Attending to the living dead

Hallowe’en was lots of fun.

I had done a bit of a work for a burlesque dancer here in Bournemouth, who performs by the name of Miss Chastity Cherry - see here and  here. Namely, I trimmed a hat for her. (What else?) It was fabulous – she’d bought a basic top hat which I drenched in veiling, satin rosettes, ruching, tulle and sequins, creating a slightly gothic and very aptly Hallowe’en-esque concoction. I’m still waiting on some photographs which she’s promised me, though you can get an idea of what it looked like here.  Miss Chastity also does pin-up, you see, and so she said that she’d get some good photographs for me to add to my portfolio.

I went to see her perform accompanied by my wonderful housemate, who is an actress, and very keen on my costuming her. (The last time we went out in fancy dress she let me do victory rolls on the top of her head, and was the only tiger in the room with such a very creative solution to ears…but more on that theme another time.) As it was hallowe’en we had to dress up, and the only idea which had got lodged in my mind was to dress up as a zombie nurse. Serena decided to go for the same idea, and we had a very, very fun afternoon pottering around charity shops and cheap discount shops looking for costuming components – followed by an extremely hectic evening cutting and sewing and dressing frantically (well that was me, I don’t remember what Serena was doing while I was making our costumes…) and then shovelling food down my thoat and running for the bus…

We did our zombie make-up on the bus and made nuse outfits from men’s shirts, child’s white tights, and a kid’s toy nurse kit from QS. I suppose that, considering the height of our hemlines and the fact that *sigh* we were wearing matching outfits, the multitude of extremely dodgy comments from men in the club we went to after the burlesque show were to be expected. But predatory pervs aside – what a grand night! It even ended with walking along an ice-cold beach, shivering, at 4 in the morning – totally sober, and singing Beyonce at the tops of our lungs.

sugary songs for a sour december day

 

 

 

Dear Mama,
I wanted to make you a mixed CD for Christmas but then I realised that there were only 3 tracks that I wanted to put on it. And since I’ve never had any patience, and since today’s a pretty miserable day in need of some cheery tunes, here’s your 3-track set for December the First.
Love,
nushykins xoxo

PS I tried to send you the MP3 files but the e-mail bounced.

Work and Play

Not very many days ago I woke up and realised that how you dress every day matters, because it simply refers to how you are presenting yourself to the world each day. Stand up straight, wear clean shoes, and make yourself beautiful. If that is what you are about. And make yourself appear confident to the outside world, even if those who know you within are aware of your ultimate fragility. Trick them into believing what you want to, wish to be true.

The metal-framed spectacles I wore for several years grew tired and snapped, so I took a leap and bought a pair of black cat’s eye frames from the 1950s, complete with rhinestones at the corners. Some of them have fallen out and I’m not sure when I can get them replaced. They were from the website Dead Men’s Spex – who by the way I recommend as a company. The man who runs it is quite nice – even if the fact that tax isn’t included in the price is highly, highly irritating. I had lenses fitted in early October, and they have been sitting on my nose ever since.

To uni today I wore, amongst other things like faded jeans and teal boots and many layers of black and white t-shirts, a handknitted scarf, real and fake pearls, a cloche hat, and a genuine 1950s mink swing coat.

Things Alter

I am happy!

Today, I woke up to a freezing cold house, close to shivering underneath my quilt and blanket. The furniture is lousy, the shower unimpressive, and the central heating temperamental at best.

But I am happy! And it feels so incredible to be so. I spent the weekend in London – the first time I’ve been back there since I moved to start uni. It was strange; things hadn’t changed, really, and yet I felt different.

I went to see the opening of Petrushka at the Little Angel Theatre in Angel, Islington. This is the show that I worked on over the summer, creating props and working in the puppetry workshop which is attached to the theatre. It was wonderful to see the show in its entirety, and to look at my handiwork onstage! The show is fantastic as always, and certainly not just for kids. When you go, look out for the carnations, sacks, tower blocks and mittens – all of which I had a hand in making!

