Everywhere, wood violets congregate prettily, in purple and white flounces,
casting their winking National Velvet gazes dirt-ward, mischievous smiles
playing at the prim corners of their tiny petal faces. They look like my sister.
I saw a pair of little fox kits in the woods, and they looked like us when we
were small, and red-headed. They wore black stockings and curious faces.
I had never seen such a thing, and it moved me beyond words. Kindred.

You are brief and frail and blue-
Little sisters, I am, too.
You are Heaven’s masterpieces-
Little loves, the likeness ceases.
– Dorothy Parker

We stayed in a marvelous wooden lodge on Stone Lake,
and caroused with family, and drank lots of champagne.
Parties of morel-hunters combed the woods, and brought
back a bounty to be fried up. Fresh asparagus, artichokes,
and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Butter on black bread as dark
as turned earth. This is the way we were born to eat – like
wise peasants who know where to find all the best mushrooms.

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight:
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.
– William Shakespeare

Who hath despised the day of small things?
As violets so be I recluse and sweet,
Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare,
Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat,
Still sweetening wintry air.
While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete,
While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare,
Daisies and violets own remotest heat
And bloom and make them fair.
– Christina Rosetti

This little town once made these majestic woodstoves – modern hearths,
designed to sustain a family throughout a long and bitter Michigan winter.
The factory that made this vessel of iron made to hold fire, so carefully ornate,
is now a buckled ruin. A fascinating, haunted place near the train-station,
where I found this beauty. The train rushed by so fast it stopped my heart.
It only stops here twice a day now, though the station is the handsomest
I have ever seen. I envy the woman who works there, in her immaculately
preserved office with elegant bay windows, old wood, tea and the radio on.
I could hear in her voice a deep contentment with her work. She is framed
behind glass at all times, sacrosanct. Her face is dark and gentle. Kind.

The reason for our journey was to celebrate Colin’s grandfather’s 88th birthday.
Jack + Betty, in love for all these years, the two trees which have borne so much
fruit. We watched old home movies of them, standing in fields, gathered at the
old homestead, kissing deeply when they thought no one was watching, laughing,
flickering there – young and large as life for an instant, and then gone. Play it again.
At the big family dinner (which was a mostly hilarious disaster of epic proportions),
I was coaxed into singing Sweet Violets in front of the massive Biek clan, which I did.
Not well, without considering the complicated lyrics, and without the benefit of any
liquid courage to bolster me, but nonetheless I sang, hands shaking – with Marge
and Paul backing me up on Casio keyboards. I would do anything for Betty, my
beloved soon-to-be grandmother in-law. It made her so happy, she even got up
and sang it with me. It is our song, after all… Have you ever heard it? It’s catchy!

Sweet Violets
Sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet violets

I was a Black Forest Cake!

Cake hat and stray curls at the end of a gorgeous Mardi Gras day.

Pandora was a Dutch still-life painting of the spoils of the hunt. I love the little monkey on her shoulder!

Dana as Diana and Francesca the scarlet sorceress.

Can you even handle Colin’s Amanita muscaria magic? I cannot. He is too amazing.
One night, y’all. Cardboard, glue and fabric. The man is a genius. Perfect toadstool man!

Nina Carolina was a goatherder girl, with a herd of goats that we actually coolers on wheels!

These magic goats were filled with treats! Sandwiches, fancy lemonade, cookies and beer!

Alisan was Fortuna with her wheel, and Frannie was a dainty werewolf.

Epic stained glass ballerina!

Dr. Bob!

Scary clown ladies!

Colin and the Russian Duke and Duchess. They were so gorgeous!

Mark and Dana

Bella Francesca

Jackie Mang down by the river.

Raven was a gorgeous golden dragon!

Alisan

Thomas Little, tigerboy.

Miss Angie was a perfect Russian doll – so lovely she is.

It was hard to not take one million pictures of Colin in his costume.
I kind of wish he would wear it all the time. It really suits him.

