen to preachers? What do they know that we don’t, and how do we know that they really know? I don’t like preachers who are full of judgements, condemnations, and threats. In fact, I don’t think they are preaching but riding the rollercoaster of inflated self. And what if we don’t even believe in God? What on Earth is the point of listening to a man talk about something we don’t accept? Preacher Charles Spurgeon seems to offer a genuine and historically relevant selection of ideas and works that help us to understand the mind of the time and perhaps a little of our own ancestral memory.
 
When I wrote Meeting God In TheMiddle, I really wanted to help non-believers and believers alike meet on the middle ground and appreciate what is going on in a way that suits everyone. Obviously, no-one can truly make everyone happy, and those of us who are fundamental believers will no doubt find many problems in my little book. I’d love you to read it and write about what they are, linking to the original of course. Let’s start a discussion, that’s what it is all about. Nevertheless, the middle ground in the religious sphere is that a genuine phenomenon exists in that people are willing to believe and act in ways that perhaps go against the grain of the world. Understanding why is clearly important, so we can at least communicate with people on levels they understand and are willing to act on.  
 
But if it’s true, if the stories and wisdom handed down by religious texts and ideas around the world are still around because there’s something right about them, we can mostly agree it is in the same way a fable is important. We know that a tortoise and a hare never ran a race, but we tell the story because of the information it contains. If you are lazy, even the slowest can outpace you. Religion is like this whether you believe it is true or not. That’s the point of my book and that’s the point of this article.  
 
The magical world of old-fashioned Christianity taps into a deeper sense of connectivity to nature and the universe that today’s hooray churches seem to ignore. The majesty and mystery of being alive and with a crystal clear conscience that we trip over daily is an experience like no other. Finding ways of exploring this in terms that extend beyond the material but count the internal as part of it is what religion has done to a great extent. Christianity, like Islam, Buddhism and Yogic practices, is about relinquishing the self. To surrender the individual to the will of God, or the natural progression of the universe, is a way of life that billions of people believe is beneficial beyond the immediate. All faiths try to reach out to the divine source of all creation, with a belief that it holds a consciousness which cares about us. 
 
Understanding the working of this consciousness and its relationship to us is what religion is all about. Is this possible? Like looking into a masterpiece by a great artist, we can learn a lot about them from the way they produced the work. Every little detail can tell us about the intention and the motivation, which go on to inform us on the character of theartist themselves. Religion likes to treat creation like a masterpiece and God is the term we use for the artist. The entire universe and everything unimaginable beyond belongs to this grand source.  
 
So, whether you actually believe in it or not, hopefully you can appreciate the validity and importance of religious ideas. When the preacher is not tainted by hate and competitiveness and they reach into the grand mysteries of philosophical thought, we can bypass the need to fully accept in favour of gleaning the good information that stems from a genuine desire to live according to the laws of all creation.  Visit  the Pastor Charles Spurgeon YouTube Channel and enjoy the continuing updates.
 
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The painted people, Picti, were first mentioned in Latin during the 3rd Century AD. Their origin seems to stem from the Iron Age Caledonii tribes and their counterparts, known for making it impossible for Rome to conquer them. The Middle Ages saw Picts take the lead in the North of the British Isles, with wonderfully patterned architecture and fashion pieces leaving an immortal mark on the landscape. Pictland is a specific area of the Scottish countryside that holds the largest concentration of the styled creativity. It is, in fact, in the methods of creativity and the techniques employed that we could make our best educated guesses as to the origin of many various pieces of history. I wonder if this would be still true for today’s works of art and design? 
 
Although the Pictish people had a vibrant and diverse spoken language, rooted in the ancient Gael languages, they did not leave any written word for us to explore. This perhaps suggests they did not have writing at all, or perhaps despite their ability to make complex designs in stone, they wrote on something much more transient. It could have been a superstitious belief that prevented words from being made permanent. There is also the fact that Pict is a generic term invented by Latin speaking people to describe a culture they knew nothing about. The pictures they refer to were probably dyes applied to the skin or tattoos like the Māori people of New Zealand. Trends and cultural synchronicities can run through several cultures, like football today could mean we are the ballkicking people. Sounds good, but it doesn’t say much about the variety of players in the world.  
 
