07.14.11
I posted this photo to Facebook this morning and a friend asked: Jodi, how do you stay so young [looking]? I tossed off a quick facebooky answer but have been thinking about this excellent question all morning. First of all: I’m as old as the rest of you! I have wrinkles and lines, and a chicken waddle that makes me wish I liked turtlenecks (HATE them). My metabolism is sluggish, my joints ache, I go to bed way too early, &tc, &tc. All of that established, here is a more thoughtful answer (and this is really personal, not a prescription… this is sort of me talking to me, if you will), and it really has nothing to do with putting a lot of weird colors in one’s hair, although that can be a fun diversion, no doubt. In no particular order:
1. Learn something every single day.
2. Have sadness, anger, frustration, grief but don’t let them have you.
3. Break a sweat, daily if possible and stay hydrated.
4. Vegetarianism and foods as close to their natural state as possible. Favorite pleasure/junk food(s) occasionally!
5. Rock ‘n roll music (or insert your choice of tunes here).
6. Forgive your parents, your ex’s, your kids and YOURSELF. And I mean really forgive, no matter what. This does NOT mean condone.
7. Be an expert at: Looking backward, treading water, moving forward. Cycle thru each mode many times daily.
8. Gratitude. For every little thing and every big thing. Freedom. Fresh food. Choices. Toothpaste. Loved ones.
9. Face cream, a good haircut, good dentistry.
10. Wear something a little outside your comfort zone, stylistically.
11. Choose your life every day and take full-on responsibility for the results you are (or are not) producing.
12. Have a young person in your life. Respect that they may well be smarter than you’ll ever be. Listen to their music when they offer, even if you don’t like it much. Ask them for fashion advice but don’t always heed.
13. Ask for help when you need it and find an expert. Give help when asked.
14. Have no expectations and thus, no disappointments. And, good luck with this!
15. Fail. Try again. Repeat.
16. Be the best and the worst at something (anything) and laugh at yourself for both.
17. Laugh. If you can’t make yourself laugh, surround yourself with very funny people.
18. Be high-tech and low-tech.
19. Fall in love with a cat, dog, horse, cow, chicken. Spend time daily adoring this creature and spend at least a few of those minutes really trying to see the world through their eyes.
20. Go outside. Notice things. A bug. A building. Shift your focus between large and small.
21. Try a week of saying yes to everything you are asked of others. If you can’t say yes, renegotiate so that the other person is satisfied.
22. Fight the good fight, and don’t let it make you old. Let it keep you young.
23. Even during the worst day, find joy in something(s). If you can’t, make sure you do so tomorrow, non-negotiable.
24. Consider harmlessness.
25. Be childish, once daily at least but NOT when you should be being adult!
26. Realize that some of these ideas might become part of your life immediately, others take a lifetime to master. Fall off the wagon and jump back on.
26. Excellent posture! No slouching or hunching. Shoulders back, open your heart to the world!
28. Open heart, open mind.
Anything you want to add? Please do! I’d love to know what keeps YOU young.
Subject: Blog, Uncategorizable | 3 Comments »
07.13.11
Oddly, I seem to be on a Mediterranean kick this week, even though the theme of this post is variety… especially regarding salads. I’m the only one in our family of 3 eating this way, and I just can’t get to the grocery more than once per week. This leaves me combining some of the same things in different ways in order to not be tossing out piles of rotten veggies, yet I don’t get bored if I vary it enough.
Today’s lunch salad seems easy enough right? But the secret to making this especially flavorful and not just your lettuce/tomato kinda thing is the addition of two ingredients. First, feta cheese, allowed on Phase one, and so tangy and yummy. Keep a variety of cheeses on hand, always buying low fat if available. Second, chick peas, canned variety, which will last pretty long in their packing juice in your fridge. Chick peas add a different texture AND, very importantly, another boost of protein.
Of course there are endless varieties with this… add some sliced black olives (sorry, I hate them) or some sliced veggie pepperoni (YUM!). Try arugula (you can buy it washed and bagged now) or fresh spinach. Anything goes, just try to consider complimentary ingredients and remember that variety is really key. Mix it up to dazzle your tastebuds.
I like to keep several bottles of tasty low-fat olive oil-based dressings on hand for variety’s sake too. Don’t forget the fresh ground pepper! Bon appetite!
Subject: Blog, Uncategorizable | 3 Comments »
07.12.11
This is my second time using the South Beach Diet as a vegetarian, and I’m feeling so great about it that I thought it’d be fun to share some ideas for success.
