The Art of Victorian Photocollage

Sixty years ahead of the avant-garde, aristocratic Victorian women were already experimenting with photocollage. The compositions they made with photographs and watercolors are whimsical and fantastical, combining human heads and animal bodies, placing people into imaginary landscapes, and morphing faces into common household objects. With sharp wit and dramatic shifts of scale akin to those Alice experienced in Wonderland, these images stand the rather serious conventions of photography in the 1860s and 1870s on their heads.--from Playing with Pictures, Art Institute of Chicago

So sorry that we missed this 2010 exhibit (curated by Elizabeth Siegel) but were reminded of it this morning on Retronauts. Read a review of Playing With Pictures in the New York Times. Not all bunnies & hearts, those Victorians.

ciao-meow/the Management

(photographs via Retronaut)

Greek Wildflowers for Earth Day

A quick collage for our readers. Still under storm threats & therefore computer meltdown. These are from Santorini & Crete; the basilica in the center is in Oia, Santorini. We didn't have the advantages of digital cameras & fancy stuff...so decidedly amateurish. But that can be charming (we tell ourselves...)

a ciao-green-meow/GGCM

Felinity, Part II

More charming illustrations from our Italian book....see here for part one. Computer troubles again.

ciao-meow/GG

Felinity

Well, the book to which we refer is titled Giochi per gatti di casa (Games for house cats) by Rita Persichini & it was a gift from our friend Maria Caterina di Perugia. Here are some of the darling original illustrations by Lorena Dominici. We keep the book propped up on one of the bookshelves...not that many people notice; there's quite a mash-up on those shelves. But someone noticed recently & GG immediately started to show off her silly ability...she didn't need the book, of course. It's just for our amusement. For lots o' cat drawings (& other art), visit Small Expectations. We do every day.

ciao-meow,
GG/mgmt

(images in the collage via scan; we've searched high & low for a way to give credit where it's due. The booklet was published in December 1996 & says "Copyright MCS editore, Perugia."

Tagged: Seven Random Things...

Lovely Tina of The English Muse has tagged GG's editor for this...& of course she also tagged others that we would. So we may do that later. For the record they are: automatism, A Cup of Jo, The Clever Pup has already done hers, Hidden in France, Small Expectations, oh everyone on the right side of this site (except the White House blog:) baci, bisou, xo

We (must continue with this conceit, sorry)...

1. ...have never had a driver's license
2. ...have been newspaper & magazine crazy since very, very young
3.....wear our maternal grandfather's Liberty of London paisley silk scarf from WWII-era London
4.....gluestick all ticket stubs, fortune cookie slips, other effluvia into daily agenda book. 15+ years of them.
5.....keep fairy lights up around apartment's large picture window
6.....carry an old French centime in our coin purse...given for good luck by stranger in North Africa
7.....write drafts long-hand with a fountain pen

Random collage of personal scanned photos on desk waiting to be used for something, except for the Olivetti Lettera 22 (which we had but no longer, alas) & that is by Peter Lindberg.

Cat Carnevale - Week's End

Our friend Maria Caterina di Perugia went to the Festa del Gatto in 2004 (in Perugia, of course!) when she was attending the language school there. These images are from the brochure/schedule that always makes us smile. Maria di P. brought us a lovely original watercolor of a family of gatti rossi (red cats) from an art gallery, the name of which escapes us at the moment. The painting still requires a frame; we'll wait until it can be done properly at our favorite framing shop.

Here is a fun link to the Gatto-Web site (it's amusing even if you don't read Italian). Here's Perugia's official site; we can't find a mention of this year's festa (there are gatto festivals in other Italian cities, particularly Florence & Rome), but perhaps you can. Our head hurts from too much Googling with dial-up. This is a tie-in to Carnevale, ongoing. (Also called Fasching in German-speaking countries.) Can you imagine how wild Venice is right now? Yikes. Michelle Fabio of Bleeding Espresso has a Carnevale in Venice article in Italy Magazine (UK), here.

