Clowns and Whiskey

Somehow, March ended up being a whirlwind of events that all included some unholy combination of whiskey and clowns, and usually a little too much of both.

It all started with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Bingo, wherein nuns in drag make a general fuss about everything, while giving away fabulous prizes for bingo.

Sisters Bingo photos used with kind permission of Sheila Garvey.

Several of the sisters were beside themselves with admiration for my dashing male companions, so there was much shooing of frisky nuns away from my dear ones.

If you've never been to the monthly event, I highly recommend it for a rousing good time - just don't sit too close to the speakers. Shrieking nuns + nasty-tasting Johnny Walker = headache.

Following on the heels of Bingo was the delightful Spring Equinox Sideshow party a few weekends ago, an event packed with clowns, firedancers, and freaks of all stripes. Here's your Choklit with beloveds El Fudo and Miss M ~ in fact, the three March birthdays that led to so much swilling of whiskey.

And Stache found a bottle of absinthe to share with the lovely Pamela - whom we had only just met at Sisters Bingo a few nights before.

Having barely recovered from the Equinox Party, we spent a ridiculous weekend in the city at a whole host of parties, including Fou Fou Ha's new show, Out of Order: A Musical that Comes out of a Toilet, which was beyond hilarious - I think I still have the giggles.

Fou Fou Ha photos used with kind permission of Eric Gillet.

I'll never have my fill of those beautiful Fou's, they make me sparkle from my fingers to my toes. Well, the Fou's and one-third of Fudo's birthday bottle of Noah's Mill... heh.

Now what will April have in store for us?

CoutureLust: Amoelbarroco

I first encountered the stunning and intriguing Viveka, a.k.a. Brummella Brumaria, designer of Amoelbarroco, through her Etsy shop, and was instantly enamoured. Even more so when I found her Flickr site, with its deep archive of delectable photos.

Captivated, I went to her blog, and found it written in Spanish, which made sense, as she is based in Madrid. Though sadly, my own Spanish is far too pathetic to be able to read the entries, I enjoyed the pictures, and when I fed her bio through that clunky-but-entertaining Google translator engine, it yielded this delightful paragraph:

Steampunk pirate, robot recalcitrant scientific crazy part-time aesthete unparalleled, exquisite Baroque zombie art-nouveau, and lover of the crapulilla - Orientalism, Symbolism, Terror, times past, the vicissitudes of history and several anachronisms, dandybilly and carnivaliosa...

I'm sure it's not a perfect translation, but it made me very happy. I'm considering re-learning Spanish to follow her blog.

How would you describe yourself and your style of work?

I use to think about myself as a dilettante with a non-stop creative anxiousness and infected with some kind of quixotic behaviour. I love art, literature and history (that's why I studied Fine Arts) and, in my work, I use to "contribute" to them with some personal cosmogony and fantasy, altering it or showing my point of view of the past and anachro-aesthetics. I just want to work again and again about my perception of beauty, no mind which form it adopts. Now I channel all these ideas through designing clothing, but who knows if this is its final shape!


Where do you find inspiration?

As I've said before, mostly from art and history. I have my preferences, of course; baroque, rococo, Victorian, art nouveau and 80's are essential to me, but also of interest to me are diverse subjects such as medical imagery, romantic orientalism, contemporary and antique photography, puritan and religious tradition and imagery, comics, music and films, and many more! I find inspiration also in books, I love symbolism, decadent writers, horror literature, steampunk...I'm always reading something.

What do you do besides design amazing clothes?

Well, thanks so much for your comment :). Hehehe, apart from spending time with that strange gentleman I use to find by my side and hanging out with my dear freak friends in bizarre places, in the professional world, I work also in fashion as a teacher in a school, besides attending Amoelbarroco!

I'm also a kind of amateur photographer (mostly self-portraits), model for others sometimes, I enjoy very much this activity, and I REALLY love traveling, too, I think I would spend my life discovering new places.


What are three things that please you the most in the world?

Just three!! I think I can resume this in "having the possibility of doing whatever I like and want."

How did you get your start making clothes?

