Are you a fan of period clothing of the like seen on Downton Abbey, Poldark, Harlots and so on? I am and I’m not ashamed to admit that. Although the sublime beauty of these forms of clothing hides the fact of how uncomfortable women were, in their corsets and itchy lace and canvas constructions. Still – a woman is allowed to dream of vintage dresses. Here’s a place online where you can buy original vintage pieces of wearable art that will satisfy history buffs and fashionistas alike. Do yourself a favour and go on a treasure hunt, it’s pretty fun!
My favourite are the Edwardian tea dresses made from delicate french lace and cotton. They look breezy, light, summery and romantic. In a way it would be lovely to have to dress up like this everyday, although probably not so comfortable.
These buttons have bull’s-eye-style centers of amber colored crushed glass, surrounded by rings of black and white glass. The three dimensional glass centers are set in brass backs with shanks. 19th Century.$85
Appliquéd lace blouse, 1940s made from ivory cotton tulle and hand assembled Belgium princess lace. $225
2.5 metres of satin damask ribbon, c.1910, about 20 cm in width. $175 Japanese painted leather wallet, 1920s The wallet came from a New England estate along with several very high end dresses from the same period. Our captivating wallet personifies the style of its owner: individual, brilliant, and impulsive. The leather wallet is embossed and painted with a fiery dragon. It is lined with printed navy/white cotton. The interior has two compartments, one with a fold over flap.
* You will note that I have categorised these as ethical products on my blog, and while the original provenance and production process of some of these items may not have been ethical and may have involved slave labour, the fact that you would be purchasing something pre-loved and very old means it’s (to my mind at least) now an ethical purchase. Happy shopping!
Currently I am in Kyoto and today my boyfriend and I enjoyed the zen gardens of the Hogon-In temple in Arashimaya, Kyoto. Originally established in 1461 by Hosokawa Yoriyuki who was the noted deputy of the shogun during the Muromachi period (1336-1573). It is a small but majestic sub-temple within the large and beautiful Tenryu-ji temple, a UNESCO historical site. My boyfriend and I enjoyed the zen gardens, lush, quiet, serene, delightful and free of crowds early this morning. The real footage and the real juice is yet to come from my Canon camera but here is a tasty prelude. My smart phone really doesn’t do this place justice, Although I hope it inspires you nonetheless…Japan really is better than you could imagine, so get over there and experience it!
Want something a little bit different for your next party? Here’s a novel idea for entertaining guests. A modernbrowser version of vintage TV channels featuring soaps, ads, comedy, drama, music and even news from particular decades!
Chrissy Hynd from the Pretenders on my Vintage 80’s TV show
The only requirement is that you use a PC for this app rather than a touchscreen device as it probably won’t work (a limitation that is sort of quaint and old-fashioned in itself).
A Jim Henson extravaganza on my vintage 80’s internet channel
This website of vintage TV also features crappy, snow-filled static screens, a mechanical-sounding TV channel switch and a slight delay when you change the channel before it appears on the screen. This is truly delightful and a nice way to spend an evening reminiscing about what TV used to mean for you (i.e. something significant and important in the pre-internet era). Pop music was really great in the 80s. Here’s another flash back to a world of high quality pop music.
My fun flashback
The music on this fake internet TV really made me feel like I was five years old again and swirling around in among the musk pink lounge suite like a whirling dervish. Listening to Big Country, Split Enz and The Pretenders made me feel like I was a little kid again and with my whole life ahead of me, excited just by the mere fact of being alive and all of the curious possibilities of my life to come.
Op Art descended out of geometric art of the 50’s and the Bauhaus movement in Germany, which I have previously written about in the Origins of Flat Design. The 60’s was a period of discovery in science, psychology and new technology. This type of art reflects the experimental mood of that era. The pieces normally feature patterns with stark contrast between the background and foreground that dazzles the eyes and the senses. The sensation of movement in the pieces is both appealing and disconcerting.
The Responsive Eye Exhibition
Op Art had its watershed moment during the Responsive Eye Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965. This featured 123 paintings and sculptures by artists such as Victor Vasarely, Bridget Riley, Frank Stella, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesus-Rafael Soto, and Josef Albers.
