Merry Christmas

For the past few weeks I have been enjoying the poetry by Christina Rossetti which is so perfect for this time of year. Click on the link to see her portrait made by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Hope you like this bit of her poem.
Wish you all the best in 2012.

A Christmas Carol

... What can I give Him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring him a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,-
Yet what can I give Him,-
Give my heart...

Experimental Cabaret : The Snake Lady

City of Women is an annual festival here in Ljubljana which showcases female performers. This year the festival offered an experimental cabaret workshop with Marisa Carnesky which I was lucky to attend. Marisa is an experienced performer, show woman and lecturer from London (make sure to check her website) and above all a very friendly and warm person. I had been really looking forward to this workshop and it didn't disappoint me. I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in cabaret. I thoroughly enjoyed the four days and especially performing at the end in a club (Gromka) with the rest of the participants.

Here are a few pics from my Snake Lady act which was a huge success
with the audience at least that was my impression :-) .

Theater Design for a Children's Show

Zoran and I just finished working on an animation that was used
in a children's show as a scenography and was projected on the
backdrop. I started by making drawings of what was needed for
a particular scene( a street view, an interior, a cat...) and then
Zoran edited them in Photoshop adding some animated elements
as well.
Here are some examples on a smaller scale of course and you
can see us in the little picture above.

I Wish I Was (Part Two)

I wish I wasn't so slow... I took the pictures of this collages some time ago when it was still very warm, you can see the rays of the late summer sunset captured in the images and then recently I added the words in Photoshop. I have lots of cheerful ideas for part three, four, fifteen... of this uplifting series and will probably remake Part One (scroll down please) with my greatly improved computer skills :-)

Living In A Box

This time I fell into a box, so there is little me showing the two summer dresses
I have been wearing with great pleasure over the long and hot summer we had in this part of the world until two days ago.

The navy polka dot one was made by Zoran a year ago, the floral one, which is made from the finest cotton available to mankind :), Acorn from UK, was done by Z. and myself two months ago. The pebbles in the collage, on the other hand, have travelled all the way from Greek Islands and are a kind gift from Spela. I definitely plan to make more cotton dresses for next summer since
they are elegant and comfortable at the same time. Granny chic, here I come!

Elephant In A Box

Meet three new little friends of mine: Sausage dog, Albert the Indian Ellephant and Mina the Terrible Mouse. Lately I have been having fun taking pictures of them in a cigar box and in the Chinese box for ink painting.
Hope you like them.

Not For Me

Beware! The video that you are about to see is not for the faint-hearted since it contains scenes of violence.






I am currently making a new show that will be full of roses, tango, drama and perhaps some animation. This is my first exercise in stop motion - chopping roses's heads proved to be very relaxing and therapeutic. More scenes of goriness coming soon.

I Wish I Was

I've been thinking for some time now of making a booklet of collages and maybe a pop-up book which is moveable and three-dimensional. This is my first attempt in that direction and I am quite pleased with the results.

My Little Monsters

Let me introduce my new best friends: Frankie (from Frankenstein) and Principessa (meaning princess in Italian).



Since human relationship can be very difficult and disappointing I decided to create ideal companions for myself. They are soft, small, silent, accomodating and always agree with me.



They love the outdoors a lot that's why I took them for a picnic in Tivoli Park the other day.



Most of their time is spent in a red shoebox so they liked the change very much. They've came up with amazingly original ideas for this photo session.




Here is a piglet hidding and I made a dog as well for Frankie and Principessa but it is not very photogenic and today I gave it away to a human friend. There is an elephant coming soon, I hope, I am having a bit of a creative blockade.




So this is my idea on how to improve the quality of life, avoid disapointments and have fulfilling relationships.
Dear virtual friends, I will let you know if it works so you can try it too.

Winter Wedding

"The spirits of the dead are in constant state of yearning".
Kazuo Ohno




The third part of my show Stitches is called Winter Wedding and was influenced by Japanese dance - Butoh, Japanese ghost stories and movies, especially Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.





Years ago I studied and performed with some Japanese Butoh dancers and that experience made a lasting impresion on me. I've been thinking about making my own version of a "ghost dance" for a long time...ghost or spirits are a popular subject in Japanese theatre and literature.





