Doodling

Bead Journal Project and Sumptuous Surfaces have encouraged me to try and draw.

Trying to do fairies from a book by Linda Ravenscroft, proved very amusing, and I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

Linda Ravenscroft is a talented fairy artist, you can check her website here.

Little Big Ego

Little Big Ego - June 2008

Most of the time, I try to be good. Sometimes I pray, sometimes I meditate, sometimes I reflect on my good points and bad points. Most of the time I try to act and speak in fairness, i try to control my passions.

Sometimes, it pays off ; I feel calm, centered and in harmony. Then I'm happy and I feel I'm a worthy person, that I'm making progress (where to, what for, that's another question).

However after each period of fullfillment I get visits from very interesting creatures. Their leader is Little Big Ego. He is somebody, very full of himself. He screams and makes scenes. He says nobody ever listens to him enough, nobody takes him seriously enough and so on. He is very big, and very melodramatic. He has only a head, and no body.

Over Time, I have learnt he really wants me to pat his hand and give him a cuppa. So I try do do this.

To draw him, I was inspired by a fabulous drawing by Sydney Sime (1867-1941), diciple of Beardsley, which I saw in London a few months ago.

(c) Sydney Sime, "The Wily Grasser"
Fitwilliam Museum, Cambridge

December BJP

December BJP

So this is my December BJP. I don't like it very much. It didn't turn out as I thought it would. However in a way it reflects what I have lived in December, a weird month with lots of emotions including very unpleasant situations. Things started to get messy right from the start ; I was pleased to attach my vintage orange cabochon with peyote stitch, but getting absorbed by technique and forcible meaning, I sort of lost the grace and fulfillment that comes with improvisational/meditative work.

Drawing by Elsa Beskow

The basic idea was to go from a drawing by Elsa Beskow for her lovely book "Solägget" (The Sun Egg) which tells about a forest fairy who finds an orange and mistakes it for a sun egg. Oranges wrapped in gold foil used to be the only present children would get at Christmas years ago in France. So for me it was a reminder to go back to the origins of Christmas, being a time to share the light and warmth we have with loved ones, rather than follow the sirens of consumerism...

Kay Nielsen

Amongst the good things of December was a week visit to London that allowed me to see the superb exhibition "The Age of Enchantment". It's on at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 17th February 2008, and you can read about it here and here, and you can hear about it here. I also found out that illustrations by Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen have been republished. And of course Art Passions is always a good place to look at these wonderful fairytales illustrations.

Flea Market and trolls

I went to a flea market with a friend today, and I found these extraordinary things, I love them although I have no idea what they were meant for in the first place - my youngest daughter thinks they are molds...

I have also discovered a wonderful blog today, dedicated to trolls, TrollMoon. This is in relation with an idea I have for my December BJP (adapting an Elsa Beskow picture) - check out the great illustrations !

November BJP

"Thérapie"

So this is my November BJP effort, turning around the idea of speech therapy, and cleaning my wounds. My children thought I was doing an advent calendar, a good idea for next year.

I have used a bit of a fabric designed by Kaffe Fassett, which made me happy just to look at it, and the three others are textiles I bought more than 6 months ago with the idea of turning them into spirit dolls.

The water one I actually intended to use for my first BJP page, it may relate to a famous text by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard entitled "Water and Dreams" (which I haven't read but should have really), it may also have something to do with the fact that I spent my whole childhood on a riverbank. The shell comes from a Tahiti necklace that I was given.

The jaguar relates to my therapist, and is also a reminder that I have been busy reading the superb "Secrets of the Talking Jaguar" this month.

The green peas relate to the Princess and the Pea, a fairy tale that I disliked as a child, and it is also a salute with a touch of wry sense of humour to my oversensitivity. Above them is a bush with pink and white flowers. This can relate to a fairy tale about two sisters, Snow White and Rose Red, or to the War of the Roses between York and Lancaster (my dad was raised in Yorkshire), as I was told as a child that when the war was over a rosebush with red and white flowers was invented. Or maybe it relates to the Queen of Heart in Alice in Wonderland (I have been very impressed by Sacred Artist's november page).

