(*aaaaa) background is back!

Thank you Alex for the technical help and here's a poem I read yesterday.. a fitting piece by Baudelaire which, surprisingly enough, managed to escape me all this while.

(*by 'fitting' I mean particularly encapsulating of the current theme in my creative and imaginary/parallel life)

A Une Madone

Ex-voto dans le goût espagnol


Je veux bâtir pour toi, Madone, ma maîtresse,
Un autel souterrain au fond de ma détresse,
Et creuser dans le coin le plus noir de mon coeur,
Loin du désir mondain et du regard moqueur,
Une niche, d'azur et d'or tout émaillée,
Où tu te dresseras, Statue émerveillée.
Avec mes Vers polis, treillis d'un pur métal
Savamment constellé de rimes de cristal
Je ferai pour ta tête une énorme Couronne;
Et dans ma Jalousie, ô mortelle Madone
Je saurai te tailler un Manteau, de façon
Barbare, roide et lourd, et doublé de soupçon,
Qui, comme une guérite, enfermera tes charmes,
Non de Perles brodé, mais de toutes mes Larmes!
Ta Robe, ce sera mon Désir, frémissant,
Onduleux, mon Désir qui monte et qui descend,
Aux pointes se balance, aux vallons se repose,
Et revêt d'un baiser tout ton corps blanc et rose.
Je te ferai de mon Respect de beaux Souliers
De satin, par tes pieds divins humiliés,
Qui, les emprisonnant dans une molle étreinte
Comme un moule fidèle en garderont l'empreinte.
Si je ne puis, malgré tout mon art diligent
Pour Marchepied tailler une Lune d'argent
Je mettrai le Serpent qui me mord les entrailles
Sous tes talons, afin que tu foules et railles
Reine victorieuse et féconde en rachats
Ce monstre tout gonflé de haine et de crachats.
Tu verras mes Pensers, rangés comme les Cierges
Devant l'autel fleuri de la Reine des Vierges
Etoilant de reflets le plafond peint en bleu,
Te regarder toujours avec des yeux de feu;
Et comme tout en moi te chérit et t'admire,
Tout se fera Benjoin, Encens, Oliban, Myrrhe,
Et sans cesse vers toi, sommet blanc et neigeux,
En Vapeurs montera mon Esprit orageux.

Enfin, pour compléter ton rôle de Marie,
Et pour mêler l'amour avec la barbarie,
Volupté noire! des sept Péchés capitaux,
Bourreau plein de remords, je ferai sept Couteaux
Bien affilés, et comme un jongleur insensible,
Prenant le plus profond de ton amour pour cible,
Je les planterai tous dans ton Coeur pantelant,
Dans ton Coeur sanglotant, dans ton Coeur ruisselant!

****

To a Madonna

Votive Offering in the Spanish Style

I want to build for you, Madonna, my mistress,
An underground altar in the depths of my grief
And carve out in the darkest corner of my heart,
Far from worldly desires and mocking looks,
A niche, all enameled with azure and with gold,
Where you shall stand, amazed Statue;
With my polished Verses as a trellis of pure metal
Studded cunningly with rhymes of crystal,
I shall make for your head an immense Crown,
And from my Jealousy, O mortal Madonna,
I shall know how to cut a cloak in a fashion,
Barbaric, heavy, and stiff, lined with suspicion,
Which, like a sentry-box, will enclose your charms;
Embroidered not with Pearls, but with all of my Tears!
Your Gown will be my Desire, quivering,
Undulant, my Desire which rises and which falls,
Balances on the crests, reposes in the troughs,
And clothes with a kiss your white and rose body.
Of my Self-respect I shall make you Slippers
Of satin which, humbled by your divine feet,
Will imprison them in a gentle embrace,
And assume their form like a faithful mold;


If I can't, in spite of all my painstaking art,
Carve a Moon of silver for your Pedestal,
I shall put the Serpent which is eating my heart
Under your heels, so that you may trample and mock,
Triumphant queen, fecund in redemptions,
That monster all swollen with hatred and spittle.
You will see my Thoughts like Candles in rows
Before the flower-decked altar of the Queen of Virgins,
Starring with their reflections the azure ceiling,
And watching you always with eyes of fire.
And since my whole being admires and loves you,
All will become Storax, Benzoin, Frankincense, Myrrh,
And ceaselessly toward you, white, snowy pinnacle,
My turbulent spirit will rise like a vapor.

