dreaminginthedeepsouth’s Neighborhood

Blue Poppies

Just taking a break.
 
I am cleaning out my computer/junk/spare bedroom/garbagecan/storage room in preparation for a visitor arriving the end of June. It is a cousin H's age and she is here from England for ten days. We are thrilled she is coming and it is a great motivator to get this room clean!! There will be trips to drop off stuff at Value Village and spare magazines to the hospital, and bags of stuff to donate to whoever needs/wants it. I also have to figure out how to efficiently store all my packaging, shipping materials etc. Big job this!

Today is a rainy drizzly day so it is perfect for this kind of cleanout. I have been listening to various radio stations from around the world thanks to my computer being in here. Found a terrific one playing old French chansons, was listening to Putumayo for a while, then  a traditional Iranian  station, some Bollywood , and now I am thinking some Celtic music might be nice. What fun.

H is at a conference at Acadia University  for the weekend. She'll be home tomorrow. I am going to see a film with a friend tonight. Not sure what yet, but I'll be sure to have a big bag of popcorn! I cannot watch a movie at the theatre if I don't have popcorn. Just walking into the cinema and smelling the stuff gets me going:)

It's funny, I became a member of Vox less than a year ago...I have met some wonderful people in these few months and have thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them. But somewhere along the line the thrill of blogging has gone and now it gives me not much pleasure!!!

I shall of course miss my friends...Dee, you have been a very wonderful and warm human being. I shall continue to enjoy your photographs, Cheers and many smiles, ....

but now I must move on...let's see no one knows what the future holds...I shall sign off with quotes from Kahlil Gibran:

"Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration. "

'I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end."

'Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream. '

Kahlil Gibran

Here's a small art post for the weekend. I'm working on an idea that involves a character from another original painting I did some months ago. The below is more of a study. I'll be experimenting with palettes and balance and doing more study paintings. Then I'd like to do a larger final painting. It involves the themes of human evolution, spirit and motherhood/childhood.

"The beginning". Approx 16"x10", watercolor, ink and pastel:

The beginning

4 comments

The beginning

I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your family and friends.

Today, my feathers are ruffled and I feel a bit on edge because the same old topic, my old ghosts, continue to wrack me. Making psychological, sociologically and religious shifts in life's paradigm does not come without uprooting the foundation entirely. My mental house creeks. There was rot and mold that had to be ousted. There were roots which had entwined the pipes of this organism and I hacked them away. I speak in metaphor because speaking literally hurts my mouth (pride?), then later, the people who've always known me. But, inveriably, I'll write more and more till it trickles out of me. I've written this a million times, and erased it, clicked delete. So, I say this the best way I can. Now it has been years since I've moved away from a conservative and religiously closed-off life and I continue to find areas of detritus I have to shake loose. I've seen too much and done too much to know, we aren't evil. We're not born bad. We all make our choices. There is no one who has the one simple truth. There are billions and billions of years to have added up to this moment right now, and it can't be summed up with a glib sermon or the pointed finger of a white man who has only known his comfortable, christian bed, the one he was born in. Having heard from pentacostal and baptist pulpits a religion of isolationism and racism (yes, racism), the one that sends entire countries and cultures to a elected and prescribed hell, I reel inside. It's a shame it wasn't sooner that I saw reality. It's hard to see past one's own ethnocentrism. It is the same ethnocentrism within a self-serving system which reduces homosexuals to comic book characters or shapes them into monsters; I can not and will not sit in another conversation and say nothing when I hear such atrocious sentiments. I can not be divided into two camps of thinking. I must say what is right and stand up honestly for what I know is real. We are all equal in the eyes of God. All. Equal. There are billions of people whose hearts beat and blood flows just like my own. There are women round our world holding their own babies in their arms, feeling the love I feel and aching for it never to end. These people are not doomed to any hell, any more than I am. There are problems which pious prayers will never answer... but love will. The eyes of my heart were jaded once. Now I see, always so imperfectly, but I see how the language of love is the substance which is GOD.  Any more than that, I can't say for certain. I've stopped claiming that I know the one truth. I'm human like you.

wake up....

I've heard people call themselves recovering fundies... and I've thought about that a lot. But, you know me and how much I hate labels. Still, I do feel often that I am recovering from something. Today my brain hurts a little. And it should.

• 08:42 1 think one thing i miss about having Les (my integ) is pulling it. #
• 12:16 @susanjane: dude im kinda jealous, i dont even know where the nearest dunkin donuts is in San Diego. #
• 18:54 feels good to be active & healthy :) #
• 20:13 goal for summer: read dosteivsky #

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emma

I have just finished the most extraordinary book, England's Mistress, the Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton

Emma was born in 1765 in the most dire of circumstances and became the most famous woman of her time. She moved to London on her own when she was 12!  She was the Paris Hilton of the eighteenth century, everyone knew of her. She had an extraordinary life, eventually moving to Naples and hobnobbing with Marie Antoinette's sister, the Queen of Italy.

She was a sought after artist's model for a time and because of that, images of her were everywhere.
She became mistress to Admiral Horatio Nelson and eventually bore him a daughter. What is so fascinating is the portrayal of the times and the way people lived their lives. The stuff about Nelson was remarkable, he was a tiny man with one arm, a torn ear, no front teeth, scars all over and she was absolutely smitten with him as was ALL of Britain. The fashion was to wear clothes with his image on them, anchors and his name emblazoned everywhere. He was a superstar.

Emma worked as a courtesan for a while as one of the "Kelly" girls.

Mini makeup lesson circa 1770 follows......

Thick makeup was the fashion and there was a law passed that men could divorce their wives if they could prove she fooled him into marriage using her make up to hide her age or ugliness!
Courtesans were the most heavily painted.

First there was a layer of cold cream and then a heavy layer of white lead(!) paint.(sometimes mixed with vinegar)
Eyebrows were shaved off and replaced with false one made of mouse skins darkened with lead.
Cheeks were ornamented with beauty spots cut out of silk and glued on in various colours.
Mouth was coated with a dilution of red plaster of paris.
Painted blue cream on eyelids
Cheeks were rouged brightly with mercury sulphide.
Teeth were sometimes whitened with plaster of paris or chalk!
Despite all of this, the nails were left unadorned.
Orange water or rose was used as  perfume.

The hair styles were elaborate and HIGH. the hair stylists had waiting lists months long. They took three to four hours to create styles three feet high abd added fake pearls, feathers, flowers, models of houses and boats! The styles were kept for three months and then redone. It was common to have infestations of lice, bugs and sometimes even mice!! This fashion was started in 1765 and was most extreme in the 1780's. Women had special head rests to sleep on and when they went outside they wrapped their do's in gauze.

Fake boobs were made of cloth or porcelain and they even had fake bottoms and hips made of cork.

Can you say slave to fashion? I cannot imagine.
Anyway the book is a fascinating read and I would recommend it.