I Wish I Was

The last part of my dear personal project was hiding in my drawer, so to speak, and waiting to see the light of day for quite some time. I can be terribly  protective and shy about some of the things that I do.

Anyway, I like to combine the handmade feel of traditional techniques like painting, drawing and collage with the flexibility of Photoshop. The text is quite flat but in combination with the image the whole thing becomes alive and hopefully not to sentimental. Writing in English has its advantages, besides the obvious one that you can reach more people.  My  limited vocabulary prevents me from trying to hard, to sound pretentious which I probably would and on the other hand it allows me to express thoughts and emotions that I would not in my native language. When speaking or writing in another language you almost become a different person which is liberating an adds a new enriching dimension to your life. To possess another language is to possess another soul, said someone famous.  Here and here are the other two parts of this  little project made in different media.

 'May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness'  Neil Gaiman

The Fox in the Snow

The Fox in the Snow wishes to all you lovely people out there a Very Merry Christmas!

A Review of my Show

These are the  pics from my new show The Rose and the Tailcoat /(Roža in Frak) which I am posting somehow reluctantly...they spoil the surprise and mystery, although I realize that (sadly!!!) most of you out there will never see it, so here they are for your enjoyment. I am very pleased how it all came together (the movement, costumes, set design and sound) and hope to perform it lots of time. The Slovenian readers can also read the review of the show here.
The reviewer described the show as sensual & nostalgic and influenced by old circus, silent movies and variety shows - I approve!

Fish Mobile

Et voila! My first mobile.  I have always liked mobiles and fishes (being a fish person myself) so it's only natural that I've put them together. It's made of six different fishes that 'fly' from branches that I've found in the park. The mobile is quite large and it is kind of difficult to photograph. Hope you like it.

Blessed are the Dead...

For some unknown reason I recently remembered these pics that I took two years ago and posted on our blog which is no longer active. It seemed like an appropriate time to re-post them here and made me think of our walks in the countryside foraging for WW1 artefacts, my first "creative" attempts and also how we learn nothing from history.  

Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon... 
Edward Thomas 1878-1917

Mermaids

If you have been following this blog for awhile you may be aware of my love for mermaids. Inspired by a lovely book I came across recently, We make dolls, I made my very first mermaid doll. The book is about women, men apparently aren't interested :), who create little cuddly creatures and includes a lot of tips from the artists and their patterns. My favourite are Danita (her mermaids with chalk stained cheeks are so adorable) and Mimi Kirchner (the tattoo man is to die for).

These other pictures are from our holiday in Croatia, where Mr. Mermaid was discovering the pleasures of angling while I was chasing dolphins, dancing with the waves and above all channelling my inner mermaid :))).

Sea Treasure

My New Show: The Flower and the Tailcoat

click to enlarge in gallery view

This is the illustration for the poster for my new one woman  show which will open on November 14th  at Cankarjev dom in Ljubljana for five nights. 

For the poster I recycled the little fellow from my little I Wish I Was project because I love him so so much and I am glad to say that I've finished the third part and hoping it will soon became my first mini picture book.

And now to the show which is kind of a dance-theatre performance: a mix of movement and handmade art. The aim is to make something as low tech and  as unoriginal as possible,  with painted old fashioned theatre set done by moi, too much makeup, silly props, "passionate" dance moves in other words...prepare yourself for an evening of mystery, romance and murder...absolutely not to be missed this autumn.

Coming from a background in contemporary dance where everything had to be very serious and meaningful is a relief to allow myself to be silly on stage and just try to follow where my heart takes me.

Hide and Seek

click to enlarge in gallery view

Some time ago I have been kindly told that learning some basics in drawing and painting would benefit my work. I don't have any formal training and for me it was just playing with colours and experimenting with different techniques. I wasn't particularly keen on drawing white boxes and contemplating perspective. So I worried  that the fun would be over and it  would all start to be serious like going to school again. It can get frustrating sometimes, (where's the poetry in this?etc.)
but I have an excellent teacher and after a short course in drawing we moved to tonal painting of still lives. I have a long way to go but am quite pleased with the results and I think they make a nice setting to show my new silk dress and shoes, new to me that is, since I bought them from Oxfam Online Shop, they are good as new and fit perfectly. Can't wait to wear them outside. If you have a wedding reception coming up don't forget to invite me.

Away with the Fairies

I have been planning on doing a few outfit posts presented in an imaginative, visually stunning, ehm, something along those lines, way. If you have been losing sleep over... what should I wear for an elegant outdoor activity such as birdwatching, this is my sophisticated suggestion.



We haven't spotted many birds but if you look carefully you may notice that the camera was able to register little winged creatures. Now, I am not the sort of person to believe in fairy nonsense however we are in the presence of strong scientific evidence.


Why have they appeared? What are they trying to tell us? Have they been attracted to the little woman wearing an unassuming yet perfect attire for the occasion when what they usually see are huge human beings in Lycra and fleece? We will never know.

skirt: Orvis from Ebay
suit: Charity shop
holdups: TopShop
shoes: bespoke
Visual Effects Supervisor: Zoran

Postcard from Ljubljana

Hello! This is a post about a watercolour, my new business card and a colorized old photograph. None of this seemed interesting enough on its own, so I've put them all together hoping they will produce a dazzling effect on you, my three or four devoted readers.



So let' start with the first item. For all the people from far and distant places, here we have for you a very realistic portrait of Ljubljana, where I live, (pronounced something like "lubiana", the lj is challenging for non-Slavic speakers, I think). It has a Dragon Bridge, a medieval castle, a river runs through it, there are men and women ,as you can see, enjoying watersports, the sun is always shining and everyone is cheerful except when it rains and then it's a different story. Have a look here.


Next is the front and the back of the business card I've designed recently, very pleased with how it turned out- (dusty) pink and green, my favourite colours.





Last, is Zelda Boden, a circus performer from the twenties. I love old circus photographs, magic and sad at the same time. I wanted to make her as beautiful as possible in colour. I wonder what was her act about and how her costume really looked like.

The Snake Lady Strikes Again

I was delighted to have the opportunity to perform my Snake lady act again at the Red Dawns Benefit Party on the 29th of December. The event was organised in order to raise money for the Red Dawns Feminist and Queer Festival which takes place in Ljubljana every year in the begining of March. So in two months time I will be performing my show Stitches at the festival and that is something I am definitely looking forward to.

The party last week went really well,- here is the " tragic death scene" for you to contemplate, twice, it involves some serious cavorting on the chair and finding a sturdy one proved to be not an easy task... To see more pics from the event click here.

In today's post I wanted to show how I manipulated the original black&white photograph in Photoshop adding colour, a great tattoo, a lace glove, vintage effect and nice lighting again with a lot of help from Zoran What do you think of the result?
If getting or removing a tattoo was as easy in real life I would have loads of them already and lace gloves in every colour and...



Photo Courtesy of Simona Jerala

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.