a tiny world of disproportionate curiosity;  a place where the traditions of art, fashion and theatre often coalesce in the surreal

15 January 2014

A Tale of Abandonment


A rather lengthy and unplanned hiatus....

what better way to grace this page once more, than with
a photo tour of one of my favourite 'abandoned' places.











This beautiful dilapidated mansion is in Habana Vieja, Cuba.

Photographed by pilot and urban explorer Henk van Rensbergen 
who has also produced several exquisite books of his pictures.

They are available for purchase here through Amazon.


All images via Abandoned Places



21 March 2013

silk flowers




Modelling the finished headpiece.


making a headpiece










I got another request to make a bridal headpiece recently.
This one was for Ari's sweet teacher.... and she loved it ♥



Pablo Neruda


A dear friend once gave me a book, 'The Captain's Verses'. It is one of the most beautiful books, that I have ever read. Those of you who know me, will know of my long love affair with poetry. When I dug a little deeper, I unearthed another gem. A book of poems, so perfectly formed, from title to last line, that the experience of reading it, moved me to tears... Pablo Neruda's 'Twenty Love Poems and A Song of Despair'. If you haven't read it, don't read what's written below. Don't ruin what lies in wait at the bookstore or the library or on a friend's shelf. Go out and find a copy. And read it. From cover to cover. I envy your first time. 


A Song Of Despair

The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!

Pablo Neruda

26 February 2013

Marilyn










Marrilyn Monroe photographed by Sam Shaw, 1957

30 December 2012

whiling away the days...


I've been enjoying the sweet sounds of Lee Morse
after whiling away this weekend with wonderful friends
and devouring far too many sweet treats! Ah, the lovely thing 
about celebrating a Summertime Christmas and New Year is
the sheer abundance of sweet fruits on tree and table.




The trees are laden with plums again, which I am about to head
outside and pick, in the softer evening sunshine. 'Tis pickling 
and jamming season again and I am looking forward 
to some good old home preserving this week....

 I hope you have all been enjoying a wonderfully 
delightful holiday season!  One filled with delicious 
food, delightful visitors and decadent days... xo

You can listen to many of Lee's beautiful songs here


07 December 2012

31 October 2012

09 October 2012

Tracciamenti






The beautiful illustrative work of Italian Artist Tracciamenti.
Found via The Jealous Curator (one of my favourite blogs).

More here, here and here.

19 September 2012

dress




"This was the first video I ever made. We shot it in a circus 
school called 'Fooltime' in Bristol on a 16mm Bolex camera. 

We could only afford to process 12 minutes of film, so bits 
of the film are repeated, played backwards and forwards! "


31 August 2012

snap!








This post is a direct transcription from 
a post by reference library.

Too good not to repeat it.  HaHa!

Hmmm.... 

I'll let you make up your own mind Yayoi

more strange and wonderful images here


21 August 2012

Dolly LOVE


Isn't she just incredible? The detail is so exquisite.
Most likely she is a Fashion Doll... or a 'Pandora'.


English Doll 1755-1760  via V&A Collection

"Pandoras were used from the 14th century to convey the latest 
fashion among courts of Europe.... by the end of the 18th century 
the pandoras had given way in importance to fashion magazines. 
The figures were not designed as toys, but, after (fulfilling) their 
original purpose they may been given to children to play with."

-words from the V&A Collection website

I love the patina of these beautiful old dolls and doll houses.