With my brand...maybe...by accident?? Hahaha, I begin this adventure working with another girl more experienced in this sector, but we decided not to work more together, so I decided to continue alone and I've been like that from a year and a half more or less with some friends as collaborators sometimes, I really appreciate their help and opinions. Anyway, in the past I made some designs for my closet, and always enjoyed working with image and making my own eccentric-styling and way to understand fashion. Also, when I was an art student I developed some art-fashion artifacts and constructions, and if I go back as a child I use to draw some girls with strange clothing and appearance, so I can say that always had a part of my thoughts moving in this direction.

What piece of work are you most proud of?

Hard to decide!! The most successful one is the "pirate-gondoliere" shirt which has an original illustration of Laura Wächter on the back (I always want to collaborate with her, she is a very talented person).

But I love specially the first men's shirt I made with my own hands and even "French couture"! There are some new designs that will be visible soon that I think are good stuff too.

Where can we find your line?

On the last times I worked mostly with direct orders from costumers, this is my favourite way of selling, but you can also find some garments (and sales) at my Etsy shop, or in Madrid in a couple of places: La Morgue, but there are a few products now (c/Espíritu Santo 2) or my permanent exhibition at L'showroom (c/Mejía Lequerica, 17, 2d).

Thank you, Viveka!

...Read the full interview...

Things That Please Me: Surreal TV

I'm one of those people who simply doesn't do television. But every once in a while a show makes it through the filters and captures my attention, and then I become addicted and have to watch every episode in all-night marathons. The most recent of these is Lars Von Trier's cult classic horror mini-series from the early nineties - Riget, or The Kingdom.

I haven't completed the marathon yet, but thus far I've been captivated enough by the bizarre and colorful characters, ridiculous plot twists, and dry moments of comedy to forgive the shaky claustrophobic camera work and indulgent B-movie gore. Besides, the fact that it's all in Danish makes it that much better.

Preceding Riget by a few years, and drawing frequent comparisons, is Stache's favorite TV show of all time - Twin Peaks. I somehow missed the phenomenon the first time around, but when it finally came out on DVD, I consumed it like candy. The unsettling snail-like pacing, the unabashed absurdity, and the droll humor all instantly endeared me to David Lynch's foray into the small screen.

I both love and hate the way Lynch makes you feel like you might be missing something deep, when in fact there is no answer - the truth is that it just doesn't make any sense at all. Twin Peaks reached levels of artfulness rarely seen before or since on television, and scores of rabid fans are still talking about it.

But perhaps my most beloved surreal TV show is HBO's Carnivàle, which certainly owes much to these earlier shows. But Carnivàle takes the top honors in my book for the stunning production values, and because, well, it takes place in a traveling carnival in the 1920's.

I have such appreciation for the painstaking way in which the creators immerse you in the world of the show. All of the extras look like living Dorothea Lange portraits. The opening title sequence takes my breath away every time. And the stunning art direction, gritty costuming, and luminous lighting lend a palpable sense of beautiful decay and doom every time you watch the show.

It seems shows like this always end poorly, or not at all, as in the case of Carnivàle, which was written as a seven-season show and canceled with a fist-clenchingly frustrating cliff-hanger after only two seasons, spawning desperate campaigns to bring it back from heartbroken fans. And they are all too rare - clearly the general public does not share my peculiar tastes.

So I'll have to wait, perhaps years, for the next time some rogue director wants to make a brilliantly baffling show to remind me that sometimes, TV can be worthwhile.

Bohemian Carnival and Hollis

Last weekend we finally managed to attend the "indie circus orgy" known as Bohemian Carnival. I took the opportunity to don my "Stripey Fraggle Klown" outfit (spot the Aubergine adornments!) and gather the gang to run off with the circus for a night. I even managed to tart up my lovely friend Grace, who had thus far not indulged in the type of festooned debauchery I'm prone to.

I was a wee bit disappointed with how many spectators in plain-clothes were in attendance, and not all the acts were to my fancy, but it was a rousing time nonetheless. Stache took some pictures of our beloved burlesque buffoons Fou Fou Ha performing, which was certainly the highlight of my evening.

