City lights and Railway Sleepers

“Even art doesn’t know what art’s about”
- Helen Perkins

Helen Perkins, a very close friend of mine, is a young artist who paints very beautiful paintings, and I think it’s time to write a post on her work before she’s too famous to talk to me.

Her paintings are flickering moments, quietly observed. A pretty young woman caught close up, with an impenetrable expression that seems to shift as you look into it, seems to stand alone in the night-time glare of the City. Another beautiful girl lies alone, seeming to radiate light in the gloom of a railway carriage. It’s Hopper, only more tender; less analytical, more involved, more lovely. And yet, somehow darker. Stare at these paintings long enough and you’ll find anxiety worming in your stomach.

Helen tells me that she has one reoccurring dream, a dream in which she finds herself suddenly alone in the late night City, walking an endless street under lamp-light. I notice that this is the self-portrait she has painted: the girl with the ambiguous expression is Helen herself, looking not at us, but past us, into the nothingness of the endless night.

I ask Helen if she is an anxious person. “Sometimes. At the moment”, she says. Asking why, she tells me a story that must surely be familiar to all artists, particularly the young: “I don’t know sometimes how to continue balancing finding time to be an artist against paying the bills. It’s a hard time to be an artist. I have a reoccurring day-mare: one day I’ll have to give this up and get an office job. In actual fact, I do work an office job! My fears have been realised.”

Despite this, Helen still finds time to paint commissioned pieces, and recently held her second exhibition in Derby, alongside fellow artist Emily Garces. “I get by, just about”. Looking through her sketch books, I see that she still finds time to draw, too. “That’s just practice”, she tells me, of a series of very fine pencil portraits. One stands out particularly: an Indian lady, eyes closed and slightly swollen.

“Is she dead?!” I ask. “No! Just meditating”, Helen assures me.

I ask a couple of final questions: who do you admire?

“Lucian Freud, of course, Benjamin Sullivan, Stuart Pearson-Wright – who I recently met, actually – and… all the new portrait painters who actually look at people; art that isn’t alienating”, she replies.

“What do you mean by that?”, I ask.

“Modern art often seems to me not to be, as the critical consensus maintains, inviting the viewer to engage, and create their own interpretations. To most people it just means what the gallery blurb says, and you have to go with that or else you’re left with a piece of art that you can’t go anywhere with. I don’t mean to diss anyone’s art… It’s not that I think it’s elitist, I just don’t think some of it’s really very interesting”.

“I like art with people in it. There’s always room for interpretation in that dynamic between the viewer and the painted subject. You don’t need the artist to explain that.”

—-Wit x

Take a look at more of Helen’s work:

Helen’s Website
Helen’s Gallery

075. Hide-Out (W.S. Van Dyke, 1934)
Hide-Out is a mobster movie in so much as it’s about a mobster. But instead of being a Little Caesar type story of the rise and fall of a gangster, it’s a romantic dramady. Montgomery’s Lucky really is no good. When he ends up at the Miller family farm after being shot, he intends to use the family’s kindness for as long as he can until he recovers and then return to his life of crime. But he starts to actually genuinely like the family, especially Pauline, the daughter, played by a charming Maureen O’Sullivan. At first he is after that one thing that bad boys are after when it comes to girls, but he realizes her really loves her and that makes him want to turn his life around. The movie is a really good piece of character development for Lucky, and Montgomery’s performance as both the heartless Lucky and the changed man is very good. He makes the development feel very natural. The love story, while simple, is surprisingly romantic, and there’s a an incredibly charged scene where Lucky and Pauline take refuge in an empty house during a rainstorm.

074. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
City Lights is easily the most loved Chaplin film (though not my favorite). Chaplin resisted sound for many years, continuing to make silent films into the 1930s. This is a pure romance, about the selfless power of love.  The Tramp is willing to go through all sorts of things for the Flower Girl, in hopes of making enough  money to pay for an operation to restore her sight, even though he knows that once she can actually see him, and see that he’s not the wealthy man she thinks he is, that she might not want him anymore. It really is beautiful to see a love story where the character is so entirely selfless. There isn’t an ounce of selfishness in his actions. In addition to being touching, it’s an incredibly funny movie. Nobody could combine the drama of romance with the extreme humor the way that Chaplin did. The two blend together to create a perfect romantic comedy.

073. Libeled Lady (Jack Conway, 1936)
William Powell and Myrna Loy made a huge amount of films together. Their most notable are obviously the Thin Man movies, but Libeled Lady is easily their best non-Thin Man movie. I’m a big fan of the love-quadrangle thing in old movies, and this movie has one of the best. Powell, Loy, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow make a great team, and it makes for three of the best pairings in classic romance – Loy and Powell (obviously), Tracy and Harlow, and Harlow and Powell. I think Harlow’s performance is particularly impressive because she spends a good portion of the movie acting like the last thing she wants to do is marry Powell, when in reality that was what she wanted more than anything (Powell and Harlow were an item until her death in 1937).

072. Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich, 1937)
Shall We Dance really doesn’t get a lot of love among the Astaire/Rogers films, which is unfortunate and not entirely fair. Sure, while the dancing is good, it doesn’t really match a few of their other films, and with the exception of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” there isn’t an amazingly memorable number. But what it lacks on the musical front it makes up for by having one of the most original stories and the pair’s film canon. No mistaken identity here. Fred and Ginger play two famous dancers who the press mistakingly think are married. It’s a good premise that leads to some fantastic comedy, and great performances from its leads. Especially Ginger, who spends much of the movie acting annoyed and put out by Fred’s obvious attractions. And while there’s no mind blowing dance accompanying it, “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” is one of the best songs Fred ever sang, and Ginger’s reaction shots to it are beautiful.

071. Midnight Mary (William A. Wellman, 1933)
Thanks to the ultra-pious good girl image she cultivated for herself in the late 1940s and 1950s, when people think of Loretta Young think almost exclusively of that ultra-pious good girl. So a lot of people are often surprised to go back in her filmography and look at her pre-code work, in which that good girl was a far away thing. This is especially true of Midnight Mary, an amazing character study where Young plays one of the most flawed heroines of the era. Mary gets dealt a shit hand early on, and her life just devolves from there, from prostitution to a dangerous relationship with a violent criminal. This film is so obviously pre-code. It seems that every time Mary makes a strong moral decision, it backfires on her completely, but whenever she does something bad things kind of work for her. In the end, Mary is her own worst enemy, thinking that she doesn’t deserve any better than the life she has. Young’s performance is incredible, and this is one of the best characters to come out of the decade.

By Katie Richardson

Emilio Rojas’ “The Natural” mixtape has finally dropped after much delay.  This is by far one of the best anticipated mixtapes of the year.  Did I mention who co-signed this mixtape???  DJ Green Lantern!  That’s right, world-renown DJ Green Lantern co-signed this shit!  It also features amazing product from heavyweights including Boi-1da, 6th Sense, M-Phazes, and more.

DOWNLOAD LINK: MediaFire

This shoot was for Urban Beachwear. Now known as Dollface Cosmetics. The model here is the owner of the said very successful online shop.

I’m posting old photos. Which means I haven’t had the time to have new photo shoots. I promise I’ll have one this month. My hands are itching to create something. If anyone want to have their portrait taken. I’ll be glad to do it for free! Just YM me at alexa_clare@yahoo.com. Just not outside Cebu. LOL. You can just give me something to eat after.. hahahaha Joke.

A few days ago I used my photo, Misty Moon Over the Columbia River, to create some items on zazzle.

