Imagery

IMAGES FROM THE LAST WEEK OR TWO

Somewhere in the Forest before me, a woman reaches for a peacock

(Embroidery pictures sourced from book, American Denim: A New Folk Art)

Humps and Color, Lines and Weather

The Sun Machine

This girl's got the STY STY

When Metal was introduced into clothing, Women could exaggerate parts of their body 

without having to use layers and layers of heavy petticoats. 

Nowadays, I exaggerate parts of my soul by using layers and layers of multicultural fabric I find in boxes.

The Wood furniture of the Middle Ages and Renaissance holds the power of Generations.

Old Wood is a conductor of Old Stories. 

Le Musee des Arts Decoratifs.

Within it, there is a room designed to feel like the exterior of a coconut. There are couches made of mountain sheep wool atop bronze alligators and combs. Bamboo, soft light and the sumptuous pervade the sense of the exotic.

Sometimes, beautiful people walk past me and get imprinted in my notes

Sometimes, beautiful people sit next to me and we share the same craft.

les-miniatures.blogspot.fr

Days can feel like Spring, skin like red and green and black.

I have learned to sew straight and curving lines, which lend themselves well to letters.

This is my destiny. A family of camping supplies sourced from sharing neighbors sits by my bedroom door. I will bring only the essentials.

Au Vieux Campeur is my favorite store in Paris. The Sun is my favorite companion to dreaming. With the aid of both of them, I am ready for this:

In less than a week, I am beginning Le Chemin Saint Jacques de Compostelle *The Way of Saint James* from Le Puy en Velay to Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port. I will bear witness to the changes in myself and the land. Pilgrimage is a new concept to me. I take the journey out of a curiosity for the ancient and a desire to be closer to the magic of the countryside. 

Parisian Aesthetics and the Blue Jean Prt. 1

           

The Blue Jean and Other Icons

(or How Thread has Replaced Handwriting)

           Gustave Eiffel built le Tour Eiffel in 1889. He melted down all the cast iron pans in France and stuck them together with his bare hands. He worked only in the rain. After the tower’s completion, Gustave jumped off in a homemade Wing Suit made from the bodies of a thousand bats sewn together. He dies.

Héctor Guimard was the artist behind the Green entrances to the Paris Métropolitan.  His attention to continuity and natural forms inspired the aesthetic of turn of the century Paris. To achieve the look of the Métro entrances, he conspired with Lizards in Japan over 3 years. The reptiles were shipped to Paris wrapped in Silks of The Orient and began work on the structures. They were each given an ivory sewing needle and industrial strength embroidery thread to conduct their work.

            After the completion of the Métro entrances, the lizards we’re set free in Los Angeles, California. They crawled around denim factories and textile mills until Jim Morrison turned 19 in 1962. All the Lizards had the urge to return to the city of their iconic work. They crawled in Jim’s pants and rejoiced when he died in Paris. For they were free from their Dictator, the Self described King of their Species.

            There was an influx of Cafés immigrating to Paris from foreign lands. During the Art Nouveau movement, while the lizards sewed Portals, Cafés mulled around Monet’s flower fields. The ether of impressionism descended on the city, riding the backs of dead cattle heading to market. The Cafés were disguised in the clothing of beggars and the accouterments of the rich. The death of Proust’s Bourgeoisie prompted their insurgence into Parisian Culture.  They sauntered into buildings and claimed urban space for The Social betterment of Hungry Artists.

            After a while, it was obvious that the cafés were bound to win the long battle for creative space. Parks and Universities slumped through two world wars. With their mirrored walls and rituals, the cafés signed contracts with novelists and got famous. Ernest Hemingway sent them postcards from his sailboat.

            The blood of 19^th century revolutions had dried in Paris. Baudelaire got bored and invented Modernism after the Fleur De Lis went out of style. Melodrama and Spirutuality were on the fade out. Romanticism hung in attics, sewn into the bustles of beach holiday dresses and steel bolted corsets. Romance and Sensuality parted ways for a number of decades. The divorce between amorous love and physical pleasure turned the 1950’s into a petri-dish of orgasm retention and early marriages. When the Rolling Stones were banished from England, and Parisian girls were seducing their professors and their parent’s friends, America experienced a Blue Jean renaissance.

            Exile on Main Street was recorded a French basement in 1972 and marked the moment when Country Blues Rock and Roll was perfected by Non-Americans. The sound of having “the desert in one’s toenail” invaded the Levis of hundreds of thousands of young people.

