Lulu's Got the Blues

"Lulu Leloup was feeling blue. So blue that the wooden chair she was sitting on became ultramarine, the brick floor transformed into cerulean, and a white daisy on a vase had its petals turn all indigo. At noon the window panes shimmered and took on a sapphire tint. Soon blue Lulu Leloup was hungry. Look at what happened to the cherries she found in the fridge."

So goes part of my description for Basket of Blueberries, now for sale at my shop. This is not the first time Lulu is making her appearance.

Earlier, writing about my gingham apples: "The seamstress's daughter Lulu Leloup again skipped school. In the hills she ran into a queen in disguise and carrying a basket of apples, asking for directions to the seven dwarves' cottage. Lulu told the woman to chill out, buy a ticket for the fast train, and head to Brussels, where she can flirt with the Flemish while drinking great beer. First making sure that Lulu was not a princess in hiding, the old queen handed her the sole fruit not dipped in toad's piss and arsenic. Then the lonely widow made her way to the train station humming a Jacques Brel song."

I do like playing around with words and the images they conjure; and I am developing a fondness for the school-hating Lulu. I think we are going to see more of this girl!

Bloggity

Bloggers have been writing about my stuff in various places on the Internet, and for various reasons.

Life at 123 House blogged because she could not sleep.

Little Lovables did it because she was sad.

And the EcoEtsy Street Team was in it in the spirit of competition.

And I thought my products were just plain old cute.

Seriously, thank you, girls. This is sweet!

BREAKING NEWS! Hey, I just got word that today I'm in Cuteable too. Super sweet.

Sprung

Despite the cold winds blowing, spring is definitely here. My scilla is blooming, the leaves of the daylilies and iris are pushing, the fig and tamarisk trees are coming to life. After a full year of planting just whatever struck my fancy at the garden shop, last year I discovered the concept of dry gardens and Pépinière Filippi and finally took a clue. Now I stick to plants that will thrive in our alkaline soil, very hot summers, and the occasional but always maddening strong winds. I would like to boast and post photos of a wonderfully alive sort of Eden, but my garden is still a baby. It's just little points of green amidst an expanse of sandy earth right now. Instead I leave you with a photo of my latest lush plush:

Dreaming of Boats

After staring for long minutes at Ann Wood's boats, remembering that time I took three months off from the real world to live on an island far away, and how I always looked forward to riding a sailboat or an outrigger and delighted at getting splashed by salt sprays, yesterday I made these.

I love daydreams, don't you?

Post Card Playtime

One of the things I love about creative endeavors is that it allows us to do things just because we feel like doing it--no rules to it, no boss to tell us how to do it, no reason that we can give that will hold up to the inspection of the rest of the rational world.

This is why I fell in love with Etsy seller Annarubyking's Post Card Post Art Project. While the regular seller will take pains to assure that the card or print you are buying will arrive all bubble-wrapped, clean, crease-free, and ready for displaying in your living room, Anna tells you quite honestly that what you purchase will probably get to you a little bit damaged from its voyage--and that is part of what you are paying for. The girl is asking you to buy into her own little quirky trip. I was delighted by the idea!

So I bought Post Card No. 2 on 25 February. Anna told me she would send it off the next day. Yesterday, 1 March, there I was in my sewing room, making a fabric cuff while listening to the goddess Aretha Franklin belt out "Oh Happy Days" on my iPod, when my husband comes in and hands me a rectangle of paper--my postcard!
The front has mysterious specks of black all over the surface, and one of the stamps at the back is torn, but the post office delivered on this one. Look at all those stamps!
Meanwhile, I heard that Post Card No. 1, sent off many days before mine, had not yet made it to its European destination. I would like to imagine that right now it is inside a canvas bag being carried by a donkey which is in turn being led by a postman up and down isolated roads connecting remote villages in the foggy mountains of China.

Dolls!

It must have to do with that when I was a child, my sisters and I made paper dolls and assigned them lives, complete with high-power careers and furnished apartments, that up until now I have a fascination for these make-believe creatures. It was a happy surprise when I learned that an old friend, Cez Nunez-Uhing, is into doll-making these days; and when she sent me pictures of her creations, I just went, "Wow!" The details on her dolls are exquisite. Look:

Find the chicken!

Somebody needs to go on a diet...

Cez says that she began making her dolls because she couldn't stand having her son play with mass-produced toys that, according to her, "did not teach him a reverence for things." Her dolls are inspired by real people; in fact her first dolls were modelled after neighbors whom she describes as "chismoso" (rumor-mongering).

Her stuff is sold in stores in Manila and Tagaytay, in the Philippines; and she is setting up a doll shop in Sagada where she lives. I am not sure if she accepts orders from foreign countries, but if you are interested you can try. E-mail her at cezgroup@gmail.com. Otherwise, I think looking at photos of her works is pleasure enough.

Manila Art

The January vacation to my native Philippines is over, and I'm trying to get back into the groove of things. I'm still attempting to shake all the salt water out of the crevices of my brain and blink the tropical sunrays out of my retina. What I'm keeping for as long as they'll last are the creative energies I've managed to imbibe and which have hopefully lodged firmly in my right hemisphere.

To borrow from this article in The Daily Telegraph, the capital city of Manila has "a thriving visual arts scene." Now I did not do a whole lot of hobnobbing in the "scene," but I did have the pleasure of visiting some galleries and the homes of artist friends based in Manila and surrounding provinces.

There was a simple lunch of two kinds of noodles and puto over at the shared studio of John Santos and Pam Yan-Santos. It would be safe to say that John is one of the more succesful young painters in the country. Pam is a gifted printmaker; I have one of her works from when we were both just out of university. Now she is also beginning to work in oil. She showed me a catalog of her latest works, and I was really drawn to how she portrayed the minutiae of the feminine life. (When I'm rich, Pam, I'll fill one of my walls with your works!) It's a shame I have no pictures except for this:

L to R: John, Pam, and me

Then there was a weekend at the Zambales home of artists Plet Bolipata-Borlongan and Elmer Borlongan. My two nieces and I posed for a souvenir shot with Elmer in his studio. Shown in the photo below is a commissioned work that Elmer had just completed. The guy is so popular that the next canvasses he was going to attack were three works that the buyer had already been waiting a year and a half for!

Plet I snapped in her kitchen, making crème brûlée with the girls:
This, I think, is a fitting picture of her. Plet is a creative whirlwind--a painter, a mosaic artist, a knitter, recently a digital artist, and she was also the architect and interior decorator of their wonderful home, so you can say that the entire place is her creative playground.





Click here for a more complete story and great photos of this blue house.






It was on the whole a satisfying trip, except for a minor regret: A Filipino artist whose works I particularly admire is Geraldine Javier. I was disappointed to have only found out that she was having a show with the West Gallery on the day they were taking the paintings down. Now that I am back in France, I have to content myself with looking at her latest works only virtually.