Ella Rose Muse: the story: Paint, Feet, Magalazine Cover!

Monday 10 September 2012

Paint, Feet, Magalazine Cover!

Sorry for being a bit quiet - things are a bit crazy in my personal world at the moment with a massive upheaval caused by having to very reluctantly remove myself from a situation I've been in for 8-and-a-bit years (my entire adult life thus far), and I think I need to clamp my head together to keep all my thoughts from spinning off in different directions. Incredibly annoying to find that I can't harness myself into writing at the moment, having put aside time especially; seems I'm best at writing when things are peaceful, not dramatic, and otherwise I have the attention span of a self-doubting, mourning-for-something-that-seems-only-to-have-existed-in-my-head-anyway hamster.

To 'make up' for this, I have been buying myself jewellery and being frivolous; spending more on one piece (vintage, rubies, pearls; rose gold being my weakness) than I ever have before. I really want to buy myself a ring next, but we shall see (and currently the ring I want does not exist). I actually rang my Mum from the shop (a little place in Oxford which makes me very happy) for reassurance, asking if I was mad to be spending so much on the very opposite of what I'd gone in for (I went in hoping to find a silver/white gold SIMPLE pendant), and she said it was fine... haha... and that at the very least, gold was an investment... (And I remember my old painter friend telling me gold was the way forward, not that I'll be buying any big chunks any time soon!!) so obviously my little burst of jewellery buying was highly rational and clever... Jewellery has always been very meaningful and emotionally important for me, especially when either inherited, or 'worn before'... or bought for me... or bought as a gift for myself... who am I kidding - I just love it. And I don't really shop very often. (There I go again attempting to justify my splurge!).

Anyway, this is my personal blog, so I can write what I want, but while the urge to express upset and rantings is one I can definitely identify with, I always find it a bit of a shame when people bare their souls online/on facebook etc rather than among friends in person. So, here are some updates I should have posted a while ago, from my 'to blog' folder.

First, a painting by Kristian Mumford, recently shown at the Loreto Art Exhibition, 113x78 oil on linen (courtesy of John Evans, who photographed the original image in a crumbling mansion):

By Holly at Jewelled World, yet another book cover featuring... well, my feet again. Haha. It amuses me greatly that my little tattoo seems not to have been edited out by the relevant department at the publishing house; the absolute testament to the fact that no one ever notices it. I will have to see this in real life to be sure. Well done Holly!

Finally, my mug on the cover of Digital Camera Magazine recently, shot by a competition-winning reader up in Manchester. We had a great day; there were lots of sets and beautiful images made that I really wish I could have seen finished versions of after the shoot, but trust me that there were some absolute beauties! My hair and make up was stunning, I thought, and done by Zan, who was excellent!

I've also been told I'm featured in a book out at the moment, 'Practical Photoshop: Creative Projects'. Someone spotted it in WHSmith for me (thank you!), so I emailed the editor and he's kindly sending me a copy. I've got some lovely shots in waiting which I'll be excited to show soon, but bear with me if I do disappear for a little while. Thanks for reading!

Walter De La Mare, 'The Listeners'

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Natasha Khan/Bat for Lashes, 'Horse and I'

Got woken in the night,
by a mystic golden light.
My head soaked in river water.
I had been dressed in a coat of armor. They called
a horse out of the woodland.
"Take her there, through the desert shores."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear.
You're the chosen one, there's no turning back now."

The smell of redwood giants.
The banquet for the shadows.
Horse and I, we're dancers in the dark.
Came upon the headdress.
It was gilded, dark and golden.
The children sang.
I was so afraid I took it to my head and prayed.
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."
They sang to me, "This is yours to wear. You're the chosen one, there's no turning back."

Mark Doty, 'A Display of Mackerel'

They lie in parallel rows,

on ice, head to tail,

each a foot of luminosity

barred with black bands,

which divide the scales’

radiant sections

like seams of lead

in a Tiffany window.

Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,

the wildly rainbowed

mirror of a soapbubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.

Splendor, and splendor,

and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other

—nothing about them

of individuality. Instead

they’re all exact expressions

of the one soul,

each a perfect fulfilment

of heaven’s template,

mackerel essence. As if,

after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler’s

made uncountable examples,

each as intricate

in its oily fabulation

as the one before

Suppose we could iridesce,

like these, and lose ourselves

entirely in the universe

of shimmer—would you want

to be yourself only,

unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They’d prefer,

plainly, to be flashing participants,

multitudinous. Even now

they seem to be bolting

forward, heedless of stasis.

They don’t care they’re dead

and nearly frozen,

just as, presumably,

they didn’t care that they were living:

all, all for all,

the rainbowed school

and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,

or every one is. How happy they seem,

even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

Kate Clanchy, 'Poem for a Man with No Sense of Smell'

This is simply to inform you:

that the thickest line in the kink of my hand
smells like the feel of an old school desk,
the deep carved names worn sleek with sweat;

that beneath the spray of my expensive scent
my armpits sound a bass note strong
as the boom of a palm on a kettle drum;

that the wet flush of my fear is sharp
as the taste of an iron pipe, midwinter,
on a child's hot tongue; and that sometimes,

in a breeze, the delicate hairs on the nape
of my neck, just where you might bend
your head, might hesitate and brush your lips,

hold a scent frail and precise as a fleet
of tiny origami ships, just setting out to sea.

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Monday 10 September 2012

Paint, Feet, Magalazine Cover!