Ellery

Drewzilla!

✸ Mardi Gras 2011 – The parades, the routes, the krewes and all the news leading up to Fat Tuesday.

✸ Oh Baby : New Orleans Baby Doll Tradition Thrives

✸ Police shut down a community Mardi Gras costume sale that’s been happening annually for about 20 years. For real, y’all?
NOPD doesn’t have anything better to do than hassle people selling handmade costumes for carnival? So fucked up and absurd.
Our friends Scary Toesies tried to have a lovely little garden party the other night, and perform their puppetshow, Mummy Dust
for everybody, but the cops came and not only nixed the show (which was really rather sedate and not all that noisy) and then
forced everybody to leave the premises. Apparently this is happening a lot to venues and parties in the Bywater. I remember when
I couldn’t even get the police to come when people were being robbed at gunpoint in front of my house. Now if you call on a noise
complaint, they come in force.

✸ Somehow, I never posted pictures from Mardi Gras 2009! How silly!
So, until I get around to a redux, here they are for your perusal!
Mardi Gras 2009
One day I’ll do a full retrospective of my costumes over the years, and
get real organized! Yeah! One of these days!

✸ Mardi Gras, My Love

✸ Parades

✸ Parades II.

✸ Seawitches, Stormsirens, and Horned Beasts

✸ MARDI GRAS APRÈS L’ORAGE

There are no rules! The Strauses + Mlle. Alisan tearing it up on Royal St.

Eris and her golden apple of discord.

Lining up the troops for battle

Guarding the float, and preparing for war.

The seadragon puppet was unbelievably lovely and ethereal.

Love-warriors

My valentine.

Francesca was a very sassy cupid!

All kinds of naughtiness and deviltry took place in the streets and gutters!

Alix Hotpants!

Mizarre

Be mine?

Right before the rain, reveling with the ladies!

Dangerous Frannie!

A wee cupid riding on the float – beware! His darts are tipped in heady poison!

krewe of eris 2010 (1) from k.b. on Vimeo.

krewe of eris 2010 (2) from k.b. on Vimeo.

krewe of eris 2010 (3) from k.b. on Vimeo.

These videos from my beloved Oola give the best idea of what the parade is like (on a bar break!)

You can see some of our cupcake krewe from 2009 at the beginning of the video.

Krewe of Eris 2009 – The Feast of the Appetites!

Krewe of Eris 2008 – Release The Swarm

Me + Randall Buckthorn Chili Frangelico outside the All Ways Lounge on St. Claude.

Drewzilla displaying his characteristic babyface witch-finger beard.

R.I.P. Magnolia Shorty – she was so mighty.

Corinne + Frannie

Monique + Ponyboy – just another night at the Dragon’s Den.

Alisan rockin’ a bit of Prince flair.

Alisan + Fran out in the soft light on North Rampart St.

Big Blessings Poppin’ – The Devil Can’t Stop It!

Joe Power on the steps of the monster-face church.

Bean Dress!

I forgot to include the back of her dress! It sez:
“If you like it then you shoulda put a BEAN on it!”
Genius.

I came upon this marvelous bean krewe one afternoon…

Their ensembles were stunningly bedecked in various varieties of the magical fruit.
(The more you eat, the more you toot – the more you toot, the better you feel!)

I always fall in love with the creole cottages + shotguns of New Orleans.
We carry on illicit affairs, and I whistle at them, and shoot smoldering glances
as I ride by. Oh, if only I could sit on your stoop, baby. I’d be hangin’ half naked
off your balcony every night… You know I’d treat you right, get you insured, get
your shutters greased with butter, your floors waxed and gleaming. You know I would.

I fall hard for paintjobs, bits of gingerbread trim, stained glass – all that.
I’m a sucker for the lonely, quiet looking ones. I think how lively I could make them.

See you soon, baby.