Finally, to complete your role of Mary,
And to mix love with inhumanity,
Infamous pleasure! of the seven deadly sins,
I, torturer full of remorse, shall make seven
Well sharpened Daggers and, like a callous juggler,
Taking your deepest love for a target,
I shall plant them all in your panting Heart,
In your sobbing Heart, in your bleeding Heart!

Tokens and trinkets; heads and hands

What a lucky coincidence. This is a favourite place I visited relatively recently, when my epic search for a job was still at its beginning. The museum in Birgu which houses La Vallette's sword and hat (and a swank hat at that), then absent from its gilded shrine since it was on loan. But my selective memory chose to rest on this head of a mourning and perhaps even penitent lady, the ex-votos and a general view.. a dramatic interior .. and some other religious tokens, yellowing documents and altars.. some three of them if I'm not mistaken. I found a job in Birgu and it feels promising.

I find myself trying to justify this obsession, in the wake of (very) amusing accusations, not directed at me personally, but put into even more amusing songs, tagging similar obsessions as (god forbid :o) 'hip' obsessions. But I won't be dwelling on this. I only court such thoughts when I presuambly run out of things to do.. which of course is never really the case; therefore I am not ready to exist on a false premise. Oh and I could never be hip because I actually have 'hips'.

So instead I'll write about how I kept shunning my father's craft until now. When I tried to throw my first vase I was given some 6 equally sized spheres of clay. The first flew off the wheel, as did the second and the rest. I wasn't a natural but my dad wasn't too keen on teaching me either because I ws keener on making my own dinner set rather than make an artistic career out of it.

Nowadays I stick to one or two types of clay and engobes and try to avoid working in the garage when the dad is there.

I need the material to serve my needs. I need to realize my superficial needs, those little dreams with holes pierced through them to serve as charms or tokens for the jewellery. At one point, after almost everyone you know has generously donated you every little piece of unwanted and odd object they owned, after all the scavenging at jumble sales and bazaars and the life-long hoarding.. you find your little creations actually begging for something else. Often, I find, it's direction and a fundamental idea.

To cut a long story short: I stopped pooh-poohing the possibility of creating something valid (within the superficial boundaries offered by all things bling and fa'xx'on) and created some hands and heads.

These heads and hands are slip cast and hand-drawn.. tiny paint-brushes, magnifying glass and all. Each carries its own little story: one carries favourite lyrics about the risen christ, another has tea-party cut-outs, skulls, tattoos, anatomical diagrams, architectural plans, dodgy menus and a tribute to red-heads. Bleeding hearts, mustaches, dramatic statements and pretty dolled up faces. Gloved hands, apple trees, sailor's hands, heraldry, and HOLY CROSSES.

What are 'labti' called in english?

Threaded plastic encasing displaced realities.. trifles really.. moments in spoken time and surprisingly related pictures. Neck pieces, mobiles, objects of security... although the feathers and teeth are still missing from the small equations.

I need to thank all of those who donated me so much of their stuff.. tin boxes and all. (which I must admit always come in handy when one insists on keeping every stray button). I have tried to give new life to these trinkets.. hopefully they will find new homes..

Just like those stories we grow up listening to.. travel realted stories, ghost sightings, familiar anecdotes that pass through you and are somewhat altered. Poetic license, shifting ownership.. an organic affair.

My great-grandma had 20 children. 16 of them died at the age of two. The second survivor child, my grandma, was brought back to life when her dad placed a live fire under her cot. The story carries numeric resonance and I've carried it with me since I was a child.

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..

http://books.google.com/books?id=nUaCvWwkMNsC&lpg=PP1&dq=jane%20austen%20paper%20dolls&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

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.