The Escapist

So, I thought about calling this blog post "Dead Girls and Bondage", but then I realized what kind of readers I would attract and how terribly disappointed they would be....

I've been suffering from a vicious bout of insomnia these days. Not that this is anything new. It always takes me a while to fall asleep and I've had insomniac phases on occasion all of my adult life. Torturous, yes, but I've been trying to make the best of it by getting some creative work done instead of sleeping. Not that this actually HELPS me go to sleep. Anyone who does not chronically suffer from insomnia may believe the advice "Drink a cup of hot herbal tea and all will be fine", but it is a big fat lie....The only thing that helps sometimes is reading (but DEFINITELY not t.v. or the internet!!)or changing where you are sleeping, i.e. go lie down on the couch for a while. The problem usually is you have zero desire to do these things. All you want is to sleep and it's the one thing you absolutely can't do....

Anyway, as I said I'm doing the lemonade from lemons approach and working on a lot of new art and jewelry and even some hand-altered clothing. I've been buying vintage photographs on ebay on and off for the past six weeks or so.



Whenever they come in the mail I often find myself deciding to keep them for my collection rather than using them for anything (I've been collecting vintage photographs for over ten years.) Every once in a while, however, I do get one that inspires me. Last night it was the one pictured at the beginning of this post.

A young girl, her dark hair braided, a somewhat pensive look on her face, her hands in her lap. I got out my sewing materials and sat down at the dining room table but then suddenly realized I wasn't interested in stitching the picture. I started thinking about the girl. What hid behind her serious expression? I imagined her, a good girl always doing as she is told, but secretly wishing to run off and join the circus. She wouldn't want to be a trapeze artist is a glittering costume or to ride white horses. She would dream of being an escape artist.

I have to admit this idea may have been planted in my head by Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which I read about a month ago. One of the main characters trains to be an Houdini style escape artist when he is a boy in Prague. He practices cracking locks and hiding picks inside his cheek. Later, in New York, he creates a sucessful comic book with his cousin called The Escapist. Of course, the idea and longing for escaping is also symbolic in the book (the character is an Eastern European Jew at the beginning of Hitler's tyranny)the stories of escapism and the obsession people have brought to the art really stuck with me.

I started thinking about chains. I put some gold ribbon around her like some bonds that she was dreaming of escaping from. I added some vintage snack skin copper chain (perhaps a snake handler would be another of her dream jobs...)and black lacquer chain to the side.




My husband came and took a look at the photograph sometime before I had done much work on it. "I wonder what they meant by that," he said. He had read the back of the picture which read 28.5.1940- Im Gedanken an Eure Annelie (In Memory of your Annelie.) "It sounds to me like the girl must have died."

It seemed strange, almost spooky, to me to be working on a picture of a girl who died in childhood in 1940. She would be in her 70s now, so of course she could still be living. To know that she probably passed away so long ago made me wonder if I should stop the project. But then again, the show must go on....

As a last touch I added a black glass pendant to her neck. I imagined it was from her beloved uncle Horace, the only adult who understands her. It is a symbol to her to never stop dreaming. When I showed the finished work to my husband he said, "Hmm...Very bondage-like." Not what I had intended, but I can see what he means...

Defacing old things...

So when I first saw this antique postcard for sale I noticed a few interesting things:

1. It is postmarked Baden Baden, May 28th, 1901 making it 108 years old.

2. The stamp is from Bavaria which was still its own separate kingdom at the time.

3. It still has the original greetings written in pencil, though they are in the old script and not really readable for "modern" eyes.

4. The writer also traced over the old woman's eyes in pencil, something you can see when you hold it against the light.

Still, as intriguing as these aspects might be, I felt the postcard was lacking something. The illustration of the old woman and young girl is sweet bur it is gray as is the writing, giving the postcard an overall drab feeling. I knew I wanted to do something with it but the question was what? Both sides of the card were equally important so I didn't want to glue it onto something or stitch it up. I decided to simply wait.

A while ago I bought this packet of vintage stamps at Karstadt on Hermannplatz. Karstadt is a German department store, but unlike the department stores I know in the U.S. it also has a huge grocery store in the basement, a large sewing department with cloth and supplies and a hobby section with stamps among many other things. Not sure what I would do with them either, I found a lot of the stamps really beautiful (a pack of 100)so I went ahead and bought them.

