contemplative

13th in an occasional series of ballet paintings that are not Degas:

Dancer with a Hoop (1881)

Jean-Louis Forain

Snip snip

(possibly) eleventh in an (very) occasional series of ballet paintings that are not Degas:

  

Ballet Girl and Dressmaker (1930)

Laura Knight

If you're in the States:

and if you're not then happy Thursday! I know, right? Almost Friday, that counts for something.
But seriously folks, did you think there even was more than one vintage turkey/ballerina pin-up picture in the world? Well, there you go.

Birthday Gift

It's an Edward Gorey ballerina cat, guys. It's basically perfect.

Well, this is Terrifying...

I can't get this video to embed properly, but I will link y'all to it, anyway.

Click here for mega-super-scary-ballerina times.

DOLLIES!

One of my many (many MANY) great loves is paper dolls. I was poodling around online reading an article on the subject when I came across these: antique Marie Taglioni paper dolls.

Here's the one in the article.

And here is a link to many more fabulous costumes, as well as back story type stuff. It's pretty great.

Of Swans and Needles

So, my latest acupuncture appointment was canceled (usually at the last second) THREE times. I finally got in yesterday, for the first time in two months. So, basically, everything good that we had accomplished through regular treatment was completely thrown out the window and we started again from square one. And now I just hurt everywhere. She did work on my shins, though, but it remains to be seen whether or not it does anything useful for me. Annoyingly (because of the whole holistic approach to medicine that acupuncture encourages) the woman kept insisting that I have shin splints because I must have some horrible digestive issue. No. I have shin splints because I have an overwhelming and badly-controlled inflammatory response to, basically, life.

In totally unrelated news:
I finally got the ballerina mechanism for this ugly music box reworked and ready for the box. I refuse to admit how many hours of work went in to repainting this silly creature. She still needs a coat of varnish, and the lighting is bad so you can't see the iridescent finish on her costume, but here she is:

Now I just need to finish the BOX. Hahahahaha. 

Why do I get myself in to these things?

Best. Holiday. Ever.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Ballerina Music Box

So, for some reason I got inspired to rework a ballerina jewelry box. You know, the kind every five year old girl has? So I poked around until I found one with a sound enough structure to repaint, decoupage, etc etc.
I ended up with this one, which I got for super cheapy online:

Isn't it awful?
All told, it's actually nicer than the one I had when I was a kid. But, seriously? I think the ballerina had probably broken out of mine before I ever got my hands on it. I don't really remember, but that is the sort of class act my childhood was.
Here is the horrible pink inside with the ballerina mechanism. She's going to be getting an entirely new paint job and the pink faux velvet is going to go far far away.

Since it plays Swan Lake I am sticking with the theme. But for grown ups.

Career Aspirations of Five Year Olds

No, I don't want to be a ball. I think it's pretty obvious that I want to be a ballerina, not a ball. You are not a very good kindergarten teacher.

PS: I actually remember this project very well. There were blank pages for us to illustrate along the lines of "my favorite food" (something green, apparently. Maybe a cucumber?). For this one the page said "I want to be a ____ when I grow up" and then the teacher's aid filled in the appropriate word. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she got distracted halfway through on mine.
Hopefully.

Girl Crush

This is Nina Baratova, the ballerina I was totally in love with when I was a pre-teen girl:

As Juliet when she was a principal with the Sacramento Ballet.

And here:

Hamming it up as Lady Capulet this year.

What eleven year old girl wouldn't want to be her, am I right?

Pretty Pictures

I just found these photos online and thought I would share them here, as there is at least a tenuous ballet connection.
The photographer is Gregory Maiofis, and he has lots of great (and sometimes pretty weird) stuff out there. As for the ballet-related ones I was particularly taken with these two, of a ballerina and bear (you can get down with the symbolism all up in yo bidness or not, up to you):

Taste for Russian Ballet

Figurative Painting

I love them both for different reasons. Anyway, check him out!

This is Halloween

Okay! So Halloween is coming up. And that means women in far too skimpy "sexy" costumes getting rat-faced all weekend. And we all know (or SHOULD know) that I am kind of a clothing construction and costume geek. It's what I do, darlings (read that "DAHlings" and remember to sound as snooty as possible. Or at least like Edina from Absolutely Fabulous). Anyway... so last year I was expecting mountains of ladies in their gigantic "Black Swan" costumes to be hogging the club floor, but in reality Halloween was on a Monday so the evening's entertainment largely consisted of my husband and I, and about half a dozen other working slobs dressed in comfortable shoes and drinking conservatively while watching bands play and checking our watches every few minutes because duh we have to get up in the morning. I saw pictures from other people's Halloween nights, though, so I know the skanky Black Swans were out there (I was a fully clothed white rabbit from Alice. Very very clothed. Not even a little bit sexy). I think there will be more this year, though, because companies have had an entire year to get their designs sorted and their stuff produced. Out of curiosity (okay, because I felt like making fun of something) I checked out Trashy.com's ballerina costumes. Because Trashy (despite it's awful name) is known for it's elaborate and fist-clenchingly expensive "sexy whatever" costumes that are then ripped off by everyone else in the industry. Wait, wait, wait... is this a sexy storm trooper costume? Sigh...
Anyway, here is their "Black Swan" costume:

All things considered, aside from the unfortunate amount of visible butt cheek and a certain wobbly shapelessness to the skirt (and the stripper heels), it's not that bad. At least, considering some of the things that are out there. Of course, since this getup tops the charts at about $600, the fact is that you could buy a REAL tutu for less money. Not that it would be the crème de la crème or anything, but sheesh, it would at least be shaped properly, and probably cover your butt cheeks. You could even wear stripper heels if you want, though really if you're going for ballerina you need to go all the way. Heels do not equal ballerina. At least get some flats and tie a ribbon around 'em.
On a different, ranting note: am I the only one who thought it was seriously annoying that the movie refused to used the names Odette and Odile and dumbed it down to "black swan" and "white swan"? Any real dancer would already know those names. But then, real dancers have lives, and real ballet directors live in one bedroom apartments with cockroaches, so what am I doing splitting hairs?

