curious things.
told you i was taking photographs.
Filed under: curios | Leave a Comment
Tags: art, dolls, photography
kitsch/cute?
vintage mi hummel figurines – kitsch or cute, do you think? apparently they’re collectable and such…they’re a bit curious either way…
Filed under: curios | Leave a Comment
Tags: ceramics, curios, dolls
peacocks and suits.
my morning involves the first work day of the new year. i have read (written on the body, jeanette winterson), checked all my emails (there are many), and updated my calender and to-do list (i should photograph my new diary and calender. they’re very pretty) and embarked upon it.
and see my knitting? it’s called peacock stitch. this is just a test-piece, with some left-over wool, but i’m thinking of making a lovely pair of arm-warmers with it.
i am also loving this shoot, from vogue september 2009, and in particular the suit on the right. i think i might sew one for myself…
Filed under: books, craftstuffs, fashion, life | Leave a Comment
Tags: books, diaries, fashion, knitting
i just finished reading away by amy bloom (and as a consequence it’s somewhere around 2.30 in the morning, and i can’t sleep, so if this is a little curdled do forgive). it’s a curious, curious book. not least because it does not end at all as i expected it would (and i had a couple of possible expectations to choose from; it met none of them). i liked the first half particularly. i loved the yiddish and the russian; the accents that felt, to me, like home (thick and rich and wary and tough, and often a bare edge of despiration, crouched just beneath). i loved the brutal determination of the characters, and their heart-gut-throat-wrenching affection for each other, adoration found in the chinks of their shells and the rifts between their bodies.
but some of the sub-stories were strange. a little too sweet. for a narrative that covered such terrible, bleak ground, the neatness of every thread felt…discordant, to me. for it to end any other way – any of the many ways i had imagined it could – would have been terrible, but…it also would have made more sense. or been more real. not to say, of course, that ‘reality’ is needed for a story to be wonderful; it most certainly is not. but, for me, the beauty of so much of this book was how true it rang for me. lillian and yaakov, in particular, embodied fulsomely certain quirks of jewish-european sentiment that authors either get right or wrong, and nothing in between, and which bloom achieved admirably.
to be honest, by the end of the book, bloom’s style was wearing on me a bit but, for the first half in particular, i greatly enjoyed the lilt of her blunt-lyrical prose and frank confrontation of disquieting – and often quite disgusting – subjects. i love language, for itself, in its most eccentric and sumptuous forms; but honestly, the textual works i tend to admire most are ones which mangage poetry through a brusque – and at times almost rude – use of words. not so much minimalism as uncivility, or on occasion explicitness.
in any case, flaws aside, away includes this passage, on p.217, which is (whether perfect or not – it’s a subjective decision, you know) at its very least a beautifully blemished description of a feeling i’ve been harbouring, unarticulated, for some months:
“You missed me,” he says and he smiles as if this is an old joke between married people, as if they’ve been parting and returning to each other hundreds of times over the years, and have come to know, the hard way, that the measure of the love is not how many partings you go through but that there is always one more reunion.
Filed under: books | Leave a Comment
Tags: books, reviews
pretty, pretty, pretty – pink!
this shoot from the January 2010 issue of marie claire australia makes me want to find a sweet pink lipstick:
and my net-a-porter picks of the week:
ballerina flats by lanvin.
frame bag by marni.
christian louboutin patent pumps.
simple, pale, pretty. much my mood for everything in this weather (and i would really like my sewing machine back so i can make some new cotton dresses to suit). i never said this was going to be a pithy post, but you must admit it’s nice to look at.
oh. and happy 2010, hm? may it be good to us all.
Filed under: fashion | Leave a Comment
Tags: bags, beauty, fashion, shoes
today i feel…
…as though this is particularly pertinent. must remember good advice from many quarters and try, try, try again to impliment it. new year resolutions are coming up. lists of good ones much appreciated.
Filed under: interiors, life | Leave a Comment
Tags: paper stuffs
goodmorning, starshine.
today i was up with the sun; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the sun rose while i was up. 7am is such a pretty time to be alive to the world.
i miss taking photographs regularaly. one sees the world differently when one’s used to framing things thorugh a lense. i’m out of practice. making pictures i like seems to take an age. but it gets easier the more i do.
to that end i think i’m going to try for a photograph every day. i’m not certain it’ll work, but…i will make the attempt. perhaps i shall get better? i hope so. the 7am light certainly makes it easier…
(i’m cat-sitting at the moment. this is my kitten – she technically belongs to h. – but i’ve known her since she could sit on my palm and she loves me best. so in the ways that count she’s definitely mine. she’s currently curled up on my legs with her companion – big and boisterous and black, yin to the little one’s yang – submitting to a thorough washing. this is the plight of smaller cats.)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
colour differentials.
i love my housemate very much, but the couch we have is very large and square, in an awkward pink-purple.
and i find this unfortunate because what i would really like is something more like these cushions.
Filed under: interiors | Leave a Comment
Tags: furniture, houses
i love this photograph of marina bychkova and one of her creations (from cisley’s flick stream). i am perpetually enchanted by images of artists with their work, particularly when it is sculptural, or in 3 dimensions.
honestly i’ve always had mixed feelings about bychkova’s dolls; the craftspersonship is clearly phenomenal, and the way she joints her bodies, the range of movement she achieves…well, it’s quite breathtaking. plus the costumes are nothing but stunning. the faces, though…just…they’re not so much my thing. sweet but not arresting. something about the strong anime influences. they look like drawings, not creatures – which is interesting, and they’re certainly very pretty – but they don’t speak to me.
however. this one? oh.
she’s just lovely…so very beautiful. half-dreaming faces…human and other worldy all at the same time… you should really look at her blog to see the piece about how she made this marie-antoinette wig, too (i also have a ‘thing’ for behind-the-scenes shots). and look for the audrey kawasaki picture in the background!
Filed under: art | Leave a Comment
Tags: art, beauty, dolls, paintings, sculpture, wonders
the title is from a suzanne vega song that, to be honest, i’ve always found disquieting. but in this case the reference is sparked by something that is quite simply beautiful, before it is anything else.
it’s a jointed wooden horse – japanese, i think, though i have no provenance yet – and i was given it today, the most precious christmas gift i think i’ve ever recieved. it’s gloomy outside today, but perhaps i’ll take some better photos of it another time; the details alone are worth recording, and are lovely in themselves.
Filed under: art | 1 Comment
Tags: art, sculpture, wonders