The "Cubista" kitty painting above does not have a title (on the brochure, anyway); the other painting is Il gatto, la luna, le stelle ("Cat, moon, stars"); both paintings are by Valentina Trona. Bella! The photograph of the person in the maschera is uncredited, however the brochure was created by Umberto Frascione & Rita Persichini for Il Comitato della Festa del Gatto di Perugia. That's some committee name, huh?

Tina Daunt, columnist of the L.A. Times' Cause Celebre has a pre-Awards column on the documentaries, here. Typical of a Washingtonian, Giulia's editor has seen all but one. Hey, free screenings:) In Tina's other life, today her charming The English Muse blog features a gorgeous rose dress photograph about which we are fantasizing. More about Tina & her blog in the future. As everyone knows, GG looks fabulous every day in her version of the LBD (only it's red/orange & white, accessorized by a rose-pink nose.)

ciao-festa-meow!
GG's stylist

Scenes from We Are One concert

Pete is singing This Land, right now. Here are some photos of Bruce, Queen L., & Jack Black (is he excited or what?!) for now. Go to David Katz/Presidential Inaugural Committee's flickrstream for more shortly.

Ciao-meow & love to all from Washington, DC!
xoxo, GG & her editor

(Kevin Mazur/Courtesy of HBO via image.net)

Inaugural Countdown: Sunday Scenes

(Photographs by David Katz/Presidential Inaugural Committee)
GG collage

Lincoln Memorial Inauguration Concert

The Presidential Inaugural Committee is doing an amazing job. Some photographs of yesterday's rehearsal for today's We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Go here for the flickr set. If you don't have HBO, watch online if you have a good connection. If not, WAMU-FM & other NPR stations will broadcast live, online, & regular ol' radios. It's too cold for GG & her editor, so we'll be listening at home.

Update: Go here if you suddenly decide you must be there. But it's very late for it.

The Boss has come a long way from playing free concerts at American U. Go Bruce! (Doesn't Pete Seeger look snappy in his arancia-colored jacket & cool cap?) See Bono's close-cropped head--hey, put on a hat, silly! Other folks are so (wisely) bundled up that it's not easy to tell identity. We can't find Stevie in the shots but he will be there today: signed, sealed, delivered:)

ciao-meow & go Steelers!
GG Inauguration & Sports Central

(photographs by David Katz/Presidential Inaugural Committee/GG collage)

Moreau inspiration

Speaking of Jeanne Moreau (we were, here). Update - also on GG's editor's site, here.

Baci, ciao-meow, GG

(Scanned from treasured Vogue Italia, Ottobre 2003. Cinema Stills photostory, Steven Meisel/collage by GG)

Michelle & Barack Paper Dolls

Oh, calm down. Have a little fun. These are probably all over the web by now. There's really good Inaugural clip art for students, writers, bloggers, & anyone else. And that's coming up this week. But for now, here are those cute paper dolls. Make your own clothes (it's cold here in DC, & the Obama family has just arrived so make some nice winter accessories). Good luck to the girls on their first day of school today!

ciao-meow,
GG Central

Dr. Zhivago style

Oh we're not nostalgic for revolution, dying, & starvation. No, no. We have to read & write about that all of the time. No, the film is on our local PBS station tonight. So we've been thinking about how cozy the clothing looks (if one is not a freezing peasant...an important point).

We've been in need of a winter hat for a few years & this elegant headband from Pipsqueak Chapeau Etc caught our eye some time ago. It would do nicely in place of the big-fur hatted look in Zhivago. We miss our brown suede shearling-cuffed Lara coat from Strasbourg. Nostalgia for cozy dark velvets, embroidery, gorgeous jewellry (you can fake it) & scarves.

Hoping for a white Christmas but pretty sure it's not in the cards...

bisou,
GG's cold-eared editor