Holi.

Holi is the Festival of Colours, celebrated by principally Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains, in a large number of countries. It is held at the end of winter, which is March 1st this year. I came across this wonderful festival through reading about India, which I am currently totally absorbed by. There are several stories surrounding the celebrations, all of which are charming and magical. One rendition follows that Kamadeva, a god of love's body was destroyed when he shot his weapon at Shiva, a major Hindu deity, in order to disrupt his meditation and help Parvati, a Hindu goddess, to marry Shiva. All-powerful Shiva subsequently opened his third eye and looked upon Kamadeva. The gaze was so powerful that Kama's body was reduced to ashes. For the sake of Kama's wife, Shiva restored him, but only as a mental image, representing the true emotional and spiritual state of love rather than physical lust. The Holi bonfire is believed to be celebrated in commemoration of this event. I urge you to read the other stories as well, as they are quite different.

Holi is a festival of radiance in the universe. During this festival, followers believe that different waves of radiance traverse the universe, thereby creating various colours that nourish and complement the function of respective elements in the atmosphere. In celebration, people throw coloured powders and coloured water at each other.

I am in awe of how wonderful this is. I think it captures the jubilance that people feel when we finally reach the beginning of spring and summer after a long cold winter. I'm sure all Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers would find this especially alluring! We have so much to learn from other cultures.

Turning to a new topic of interest, I am currently fascinated by the beautiful shapes of smoke and powder. Reactions between chemicals produce wonderful ethereal shapes.

Both reactions above are the combination of Aluminium and Bromine

These remind me of a photograph of Leon Diaper that I was looking at on the Dazed and Confused magazine website. He says that he searches for the romance within a subject, and I guess I can draw parallels between that outlook and my blog. Here is one of his works:

(http://www.dazeddigital.com/Photography/article/3478/1/Leon_Diaper_Bournemouth_UK)

Alexa Chung

Alexa Chung seems to be the new style icon and fashion guru of the times. She was sat front-row at most of the shows at New York and LFW, often with friends such as Pixie Geldof (at House of Holland, where she wore a double denim combination that actually looked OK, shock horror).

Alexa also released a collection of her own for American label Madewell, who had apparently already been using her as a muse for their own collections. It is such a shame they don't sell Madewell in the UK. Maybe it will be possible to ship? I love the clogs that come in black or mahogany, the sumptuous velvet and the Peter Pan collared dresses.

And I wasn't suprised in the slightest to pick up a copy of Vogue today and see Alexa on the front cover. I can imagine her doing a collection for Topshop, which would probably be better than the Kate Moss collections (sorry Kate). The one problem is that her look doesn't vary very much (see the month of Alexa's fashion choices on www. vogue.co.uk/), which makes me wonder whether she could roll out another collection and it not be a clone of the Madewell one? It will be interesting to see. Anyway, where did I put that Vogue...

Dream catcher

I really love the video to this track, composed of 2096 still frames. It does make me sleepy though, in a good way. It envokes in me that feeling when you're having a really good dream and you are just waking up and desperately trying to stay wrapped in the dream narrative. Mmmm.

Marc Jacobs AW10

I know that I'm 'late' in terms of posting on the latest catwalk shows as MJ happened a week ago now, but hey. I really enjoyed the archaic tone of the show - Marc himself freeing the models from their brown paper cage where they were standing to attention like an assembly of soldiers partaking in drill. Accessories were great - especially the evacuee look of never-white casual socks-and-sandals and the tinted glasses.

Jacobs said after the show "It's refreshing to see something that isn't trying so hard to be new," and I really agree. For everything must be new to some extent - you can't stand in the same stream twice. And here I could open a can of worms and ask 'what is the overall point of fashion?' Is it to please the consumer and produce a look and collection that people will want to purchase and wear? Or is the aim to fill a collection with the designer's inspirations, create more of an art-form? I guess it follows a spectrum - some designers like Comme des Garcons couture pander to the latter objective, whereas some designers, such as Marc Jacobs in this collection satisfy the former.

A dreamy ambiance is created with the soundtrack of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'. My favourite elements? The juxtaposition of ill-fitting grey tweed and glamorous sequins, chunky knits with velvetty textures, the neutral colour palette, and the fairytale dresses at the end of the show that remind me of the array of acrylics left on Van Gogh's easel from his painting 'Starry Night'.

Stamp collecting

The Royal Society is celebrated in a collection of stamps by the Royal Mail, released yesterday. I can't wait to get my hands on some!

