THE GOOD EARTH

These photographs are from the film THE GOOD EARTH adapted from the novel by Pearl S. Buck. The book, published in 1931, was considered a masterpiece and won the Nobel Prize for Buck. Themes of earth, God and women were explored as well as family life in a pre-revolution Chinese village. O-Lan, (in these pics) was the quiet, long-suffering wife and mother and Wang Lung her husband and patriarch of the family. Supposedly, this novel helped pre-war Americans to consider the Chinese as allies in the coming war with Japan, though I find this a stretch. They were desperate times in China with drought, famine, poverty - themes I guess Americans understood at the time. I'd have to read the book and watch the movie and research Buck's reason for writing this tome before commenting more on the subject. Nevertheless, you can find these photographs and others from the 1937 movie in my etsy shop.

PSST!

Did you ever want to peek in a drawer? I'm always scrounging through drawers in old houses in my dreams. Don't know what that means, but this drawer is full of old locks, thimbles, dog tags, buttons, marbles and the velvet bag is very old. It has a lock of red hair inside it as a remembrance.

The monkey used to have more hair. It is Victorian and moves. The green frog is a snapper toy and there are the various war toys and covered wagons. Some, still in their original packaging: I am always surprised no child played with them. The silver zeppelin lies beside the skull of an egret with a shotgun pellet lodged in it.

There is this and that... an old hygrometer?

Here are some old books and ephemera, namely concert tickets from the seventies to Joni Mitchell and the Rolling Stones and Madonna in the 80's. Look at the oldest wallet I've ever seen. I'll have to open it and show you what's inside at a later date. Now wasn't that fun?

Blue and White Dishes

Bloggers love dishes and blue and white ones seem to be favorites. I too have collected many blue and white wares and thought I'd show you what I've done with some of mine. No dishes were purposely broken in the making of this border.

DOG ART

Some of you might have noticed the red dog on the right side of my blog and wondered, what in the world? Well, he is one of my mixed-media life-sized paper art sculptures. This dog's name is Picasso Can't Have A Dog. The text in the spiral is where he got his name. I wrote around the spiral like the 'Beats' did in a stream of consciousness style. The text says "Picasso can't have a dog, no Siddhartha he. Manipulator, manipulated, whatever..." Hence the name.

Some of you might have heard that recently, a painting by Picasso sold for a million billion dollars. Picasso was a prodigy/genius, but could be cruel (and kind too, I know). His vanity knew no bounds. Don't get me wrong, I love Picasso, but I don't think he deserved a dog. When I was almost finished with this piece, a book came out about him and his beloved dachshund. Who knew?

This piece has a goldfish, feather, clock, a sundial, an eye, a vulva...and so much more. And, its tail wiggles. This was no small fete for me. I am interested in automatons, but after some research, I couldn't get past the basic physics (pulleys and levers). You have to be an engineer to figure it out and I am too old, er, young to start a new career. I will have to take a pic of his rear end. There is a cameo painted in blue and white, of an elderly Picasso, seated and looking in a mirror...

A million billion anyone?

IRIS

I've photographed some of my iris, which are stunning, but fade much too fast. The second one is strongly scented. Iris comes from the Greek word for rainbow and is grown on many continents mainly in northern temperate zones. There are about 300 species of iris. The fleur-de-lis is a stylized iris. Orris root comes from irides and its essential oils are used in perfumes and medicines. Bombay gin contains orris root and flavoring from species of bearded iris. Like an old friend, the plants come back year after year and spread through rhizomes and though mine are on the wane, I'll see them again next year. The still life painting of lemons and iris came from a flea market. I heard this story once about seeing stands of iris in fields and roadsides. Supposedly, they mark where old homesteads once stood. Sure enough, I found rock foundations of two old homesteads in the mountains, and where the front of the house would have been, were beds of iris.

Go Green

Do you have a stack or two of old painted shelves lying about? I've got a million projects I'll finish someday. One of those projects was to recycle one of said painted shelves. I simply did a reverse scratching on the paint and came up with different countries and continents. This shelf is above my bed and hopefully fills my head with exotic locales and dreams that rarely come.