My Inspiration for October 2020

One more wonderful crimson and yellow October is gone, and woe is me, for what good can November bring? It’s the doorway to dark months of misery and grey skies. This month I really enjoyed pondering on different aspects of autumn, the bright, vibrant and groovy autumn as painted in George Bellows’ painting “Autumn Romance” and the more grey, drearier side of autumn which makes one melancholy. I’ve been daydreaming about the Symbolists, both poets and painters, Bruges and dead girls in art, the gorgeous Marine Vacth in the film “Jeune et Jolie” (2013) and the film Beau Pere (1981), Nietzsche’s poetry was a new discovery for the this month.

“I think the most courageous thing to do today is to conquer ourselves from within—not blaming others.”

(Anaïs Nn, from The Diaries of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 7: 1966-1974)

“Romantic obsession is my first language. I live in a world of fantasies, infatuations and love poems. Sometimes I wonder if the yearning I’ve felt for others was more of a yearning for yearning itself. I’ve pined insatiably and repeatedly: for strangers, new lovers, unrequited flames. While the subjects changed, that feeling always remained. Perhaps, then, I have not been so infatuated with the people themselves, but with the act of longing.”

(Melissa Broder, from “Life without Longing”) 

Just Married – Peter Lindbergh

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By @liberty.mai on Instagram.

by  liz west.

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Fashion Inspiration for Autumn 2020 II

Awhile ago I made a post about my fashion inspiration for autumn and well, I found many more pretty pictures that I thought I’d share and here we are!

Pictures above are by Petra Collins.

Tavi Gevinson.

Picture by Laura Makabresku

Two pictures above by Natalia Drepina

My Inspiration for September 2020

This was a very romantic month for me, and I don’t just mean the feeling of being in love, but that “romantic aesthetic”; roses and candles, sounds of Tindersticks and Nick Cave in dusk of a dying day, enjoying every moment passionately because I am aware that summer is dead and sunny days are no more. The air is laced with a certain sadness and a sense of transience which fuels nostalgic thoughts. It’s time of the year for Romanticism, Rilke, Poe and Pre-Raphaelites. This month I read two books by Charles Bukowski in a row and they both equally amused me: “Post-Office” and “Factotum”, I also read Bret Easton Ellis’ novel “Imperial Bedrooms” which is a sequel for his debut novel “Less Than Zero”, I found it equally as disturbing as “Less Than Zero”. I also read a book about animal rights called “Impeachment of Man” by Savitri Devi which chimed with my thoughts well and it gave me great joy to read my thoughts on paper. I try to shut myself from the stupidity of the world and “cultivate my own garden”, as Voltaire suggested, and oh my, what beautiful, fragrant flowers can bloom when we don’t allow the outside world to poison us!

“A wild longing for strong emotions and sensations seethes in me, a rage against this toneless, flat, normal and sterile life. I have a mad impulse to smash something, a warehouse, perhaps, or a cathedral, or myself.”

(Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf)

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제목 없음 by vikkyivie on Flickr.

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Photo by Laura Makabresku

By Clémentine Circaetis / (surreal blog)

Yuliyart

Back Yard

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By ischta__

My Inspiration for August 2020

This August I was in a very Japanese mood because I was reading Arthur Golden’s novel Memoirs of a Geisha which was very beautiful and also very sad, though I certainly enjoyed learning about Japanese culture and the world of geishas. I was also in a fairy tale mood and I spent many joyous moments gazing at Felicitas Kuhn’s illustrations of fairy tales such as Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty and it was a feast for my eyes. I also read Rollo May’s book Man’s Search for Himself which was an amazing read and I really recommend it! I enjoyed Philip Wilson Steer’s vibrant beach scenes and painting of the sea by other painters as well, architecture of Kyoto and night life of Tokyo with neon lights and loneliness, Ukiyo-e prints and vibrant kimono. I’d really love to mention two great films I watched; The Vanishing (1993) which was recommended to me by a very dear person and it was both chilling and sad at once and I know it will linger in my memory, and Orphan (2009) which I’ve wanted to see for a long time. As much as I love Esther’s lovely doll-like costumes, I was speechless at just how cruel and wicked she is, hiding her true self under a charming and polite exterior. To end, I’d like to quote David Icke quoting the verses from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “The Mask of Anarchy” at his Unite for Freedom rally in London the other day:

“Rise like Lions after slumber

 In unvanquishable number—

 Shake your chains to earth like dew

 Which in sleep had fallen on you

— Ye are many—they are few.”

Scotney Castle, Kent, England via national trust

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San Marino by Daniele Rossi.

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Bat Necklace by CuriousBurrow

 

Bath, UK. Pic found here.

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Scan 72 (by Baggerss)

Miss Patina

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Night in Tokyo, pic found here.