These hairpins are made from kingfisher feathers. They are beyond words.

The store’s motto is: “Find what has disappeared”, and with Gabrielle’s eye
for exotic treasure, you are sure to find it here – whether it be exquisite alabaster
pendant lamps that once hung in grand ballrooms, or ancient carvings from foreign
lands. There is a strong appreciation here for things well-made, and clearly loved.
Any object designed or created with an love of beauty, and a desire to make things
that would last a long time. Between these solid, comforting pieces flits the ephemeral,
taking the form of a faded love letter, or a shattered-silk parasol. I’ve been to hundreds
of antique shops, and there are certain ones that really just get it. The aesthetics, the
passion, the joy of the hunt, the deep browse – it’s not an easy combination to nail,
and very few actually even try. I love a dusty, ramshackle hodge-podge any day,
(especially when the prices fit the atmosphere) but those are a dying breed, and
sadly few and far-between these days. More often than not, you find the neon-lit,
sterile antique mall filled with aisle after aisle of overpriced depression glass and
arrays of offensive saltshakers. Or, it’s the quaint “shoppe” run by a coterie of biddies
on a straggly small town square. I prefer these to the former, but the aroma of potpourri
and desperation can be overwhelming. When I tell people I deal in antiques, I always
wonder if they flash to places like these. I imagine many picture one of those fancier
places, always very quiet and chill, with never a speck of dust on the perfect Edwardian
sideboards or exquisite carpets. I guess there’s Antiques with a capital A, junk, and um-
“junque” (oh yes – I see it all too often in some “shoppes”) which can be identified by
sponge-painted country geese. Thankfully, a new breed of curio shops has emerged
from the detritus that manage to combine the rare and fine with the imperfectly exquisite.
Natural objects like wasp’s nests might find themselves priced alongside woven gold tapestries
with the same reverence for the genius of both their makers. I’ve been lucky to have worked and
sold in one of the best – Uncommon Objects, where I’ve learned so much about all the beautiful
things humans have loved or used long enough to treasure, and the business of dealing in them.

The Tree of Life mural on the back wall was painted by Gabrielle’s mother, if I remember
correctly, (& I may not.) I love the lamia tucked up in the branches on the left-hand side.

Sailing away to a fantasy-land of flapper beads and reliquaries!

Lichen-love.

I want these girls to be my doll-friends. I love picturing them flopped on pillows in elegant boudoirs, clutched to the
feverishly rouged cheeks of sleeping jazz-babies. Stuffed in trunks of rotting satin, awakening here – together.

I would wear this heart on my hip everyday – paying respects to Marguerite Royer rather fabulously.

I like my saints softened with pink ruffles and frills. It suits him, don’t you think?

This guy is my wax boyfriend. He’s very quiet, but I like the way he looks at me.

The perfect setting for a tea party where only absinthe, cockle-shells and silver bells are served.

La belle Gabrielle, lost in thought, more luminous every time I see her. She comes from the moon.

We ladies: myself, Gabrielle, and Mlle. Dana Sherwood.

Oh, and I can’t resist sharing my favorite picture of Miss Ekedal (age what, 16?)
I’m guessing snatched from a high-school yearbook. What a wild elf! Gorgeousness.
Go and see her:
at Gypsy Honeymoon
1266 Valencia St
(between 23rd St & 24th St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 821-1713

“I might be 31 years old, but I’ve just begun.”
She is forever my hero.

★ This incredible interview with Sleazy is prefaced by an almost even more wonderful
introduction about counter-culture in the 80′s and early 90′s. Really, really good stuff:
This Mortal Coil: A Final Report on Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson

★ 2012 The End of the World – from Information Is Beautiful
Curious about what might happen in 2012? This fabulous infographic pits the skeptics
against the believers and analyzes the evidence from both that might save you a lot
of time spent combing through articles about geomagnetic reversal and consciousness shifts.

