Purple-Eyes and A Lady

Madame Butterfly :: Loftus // DC // No flashI can’t say I have ever really thought about the origins of the story Madame Butterfly, and have never heard of John Luther Long, but I was delighted to find this very old book in a charity shop yesterday. There is no publication date, but from the style I would put it in the 1910–1920s. The typesetting is so quaint, the pages old and crackly. It is a beautiful object in itself.

I also was thrilled to find some very old sheet music in such a state of decrepitude that it will be perfect for use in my random poems. The soft paper is so old it has gone floppy, the edges would disintegrate with rough usage. 

Isn’t this the prettiest dedication? ~ Those Exquisite Hands :: Loftus // DC // No flashFrontispiece :: Loftus // DC // No flashWords & Music :: Loftus // DC // No flash

Up, Up and Away

I adore hot air balloons. As a graphic motif they are absolutely delightful. The multitude of colours and shape they come in are only limited by manufacturers’ – and artists’ – imaginations.

Obviously much of their charm lies in the romance they evoke as an oldey-worldey form of transport.

I travelled in one once, sailing serenely over the desert in Dubai, watching the sun rise behind the purple mountains. Such an exciting experience, and what a noise the gas flame makes as it roars into the balloon! We crash-landed, and the basket was dragged for twenty metres or so across the dunes. I think I was the only one who was laughing crazily during this experience. I lived to tell the tale though.

Enjoy this gallery of vintage and modern balloons.

A Collector’s Trail

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonWith my revived interest in collecting ephemera with which to make collages, I was prompted on the weekend to pull an old book from the shelf. Written by Barbara Hodgson, Trading in Memories – Travels Through a Scavenger’s Favourite Places is a wonderful account of a collector’s trail through Europe, the Middle-East, the Orient and back home again to Vancouver in British Columbia.

The short chapters are written as essays, and they are easy to read and full of fascinating titbits and a wealth of detail. Hodgson’s writing style is evocative – her words draw an enticing picture in the mind’s eye that would surely be best expressed in the form of a magic lantern show, or flickering film reel from 1910.

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonIf the words aren’t enough to help you step back in time, the images will. What an astonishing assortment of ephemera she has collected or photographed, presented in collages or displayed in cases reminiscent of the Victorian mania for collecting curios.

Her words will truly whisk you off on a whirlwind tour while you are still comfortably curled up in your armchair, a cup of Turkish coffee at your elbow.

Scroll through some sample pages here, and make sure to click on the images to see larger versions. Included are the four pages of the last chapter, with her ‘few words to scavengers’.

Read a review at Good Reads or The Sydney Morning Herald.

Spread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonTwo pages from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara HodgsonSpread from Trading in Memories, by Barbara Hodgson

A Fashionable Hallowe’en

OH! How much do I adore these vintage 1920s Hallowe’en costumes? So many of my favourite stripes and pompoms are featured. The designs are rather interesting with their Oriental flavour too – Chinoiserie was popular during the Art Deco period. I find them so much more interesting than modern costumes, which tend to be a bit garish for my taste. Amazingly, these 1920s costumes were intended to be made from crepe paper.

The illustrations, by Barbara Crews, are pretty delicious too. Now here is a party I would love to go to.

Illustrations found via RetroGypsy. 

Greetings From the Past

This card is dated 21/12/1905. I love that the birthday message was carried entirely on the front, and the sender (whose name I cannot distinguish) writes ‘Do you still collect pictorial postcards?’ all over the picture!I have finally found a pleasing background for my random poems – vintage postcards! Though postcards seem as ephemeral as the magazines I have cut words from, they have stood the test of time: many of them are over one hundred years old. The people who wrote and received them are long dead, and it seems a fitting tribute to use their greetings and remembrances as a background for poetry.

The reverse of the card above.The original ‘found poems’ I created were pasted into a book, but I discovered, many years later, that the glue I used had turned a dark yellow and utterly destroyed the paper. I scanned them all in and cleaned them up – a daunting task. (Note: Any collage artists out there – don’t use the traditional rubber cement; it is not archivally sound; a simple glue stick would be better.)

Originally I wanted to create a real collage and stick the words onto the vintage postcards; create a whole new piece of art (hardcopy as opposed to digital). But now that I have bought them and admired their poignant and faded beauty, and exclaimed over the elegant handwriting, I am loathe to deface them. They have lasted this long – when perhaps they might have been put in the trash – so I cannot bear to cover them up with words snipped out of Vogue and Elle magazines.

Here are a couple for you to admire, front and back. 

This wonderful card, posted from Uruguay in 1905, still bears traces of glitter attached to the girls’ outfits.The card (above) was addressed to Mademoiselle Amandita Ambrosani (how lovely!) in Salto. I do hope that minimal address enabled the postman to find her.