Gansen-ji, Kyoto / Japan (by Patrick Vierthaler).

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Memento Mori dress, found here.

My Inspiration for July 2020

I felt super inspired this July and I read some amazing books; Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin (I watched the film years ago, of course, but now I wanted to read the book too), The Secret History by Donna Tartt which really amazed me, Sex, Art and American Culture; a collection of essays by Camille Paglia which I enjoyed immensely because Paglia is brilliant, original, straightforward, she always penetrates to the core of things and always says what she means and isn’t afraid of being disliked, and those are some qualities I admire, and so consequently her writing is the same. She won’t sugarcoat anything for you, she writes it as it is. And lastly, I read Torn Apart: Life of Ian Curtis by Mick Meddles and Lindsey Reade which gave a fascinating insight into the life of the band and life of Ian, it was poignant and sad, but in a catharsis way. I had already read Deborah Curtis’s Touching From the Distance, but I feel that her vision was somewhat clouded by jealousies and bitterness, so Torn Apart seemed more sincere and more objective. Then I had to watch Control (2007) again and listen to Joy Division, hearing every lyric and sound in a fresh and exciting way. Also, it being the month of Reinaldo Arenas’s birthday, my thought drifted to him as well and here is something he said that I liked: “Mine is not an obedient writing. I think that literature as any art has to be irreverent.”

“Edmund was your friend. I too am very sorry that he is dead. But I think you are grieving yourselves sick over this, and not only does that not help him, it hurts you. And besides, is death really so terrible a thing? It seems terrible to you, because you are young, but who is to say he is not better off now than you are? Or – if death is a journey to another place – that you will not see him again? …. It does not do to be frightened of things about which you know nothing,’ he said. ‘You are like children. Afraid of the dark.” (The Secret History)

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Picture found here.butterfly by zaiko.monster on Flickr.

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Tea & Cats Dress from annyamarttinen

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Picture by Laura Makabresku.

John Corbet, The Tower

Picture by Laura Makabresku

Drawing by Virginia Mori, found here.

Girl with a pink aureola, by John Corbet

By: Joe Pickard | josephowen

My Inspiration for June 2020

The thing that gave me the most excitement this June were the books that I’ve read and am still reading; “Stepford Wives” by Ira Levin; simple manner in which the novel was written hides the deeper, haunting themes and it left me thinking and pondering, then Stephen King’s “Carrie” which was as amazing as I had expected and I found that I could relate to Carrie as an outsider and a weirdo in high school, and I am still reading a novel which seduced me from page one; John Fowles’s “The Collector” published in 1963, about a socially awkward guy who collects butterflies and one day kidnaps a girl he’d spent time admiring from afar, wildly enthusiastically hoping that she would then see his good side and fall in love with him, which you can imagine doesn’t quite happen. I’ve read a few interviews with Bret Easton Ellis which sparked my interest in his work again. Visually speaking, the landscape of my imagination was haunted by outdoor scenes of flowers and leisure, Frieseke’s magical garden scenes, paintings of rosy cheeked girls by Robert Henri, Charles Burchfield’s poetic decay, Prendergast’s delightful watercolours of ladies in parks, with elegant parasols and hats.

“Feelings aren’t facts and opinions aren’t crimes and aesthetics still count—and the reason I’m a writer is to present an aesthetic, things that are true without always having to be factual or immutable.”

(Bret Easton Ellis)

“Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.

(Adam Zagajewski, from “Try to Praise the Mutilated World”)

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Catherine Deneuve in UK filming 1965 British psychological horror Repulsion, London, Friday 2nd October 1964. Photo by Wilson.

Model and actress Ingrid Boulting, London, UK, February 1968, Photo by Hilaria McCarthy/Daily Express.

chrysanthemum by keika hasegawa

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My Inspiration for May 2020

The May was the sweetest month ever for me! Well, probably not ever, for I have had wonderful months of May before, but this one certainly had a sweet charm for me and the days passed by as in a dream, each one lovelier than the previous one, spent in writing, daydreaming and being in love with love and everything. I had much fun reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Grace Metalious’s novel “Peyton Place” which focuses on the life of a small conservative town in New England and it’s just fun to read about people doing the same things as we are now back in 1939; people were always people. I’ve really enjoyed the colours and mood of paintings by Marie Laurencin and John Constable’s studies of clouds of which I have also written. May is such a lovely, sweet, pink, flowery month that it should last double the days, to prolong the sweet, spring idleness…

“They could not in the self-same mansion dwell

Without some stir of heart, some malady;

They could not sit at meals but feel how well

It soothed each to be the other by;

They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep

But to each other dream, and nightly weep.