In this picture the moon lights up misty clouds with translucent white light in a stormy looking purplish sky above Longview, Washington. Surrounded by mountain ranges which disappearing into distant haze, the city lights blaze like dots of fire along the banks of the Columbia River. Seen through the forest on the hills of Rainier, Oregon the river flows thought the Columbia River Gorge towards the sea as the dusk begins to deepen into night…

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Browse more Moon Stationery

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
fridge magnets online by zazzle

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Create customizable steins with zazzle

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Make ties online at zazzle.com

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Make a personalized notecard on Zazzle

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Make picture postcards at zazzle

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Create custom made mousepads at zazzle.com

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
View other Moon Aprons

Misty Moon Over the Columbia River by dlmtleArt
Design a custom bag at zazzle

Dawna’s Gallery of greeting cards, Matted Prints. and T shirts

Dawna’s Fine Art Prints at

Dawna’s Zazzle Gallery of items featuring her Art and Photography

love·ly (lvl)

2. Inspiring love or affection.3. Having beauty that appeals to the emotions as well as to the eye. See Synonyms at beautiful.4. Enjoyable; delightful.

2. A lovely object. love·ly (lvl)

I love you more than yesterday and less than tomorrow

I had the privilage today of shooting Evangeline’s senior portraits.  Evangeline is usually one of my assistants, so I was thrilled to be taking her picture today!  She along with her family are also dear friends.

I’m really excited about this new series I’ve started called City Lights. While walking around and shopping for supplies in the jewelry district in Manhattan, I came across these beautiful, brushed sterling silver puffed round beads and had to have them. The metal chain offers a classic, timeless look that goes with anything from jeans and a blouse to an elegant evening gown. And a style I’m really into is the mixing of metals. The mix of Sterling silver and 14k gold fill remind me of the cityscape at night, a blanket off gold and silvery lights. Visit my etsy shop online to see more of my designs!

New in at Cinema Books: Chaplin The Tramp’s Odyssey by Simon Louvish, $27.99 cloth. From the antics of the London music hall the little tramp triumphed in the new movie world of Hollywood.  Charlie Chaplin was not just the richest man in Hollywood with very real  personal demons but also a social and political critic whose views brought him banishment from his adopted home.  But the Chaplin films are heart and soul of this book, the reason we remember.

Last night, I heard news of the first nine innings of the Yankees game only intermittently as various men in my family returned periodically to the dinner table to report, conversationally, “one-all”, or terribly, “down three to one,” or amazingly, “A-Rod tied it in the Ninth!”

I missed Mariano.  (Dishes.)  But sat through some of Aceves’ inning.  (He was the second Yankee closer, who also did an admirable, if nail-biting job.)

I am sometimes concerned that I’m not good luck for the Yankees.  This is probably just grandiosity on my part.  But I worry, when they are down and when I am watching, that my own insecurities pass in a reverse osmosis through the television screen, and endanger their efforts.

So after a few minutes  in which nothing good was happening, I left the TV room and helped the Yankees in the only way I could think of, that is, putting up a “Go Yankees” post, with a repeat elephant baseball picture, hoping for luck.

Silly, sure.  Except that a few minutes later (even with me watching), Teixera hit his wall-scraper home run!

Aha!

I’m not taking any credit.   But I’m reminded of the man in South India who put salt around his porch to ward away tigers.  When told that no tigers had ever been sited in that part of India, he nodded at the salt, “effective, isn’t it?”

Few people know that I have protected New York City from further terrorist attack by wearing a certain silver-balled necklace every single day since 9/11.

My mother wards off car accidents among family members by wearing the color blue.   (This can be quite difficult when it is too hot in Florida for a certain favorite periwinkle jacket, and her cerulean short sleeve shirt is dirty.)

My husband keeps loved ones safe through three knocks on the vehicle that holds them.   (He sometime has to do this on the trunk of the cab to the airport since it’s pretty hard to get close enough to airplanes to knock on them these days.)