In Japanese folklore there are spirits that are kept from a peaceful afterlife because of some powerful emotions and keep returning to the physical world. For example ghosts of those who died at sea or samurai -warrior ghosts or, my favourite:), the seductress ghosts, who have a post-death love affair with a living human.




These spirits haunt a particular person or place until their purpose is fulfilled and they can move on to the afterlife. They usually appear between 2 and 3 a.m., the witching hour for Japan, when the weils between the world of the dead and the world of the living are at their thinnest.






The ghosts are represented by wearing a white kimono, which is used for funeral rituals and the hair is long, black and disheveled, they lack legs and feet and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists.

Coral Sea

Coral Sea is the second part of my show Stitches.

I know, I know you all have been impatiently waiting for this second installment of Splendor:-) In case you are new to this blog or you've missed the first part I urge you to scroll down and have a look at Broken Beat first!!!





After the black and white world of Broken Beat we are now immersed in colour. The animation is done after my watercolours of sea, seabirds, waves, palms...
The movement is circular and fluid as opposed to the mechanical, "broken" and doll like of the first one.













I have been fascinated by mermaids since early age, I think it started with bedtime stories about Ulysses, the legendary Greek king, and his voyage that my father used to tell me when I was little. Those beautiful and sinister mermaids are what I remamber most vividly to this day. And later I read a story about these creatures and in a children's book; in this weird version the mermaid would eat the sailor's ears after she had seduced them. The illustration of sailors on the island without ears was really, really spooky. And of course I adore H.C. Andersen's version, in which the mermaid endures terrible suffering to become human because she had fallen in love with the prince. Oh, the drama...

Broken Beat

Broken Beat is the title of the first act of my new show Stiches. After much deliberating I have decided to make three posts about the show because... it's made of three parts ( must be a genius) and could not possibly decide which were the best photoghraps and how to fit only five of them into a post.



So welcome into the black and white world of Broken Beat ...the cold, lonely and dusty attic where a doll gradually comes to life, becomes animated and tries to reach out to the word but is finally... well, I will not tell you everything in case you'll be so lucky to see the show:-)







I have designed the costumes, Zoran helped to make them, plus he contributed the soundtrack and a lot of moral support... I am especially proud of this first costume, I think it turned out even better than I have hoped, and it works well with the animation that is projected behind me and sometimes on me.

Besides the corset would be perfectly wearable for a night out in Camden Town:-)

Tea Dance

Tired of stressful and not-so-glamorous everyday life?
Put on your best clothes and join Miss Rosette for an elegant Tea Dancing event; seductive tango music, beautiful people and plenty of drinks.
Don't be late!

... some ideas for my future project... I am super pleased with the watercolour above
and here comes the Invitation card for anyone who cares to join me:




Drink, and dance and laugh and lie,
Love the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
~Dorothy Parker



Let's finish for today with this really cute postcard from the 1920's



So long!

A Butterfly Crossing The Sea

After the very successful or shall we say triumphant opening of her show, Miss R. flew to Japan, as you can see in the picture above, where she is immersing herself in Oriental mystery.

Mesmerizing pictures from the show will be posted soon or when I stop being indecisive
and finally choose which are the best from the thousands that Zoran took.

Since we are in Japanese mood let us remember a beautiful buto dancer Kazuo Ohno who died last year aged 103. He danced well into his nineties and created his most remarkable performances in his sixties and seventies. If you are a fan of that angelic voice that belongs to Anthony Hegarty of the Antony and the Johnsons, you have seen Kazuo on the cover of the CD The Crying Light.

A butterfly crossing the sea.
Or, simply picture the sea and a butterfly.
What's to stop you from flying through the sea?
How would you fly?
You're already threading your way through the waves.

Happy Birthday Tom!

I made this watercolour a couple of weeks ago for my friend Thomas Hardy, whose birthday is tomorrow and sent it to him. I hope that the gift has arrived in time.
I miss you, dear gentleman farmer, that's all I wanted to say.w

! New Post !

Dear friends!
Finally a new post. Our computer broke down a few weeks ago, little bastard was only four years old and very expensive, apparently that happens all the time in the computer world at least thats what Zoran, the computer genius, told me. Now we have a new one and we are broke... but we have all this splendid art... in our life. Please admire the poster and the email invitation that Zoran designed for the opening of the show next week. Lets see how this "experiment" turns out.

In the meantime I created... more new splendid... watercolours which I will post soon...:-)