First of all, don’t let the name fool ya. I know, they all say this, but SB is less a diet and more a way to eat. I think it is about the best, most healthful, practical, delicious and easiest way to go to lose a little or a lot of weight, and to keep it off. If you are not familiar with this system, buy the book and READ it. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but the more info you have, the better. The main take away is: maintaining a MUCH more even blood sugar level. And how this is done is by eating only the right carbs & fats, and in reasonable amounts. IE: goodbye refined, white foods.
Second, come on people… it has nothing to do with South Beach! You know me, I’d rather hang out in the Mission District in San Francisco or the East Village in NY, than South Beach in Miami… any day of the week. This is about looking good, yes, but also feeling good (make that great) and being super healthy, nutritionally.
Phase 1 of the diet itself is strict and you will eat no carbs except those found in the allowed foods. Yep, it’s tough. The first few days can be really tough. But you’ll get through it and you will lose 8-13 lbs without being hungry. This phase is designed to boost your weight loss, but even more importantly, to put an end to the cravings for blood sugar spikes produced by super high-carb refined foods. It’s only two weeks, and it is worth it.
Now, being a vegetarian is an even greater challenge to some extent and there just isn’t much out there on creatively adapting this way of eating. Welcome to this and hopefully many more posts!
My lunch today, above, was truly delicious. I’m full, satisfied and not spiking/crashing from carbs. The secret to this one is BAKING some of the vegetables so that they get a little crispy. Any sanctioned Phase 1 veg will do, I used summer squashes (green and yellow) and two different varieties of ‘shrooms, including those weird curly ones, which are DELISH!
Preheat oven to 425. Lightly spray baking pan with olive oil spray. (NOTE: the olive oil, a good fat, plays a role here, so don’t eliminate it). Slice veggies thin, about 1/16-1/8 inch. Not too thin or they’ll burn, not too thick or they’ll stay soft. Spread on pan and give a very light spray of olive oil on top of them. Sprinkle with ANY seasonings… even just salt/pepper. But also try bay seasoning, garlic salt, oregano, anything. Bake for 15-20 minutes until brown, flipping once to brown other side. Serve with chilled tomatoes and/or cukes and a nice heap of hummus (I like the Sabra brand best) and enjoy. Remember, make a nice sized serving (which at first will look like it will NEVER fill you up)… eat and wait 15 minutes to see if you really want more. You may not, but if you do, have a little more. Crispy veggies go soggy in fridge so only make what you plan to eat. NOTE: In Phase 2, toast a half of a whole wheat pita and cut into small pieces to go with your veggies. To drink: sugar free ice tea.
Even during my Phase 1, I modify to have dessert twice daily (instead of once as recommended)… and you will know if this is something that helps you be successful or helps you to fail. For me, having a little sweet taste at the end is important and doesn’t make me crave something truly evil. My downfall is more about salty/crunchy than sweet/gooey. You know best on this!
Vegetarian purists, this is Jell-O brand and I don’t *think* it’s really veg, sorry! There are veg versions of gelatin, so go for it. This is the non-fat, sugar free version in kiwi-strawberry. I keep a variety of flavors on hand during Phase 1 since I can’t have fruit. I’ve put some Cool Whip on top, also not allowed in Phase 1 but allowed in Phase 2/3. So, the dessert is really a Phase 2/3 dessert. Cool, sweet, satisfying. A small handful of fresh berries, with or without the Cool Whip, is also a choice for Phase 2 and definitely healthier than the Jell-O thing. But…. NO fruit in Phase 1.
I went from 122 to 116 in Phase 1 (two weeks–including 2 small cheats–and excluding exercise which I had to table until I started having a few carbs in Phase 2). This small, but otherwise impossible weight loss, took my BMI down toward the lower end of the normal range for my height. During Phase 2, I’d like to get to 110-112 and stick there, a very comfy weight for a short (5’1″) small-boned person like me. The interesting thing is really not so much the weight loss, but the feeling of just being leaner and firmer, without being even a little bit hungry and without missing refined carbos. More soon…
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12.23.10
Here are two new necklaces that I will not likely ever part with but which I wanted to share anyway. Above & below: (It’s a) Material Girl!
Giant early plastic baby rattle; I don’t think it’s celluloid, likely a bit later, 1950’s or thereabouts. I’m sure I had one of these. It’s filled with the most fascinating floating magenta glitter, making it impossible to stop looking at and playing with. It’s important to teach proper values to baby girls isn’t it?
Poor mousie has turned into a Death Rattle by no choice of his own. There isn’t really anything further to say.
Except maybe that this is just so wonderfully wrong.
Cheers!