I came back from London on the coach. It passed through south-west London – idyllic in the winter-time, like a page out of a tourist guide book. There were fairy lights in the trees outside the Natural History Museum, and the windows of the grand department shops were suitably dressed. It was wonderful. I got home and put up Christmas decorations in my room immediately.

Heaven
I’m in heaven
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we’re out together, dancing cheek to cheek

Away (and see)

I have moved!

House that is. Down to the south, ready to start college. My room is slowly taking upon character; I’m looking forward to cooking. Today I walked all the way to the beach (an hour by foot) and it was beautiful. The autumn sun was shining strong and the sunlight fell dappled through the leaves. There were pinecones on the ground, and at the shore the sea was sparkling and the sands warm and soft.

I’ve actually been doing a lot of sewing lately and just have to photograph things! I want to get back into the habit of writing this blog.

Lots of love.

Keep me warm in winter

It’s funny to think that over a month has passed since this event and I’ve left writing about it for so long. I wanted to write a post about my birthday party in August. Here it is.

I turned eighteen last July. How exciting. I decided to throw a  quilt sewing party, and held it whilst my parents were enjoying the rain in Cornwall, on a date in August exactly three weeks after my birthday.

Quilt sewing? My mother thought declared that I must be mad, but my friends were actually quite excited at the idea. As was I – of course. I’m going to art school all by myself and leaving all of my friends behind me, so the idea of having a quilt with patches sewn by all of them was one that warmed the cockles of my heart. (Och, aye!) I found the idea quite amusing, but genuinely looked forward to it.

It was to be a small affair. Invitations were sent out (on Facebook. I’m a modern sort of old-fashioned girl…) and I asked all of my closest friends. My collection of friends is such a hodge-podge mix, pulled out from all different parts of my life, hoped that they’d get along…and assumed that the quilt would be enough of a distraction to prove a lubricant for any social awkwardness that might be. Annoyingly, as many as six people couldn’t make it, due to such reasons family holidays and spur-of-the-moment, last-minute escapes from London, but although I felt their loss (these were some of my best friends, after all), I don’t think that anyone else was really bothered.

Inspiration: objects, images, and piles upon piles of books

The party was a Tuesday, and I was up past midnight the day before just cleaning and tidying the house. I think at one point I phoned my boyfriend saying ‘It’s nearly one in the morning. I’m just making the buttercream icing for the cake.’ I spent hours the next day decorating too, and had lots of fun doing so; this surely bodes well for my future career as a set dresser – should I have to do that.

Conditions of entry to the party were to bring Something To Eat and Something To Drink, and might I add that I stressed the Something To Drink need not be alcohol. I provided various edibles as well (including a poppyseed cake which we forgot to cut) and jugs of pussyfoot (giggle), that bitter-sweet abstemious cocktail, and sangria, which was far from abstemious.

Arranged plastic glasses, faux pearls, birthday cards, chairs lined up in a row

I thought out the decor quite nicely. I had a section for inspiration, another for quilt-planning, a third for the making of the quilt. I also found lots of board games, and pulled out various films to watch.I put up all of my birthday cards again, and generally pretended that it was my birthday all over again, but this time surrounded by my friends. It was lovely. I hung fairy lights on the walls, and put up my mink coats as part of the decoration.

One of the most wonderful things was bringing all of my friends together like this, and have the people who meant a lot to me – usually part of very different groups socially – under one roof. Another was being in control of the evening, and getting to play whatever music I wanted. (Cue Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday at full volume on the stereo, haha!)

Quilt-desgning and making materials, with a wicker picnic basket!

The idea was to design and sew the quilt first, then eat, drink, dance around and watch a film afterwards. Of course this totally didn’t go as planned – one of my friends found the sangria minutes after arrival – and, well, the evening ended in such events as: people dressing up in my fur coats, tear-filled phone conversations which oughtn’t have been made, horrible piano-playing whilst under the influence, injuries, sobering up and dancing to Rocky Horror…and far too long spent pumping up a blow-up mattress.

Evidence of quilt-sewing

The house was a total mess the next morning.

All bar two, minus the 6 that couldn’t make it. A spot of dinner before we returned to the quilt.

I’m still waiting for people to finish their quilt patches.

