Masquerade

Its hard to find a good mask. There's a lot of masquerade balls for new years eve and I would love to have a bad ass beautiful mask. The most popular is the venetian style, but I find that is hard to find one of those that actually look good on, and while its cute to carry one around on a stick the ones that are kept on tend to be too clunky and stifelling plus they mask too much, its hard to communicate without seeing eachother's facial expressions. So my favorite masks are light and airy. They are more pretty and flattering because they show your face while still masking you technically. To take a look at modern fashion icons rocking light masks check out Kirstin Dunst as Marie aintoinette, and that chick from gossip girl in a metalic cut paper looking lacey thing that kinda blends in with her hair in a way. Paris has on a lighter venetian half face mask that plays more like a feathery hat. I may make myself something like the gold one when i get a chance.

Feathery

Am having a fascination with feathers today am wondering what a feather costume might look like... not wings but a dress which uses feathers in order like a wing would... or perhaps a million tiny blue feathers applied to the skin like if humans came that way... it could be quite elegant if done right. i don't tend to like the way feather masks are made, i'd want something more integrated so it can be delicate, like putting on fake eyelashes... but everywhere and feathers
:)

Under the Sea

Speaking of fish out of water.. So the sailors would be at sea for years and see women so infrequently, that there became the legend of the mermaid, the beautiful women of the sea, drawn to shiny things, half woman half fish, able to breath air and yet have a fish tail and frolic in the water. The sailors also often suffered from illnesses, malnutrition, madness. But the common belief is that the stories refer to the manatees that the sailors had 'mistaken' for women. Most mermaid images tend to represent the offspring of such a crass coupling. Poor manatees...
Thanks for the myths guys but hands off the aquatic life
... i wonder why mermaids are never bald ...

Ode to my inhaler

Dearest inhaler I will never loose you again. I know i only want to see you like less than once a year, and that may make you think your not important to me, i admit i'd almost forgotten about yknow the you and me thing...i know it was me who put you in a bag inside a box at the bottom of a overfilled drawer... you certainly made your point and thanks for saving my ass anyway. If you weren't an inanimate object and i could make out with you right now i so would. I will never loose you again, I promise. xoxoxo

This Just In

I'm working on a new painting, of times square , its in progress, it will not look like this, but i've begun it and it will evolve and here's an exclusive sneak peak :) I'll update you as we make progress (with my fuzzy cell phone camera shots)

I want a fireplace

I want a fireplace.
I'd light it every night, I'd cook on it, i'd dry grapes over it and make tea, snuggle up with cocoa and watch the flames, dry off by it after a hot bath with a velvety blanket. roast marshmellows, charcoal drawings...

dear santa - i want a fireplace.

Babies for Obama!

this is a drawing of my niece Kiara

Critique

i went to a modern art museum with my father recently there in the presence of glowing greatness spectacles of the art world’s pretention i stood in front of a famous white canvas with my dad. The stories about the evolution of art and the artist’s statement, the protest of modern painters against craft and tradition, the bravery it took for that dude to sell a white canvas for thousands of dollars. From the viewpoint of the unpretentious, its pretty unimpressive. I like to take long complicated background stories that accompany paintings with a grain of salt, they are often interesting stories but if the art doesn’t strike a chord with you down deep, when you look at it, its nothing but a story. Though on the other hand, there’s those crotchety old farts from the muppet show who are pretty funny as they unsanctimoniously wreck on even the most impressive acts. Critics are another thing to take with a grain of salt.

Having Issues

This is a striking painting by Phillippe Pinel called “Releasing Lunatics from their chains at the Salpetiere Asylum in Paris. ”

Look at her eyes

We like to think that mental institutions have come so far because they are no longer called asylums and because the metal chains have been replaced with fabric straight jackets. The illnesses however have not changed and often are untreatable. This painting speaks to the heart of the matter. If this was your family your mother your sister or daughter, what would you do?

Irisistable

Have you ever had a crush on someone who is bad for you? Someone so beautiful, that they are irresistable even though to succumb to that desire is gonna cause you nothing but trouble. Drunk Dialing, seranadeing and various ways people make fools of themselves are nothing new. Odyssius happened to have a wife at home which helped him resist the sirens but the other sailors who were not as strong willed sailed toward their song and crashed upon the rocks and were destroyed. I have a fondness for images of this metaphor, its a kind of buyer beware story to warn us against going for that bad idea lover, the succulent mirage that looks so good til you get close and discover its nothing but sand. A stronger person would resist, a hero would tie himself to a tree before falling for the tempation. Hero stories are constructed to teach ideals, what kindof man should one try to be. Homer thinks that you should delete that beautiful asshole’s number.

Ophelia

I used to have a mild obsession with the character Ophelia. She’s beautifully tragic. I used to identify with her in a lot of ways.