Between the flowers and the water are white feathers, like Finist the Falcon feathers.

In the middle is a path in golden thread, with no visible beginning and no visible end - it is said that the uncounscious is not aware of Time... Magic gold threads are often found in myths and fairytales.

But I have worked improvisationally, the meanings came after :o)

I guess you could sum it up by the idea that human beings are made by stories as well as flesh and blood. Compared to last month's page I have the feeling that I have grown up a lot. Funnily enough I had to expand the format a little in oder to prevent the cloth from tearing next to the openings. Therefore it carries the meaning that through therapy I am extending my options, opening up.

The Feather of Bright Finist the Falcon (2)

Photograph by Yvonnik Lhomer

This is the version found on Wikipedia.

A merchant asked his three daughters what they want him to bring them from the fair. The older two ask for dresses or shawls, but the youngest wants either the feather of Finist the Falcon or a red flower. In some variants, he went to the fair twice, able to bring back what her older sisters had asked for, but not hers, but she did not vary her request.

In the third or first visit, he found the feather, or else found the flower and must promise that his daughter will marry Finist the Falcon for it. Whether the flower or the feather, the thing brought Finist the Falcon to her at night, and he wooed her. If she was given the flower, he gave her a feather that would magically aid her. Her sisters discovered the visit; they might have spied, or she may have appeared in finer clothing, from use of the feathers, than they knew she had, or she may have appeared in church as a strange woman (like Cinderella at the ball) because of her rich clothing, and not hidden it quickly enough when she returned home. Once they became suspicious, they often listened and, hearing a man's voice, tried to persuade their father that their sister had a lover, but failed.

However they discovered it, the sisters put knives in the window, so that he was injured. He said that she must search for him to find him, which would wear out three pairs of iron shoes, and three iron staves. He did not return. She set out to find him.

She finds a hut with a witch (sometimes referred to as a Baba Yaga), who gives her a gift (such as a silver spinning wheel and a golden spindle), and sends her on to another witch. This witch gives her another gift (such as a silver dish and a golden egg), and sends her on to yet a third witch. This one gives her a third gift (such as a golden embroidery frame and a needle that sewed of itself), and sent her to the castle where Finist was to marry.

In some variants, she found someone trying to wash the blood from Finist's shirt and washed it herself. In all, she managed to trade the witches' gifts to the bride to let her stay a night with Finist. The princess either put a magical pin in his hair to keep him asleep or gave him a sleeping draughter; the third night, either Finist is warned not to drink the draught, or the pin falls out. He woke and knew her.

In some variants, he asked the nobles whom he should marry: the woman who had sold him, or the woman who had bought him. They agreed the woman who bought him should have him.

In other variants, she went home to her father. When he and her sisters went to church, she dressed finely and went with Finist, and her sisters came back with stories of the prince and princess who came to church. The third time, her father saw the carriage stopped at his own door, and the daughter had to confess. She married Finist.

Otherwise here are longer versions of the story
http://www.russianlacquerboxes.org/tales/finist.html
http://www.oldrussia.net/story.html

The Feather of Bright Finist the Falcon

As a child I was fascinated by fairy tales. One year, Father Christmas bought me tales from all over the World.

"Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages" by M. Ocelot

The book from Africa was especially strange as, due to a printing mishap, one out of two pages were blank and I couldn't understand any of the stories. I thought it was due to some kind of secret magic. As of today, tales from Africa make me slightly nervous at first (must be a trick from my reptilian brain). But through this I learnt that you sometimes find mistakes in books. Much later I found out that fairy tales are meant to be told rather than read.

Shalabhajinka (tree spirit) - Bhubaneshwar (Orissa)

Stories from India disconcerted me at first. Especially the ones where at some point two people go to sleep in the forest, have they heads chopped off by a twist of fate, and some goodwilling passer by tries to tidy up the mess but puts the wrong head on the wrong body. I guess this is the root for my political conciousness. As of today I'm still intrigued and thrilled by India and trying to understand their Gods but wouldn't like to wander alone in a forest over there.

