Happy Halloween everybody. Here is my Halloween themed Top Ten! They are not necessarily all horror films, and I have even more faves than this, but they come pretty damn close to being my all time top ten. And they make great watching at Halloween!!! My love of horror films started young, and the majority of these movies I saw when I was between 5&7 years old. I guess sure that explains a lot about me….
So in no particular order, here are my Top Ten Movies to watch at Hallowe’en:
Hallowe’en, 1978, A John Carpenter classic with Jamie Lee Curtis and ‘that’ theme tune.
The FOG, 1980 John Carpenter again, with one of my favourite pirate ghost stories
Donnie Darko, 2001 Richard Kelly. Not exactly horror, but an atmospheric mystery/tragedy set in the 1980’s at Hallowe’en time.
An American werewolf in London, 1981 John Landis. Loved the transformation effects and his zombie best friend. A very funny and sexy film.
The Exorcist, 1973 William Friedkin, (works even better if you were raised by Catholics.) Some seriously scary psychological sh*t going down and fantastic use of sound to build suspense.
Frankenstein, 1931 James Whale. Classic black and white horror with some stunning German expressionist style set pieces, featuring the inimitable Boris Karloff in the role of his life.
Young Frankenstein, 1974 Mel Brooks. Amazing send up of the previously mentioned movie, highlights being ‘putting on the Ritz’ and Marty Feldman’s star turn as Igor.
The Thing, 1982 John Carpenter. What can I say? I was a fan of early John Carpenter and the effects in this are among my favourites of all time. Maybe more sci-fi than horror. Rob Bottin is a genius.
Psycho, 1960 Alfred Hitchcock. The original version of course, this was the original scary hick film.
The Birds, 1963 Alfred Hitchcock. Perfect for those with animal phobias. I love the quiet desperation and that it’s never explained why the birds go crazy.
As I’ve said, I could go on, and name so many more horror films that I love. But these ones will always scream ‘Hallowe’en’ to me
I’m having one of those weeks where it’s like treading treacle, I’m getting nowhere fast. And as if to add insult to injury WordPress is poking fun at me by suggesting I write about the ‘one thing that always gets pushed to the bottom of my to-do list’. Like it knows my pain, or something! Well this week that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tackle.
The one item on the end of my to-do list is always ‘work on my print portfolio’. It seems like such an impossibly big job that I didn’t know where to begin. So this week I met it head on, and started engaging with my publishing options like Magcloud and Blurb and doing a bit of research on creating pdf pages. I was also fretting over what my portfolio should contain, given that I produce photography, fabric design, illustrations and written articles- should I try and represent all of this, some of this, or keep them all very separate? You can see why I was stressing out, minefield right? The fact that I have an arbitrary rather than and actual deadline for this only makes it worse. But hey, I’m thinking ‘lets get this done the sooner the better’, right?
So, after much agonising I think I have it all straight in my head now. I have a fair idea of content I want to include, which will realistically be a little bit of everything, and how the sections will flow into each other. I even had a great chat with the very knowledgeable and experienced lads at Zoo Creative, who left me feeling like I was on the right track and that I had plenty of options to explore. Sometimes the best thing you can do is talk this stuff through with other creative types. It always helps no end. So THANK YOU!
With that rant out of my system, I’ll leave you with a photo of my lovely polka dots I recently designed. I’ve made them littler than my original versions and I’m much happier with them now. They match my bunny range of fabrics and they are all available to order on Spoonflower.
Before I became obsessed with designing fabric patterns I was never much of a ‘stitcher’. But now that I regularly make fabric, sewing projects are sometimes the best means to show them off. Like my experiment with my very first quilt, made to display the different fabrics in my bunny range. It’s been going well. It’s sandwiched and quilted now, so I just need to work out how to do binding. (Hey Louise I can’t wait til you to feel better, I’ve missed our sewing days! ) Actually Louise is also the reason why I’ve opted for paper pieced hexagons- she managed to pass on her little addiction to this very traditional form of patch work.
Oriental fabric hexies
I really love working with hexagons because the paper keeps them stiff and holds the shape, perfect for a novice sew-er like me. And since my design and illustration is done behind a desk and computer screen, I much prefer to sew by hand when I do. When I’m sewing with hexagons I can sit and watch TV and my little stack grows next to me. Then you can just add them together in any shape you want, and something lovely always comes out of the randomness. I like this act of ‘adding’, like making a bead necklace; it’s very simple and satisfying. I now understand why some people find patchwork and quilting therapeutic.
