Every sailor knows there are certain places you just don’t take a ship… mysterious and gloomy corners of the earth where one cannot predict the wickedness one might encounter. And every sailor knows that if you have the misfortune of finding such a corner – and if you hear the dulcet tones of a certain kind of voice - you are forever doomed to a watery fate, for you will fall in love with a siren from the deep.
Sitting on her rock, she waits, always singing her ancient song, always searching - her glistening salty skin and beckoning turquoise eyes both an offer and a warning to those who will listen. I'm ever so pleased to share my first new design listing in ages ~ Sirene. 
Absolutely luminous model photography is by Lex Machina. If you'll recall, I've been giddy with anticipation about this collaboration, and I'm delighted and thrilled with the results. Lexie did all the styling and makeup artistry as well. Go give Lexie and this image some love on Flickr, and visit the model, Elise XY, on Model Mayhem. 
You can find the listing for the cuffs here on Etsy, and I'll be posting the necklace and earrings as soon as a few more pictures come in - Lexie captured dozens of breathtaking images, and is currently working her magic on them. 
Lure them in with the Sirene adornments.
6.29.2009
Dark Sirene
6.22.2009
Vagabond Opera Glory
Sublime Moment of the Week: dueling cellos, a guitar, and a clarinet, being played by various members of the indescribable cabaret band Vagabond Opera, while sitting on the Hennepin Crawler, in my driveway. 
Last Friday night, my dear Amber Lee played a show with the fabulous vaudevillian roustabouts from Portland, to promote their new CD, The Zeitgeist Beckons. The performance was brilliant ~ complete with hypnotism, playing card tricks, toy chattering teeth, and oh so many sequins, hats and stripes... 
Vagabond Opera is the kind of band that entertains you from the moment they step under the lights until the raucous finale where they jump off the stage and dance among the blissful fans. One song even compelled Lord Hopton to sweep me away into a vigorous tango number that left me completely breathless. Following the after-party at the home of the Mad Maggies, who had also played, Stache and I were thrilled to play local hosts to the travelers ~ half of them stayed at our house. And of course, we all realized we were cut from the same cloth and fell in love. 
In the morning, after brunch, sax and clarinet player Robin (who also moonlights with my beloved March Fourth!) and Stache had a giddy dandy-accessory-trying-on party, and my living room became an internet cafe, as no less than five laptops were put to use. Before they departed for their next show, we tooled around town a bit on the Hennepin Crawler, much to everyone's delight. And soon half of the band was playing instruments in an impromptu interlude on the Crawler. 
Full Flickr set here, with more to come (and look, here's video on Facebook!). And then they all drove away in their very large van, blowing kisses and with promises of future visits. Huzzah for the unexpected glory of having a magnificent band you love come for a sleepover at your house!
6.14.2009
Le Scaphandrier ~ The Giant Diver
I'm thoroughly enraptured by the work of French performance art and puppetry troupe Royal de Luxe. Their May 2006 performance in London, The Sultan's Elephant, was nothing short of genius ~ I can't even imagine the glory of being in attendance at the event, which included a little girl Giantess, a wooden rocket-ship, and a 50-ton mechanical elephant.
And now I've just heard that they've done it again... Writer R.J. Evans posted a blog about a new performance that took place starting June 6th in Nantes ~ the birthplace of Jules Verne ~ that involved a giant deep-sea diver, Le Scaphandrier in French.
I've always been a lover of puppets and marionettes, so to see a 30-foot-tall diver hauled out of the water by a team of frock-coated puppeteers, and then sent out adventuring, just blisses me out.
And there's a beautiful and complex mythology, too, for these amazingly emotive characters, that's been unfolding around Europe for years in various performances - about how the Diver is searching for his niece the Little Giantess, a character from the Sultan's Elephant performance. With the help of Google's nifty translation engine, you can read more about the back-story on Stéfan Le Dû's blog.
The company is rather mysterious and rarely releases information before a performance, adding to the intrigue. But you can find some jaw-dropping YouTube videos, along with a Flickr pool filled with lovely images from the performance.
It's one of those things that makes me happy to be alive, that there are people out there creating such things. We humans may be making war, and reality TV shows, but we're also making street spectacles with grand mechanical creatures, simply for the sake of wonder and magic and art.