            This was the 3^rd or 4^th decade of symbolizing youth rebellion through the wearing of blue jeans. Denim was loosing its edge. Culture was forced to re-write its relationship to adornment. The Rolling Stones had the capacity to be cowboys and David Bowie’s gender was on permanent vacation. Charles Manson had been a poet a few years ago.  In an era of increasing styles of identity, Jeans became a canvas for the imagination.

            Romance was reasserted with pinpricks and embroidery thread. Sensuality was translated into textile landscapes sewn onto thighs and asses of jeans. Denim, like paper, could carry the language of stories. The difference between letters and stiches faded. People wanted to look at something to know it. Culture gazed towards television screens for its stories. Clothing was being manufactured faster than ever. The game of Dress up was renewed. The Blue Jean, the fabric of American landscape, was a basis for patchwork, embroidery and appliqué. The versitilty and diversity of American Identity was leveled in in the cotton pill of pants. The Great American Novel was stretched to include the work of weavers.

            “Eventually, my shorts became my autobiography on Denim.” (73, American Denim)

            People young and old experienced Material as a second skin, as true and as effective a story telling medium as language. 

Four Color Related Poems

OKAY. All of these poems are sensual. 

                       Diamond Brand is trying a new Poetic technique wherein words are linked to colors which are linked to places on the body. Some Shongas call these "THE CHAKRAS". The Poems will work without spiritual belief. There is no need to think about what they are saying. The words work together to evoke memories in the body. A color poem works by being held where it hits. The “hitting” may not come from the page but from the back of the spine, or down from the heart, or early in the memory, or late in the humor. They are purely for your physical enjoyment. Some of them may feel uncomfortable, like wearing tight clothing or being nervous. They are designed that way. Others may feel too good or too ripe. You might need to have an orgasm. That is okay. Do you want to rub your body on surfaces after reading the poems? The part of your body that you want to rub is the part activated bywords. Words have a physical element, and these poems are hand sounded to stimulate. 

RED (GROIN, DUH)

Sex Driver, Whisper monger

Groan

Deep lizard lover

Hover closer

Loin peeler

Meat taster

Whine courses of thrust horse

To my teeth wench

Eat harder

Eat harder

Vervain stick sucker

Reaming broil brittle

Scald mellow, I trust you, faster.

BLUE/SEAFOAM (ABILITY TO SPEAK/THROAT)

Denim on coral

Like linen on forearms

We search for diamonds in rocks at the sea

We succumb to combing

To calories

To yarrow

We earn our keep

In loitering

In hovering

O’er shells

Oh Morgans and Daphnes

Petunia our strength

We forage

For fortune

Our courage

Works tidal

Denim on corral

Our diamonds to keep

GREEN

ALLIGATOR SHIT

(TO BE READ ALOUD WITH YOUR STOMACH MUSCLES CLENCHED AND YOUR HEART ALERT)

There is an algae vision of winter glow

And a muscle memory to swiping credit

We heard you were going now

To see your aunt and mother

In a fabric factory

Where linen tastes like celluiod, silk tastes like lime

Where acrylic is too young to be worn

Where syntax is expensive and the devil

Sings midnight on the Jungle Lane

We heard you were going to meet the Violet Princess

With a sensitive ring finger and tight sixth sense

Please tell her we’re craving

A little backgammon tonight

We can rip a picture of Julius Ceasar

And fondle our childhoods with nylon and wire

We will have to get together whenever we can

To visit and clench

And puncture the sinews again

Before the collision sunset hints lust

And dangles twilight

Over the windows

Over dust

PURPLE (Highest consciousness… TOP OF YOUR HEAD)

(JANIS JOPLIN’S HOUSE)

Hello Soldier

Just dreaming of the chamber?

Of earning turkey with silence?

Of quiet penance born?

Where do roses hang their torture?

Where do poets aim their hams?

Reach under your bedclothes, and hunger

For a moment, linger

Touch November there

French your season

For no tender sister fair would wallow without reason

Handle gropes of slumber, rouge, tinder, volume

See matter as you hallow it

Harlot, sinking or violet

Dazzle us

Orifices of tigerlily

Fragrant nasturtium

Inventor of cream machinery, oh take me,

Quench me slowly in ringlet matrimony

When you leave touch everything

Lick the curtains and velour

Pour out your shoulders with temptation

Plunge forward through the milk

Spray long water on the hardwood

And curdle,

Please bridal, idle, a little longer

Double candle, taste the silver

suck the metal

On the door

THINK WITH YOUR BODY