Light the way, dreamers

Light is nothing more than keeping our eyes open to capture, as in a net, the reflections of positive and negative. Negative space is where all the secrets of beauty lie. So here are some disparate objects that play this game...

These Peepshow images are transparent views able to conjure-up 'day and night effects' due to pierced and cut-out parts in the engravings, backed with colored tissue paper. Blow these images up for better effect - divine!

Anatomical Eye Table on view at the Palazzo Poggi:

Jo Meesters' Light Box side table:

Andromeda Murano's lit mirror:

David Knott's light cube:

Nighty Night!

Things are not what they seem...

Dreams always begin with a symbol, a thing not what it is normally is, that reveals something deep in the unconcious. They make you look twice before you nail down their meaning, and some of the best art evokes this dictionary-of-the-mind feeling. So here are some great examples of work being done today that have that same fun, oddball, stomach-tickling beauty.

Nicole Dextras' dresses embedded in ice:

Her equally lovely flower and leaf clothes:



Rubbelarium's wonderful embroidered toast, faux baby shoes and fairy dresses:

The incomparable Brooks Salzwedel and his smoke-signal-like works:

Danse Macabre

I, along with gazillions of others, am fascinated by the Danse Macabre. "Totentanz (German), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the dance of death unites all. La Danse Macabre consists of the personified death leading a row of dancing figures from all walks of life to the grave, typically with an emperor, king, youngster, and beautiful girl—all skeletal. They were produced to remind people of how fragile their lives and how vain the glories of earthly life were. Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest artistic examples are in a cemetery in Paris from 1424."

So, here is a sampling of medieval pictures (more on link):

My husband is a product of Austria's monasteries, having wanted to be Pope (thank God he discovered girls and books), and Heiligenkreuz is where he studied before he went to Melk. These following are photos I took in their chapels, and the embroidered skeletons are so beautiful these pictures don't do them justice. I dream of a bedroom decorated like these!

One of my favorite painters, Albert Pinkham Ryder, whose works are like open wounds, paint oozing from the cracks, are meditations not only on their subjects but the entire passion of paint itself and its own mortality. Some of his works are at the Smithsonian and seeing them is a little bit of paradise, an experience I highly recommend!

The Eyes Have It!

Maybe because I had a kind of Chien Andalou dream last night, wherein two blue eyeballs chased me around a mouse cage, or maybe because eyes are an endless source of fascination, but I am going to feature eyeballs today anyway! There are many people out there creating eyeballs in art, jewelry and photography and writing about them so I am not alone in my Saint Lucy fixation!

Books about eyes (Amazon); Viktor Kutuzov's intercom design; Lyndie Dourth's eyes; Jessica Cushman's eye cuff; John Derian's paperweights and cards; Escher's Eye; Roseanne Palumbo; Ayisha Knight; Paul Karslake's elephant eye photo; JL67's necklace; HannahPT's catnip eyeballs, Holcroft's anatomy prints; HorrorDecor's bloody eyeball candle; Chinadoodle's plate.