Left to right: Robert Boyle, founder of modern chemistry; Sir Isaac Newton, physicist and optical pioneer; Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning conductor; Edward Jenner, inventor of vaccination; Charles Babbage, developer of programmable computers; Alfred Russel Wallace, pioneer of evolution theory; Joseph Lister, inventor of antiseptic surgery; Ernest Rutherford, founding father of nuclear physics; Dorothy Hodgkin, inventor of x-ray crystallography; Sir Nicholas Shackleton, pioneer of climate research.

It is a pity to only see one female in the line-up, out of eight scientists. Admittedly, I don't know what 'x-ray crystallography' actually is, so I used Wikipedia to bring me up-to-speed:

"X-ray crystallography is a method of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal, in which a beam of X-rays strikes a crystal and diffracts into many specific directions. From the angles and intensities of these diffracted beams, a crystallographer can produce a three-dimensional picture of the density of electrons within the crystal. From this electron density, the mean positions of the atoms in the crystal can be determined, as well as their chemical bonds, their disorder and various other information."

Not that I really feel incredibly up-to-speed now! I really wish I'd done A-levels in Chemistry and Physics (not helping that geek vibe). Anyway, to explain the relevance of this seemingly random discovery, it made it possible to explain why a snow flake has such a precise symmetrical structure (arrangement of hydrogen bonds around water molecule). Pretty cool, huh? Can I claim to be working the 'geek chic' look with this latest fascination?!

Quilted.

Now I never thought I'd find quilts interesting, although I do admit I'm a massive fan of curling up in mine to sleep! But the V&A exhibition that begins on March 20th looks really good. It is called "Quilts, 1700-2010" and will feature 65 carefully-chosen pieces. They will be arranged chronologically and thematically. The themes are 'The Domestic Landscape', 'Private Thoughts, Public Debates', 'British Eccentricity', ' Making a Living' and 'Memory and Memorial'. I like the juxtaposition of public thoughts and private thoughts. I'll post again when I've seen it. Hopefully it will live up to my expectations.

'At the end of the day' - hanging by Natasha Kerr, 2007
V&A website

The Rajah Quilt was made by British women who were convicts on board the HMS Rajah in 1841. It bears the inscription: ‘To the ladies of the convict ship committee, this quilt worked by the convicts of the ship Rajah during their voyage to van Dieman’s Land is presented as a testimony of the gratitude with which they remember their exertions for their welfare while in England and during their passage and also as a proof that they have not neglected the ladies kind admonitions of being industrious. June 1841.’ How wonderful that such a beautiful quilt was created from such awful circumstances.

And as I write, explore and think, my prejudice about quilts has been unearthed as naive. For surely in this day-and-age (sounding like a pensioner, check) anything can be considered an art form. A quilt should not be an exception. And grudgingly, yes Tracy Emin's work comes under this banner.

To Meet My Past, Tracy Emin 2002
V&A website

Right to Life, Grayson Perry 1998
Reminding us of the political application of art.

I brought a beautiful hand-made quilt home from Guatemala, which I have along the back of my bed. When I bought it, I had a long conversation in broken Spanish with the woman who had made it and she told me all about how she made it and where she sourced the dyes and fabrics. I wish I could remember the details.

Quilts and blankets for sale in Flores, Guatemala

A large patchwork quilt in Flores again. I think these cost about £30.

I've always wanted to make one of those patchwork quilts where every square means something to you. A square of your crib blanket as a baby, a patch of your summer dress from junior school, a hand-embroidered poem on a square, a patch of Liberty print etc. In fact, I'm going to add that to my house-high list of things to do when I have the time. That will be when I retire then...

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

I purchased this novel from a charity book shop for £1.75 whilst in one of those moods where I felt I had better buy something since I was there and couldn't find anything I was looking for. Usually my impulse buys turn out awfully and I end up stuffing 'that hideous dress' or 'boring DVD' to the back of my wardrobe or under my bed. However, this impulse buy is, without a doubt, my best ever.

When I first began reading, I thought the novel would be a typical postcolonial lament about how the American missionaries attempted to 'civilise the heathens'. I was pleasantly suprised. The missionary cause is rapidly exposed as futile as it becomes clear that the villagers of Kilanga care only for basic survival, and any means of. They live by experience: believing in anything that grants a pattern of fortune. This is of stark contrast to the Price girls, through whose eyes the narrative unfolds, who suffer through blaming any misfortune on personal sins, yet slowly shed their religious beliefs.

Their father, Nathan Price is an omnipresent threat until the death of one of the children (I'll let the finer detail remain ambiguous as you need to read it), when his authority dwindles. He seems to symbolise God himself. We never hear direct speech from him, just paraphrases sections of the Bible and he has no narrative voice to give opinion himself.