Hamlet, her bf, started to have some family problems. His father was murdered and his throne taken by his uncle who married his mother, even though Hamlet was of age to take the throne himself, despite his mother’s remarriage and despite his uncle’s blood relation to the king, it is hamlet who was next in line though somehow skipped over by his father’s murderer. But that’s only periphery to Ophelia’s story. She is a young beautiful lady who is dating the prince. But as part of his plot to uncover real evidence of the dark truth Hamlet decides to convince everyone he’s crazy, basically so everyone involved will put down their guard and let information slip out, so with any luck they’ll hang themselves. Anyway Ophelia has this hottie bf and he goes all crazy at her, her father is an advisor to the king so he doesn’t break character for her, quite the opposite, he hams it up knowing she’ll be watched by the right eyes. So basically one day her bf goes nutty on her, tells her off, with bs ranging from sexual innuendos to emploring her to join a convent. She’s pretty upset over it. She totally loved him and was thinking she was going to be wed to him, then suddenly he’s a total ass to her, and worse than that he appears brain affected. Then the unspeakable happens, one night hamlet kills her dad and they send him off that night to england to be hung for the crime. It was an accident and he escapes execution, but Ophelia never finds that out cause unlike hamlet who’s father’s death caused him to feign madness, Ophelia’s father’s death coupled with the idea of who did it and his subsequent death, made her actually go mad. The poetic description of this madness is a large part of my love for her. She bugs out in the royal court passing out flowers to the various people there, each symbolic of what she thought of them Then she darts off to run around in the woods, singing bits of old songs while she barefooted adorns herself with vines and flowers. She climbs out onto a branch and falls into the lake, and lays on the water singing and recounting little verses, unaware of her peril, then her dress soaks up the water and drags her down to her watery grave. I often wonder why i love this character so much. I used to have a fascination with mental illness, that was before i met anyone who actually had mental problems. I used to hear the word crazy applied as a description of most of my favorite things so her mental break to me was completely romantic. Her mind after all is lost because of a broken heart. Having had my own fair share of broken hearts I sympathize completely with her inability to recover from such a mortal wound. And the way she goes wild is like a child in the woods. I am in love with nature and when i am in a forest i collect pretty leaves and flowers and put them in my hair, i love mud on my feet and climb onto high branches and swim in the lakes and rivers, and i sing. I have sense enough not to drown. But hers wasn’t a suicide, she was a casualty of love. Her passion and love for her man and for her father were so strong that when they died she could no longer function, when they died she died too.

I see her level of passion as a good thing. I want to love with every morsel of my being I want to give every piece of myself to love. I admire the kind of people who would die for passion who love completely.

BUT Lately, the past few years, i am less interested in this character, because i have come to admire people who will not die for love. Who love completely, but have the fortitude of spirit to weather the storms that life will inevitably throw your way. I admire the people who don’t have to loose their shit to spend a day out playing in the woods covered in mud. I admire the people who do that just cause they want to and don’t care what people think. I also no longer romanticise the word ‘crazy’ its too often used wrong. There is such a thing as mental illness and it should not be confused with people being original individuals. Originality is beautiful, mental illness is sad. I like the idea that she was able to make cunning observations of the roles that the various people in the court played in the unfolding tragedy, and that she said these things to their faces (people in that time period would have known the meanings of the flowers she passed to them) However these observations would have been more powerful if they were just said outright instead of masked in metaphors, and they would have been more useful if voiced before her father’s murder. When i was in love with Ophelia I was heartbroken and I saw her as a martyr of love. I saw her death heroic, she personified how i felt, almost justified my refusal to get over it and move on. But life has many heartaches along the road and many things will not go as planned, and the prince can become the villian, and your heart can be betrayed. But allowing the bad things to destroy you is not heroic, its pathetic. You can love someone intensely and passionately and it could not last or they can turn out to be not worthy, but that doesn’t make the love you felt at the time any less important relevant passionate or real. Not everything is forever. It is not a betrayal of love to let it end. And the extent of your love and the fierceness of your passion is not proved by how devastated you become in the aftermath. Love is beautiful. In a perfect world it lasts for forever, in this one you gotta cherish it when it comes your way, for as long as its around, and i try to not tarnish its joyful places in my memory, regardless of the aftermath.

>>> Fancy Soup's Itty Bitty Designs <<<

Announcing My New Store!

I am selling a new line of infantwear, apparel, gifts and more on my new website!

I plan to expand to include a wide variety of original designs so check often and spread the word!

:)

Set Design Me a Dream

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events featured images of this kindof fantasy architecture. Its victorian only more so and its focusing on the most peculiar examples, exaggerating the forms into almost surreal proportions. There is also a current of fine craftsmanship. Stone work, wood work like art nouveau cabnitry, huge fireplaces and chimneys, Towers, round windows, Gothic arches. See also harry potter, casper, adam's family, moulan rouge, lord of the rings (especially hobbiton)... if only this trend would be more prevalant in real life. Set designers get an opportunity to be much more expressive and creative with their architecture and interior designs. I would like to see more victorian charicatures in the real world. for now i'll thank hollywood for making so many of my dream spaces

note - usually in film victorian spaces are depicted as dilapidated haunted disorienting and dangerous, its all modernist propaganda, hobbiton is the best example of the glowy warm belly rub smiles one gets from stained wood, vistas, arches and windowsills

Outside the Box

Incorporating Solar panel glass into architecture as a focal point could be well expressed in geometric designs and vaulting. Traditionally architecture tried to maximize natural light flow with large vaulted public spaces and atriums. NeoGeoGothic... NeoGeoClassical... NeoGeoVictorian ... NeoGeoArtNoveau ... hey ya never know :)

(paid for by citizens against the javitz center)

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Good morning Obama generation, green people who've heard the unfortunate truth, and see in the economy potential for a green revolution, I bring you our future - eco friendly products are our new bling bling. And this guy and his peeps are bring sexy back! They are inventing solar panels which are translucent, they get the energy from a pigment not unlike leaves. And so building glass could be solar panels, and solar panels can be colored glass. I see solar glass usage as the new hot artistic and architectural medium. I see a future of glass rooftops for those who don't want to be grassy, I see the rebirth of buildings with light wells. I see more public spaces mirroring works like the apple cube or the louvre pyramid. They have solar panels shaped like roof tiles for regular houses, I see the hot christmas item being intricately designed stained glass solar panels. The aesthetic of a new emphasis on having quantities of glass, and since eco consciousness is fashionable, I'd say a slightly ostentatious presentation of the glass's usefulness, is a new element which will change the way new buildings look. The times square ticket booth is the first of many ecogreen public uses of glass. From a design perspective its exciting to think of the aesthetic possibilities and what styles may prevail.