Children of the 50s

I'm working on an incredible project right now, more on it later... but I just can't get over this photograph that I've dug up. My Mom on the right, my Aunt on the left, and some goofy kid in between. I just think it's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Don't you love old photographs?

Literary Lions -- Virginia Woolf

"Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword. On one side all is correct, definite, orderly; the paths are straight, the trees regular, the sun shaded; escorted by gentlemen, protected by policemen, wedded and buried by clergymen, she has only to walk demurely from cradle to grave and no one will touch a hair of her head. But on the other side all is confusion. Nothing follows to a regular course. The paths wind between bogs and precipices; the trees roar and rock and fall in ruin."

-Virginia Woolf, "Harriette Wilson", Collected Essays

Let's embrace the confusion, then, shall we?

Lipstick Queen

I'm a little bit enamored with Poppy King, the woman behind the brand Lipstick Queen. I like this woman's style. She's been enamored with lipstick since she was a little girl, and has created the most fabulous range of red reds that according to many, look good on everyone. Not sure if I can pull off the red reds, but my mother has worn red reds for as long as I can remember, even to the gym.

Yippee Yi Yoh!

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Today is May 4th. May 4th just so happens to be the birthday of one of the coolest women around who also happens to be my bestie, Marcella. Happiest of happy days! Hope it's sunshine and smiles all around. (See, your the one with the braids, and I'm the one holding the ballons!)

Dear Will Shakespeare,

Thanks for being born 445 years ago, and for writing some of the most beautiful words the world has ever heard.

Andy Goldsworthy and Impermanence

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Because it's Earth Day, I wanted to write about the brilliance of Scottish sculptor and photographer, Andy Goldsworthy. He is one of my favorite artists of all time. He uses all natural objects to create delicate sculptures of incredible beauty. But, as with all things beautiful they do not last; either the tides, the winds, the rain or the snow will destroy them. What faith it must take to spend so much time creating something whose ephemeralness and transience cannot be denied. Many traditional Japanese artists have believed that it is the very idea of an object's impermanence is that which makes something beautiful.

Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar turned 40 on Saturday, which reminded me how much I love the art work of Eric Carle. There is an amazing museum of his work in Amherst, MA. I went to college right down the street from it and am lucky enough to have seen many of his beautiful, colorful creations in person.

Roses, Mexico

Roses, Mexico 1924 Tina Modotti

Flowers are really on my mind today. But even when I don't have real flowers on hand I just take a look at this poster, which hangs right next to my bed. Tina Modotti is an incredible photographer. One of my all time favorites.

Vivienne Westwood, An Anglomaniac Post

She's wacky and wild and absolutely wonderful. Very feminine, very powerful and unapologetically domineering. How can you not love that? Don't you remember Carrie's wedding dress in the Sex And The City movie?

cause sometimes we all need a little Audrey...

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Lately, as I haven't been feeling completely up to snuff, I've been rediscovering old movies that I used to watch all the time in high school. My two favorites are Charade, with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, and How to Steal a Million, with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. They are both put modern chick flicks to shame! I highly suggest that you check them out if you haven't ever seen them. Cause sometimes we all need a little Audrey in our lives.

it's a frida kind of day

The Broken Column, 1944 Frida Kahlo

A True Master

Trolley, New Orleans, 1955, Robert Frank

There is an excellent article in yesterday's New York Times about the phenomenal and legendary photographer, Robert Frank. I highly recommend you read it. I was lucky enough to catch an exhibition of his work in Barcelona a few years back. My sister, Dad and I wandered around the rooms, taking in the texture and richness, and were completely blown away by the depth of his work. Frank is originally from Switzerland. It seems to me that the best observers of a place are always somewhere on the outskirts, circling around us all, seeing things for how they truly are. Read the article!

powering up

Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power

I'm feeling slightly better. Finally getting some work done and blowing my nose a whole lot. Just bought this new mini-album on iTunes. Cat Power is, like, my all time favorite musical artist. I would follow her to the ends of the earth. Her new album, Dark End of the Street, is like everything she touches, blusey, hauntingly beautiful ,and absolute gold.

I believe in US

First of all, I felt a need to write something to you all on this momentous occasion. I consider myself an eternal optimist, but as an adult I have yet to be part of a government that I fully believe in. I have spent the last few days knocking on strangers' doors and encouraging them to vote, to get out there and let their voice be heard. I am so incredibly thrilled to have believed in, worked for, and voted for Obama. I am so happy and so proud, really for the first time in my life, to be an American. I look forward to a new future. A future where the best possibilities can and may finally exist for all of us no matter what color, gender, or class we are.

Second of all, A. and I just did a square dance to leftover salmon to celebrate. yeeeeeehaawwww! Colorado went BLUE!!! I AM SO PROUD.

Now and forever more, ¡Obamanos!

one word:

please, please watch.

believe with me:

"a tale told backwards and a tale told first"

While on my honeymoon I passed a few languid days reading the delicately drawn Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje. It's an amazing book, my favorite read in many years. It's almost two or three novellas in one. Ondaatje picks up the beginning strands of a few different stories and weaves them very loosely together into this diptych of a narrative that wanders from Northern California through seedy bars of Reno, Nevada to the bucolic fields of Southern France. His writing, as always, is stunning, completely enchanting, and almost hauntingly elegiac in tone.

It's a book about the divisions and changes that happen in one's life and about the ways in which try, however clumsily, to glue back together the broken glass shards of the past. Then maybe, we can peer through all its scratches and dents to see something that is both old and new. Check out this interview (his voice is as luscious as his prose) from npr.

three visual haikus

Today is one of those gloriously slow, beautiful fall days. I pulled out this little book on Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz that I haven't looked at in ages! I thought I would share these three photographs that I adore. They are poetic--quietly meditative and almost lonely in feeling. I love how modern his sense of composition and texture was, back in the 20s. Read more about Kertesz's incredible work and life here.

chez mondrian, paris, 1926

pavement, paris, 1929

lost cloud, new york, 1937

while you were sleeping

I absolutely LOVE this video by Jeff Scher. It's an amazing little visual poem about a rainstorm. I used to make short films like this when I was in college, but haven't made one in eons. Hmm... that's some food for thought. Check it out!