With every morn their love grew tenderer,

With every eve deeper and tenderer still…”

(John Keats, Isabella or the Pot of Basil)

 

Bamford Edge, England – by Jonny Joyce

Haddon Hall, Derbyshire, England by BlueSky_s

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Celestial | by ericaelizabethprettythings

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Photo by Josep Castells on Unsplash

by Sappho

Flowers, picture found here.

Two pics above found here.

Macias Lippman “La jeune fille “

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My Inspiration for April 2020

I spent this April in thoughts of love, leisure and pleasure; partly dues to rereading parts of Milan Kundera’s novel “Slowness” and daydreaming about Fragonard’s series “The Progress of Love”. I daydreamed about all the places for leisure and reverie: parks, promenades, woods, ponds with water lilies, forest groves, meadows… I also enjoyed moments in nature, listening to birds, the river, picking flowers, and also connecting it to the artworks of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists where nature is beautifully portrayed. I listened to John Lennon’s song “Nobody Told Me” a lot this month and it seems fitting for these strange days:

“Everybody’s talking and no one says a word
Everybody’s making love and no one really cares….

Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Nobody told me there’d be days like these
Strange days indeed — strange days indeed”

Another joy these days was sitting on my windowsill in sunset, sounds of rain mingling with passionate Chopin’s Nocturnes, inhaling fresh green air of April and gazing at the greenness  I read a beautiful short story collection “Downfall and Other Stories” by Fumiko Hayashi and there will be a review coming soon… The painting of the month was surely a beautiful portrait of a girl with a hat called “Hommage a Renoir” by John Corbet, the colours and the mood touched the strings of my heart. I watched a beautiful Lolitaesque French film “Beau Pere” (1981) about a melancholy pianist whose step-daughter falls in love with him after her mother dies.

“I am a mistake, a ghost.”

(Jorge Luis Borges, from Labyrinths; “The Garden of Forking Paths”)

“To spend a life in dreams, that sounded too lovely.”

(Gillian Flynn “Sharp Objects”)

Pic by Baie.

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333/365 Copenhagen lamps by M. Klasan on Flickr.

Photography by Xuebing Du

Nowy Sącz, Poland, 9 Konarskiego St. house built in 1909, architect: Zenon Adam Remi, taken on 18 April 2017.

Photography by Xuebing Du

untitled by 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong on Flickr.

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Photo by Stefany Alves.

Richey James Edwards, of Welsh alternative rock group the Manic Street Preachers, Bangkok, Thailand, 27th April 1994. Photo by Kevin Cummins

golden poppy field & poppies over Lancing by Emma Varley

John Corbet, Hommage à Renoir, watercolour on paper, 2020

Beau Pere (1981)

My Inspiration for March 2020

This March I read Jean Genet’s “Our Lady of the Flowers” and it was something completely new and fascinating, thieves and drag queens, prison and murders, the way it was written was just very fun and interesting which goes to show that in most cases the style of writing is more important than the topic itself. Blooming trees, water lilies, vibrant red and snow white, moss coated branches, Lolita dresses influenced by traditional Japanese clothes, busy Japanese streets versus the beauty of peaceful zen gardens all served to distract me from the gloom all around me.

“In those days I was tormented by yet another circumstance: the fact nobody resembled me and I didn’t resemble anyone. ‘I am one and they are everyone’, I thought ‑ and sank deep into thought.”

(Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground)

Bath, UK (by Craig Atkinson)

By maomao.feng.

Two pictures above found here.

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Los Angeles, pic found here.

My Inspiration for December 2019

Pierrots, carnivals, dreams, Chagall’s blue, his love and his lovers, Chet Baker’s melancholy jazz… I reread Patti Smith’s book “Just Kids” and watched the film about Morrissey “England is Mine” (2016) and both deal with the artist’s struggles on the way to fame and both of them comforted me and reminded me of what my values have been since the first time I felt like I want to create, and it made me inspired and that is all one needs from time to time, a dose of inspiration. I feel very optimistic about 2020 for some reason. We’ll see what I have to say at the end of it…. A new year, like a new white sheet of paper with no ink blots, no mistakes, no regrets, no what if-s… And an infinity of Beauty and ecstasy and joy to fill the page with. I hope to paint more, love more, discover more things, feel the nature more deeply, practice the art of indolence more persistently, steal more flowers from my neighbours’ gardens, read some fantastic books, defeat some of my fears and anxieties, and I wish the best 2020 to all of my readers too!

“The trees you planted in childhood have grown too heavy. You cannot bring them along. Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.”

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Part One IV, from “Sonnets to Orpheus”)

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Warsaw, Poland (by Greg Weeks)

Harlem, New York City – May 17th, 2019, Instagram: @matthewgrantanson

 

By Stefany Alves

 

The Smiths – The Queen is Dead (1986)by Arthur Viera