I can’t really speak for my mother and husband.  I can only say that I don’t just adopt any object or action—the talisman has to proven to work.   This means that I don’t pick a lucky object, rather the object presents itself to my notice after the magic has already started working.  In the case of my silver necklace, for example, I conveniently realized, after several weeks of just happening to wear it, that no further terrorist act had happened in NYC.   (In this sense, I am quite different from Charlie Chaplin, who seemed, at least in City Lights, to adopt talismans in a rather desperate ad hoc way that proved comically inefficient.   I’m thinking here of the scene before his boxing match, in which he sneaks a rabbit’s foot from a very brawny professional-looking boxer and rubs it all over himself only to see the boxer carried out on a stretcher.  Then Chaplin tries frantically to rub the rabbit aura off .)

Oddly, one reason that I like the Yankees is that their success does not seem to depend on luck.   (Yes, they have good luck, and their own little talismanic rituals to keep hold of it.)    But, of course what the Yankees really rely on (aside from Mariano) is skill.   (Yes, this skill was bought with multi-digit figures I don’t want to think of.)   But what impresses me even more than the Yankees’ skill, is their endurance–the way they just keep going– beyond bad luck, beyond bad odds, beyond even those times when their skills have failed them and their prior innings’ performances have been embarrassingly bad (especially considering their pay).  They just keep trying until the very last out.

Probably even without silver necklaces.

If you liked elephant baseball, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson at link above.

and the lights of this beautiful city twinkle in our imaginations

both as they are

and for what they will become

like blossoms that spring forth to adorn the trees as winter leaves their branches

and blight that takes the tomatoes

A Few New Hooks for Mario Bellatin, by Laura Peters

Since our celebration of Mexican writer Mario Bellatin, Writing without Writing, publisher City Lights has announced a new compepetition to celebrate the release of Beauty Salon. 

In a recent interview with PRI’s World Books, Beauty Salon author Mario Bellatin described a writing technique called the “No Method”:

For years I tried to create for myself a method of writing that would be my own. I called it the No Method, not because it was influenced by the Japanese theatrical form of that name, but rather because it was about appending a ‘no’ to all the elements that supposedly make up literary texts. No adjectives, no dialogue, no space, no time, no omniscience, no names, and so on and so forth, until I had compiled a long list of noes. It was in that way, restricted all the way down to the most minimal aspects, that I began to see that, in a certain sense, things could be named anew.

From publicist Ingrid Rojas:

Our challenge to you: use Bellatin’s No Method—no adjectives, no dialogue, no space, no time, no omniscience, no names—to write a short piece of fiction (under 200 words), and send your entry to contest@citylights.com under the subject line “No Contest.” The person with the best entry will receive a free copy of Beauty Salon and a choice of four other books from our City Lights Publishers Literature in Translation list. Submissions are due no later than October 15, 2009.

The winner will be announced in City Light’s November newsletter.

Best of luck to all Molossus readers. 

DS

As shot from Harbor Square at 3.5 seconds on a f/3.5.

I love how the lights from the buildings reflected on the waters of Manila Bay! Thanks to Tim giving his opinion on how I could improve my shot (I took like 5 of the same subject before I finally rested with this one).

I like how the horizontal’s place at this angle. It’s something I don’t normally do but I like how this ended up.

The day I shot this I was able to commute to the CCP area for the first time and by myself, I was able to take photos with a subject that is a person (I couldn’t just say a living, walking objects since I take pictures of animals) and ride a taxi at night by myself going to Makati. It was a fun day. Tiring but satisfying. (Plus I ended it with hanging out with the boys of Indios Bravos and having a free treat from the Shui people)

Makes me realize that given directions and being aware and spontaneous, I could really make my life work 100%.

AP Tour Fall Ball photos from the Columbus Ohio date have been added onto my FLICKR. Check it out here!

- Melissa

A shot from the sidewalk at Harbor Square (which I keep calling Pearl Harbor). Shot at 3.5 seconds at f/3.5. Didn’t expect the result to be like this. And cause of that I wasn’t planning on posting it here but people like it so I’m posting it now. I like how shiney the chains and post look like plus the background lights of Roxas blvd just adds a bit of drama to it.