Karstadt is a chain, but the one on Hermannplatz is rather special in that it is in the notorious neighborhood of Neukoelln. Neukoelln is considered the "ghetto" of Berlin. The very mention of its name is enough to strike fear in the hearts of more suburban, middle-class Berliners. I lived in Neukoelln for years in a total of five different apartments. Though it is admittedly trashy at times, it is also wonderfully multi-cultural and totally safe, at least if you are a white girl like me (most of the problems are between Turkish and Arab boys duking it out...)

Besides, there are great apartments to have there totally dirt cheap. Here are some pictures of the last apartment I had there until I "upgraded" to Kreuzberg (the one before it had ovens where I burned coal for heat. "Kick ass!" I thought and "How very 19th century!" That is, until I realized how much dust they make....)

A cute little studio with central heating for 300 Euros. It was on Weserstrasse, right around the block from the infamous Ruetli Schule, a remedial high school where the teachers and principle wrote a letter to the city of Berlin a couple of years ago stating that it would be better to close the school down because all of pupils were hopelessly unteachable. Anyway, when I told people I lived there they told me I was crazy.


But I liked it. The area is really close to Kreuzberg and has a true urban grittiness to it. By far the coolest area in Neukoelln, and I'm a girl who knows that neighborhood....The ironic thing: Weserstrasse is now THE next big thing. The area even has a new name, Kreuzkoelln. I was there around a year ago and it is now lined with lots of hipster, underground bars and cafes and even a sushi restaurant. The whole two years I lived there there was nothing but Eckkneipen (old men pubs)and the cool but very small and by no means hip Crossanterie. Sigh. Genetrification, where were you when I needed you most?

Anyway, to get back to the original story of this post, the other night I was playing around with the afore-mentioned stamps, placing them in these gilded paper frames I bought at an art supply store. Though raised hardcore protestant, I've always been a bit of a sucker for the Virgin Mary. Therefore, not too surprising that I framed her and baby Jesus from a stamp from Fiji showing a painting of the visit from the three wise men. I then took another stamp (Canadian from 1970)of children with worshipful looks on their faces and framed that. After positioning them on the antique postcard on a bit of a lark, I somehow liked it. I glued them to the front and put a gilded frame over the Bavarian stamp on the back and- voila!- the collage Three Wise Stamps was born. I did feel a bit bad defacing something so old, but life's simply too short to not have fun.....

New Artwork

I really love propaganda art. I know it was created for the purpose to manipulate or instill fear, but often it is really just great illustration. About a year ago our neighbors upstairs moved out of their apartment. Their son was born just a few months after our oldest daughter (who is now nearly two)and they decided as many do, that they would rather move somewhere where they could have a garden. Is it just me, or is this often a mistake? I mean, if they really wanted a quiet place with a garden wouldn't they (and all the others who did the same)already have one without a child? Having children is already stressful enough without trying to force yourself into a lifestyle you're not really interested in....

Anyway, when they moved they left a box of books in the stairwell. One of them was this big, coffee table book about propaganda art from World War II. Great stuff from both the allies and enemies. I used an image from it for the following collage.


Keep mum, she's not so dumb! Careless Talk Costs Lives. In other words, no battle plan talk in front of your German mistress!




Another thing I love are vintage photographs. In an earlier post, I presented some pictures of an old black and white photograph I had stitched with colored thread. Yesterday I completed a collage using the photograph.
I added a tongue
and cheek poem playing off of the nursery rhyme, Mary had a little lamb.




Mary longed to join the circus and wear a dress as
white as snow.









And everywhere that Mary went
the boys were sure to go.






The collage is two sided, with a lovely polynesian beauty pictured in a gilded frame on the back

.