Another element that I found fascinating in the novel is that, to me, the colonial struggle becomes overshadowed by gender battles. Orleanna Price mentally battles against the colonial power of Nathan Price, and eventually physically overthrows him by leaving. When Leah wants to shoot in the hunt, there is no problem with her being white, it is solely that she is a female. I found these issues to be much more potent than the colonial theme throughout the book.

I could talk about this book for a long time, as it really struck a chord with me. If you're interested in history at all, it provides a good spring board for exploring that further. Anyway, if you are ever wondering what to read, I promise this will not let you down.

Here are some images of the Congo that I found from a Google search (below). I love finishing a book, and then seeing how my visualisations of the landscape described in the novel match up to the actual landscape (if it is not . I think I was pretty spot-on with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although I'm sure the horrors of civil war and poverty are unimaginable to a Westerner like me. I shan't pretend I can understand.

An example of the American attitude to the Congo. I'll let you judge this for yourselves in relation to the actual images of the Congo, and the American visualisation.

Central St Martins MA Show at LFW

Images courtesy of style.com

I've always been fascinated by Central St Martin's, as I almost sashayed down the route of art and fashion design myself when younger, and I think a little bit of me would still quite like to pursue a career in the creative arts. I thought the collections were, on the whole, incredibly good. I enjoyed the back-to-basics emphasis on the shape, cut and geometry of clothing. The young designers also marched ahead trends-wise, focusing on holistic monochrome and minimalism.

MA Graduate Lilly Heine's collection stood out for me (above). Her inspiration apparently came from aspects of Brancusi's work and Picasso's naive sketches and studies of curvaceous women. (Surely a curvaceous woman is always something to applaud in fashion?!). I particularly like the introduction of an almost pale lilac tone into the earthier tones of the collection.

Etching by Picasso, 1968

Another etching by Picasso, 1968

Constantin Brancusi, 'The Kiss' 1916

Heine's collection also reminds me of the pages of a book.

Cardiology & Art

I came across this gem on the British Heart Foundation website (via Oxford Science Blog). The image was found by cardiology researchers looking at the arterial walls whilst studying heart disease. Pericyte cells in the blood vessel wall present as red with blue nuclei, and the green colour is collagen.

The resulting heart-shaped arrangement of cells is a fond reminder of our shared childhood misconception (mine at least!) that within the breast of every human, our heart is shaped as above. Aaah.

Namesake.

Brick Pollitt: What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?
Margaret "Maggie" Pollitt: Just staying on it I guess, long as she can.

From 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof', a play by Tennessee Williams

Bestial awakenings

Topshop Unique AW10 was in tip-top form this LFW. The whole creative process emboddied in the designs, catwalk, styling and makeup was an utter success. The talent and surplus of passion from the creative team was most definitely welcomed after the more clinical, trend-led runways of NY fashion week. Inspired by a back-to-basics camping trip and the surrounding wildlife, models sported headpieces such as antlers and badger heads. I definitely got a Narnia vibe, and who doesn't like a bit of childhood reminiscience?! The hair was big, the makeup was bronze, and the clothes... Ah, the clothes were wonderful. No detail has been left unattended to. Thick woollen stockings, magic toadstool and owl prints, wooden elements on the shoes, fake fur, boy scout green and a beautiful bottle blue. I really hope the in-store range lives up to the collection!







One thing though, Topshop. Please live-stream your next show, or at least upload the whole show to your website / blog so us proles can watch it!

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home by Craig Raine

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings -

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside -
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves -
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

The Model T

I love this poem - I think it is incredibly refreshing to view the world from another perspective for once. Habituation means that we don't make appraisals of life very often. Today in class someone was saying how strange it is for Islamic cultures to only condone individuals of the same sex to hold hands. I didn't say anything, but I was thinking, why do we hold hands, and why should we think our Western freedom to hold the hand of anyone is the right way? What universal principles govern the urge to reach out and grasp the palm of another? Love, protection, safety, reciprocity? I think unity captures the essence of all of those emotions, and is possibly the reason why we hold hands. Perhaps the Islamic way is more honest than ours - demonstrating that a man and a woman are not equal, and thus cannot present a unified front?

Copyright, myself and a dear friend, 2008

Anyway, I am terribly prone to ramble on a tangent...

I have highlighted the sections of the poem that most appeal to my cognitive palate. I find the last two stanzas particularly endearing, as the hypothetical martian ponders on the altered state of human consciousness that we know as dreaming. The rumination on the human preoccupation with time is also poignant. Many Brits would find themselves lost without knowing the time, keeping to appointments, a calendar and rigid schedules. Is time a social construct?

Did you know, there is a whole movement called Martianism, which aims to present the world (in literature) through beguiling metaphor. Genius!