Bloomsday Challenge: June 16th at Last

"Where?"

Happy Bloomsday! My creation today is one of those "Joycean" coincidences (those funny and ironic happenstance moments when Ulysses intrudes upon your own experience). I felt a bit like Leopold Bloom, "weary" from my daily travel, deferred and delayed 4 times by the airline, when finally I arrived "Where? ." home.

I've made a similar version of this necklace a year ago, last Bloomsday, and so I feel it only right to end with "Ithaca." This necklace is a more dramatic version of my earlier design. I hand shaped the wire, used a found piece of onyx, and finished it off with pieces of gunmetal chain.

I hope you'll tune in during the coming months for more Joyce inspired creations. You can also subscribe for notifications when there's a new post! Next week I'll be releasing a few of my new designs and sketches.

This challenge has been an enriching experience! Can't wait to do it again next year! Hope you all had a wonderful Bloomsday!

Bloomsday Challenge: Day Eleven

Steampunk Joyce Postcard

Thanks to everyone for stopping by my blog, and as a thank you I made something that you can print and share with all of your fellow Joyce enthusiasts! It's a Steampunk Joyce inspired postcard.

I've put a little history of Bloomsday on the front. You can download a pdf here. When you print it out, just feed the same page through the printer twice to get both front and back images and cut along the lines!


Only 6 more days till Bloomsday!

Bloomsday Challenge: Day Nine

Notebook Series

More photography, though these pictures are digitally altered to include an image of Joyce (and not so much a "rendering" of what is already "sensible matter."). I was thinking of the line following Molly's final "Yes" in "Penelope": "Trieste-Zurich-Paris, 1914-1921." I wanted to create something different--and notebooks seemed perfect.




Only 8 more days till Bloomsday!

Bloomsday Challenge: Day Four

"Ulysses Clock"

There is so much creativity this year leading up to Bloomsday—I think in part because of the “Ulysses Meets Twitter 2011” experiment. Tweeting Ulysses got me thinking about how to represent an episode in 140 characters or less. I thought about how to condense the episodes even further—if I had to pick one line, word, or phrase from each episode which stood out as the most recognizable?

All of these thoughts lead me to creating a “Ulysses Clock.” The episodes are in order—for example, “Telemachus” is the first episode and represents 1:00. After episode 12, there is an overlap.

While not as intricate as my previous pieces, it’s a fun piece. I have limited abilities and knowledge of clock-making though this Craftzine video was certainly helpful (I recommend it to those of you who try this): http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/09/how-to_make_your_own_clock.html.

Here’s a list of the “times”:

1:00 (Telemachus & Nausicca): “snotgreen sea” & “O!”

2:00 (Nestor & Oxen of the Sun): “history” & “wombfruit”

3:00 (Proteus & Circe): “dogsbody” & “ashplant”

4:00 (Calypso & Eumaeus): “Metempsychosis” & “cabman’s shelter”

5:00 (Lotus-Eaters & Ithaca): “Pear’s Soap” & “When?”

6:00 (Hades & Penelope): “Poor Dignam” & “yes”

7:00 (Aeolus): “IMPROMPTU”

8:00 (Lestroygonians): “U.P.:up”

9:00 (Scylla & Charybdis): “The one about Hamlet”

10:00 (Wandering Rocks): “Father Conmee”

11:00 (Sirens): “Jingle. Bloo”

12:00 (Cyclops): “the citizen”

I'd like to note that the times I have listed are not the times when these episodes occur. I felt that there would be more overlap and the clock would be harder to read. So instead of "Telemachus" representing 8:00, the episode represents 1:00 as it is the first episode of Ulysses.

13 days till Bloomsday!

16 Days of Bloom: Day Three

A String of “nightblue fruit”

I love the poetic moments of Ulysses. This necklace is inspired by one such moment (a question & answer that appears in “Ithaca”):

What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?

The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. (U 698)

I can just imagine a summer night like that—dark everywhere, maybe even your spirits, except for the sky. To translate “nightblue fruit” into a physical “there” (as Audrey Niffennegger would say), I drew constellations on paper and colored it with my “True Blue” colored pencil.

What do you think “humid nightblue fruit” hanging in the “heaventree of stars” looks like?

Made with paper, mod podge, eyepins, fine gunmetal chain, jump rings, and a lobster claw.

16 Days of Bloom: Day Two

“A Portrait of A Portrait”

I love the yellowed pages of this 1961 edition of Ulysses. It has so much character. Out of scraps I had left over from a previous project I created a classic silhouette portrait of Joyce. What I love about this piece is its fragmentary construction—Joyce worked with such fragments in creating Ulysses after all.

There’s a bit of whimsy to my portrait because of the tiny cartoon thought bubble (in which Joyce thinks of a single word, Ulysses). My thought bubble would probably read “Ulysses!?!...).

Made with canvas, 1961 American edition of Ulysses, mod podge, and black pen.

14 more days till Bloomsday!

16 Days of Bloom: Day One

"Shadowbox Collage"

On day one of my challenge I find myself looking back to “Sirens”: “Done. / Begin!” (U 11.66-67). I am done and yet I have only just begun! My collage, which I made for today’s challenge, takes a bit of its color scheme from “Sirens” with its bronze and gold hues.

In the background of the shadowbox are pages from a 1961 American edition of Ulysses (you’ll be seeing more of this edition tomorrow!). I used a few flea market treasures to complete this collage—the stained (and well used!) letterpress letters, vintage scalloped chain, the innards of a pocket watch (the spring), and a gold keychain-fan of places in Ireland.

The keychain-fan is fascinating! It was manufactured in England (ironically) and features the touristic “gems” of Ireland on each piece of the fan: Athlone, The River, Killarney Lake, The Lake, and Dublin. Each includes an accompanying picture: Athlone, The River, Killarney Lake, and The Lake are all pastoral images, isolated and desolate, yet beautiful. Athlone is represented by a castle and bridge while The River, Killarney Lake, and The Lake are all represented majestically in the sunlight with no man-made structures. The picture of Dublin, on the other hand, is urban, populated, and modern. There is a line of buildings, street lamps, pedestrians, and buses. Each picture is colored with a spec of green paint. Sadly, I could not date this particular souvenir but I found the tiny portrait of a modern, urban Dublin to be fitting for a collage involving Joyce!

I also used part of a damaged James Joyce Quarterly journal (vol. 45.1 to be exact) to construct the butterflies and flower. Also, to mimic the shape of the fan I employed the cover art. The image is of Ken Fanning, “who played a flying James Joyce in The Parable of the Plums, a street play performed during the 2004 International James Joyce Symposium in Dublin” (JJQ, inside cover). The picture was taken by Phillip Massey. Other materials used are scrapbook leaves, tacs, nails, brass findings, and mode podge.

15 more days till Bloomsday!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thought I would share one of my Valentines with all of you. It was designed and crafted by my good friend Marshall Estes. Isn't fabulous?! Hope you all had a lovely day!

Happy Belated Birthday Mr. Joyce!

I have been a terrible blogger so far this year. My doctoral exams are imminent and that has taken priority over my creative urges. Given that I have been snowed in now for a few days, the urge is too great to be ignored. Guess that groundhog saw his shadow after all!

I have put together a treasury of James Joyce related art and artists on Etsy in honor of Joyce's birthday two days ago. Follow the link below and see for yourself! There is Joyce inspired jewelery, photography, stationary/paper art, pop art, and even wall hanging for wine enthusiasts!

Enjoy!

Link to Etsy Treasury: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4d4c7af565528eef501dcb19/happy-belated-birthday-james-joyce

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?."