In the 1960’s, Op Art made a huge impact on the popular consciousness. In the mid 60’s the movement infiltrated popular culture and was featured in clothes design and also in movie posters of the time, like Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’. Although, Op Art has always been overshadowed by its more commercially viable and kitschy cousin – Pop Art. This emerged at the same time and had the ultimate poster boy and advocate, Andy Warhol.
Pattern and Line: By creating discord between the figure and background, it makes the two planes have a tense and contradictory relationship. The background and figure seem to float and move in the eyes, popping out of the picture and fighting for attention.
Grisaille: This effect is created by using black and white wavy lines close together that create a volatile and strong relationship, looking at these pictures soon becomes hard, as the eyes begin to feel dazzled and sore.
After Images: After viewing the image, a negative is briefly burned onto the retina, before disappearing.
Splashes of Colour: In 1966, there was an explosion of colour in Op Art, with artists Bridget Riley and Richard Anuszkiewicz leading the way. Contrasting colours brought different effects to the eyes. For example in Anuszkiewicz’s ‘temple’ paintings, two high contrast colours are used to create a sense of depth. This gives the illusion of three-dimensional space, as though a pyramid is popping out of the picture.
Photographer Duane Michals pushes the boundaries of photography with evocative, erotic and sensual images. I’ve written about Polish poet Anna Świrszczyńska before, she also has a similar aesthetic.
I think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody’s face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.
—
Duane Michals
I believe in imagination, what I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.
—
Duane Michals
I once photographed a young man who was beautiful, but one of his eyes had been damaged when he was a boy. But it was the poignancy of his flaw that saved him from the banality of perfection and made him exquisite.
—
Duane Michals
The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at …. We’re not our eyeballs, we’re our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they’re totally wrong …. That’s why I consider most photographs extremely boring—just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colors have been added to protect the innocent. It’s just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience—grief, loneliness—how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It’s all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don’t have to go anywhere.
—
Duane Michals
Time is such a funny thing,
it’s like the hole inside a ring,
It’s always now and never then,
But when I saw it’s now again
It’s never now but always then.
We’re always here but never there,
But when I go from here to there,
When there is here and here is there
Should you think you’re very tall
Next to a tree you’re not at all,
and if you think you’re very small
next to a bee you’re ten feet tall.
When we dream we seem awake
But all along the dream was fake,
To me I’m “I” and never you,
you say you’re “I” and also me,
I know that’s true, How can that be
Since I’m not you, and you’re not me
Time is not what you might think
It is and isn’t in a wink.
—
Duane Michals
Dorothy Grebenak was born in Nebraska in 1913 and was a self-taught rug maker who originally made rugs stocked in a Brooklyn museum. Although these weren’t rugs in the folk style, they are designed to be displayed on walls as art. These rugs were depictions of humble and everyday objects, which brought them into the same artistic sphere as the infinitely better known artist Andy Warhol.
Grebanak worked exclusively within the medium of hooked rugs. She focused on the motifs of everyday like US currency, telephone dials, liquor labels, boxes of detergent, man-hole sewer covers and optometrist charts. Through her pop art she blurred the lines between traditional folk art, pop art and crafting and she challenged the status quo of Pop Art which was a largely male dominated field in the 1960’s.
In 1963 and 1964 Grebenak had two solo exhibitions at Allan Stone Gallery and was sold mostly to private collectors. She featured in a couple of group exhibitions and was included in the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Pop Art and the American Tradition exhibition in 1965.
In the 1960’s her manhole cover rug featured on the cover of a leading national magazine. Although sadly Grebenak vanished from the public eye after her modest commercial success. Her creative work has largely disappeared and her rugs have either vanished or fallen apart. She relocated to London in the 70’s following her husband’s death, where she died in 1990. She leaves a powerful and much underrated Pop Art legacy.
Around 200 million years ago the world’s landmass was contained in one giant supercontinent called Pangea surrounded by a mega ocean. I know that this isn’t news but I still find it startling and incredible nonetheless.
In the graphic below you can see the composition of Pangea but with the modern countries boundaries superimposed on it.
Click to view larger image
How can we know the configuration of the land jigsaw?
Scientists know that the jigsaw pieces of Pangea fit together in this particular way from their research.