Even though we have various writings from the time about the so-called Picts, they are generally written in second-hand accounts or in passing tense. No real or long-lived emissary work was done to understand the cultures, perhaps because of the warring tribes on both sides. What we have to do is go to Pictland itself and explore the things the ancient culture left behind. In the most long-lived artifacts, the ones constructed with the most attention and care, the test of time reveals at least some of what they valued the most. The good news is that the work is still ongoing, with new finds being made all the time. Every fresh discovery writes another page in the annuls we never got. 
 
As reported in Live Science Magazine, a volunteer recently unearthed a splendid piece of Pict jewellery. The metal ring is at least 1000 years old and contains a red solitaire. It’s thought to either be garnet or red glass, testing the fragile piece might be harmful. Maybe a safe way of finding out can be applied. Retired Engineer and Alum of Aberdeen University John Ralph decided to join the dig when the opportunity arose, and he was the lucky archaeologist who found the kite-shaped antique piece. The ruined fort from Pict times was almost obliterated during the 1800s when developments built over the site. Now with a clear conscience, the modern-day Scots are revisiting their heritage and safeguarding the fantastic treasures that still hide beneath the fertile and haunted ground.  
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These days its websites that ​contain the most modern culture that future people can refer back to. Books, films, blogs, magazines, newspapers, it's all there. Why not add your own dimension to the picture with a website of your own? Start for free or get a custom domain like this one. Support Alternative Fruit with this link and start your website today.

LGBT Veterans of the British Armed Forces are refusing to wear a well-deserved award handed out recently, until “the wrongs have been put right”. It was illegal for people to be homosexual in the UK until the law was changed in 1967 in England and 1980 in Scotland. In 2017, the UK Government issued an official pardon for all those convicted of homosexual activity under these past oppressive laws. The military took a while longer to move on with the times, taking until 2000 to stop banning homosexual people from signing up to serve.  
 
With heavy origins in Christianity, homosexuality has become a symbol for the sins of vanquished Old Testament nations. It wasn’t in the 10 commandments, neither was it mentioned by Jesus or His Disciples, but because it appeared in a few lists of behaviours that resulted in demise, it’s always been seen as wrong by the orthodox. Perhaps, like the other wrongs they mention like eating pork and shellfish, homosexuality was seen as something to be avoided for health reasons. A superstitious people would blame things on God when they had natural causes. We know about disease now, and we must ask if, like eating pork and shellfish, homosexuality can be practiced in safe and proportionate ways.  
 
Being a gay soldier in the time of WW2 was a dangerous time. Not only was the enemy out to kill you, but the state was also out to imprison you as well. Like fighting an evil such as fascism, being gay isn’t something we can simply compartmentalise and walk away from. If you love freedom and you hate being bombed, you’ll do what you can do help. If you love a man and you can’t imagine loving another person, you’ll do what you can to maintain the relationship. This is captured in intimate detail with a new exhibition of audio-art in the village of Oswestry in the West Midlands.  
 
We should be thankful that these correspondences still exist, hundreds of letters between Gilbert Bradley and Gordon Bowsher have been meticulously stored and kept safe for almost a hundred years. The two soldiers wrote to each other at every opportunity and the contents of the letters offers a vast and intriguing picture of the lives that they shared. These and many other similar love letters collected by love-letter enthusiast and artist Megan Hayward have been turned into telephone calls for us to listen to. 
 
Held at the old Yoga Centre until September 28th, visitors are encouraged to visit Megan’s exhibition and romanticise themselves with a drenching of love language from the past. A large variety of stories and communications await, with their vintage being equally as large in range, you can visit the centre during business hours on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  

If you're interested in collecting old letters complete with their antique stamps, you can find a good selection on eBay. Support Alternative Fruit with any eBay purchase from this link.