All art is created because of a journeying...I am in search of; lost objects, words, musical notes, doorknobs to other worlds, underwater flowers, perfect utopias, fine literature, good hearts, my footing in the world, old faces...all this and more will one day, I hope, be something found again...
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?."
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!
I've been at my kitchen table sketching and decoupaging paper all week in between reading. Tonight I revisited a summer favorite, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife and rediscovered something I had forgotten. She writes so beautifully of creating art:
The compelling thing about making art-or making anything, I suppose—is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a thing, a substance in a world of substances. Circe Nimbue, Artemis, Athena, all the old sorceresses: they must have known the feeling as they transformed mere men into fabulous creatures, stole the secrets of the magicians, disposed of armies: ah, look, there it is, the new thing. Call it a swine, a war, a laurel tree. Call it art. The magic I can make is small magic now, deferred magic. Everyday I work, but nothing ever materializes. I feel like Penelope, weaving and unweaving. (248)
Thought I'd share something that I had found again and also post some pictures of my latest experiments. I've been dabbling with decoupage, paper, rubbish, and little scraps of magazine print culture!
I have been reading travel books lately on Paris and brushing up on my French for my trip in August. Already the city, where Joyce among many other famed modernists and artists convened and lived, has inspired me to create. This particular collection is simple, shabby chic, (very Bohemian and romantic) and I think very elegant for the summer. Enjoy!
Fabulous bracelets!
Pendants that are both light and fun!
Bicycle necklace...j'adore!
"Fleur" necklace
J'aime! I wore this to the Opera the other night and it was a great conversation piece. I love the pun- Opera time!
Clock faces are in a few necklaces and I think it provides a fantastic embellishment to any piece.
Much like Joyce, who wrote the bulk of works like Finnegans Wake from his notebooks upon which were scribbled bits of conversations, languages, phrases, words that he found while walking the streets of Trieste, Zurich, or Paris, I too create art from the pieces I pick up around me.
All art in a sense is found art, the art of absorbing the world around you and re-creating it to find it again. For Bloomsday this year, I decided to create wearable art, mostly in the form of a necklace- not only literature is bound to form!-inspired by Ulysses. I hope you enjoy it!
I am working on my PhD in English Literature. I am interested in Modernism mainly and was bitten by the "Joyce bug" in my undergraduate endeavors. Other authors and poets I like other than James Joyce include: Wislawa Szymborska, Billy Collins, Jose Saramago, Ian McEwan, Aldous Huxley and George Orwell (any Utopian/ dystopian novelist really), Dante, Li-Young Lee, Jane Austen, Edith Sitwell, Jhumpa Lahiri...I could on!
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