Through the trees comes autumn with her serenade

Click to enlarge, and to bask in the sunshine of my scribbly, undetailled drawings

On Sunday last week I walked over leaves which had dried, withered and fallen.

Last Monday I sang September Song with a friend as we realised it was the first of the month.

Suddenly the autumn has descended upon us; it feels different in the air. I feel as if autumn equals wearing hats and scarves and knitting, and go about in a cardigan lent to me by my grandfather.  Wearing a cloche hat and knee socks, and skirts and scarves, with black shoes that have heels on and Mary-Jane straps. That Nineteen Twenties masculine silhouette.

I think that cleaning is meant to come in the spring, to do with getting rid of the old stuff and welcoming in the new seasons? In Chinese culture it’s very important that you clean before the onset of the Chinese new year. This is because there’s a superstition that if you do your cleaning at the beginning of the year, you’ll be sweeping away all of the good luck. Chinese culture is full of superstitions like that. Another one is that it’s bad luck to have a mirror facing your bed.

Of course it’s all rubbish, but superstitions can be quite interesting. And as a rule they have pragmatic roots. (It’s good to start the new year with a clean house, it’s an excuse to force you to dust those shelves which haven’t been dusted in, oh, thirteen moons or so. And also so that you don’t embarass yourself with your slovenly house when your relatives come round to pay their ang pow-laden visits. Additionally, if you wake up in the middle of the night and the first thing that you see is your reflection – well, you might give yourself a fright!)

But in any case, it’s neither the spring or the new year. It’s autumn now, and I’m doing the cleaning. Trying to empty my room is saddening; I’ve packed away nearly all of my two-hundred-odd books to go into storage at my grandparents’  house. Suddenly it feels very cold in my bedroom. I used to make jewellery, and so hundreds of glass beads which I refuse to throw out are also being put away. Meanwhile I throw things out and bag things up for the charity shop, and wonder how, oh how, will I be able to fit my sewing equipment into my room in Bournemouth? How have I accumulated all of this stuff, and how is it that I cannot seem to get rid of it?

And draw, draw, draw

Space: desk, paper. Watercolour, gouache (experimenting), brushes, palette, rag. Off-screen are acrylics. The red-topped jar sequins lives on my desk, obviously.

Initial sketch (above) is the bust of an 18th Century lady. She has a backwards bass clef in her head…reminiscent of the Queen of the Night? Who knows? It’s just a doodle, really.

Second sketch (below) and I’m rubbing out her face. I can’t get it right. But it’s smaller.

Watercolour pancake (left) because I want to get midnight blue into it but not sure how or why.

Some painting…

At this point I’ve sparked off several ideas, made several mistakes, then given up and written this one off as an experiment. It’s my first time on gouache (the tricorne hat). By this point it’s become over-planned and thus isn’t worthy of being exterior to the sketchbook.

Then on the fly. Black ink.

When in doubt, go back to what you know. And ink always forces me to be more fluid. So I drew, drew, drew. And came up with a wind-up toy which reminds me of something by Man Ray or André Breton. Which again isn’t surprising as they’re two of my favourite artistes.

Cut + Stick: it’s made into a card. I forgot to photograph it.

And I gave it to my cello teacher, who’s taught me for 11 or 12 years (We can’t decide which), hence the bass clef hair ornament. She liked it rather a lot…well if anything she can sell it off to make a few quids when I’m wonderfully famous.

(ha! ha!)

Well well, why why!

For some it’s little children with iconic faces, others flora or fauna. Or, perhaps even more commonly, is the female nude. Personally a recurrent visual theme in my illustration is 18th Century ladies.

Or at least, it is at the moment. The 18th Century is my favourite period in costume history.  The mix of opulence and filth, decadance and glory, gilded luxury rotting from within and people with black black cores. Oh, it’s just wonderful; I can’t express it.  Yes, I have a massively soft spot for the Art Deco period, particularly the Orientalist strain; and yes I also love the 1940s and 1950s – those being the decades that I choose to buy my dress patterns from. But when we’re talking of theatricality, who can quibble? I dare you challenge me, for I’ll easily talk you down. The mid to late 18th Century in Britain and France just tops all others.