Fossil skeletons of extinct species from across the world have been dated and their holotypes compared and they are more closely related in areas where these geographical landmasses were once connected.
Similar fossils have been discovered in South Africa, India and Australia. Such as the theropod dinosaur therapsid Lystrosaurus.
Rock formations match between the eastern coast of South America and the western coast of Africa.
Philosophy
Anybody who delves into natural history and earth sciences can’t help but shed their anthropocentric ways of thinking. Essentially the idea that humans all powerful masters of the universe is something that we are taught in school and throughout our life’s education. These ideas hark back to Judeo-Christian beliefs which have narratives of humans overpowering, taming and controlling nature (Noah in his ark is an example).
Judeo-Christian belief systems also give strong justification for the subugation, slavery and killing of animals as well. However they aren’t the only ones, all of the major religions put humans on a pedestal. Although we can see through natural and man-made disasters that our superiority and control is actually non-existent.
Looking at the evidence in the ground too, we can see that humans have been here for a heartbeat and before that, there was an ever-evolving procession of interesting, intelligent, convergent and divergent life-forms.
The symmetry of life forms on Earth
Seen through the eyes of multiple extinction events that wiped out huge numbers of species, we begin to see the world and all of its creatures (both extant and extinct) as something far more complex. We all exist due to natural phenomena such as changes in weather patterns, levels of oxygen in the atmosphere, contemporaneous species that provide us with food and so on.
The big five extinction events on Earth
As a species we’ve put far too many tickets on ourselves
Intelligent living organisms on this planet have been around long before humans even existed. The fact that Homo Sapiens even exist is a combination of deep time, complex environmental and natural phenomena and our intelligence. However this last factor intelligence accounts for far too much back-slapping. If indeed we were so intelligent as a species, why aren’t we anticipating and stopping destroying our own planet? We’re essentially shitting where we eat. Only a stupid species does that.
In the end we all end up as star dust
We’re playing with fire and pretty soon we will all be fossils in the ground to be discovered by another more superior extant species. What are your thoughts?
A surreal art book that redefines the meaning of imagination. Codex Seraphinianus has a lot in common with other bizarre books like the Voynich manuscript. This new edition by Italian publisher Rizzoli was republished in 2013. It has been redesigned by the author Luigi Serafini with includes new illustrations.
The fascination and curiosity for Codex Seraphinianus endures because it is written in a mysterious and as-yet unknown language. This has fueled great debates about its meaning.
Although its relevance is still obvious in the information age. The book traverses literary criticism, computer science and genetics with flair and imagination. It’s somewhere between an art book and an art object in itself and is an exquisite artefact. The perfect collectors item for the book worm that you know and love.
The exact message of Codex Seraphinianus remains unclear. However the sheer scope of imagination shown by the beautiful illustrations is enough to pique the interest of this reader.
Codex Seraphinianus remains even more relevant today in the age of coding, artificial intelligence, gene sequencing and programming. The experience of reading it is akin to taking hallucinogens but without any a pungent mushrooms or blotting paper.
There are whispers from publisher Rizzoli that Luigi Serafini has been working diligently on his next masterpiece, taking his inspiration from medieval Italian manuscripts.
There’s something comforting yet eerie about neon signs. They garishly proclaim sales on items, announce a lonely diner on a dark stretch of road, and tout the nefarious activities inside of peep shows and brothels.
Neon signs have always fascinated me. They seem to emanate a metaphysical glow as though there is a secret message that’s trying to get out from behind the sign. An aura from within that is all at once: lonely, soulful, menacing and emotional.
Neon signs only have meaning in reference to darkness. Therefore they are normally spied in-situ on an abandoned street, in cities, where things tend to happen to people while they are alone. They are found in places where people metamorphose into changed creatures, different from how they are during the day time. They are slightly more silken, sensual, alien, fluid and unpredictable.
DJ Roberts
This sign was put on sh0w to the passing traffic on a cold January evening this year. It’s shining on like a crazy diamond above a 99p shop at 259 High Street Walthamstow E17 7BH as a part of the Walthamstow Forest Street Gallery Project. Get there quickly before the project finishes at the end of April.