★ The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook
“…Mr. Selig said there was something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees
that came flying back this summer. ‘When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,’
he said. ‘They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.’”

(Vintage 19th c. marbled paper, Gold vein Overprinted over Spanish moiré on Turkish pattern
from the University of Washington Decorated and Decorative Paper Collection.)

★ The ever-marvelous BibliOdyssey always has just the thing to float my boat:
Marbled Paper Designs
I’ve been obsessed with marble paper ever since I was a child. I got it from my mother,
who collected anything marbleized. It is totally psychedelic. Making it is basically the
most fun thing in the world (if you’re me, that is.) The first time I visited New York, I was
around seventeen. I was staying with a friend of friends on the Upper West Side and it
was Christmastime. I just happen to be wearing the exact same carrot oil face cream
that I had found during that time to combat the moisture-sucking dryness of the radiators
in Tom Piechowski’s apartment, and I’m having a powerful olfactory memory which I think
I’ll share with you now. Whenever I smell this stuff (it’s Burt’s Bees, and it really does work),
I am instantly transported back to that moment in time. The cold tiles in the bathroom, all
of Tom’s exciting books, the homemade chocolate chip cookies someone had given him,
and my first northern winter. It was so cold, that every exposed inch of skin would shriek
in pain until you got indoors. I had just read Nicolas Christopher’s Veronica and so insisted
on finding Tibetan restaurants that served bocha, hot black tea with yak butter, and smoking
clove cigarettes. Veronica is a good book to read if you happen to be in New York in the winter
(another one is A Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin.) This story does actually have to do with marbled
paper – bear with me if you have a minute. I was spending a lot of my time wandering alone around
the alien, snow-muffled city streets, much like the characters in both of those books, and this one day, I had
an epic walking adventure, that began with me “taking a short-cut” through Central Park, where I consumed
most a bottle of very good French wine that Tom had foisted upon me, and tried to sit and write letters on a
log by a frozen pond. My fingers were too cold, and the winos were circling, so I ended up leaving the rest by
a tree, and heading to the Guggenheim to commune with my boyfriends, Mr. Cornell and Mr. Bellmer.
When I left, it was quite dark, but I had it in mind that I needed to try a Lexington Avenue Egg Cream,
which I found at the Lexington Avenue Candyshop. It had by then become exceedingly cold,
and I was a bit lost, wandering around aimlessly until I spied a very interesting-looking bookstore…
The owner was an old man, very intense, animated, and quite rude. He seemed to be playing a game
of chess against himself, which he was none to happy about me interrupting. His store was a wonder,
filled ceiling-high with beautiful first editions and remarkable hand-bound books he had created, with
tooled leather covers and marbled flyleaves. Being a book-binding enthusiast, I began to ply him with
questions, which he seemed happy enough to answer as long as it served to keep my grubby fingers
off of his pretty books. I have this odd talent, it seems, for taming the orneriest and most curmudgeonly
of shopkeepers. The trick is to show them empathy and appreciation while continuing to ask them more
and more questions every time they make motions towards kicking you out and closing up. Eventually,
I had him more or less docile, and I inquired as to whether he might have any marble paper scraps lying
around that I might have. He hemmed and hawed and grumbled and grizzled, all the while leading me
down a rickety little elf staircase to a basement workshop where all the book-magic happened. He flung
his hand towards a vast heap of the most gorgeous examples of marbled paper I had ever seen, and told
me to take as much as I could carry. I stood stunned for a minute before scrambling to gather up big
sheaves and loaded up a garbage bag full. I have no idea how I managed to lug it all across town!
Did I take a taxi? I doubt I had any money for one at the the time. I still have some of that gorgeous
paper – a bit of it survived Hurricane Katrina. The rest was used for countless art projects, gifts,
collages, and eventually my own experiments in bookbinding. All my New York stories are shaggy
dogs, because you can’t just get somewhere there. You have to go through all sorts of adventures
and turnings that make what you find at the end that much more rewarding. I have lots of stories like
that, but this one was brought to you by my acute olfactory-memory triggers, and by the letters N, Y and C.

