From "Extracts from Adam's Diary" by Mark Twain

Friday

The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty —GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named —NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. 

And already there is a sign up:

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

My life is not as happy as it was.

To Celebrate Dickens's 200th Birthday

I preceded Mr. Omer, in compliance with his request; and after showing me a roll of cloth which he said was extra super, and too good mourning for anything short of parents, he took my various dimensions, and put them down in a book. While he was recording them he called my attention to his stock in trade, and to certain fashions which he said had 'just come up', and to certain other fashions which he said had 'just gone out'.

'And by that sort of thing we very often lose a little mint of money,' said Mr. Omer. 'But fashions are like human beings. They come in, nobody knows when, why, or how; and they go out, nobody knows when, why, or how. Everything is like life, in my opinion, if you look at it in that point of view.'

-From David Copperfield

Art History Nerd

Have you ever wished for a portable likeness of your favorite writer to use as a talisman to protect you from overuse of puns and cliches? Or perhaps you'd prefer to curb your penchant for morally-questionable behavior with the knowledge that the gaze of Victorian novelists are upon you?

 Art History Nerd's selection of bracelets, earrings, cufflinks and necklaces can help! Showcasing the images of  a vast array of literary figures ranging from Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allan Poe to Alice Walker, this Etsy shop offers jewelry befitting a broad range of readerly tastes.

Berkeley-based artisan, Melanie Ross, seals the image of each literary and historical figure into modern, silver-plated settings with expertly applied resin. So, whether you'd like to explore the American south's poignant history with a gift of Faulkner earrings or simply celebrate your passion for Oscar Wilde's inescapable witticisms with a pendant bearing his image, take a look at the hand-made jewelry from Art History Nerd.

To purchase an item and to learn more about Art History Nerd's Etsy shop, please visit: http://www.etsy.com/shop/melaniemross

(All images courtesy of Art History Nerd: from top, Virginia Woolf Pendant; Victorian Novelist Portrait Bracelet; William Faulkner Earrings)

On Fairytales

Dedication from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:  

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be
your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis

Word Garden

You know that you are in the shop of a craftsperson with a truly unique perspective when her list of favorite materials is limited to “beautiful words, images and fabrics.” And these simple materials come together miraculously in the hands of Sally Varpness and transform into delightful pillows. Each pillow seems to bring a crisp lightness and a certain j’nai se quoi that gestures to the peculiarly Parisian sensibility of her design aesthetic. Saucy quotes and French hand-written ephemera are combined with elegant black and white images and touches of cheerful color. “I have been creating, designing and decorating” says the founder of this Eagan, Minnesota-based shop, “ever since I moved into my first place...which was now a long time ago!”

Her uniquely clever chalkboard pillow (in burlap and damask) invites inveterate couch potatoes to try their hand at the written word—or at least leave a written warning that the remote has inexplicably disappeared. The literary challenge of this pillow reveals the important part that language plays for this artist:  “I am inspired by meaningful words and beautiful gardens, hence my shop name...Word Garden.” A garden of words AND a comfy pillow to rest your head on—now that is something to write home about.

To purchase an item from this shop or to learn more about it, please visit: http://www.wordgarden.etsy.com. For jewelry by Sally Varpness please visit her other shop, http://www.LivingOutLoudJewelry.etsy.com.

 (Images courtesy of Word Garden. From top: Blue Butterfly in Paris Pillow, Chalkboard Pillow on Damask, FairyTale Ending Pillow)

Dear Deer Designs

When a mischievous sense of humor, fine-tuned illustrations and environmental consciousness collide the ingenuous cards/finger puppets and gift tags/bookmarks at Dear Deer Designs are the result. With a Dear Deer finger puppet greeting card you can make a host of literary luminaries including Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe and Shakespeare “dance, dance, dance” any time, night or day!

“It’s about fun. Lots of fun!” says Dear Deer Designs founder, Dan Leanio, “At Dear Deer Designs, we provide unique cards and stationary items with an air of sophisticated silliness. I hope these creations will put smiles on faces everywhere they go.” One look at his catalogue of creations and it’s clear that his mission has been accomplished.

In addition to detailed artwork and a generous helping of good fun, this shop also features a distinct attention to sustainability and reuse in all aspects of the shop. “We focus on making items with extended life cycles, and only use one hundred percent post consumer recycled papers,” explains the owner of this Minneapolis-based shop, “So a greeting card is also a finger puppet, a gift tag becomes a bookmark, and a tree stays a tree.” Like so many of the truly wonderful things in life, a Dear Deer Design creation is much more than it first appears to be.

