a-mazing !!!!!!! songs in the key # 4

a perfectly brilliant day !

*rain stops
*cue the sun


*sun comes out

*bellbird sings off key
*postman arrives with the most incredible papier mache door and props for the puppet, from Kallia in Greece of Kalliaswonderland

(photos tomorrow! I need to keep playing with it and opening and shutting it today!)

*the owner of the abandoned house In Milano gives me the go ahead to use the images for the short film backgrounds

*Maurizio Fiumefreddo ,my all time favourite hairstylist, that I work with in Milano agrees to make a teeny tiny wig for ..."her"  
( we will have a naming ceremony when her face is done )

*Carin Campbell (amazing tailor and purveyor of all good things tweed)  sent photos of the crinoline in progress... love love it

*Inger shows me the first image of the little slinky body femme fatale that she has made ......
holy malarky that is one feisty Victorian dame .... :D        ........... look out!

and I buy an electric glue gun ...and get to work on the bathroom set that I have been painting all weekend .......................

gluing the curtains on upside down ....

by accident ...you understand...

having to scrape all the paint and curtains off and repaint the stripes on the walls...

songs in the key ... part 3

the set..

test prints ready to pick up tomorrow from Poia at the the ever obliging lab  ...

intention : 

 ...utilise my photographs of a  friend's Milanese abandoned house,.........................prior to its renovation by Dutch interiors space design  guru Geert Koster, 

"before" images for my shabbychic "nobilita cadente" location for my stop motion animation music clip...

wallpaper of woven silk and damask

imprinted with images of the paintings that once hung there ...

the acids from the golden gilt Borghese frames have absorbed into the fabric walls over the century 

leaving 3 dimensional feeling markings....

hmmmm my door seems a bit klunky and oversized....

(feel free to step right in here Koster !)

the puppet armature is in Norway having a wetfelted body sculpted...

the door and frame is being made by an amazing artist called Kallia ... in Greece !!!

 (more on Inger and Kallia to come ...)

character development

female

victorian

insecty

elegant

gung-ho

eccentric

full of personality and wit

quiet and pensive

looking at what could have been or what has been ... we never know...

 inspiration:

some of the fabulous works by blackeyedsuzie  and Ryiochi and Yinka Shonibare


and one of my own shoots in a Milanese apartment ... ... this is an apartment ..can you believe ?

not an apartment by "our new world " standards...
I havent really seen any "normal peoples" apartments with real candelabra fittings on the walls that are all made of gold .... and lightable candles...and museum piece portraits that must not be photographed for insurance reasons...
hmmm


well not so often anyway ...


aggghhh I love my Italy ....
just cant help it

I seem to have accidentally become an honorary spider fellow.....

black and white spider awards
is it a good thing ?....

eyebrows moving ....

*looks with magnifying glass at judges....

the "ghostgirl" does it again ....

shot on 5x4 inch, black and white, infrared film on a mono rail camera in an  abandoned house in Sydney Australia circa 1998

styled by Claire Potter .. (who has alot of letters after her name but I cant remember what they are ...something something something PhD philosophy, feminist studies... poet...psychoanalisi... something something .... another book launch about to happen... something something ...style guru  )

some days everything just goes wrong ..............

( i should have taken heed when my cake was burnt on the outside and raw on the inside )

seriously..... erghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........ 

starts off ok.... until........ oooo no poverino ....

ear falls off ....plink...

antlers

..weirdly more difficult today than the little hands were ....?

 

shell casing head of clay...

can she get  any more ugly ?

 

 it appears so ....

yes

!

 

                                          errrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
                                          back to the drawing board ......................

                       !!!!!!*/////§°çç°§:§ç§°§°§°ç : MN;HGFGHSsgraaaaaaaaaach!!!!!!!!!!!

songs in the key ... part 2

so,
...where were we ........?

ah yes ........music clip,
"songs in the key." ..........puppet construction with eyeballs that are moveable within a very tiny constricted set with a big hairstyle over the open head surgery part....

first test: - solid clay head 

character :

female

insecty

victorian

big bug eyes

mid 20s-ish

sweet

creepy

threadbare

 

 

 

and so if anyone has any fantastic ideas about workable eyelids at this stage ...feel free to ...let me know ..!!!!!!!!

the little hands were weird...as I was making them they were wrapping creepily around my finger .... odd little life-signs coming out of cold wet clay.............................................................

now ...armature for the body ... proportions ... to head size .... I want the head quite big like a child's head is,    ... too big for the body ... a kind of innocence of character...

the wire is an aluminium armature stop motion wire from the UK, specifically designed for animation ... twisted to add strength with brass jointings that are tensioned for ample but restricted movement in tiny increments over a long period of time ...

the feet have joints and points for nut and bolt "tie offs" on the set so the puppet doesnt fall over from shot to shot .....

......

armature running off to Ingermaaike in Norway for a victorian felted body encasement ....

ahhhhhhhhhhh.............. if only it were that simple ............

:D