Full set of marbled paper designs on flickr

★ My new favorite vintage paper ephemera blog: Agence Eureka (mille merci, Cousin E.!)

✷ I adore Forgotten Bookmarks,
a beautifully presented blog from Michael, who lives in Oneonta, NY. He works in a bookstore,
and keeps a record of all of the odd things he finds tucked into the old books. I once asked a
librarian what were the most unusual objects used as bookmark she had every come across:
she told me the best was a hundred dollar bill. The worst – a piece of cooked, greasy bacon.

✷ I recently stumbled back across this piece from Two Four Flinching on photography in New York’s
graffiti-covered subways in the 1980′s, and thought it was too special not to share. What a different era.
Beautiful images from Bruce Davidson, John F. Conn, Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper:
Subway, lifeblood.

“I wanted to transform the subway from its dark, degrading, and impersonal reality into images
that open up our experience again to the color, sensuality, and vitality of the individual souls that
ride it each day.” In “Subway”, passengers of the city’s subterranean world are portrayed in detail,
revealing the interplay of its inner landscape and outer vistas, set against a gritty, graffiti-strewn
background and displayed in tones that Davidson describes as “an iridescence like that I had seen
in photographs of deep-sea fish”.

✷ My Top Ten Favorite Psychedelic Folk Songs
by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
This is a treat, especially as I was raised on some of this stuff!
Definitely worth digging up, as these songs provide an excellent
soundtrack to paisley-wearing psilocybe picnics on the moors.

✷ One of the things on my “must do in this lifetime” list is see the aurora borealis.
In the meantime, these might tide me over:
Breathtaking photos of the aurora borealis by Jónína Óskarsdóttir
(Many thanks to Maria Popova at the ever-awesome Brainpickings for this!)

Tsariwa Mama (The Mother of the Tree) – 2009
30 in. x 40 in. – Oil and egg tempera on panel

✷ My dear friend Madeline von Foerster has a new show up:

RELIQUARIES
Nov. 12 – Dec. 18
Vernissage: Nov. 12, 7pm
Strychnin Gallery
Boxhagenerstrasse 36, 10245 Berlin

There’s a great piece on her work from Coilhouse here: Madeline von Foerster’s Reliquaries

“This new series of artworks grows out of the artist’s fascination with reliquaries:
the jewel-covered statues and treasure chests where remains of sainted persons —
from bones, to scraps of clothing, to vials of blood — are enshrined. Old, beautiful,
and mysterious, reliquaries often become objects of worship themselves. The impulse
to preserve and make precious seems to represent a common human urge, spanning
across many cultures, and not only confined to religion: we create reliquaries for vanquished
cultures in our Natural History Museums, and living reliquaries, in the form of zoos,
for animals all but extinct in the wild.

Whereas a reliquary represents the end of a worshipper’s pilgrimage, von Foerster’s works are
an entryway to contemplation, rather than its terminus, and provoke questions rather than provide
answers. Do we value things more in these contained and decorated settings than in their natural state?
Why do we make such efforts to preserve what is gone, instead of living with respect for what is robust?
Can we venerate the living as well as the dead, the natural rather than the supernatural?”

She is beyond amazing, so if you’re anywhere near Berlin, please go see her work
(so that I can be terribly envious! Oh, if only I could!) Seeing these pieces in person is
a revelation. She has incredible skill, and is also one of the sweetest ladies in the world.

I wasn’t able to figure out the source and artist for this lovely scratched face girly, or for yonder
fancy bird-head, or for the nice mineral collection (I think it’s from a textbook.) Got any leads for me?