Life and the Art of Making Peanut Butter Cookies

Many women say that having children has put a damper on their creativity. Luckily, this hasn't been the case with me. If anything, being a mother has torn down some inner blocks within myself letting me be more free and, dare I say it, action orientated. Since Lilly was born I've made a lot of new collages and jewellry, always humming and singing while I work. A sure sign, my husband says, that I am happy. Yesterday was an interesting case and point. It was a Sunday of a not so easy weekend. My husband worked long hours the week before and I was looking forward to some family time together as well as a break from the babies (or at least shared time). Reality, family style, reared its ugly head when my husband woke up on Saturday with a nasty cold and had to spend all day in bed. Still, I had a pretty ok day, made a new 50s nude ladies collage and worked on some ideas for new necklace designs. Sunday my husband was feeling a bit better but still laid down for most of the morning. I was hanging out with my babies, grooving as we do, but I was at a loss for what to work on. Not in the mood for art or crafting, not in the mood to read, the babies are doing their own thing. And then I was struck with inspiration, a let's-bake-cookies-eureka from the sky. Of course, they had to be peanut butter, a type of cookie that doesn't even exist in Germany except at Barcomi's, a cafe run by a native New Yorker. I used creamy peanut butter and listened to NPR, the babies sitting beside me. Mia and I ate lots of cookie dough and I'm sure my milk had a tinge of peanut buttery goodness for Lilly later. They were delcious!

A shooting session in the graveyard

Winters in Berlin are tough. Grey skies everyday, frozen dog shit all over the street (frozen if you're lucky that is!), grim faces... A native California girl, I've never liked it even before I had kids. Now that I have two young children, the season is basically unbearable. A double stroller, two sets of snowsuits, no car....Cars are expensive to have in Berlin and since we live in a great urban neighborhood we don't really need one (we can borrow my brother-in-law's if need be...) But still, babies, a heavy stroller, a subway system where nearly NO station has an elevator and only sometimes an escalator (very steep stairs in their place)I almost never leave the neighborhood. I've been keeping myself busy with creative projects so I don't go crazy. Jewelry making, collages, etc. for my two etsy shops. Still, there is a problem with light. In order to post the items I have made to offer them for sale in Schaufenster and Rose, red Rose I have to take photographs. Though lovely, our apartment doesn't get very good light. Many an afternoon I've driven myself crazy taken blurry picture after blurry picture. Occasionally I set up things in the courtyard in the back, but it's not really much fun even if the light is better. Yesterday I had a revelation: I need to take photographs and get out of the house a little bit. Why not go to one of the graveyards nearby? There are two really nice ones (including one where Brahms and Schumann are buried.) When Mia was in pre-school I packed up baby Lilly and headed to the one on Bergmannstrasse. The sun was actually shining and I got some great shots of both the necklace and two collages which was great. Photographs plus small winter outing equals sucess. Hooray!

Downtime

Sometimes the best move for creativity is a little downtime. I've been in the Bay Area now for almost a month visiting my family here with my husband and two daughters. This means a big difference in my daily life in Berlin which usually consists of taking baby number one to pre-school and holding baby number two in my lap while I work on various creative projects. Like I posted before, I have started making a lot of new collages but things are too hectic here for concentrated work. But in my mind I've been expanding. I have many new images collected I'd like to work with as well as ideas for altered clothing (plan to open a new etsy shop for this work when I get back.) I'm also opening a new shop for jewellery which will be called Rose Red Rose. There are so many great vintage and antique pieces to be had in Berlin and I would like to combine them with new materials to make original pieces. Creating is so much fun. In some ways, I am the eternal child, excited about all these new possibilities, all these new projects to throw myself into. With so much to do even the Berlin winter won't be able to get me down.
Besides thinking up future creative projects I've been doing some shopping on etsy (first for gifts then for myself. It can't be helped!!) One of the best people I've bought from recently was Kathleen from Mata Hari Jewellery. A lot of people make jewellery from vintage brass -with a neo-victorian touch, but her pieces are especially beautiful and she also gives a free gift each puchase which is really nice.

Etsy Buy Handmade roseredrose

Taken by surprise.....

What I love most about creativity is how often it takes me by surprise. I have often gone through phases (or rather, bursts)where I made a lot of collages and then other times when I didn't make them at all. It's not something I can force and there are many other things I make or I write or take photographs so when I am not making collages I still am following creative pursuits. But something about collages, creating things from bits and pieces of paper that are arranged without plan or thought, that is especially satisfying. So often the inspiration takes me by surprise. Like the new work I have been doing for the past several weeks. Most have them have been made from books I have had for years but didn't really know why: An old collection of short stories translated into German, a book about Nabokov and folk singers in Russian. The German book I picked up years ago at a flea market here in Berlin, but only because I liked something about it. Generally I don't read literature translated into German, especially if the original was in English, but I still bought the book and kept it around for some reason. The same was true of the Russian books. I bought them when I was in Moscow and then somehow never got rid of them though I have long given up on the rigors of Russian grammar. I am not a person who has a hard time throwing things out. I have moved several times since I first got them and each time I gave away boxes of things, but somehow those books always stayed. Then, three weeks ago or so I took the German book off the bookshelf on a whim. After thumbing through it for a few minutes I suddenly had the impulse to get a razor blade and cut things out of it. I followed that whim and have been making collages from its pages ever since. Now it seems clear why I kept the books around all this time: Someday I was meant to make art with them.