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12.23.10
Slow Design. I’m intrigued by this concept, but not sure I can fully embrace it. I thrill at my hyperspeed life/creative process and am clear that my relative pace does not negate things like reflection and engagement and expansion, not remotely. I’m just doing all of those things simultaneously and, at times, very quickly.
If by slow design, one could mean collecting and having supplies around in one’s life for years before bringing them together into some.new.(and yes meaningful)thing, then I am at times rather slow indeed. Lifetime Collections are (and become) Art. Or if by slow one could mean that 5 decades might contribute to one’s best creative work, I comply, absolutely. But as I contemplate this ideology (perhaps not slowly enough) I wonder about a caffeine-fueled manic session of creation; scissors, beads, lace and glue flying, sewing machine (well, yes, the machine is going ridiculously slow but only b/c I suck), and the distracted little artist barely stopping to eat or go to the bathroom… nothing about Slow seems to fit my scenario. Or have I bought the party line of speedspeedspeed/fasterfasterfaster? I don’t know… I love speed and I love what speed creates, even if it is messy, naive, and crappily manifested at times (see Sex Pistols, Ramones, Pollock & others).
Clearly, I’m still playing with (engaging in and reflecting upon, possibly expanding, evolving and definitely participating in) this conversation. If I had to come up with one word to replace the Slow in Slow Design, I would suggest Intentional. Intentional Design. I’m not sure Pace is really the most worthwhile defining term. I know, I’m kind of taking the semantic road here. Maybe the Slowists mean Slow As a State of Mind, rather than a physical pace? I don’t think I want any part in that either though, I’m afraid. Perhaps in my life as an artist, it’s an issue of Existential Pressure… but that, my dears, is another caffeine-fueled post for another caffeine-fueled time!
While the processes of Slow Design could rub me the wrong way (ok, there’s a very bad joke in there somewhere), the outcomes… pluralism, democratising, people over commerciality + many others) are noble things I do not disagree with. There might be many roads though… slow, fast, meandering, racing. A manifesto on pace just strikes me as a bit strange.
What do you think? Here is some food for thought, via SlowLab:
Six Principles of Slow Design.
1. Reveal: Slow design reveals spaces and experiences in everyday life that are often missed or forgotten, including the materials and processes that can easily be overlooked in an artifacts existence or creation.
2. Expand: Slow design considers the real and potential ‘expressions’ of artifacts and environments beyond their perceived functionality, physical attributes and lifespans.
3. Reflect: Slowly-designed artifacts and environments induce contemplation and ‘reflective consumption.’
4. Engage: Slow design processes are ‘open source’ and collaborative, relying on sharing, co-operation and transparency of information so that designs may continue to evolve into the future.
5. Participate: Slow design encourages users to become active participants in the design process, embracing ideas of conviviality and exchange to foster social accountability and enhance communities.
6. Evolve: Slow design recognizes that richer experiences can emerge from the dynamic maturation of artifacts and environments over time. Looking beyond the needs and circumstances of the present day, slow design processes and outcomes become agents of positive change.
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09.30.10
Oh these many years of longing for the wearable art of Rei Kawakubo, design genius behind the formidable Comme des Garcons.
Alas, I shall likely never be able to afford such treasures, but can, and will take inspiration.
These first images are from the discount designer website Yoox, garments currently available at astronomical sale prices.
Can you see the little ruffled holes in the above dress? Here’s a jacket where the concept is a bit clearer.
I love the amoeba-like shapes, organic openings in an otherwise highly tailored piece.
The franken-jacket-dress below is both ethereal and masculine. How does she do it with such consistency, grace, and slight humor?
Girlish androgyny; further words fail me.
And this, a simpler, more every-day sort of thing with built-in layers… so lovely.
I believe the following pictures are from a much older collection… 2008.
The cage dress on the right is the stuff of dreams.
Girlie, masculine, feminine, butch, frills, bondage and ballet. It’s unbearable, I tell you.
Fringe, white shoes/black tights, draping, construction and flow.
<sigh>
Dream on sisters of fashion, dream on.
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06.28.10
I am not content dear readers to only be The Girl With the Most Beads… I must also be The Girl With the Most Frocks. And, to that end, I have been thrifting for 3+ decades now… constantly scoring great vintage on what can only be described as a lifelong treasure hunt. I have also experimented with designing and making clothing, but alas I am impatient, and absolutely idiotic on a sewing machine.