Oh yes, and p.s. – I’ve been nominated in two categories for The Austin Blogger Awards!
I’ve never been bothered about having or wanting any kind of award or notoriety for what
I do here, but you know what? I’ve been at it a long time, and I love it immensely, and it
seems that some of you love it too. If that’s true, then I’d be most grateful for your support!
It would tickle me pink to have some recognition for ye olde Gazette! If you have a minute,
please vote for me for Blogger of The Year and/or Best Art/Design Blog – and thank you!
Also, check out all the other rad writers nominated – I am proud to be included in such good
company! My girl Amelia of Vintage Vivant is nominated for best Style Blog, and if you
haven’t yet seen her vintage finery and naughty embroidery, go take a peek –
you’ll agree that she definitely deserves to win! Oh, and – the deadline for this stage
of voting is 5pm, on December 3rd!
Votey-vote-vote please & thanky-danke-gracias-merci!

Pandora as Icarus, golden boy, cinder-scarred and eschar pink.

Colin made this incredible mask in a few hours, using random stuff
he grabbed from the hardware store. Yes, he is a terrifying genius!

Aluminum sheet, bristle-brushes, round vents and yaki pony came together
to form this seriously brutal bionic dinosaur predator creature. So bad-ass!

At some point over the last year, I had this vision of a Buffalo Ghost
Warrior Woman, and I wanted to make her real. There’s a little Japanese
kabuki, and Mononoke thrown in there for good measure, and though I
never thought to get a picture of it, there was a carved mask with the face
of an old man on the back of my foxfur headdress. Two-face. Oni. Demon
who steals scalps and eyes. The ghost who defends the memory of thousands
of slaughtered buffalo, left to rot on the prairie. She who avenges the native
people pushed off their land, killed like dogs in the dirt. All that, and sassy
fringe boots. I made the wig that day, and it was alarmingly weighty and warm!

I found the most perfect vintage buckskin dress ever, which fit me perfectly,
and feels amazing to wear. It’s the kind of garment that makes one think
seriously about wearing nothing but buckskin always and forever. If only!

I loved these guys the most. They were so impeccable with their perfect
faces, and perfect church-lady hats. Creepster twins, who are you?

Delaney Flytrap! How perfect is she? Very.

Yeah, so meat as clothing is so done and whatever, but hello!
It takes balls, man. This kid looked great. It was a good look for him, right?

Corinne Patrice Loperfido + her perfect boob(s) suit!

Miss O. – Mantis Queen

Nina Carolina!

Buttonface!

Miss Calamity

Gummi Medusa

Jean Wilson – Black Crow

Miss Angie – Prances With Coyotes

Critter bite at the end of the night!

Full set of Hallowe’en photographic depravity right here:
New Orleans Hallowe’en 2010

The Moviegoer was recommended to me by my friend Mr. Whittier, quite a while ago.
It wasn’t sparked by our shared love for New Orleans (where the book is set), but
by a conversation about “how travel is as wonderful as it is terrible”
– he sent me the following quote:

“Not in a thousand years could I explain it to Uncle Jules, but it is no small thing
for me to make a trip, travel hundreds of miles across the country by night to a
strange place and come out where there is a different smell in the air and people
have a different way of sticking themselves into the world. It is a small thing to him,
but not to me. It is nothing to him to close his eyes in New Orleans and wake up in
San Francisco and think the same thoughts on Telegraph Hill that he thought on
Carondelet Street. Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit-presence
of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man but never leave him alone, how, if a
man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risk he takes,
he may find himself No One and Nowhere. Great day in the morning! What will it mean
to go mosying down Michigan Avenue in the neighborhood of five million strangers,
each shooting out his own personal ray? How can I deal with five million personal rays?”

