Featured on We Who Shop Blog

It's never too early to start showing some thanks--this week I am thankful for a lovely blog, "We Who Shop." They featured one of my Steampunk creations and are currently having a giveaway contest for it! Here's a link: http://wewhoshop.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/first-giveaway-one-of-a-kind-necklace.

Ulysses Quotation Necklaces

Ulysses Quotation Necklaces

Made with paper (taken from a 1961 Random House edition of Ulysses), findings, eyelets, and chain. The quotation is taken from the last page of the last episode of Ulysses and reads:

"I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes."

Measures 10 inches in length and available for purchase on Etsy.com at my shop--just follow the link at the bottom of my blog.

The second necklace's quotation is from the "Ithaca" episode: "Womb? Weary? He rests. He has traveled." Measures 9 inches in length.

The third necklace is perhaps the most memorable line from "Ithaca"--asks "Where?."

"Calypso" on Canvas

"Calypso" on Canvas

I am currently studying for exams, which, of course, means that my need for creative outlets has tripled with the amount of stress. The silver lining is I am creating more Joyce art.

Combining my love for print with canvas-in the midst of re-reading "Calypso"--I tore out the first two pages of a 1961 Random House edition of Ulysses and transplanted them onto the canvas.

I also cut out some of my favorite dialogue between Molly and Bloom from this chapter (on the "transmigration of souls"). Next to these lines I drew a symbol of parallax (the infinity sign in red cray pas).

Parallax leads me inevitably to "Penelope." The lines written in pale pink ink and dusky brown are from the final lines of the episode.

On the top of the canvas resides a
plain white plaster square to symbolize the blankness and potential for June 17th, when Molly and Poldy wake up.

On the opposite side is a woman's silhouette cut from another page from "Calypso." She emerges from the page smiling and already formed. She is, like every woman, a paradox--simultaenously an innocent and faithful Penelope and Dido; a treacherous Circe, Calypso, Siren, and Helen; as well as godess-like, Hera and Aphrodite; and of course, parallax itself.

Just another fun bit of Joyceiana! Let me know what you think!

Steampunk!

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I let off some steam with Steampunk last week! Forgive the horrid pun. Can't wait to make Joycean creations that have the element of Victorian & Edwardian romance and sensibility (which of course Joyce loathed) and harsh punk technology and gadgetry. I cannot wait to experiment with this new genre and add perhaps a modernist, futurist, Dadaist twist! Hope you enjoy these new creations. Let me know what you think!

A) "Kick Up Your Heels"; made with black chain, an antique door hinge and key, reproduction antique sprockets and gears, vintage buttons wire wrapped, and paper.

B) "This Way Out"; made with various scrapbooking materials, small paper flowers, reproduction antique gamer spinners, freshwater pearls--dyed various colors, gold filigree, clock parts, a commemorative stamp of a Rhode Island Windmill, gunmetal chain, scraps of an old Engineering textbook, and a belt buckle.

C) "Tonobungay"; Inspired by H.G. Wells's novel of the selfsame title. Made with glass beads, wire, gunmetal chain, reproduction antique typewriter keys, clock parts, reproduction antique sprockets and gears, scraps from an old Engineering textbook, scrapbook materials, and an old stamp "Pharmacy."

D) "Time Flies"; It sure does with this necklace (already sold). Made with gold butterfly filigree, clock parts, antique button and key that I got from a flea market in Paris, gunmetal chain, scraps from an old Engineering textbook, a sticker--modern but cute, dyed pearls and seed beads, and of course, the fabulous green flower button bead--also obtained in Paris for an extraordinary fee. Best buttons I ever bought (even though they were 3 Euro a pop! Yipes!).

E) "Clocks in the Windmill"; My favorite creation of the bunch. Made with silver and gold filigree, dyed pearls, gunmetal chain, wire, plaid ribbon, Rhode Island 1790 Stamp, clock parts, gold key, antique reproduction gears and sprockets, antique reproduction game spinner, scrapbook materials, paper flowers, and jump rings!

New Ithaca Necklaces

These two necklaces were inspired by two of Ithaca's questions: Bloom, after picking up Stephen at the Cabman's Shelter, goes back to 7 Eccles Street but it is not the glorious Odyssean return, but rather, another moment where the reader is made aware of his keylessness:


The first necklace is made with an antique key hole I found at a flea market in Paris. (Lucky for me someone had salvaged a bunch of them from an old hotel being torn down!). The words, "Was it there?" (U17.95) are made with wire hanging from gold chain. Of course, as we know, the key is not there in Bloom's back pocket but "in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on the day but one proceeding" (U 17.96-97).
























The last question of the episode is one of the most famous (and, in the Random House edition, is accompanied by the large period at the end in reply which does not appear in the Gabler edition). "Where?"--so simple and recreated here with silver wire and a large circular piece of onyx. The necklace hangs from silver seed and tube beeds.



(Forgive the blurry resolution, I am blogging in a hurry this week)