In fact, many years ago (2002) I attended a Smithsonian Folk Festival called The Silk Road, which included a tent where a group of women were stitching together thriftstore garments, making the most amazing things out of trash. It was terribly hot in that tent, and Molly was a wee thing in a stroller, but we hung out for awhile, and I even went back a different day on my own to watch them sew. At that time I found out that all of the machines in use for the exhibit were on loan from a store and would be offered at half price afterwards. This is how I obtained my extremely high-end Babylock embroidery machine. Which I proceeded to timidly play with but mostly lived in dire fear of for close to 10 years.
In order to continue with this post, I must point you to the amazing world of Selene Gibbous of Gibbous Fashions. Above are three frocks from my collection, the one in the middle is a Gibbous piece. I wore this to the RimbaudMania opening in Paris and it is truly one of my most favorite and highly treasured posessions in this world.
Pictured from the back, yes, that is a ViewMaster film wheel attached to the Gibbous dress. Selene is a beautiful mad genius, a woman of incredible talent and unparalleled vision and if you read the crafts boards, you know that she is an inspiration to artists everywhere. My collection of Gibbous garments now numbers close to a dozen, including skirts, tops, a necktie, neck ruff, and two of her amazing hats. And although the photography on Selene’s site is some of the most gorgeously styled fashion shots I’ve ever seen… pictures simply do no justice to these works of art in real life. They are museum quality… each a lovely map of stitches and tears and tatters and fabrics and objects… pure poetry.
The dress at far left was my first really successful experiment at slashing up an ugly vintage dress (this one was borderline)… and then adding simple embellishments with fabric scraps and a cut up men’s shirt. This one is very girly and sugary, a bit like pink grapefruit lemonade on a hot summer day.
The tulle peeking out from the bottom was a thrifted vintage slip, and was personally paw-shredded by my cat Iggy Pop who LOVES to chew on anything tulle. He did a great job although I had to rinse out the cat spit. Ewwwwwww….
The garment pictured at the top of this endless post, and about which the post is titled, began life per the above… IF ONLY I’d photographed it. My neighbor, Katy K, can vouch for the fact that this was indeed a thrifted bridal/prom gown, all in white polyester, and about as ugly as they come. Purchased for $9.95, minus 25% with my “I’m Unique” discount card. On Friday afternoon the entire dress hit a vat of red (top) and brown (bottom) dye, and was laid out in my sunny backyard to dry. I am always thrilled at how different fabric takes dye, it’s entirely unpredictable and scary/fun. Parts of the dress went deep red, some of it went bright orange, and the rest turned a hideous shade of peach.
I am so sorry I didn’t shoot process photos during my obsessive stitchy weekend, but sisters let me say: the BF pronouned our dining room a sweat shop, fabric was flying, and the machine didn’t stop going from first thing Saturday morning until late Sunday night. I barely stopped to eat or go to the bathroom… although I did make a run to the sewing store for needles because I kept breaking them. Free motion quilting is truly one of the MOST fun experiences in my life as an artist. It was hard, challenging, frustrating, and amazing. There were times when I was just in a zone with it, my arms aching from pushing the fabric, a certain disbelief at the flawed beautiful mess that was developing before my eyes.
The details are pretty endless, every inch of this dress provided a new sort of mapping and colorway experience. I loved looping the stitches and incorporating a few bits of crochet I had in my textile collection. The hardest part was the “tailoring,” as I’d made a couple of key mistakes involving the dress lining. These caused big headaches down the pike, and lessons learned (remove lining… you WILL sew it to the top layer, and you WILL NOT want to rip out all that quilting).
The top of the dress came with kind of trashy/kind of cool glittered embroidery which, in the end, gave this garment a sort of India feel. I’m very proud of the pleated ruffle just under the bust which I made by hand from a curtain.
On the elevator in the office building this morning, I was carrying the dress so I could photograph it when a woman got on and began staring in amazement. When I told her I’d made it, her first question was: Do you sell them? Alas, the answer is no. I couldn’t possibly part with such a thing, and I am really making these clothes for my own amusement and expression, for wearing out to parties, and well, just for the art of it.
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05.24.10
Everything must come to an end and thus concludes my Paris blog. This will serve as a simple photo essay with captions; the images I love that didn’t fit neatly into the other posts. Above, night walking in the City of Light.
View from the bedroom window of the apartment on Montmorency. Soundtrack: A Flock of Pigeons.
Molly was wowed by Notre Dame. Very cool at night… those gargoyles… and were there (perhaps) vampires hanging about?
This. Is. Paris.
Belle Epoque Carousel, beautiful and fun to ride.
My favorite piece at the Pompidou Centre. It just made me laugh! Love the irreverence of this one.
Can’t you see the BF on stage in that pink suit? Window shopping at Gucci.
