Thought soup

The thoughts are pouring through my head like they did once before, twice before. A million times at once before.

I can't process, there's no time and it makes my heart so sad. I can't focus, can't fix this the racing of my head. I'm scared that' it'll go away like it did once before, when I was left once before alone with nothing like never before.

But it's back and I hope it stays for good, I feel relief in this anxiety, feel relaxed in this mind numbing frenzy on the inside. It's strange because it's so painful. But my favorite kind of painful, inspired hurts from wounds created by sharp images nicking your subconscious as they whiz by too fast to be read and understood and grasped. I catch one and try to examine it, process, develop it into something concrete but then I am distracted by the whirring over-head, inner-head, entire-head and I can't hold onto the thought strong enough before it flies out of my grasp yanked from my hold to rejoin the massive blur ahead.

Photoshoot Fabulousness

The day of the photoshoot was madness, everyone was stressed, trying to finish garments, trying to make garments look finished, and trying not to make anyone else cry. The photographer Laurence Guenon Trivulce was magnificent and worked so hard for everyone all day. She is a professional photographer and musician here in Paris and mostly works with portraits and fashion photography.

It took place at Schola Cantorum, the beautiful music school next door to our building, it was a truly beautiful space and in a way diffused the excitement and tension everyone was feeling.

Here are some photos and a video...the photos mostly pertaine to my work since I don't have permission to post other peoples stuff yet.

Paris American Academy Days

Last night out with the ladies

The beginnings of my beaded dress, around fifteen hours of beading

"Feeethers" With Jean Louis Pinabel

My favorite Swedes, Pernilla and Madeleine

The begining of seven hours of hand basting that was subsequently removed...I love Couture!

Meet Arthur

Number four of the six mockups I made before cutting out my Ellie dress in fabric

The view from the sewing lab...not too shabby

I had a dream. I dreamt of Marc Jacobs, he was wearing knee high red and white striped socks, a red head band, tiny blue shorts and an orange cape. He pulled over in his '1974 orange' mini cooper and invited me to a party; a cape party. I had no cape, so I made one, it was silver and sequined ( I've made a silver sequined cape before so I'm not quite sure why my subconscious had me make another). Marc was waiting for me and off we went! I have no recollection of the party, but fashion has slowly infiltrated my subconscious and I am having a difficult time dreaming of anything else.

I said "I want to fall in love."

He said "Why? You love neither you nor I very well, let's start there."

To Hand and to Fold

On of my biggest fears, greatest insecurities and strangest fixations is my hands.

I have to put it frankly, giant drag queen hulk-like pianist hands, always have. They served me well in my piano playing days and jumping multiple octaves was never too big of a feat (unfortunatley my large hands simply could not compensate for laziness...piano playing days, exit stage left)

They have not however served me very well as a designer/seamstress. So many things would be easier with smaller hands, sometimes I lay awake at night making lists in my head about all the things I could sew with tinier hands, I might embroider more with tiny finger, I might be better at making pleats or draping with the Madame Gres method.

You know those days when you just feel reassured, when you go to bed and realize you were hit with the realization once more that you were where you were supposed to be, are where you're supposed to be; and even if that moment only last two thirds of a second before you return to your normal anxious existence, it makes you smile for a moment, or write a blog post perhaps.

I had one today, I was helping a friend try on an 18th century historical corset she was making and I realized how much more difficult this would be if I had tinier hands, how incredibly hard forcing an already tiny girl into an excessively tiny garment and pinning it with giant, finger piercing pins would be if I was any tinier than I am (not). It was only brief, and I'm not going into corsetry any time soon but it was a realization that I'm where I'm meant to be doing what I'm meant to be doing and even if I have to ask a friend to help my untangle thread from the tiny spaces near the bobbin there are things I can do too.

Fashion is an industry dominated by men for crying out loud, certainly there's a place for my man-sized hands!

A bottle of Wine a day keeps the Whines away

On top of the Arc de Triomphe

I have been so incredibly fortunate to be able to re-explore the city of Paris with my best friend Jenna. She's been here a week and I can't really tell one day from the next, it's just been one great day of great dayness. I would say her visit has been characterized by great conversation, cheap wine, great cheap meals and a complete lack of maps, cell phones, plans, or watches. My kind of vacation.

Pictures:

This guy just jumped in the picture with his artwork, I guess some publicity is better than none. If anyone's interested he's at a random corner of the market near Sacre Coeur.

I have no words

Le Piano Vache

It's Springtime here

Louvre visit

It's been awhile...

Since I posted, Since I've felt like posting, but mostly since I've dreamed.

I consider it very indicative of my sleep schedule when I don't dream, The more sleep I get the better and more vivid my dreams are.

The last four nights I've had great sleep and thus really great dreams.

I had a dream that I had a tree, it was my tree and nobody else's. I discovered it in the back room of my favorite fabric store when shopping for fabric (or I was hiding from the police, I can't remember which) it was a forest of trees in that fabric store and they were part of a subset of many forests of many trees, each individual tree belonged to an individual person.

Sometimes I wonder how I know these things, they weren't explained to me in the dream and there aren't usually footnotes to go with dreams, although I would love to meet someone with footnoted and/or indexed dreams. You just know, just like right now I just know that I want to eat a croissant, no one has to tell me that and no one has to tell me where they are, I just know. (bad example?)

Anyway, I found my tree, and was devastated to discover that it was infested with a personality altering golden ladybug. This insect prayed on the trees of people (read: personalities of...) and change the very basis of who they were.

I couldn't bring myself to squash the bugs, they were just too pretty, and it was then that I noticed other bugs on other peoples trees. Blueberry ladybugs, they were blue. Tiger

beetles, were huge beetles the size of my hand (which is probably a lot bigger than yours), were made of plastic and were orange with black strips (they almost looked like a sippy cup you might find at the bottom of a Frosted Flakes box). On many occasions the Tiger Beetle wore giant Blueberry Bugs on their heads as hats and posed a double threat to the personality trees.

I didn't know how to stop this epidemic, I still don't know what I should have done and feel a little guilty for not doing anything. But the police arrived shortly after and I had to run...

I've since learned that what I thought was a golden ladybug was actually a golden tortoise beetle. Would you have crushed this beautiful bug just to save your personality?