ella klenner - bad oldesloe, germany

ella klenner has sent in these images from bad oldesloe in germany...

"The magnet is stuck to a sprayed electricity box in front of the home for elderly people. It reminds me of where we come from and where we are going. Often the old people are standing next to the monkey with their zimmer-frame, watching the life on the street or they are waving from behind the window (background) to the people passing by."

lester kong - stoke-on-trent, uk 4

photographer lester kong highlights the plethora of urban notices telling its dwellers what to and not to do. He writes...

"on a recent walk around my home town i was struck by the amount of ad hoc fencing, barbed and razor wire and signs issuing me with direct orders on how i should behave and where i was forbidden to go. i live in hope that one day, i'll stumble across a sign inviting me to "please walk on the grass".

abe honest, wolverhampton, uk

artist abe honest tells of a folk figure from wolverhampton's past...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abehonest/

http://www.myspace.com/abe_honest

It (the magnet) is placed on the nearest tree on Wolverhampton's Inner Ring Road, where the famous tramp Josef 'FRED' Stawinoga (15/12/20 – 28/10/07) lived for 40years in his tent.
He is thought to have been involved in the Soviet invasion of Poland (1939), before emigrating to the UK in the 1940s.

After the war he lived in Wolverhampton, finding work and a place to live – and an Austrian wife who left him after a year, according to Juliusz Leonowicz, who identified himself as Stawinoga's friend.

Official records show that Stawinoga married a woman called Hermine Weiss in Wolverhampton in 1952.

It has been reported that Stawinoga worked for some time at the Stewart & Lloyds steelworks in Bilston. One day, however, he did not turn up to work and the next his colleagues knew "...he was pushing a pram with all his possessions and had grown an ankle-length beard"
Thus, at a date given by different sources as 1954 and 1967, he opted out of society for unknown reasons, left his job, and became homeless. He was evicted from several lodging houses, and by the 1970s he had moved into a tent on the central grass reservation of the town's inner ring road. The council tolerated his presence, as he was claustrophobic, and he became something of a local character. A series of replacement tents was erected by the authorities over his original plastic sheeting; in April 2003 this involved "an operation involving the army, the police, social services and environmental health".

Fred was treated as a holy man by the Hindu and Sikh communities, with many people believing he lived a truly enlightened life. A group devoted to him on the social networking site Facebook had over 4,000 members in early October 2007.

Józef Stawinoga died on 28 October 2007, aged 86. Wolverhampton City Council announced that it would cover the cost of his funeral if none of his family came forward, and the possibility of a memorial to him has been discussed. His tent was removed by the council at the request of West

Midlands Police, who were concerned that the area would become a tourist attraction^.
(INFO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA)

I find this very appropriate to place the magnet by Fred's home of 40 years, it is giving him some sort of recognition that he was the beauty in the city during his time living there.

nathaniel pitt - worcester, uk

artist and curator nathaniel pitt uses the beauty magnet to highlight this innovative use of a household feature - diy art gallery at its most inventive.

http://www.artistsonscreen.co.uk/nathanpitt/

http://www.pittstudio.com/

les arnott - lichfield, uk

...for les arnott - "a quiet spot to relax and reflect" in lichfield

The Garden of Remembrance in the city of Lichfield

iris bertz - leamington spa, uk

thanks to iris bertz for these wintry images of allotments in leamington spa

jodie cresswell, gunthorpe, uk

artist jodie cresswell has set beauty free, to boldly go...

she writes...

This river passes through the ‘shires and city’s of the midlands where I belong.

The ‘beauty in the city- message in a bottle’ was released New Years Eve at Gunthorpe, Nottinghamshire. Hopefully it will find its way to the North Sea, seeing much beauty as it travels- alone and undocumented. This micro project will only be closed when it has been found.

It has my address & your blog inside – so hopefully it will be recycled by its ‘finder’ and used for their 'beauty in their city'.

I am ever inspired by the ‘passing through of cities’, the glimpses that are lost and remixed in a memory format only. I like the privacy of its capturing and power of its faded reminiscence. I felt my contribution to your project should demonstrate/ actively participate this.
My current practice is investigating: The distance Between

The dialects of here and there has been promoted to the rank of absolutism according to which these unfortunate adverbs of place are endowed with unsupervised powers of ontological determination.
Gaston Bachelard

susana lopez fernandez - barcelona/gijon, spain

thanks to susana lopez fernandez for this image taken in catalonia's capital...

and this one from her native gíjon

december beauty

this month's selected image was submitted by jen cantwell - an icy view over inverness's beauly firth.