Just keep adding those hexies
So for no other reason than fun, and the love of these left over scraps of oriental fabric, I’ve challenged myself to make a little bag out of hexagons. It’s going to be super simple with a fold over envelope flap, and felt for lining. I’m thinking of it as my ‘Firefly’ bag, (it wouldn’t look out of place amoung Kaylee’s belongings.) It won’t be fancy, but it will be completely sewn by hand, and no one will have anything else like it
Random Oriental Hexagons will make the 'Firefly' bag.x
I love getting new print in the post, especially when it all comes at once! Today I received my new business cards and the new cutesy badges that I recently designed. I’m pretty happy with both items but the cards turned out a little darker than I expected. Ho hum, I guess I’ll know for next time. I’ve just been busy taking pictures of them all to show here (but manual mode is hard, even harder when the weather’s so changeable giving me an inconstant light source!).
Front: with added cherry!
Back: shows fabric designs
I’m super happy with the badges though, really pleased with how they have turned out. They are sooo cute and candy coloured. I’m glad I spent as long as I did on them now. Some of you will recognise elements from my cute fabrics (e.g the little rain clouds) but some are completely new (like the cherries). I will put them my etsy shop soon, but here is a preview for now.
This is not a new idea, but with the popularity and high profile of films like Kick Ass and Super, I found myself wondering if anybody in the ‘real world’ actually has been donning a costume and taking to the streets. Imagine my surprise then at finding countless videos online, (mostly American at present, but there is evidence to suggest that this is a world wide phenomenon). It seems that almost every city in America is spawning its own superhero, like the fabulous Phoenix Jones of Seattle. And actual organisations are growing up around these real life super heroes in the form of ‘The Real Life Superhero Project’ and ‘The Justice Union’ in the UK.
I watched this and felt strangely moved …
So what does it mean to be a real life superhero? The movie ‘Kick Ass’ starts by exploring what the reality would be for a naive weedy teenager turned superhero, proving that brutal street violence would be more than they could physically endure. However the plot expands into a more elaborate, and much less realistic, revenge thriller when Kick Ass crosses paths with a discredited ex-cop turned ‘superhero’ training his young daughter to become the ultimate assassin and lynchpin of his vengeance. While keeping the violence real, this turn of events none the less takes this movie back into the realms of comic book fantasy with all guns blazing and a comic book villain by the end.
‘Super’ is similar superficially, particularly in theme but not in tone. The main character is also a ‘sad loser’ with a pathetic costume. However he is a grown man, not a teenager and there is a lot of moral ambiguity. ‘Super’ never becomes slick, cool or fantastical like ‘Kick Ass’ and the action plays out on a smaller scale. Frank (The Crimson Blot) never becomes a local hero, the violence is horrific and crude, his friend gets killed in superhero action, and ultimately though he saves her life, he doesn’t even get the girl. In many respects, all oddness aside, this is more like how it might play out in real life. While not without humour (see video clip), and ultimately hope, this story is still pretty tragic.
Both films attempt to look at what drives a person to become a masked vigilante- The personal inadequacies, (respectively being a nerd and losing the love of your life to drugs), essentially being an outsider; and the rage of feeling powerless being channelled into positive (if sometimes violent) action. But without the romanticism of the comic books, the actual superpowers, or wealth to spend on gadgets, or martial arts training, what is a superhero? In the REAL world a costume is always going to be more ridiculous than inspiring. (Sadly the ‘heroes’ in the channel 4 documentary ‘Superheroes of suburbia’ are portrayed in this way). And someone who seeks to meet crime with violence most likely has some issues of their own, and will without doubt get in trouble with the law.
While lawlessness is a very real worry in some localities, where the police find that for what ever reason (often political) they are unable to do their jobs, does that mean some masked vigilante should step in? What gives them the right? And who measures their moral compass? For example in Northern Ireland the official police were rejected for many years as an outside force, with the likes of local paramilitary organisations stepping in to administer justice to their own communities using kneecapping and expulsion. Regardless of good intent, the vigilante may become judge, jury and executioner. This way fascism lies….Where do we draw the line?