Also keep an eye out for the off-shoot company of brilliant fabricators La Machine. They built the original sultan's elephant, and they were also the ones who sent a massive wooden and steel mechanical spider called La Princesse marauding around Liverpool in a post-apocalyptic frenzy, to the delight of onlookers, for week in September 2008 before moving on to Yokohama.
La Machine also built the permanent exhibition Machines of the Isle of Nantes at its workshop, which is open to the public, features the elephant giving rides, and includes a mechanical squid.
Glorious. Simply glorious.
6.04.2009
Love at the Maker Faire
You may have noticed my conspicuous absence in the last week or two... I have not been negligent, dear readers, but in a frenzy of activity ending in last weekend's glorious Maker Faire. This post will be doubly long to make up for it!
I was vending my Adornments for Tarts as part of the Steam Team, in the Carnivale Mechanique area of the Faire. The crowds, the wind, and the long days not-withstanding, my experience at the Faire was incredible. I'm still exhausted, but it was worth it, to be part of the single most concentrated gathering of creative, gorgeous, and debaucherous mad-people short of Burning Man.
Being delighted by some of my beloved Etsy Steam Teamers for the first time in the flesh - TotusMel, AlliesAdornments, and Clockwork Crow - and reuniting with old friends - Nullalux, Industrial Fairytale, Tom Banwell, and 19Moons - was glorious, though admittedly we were so busy we hardly had time for chatting... Nullalux in particular was juggling like mad to take care of all the mail-in items.
I was really excited to see everyone's work in person, particularly Tom's Pachydermos Gas Mask.
The weekend was filled with those kinds of magical peak moments that happen when you're in bliss... Drinking Irish coffee in the shadow of the Neverwas Haul with her brave and tireless crew, and then careening about on the little trolley...
Following the Golden Mean Snail Car and her brilliant gang of vagabonds from bar to bar in the sleepy suburban town, in full costume, confusing and delighting the locals...
Meeting some of my brilliant friends from the Interwebs in the flesh, most notably Molly "Porkshanks" Friedrich in her showstopping costumes...
...the resplendent Libby Bulloff, whose outfit on Sunday nearly made my heart explode with joy... shown here with Qais Fulton of Ectomo fame, who I failed entirely to meet...
...a beaming Tom Sepe and his splendid Whirlygig Emoto...
...and beautiful Theremina of Coilhouse ~ who stole my heart and serenaded the crowd with her antique Stroh violin, perched atop the Hennepin Crawler... she played violin for the beautiful dancers of Deshret, as well.
Another giddy moment was having my portrait drawn by the talented and sparklingly beautiful Suzanne Forbes...
And of course, watching my beloved Krank-Boom-Clank boys ride through the hordes of people on the Crawler, getting cheers everywhere they went.
And amidst all that madness, I still found time for drinking beer with the Boiler Bar crew under the propane glow of art by the Flaming Lotus Girls...
And not to forget kissin' on my beloved Stache.
Beautiful new friends and treasured longtime ones, your creativity and passion filled my heart to the brim this weekend. I fell in love all over again with the ragtag band of tinkerers, costumers, musicians, artists, and freaks that I call my community. This is a love letter dedicated to YOU.
5.19.2009
A Mere Moment: Audrey Kawasaki
I've long been captivated by the work of pop surrealist darling Audrey Kawasaki. Her lithe and doe-eyed lovelies are both moving in their childish innocence and disquieting in their subtle eroticism.
I read an interview that quotes her as saying, "I paint them because they are distant, elusive, and unobtainable, and slip right through your hands. They are something I chase after, and that I grasp onto for a mere moment, and am forced to let go, and that is what keeps me painting."
I love that description of the moment of connection between artist and muse. I love that she paints the girls on wood and uses the grain in the image, which gives them a lovely organic feel, and that she tends to pale and washed out colors, like faded vintage ephemera.
It's the juxtaposition of opposites in her work that's most enchanting to me, and I especially love it when remnants of the natural world slip in ~ bones, feathers, sea creatures.
And the blush of swirling-haired art nouveau brings to mind echoes of another of my favorite artists, Alphonse Mucha, or the waves and flower-petals of Hokusai.
And look... tentacles, just for me.
You can immerse yourself in Audrey's exquisite world at her Web site, and keep up with her via her LiveJournal blog.
