DAY EIGHT-AND-TWENTY: RENAISSANCE; OR I AWAKE FROM DESIGN REVERIE AND REJOIN THE WORLD AS A CITIZEN

Dearest Darling Readers,

I really must apologize for my disappearance

these past few months.

You see this horrid little thing called a

Graduate Collection has rather

had his wicked way with me and thus stole me from you.

We have been spending numerous hours together not for a second could we part. You see I love him and he me.

We are but the same person now.

I'm quite proud of how he has grown and often with a mind of his own taking on the form of Orlando himself.
Fashion and I are no longer just friends.
We have eloped.
Highly recommended if you have what it takes.

In general it has involved many sleepless nights, a general loss of friends, and no social life.

That is what it means to take on a lover is it not?

However we are are now in the petty comfort that comes with time when you spend so much of it with one person, or thing.

He and I have come to an agreement that we must both make something for ourselves in this world and thus my rebirth, re-emergence or renaissance so to speak.

Watch this space for snippets of him. I have made quite a few grand friends along the way.

Choosing a life as a fashion designer leads to a great many meetings of very interesting people.

All my love,
Lady Orlando xo

DAY SEVEN-AND-TWENTY: VICTORIAN ERA MONSTERS

The Art of Travis Louie:

Travis Louie’s paintings come from the tiny little drawings and many writings in his journals. He’s created his own imaginary world that is grounded in Victorian and Edwardian times. It is inhabited by human oddities, mythical beings, and otherworldly characters who appear to have had their formal portraits taken to mark their existence and place in society. The underlining thread that connects all these characters is the unusual circumstances that shape who they were and how they lived. Some of their origins are a complete mystery while others are hinted at. A man is cursed by a goat, a strange furry being is discovered sleeping in a hedge, an engine driver can’t seem to stop vibrating in his sleep, a man overcomes his phobia of spiders, etc, . . .Using inventive techniques of painting with acrylic washes and simple textures on smooth boards, he’s created portraits from an alternate universe that seemingly may or may not have existed.
They are beautiful and couldn't keep the all for myself...

STAND STILL FOR A PORTRAIT HERE

DAY SIX-AND-TWENTY: WANT TO BE A VICTORIAN? THE TOP TEN CREEPIEST THINGS ABOUT BEING ONE

10. VIGNETTES -
creepy relayives dressing up to amuse other relatives. Nan as a nymph: not something my psyche wants to see. Ever.

9. POORHOUSES -
Poorhouses were government-run facilities where the poor, infirm, or mentally ill could live. They were usually filthy and full to the brim of societies unwanted people...

8. PEA-SOUPERS -
fogs so thick you could barely see through them. The pea-soupers were caused by a combination of fogs from the River Thames and smoke from the coal fires that were an essential part of Victorian life.


7. FOOD -
The Victorians loved offal and ate virtually every part of an animal. This is not entirely creepy if you are o.k. with the weird and the wonderful, but for the average person, the idea of supping on a bowl of brains and heart is not appealing. Another famous dish from the Victorian era was turtle soup. The turtle was prized above all for its green jello-like fat which was used to flavor the soup made from the long-boiled stringy flesh of the animal

6. SURGERY - In a time when one in four surgery patients died after surgery, you were very lucky in Victorian times to have a good doctor with a clean theatre. There was no anesthesia, no painkillers for after, and no electric equipment to reduce the duration of an operation.

5. GOTHIC NOVEL -
The red room in Jany Eyre. Yes please. No thanks.

4. JACK THE RIPPER -
How could you not know?

3. FREAK SHOWS -
Including Hysteria.. Enter Diane Arbus.

2. MEMENTO MORI -
Enough said.

1. QUEEN VICTORIA -
When her husband Albert died in 1861, she went into mourning – donning black frocks until her own death many years later – and expected her nation to do so too. She avoided public appearances and rarely set foot in London in the following years. Her seclusion earned her the name “Widow of Windsor.”

AN HOMAGE TO SOMEONE WHO DID IT BEFORE ME

DAY FIVE-AND-TWENTY: MEMENTO MORI, THE VICTORIAN ERA'S OBSESSION WITH DEATH

Memento mori is a Latin phrase meaning “Remember you shall die” as commentated in a previous post (avid readers will be aware of this). In the Victorian era, photography was young and extremely costly. When a loved one died, their relatives would sometimes have a photograph taken of the corpse in a pose – oftentimes with other members of the family. For the vast majority of Victorians, this was the only time they would be photographed. In these post-mortem photographs, the effect of life was sometimes enhanced by either propping the subject’s eyes open or painting pupils onto the photographic print, and many early images have a rosy tint added to the cheeks of the corpse. Adults were more commonly posed in chairs or even braced on specially-designed frames. Flowers were also a common prop in post-mortem photography of all types. In the first photo above, the fact that the girl is dead is made slightly more obvious (and creepy) by the fact that the slight movement of her parents causes them to be slightly blurred due to the long exposure time, while the girl is deathly still and, thus, perfectly in focus. They are a sad and beautiful reminder. Exactly what they are described as Memento Mori

TRAIL OF BONES STARTS HERE

DAY FOUR-AND-TWENTY: TWINNESS

There will always be something visually arresting about twins...They know things. Secrets. Its in their eyes....

CLICK HERE FOR MORE
CLICK HERE FOR MORE

DAY THREE-AND-TWENTY: THE SEDLEC

The Sedlec: Henry, the abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, was sent to the Palestine (Holy Land) by King Otakar II of Bohemia in 1278. When he returned, he brought with him a small amount of earth he had removed from Golgotha and sprinkled it over the abbey cemetery. The word of this pious act soon spread and the cemetery in Sedlec became a desirable burial site throughout Central Europe. During the Black Death in the mid 14th century, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century, many thousands of people were buried there and the cemetery had to be greatly enlarged. Around 1400 a Gothic church was built in the center of the cemetery with a vaulted upper level and a lower chapel to be used as an ossuary for the mass graves unearthed during construction, or simply slated for demolition to make room for new burials. After 1511 the task of exhuming skeletons and stacking their bones in the chapel was, according to legend, given to a half-blind monk of the order.

Between 1703 and 1710 a new entrance was constructed to support the front wall, which was leaning outward, and the upper chapel was rebuilt. This work, in the Czech Baroque style, was designed by Jan Santini Aichel.

In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to put the bone heaps into order. The macabre result of his effort speaks for itself. Four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. An enormous chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault. Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a large Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms, and the signature of Rint, also executed in bone, on the wall near the entrance. Its creepy and its wonderful, I can't wait to see it in the flesh - or lack there of!

(WIKIPEDIA TELLS YOU MORE)

DAY TWO-AND-TWENTY: STEAMPUNK AND STEAM POWER

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steampower is still widely used — usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era Britain.

These illustrations look back to the works of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Mary Shelly, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Rice Burroughs. It appears to be a mix of Victorian, beginnings of the industrial revolution, maybe a pinch of the Western explorers, and maybe a touch of Goth if you wish. The illustrator of these beautiful drawings is a blogger who goes by the name Doug and has been in the visual arts field since 1989. These drawings and sketches are a snapshot in time.

ALL ABOARD THE MYSTERY TRAIN