Oh man, have I been feeling this lately. More than ever before. It’s a strange feeling.
I once loved it, and perhaps I will again – the sense of anonymity, of being a stranger
in a strange land. It makes me want to return to China, or go anywhere where the
language is totally incomprehensible, where I am an alien. Maybe it’s the oddness
of coming back to so many familiar places, and finding them changed. New Orleans
is mine, and not mine. She’s the lover you come back to, sadly, wistfully – finding her
worse for wear, touching old scars, grazing new wounds, evidences of bizarre
reconstructive surgeries. There are other people in her bed, resting their heads
on the pillow you embroidered your initials on, and they look at you blankly,
thinking you a new visitor, a tourist. It’s very discomfiting sensation.

This weird building on Upper Decatur has windows made from red mirrors.
Very creepy. The fern hanging in the atrium kind of looks
like a severed head, if you squint just right. ‘Twas the season.

Somebody got their head punted into this French door,
right across the street. Or maybe they punched it.

There are parts of the Upper Quarter and CBD that have a weird
magical, unknowable quality about them. Maybe it’s because I
rarely had reason to go up there, or would find myself on the street
at odd hours – but it seemed to me that the buildings would rearrange
themselves secretly at night, forming confusing configurations, mazes
for the unwary wanderer. Anywhere that was once bustling, but has long
stood deserted has that feeling for me. Haunted, and perhaps sentient.

This is one of my favorite things in New Orleans. I want to drink one very badly.

Oh, how I long for a little gingerbread cottage, festooned with morning glories like this one!

This was a very good street in the Bywater. I forget which one it was, but the people who
live on it are very lucky. My friend Bunny lives in the house to which these sweet wheels
belong. There are cypress trees, and it’s very quiet and peaceful. The shade is unusual.

Mossy cobblestone banquette, interrupted by cypress roots.

Wouldn’t you like this to be your front door? I wouldn’t mind.

Oh and, I didn’t realize until I was halfway through The Moviegoer that
Walker Percy was the man responsible for A Confederacy of Dunces finally
seeing the light of day! Bless his name! The story of how it all came to be is
as ironic and tragic and funny as the brilliant novel that almost moldered
in total obscurity. Reading books about New Orleans that really and truly
capture the essence of the place, the heavy air, the strange characters,
the accents, the fragrances both sweet and foul – well, for anyone that’s
lived and loved there, it’s like coming home. Do you know what it means…?

Back in September, when I was visiting San Francisco, I had the opportunity to experience
a very magical place, high up in the green hills of Inverness: The J.B. Blunk Residency, which
is sort of a secluded zen fairy cabin-haven for craftsfolk and artists, and all sorts of interesting
people. We had the luck to be there for a delightful evening barbeque, and a tour of the house
and grounds from J.B. Blunk’s lovely and charming daughter, Miss Mariah Nielsen.
She is deer-like and top-knotted, and has that “effortlessly elegant” thing down pat in sandals
and a abstract print silk shift. She grew up there, wild and rambling among the pines and white
breakers of Inverness, in that magical house filled with good reading, and the coziest nooks.
She has made it her mission to preserve her father’s legacy, and honor his wish to share his
home with artists, so that it might serve as muse. Just visiting there flooded me with inspiration,
so I imagine a two-month residency would be an incredible opportunity to make new work,
undisturbed by noise or distraction. Any of you artists who have or are pursuing an MA or MFA,
might want to look into applying – it’s a magical place, that engenders magical work.

“The J.B. Blunk Residency offers a home, studio and outdoor clearings for work.
The home and studio, built by J.B. Blunk in 1959, with salvaged materials, suggest
a certain lifestyle that is independent, sustainable and closely connected to the landscape.
Because of J.B.’s profound connection to the surrounding environment the hope
is that the residency program will foster work inspired by the site.”

The view of Bishop Pine Nature Preserve in Inverness, California.
This is what you see from the bedroom window. Can you imagine
waking up to that every morning? It is just unbelievably perfect.

