Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Loves that make you kill or die

I find myself alone with an instant capuccino (blehh) and a list of favourited sites I haven't visited in a very long time: friends' blogs, sewing forums, facebook 'concept' albums, haberdashery online stores which make me cry etc. Alone because I'm back for a night at my parents' house.. in my old bedroom which feels alien to me now... and because the Mad Men series is saved on a laptop I have no access to.. but also alone with boxes of items I need to bring together, embroidery details which I always end up postponing. So it's a productive lonesomeness.. or rather, potentially productive.
I can't help being distracted by the vast network of sites a click away.. I know I could spend the next hour oogling through randomly selected pages from books I'm too poor to purchase like this one..
someone sent me the link a while back and I've been returning to it ever since..
I've been obsessed with Erte's lines and general aesthetic for a very long time.. and if providence hadn't wisely provided me with only little more than the bare necessities in life, I'm quite convinced I'd be travelling the world on a secret mission to gather every lost sketch of his, every lost coat and gown by Poiret and Fortuny and the Callot Soeurs and Madeleine Vionnet..
I just look at this bejewelled tunic.. feel small and inconsequential.. sometimes cry .. and then I re-surface to try and work on something of my own. Something I could only hope is reverential enough towards something this divinely inspired. I fail, of course. But I'd be silly to expect more than that. I fail within limits though.. for, what I do is a reflection of the synthesis of influences working on me, a mix so divere it's bound to be unhealthy. I blame the enlightened forefathers.. they make it very difficult for me as a mere craftslady!



That coral encrusted band at the waist is a band of bloody tears I cry every time I .. (*cough* drama *cough*)


Here's an outfit I had encountered some two years back in the streets of Trieste. The best day of my life.. a Sunday following a Franco Battiato concert and in waiting for a Vinicio Capossela concert that very night.. I had to come across the best morning crowned with an outdoor antique market, kids in carnival costumes and relatively cheap prices. Save for this coat+hat, of course, but you cannot have everything. And that I realize and accept humbly.

Sometimes I also detour through other more obviously deterring sites.. because they're 'wishful thinking' sites when I should either be at my worktable or at least looking through 'how-to' sites. Look at what I end up doing on Polyvore.. damn you lady (you know who you are) who introduced me to this sinner's heaven! :)

This picture was saved under the name 'Rome with (insert friend name here!)' in my folder 'hwejjeg etc'.. I love that folder.. it's a poor lady's haven kind of folder.. and I also have it on my ipod for those sad moments when I feel like life's about to fall apart (like when I'm waiting at those dreaded bus stops)

How will I ever be able to bring together my loves..? my fetish with rococo church decor, the excessive fringing, tasseling, and chandeliering.. the sombre auras of room-fulls of ex-votos, b/w lino-prints and etchings, holy friday processions and jet black ravens.. the studied lines of an art-deco-gown which has had the power to starve a generation down to a T and an I, its minimalist of shape, saturated in detail and bursting with colour. The sheen of pearls, the mosaic Theodora, a Sicilian bride's lace, Turandot's headress, Our Lady's flaming heart and Louise Brooks' sleek bob n'all.

I don't know. I just keep feeling smaller and smaller.

This is the interior of St. Paul's Shipwreck Church in Valletta. My grandpa, George, who was a proud 'Belti' and a mariner himself, used to take me to his favourite church regularly... this is the stuff of first and life-long loves.

Holy Bones!!



I leave you with this song by Capossela*. I want those who outlive me to play it at my funeral. It's probably my favourite song. I think the singer-songwriter manages to do in song what I'd kill to do in my craft. I realize that this kind of grandeaur is hardly translatable across mediums but trying only ever killed the strongest and I'm willing to try. It'd be a worthy death indeed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmweqMMfqLE

*I always liked how, for a very long time, I simply couldn't help confusing Capossela with Compostela and how the symbolic baggage of both is to be forever intertwined in my head.

7 comments:

  1. I blame my bad spelling on excitement and exhaustion. (**excuses herself and bows out of the picture**)

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  2. I know the lady!

    This post made me almost cry - where I not at the office, shackled by 'decorum', I'm pretty sure I would be right now.

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  3. ** last tissue in the pack for you! ** (the rest I used up leafing through the kyoto museum of fashion book ...

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  4. Ah, was gna buy that for thesis-related reading! But I could not find a secure enough connection..and the funds were low..

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  5. in fact it's just a lovely book with info about the different periods.. wholly untheoretical! (but NICE!!)

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  6. I saw the Holy Bones relic last Sunday afternoon! There it stood, right in front of us! My boyfriend and I decided to go out for coffee and the moment we stepped out of his place, the march band tagged along, playing to the mounted relic of St Paul for the feast of St Paul's Shipwreck! Fantastic.

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  7. I was obviously very sad about having to lose the feast .. actually, I chose not to think about it too much .. the workings of a vengeful fate and circumstance combined.. (dammit)

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