Feathercraft
Today I was a plumassier! I put down my pencil and Wacom pen, picked up a needle and thread, and finally sewed together the feather headdress I’ve been planning to make for years.
I was originally inspired by a headdress (rather gaudy, in hindsight) I saw in a boutique window many years ago, but it was only when I came across this sequin trim in a $5 grab-bag of fabric scraps and sundry beaded goodies that I finally laid my plans.
Taking advantage of the Spring Racing Carnival (when all kinds of millinery accessories are readily available in haberdashers) a couple of years ago, I stocked up on several bunches of feathers, a strip of sinnamay, and some mauve satin ribbon.
It’s my birthday this week, and since I am going to the Spiegeltent for a burlesque circus show on Saturday night, I decided I wanted something fun to wear – a deadline is always motivating! So I spent a good part of the day stitching feathers to the back of the sinnamay (stabbing myself in the fingers several times), then the sequin trim to the front. This was tricky, as the width of the sinnamay varied. Lastly, I stitched the ribbon to the reverse side of the band. I’m not a talented seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, but sequins hide all manner of sins!
Check out a few more pictures of the process on my Facebook page.
Fashioning Art
Porcelain dress, Li XiaofengSome time ago, I walked past a gallery in Melbourne and was greatly taken by some ceramic sculptures of origami cranes, printed with traditional Chinese blue and white designs. Perhaps the gallery was closed, and I could not go in, but neither did I note the name of the artist. To my sorrow, I cannot now find him after running a search online.
I did, however, discover this amazing porcelain dress created by artist Li Xiaofeng. It brings together three loves of mine: fashion, ceramic sculpture and the blue and white porcelain from China. The dress is constructed from porcelain fragments from the Ming, Qing and Song dynasties, and one can only imagine how heavy it must hang.
It gathered a lot of notice at the Hong Kong Art Fair, and finally sold for $85,000 at the Asian Contemporary Art Fair in New York. Isn’t it an incredible piece of art?
Artist Li Xiaofeng with model
Aah, the Serendipity!
February (main): Songs of Rachmaninoff, Columbia Masterworks, 1946In the first week of January I belatedly went shopping in the city for a calendar. After making the horrible discovery that one of my favourite bookshops and calendar stockists had closed down*, I tramped all over Melbourne hunting for a calendar in every likely store. I found very few, and none that I liked. I gave it up as a bad job and went and bought a dress on sale instead.
Then just last week I found a calendar on sale for $9 in an art supply shop. There were two designs to choose from: photos of New York of indifferent quality, or a Taschen calendar of vintage record covers designed by Alex Steinweiss, the inventor of the modern record cover. This was far more interesting, and a viable subject for the Sketchbook too, I decided.
Oddly, the designer chose to include a second small image on the calendar half of the page. At first I thought these were the flip sides of the main image, but no. It’s as if the designer couldn’t decide which cover he or she liked most, and thought, why not use both?
They are great though, so this calendar was a serendipitous find. Happy February!
*Happily, I’ve since discovered that Reader’s Feast has merely moved to the iconic Georges store on Collins St.
February (inset): Gaité Parisienne, Columbia Records, 1942
Out With January!
(January main): John Kirby and His Orchestra, Columbia Records, 1941
(January inset): Piano Concerto No°5 in E-Flat (the Emperor Concerto), Columbia Masterworks, 1942
Staring into Space
I spend lots of time staring into space. Some people call this daydreaming, or worse, wasting time. I call it creative idea management: valuable thinking time when little germs of ideas ferment into Really Big Ideas.
I ran a little Google search on the subject, and the overwhelming result was either song lyrics, or parents bemoaning their child’s constant abstraction. Why does daydreaming have such a bad rap?
I’m constantly thinking. Mostly, of course, it is all very deep and profound and extremely intellectual. But just occasionally the odd amusing or trivial thought might pop into my head. That’s what these Little Fancies are all about.
And when I stumbled upon the cutest little app you ever did see, called The Amazing Type-Writer, it was a match made in heaven. Here was the perfect instrument for jotting down my little fancies (ink is messy*): conveniently digital but noisy and haphazard just like the typewriters I played with when I was but a lass.
I typed up this little note while brainstorming for names for this category on SNAP (with a little help from dear Roget). ‘Flights of fancy’ just came off the end of my fingertips as I typed, but Little Fancies it must be, to complement Little Trifles over on the other side.
I won’t normally write such long entries for these little notes (or what would be the point?), I’m just giving them a fancy introduction to validate their raison d’être.
Enjoy. Go daydream.
* Ok, yes, I do have a notebook in my bag too.
White Base
I’m a little worried about my little bearded man. His skin is rather pitted. I blame it on the dodgy batch of pulp Sapphire and I made a few episodes ago.
Both papîer maché masks have had two layers of gesso applied already, but I think they need a few more before I get the face paint out.
Gesso is a viscous white paint made from a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum or pigment, or a combination of these. It’s used as a primer on canvas, wood panels and sculpture. Modern gesso is made from an acrylic base, but traditionally it was made from an animal glue binder (usually rabbit-skin glue – which stinks to high heaven when you cook it up!), chalk, and white pigment.
Everyone’s heard the joke about women who plaster on their make-up base with a trowel – in the case of my pockmarked masks, I think it would really help!