The window of an autograph shop. I think Man Ray would like this…
Drizzly dusk in the courtyard of the Louvre. The I.M. Pei Pyramid is fantastic!
Apres rain. Really, does it get any better? A freaking rainbow in Paris! This almost makes me believe in god. Or fairies. Or something.
Kids are crazy everywhere you go…
Lover’s locks on a chain-link fence over the Seine. On our last night we left some with our initials on them. And so we say au revoir Paris, and we’ll be back someday.
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05.21.10
Let’s go back to Paris shall we? I know I’d like to. Our rented apartment for the week was situated right between the fabulous Marais District and the Beaubourg District, making the Pompidou Centre one of our key landmarks from which we’d get lost anyway. As you know, I absolutely love gigantic modern art institutions, favorites being the Hirshhorn, MOMAnyc and MOMAsf, and the Whitney. I’m now placing this amazing museum into my top 5.
Completed in 1977 to much controversy, the Pompidou Centre is sometimes referred to as “the inside-out building” because of the incredible exo-skeletal ducts and pipes that are boldly presented on the exterior. The size of the structure is beyond breathtaking. Suffice to say it looms large, posing an incredible modern contrast to Paris’ ancient buildings.
Even the long escalator hangs on the outside of the building; riding it to the top floor for a spectacular view of the city was our first order of business once entering (free the first Tuesday [correction: first Sunday] of the month… a bonus!). It was like a slow, strange carnival ride.
We spent a rainy half day all cozy inside. The view from the top floor includes the Eiffel Tower, that fuzzy structure to the left in the above photo.
David (“the BF” to you) and Molly in one of the escalator tunnels.
Must photograph cool typography when travelling.
An exhibit of women artists was on display that day.
Niki de Saint Phalle–a recent obsession/inspiration of mine–was included. This French-born, American-raised society girl was an artist and fashion model, at 16 gracing the cover of Vogue magazine.
Her work is also on view nearby in the wonderfully playful Stravinsky Fountain (above), alongside co-conspirateur and husband Jean Tinguely‘s kinetic sculpture.
But it is de Saint Phalle’s early shooting paintings that really interest me most. Niki was known to openly reject the staid, conservative values of her family, which dictated domestic positions for wives and particular rules of conduct. However, after marrying young and giving birth to two children, she found herself living the same bourgeois lifestyle that she had attempted to reject; the internal conflict causing her to suffer a nervous breakdown. As a form of therapy, she was urged to pursue her painting. The shooting paintings were created by filling polythene bags with paint and enclosing them within layers of plaster against a blockboard backing. Spectators–including Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns at one point–were invited to shoot at these constructions, releasing the paint. The moment of action and an emphasis on chance were as important as the finished work. De Saint Phalle stopped making these works in 1963, explaining ‘I had become addicted to shooting, like one becomes addicted to a drug‘.
The series of badges above, listing next week in the Debutantes section on So Charmed as well as in the Etsy shop, took close to 2 months to design and complete. Many many things were tried before I settled on the above materials and construction. Each image of de Saint Phalle–from tiara-sporting princess, to cover girl, to shooter, and finally looking eccetric and mature–is surrounded by lush velvet pleating. Shotgun bullet charms dangle from each pin.
Bang bang modern art, dears.
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05.20.10
I have had a growing collection of vintage mardi gras beads for many years now and recently my interest in these has peaked again.
The most collectable of the old “throws” as they are called are the vintage glass strings, made in the Czech Republic and later Japan, in the 1920’s-30’s. These beads fetch a nice price on the collector’s market. Becoming equally collectable though are the plastic beads made in Hong Kong in the 1960’s. The lot pictured in this post was scored for a ridiculously low price on ebay (under $10) and probably contains 200+ finished necklaces. Upon first glance to the average eye, it is easy to think of these as plastic trash, ready for the recycle bin.
Closer inspection and some careful sifting and combining however reveals absolutely gorgeous beads in colors no longer seen in jewelry and with a vast variety of shapes and textures.
Some of the colorways are highly sophisticated, others are playful, even garish, including true neons.
What I dearly love about these beads is that they all look like candy… even more so than their valued glass cousins. And as you know, edibility is one of my favorite aethestics when it comes to beads.
Working with the beads is challenging because they are lovely and perfect in their own right, highly wearable as far as I’m concerned. Above is one of my initial attempts to recontextualize a strand, combining them with a most fantastical tin carousel charm and other bits from the vast collection. I’m working on a series of these which will be available in the CircusDolls collection at So Charmed within a week or so.
Indeed, I believe with this most recent score, I have earned the title of this post, don’t you think? Here’s the Hole video as a soundtrack… xoxoxo
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