Last Weekend in Paris

Marche de Puce in Montreuil (FLEA MARKET OF MY DREAMS)

Crucial purchase of yellow skirt for gypsy vacation and waitress summer

Mid Body tank tops in four different colors from the Chinese Woman with a rat on her shoulder 

Needlepoint magic in the back of a truck

The Hatted Ones, vending their hats. 

KEVIN CURRAN'S NEW SKI FASHION LINE

That's my skirt Ya'll

More secret Flea Market embroidery

GOLD MINE!!!!!!!!

Audrey Curran and Melanie Curran in their past lives

Damn I wanna milkshake. Bagnolet Street Art. 

I'm having South of France beach fantasies. Therefore I made a collage. 

"Sound Painting" free jazz at Le Triton in Les Lilas

The man himself, my fake father Sinou. 

Just try not to think about Bilbo. 

Normal. Me trying to do homework on the ground. 

Medieval is the hardest word to spell, but the coolest world to see. 

Lil' Drawin of boys in New Orleans. (Lover Troy, Pedicab Mattheu, Diver Dave and Verti Marte Alex)

Damn dats old 

Sunflower corner altar in middle age cathedral

Confession Booth.

"I got drunk and I fell down."

"Forgiven."

Prettiest Oldest Things

Me, Melanie Curran, in Saint Benoit de Sault

Marble and Lion Holy Water Basin

Boar with Clarinet

After a large meal, three women talk about their husbands. 

Les Arbres devant le Chateau

This Tower is the only mid-evil part of the Chateau de Chenonceau. It was updated with some renaissance stylings. Now it is a gift shop! Diamond Branded!

My house sometime. 

Floor was faded except by the walls. 

Plants 

Roses

Where I live in Paris. (top floor left window)

Spaceship street art next to the horse meat store. 

Three ladies who play music together and harmonize really well.

The Four Garcons of Saturday afternoon. 

Inspiration

UNEXPECTED POETRY

I found this article on Yahoo.com about a sinkhole.
It was underneath a house in Tampa, Florida

"The entire house is on the sinkhole," Damico said.

Engineers arrived at the scene later in the morning and began working to get measurements of how wide and deep the sinkhole is. From the outside, there were no cracks or visible signs of damage to the home. The front door was open, but taped off.

Janell Wheeler told the Tampa Bay Times she was inside the house with four other adults, a child and two dogs when the sinkhole opened.

"It sounded like a car hit my house," she said.

It was dark. She remembered screams and one of her nephews rushing to rescue his brother, trapped in the debris.

Wheeler's house was condemned. The rest of the family went to a hotel but she stayed behind with her dog, sleeping in her car.

"I just want my nephew," she said through tears.

I'm struck by how the simple details come through in this piece:

The Entire house is on the sinkhole

four adults

a child

two dogs

It was Dark

The rest of the family went to a hotel

but she stayed behind to say,

through tears,

I just want my nephew.

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.