The story behind Light and Longing

Yesterday I made a collage with one of the Light and Longing self-portraits, part of the poem printed on its surface. There is a story behind both the pictures and the poem which I thought I would post here. (Originally I posted it on my blog on MySpace.) Here it is:


Light and Longing

This is not about me and it's not about you,
these words are not written by my hand.
It's about the us that never was and always is
because, at its heart, memory is a very personal fiction.

How could I not love your valleys and summits
as they love me? Endlessly, I taste and touch
though we remain lost in namelessness.

But our story has a name. Our love is told
in the heart of an eagle and on the breath of
a lion. Longing is programmed in our cells.

With their every death and division we expand
beyond the borders of our countries until we know,
as he knew, that no one, not even the rain,
has such small hands.

But there is no us. We had no then, we have no
now. In the light of memory we may shine and pulse
like the hottest star, but to give in would only
push us farther apart.

If you believed you took these pictures and I knew
I wrote these lines together we would tumble
from the heart's hidden chamber transforming longing
with the light of love.

Hush. Turn. Listen. Call me, and know that I will come.

**********

I wrote this piece for Jasper before we were together. What happened was this: I

knew him for a while because we were in an astrology class together (his brother is an

astrologer.) Though a nice guy, I wasn't particularly

interested in him and besides, I was living with my boyfriend at the time but then we

somewhat unexpectedly broke up in the summer and I was single again. I still wasn't

thinking much about Jasper as a romantic possibility until one day in October. On that

day everyone in the course went out to a beer garden afterward. I remember that

Jasper was sitting across from me talking about his job I think (he's a criminal defense

lawyer.) In the middle of his story I had the irrisistable urge to reach across the table

and take his hand in mine. Of course I didn't as we were in a group and it would have

been very, very strange but still, the whole thing struck me like a thunderbolt. Soon

after I started having all these dreams with him in them. Usually something pretty

horrible would happen, like I was forced to live in this house that wasn't safe, but at

some point he would always show up and hold me or take my hand and it always felt so

comfortable, so loving, so intimate. None of these feelings matched our relationship in

real life. In fact, we hardly ever even talked at all, just saw each every other weekend

in astrology class. But I asked myself how could I be having these re-occuring dreams

that were so intense if it really, truly had nothing to do with real life? Then in late

November I got a three-day job in Hannover teaching English to people who work for

the German railway (I did this in several German cities to help prepare them for the

World Cup and was in Hannover four times.) Hannover has got to be one of the most

boring cities in the world but on that particular trip the weather was so stormy and the

light so beautiful that I took a lot of pictures on my time off, several of which I put on

my profile in the category "Stormy Weather." When I got to my hotel room the light

continued to be beautiful and I felt inspired to take the series of self-portraits that are

rotating on the cube above. What's amazing about those pictures to me is that all of

them are very different and none of them really look like me, and yet something about

them captures how I often feel inside. When I looked at those pictures and thought

about Jasper it occured to me: Aren't dreams as real, in there own way, as concrete

reality? Here was this person with whom who I had an intense connection only in my

dreams but how did that have any less value? Wasn't it a separate world where we

would always be together but constantly apart? And so I wrote the poem and made a

book later where I wrote the stanzas across each picture in gold ink. A few months

later Jasper and I did get together, though I wasn't really expecting it. Four months ago

we had our first child. I guess my dreams were right.

***********************************************************************************

To make the collage I took a 4 by 6 copy of the photograph with added effects and mounted it on cardboard, adding a ribbon for easy hanging. I then put tracing paper over the picture and wrote a section of the poem around my face. I coated the collage with matte lacquer and, once it had dried, added black ribbon as a border. I love using earlier inspiration for new inspiration! Below is a slide show of the photograph in all its incarnations.