01.oct.07

Debbie Dusenberry, proprietor of the curious sofa and creative display genius extraordinaire has an amazing eye for detail and this Halloween is no exception. loving this.

Gothic Treasure Hunt
Gothic Rose Antiques is a haunting shop in Placerville, California specialing in bewitching chandeliers, candelabras, mortuary decor, period clothing, estate jewelry, vintage masks, old books, medical curiosities and fascinating collectibles.

Halloween Diva

Tinker creates hauntingly glamourous one-of-a-kind mini pillows by using antique cabinet cards and embellishing with feathers and buttons. i love these little gems- perfect halloween decor for every gal's boudoir.

24.sept.07

ready to drool?  Using vintage fabrics and "old wonderful things" resurrected and made into lamps and lampshades, Kathleen Caid creates one-of-a-kind period lighting fixtures that defy description.  Antique baby blankets, lace wedding dresses and ball gowns, vintage English cracker tins, Oriental vases, and figurines are now reborn as art objects that illuminate both one’s spirit and the entire room. Each lamp and shade seems to have an essence of its own – especially when lit, when the fabrics she has revived come alive with fabulous colors and sparkling beads. Caid has imbued each lamp with its own personality, giving it life and character.

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20.Sept.07

You can view the detail of the photos here. 

04.Sept.07   

Don't Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore  is the first comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of Claude Cahun offers a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and drawings, illuminating not only her work but also that of her partner Marcel Moore and establishing for the first time the extent of their collaboration. It also includes the first thorough account of their Resistance operations, trial, imprisonment and attempted suicides during the Occupation. Cahun (1894-1954) is best known for riveting photographic self-portraits that seem eerily ahead of their time and has become the focus of an almost cultlike following.

Claude Cahun was the pseudonym adopted by the French surrealist born in 1894 as Lucy Schwob. Cahun is recognized worldwide as one of the leading artists of the Surrealist movement. Her work was rediscovered in the 1990s and can be compared with that of Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin. Cahun used writing and photography to disrupt conventional ideas about gender.  Her images are enigmatic and can be described as rash and subtle, inviting and rejecting, sexual and asexual. 

In the 1930's Claude and her partner, the writer and artist Marcel Moore participated in a range of anti-fascist activities.  In 1937, they left Paris for the Isle of Jersey.  When the Island was occupied during WWII, Cahun and Moore were imprisoned for acts of resistance.  Their house was commandeered by German troops who looted its contents, dispersing the library and destroying many of the artworks and photographs found on the premises.  Despite the fact that what Cahun characterized as "the best of the work" then perished,an intriguing photgraphic and documentary legacy survived.

I am struck by her confidence, self-possession and imagination.  On one level, I appreciate discovering this woman who dared to disregard feminine expectations so publicly and unapologetically.  On another level, I am entralled by her aesthetic sense and command of visual elements.

05.Sept.07 

In our networked, information-heavy world, we are suffocated with lots of superficial connections – MySpace or LinkedIn, or it's an email from your co-worker's neighbor whom you met once or an interesting blogger that your sister has been reading for a year or an artist whose photos are up on Flickr. Yes, your addressbook has a thousand email addresses but really, how many of those people would wake up at 1AM to help you out?

And it's not just people. Our connection to ideas is also superficial. We will watch 'Inconvenient Truth' and talk about sustainability but we'll still use plastic, not change the light bulbs in our house, and secretly admire SUV's. We will donate to a homeless shelter or sponsor a well in a developing country, but we will ignore a homeless man on the street and indulge in long showers everyday. We will read spiritual books and quote scriptures, but we can't get along with those closest to us and we never practice being still.

Such paradoxes are a reality, for all of us, not because we don't believe in things but because we're confused about what to believe in. Hedging, weighing in the opportunity cost, cashing in for the quick fix, we sink in the quicksand of information, mis-information, dis-information.

And that's where gratitude comes in for me. Gratitude creates that stillness that allows truth to arise and clears out the lens through which I look at the world.