Grandma's Tattoo

Saturday, 7 March 2015

No One Sounds Like Joy Division

Today I went to the Lady Petrova studio sale with a friend. Some ladies I know from Rookie-related activities were there and we had a look in some other outlets nearby. It's always nice to hang out with people who aren't from my main group of friends, especially people who are generally much cooler and more stylish than me - it makes me feel cool by association. From the sale I bought some gorgeous greyish lace with yellow detail and a bunch of floaty fabric with a digital floral print. I'm not sure what I'll do with the lace but I'm thinking of seeing if I can put the floral fabric on the back of one of the vintage denim jackets I'm upcycling.

I've discovered I get a lot less depressed about not having any money to buy beautiful clothes when I shop somewhere that I know is either a) extremely expensive or b) won't have anything in my size, which is the case with Lady Petrova. Still, there were two beautiful capes and a couple of other things I did lust after, but I'm slowly training myself to get better about object envy I think. Maybe it's just because I'm feeling in a vaguely good place about my current creative output? I have a lot of projects I'm either working on or intending to start, I've been writing poetry again and I've been updating this blog on a semi-regular basis.

I found a copy of The Maltese Falcon in a pile of books next to a bin on the way to the sale. There are so many cool things out there if you have the time and know where to look. Factory outlets are definitely the best thing. Ditto hard rubbish. I keep seeing cte furniture but my apartment is already super full.

I went to a big Salvation Army store on my own after splitting with everyone and made a beeline for the records. A guy came up to me and started on a twenty-minute long rave about how hobbies become trendy and anyone can get famous on the internet and you can't find anything good in thrift shops anymore. He kept talking about 80's post-punk and electronica music and was very taken with Joy Division. He told me that no one else in that scene was as totally 100% honest as Ian Curtis, that everyone else had a 10% veneer they put up while he bared everything. Then he told me to check out AlleyTunes Records as one of the few places left that still has a great variety of barely-seen stuff. Apparently the guy that runs it is French and is perfectly happy for customers to sit there for in silence hours listening to records, but that if you act really enthusiastic he can recommend all sorts of music. So thanks for the recommendation, random Abbotsford Salvo's guy. I'm sorry again to hear about the young man who stole your record collection. I think a lot of what you said was bullshit and I definitely didn't want to stand there for 20 minutes listening to a stranger who kept touching my arm, but you were nice enough and definitely an interesting alternative to the usual creeps and randos that invade my space in public places.

Tomorrow I have to do job applications* and find the will to clean my apartment. I may end up doing art instead.

*I typed 'wishes' instead of 'job applications' and almost didn't notice. What does that mean?

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Dear Patti Smith (Don't Think About the Wunderkinds)

Just keep reminding myself: Patti Smith didn't make it until she was much older than I am now.

But she also worked a lot harder than I do before then.

Monday, 2 March 2015

Untitled Poem

http://pixshark.com/amazon-women-warriors-greek-mythology.htm

I will be an Amazon,
I will force my self to take up space.
I will be so
Big
and so Wild
I will take up all your air and
drink your blood.

Just try me.

I will be a warrior,
I will crash my ships into your shore
and
storm your walls.

I will bring it all down,

burn it all down.

I will conquer
everything.

Nothing will stop me nothing will stop me nothing will stop me I will be
so big,
and
so strong.

With metal moulded,
breasts cupped in steel
and ass
in fresh-forged iron.

I will be a fighter,
and a destroyer,
I will tower over the world and
pick it from my teeth.

no sword necessary.

Monday, 9 February 2015

#jpgngv

After a disastrous first attempt at going to see Jean Paul Gaultier and the NGV (the hour-long line put me off so I went to David Shrigley instead, which was an extremely dissatisfying alternative), a friend convinced me that it was absolutely essential that I try and make it along. I'm very glad they did, because te exhibition was magnificent and definitely pulled me out of the funk I've been in for the last several days.
I didn't get any decent pictures of the mannequins' faces - several of them had human faces projected over them, which talked or sang. They were very uncanny valley and definitely cool, although having several in close proximity with overlapping audio was a bit much.
While I generally hate exhibitions that add a bunch of bells and whistles and don't let the artworks speak for themselves*, in an exhibit where clothes and their inspiration were the artworks the NGV dd an excellent job. Each room was nicely tied to the different 'themes' and collections, especially the 'boudoir' section.
There's probably a lot to say about treatment of race and culture in Gaultier's work but I don't feel equipped to say it, especially not without doing an enormous amount of background reading first. I definitely would not trust the NGV the include that sort of critical commentary anywhere in its exhibition materials, especially after their lackluster response when I made a complaint about some racist/sexist commentary on one of the works in their permanent collection.
But anyway, now it is time to look at nice pictures of clothes!

Beautiful details, most of my photos of the Madonnas came out terribly but they were absolutely magnificent. The rich blue and yellow of the traditional Madonna is a really lovely combination and despite not being religious I am - as cliched as it may be - inspired by some Catholic imagery and the aesthetic of the Madonna. Especially the gothier of Gaultier's examples!

v. relevant to some of the things I've been thinking about re. articles shared or penned by Arabelle Sicardi and posts on tumblr about beautiful prostheses and just the intersection of beauty and disability theory in general. I don't have enough disability theory under my belt to opine on this piece at length but conceptually it was absolutely a standout.

I love the concept of the male corsets and the fan design but wasn't aesthetically especially into any of the examples on display. There was another great example of the fan design a bit later - just quietly blowing my mind.

The punk room was everything

Don't dress for the dystopian capitalist police state you have, dress for the post-apocalyptic biker battle dystopia you want

I didn't think denim could ever look so cool? An outfit for inducing existential crises

#gpoy

This dress was really cool - the 'fabric' is all strips of film. The shoulder pads are the best.

See earlier point about the biker apocalypse. Maybe I just want Tank Girl? yes, that sound right.

This Russia-inspired dress was beautiful and I'm sad my pictures of it didn't turn out. The room it was in had terrible lighting for taking pictures on my phone :/

The other fan man corset - Spanish vibes.

#gpoy

Iconic

Stunning Madonna dress again. This is one of my favorite pictures that I took.

Basically I now want to bury myself in books about fashion theory and dust off my sewing machine. I'm so, so glad I went and so grateful to my friend for pushing me to go and my boyfriend for lending me the money. It was definitely worth the hour wait it took me to get through the door!

*This is something I get from my mother (hi Mum) and once you notice galleries doing it, it becomes the most annoying thing in the world (looking at you, Canberra art gallery with your super racist set up for Emily Kngwarreye and you, GOMA in Brisbane for putting cow wallpaper under Warhol's Electric Chairs)