fairytale antics

i've been taking self-portraits for a while now. but only recently i've taken it to the streets. and at first it was really awkward and i would hide in some unpeopled spot, making sure no one was watching. but i have become more bold of late. and when i get a puzzled look i gaze back and smile, most of the time. when the looks start to annoy me, i give them the evil eye instead.

so yesterday i went to the loire castle nearest to where i live, called chambord. and i went there with the intention of picturing myself in and around the castle walls. when i do this, i feel i am inside a movie, or a live story unfolding. i do act in my pictures and give my own directions. sometimes i think it might be easier if someone told me what to do, but there's that delay of understanding the directions, whereas in self-portraiture you follow your gut instincts. and with the digital age you can check the result right away and thus are able to alter things, light, position, stance accordingly.

at the castle i began feeling like a princess. i have always loved the days of knights and ladies, the magical towers and hidden passages. ooops, some sexual symbolism there... but anyway. i felt like dancing among the turrets, along the corridors lit by stain-glassed windows, and doing some crazy stunts on top of the railings. thankfully i learned the other day that i do suffer from vertigo so i did not get carried away. so i only put my dolls in precarious situations, not myself. oh yes, i had brought my dolls for props. and they had loads of fun there too.

i did receive the odd looks a lot, though it was a very slow day, with few people bothering my antics. but i wondered at these looks. one man kept saying "la folie" or madness, whenever he saw me, which is a sort of compliment for me. maybe he thought i was one of the crazy ghosts haunting this castle. another watched as i did one of my shots on top of the balcony and commented, so you go around the world taking pictures of yourself. i responded, pretty much! and laughed. i'm sure it wasn't meant in any mean-spirited way, but he couldn't hide his open bewilderment. for some reason, it is fine if your boyfriend is snapping your photo, or better yet, a professional photographer. then it is acceptable to go crazy in front of the camera. but when it is just you, this means you are narcissistic and quite mad.

the only friendly looks i received were from the construction workers. and not what you think, the cliché whistles or such. no, i think they appreciated the place and somehow understood my artistic endeavors, somehow trying to make myself part of its walls, living in this world through my photos. i might be all wrong about that, but it's the feeling i got when they gave me warm smiles. working there, chipping into its walls must have an effect on your soul, i'd imagine, the dust of the ages moving into your lungs and with it the many souls who have passed through its countless rooms.

another thing that troubles most i think is when a woman is out on her own, on top of posing for her own camera. i don't know why but it occurred to me later that she poses some sort of threat. i realized that i was the only lone woman there, and i might have seemed like i had escaped from my cage or something. and the added confusion was that i felt completely happy with myself, and was in no need of companionship. i had my dolls afterall. who also received some giggles and sneers from groups of young female tourists. well, most people just feel more secure inside a herd. for some reason this seems to make all their actions legit...

overall, i had a blast though. the off-season is the time to go to these places. and don't be a tourist. just be there.

i had a bizarre exit from there. the castle is seated inside this vast forest and right now, of course, the trees are painted in the most beautiful autumn colors. i really felt like inside a fairytale... when i drove out of these woods, though, i suddenly saw a giant nuclear reactor-type chimney blowing a big smokey cloud at the end of the row of trees that i had failed to notice on the way in. it was the other side of magic and just as surreal. the underbelly darkness of any fairytale. the bare and rotten reality.

we are all part of a dream.

i am a full-fledged deviant

well, most of you already know this.

but did you know about deviantart, the website? i joined them a few months ago, but only recently became a subscriber. and now i am happy to announce that thanks to this site i am able to make available my very own calendar! i have added a new pastie on the right side of my blog, so just follow the link of "santa's little helper"... this leads you directly to the printed version of the calendar. i've also made some prints available and there will be more soon. my poor computer hates these large files and i lose patience when it takes ten minutes to save, while humming as if it is ready for take-off!

but these are the fruits of my labor. have a look, be a dear! :)

cookies for those who want them... ;)

dreamscapes 2007

time to vote!

is it true that it is uncomfortable for people who know you to see you in a sexy pose on a photograph. or is it a silly thought? well, i hope it's not true and you go over and vote for my photograph i have submitted to jpg magazine in any case... i have submitted two other ones as well. so if you just follow the link to jpeg magazine on the right, it tells you the rest. thanks so much! :))

the skeleton

i see her photograph among the million others. it flashes before my eyes over and over. first just a small part of it, her face or her face hiding behind massive blond hair. she is wearing a bright red sweater. then another one, this time it reveals where she is sitting, in a sort of trench on the side of my house, where the path leading to the apple orchard used to be. she is now turned around and i zoom in on her face. she is a still photograph that begins to speak. it is a documentary style film of reporting on her excavations she has done with her mother. i am only half paying attention to what she says, mesmerized by the images before my eyes. the old birch has strewn its yellow leaves all around and some of her roots are poking out of the dug up sandy walls of the trench. i don't quite understand of yet what she is exactly saying, but then the camera moves in on the side of the wall to where she is pointing. we put her back, she says, after we had excavated her. look here, while she draws an outline with her hand around a skull. she says it was a young girl, but to me it looks more like the head of an animal, a wolf maybe with a very pointy snout. the rest of the bones reveal the body of a child. my mother and i, we returned her to her resting place, she says. but first she had uncovered this small skeleton, and she now has moved into my conscious mind like the remains of a living girl with a story.

the film shifts now back to an earlier time. there is footage of supereight moving images, the ones that flicker with the incoming light. we are at her farm and she is a little girl. she is speaking french and i don't understand her. but i am sensing a menacing presence and her fear of it. i see some animals being killed but i don't remember the kind. my niece meanwhile settles in beside me to watch with me, but i don't look at her, staring at the images. in actuality i don't even see a screen, just the image itself, as if i am part of it and yet removed. the young girl is now standing in front of her house beneath an overgrown glassy outcropping of the roof. on a large farm table before her are lined up living birds, large wild birds, falcons maybe. behind the table sits a man. she calls him uncle. he is a mean looking one, bald and massive with the farmlife having carved deep lines into his face. he places his gigantic hand around the neck of one of the birds and brings down a heavy object upon its head. one strike and it is dead. there are already about twenty dead birds and more living ones awaiting this cruel fate. i want to cover my niece's eyes but then the man's voice starts to rise louder and louder. he is chanting something, i forget the words. but the words are scaring the girl standing beneath the overhang. she begs him to stop. his water-blue eyes diminish her. and so his voice rises more, interrupted only by his deep baritone laughter. her mother and older sister hear the girl crying loudly and rush toward her from inside the house. but she cannot be consoled and cries with tears rushing, her mouth wide open. her throat releases the bitter screams of anguish, and there is more to the story than this.