Anyone who knows me will be aware that I’m a big fan of personal responsibility. It’s important to stand up and be counted, to represent what you believe in. To put your money where your mouth is. I was pleased to find that the individuals involved in the Real Life Super Hero Project are able to see beyond the violence and to a different sort of activism. To some they maybe little more than mascots, but they are standing up for what they believe in. Supporting charities, their local communities, helping the homeless, using their profiles to raise awareness of those in need, galvanising others into action, performing random acts of kindness.
Perhaps the greatest gift of the Real Life Superheroes is in challenging us to defy apathy.
The kind of photography I like best is normally described as ‘candid’. I love images caught on the fly, of subject matter that maybe isn’t usually considered artistic or even pretty, and yet somewhere there in the ordinary everyday, and image ‘shot from the hip’ could be more intriguing than any posed work. For example blurry city lights reflected on glass make a pretty abstract of tangled colours, or a lone battered sneaker found on an unlikely pavement suggests a narrative of how and why it got there. Or maybe you’re just trying to catch an effect of a weather condition before it passes. More often than not my camera is set on automatic, or I use a variety of automatic modes to get what I’m after. Manual photos and candid snaps can have a very different feel and effect. One often relies on happy accident for a great image, the other is quite poised and deliberate. I will illustrate this point about styles with some kitteh photographs, taken with my camera in different modes.
Here is Salem, on the fly candid style
But sometimes automatic isn’t enough, can work out well, but it can sometimes be a little too unpredicatable, especially now that I have been documenting my fabrics and other small craft items with photography. So manual photography is what I need for these kinds of close-ups of objects, where I want more control over the image I’m creating. So I recently signed up for some basic digital photography classes to learn a bit more about how my camera works. It’s probably nothing I couldn’t have learned from reading my manual, but some times it’s nice to have some one explain stuff to you in practical terms, and maybe mention applications for techniques that wouldn’t have occurred to you just from reading your rather dry camera instructions. It’s still the early days, and I don’t have much kit so I’ll be relying largely on natural light, but I’ve already picked up a few tips and tricks. Now it’s time to practice, practice, practice…
and this is Sam, on manual mode. Not perfect but not bad for a kitteh who doesn't sit still
Today I’ve been working the next instalment of my ‘Angels in Trench coats’ series. I’ve opted for Agent Dale Cooper, of Twin Peaks this time (portrayed by a young Kyle McLaughlin). While not of divine origin, Angent Cooper is metaphorically speaking the angel of Twin Peaks. Called upon in times of need he comes to deliver justice to the brutally murdered and to speed their souls on to deliverance (see the ending of Fire Walk With Me). Dale is an esoteric and philosophical character who promotes ideals of love, morality, integrity and intuition. That makes him angel enough me for me…
Angel in a Trench Coat, Dale Cooper, Patron Saint of Damn Fine Coffee
So there you go. I’ll leave you with this video of clips of Audrey and Dale, the romance that never was….
So while I wait anxiously to find out if I’ve made it into the top ten ditsy fabrics on Spoonflower’s fabric of the week contest, here’s the latest on what I’ve been making…I’ve had some fun designing some Hallowe’en fabric for my own amusement. Sometimes you have an idea in your head and you just need to get it out! So I made some vampy blood red tear drops, and a wee ghostie pattern using an illustration I’d done a while ago. I’ve also designed some cutesy badges (button pins), that will be printed on fabric. Can’t wait to see how they turn out. No preview for now but I promise a photo as soon as they are back from the printers!
I’m all about the ‘small print’ this week, as the other design I’ve been working on is my business card. These little things, like badges and business cards, always take longer than you think to get right, so I’ve been agonising over them. Can’t wait to send these off to the printers too so that I won’t be tempted to make any last minute changes!!!
Preview of my business card
Autumn seems to be the time for thinking about conventions and events, and this year I’ll be taking a break from comic events to check out some crafty events instead. I’m currently looking into booking a stall at the Derry Playhouse Christmas Craft fair, with my quilting friends. They’ll be there to promote their next round of classes, while I show off some of my sample fabrics and maybe sell a few bits and bobs like badges and fabric covered books. More word on this when the details are confirmed. I’m also planning on visiting the Country Living Fair in London, to scope out the high end crafts on the market and see what kind of textile trends are popular right now. This show comes highly recommended and there should be lots to see, so expect lots of photos from that one!!!