J.B. (James Blain) Blunk, 1926 – 2002

“I began making wood sculpture in 1962.
I knew how to use a chain saw and it was
one of those things. One day you just start.”
— J.B. Blunk

“Since he had no training in joinery and owned few tools, Blunk carved his furniture from oversized
pieces of redwood and cypress with a chainsaw, finishing them with an angular grinder and chisel.
His interest in texturing the wood, rather than polishing it to a high sheen, may have had it’s roots
in the rough, complex stoneware surfaces typical of the Bizen ware Blunk made in Japan.”
- Glenn Adamson

There are stone collections and cairns everywhere you look. Rocks with power, natural sculptures.

“It is hard to know where to place Blunk as a craftsman. Though he has achieved his primary success
as a woodworker, he has also created an extensive body of work in clay, carved stone and cast bronze
and has even made jewelry and weavings. Furthermore, he tends to blur the categories of furniture and
non-functional sculpture as if they weren’t there.”
- Glenn Adamson

The light pulls are all these clever little sculptures that you tug on to turn on or off. Form and function,
and art as everyday useful objects. He infused his aesthetic and sense of humor into everything around him.

It’s there in the bathroom sink, in every aspect of the architecture of his home. Seamless, and somehow – holy.

It’s that tongue-in-cheek playfulness that peeks out at you from shadowy corners. Woodcarving is rough – an earth art,
and it’s no surprise that you see raw sexuality there. It reminds me of African carvings, sacred renditions of genitalia,
our origin points. Also, of the fun Shinto emblems of giant phalluses and other parts – those aspects of life that are
everyday, but mysterious. It’s a good juxtaposition to find next to the somber zen stillness, those earthy curved forms.

Mark Dion and Mariah, contemplating the view.

Mariah, Dana and a blue ghost.

Everywhere on the sides of the road up there, you see these slim pink lilies called “Naked Ladies”.

A house-elf sea-goblin hanging around in the workshop.

J.B. Blunk exhibition at Blum + Poe

Fecal Face – N&P: Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill

Full set of my photos are up on Flickr here: J.B. Blunk Residency

My dearest darling Dana, walking along the strand – elegant as ever.

I hadn’t seen the ocean in a long time. Too long. I love the Pacific.
It’s so grand and ferocious! Far too chilly for swimming, but I took
off my shoes and stockings and walked into the surf, and climbed
up rocky cliffs. It felt good to breathe in clean brine and negative ions
swirling in the surf. Soft sand under my feet, and warm sun on my back.

I think this might be the first time I’d ever seen starfish in their
natural habitat. I wouldn’t mind being a starfish, or an anemone.
How I would love to see some anemones! I want to go to the
tidepools in Salt Point National Park next time, and St. Orres also!

When I walked past these, they all moved as if to grab me with
their little beaky pincers. I was reminded of the old belief that
this is where geese come from. You know, from barnacles:

“In the days before it was realised that birds migrate, it was thought that
Barnacle Geese, Branta leucopsis, developed from this crustacean,
since they were never seen to nest in temperate Europe, hence the
scientific and English names. The confusion was prompted by the
similarities in colour and shape. Because they were often found on
driftwood, it was assumed that the barnacles were attached to branches
before they fell in the water. The Welsh monk, Giraldus Cambrensis,
claimed to have seen goose barnacles in the process of turning into
barnacle geese in the twelfth century.”
- from Wikipedia

I really wanted to touch it! It looks so squishy. I did not, as that
would be very rude indeed. Restraint is key, when dealing with
aquatic denizens. They are very easily offended, or so I’ve heard.

We are sirens that beckon you toward our rocky lagoon.
So marvelous to see my lovely ladies, Miss Dana + Miss Courtney.
Later that day, we are oysters at my favorite spot, the Marshall Store,
and then trekked up into the hills to a magical house seemingly made
by Japanese woodcarver elves. More on that tomorrow, though…

Courtney Pocketmouse in her natural environment.
She is part selkie, or didn’t you know? I wonder where
she keeps her sealskin hat hidden? Shh! Don’t tell!