I loved the Arabian tales. "The Arabian Nights" was beautifully translated into French in the 18th Century by Antoine Galland and my parents had an old paperback edition with a yellow cover and very soft paper, which I regularly stealed from the family bookshelves. I wished I could have been Sinbad the sailor and wondered about all these palaces hidden in the earth.

One of my favourite books however, was the book of Russian fairy tales, and my favourite story was "The Feather of Bright Finist the Falcon". This one made me cry night after night.

The other day I got this CD by Clarissa Pinkola Estes : "Warming the Stone Child". I was terrified by the stories, especially the one about Mother Moon disappearing in a dark bog. I realised I couldn't turn these stories into something else, yet. Then I found this white bird bead, so American and un-French in my favourite beadshop. It reminded me both about Acey's work on Raven and about my old friend Finist... of course one may say it is a version of the animal-fiancé, just like the Beauty and the Beast or Love and Psyché. Reading it again I found there was an embroidery motive... How interesting !

Illustration by Ivan Bilibin
From this blog

Coyote and the Shadow People

James C. Christensen, 2003

Coyote's wife dies of an illness and he weeps for her. He is visited by the death spirit who offers to take him to the land of the dead if Coyote will follow his instructions. Coyote agrees.

On their journey the spirit points out a herd of horses. Coyote cannot see the horses but he pretends that they are there. Neither can Coyote see the death spirit. He appears to be a shadow.

When Coyote and the death spirit arrive at the land of the dead the spirit invites Coyote to eat some berries. Coyote cannot see them but pretends to eat them nevertheless. The spirit leads Coyote to a lodge and tells him to enter through the doorway and sit down beside his wife and eat the food that she has prepared for him. Coyote cannot see the lodge, the food, or his wife, but he obeys the spirit.

When night falls Coyote sees the lodge that he could not see during the day, and in it are fires, and people he knew when they were living and, of course, his wife. With the dawn, everything and everyone disappears, only to return on the following evening. It is like this for several days and nights.

Eventually the death spirit tells Coyote that he must leave. The spirit allows Coyote to take his wife with him but warns that he must not touch her until they have crossed the fifth mountain of the five mountains that lie between the lands of the living and the dead. Coyote agrees.

Coyote and his wife begin their journey. At night they sit with a fire between them and Coyote notices that with every night his wife's form becomes clearer. On the last night of the journey Coyote can wait no longer and reaches across the fire to embrace his wife. She disappears the moment he touches her.

The death spirit returns and tells Coyote that because of his foolishness the practice of returning from the dead will never be and that the dead must remain forever separate from the living. The spirit leaves. Coyote tries to return to the land of the dead, repeating everything he was instructed to do on the first journey: he pretends to see a herd of horses, to eat berries, to enter a lodge, to acknowledge his wife, and to eat the food she has prepared for him. When evening comes the lodge, the fires, the people, and Coyote's wife do not appear, and they and the death spirit never appear to Coyote again.

Excerpt from the Larry Ellis essay "Trickster : Shaman of the Liminal" .

A longer version of the story is here.

Paheli

I now have a nice collection of "Bollywood" films (although the Indians hate this word and would rather people referred to the "Hindi film industry"). Ok, I admit my interest is partly fuelled by king Shah Rukh Khan - isn't he gorgeous :o)

http://vluvshahrukh.com/

But it is also an established fact that I have been a musical comedy afficionado for yonks. And I love fairytales and nice clothes. anyways... Everybody knows about "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" (La Famille Indienne), "Devdas" or "Veer-Zaara" which are commercially distributed in Europe. However my personal favorite at the moment is "Paheli", which I had to import from the UK.

"Paheli" is the story of a ghost who falls in love with a young spouse en route to the home of her husband's family. The father-in-law has organized the husband to go away on business as soon as the wedding ceremony is over. When the ghost learns about this, he take the appearance of the husband and takes his place at home although the puppets from the Banian trees warn him not to... At the end of the film the ghost will reveal his true name : he is the spirit of Love. It's a really nice colourful film, which reminds me of Kusturica's "Arizona Dream".

http://www.pahelithefilm.com

http://www.dhennin.com/kusturica/v2/_arizona_dream_fr.html