This one I burlesque’d up a little, adding (historically inaccurate) stockings with suspenders, and leaving out the sort of underskirt section, usually roughly triangle-shaped and made of gorgeous fabrics. Playing with scale and height in terms of exagerrated accessories, which I personally love in burlesque outfits. Well I love hats in general, don’t I? This one is also historically inaccurate, since the top hat was much more of a 19th Century trend. But I feel that it adds to the burlesque feel.

It’s quite a rough drawing really. Last week I worked at the HQ of the underwear company Playful Promises and it was a thank-you-for-having-me card which I made for the girls at the office. Incidently, I really enjoyed working there. As well as being the general skivvy, obligatory for work experience, I did lots of jobs for one of the designers, including actual designs for some of their clients. I swore a few years ago that I wouldn’t end up in a 9-5 desk job at an office, but if I did have to work one I think that I wouldn’t be so unhappy at somewhere like that.

It’s actually a great brand, with inventive lingerie designs that, being fairly commercial, aren’t so far out of the price range of most. I really like their styling, especially the 50s-feeling shoots (no surprises there!), and their colours. As a thank you gift they gave me some knickers and a silk corsage underwear set, and I can tell you happily that the latter really is as gorgeous in person – and to wear! – as it looks on the website.

The company also work with various other brands, and their own brand underwear is in fact used by burlesque performers (the lady who runs it did list out loads of performers to me but I’m afraid that they mostly went over my head! Burlesque pseudonyms are all quite similar, really…), so the burlesque-feel card was surely appropriate.

Now, to plan a burlesque troop down in Bournemouth…

I’m actually immensely nervous about starting university, but if I keep myself occupied (books to read for the course…outfits to design for non-existant cabaret shows…) then surely it’ll all fine ?

Marionette manipulator

I’ve been working in the puppetry workshop at the Little Angel Theatre in Angel, Islington. We’ve been putting together props for this year’s Christmas show, which should be utterly wonderful and delightful. It’s hard work (when isn’t it?) but I must say that I’m really enjoying it; it’s really fantastic to be working on a production again, especially a real and proper one (as opposed to a school one). I’ve only got to work on actual puppets once (and how exciting it was!) and not all jobs are utterly riveting (sewing sacks, anyone?) but it’s a really nice atmosphere there, and I’ve been able to contribute  towards elements of design as well.

It’s really a most magical theatre. I went there when I was a young child and it’s so lovely that I’m now working on a show there! At the moment the theatre is closed for the summer, but there are puppetry courses running (in a few weeks there’s a carving course) and their Puppet Grinder Cabaret show is touring at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh. Their September show is called Cindermouse and from what I’ve seen of the puppets and paraphernalia, it’s incredibly sweet. Borrow a child & book your tickets to see it.

If children just aren’t your thing, then hold tight for just a few more weeks for Suspense, the first London festival of puppetry (at least, for a quarter of a decade) which is entirely for adults. From talks to classes and more than a few shows, if you’re at all interested in any element of puppetry then I’m sure that you’ll find something there to tickle your fancy.  Personally I don’t think that I’ll be able to make it there because of starting art school and all that jazz, which is a shame because from the itinerary alone it looks awesome, let alone anything else.

I am, however, immensely looking forward to the Christmas show at the Little Angel. Which is ridiculous really since we’ve not reached the end of Summer yet, and so much will have happened, and be happening, by the time it comes to the run-up to the old resented season of cold and damp. (Although this year I have two mink coats to keep me warm, so hopefully I shan’t have too much to complain about.)

This summer is rattling along pleasantly. I haven’t been making things for myself personally – I’d envisaged myself designing a range of hats and making up samples, but have done nothing of the sort. I miss being able to write stories, put together poems and then assembling them into semblances of song. You can’t do everything, I suppose. I’ve been meeting lots of new people and might get a bit of work doing some sewing or styling for people. That would be grand indeed, and definitely more enjoyable than a job pulling pints. I’ve been doing a small amount of knitting, which is nice, and sewing too.

Oh, somebody commission a hat from me, please!

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www.littleangeltheatre.com

www.suspensefestival.com