Dreams from the Psychedelic Dollhouse

So excited to finally post my collaboration with DC-based artist Lise Silva (you can read her narrative about the shoot here)! 

Virtual pals via the blog realm for quite some time now, when Lise moved from Brazil to Washington, DC last summer, we determined that while only living a couple hours away we just had to get together for some kind of artistic collaborative project that incorporated our mutual love for 1960s-era & vintage references.  

We paired vintage clothing and jewelry with projections of our drawings and watercolor paintings onto lovely model Kate Greene, and dreamed of a magical "day in the life" from a Valley of the Dolls-inspired interior.

Concocting a project like this with Lise was just fantastic! I'll really miss her when she moves out west this summer, but hopefully future collaborations will still be able to come together despite distance! Technology can be a very cool thing sometimes. 

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Creative direction & styling: Lise Silva and Sara Gossett

Artwork: Lise Silva and Sara Gossett

Photography: Lise Silva

Model: Kate Greene

Clothes & jewelry: CellardoorSequins

Prints of the artwork used in this photoshoot can be found at GoldenHaze and CellardoorSequins.

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In Betweens

Some experiments with carving rubber stamps and a quick painting of a cardinal (in anticipation of the colder months ahead) that I made just before our move this weekend.

Now all of my things remain in their temporary boxed-up homes, but I can hardly wait to get everything unpacked and put together - especially the room that will be my studio space! I keep saying this to everyone I see and talk to about the process of moving, but I just really wish I had the magic witchy powers of Samantha from Bewitched and could have the whole house put together perfectly with just a twitch of the nose. It's pretty overwhelming. On the bright side, it's so nice to think about a fresh start and new ways to arrange old favorites, examining and reconsidering what we really love and what we may have outgrown.

Anyway, more updates to come once the dust has settled - but in the meantime, check out these beautiful dresses on display at the Biba exhibition in the Brighton Museum as blogged about by Miss Peelpants. Gorgeous, everything - from the clothing to the lovely illustration by Barbara Hulanicki! Wish I could be there to see it all in person!

And another for any other lovers of vintage style out there (or fashion history, or just plain old history itself), a hearty recommendation to see the film out now about Diana Vreeland - The Eye Has to Travel. It is eye candy in each and every scene!  

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Here & There

Charles Swedlund

Radio silence...
has it really been since July that I last posted? I hate to state the typical "time flies," but it has. In many ways it feels like I was just welcoming the new beginning of 2012 (maybe many of us feel this way?), and now here we are with the days darkening earlier, earlier, earlier, and the months are drawing to a close, soon to curl themselves up into winter. (!)

I have thought often of this blog and of how poorly I've kept up with it, thinking of it along the lines of just one more place that needs tending to among so many platforms to virtually share these days.
It feels like it has been necessary for me to keep my head present in the physical realm as much as possible recently and focus on thinking, making, doing. Dreaming, of course, always.

Onward and forward - I hope to be back soon with news and updates!
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Meanwhile, some other places of internet interest:

+ This interview with textile designer Isabel Wilson, via Moon to Moon.
I love what she says about seeing her designs out in the world: "I have been doing this long enough now that I see prints that I have designed all over the place, whether my name is on it or not. There is a romance in seeing my print on a stranger. There it is and there it goes. That’s it, you know?"

+ This incredible story about a Texas postman who is also a Hermès designer.

+ These aura portraits, via the Sphinx & the Milky Way. So beautiful, and such an interesting concept!

And at last, to leave you for now with this fantastic video (click on its link in youtube to read more information about it!) . . .

Colorful crystalline visions originally used for the treatment of mental disorders: following attempts to correlate color with musical notes, and titled with one of the most beautiful words I've ever heard...

Auroratone.

The Wearable Art of Kaisik Wong

San Francisco designer Kaisik Wong was the pioneer of wearable art, and his work remains incomparably exquisite and dazzling! His pieces, mostly entirely handmade without patterns, were brilliant statements of escapism during a tumultuous time and era when handmade clothing became popular as an expression against materialism; a celebration of uniqueness. "He really bridged the gap between the hippie movement and the glam-rock movement," wrote Jon Alain Guzik, author of Radiate: The Life and Work of Kaisik Wong.

Wong designed extravagant costumes that channeled ancient (and future!) civilizations: combining kimonos, tunics, tapestries, piping and padding, layers of sequins, embroideries and appliqués, shapes of ancient Egypt, Mayan and Chinese textiles among others, to concoct a magical fusion of fashion. “I like the progressive state, the forward movement, the concept of the Aquarian Age,” he said.

His glittering visions are trips to different lands and dimensions, otherworldly fantasies... and as can be proven by their viewing these decades later, truly timeless!

Betty Davis wearing a Kaisik Wong design for her 1974 album They Say I'm Different

From the restrospective exhibit of Wong's designs, presented by Cameron Silver of Decades in Los Angeles, 2002



"A still from the incomplete film project Monkey, which was to be a collaboration between Steven Arnold and Kaisik Wong, pictured here in make-up and costume as the story's protagonist, Monkey."

"I think the whole body should be a jeweled, radiating beauty."

Kaisik Wong: 1950-1990

Other articles & posts:

Living Dreams of Visions - LA Weekly

Kaisik Wong: Still Dazzling - LA Times

Steven Arnold Archive

justoneeye.com - Kaisik Wong Wearable Dreams

Stitchery with Erica

Just catching up on some blog-reading and came across this post about Erica Wilson on Cathy of California - and if you aren't familiar with Cathy's blog and have any sort of love or appreciation for the world of vintage textiles and crafts from the '60s & '70s, you're in for a treat!

I'd somehow never heard of Erica Wilson before, but I love everything about these videos!! From the kooky music and set, to her wonderful voice, this show is pure PBS craft show gold.





I was especially excited to see this one on bargello because I've been meaning to try out some of those different stitches myself - but what I really loved were those amazing wild boots she made (!) that she shows off around the 2:18 minute mark.
So fantastic!!

I'm sorry that I didn't know of her until after her passing, but I'm so glad that she shared all these extremely creative and beautiful pieces of needlework so that people like me can stumble upon them now and become completely inspired!





(images from The Selby: click for more photos of the amazing home she shared with husband Vladimir Kagan!)

Southern Methodist University, 1972

Just a handful of scans from one of my mom's college yearbooks: an especially lovely year for the annual in my opinion, as all the sections were introduced with different line drawings like the woman in the last image. I think she was the herald for the "Beauty Queens" section!

The heatwave buzzing over us is just about all anyone seems to talk about around here lately, but while the humidity sure is stifling, in a way I'm actually alright with it because it's a great excuse to stay indoors with the cool air once I'm home from work and just draw for hours!