This shot tells me that given a certain style or technique, I’m able to make a site worth seeing. It tells me something about myself, I guess.

Well I went to Kings Park tonight and took some photo’s of Perth City. It’s the first time I’ve done it and I’m quite pleased with the results… This is a 6 photo stitch and I haven’t done any editing apart from exposing the RAW image and stitching.

Tell me what you think ;P

Asking the Question… View from above, below or in the middle of it all…and why?

Finally. It’s now 2:40 in the morning and I’ve finally finished putting this up. I’m suppose to upload at least 5 photos every Wednesday and I’m late by 2 hours and 40 minutes. But hey, like my friend said, it’s not morning until you wake up! Normally I’d disagree but it’s working to my advantage tonight so now it’s still Wednesday and I’m not late.

I took all of these tonight. It was raining (again) and we were around Roxas Blvd. in Manila so that meant pretty colorful lights coming our way (not to mention the traffic that came with the rain). It was great though. I wasn’t really expecting to have this tonight. Normally I’d have an idea of what I’m going to shoot so this is quite a treat.

Horrah! I’ve always fancied unfocused images that create the round shapes so I’m especially happy with the three at the bottom. I placed them in this format so that there’s a diversity at how I post my images here at my blog. Just looking at this gives me more ideas on how to mix and match my future photos.

I find it great that I’ve started to humble myself when it comes to my photography. I used to think that there’s a progress on how you see yourself as a photographer: at first, upon getting the new digital SLR, you start shooting anything and everything, anywhere and anytime; once you’ve had your few sets of big gigs, you think of yourself as better than just shooting at anything (you start to think that you only shoot this and that, but not those). Then it hit me that it didn’t have to be like that. You slowly realize that it’s more fun shooting at anything and looking all amateur-like when taking your pictures because it’s fun and more satisfying like that. It’s this realization that made me more confident in bringing my camera around to shoot at anything that catches my eye.

It really is fun going back to the basics, to where it all started. When everything was done carefree. It makes life and whatever else you do feel so much better.

Goodnight.

Six months!

It started off a bit rocky with some delays.  He picked me up soon after my parentals left for a wedding and we headed back to Sandy where I cooked plenty of French toast to fill his stomachal area.  Had moments of intimacy, watched “the notebook” together (I did not cry! Nor was his shirt damp.)

Around 5, the movie had ended and I was cooking up some dinner for me love.  Dumplings and orange chicken, what a meal!  Kim joined in on some of it as well.  He surprised me last minute and told me we would be going to the view point when we were laying in bed, hot damn was I excited I didn’t bring my camera because Nick never lets me take photos of him, I almost did.  But left it at home.  I was still excited to see the city lights and I was able to borrow Kim’s camera to bring up there, I’ve decided I’m going to keep my camera in my bag at all times.  We went downtown around 6 and Sir Nicholas read me Walt Whitman poetry, it was surely a day to remember.  After he was finished, he went and did his irrigation thing- it wasn’t as exciting as last times as the water flow was slow and boring.  Another day, another time.  Around 8 pm, the sun was setting and we headed up near the Capitol.  One of the most beautiful sunsets was taking place.  I wish there weren’t so many people that went up there.  We sat on the rocky earth beneath us and talked for an hour until it was pitch black.  I wish I could just extend my arm and grasp the graceful capitol along with the colorful downtown buildings along Galivan Plaza and hold them in the palm of my hands.  The sky grew darker and the temperature dropped quickly.  It was only an hour of talking, but it felt more like 3.

“I feel safe up here”, he said.  “I feel like a bear.” (let me revise that.. “I can bare it all”)  She smiled, grasped onto his bicep with her small hands, continued to look at the flickering city lights and listened.

It was an amazing day.   I dread leaving you at nights, can’t you just take me home love?
Thank you for everything hun, you are greatly appreciated.

P.S.  Guess what?