orchid

Plate from Kunstformen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel

Orchids look like alien beings.  They thrive on naught but air and water vapor.  Their roots look like sticks or tentacles.

ectrodactyly

who isn’t fascinated by deformity on some level?  as a child i had a book about some of the most famous “freaks” in the world – tom thumb, chang and eng – which i read over and over until it fell apart.  with plastic surgery and our more compassionate contemporary culture, fewer and fewer people have to remain freakish into adulthood.  more and more people choose to make themselves freakish.  does this mean people whose deformities cannot be erased, such as those with ectrodactyly, are even more stigmatized?

visually there are few things more shocking than a human body whose parts or proportions are vastly different from what is expected.  if one can separate the human being inside the body from the image of the body itself, it makes quite a statement about what we assume and expect of human beauty and normalness.

la belle epoque

a lady of la belle epoque

The period from 1874-1911 was, in the western world, a time of flourishing art, fashion, science, and music.  For the upper classes life was easier and more beautiful than ever before; for the working class life remained difficult, filled with toil, and short.  It is a fascinating period to study for its cultural and societal ideas.

art nouveau

Pretty and evocative commercial art from the Gilded Age.

bande a part

the three outsiders dance in a cafe

This movie has changed my life, in a subtle way that I feel all the time.  The visuals are so perfect and clean and, in my admittedly limited view of what being French means, so French.  I ought to see every Godard film; I can only hope they are all so meaningful.

Drinking game: take a shot every time something happens that another director has referenced.

sylvia ji

Sylvia Ji’s paintings of women.  The way the hair, the makeup, the clothes look.  The way I wish I looked or imagine my most ideal self to look.  Mixed with the Japanese and Dia de los Muertos imagery.

http://www.sylviaji.com/

Persephone’s Gone

Persephone’s Gone, originally uploaded by Sighthound.

Winter. dead things. cold. overcast.

Noltland Castle, Orkney – engraving by Godfrey

Noltland Castle, Orkney – engraving by Godfrey, originally uploaded by arjayempee.

A castle in Orkney. The remote, damp, tiny islands off the coast of Scotland are, in my imaginings, the perfect setting for Margeaux’s Persephonic isolation.

jane birkin

 

look at those shoes

hermes created the birkin bag for jane because he saw her struggling with her bags.  if that isn’t the definition of fashion muse, i’m not sure what is.

she’s just incredibly beautiful in a completely effortless way.

 

Ipswich Skinheads circa 1981/2

Ipswich Skinheads circa 1981/2, originally uploaded by © AK Foto.

Skinheads continue to fascinate me, both visually and as a culture. Elements of skinhead style are instantly recognizable and mark a person as having a particular worldview. It is almost like a code; it embodies the very definition of counterculture dressing.