We also saw Klown-Fi band Gooferman for the first time, which was a delightful spectacle... and there were some lovely aerial acts.

Photographer to the stars Mr. Nightshade caught me backstage with Mama Fou, sneaking a sip from the clever and handy guitar flask of Vegas the Klown.

Originally conceived by members of Circus Metropolus and nouveau acrobatics troupe Vau de Vire Society as a gathering for the Bay Area underground circus community, and denizens of Burning Man's Red Nose District, the event has been growing for the past year or so. Curly wigs off to the organizers for the wickedly good time!

As a final sad yet hopeful note on this circus-ish post, I'd like to mention the plight of Hollis, a woman from our beautiful community (that is, the Bay Area Circus Burner Freak Activist community, of course) who was in a dreadful motorbike accident in India, and is now in a coma. Her family and friends need to raise $150K to airlift her home for treatment. Read more about it on Coilhouse, and if you can donate at all, please do it here. And spread the word!

Fotografía de los Sueños

Falling down one of those unexpected interwebs rabbit holes today led me to the online galleries of Madrid-based photographer Eugenio Recuenco, and I was sufficiently enamored to want to share.

I spent hours poring over the deep archives on his Web site, mesmerized. I didn't love all of his work ~ it's a very diverse portfolio ~ but the ones I love... I love very, very much.

He's a master of creating moody, surrealistic tableaus that are ripe with the promise of some fantastical and possibly disturbing tale.

I've heard his pictures described as cinematic. It's perhaps because of the meticulous attention to detail in the art direction, and a dreamlike quality that I find enchanting.

It occurs to me now that the first print issue of my beloved Coilhouse Magazine had a lush spread and interview with him. He has also made a few short films that are worth perusing even if some of them were originally perfume ads or music videos.

Thanks to my new blog obsession HauteMacabre for leading me to this work, and to the lovely TotusMel for leading me to HauteMacabre.

CoutureLust: Black Lotus

I'm ever so pleased to announce a new interview series: CoutureLust. I'm constantly amazed by all the enchanting indie clothing designers I find online, and I wanted to take the opportunity to show them some love.

First up, Christina Molcillo of Black Lotus Clothing. I found Christina at a Tribal Bellydance festival a few years ago, and have been avidly watching her work evolve into a jaw-droppingly gorgeous fusion of tribal-grunge-gothic-carnival-Victorian beauty. Not surprising that I lust after everything she creates. Prepare for serious WANT.

How would you describe yourself and your style of work?

First thing that comes to mind is that I'm a dork who just so happens to make pretty things. Well, at least I think they're pretty.. Nothing wrong with liking your own work, right?

My current style is kinda like a Grungy Tattered Beautiful F^&*d Up Mess... (excuse the language, but that's the best way I know how to describe it). I'm drawn to texture, layers, and sparkle... antiques, feathers, flowers and other found objects. I somehow manage to rip them all apart and put them back together in a fashion that pleases me. It's actually quite a therapeutic experience really... kinda like finger painting, or digging in the dirt while gardening. There's no precise way to do it... you just do it....
Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere. I know that's really vague, but it's true. I can be walking down the street and see a leaf and go "Wow, look at the veins in that leaf, kinda looks like a stitching pattern," or I'll be sitting in traffic and stare at the dingy old commercial truck in front of me and think "Hmm... if that truck were a garment what would it look like?" Then I'll look at the colors, detailing and feel of the vehicle and actually form a costume in my head to match it. Do I really go home and make that costume? No... ahh... probably not. But it's a good creative exercise! Normally I just dig through my fabrics until I find one that I like, and go to town with it... that's usually how all my pieces start.

Or... unless I'm creating for a customer... I have a specific person in mind. I love to use certain dancers as muses, they can give me creative boosts as well.
What do you do besides design amazing clothes?

Nuthin'... Hehe... I don't know, just normal stuff I guess. I love traveling, hanging out with my friends and my amazing husband (he's really funny). I read books, watch movies, take baths, collect things, dance, oh, and I just got off a 2 week raw juice fast. That was a pretty awesome experience... I love learning about health and nutrition.