5.12.2009
Oughta Be in Pictures
I'm swooning with anticipation about my first collaboration with a photographer other than my love Stache (though I do adore his photography). I've just sent off my brand new Sirene design to Lexie, proprietress of Lex Machina Photography (formerly BrainWreck), after being floored by her newest work on Flickr. 
This set of images reminds me of some of the brilliant Kate O'Brien's more painterly work, like her "I Spy" photo I've always adored. I'm giddy with Lexie's treatment of these, the richly saturated but understated tones that give them that vintage feel.
Truly, how could I not be enamoured of someone with a a bio that reads like this: "motor-hobo transient photographer and comic nerd of the steampunk persuasion"? It seems Lexie travels around the country full-time in an RV with her soulmate, Emmy, the dashing subject of this stunning image. 
This whole tale appeals to me tremendously... although I do love to travel, I am a home-body at heart, and so that kind of nomadic lifestyle is something I can only admire from afar.
And now, the waiting... sigh.
5.04.2009
Within Your Rights to Bite...
If you haven't seen the Swedish film Let the Right One In, you should. I rented it after reading an intriguing review on an excellent blog I follow, Blood Milk, and it was stunningly lovely. 
I'll admit, I have an undeniable weakness for vampire films, but this one transcended the genre with its fragile beauty. If you can't bear plainly illustrated violence and slow, disturbing moodiness, this may not be the film for you, but I was absolutely mesmerized. 
The film does not flinch from exploring intense themes in the fertile borderlands between good and evil, adulthood and childhood, innocent friendship and budding sexuality, and all of these are treated with incredibly stark tenderness. The two twelve-year-olds who play the leads were quite magnificent in their roles, and the icy perpetual night of the slums of Stockholm was a perfect setting. The film is both savage and poignant, and utterly moving.
The film is based on a 2004 novel that I'd love to read. I'll pretend I didn't hear about the American remake. La la la.
Good trivia... besides the lore that says a vampire cannot enter a house uninvited, the title also refers to a Morrissey song I had never heard, "Let the Right One Slip In," which includes the delightful lyric "I'd say you were within your rights to bite." I've been bitten, truly.
4.28.2009
CoutureLust: Scoundrelle's Keep
It was a striking image on her Flickr photostream that enamored me to Heather Luca's brilliant clothing line out of Saint Paul, Minnesota, Scoundrelle's Keep. Heather's designs are both playful and elegant.
Heather's recent collaboration with Samantha Rei of Blasphemina's Closet is breathtaking. It premiered at a recent Dances of Vice event (oh, if only I lived close to New York!). Images by Photosynthetique.
How did you get your start making clothes?
I learned the basics of sewing from my mom as I was growing up. She made many garments for us, even matching mom-and-daughter sets. Looking through the photo albums still makes me wince! When I had my daughter, I found myself with many small pockets of free time that I would end up wasting because I couldn't really go out and do stuff with an infant.
That Christmas, I asked my family to buy me a sewing machine, and thus picked up the hobby again. When I got married the following summer, I made my own wedding gown, including a beautiful white-on-white brocade corset. It was my first serious attempt at a corset - it was a kit from Farthingales in Canada, and it turned out really well. From there, I had friends asking me to make them corsets, and word spread like wildfire. Soon I was taking clients from even out of state!
Where do you find inspiration?
I am very inspired by classic Victorian clothing. I tried doing historical recreation of garments, but I found that far too restricting, so I integrated modern fabrics, materials, and techniques that would not have been available in that era to create something new and decadent. I create from the past that never was.
What are three things that please you the most in the world?
My family, especially my 7 year old daughter, Kaia; being able to dress fancy in neo-Victorian and Lolita styles, and collecting Asian ball-jointed dolls (ABJD).
What do you do besides design amazing clothes?
I went to college for photography, and I love being able to capture images. With most of my local orders, I offer a free photo shoot at the completion of a corset or outfit, both as a bonus to the client, and as a way to keep my portfolio filled with the newest garments I've made.
What piece of work are you most proud of?
Its hard to narrow it down to one piece. Each garment I finish is more beautiful than the last. I really love the fall collection of clothes that I showed at Kakkoi|Con and Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits (SGMS)- it was the first full line that I have made, and it went from design to fruition really smoothly.
Where can we find your line?
I am available locally in Saint Paul, Minnesota for in-person consultations for orders; you can also purchase custom-made items directly from my website.
Thank you Heather! I'll carry on dreaming of owning a corset-dress from Scoundrelle's Keep.
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