The Barbèd Shafts of Disappointment
Yesterday’s howls reminded me of an illustration that I made when I was at art college. We had to design a book cover, and I chose the Signet Classic edition of The Selected Poetry of Keats.
There was a certain passage in the long poem Endymion that I chose to focus on:
“One morn she left me sleeping: half awake
I sought for her smooth arms and lips, to slake
my greedy thirst with nectarous camel draughts;
but she was gone. Whereat the barbèd shafts
of disappointment struck in me so sore
that out I ran and searched the forest o’er.”
There was such anguished loss and passion in those lines that I wanted to capture. I chose oil pastel as my medium (one of my favourites) and a heavy, almost crude style in an effort to convey that raw emotion – the cry of despair, Endymion clutching at his hair, and the woman’s complete indifference in the background. I suspect not a little is owed to Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream, a picture that never fails to strike me in the guts with its power.
This is a scan of a colour photocopy (I kept the mockup of the cover on the original book, which is still on my shelves), and I remember I was disappointed in the quality – there was much more subtlety of shade and tone in the drawing. Just looking at it is making my fingers itch to pick up the oil pastels again!
The Eye of Terrible
The Eye of Terrible, part 1 :: 09 / 10 / 12 :: 14:04:44Here is a cheerful little poem I wrote about sixteenth months ago. There is nothing like a bit of blood-curdling horror and torment to inspire a poetess! There is also a little pencil sketch that goes with it, but one lovely gloomy day I will turn it into a proper charcoal drawing and publish it for everyone’s edification. Won’t that be nice?
The Eye of Terrible, part 2 :: 09 / 10 / 12 :: 16:10:17
between the jaws of death
and the eye of terrible
she howls
tears of black sorrow
he opened the door
and discovered her face
hovering like a spectre
caught between
the horns of time
aghast with tears and ravaged
Fashion Lights
Vogue cover illustration by Georges Lepape, March 1927This morning I turned the page on my Vogue calendar to this picture and immediately thought, ‘Oooooh, this looks just like my photos of Flinders Lane on White Night!’ Except that, ahem, this is an illustration.
For the Spring Shopping Number of March 1927, Georges Lepape – one of my favourite fashion illustrators of the era – paints a woman walking down an electrified city street. But what are those bubbles of light floating around? Lanterns, balloons … urban fairy lights? The woman is wearing a classic cloche in one of my favourite shades of blue, periwinkle.
I took the photo below last Saturday night in the streets of Melbourne during the White Night Festival. My friend and I stumbled out of Hosier Lane into Flinders Lane, and into an intersection alive with myriad circles of light, created by lights concentrated on a set of mirror balls suspended high above the laneway. It was utterly entrancing.
Fashion Lights :: Doris // Sussex // No flash World-renowned lighting designer, Philip Lethlean, created the installation and this section was called Rags to Riches (so called because this precinct of Melbourne was the centre of the rag trade in the mid twentieth century). So similar is the electrified streetscape to Lepape’s drawing, I feel it behoves me to create a fashionable homage to his work using some of my photos as a backdrop.
Oh, and happy first of autumn, by the way (or spring, as the case may be)!
The Lady Was Warned
It was my birthday the other week, and this is a card I received from one of my sisters. Isn’t it awesome? She said as soon as she saw it she knew it was the perfect card for me. I have seen this series from Bodleian Library before, and have given some myself, though this is the first I’ve received. The book was originally published in 1936, smack in the middle of one of my favourite artistic movements: Art Deco. Scroll down and peruse the back of the book – it’s an absolute delight.
The Romance Quilt
A Gift for a Lion, by Sara Craven
Years ago I went hunting in all the Melbourne op shops for old 60s and 70s Mills & Boon romance novels, taken by the lurid titles and painterly style of the cover art that was in vogue at the time.
Over time I was able to buy dozens of books for very little – 10–50c each. Often I would exit the store and immediately rip the covers off, tossing the text pages into the nearest bin. It was hard the first time, but we are talking pulp fiction, so I become blasé before very long. I now I have about 150 covers, and am slowly stitching them into a Romance Quilt – I am up to row 7.
So in honour of Mills & Boon, may I wish you a happy Valentine's Day!
The Whispering Gate, by Mary Wibberley
The Widow and the Wastrel, by Janet Dailey
Bladon’s Rock, by Pamela Kent