What are three things that please you the most in the world?

The People Around Me
Being Creative
Shopping

How did you get your start making clothes?

To sum it up I've always made stuff... After high school I studied Fashion for a minute then quit about halfway through the program... I didn't touch it for five years until I discovered Tribal Belly Dancing, and that's when I started making my own costumes.

In all honesty, I hated performing, so I decided to choose to stay in the game by being a costumer.

Pretty much all I knew was that I wanted to be a designer sooo badly, but didn't know how to get started... I was also under the impression that everything had to be mass produced, so I tried to go down that route, but just couldn't connect the two. Eventually I just sat down in front of a machine and taught myself how to sew... one costume at a time.

What piece of work are you most proud of?

Good question. Nobody has ever asked me that. I guess it would be this one. I loved that combo of bluish grey and silver with the red. Some lady in Spain owns it now, I hope she's taking care of it...

...and I love these new things I'm working on in my studio right now... lil' skirts, neck corsets, bras and crap that nobody will probably ever see. Most of my work is sold at shows, and never goes online. I don't think people realize how many things I make...

Where can we find your line?

Various shows, events are posted on my website... you can always add me as a friend on mySpace or Tribe too. I always upload my new work (there) simultaneously with the site.

Thanks Christina!

...Read the full interview...

Seven in One Blow

I tend to avoid blog tagging... it feels too much like a chain letter, and those give me hives. So I heaved a great sigh when Down & Dirty Designs tagged me - I knew it was inevitable. I decided to succumb, so - seven random things about me, but sorry, can't abide by ALL the rules.

{one} I still make hand-made valentines for everyone in my family and my dearest friends.

{two} At six years old, I tap-danced on the table at my grandmother's well-attended 60th birthday bash and sang Comedy Tonight.

{three} I was on a team of about 8 people that built a 35-foot-long, 15-foot-tall glowing blue iceberg stage/chill lounge/bar/DJ booth with a life-sized polar bear on top, and drove around in it in the desert.

{four} When I was a senior in high school, I wrote my college entrance essay on the benefits of having seventeen grandparents.

{five} Less than four years ago I was in the countryside outside Bucharest, trying to organize a staged battle between Romanian extras dressed as Celtic warriors, led by a warrior queen, and British Roman re-enactors, complete with chariots, horses, weapons, and armour.

{six} I was in a TV ad for a menswear at the age of three. I sat in an over-sized armchair and said to the camera "The men in my life wear Rochester Big and Tall." No copies exist that I'm aware of...

{seven} And in honor of Valentine's Day: I had the best, most colorful wedding in the world to the most amazing man ever. During the ceremony, he wore an electric blue vintage suit, I wore my grandmother's wedding dress, and my one and only "bridesmaid" didn't decide what to wear at the wedding until the night before ~ and she ultimately chose a traditional dress from Afghanistan that had been hanging on my mom's wall, and was only a little faded. She was also barefoot. I loved it.

Happy Heart Day to you all!!

A Most Curious Menagerie

The work of Chicago artist Jessica Joslin always makes me feel as if I've stumbled upon a strange and beautiful alternate reality.

Gustave, Clockwork Circus, 2008
With her scientific attention to detail, Jessica has the most enchanting way of melding together the mythical, the mechanical, and the anatomical to create whimsical little beasties that are hauntingly life-like.

Lupe, Flights of Fancy, 2005
She uses found objects to make each oddity like a relic from a natural history museum that never was, in glorious juxtapositions that make magic out of the workaday world's detritus: brass meets fur, leather meets glass, velvet meets bone...

Lartet, Flights of Fancy, 2005
And I simply adore the names she gives her creations, names that somehow impart a sense of purpose and the promise of a breathtaking story - Odette, Leopold, Callisto, Lautrec...

Figaro, Curiosa, 2007
You can see more of Jessica's creations in her new art book, Strange Nature. And read Coilhouse's excellent interview with her if you're as intrigued as I am.

Add this to the list of Things I Must Have One Day When I Am Rich - a Jessica Joslin familiar to keep me company in my golden years.