I’m in Love with the Modern World by DJ Roberts. Image Source
I’m in Love with the Modern World by DJ Roberts Image Source
Chris Bracey
Chris Bracey is arguably Walthamstow’s most famous son. He has a quirky and wonderful little pad called God’s Own Junkyard where he showcases the iconic signs he made for films like Bladerunner, The Dark Knight and Iron Man and for labels Burberry and Alexander McQueen. He also collaborated with art badass Martin Creed too.
God’s Own Junkyard, Unit 12, Ravenswood, Industrial Estate Shernhall Street London E17 9HQ. It’s open between 10.30am-6pm, Friday-Sunday. Entry is free.
These are profoundly personal and emotional messages rendered in neon in Tracey’s own handwriting. I find them incredibly touching and deeply emotional. There’s a sense of desolation and magic that’s bestowed on neon words like this.
‘When I hold you, I hold your heart’ by Tracey Emin Image Source
‘Her soft lips touched mine and everything became hard’ by Tracey Emin Image S0urce
‘I listen to the ocean and all I hear is you’ by Tracey Emin Image Source
Robert Montgomery
“The people you love become ghosts inside of you and like this you keep them alive”, is Robert Montgomery’s first major work using solar power and LED.
According to the Tate’s website ”A central theme of Creed’s work is the nature of art itself, the relationship between art and reality, art and life, a preoccupation of much modern art, and he explores the boundaries in interesting and unsettling ways.”
‘Everything is going to be alright’ by Martin Creed. Located at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Image Source
Assholes by Martin Creed
And here is where Creed really pushes some buttons. Take a look as he ”run’s thr0ugh” his work in the Tate Britain. Just a wee warning though, this video does get ”a bit racy” in parts!
Some people thought he was totally taking the piss and became infuriated by him. Others were confused or found it hilarious. Some other people got the intention and the delivery of the piece. Here are some of the more funny YouTube comments.
teamcrumb: i thought this show was fun, alive and cheeky but sincere and memorable in equal measure. If you can’t get the spirit intended in these works, go to another party, look at a Manet or Rodin, and shut the fuck up.
cullyvan3: Martin Creed is a cheeky monkey, a nihilist fucker cheeky monkey. Check out his “work” at edinburgh fruitmarket gallery 2010. He is a fucker.
Banksy’s pop up exhibition Dismaland in Weston super-Mare in Somerset this weekend is a dangerous and provocative molotov cocktail of pop culture references, Eurozone politics, rabid consumerism, and Disney fetishism exposed for our bemusement.
Graffiti artist Banksy along with fellow art legends Damien Hirst, Jimmy Cauty and Jenny Holzer have taken over a derelict beachside lido – Tropicana in Weston super-Mare for a five week pop-up exhibition.
“I loved the Tropicana as a kid, so getting to throw these doors open again is a real honour” – BANKSY
This ironical and pitch black humorous and disturbing place lampoons the different aspects of our society that disturb and frighten us the most.
Among all of the death, decay and creepiness in Dismaland, we can glimpse at a genuine assessment of the damage that humans do to the world.
Banksy was asked about the theme of the park, to which he quipped “Perhaps theme parks should have bigger themes”.
Some of the exhibits
A seemingly innocuous fairground game turns into a sinister effort to rescue rubber ducks covered what appears to be brown crude oil from a tank of water. The prize if you’re successful is a fish finger in a plastic bag.
The British horsemeat scandal of a few years ago is theatrically depicted by a man in a hazmat suit who circles around on the merry-go-round covered in blood and holding a box of lasagnas.
There’s a remote control boat that you can control as it zips through a corpse filled pool. A clear reference to the Syria crisis.
A Cinderella crashes in her pumpkin carriage. She’s photographed while dying by papparazzi as her avian fairy godmothers attempt in vain to save her.
Cinderella crashes her carriage in front of the papparazzi
The dismal playground at Dismaland
I really wish I was living in the UK right now so I could go and see this.
Banksey like many other great artists is able to expose, comment upon and therefore dismantle the traditional power structures of our world. He is our modern day Robin Hood giving us all back something we didn’t know we were missing.
If Disney characters were given Vicodin and put to bed for 30 years. This is the life they would wake up to discover. An existence devoid of meaning and undeniably dismal. Whichever way you look at it, it’s life-changing art.
Content Catnip 
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