To learn more or to purchase an item from this shop, please visit:

http://www.deardeerdesigns.etsy.com

(All Images courtesy of Dear Deer Designs. From Top:"Oscar Wilde - Finger puppet Greeting card,""Tattoo - Gift Tag and Bookmark," "Shakespeare - Finger puppet Greeting card" back view).

Roses and Strawberries

"Then she became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses at her breasts; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim. She blushed, and said confusedly that the flowers had been given to her. When the passengers were not looking she stealthily removed the more prominent blooms from her hat and placed them in basket, where she covered them with her handkerchief. Then she fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers in Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions; she thought this an ill omen--the first she had noticed that day."


~from Tess of the D'urbervilles  by Thomas Hardy

The Love Shop

Has your "get up and go"got up and gone?  Do you find yourself wishing for simpler times or divine guidance? Are you concerned that your bad mood is keeping you from getting all the nutrients from your multivitamin? If so, look no further than The Love Shop for remedy. Effervescent, expertly-designed prints will lift your spirits and bring a pop of personality to even the most austere living space. Based in Melbourne, this shop brings together dynamic messages, eloquent images and all-encompassing good karma. “This shop is my attempt at giving a little love to you and the world,” explains the founder of the Love Shop, “I’ve experienced some very challenging times over the past few years and throughout those times when things looked dark, I grabbed a hold of love and held on for dear life. I noticed that when I focused on love, I felt better. This was when the idea for the Love Shop was born.”

Literary inspiration for Love Shop artworks is varied, from Jane Austen and Edgar Allan Poe to the Beatles and the artist herself. A selection of matte and glossy archival papers in a range of easy-to-frame sizes make a poster or limited edition print from this shop a great gift for any occasion. It’s difficult not to feel renewed zest for life when looking at the gorgeous colors and uplifting messages that each artwork celebrates. But then that’s the point:

“I love nothing more than to utilise my experience in designing to create what I hope are artworks that bring you joy (and if I’m very lucky, maybe even inspire you). That’s my intention anyhow.”

Feel the love on Etsy by visiting:

http://www.theloveshop.etsy.com

or on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/yaytheloveshop

(Images from top: ""Love Poe" featuring two star crossed crows," "Deer Birdy," and "Bewitched" print in French Blue. All images courtesy of The Love Shop)

A Late St. Patrick's Celebration

The artist, like the God of the creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.


~from A Portrait of the Artist as A Young Man by James Joyce

The Black Spot Books

Like the London fog that shrouds everything in a Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, objects found in The Black Spot Books are touched with the marks of antiquity and care. Margaux Kent, the founder of this shop describes her penchant for materials with a history, explaining that she likes to work with “treasures found and recovered from misfortune and neglect, relics of the unusual, the confused and the macabre, cut and pulled and bound into wearable curiosities and inscribable keepsakes.”

The hand-bound book receives new life in the hands of this Philadelphia-based artist in more ways than one. Lined with hand-torn and individually stitched pages, the uniquely tactile journals and notebooks are also produced in miniature as petite charms and utilitarian necklaces. The components for these books come from myriad sources: “The leather I use has been bartered from farms in Ecuador, ripped from old chairs in Holland, taken from boots and shoes and saddles and bags and wallets, and found in abandoned houses across the United States,” says Kent. This practice not only adds a nostalgic mystique to these items, but makes them both green and animal-friendly.

In addition, this shop offers an assortment of found and vintage objects crafted into delicate jewelry, Victorian curiosities and intriguing prints and photographs.

To learn more about The Black Spot Books or to purchase items from this Etsy shop, please visit:

http://www.TheBlackSpotBooks.etsy.com

Also, please visit this shop on Twitter, Facebook and Blogspot:

http://twitter.com/TheBlackSpotBks


http://www.facebook.com/people/Margaux-Kent/1347784159


http://www.theblackspotbooks.blogspot.com/

(Images from Top: Autumnal Library 11 antique and scrap leather books for the neck black walnut, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, crimson, sap green and soot; The Jellyfish 1885 Victorian etching journal covered in vintage deerskin; The Hester Pryne Necklace. All images courtesy of The Black Spot Books.)

"A child said, What is the grass?"

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
 hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
 is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
 green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
 may see and remark, and say Whose?




Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
 of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
 zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the 
same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

~from Walt Whitman

KM Stitchery

An explosive mix of feminist imagery and history, ethical and green practices and artistic vision, KM Stitchery makes apparel with a social agenda. Each screen-printed item from this shop depicts a luminary figure in the women’s movement. “I think it's important to recognize, acknowledge and admire women who have fought for women's rights and who have broken through gender barriers,” says the founder of this shop, “clothing is a great way to spread the message of feminism. I am sick of seeing male revolutionaries revered and plastered on t-shirts, but not hearing much about female revolutionaries!” Simone de Beauvoir, Audrey Lorde, Sylvia Plath, Gertrude Stein, Frida Kahlo and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are just a few of the feminist faces that grace KM Stichery’s hip assortment of t-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts and tunics.

KM Stitchery is also unabashedly green--using creatively repurposed recycled materials for everything from hang-tags and business cards to mailing materials and fabric clothing tags. Even her iron and ironing board were saved from a dumpster! “Being environmentally-friendly and sweatshop free is important to me!” proclaims the designer behind this shop. All designs are printed on recycled clothing in pristine condition, making each design from this shop not only green, but absolutely one-of-a-kind. In addition to imaginative reuse, designs are printed with water-based, non-toxic ink and this shop’s business cards are stamped with environmentally-friendly stamps.

KM Stitchery is fabulous destination for eye-popping designs that celebrate women who have changed our world as well as an informative site to learn more about figures that patriarchal history has forgotten.

To purchase items or to learn more about this shop, visit:

http://www.kmstitchery.etsy.com

Other ways to explore KM Stitchery:

Blog: http://kmstitchery.blogspot.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/kmstitchery


Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/KM-Stitchery/108575778065?ref=ts


(From Top: Charlotte Bronte Hand-stenciled T-shirt; Sylvia Plath Hand-stenciled Shirt; Charlotte Perkins Gilman Hand-stenciled  Shirt. All images courtesy of KM Stitchery.)

In the Spirit of Halloween...

She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead.


~From "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe

Lisa Victoria

Spanning many cultures and centuries, the lore of the dragon, mermaid and fairy still pervade world myth and fairytale. The art of San Francisco-based artist Lisa Victoria brings a new point of view to depicting these ancient and mysterious creatures. With a wink of good humor, an eye for subtle color harmonies and enviable technical skill Lisa creates fantasy illustrations of breath-taking luminosity. Coveted by international and domestic collectors, Lisa’s paintings embody a range of techniques in including watercolor, acrylic and mixed media. Lisa has been working as a professional artist since 1999 and earned her MFA in illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.       

Offerings from her shop include original paintings, miniatures, prints, postcards, ACEO cards, note cards, magnets and stamps. In addition to individual artworks and craft items, Lisa has brought her unique style to children’s books as the illustrator of “A Simple Brown Leaf” (2005), recipient of The Mother’s Choice Award, and “Clara’s Gift from the Heart” (2006).

To learn more about Lisa Victoria or to purchase items from her shop, please visit http://www.lisavictoria.etsy.com or http://www.lisavictoria.net. Become her fan on Facebook by visiting http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisa-Victoria/86960201538.

(Images, from top: Crescent Wave Mermaid, Bedtime Tales, Friendship Fairy. All images courtesy of Lisa Victoria.)

Regency Shoplifting

In August of 1799, Jane Austen's aunt, "the respectable Mrs Leigh Perrot, was accused of shoplifting. It seems that a piece of white lace was 'accidentally' wrapped in a parcel of purchases that she had made with her husband. When the case was eventually brought before the Taunton Assizes the verdict was 'not guilty' and it appears that this was a blackmail attempt by the shop. Nevertheless, Mrs Leigh Perrot had been charged with attempted larceny and committed to the Ilchester gaol from August 1799 until the trial in March 1800 [...] Had she been found guilty the sentence could have been fourteen years transportation or even death"!
~from Jane Austen Fashion by Penelope Byrde

On Learning to Read

"When I caught the mumps, I couldn’t read; when I went back to school again, I could. The first page of The Hobbit was a thicket of symbols, to be decoded one at a time and joined hesitantly together…. By the time I reached The Hobbit’s last page, though, writing had softened, and lost the outlines of the printed alphabet, and become a transparent liquid, first viscous and sluggish, like a jelly of meaning, then ever thinner and more mobile, flowing faster and faster, until it reached me at the speed of thinking and I could not entirely distinguish the suggestions it was making from my own thoughts. I had undergone the acceleration into the written word that you also experience as a change in the medium. In fact, writing had ceased to be a thing—an object in the world—and become a medium, a substance you look through."

-from The Child That Books Built by Frances Spufford