itchy mouth « My Itchy Fingers

Of Dragons and Lizards – Mistaken Identities #4

November 11, 2009 at 10:06 am | In itchy mouth | 2 Comments
Tags: Animals, Education, Environment, Nature, Signage, Uniquely Singapore

Itchyfingers went for a short visit at Lower Pierce Reservoir with a friend last Sunday and was glad to find something new at the boardwalk. Remember our earlier posts about mistaken identities of the different reptiles in Singapore?

sign
This wasn’t there a few months ago when I last visited. I am so glad NPark
finally put up a sign to educate people about the differences among the
different species of lizards found in our forests and parks!

sign2
A closer look. The white patches were light reflections through the tall trees…
Lazy to touch up all the patches…since you can never alter the work of nature…
hahah…Now I know skinks give birth to live young…hmmm :p

sign3
Yes! And that’s not an Iguana either! Incidentally, I saw a nice Green-
crested Lizard sitting very quietly among the leaves, very close to where
people walk…but it was partially covered that I couldn’t get a nicer
picture of it. But glad to see it around!

Haha…and yes, that’s not a crocodile either! Great that they list the
differences between the Clouded and the Water Monitor Lizards. So now
you know…

Now I am starting to wonder if any of the NPark staff read my previous posts on these reptiles? Hahaha….no lah, they must have heard enough of the mistaken identities and feedback from the public that they decided to put up this very useful sign. Really hope they will put up more of this in other parks too! Hey, then how about our Sunbirds and Hummingbirds?

Oriental Beauty

September 19, 2009 at 10:32 am | In itchy mouth | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arts, Culture, Design, Museum, Uniquely Singapore

While on our way down from Fort Canning, Itchyfingers saw some sculptures across the road on the SMU field. My immediate reaction was, “Botero?” cos the corpulent figures looked similar to that of the famous Colombian artist. But when I went nearer, I knew they were not Botero’s. They looked too oriental to be his.

I was right. The sculptures laid on the field were indeed not from Fernando Botero, but they were equally beautiful! The figures had lines that were simple, expression that were so lively. Excited, I went around to take photos of all the sculptures…but Itchyfingers shall not show all of them here…yet…

toe
Beautiful big fat toes…

The toes really reminded me of Botero’s sculptures…

Attack! Charge!

I was curious who did these but was disappointed to see no credit given to the artist. Finally I found the inscribed seal…Ahhhh…Bingo! A Chinese name…

seal
So, they were from this artist called LiChen…

But why wasn’t there any sign to credit the artist? Then I saw across the road another sculpture standing proudly in front of the Art Museum. Have not passed by the area for some time so not very sure when were these put up. Could these sculptures been placed there for an upcoming exhibition? Maybe they had been laid not long ago, so signs were not put up yet. I decided to cross the road to take a look at the lone sculpture to find out if there was any sign there…

hug
He looked like he was gonna embrace everyone…so beautiful! And no,
no sign either…

Being Itchyfingers, I decided to check it out at the museum reception. True enough, the man at the counter told me the artist’s name and they were there in conjunction with his solo exhibition to be held at the museum on the 25th of September! Yeah!!! Certainly something worth waiting for!!!

Itchyfingers will definitely be back when the exhibition starts!

sculpture1
Do look out for Li Chen’s “Mind. Body. Spirit” exhibition from 25th September
to 4th December at the Singapore Art Museum!

The Eyes

August 23, 2009 at 9:44 pm | In itchy mouth | Leave a Comment
Tags: Culture, Museum, Taiwan, Travel

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe that some people can see ghosts? What if you are able to see ghosts? What would you do?

He used to be a chef in a restaurant. 20 years ago after attending a friend’s funeral wake, he felt his body being possessed by the Black and White ghost generals 黑白无常 (the pair just like what Itchyfingers are dressed like on our new masthead ). At the same time, he discovered that he has the special ability to see the deads, or what is commonly known as the ‘yin yang’ eyes 阴阳眼. From then on, he started to see faces of the deads, and that sparked his idea of ‘recording’ these faces. Initially he used flour to make the faces, but changed to using clay as it provides more flexibility and is more lasting.

Besides his claim of real life encounters with these dead people, he also likes to draw inspiration from Qing Dynasty’s literary work, 聊斋志异. Naturally, he is also a frequent visitor to graveyards, to get more ideas for his creation. During his creation process, he claimed that he had a few close shaves with death, but as long as he meant no harm, he believes eventually these ghosts will leave him alone.

As his collection of clay face masks increases (he has more than 1,500 masks and aims to increase the number to 5,000 or even 10,000), naturally he would like to share it with more people. Hence the birth of an unique museum on ghost clay masks. Itchyfingers chanced upon this museum during our visit to Taiwan early this year and had a fun time looking at the many clay masks. Whether or not you believe in ghosts, many of the masks were hilarious looking rather than scary! Certainly worth a visit!

paper
A newspaper cutting outside the museum on the creator

Chanced upon this sign while wandering aimlessly along the narrow
old streets of JiuFen, Taiwan. Was curious what was this about but didn’t
really make it a point to look for it, but eventually we bumped into the
museum…