The good old days

Taxidermy eyeballs, canoe camping, and cowboy boots, all from a time long, long ago...

When I'm feeling lazy and don't want to deal with Photoshop, thanks to a tip from the website Ohdeedoh, I can now visit this Japanese website for all my antique photo needs. Upload an image from your computer, hit the blue button with Japanese characters that must roughly translate to "ANTIQUE ME NOW!" and voila! instant old timey photo goodness.

Add some blingee magic, and you've really got...something. I'm not sure what. But something.

collected

Taking my cue from Abbey over at Aesthetic Outburst, I'm posting about one of my collections.

I fell in love with netsuke (plural netsuki?) a few years ago during a trip to the Santa Monica antique and collectibles market. A seller had a table full of small, intricately carved animal, vegetable, and mineral figurines. Among the wide variety of various flora and fauna, I was especially drawn to the animals (especially rats, octopi, and turtles) and mermaids. I bought a few, and they've joined my menagerie of small doo-dads around the house. 

For K.C.'s birthday this year, while browsing in Ritual Adornments, a chock-full of great small things bead shop on Main St. in Santa Monica, I bought him a small turtle and bird netsuke that reminded me of his personality. I may have developed a habit. 

There is a monkey on my back, and it is small, and carved out of wood.

Netsuke are, according to Wikipedia, 

...miniature sculptures that were invented in 17th century Japan to serve a practical function (the two Japanese characters ne+tsuke mean "root" and "to attach"). Traditional Japanese robes had no pockets, however men who wore them needed a place to store their personal belongings.

Their solution was to place such objects in containers hung by cords from the robes sash...the fastener that secured the cord at the top of the sash was a carved, button-like toggle called a netsuke.

Once again I'm drawn to utilitarian objects that are beautiful.

From my flickr page:

I highly recommend visiting the wonderful netsuke collection at The Japanese Pavillion at LACMA. Their netsuke, unlike my modern versions, are the thousands-of-years-old Real Deal. 

contained two

Photography from my flickr page - vessels around my home:

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1. clay "bup" (basically a mug without a handle) made by my Dad with cactus

2. Another bup with cactus, yard sale vase, and small Japanese netsuke turtle. 

3. A Sago palm in a minimalist black pot from Pavillions - one of my better impulse buys.  The sago palm grows very slowly and doesn't need to be watered much.

4. More of my dad's work (the one in the foreground is one of my absolute favorite pieces of his)

5. Cactus in a small IKEA planter. They don't sell this triad set anymore, but I love it for small apartments.

6. Small dish made by my dad with a collection of some of my favorite wee things: a segmented enamel fish ornament, a small fossil, and a crystal cluster from a cave in Bulgaria.

contained

While blog-surfing this morning, Oh Joy had a post about Rose and Radish's paring of bowls and flowers, and I was once again reminded of my pull towards containers. I've used them in my art for as long as I can remember, and my father is a potter, so some of my earliest memories are of making pinch pots in his studio. This mild obsession is akin to my love for old cameras, and drums (a container as well I reazie) and instruments in general - I love what the vessel can symbolize, I love the utilitarian aspect of them, and I love how beautiful they can be in and of themselves.

In honor of Valentine's Day, here is one of the soothing images from the San Francisco-based Rose and Radish, who are pairing lovely and useful vessels with flowers for Valentine's day.  

Nest votive by Porzellan Manufaktur,Nymphenburg Germany $369 (gulp).

(Come on though - Porzellan in Nymphenburg, Germany? That is simply fantastic. I could eat those words and live for days alone of their vowels and cadence.)

And here are some other la-la-licious containers for sale at Rose and Radish that made me go goo-goo ga-ga:

Industreal Uni Container

 unglazed porcelain $81

Debbie Gaskin Drink Cozie

hand crocheted from cotton yarn $3

(Yes, you could make it yourself. But I wouldn't, and I think with the right amber or clear glass, it would be beautiful with an electric tea candle light inside.)

Esther Derkx champagne flute $20

Only from the Netherlands...for me, this works. It treads that fine line of funky and gimmicky and I think they're damn cute.

Industreal Chapeaux Pour Vase, style 01 $100

Can you tell I'm drawn to mixtures of textures?

blingee!!!

Oh my, oh my - it's the bedazzler of the internet. Here is my little sis and I, transformed into fairy princesses, complete with an eternally exploding cat.

Upload your picture, and choose from many, many pages of horrifying glittery crap. Trust me, this image is CLASSY by Blingee standards. I'm completely hooked, of course. I plan on terrorizing family and friends with my new discovery. Make your own at Blingee.

Emergency yodel button

Visiting the excellent blog Laughingsquid, I immediately fell in love with this gift.  If it was before Christmas, I would be purchasing this pronto. Visit the website to hear/see it in action.

And if you haven't checked out Archie McPhee before, you're in for a goofball treat.

advertising sense

When Al Gore invented the internet, could he foresee that it would be used to personalize billboards and buses from the comfort of one's own home? Probably not.

May I present the bus ad generator. Amaze your friends! Confuse your grandparents!

They're off!

Finally my photo-paintings are on their way to a small art show in upstate NY. It felt good to box them up and not so good to stand in line at the post office, but I'm happy the project is completed...I guess I'm trying to say I'm pleased with the results! Here are some images, not quite as vibrant on my computer screen as in person, so use your imagination.

Above are all five images framed and laid out on the floor in the order they'll be hung.

My buttery homage to Edward Weston's sensual peppers.

And this is a close up of the picture my friend Becky loved most. I really liked discovering that by using light colors I could create ghostly lines to heighten the visual tension of the pieces and reds and oranges heightened the photograph's already skewed color palette.

I'm not sure if I should name them "the butter series 1-5" or just "untitled 1-5"...