Toulouse-Lautrec

Seventh in an occasional series of ballet paintings that are not Degas:

 Ballet de Papa Chrysantheme

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892

Also:

Ballerina - The First Tutu

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1890

 I kinda love this one because you just know what she's thinking, am I right ladies?

Reconstructed Ballerina Shirt

This is only sorta ballet related, but here is what I made when I couldn't sleep Wednesday night (I had just worked an 11 hour day, so there is absolutely no excuse at all for insomnia):

It used to be one of those great big oversized sleep shirt things. It was a gift from one of my dad-types about eleven years ago. I realized eventually that I just don't like sleeping in nighties or sleep shirts, because I can't stand how they get all bunched up around your waist at night. But I loved it and couldn't get rid of it, anyway. I have been meaning to do something interesting with it for ages now and just never got around to it.
Now I can wear it to work and everyone can experience what a big nerd I am.

Starring Emma Livry as Herself

At work we are staging a production that requires the leading lady to "fly" up off the stage and through the lighting array above. Which is all well and good in a show that doesn't involve actresses with copious swathes of floaty and highly flammable silk fabric draping artistically off their bodies. We are pretty much all cringing and whispering furtively amongst ourselves about flaming actresses and the much-less-than-impressed audience's reaction to same.
"What an amazing special effect! And the acting! The way she screams like that! So realistic! GIVE THAT WOMAN A TONY!"
Anyhow. I am certain that one way or another (vats of industrial strength flame retardant are being ordered) we will not end our sad theatrical careers with a horrible and dramatic tragedy. But, it's part of our consciousness, isn't it? Everyone you meet will know that people have died when their costumes caught the oil lamps used to light stages back in the day. It's mostly thanks to this ballerina:

Emma Livry who, in 1863,  burst in to flames on stage and later died from her injuries. The most frustrating part of the whole ordeal is that she would have been fine if she'd stopped, dropped, and rolled like a good girl. But OH NO she had to be the drama queen and run flailing around the stage for several minutes. It must have been quite a show.

Two Posts in One

I have been stuck using the portable barres at the studio, lately (which is a story that involves me being annoyed with someone else for not understanding ballet etiquette, and this story is SO bitchy that I am refraining from telling it) which is irksome because a) sometimes there isn't quite enough space on them so you get stuck hanging over the end or trying not to grab on to the hand of the person on the opposite side, b) sometimes they get set up sort of wonky so that they aren't at a 90* angle to the mirror (or the seams in the floor) so I spend the entire time feeling off-center, and c) they are metal so I create a loud CLANG! every time my left hand touches the barre. Either I am just super-conscious of my own clanging or no one else is having this problem. This is grown-up class! Where are your wedding rings? I am not dissing anyone who takes theirs off, it's just that I am lazy and forgetful and so I basically never remove mine. In the bath tub, doing dishes, digging around in the garden, changing the oil in my scooter, baking bread... whatever. There are reasons I do not wear fancy diamond things with bits all sticking out.
ANYWAY.

 Cemeteries are one of my great passions (I have a lot of great passions, okay?) and in the world of Pinterest I recently discovered this photograph:

Which claims to be the grave of Marie Taglioni in the Montmartre cemetery. And I thought : "OOOH AWESOME!" It's kind of gross but also very beautiful. It's become a sort of shrine for dancers, the pile of decomposing shoes an offering to the memory of the first famous modern ballet dancer. Definitely something to see someday, a pilgrimage site for the future.
But, I was intrigued enough to do some research online and discovered that there is some confusion about this particular grave site. It actually isn't Marie Taglioni's grave, but the grave of her mother (who was a dancer, though not the kind of celebrity her daughter became). So... all those shoes are in the wrong cemetery. In fact, Marie Taglioni's actual grave is in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (where all sorts of other famous dead people reside). Here is an article but it's all in French. My own French is pretty rusty but I can work out the general gist of it.
This is what Marie Taglioni's actual grave looks like:

Much less dramatic but at least there are some shoes up there! If I ever visit France I would definitely make this a destination and add a shoe to the site.
The downside to living in the western US is that our history goes back about 150-200 years and then drops straight off. We have some really interesting cemetery history, but it's nothing like the incredible history of Europe's cemeteries.

god save the queen

So, who else thinks that Queen Elizabeth II is awesome? And how many of you are like "Woot! Diamond jubilee! There will be big hats!" or is it just me?
One of the things that HM did for the occasion is release the complete digitized collection of Queen Victoria's rather exacting private journals. If you are in to that stuff you can check 'em out right here.
So anyway, I've been reading them here and there when something in particular grabs my attention (though, to be honest, her handwriting is pretty taxing) and eagerly waiting for any mention of the big exciting news that was the world of ballet in the early to mid 1800s. I was hoping there would be some written mention, but instead we all lucked out, because she was an artist:

 

Pauline Duvernay in Sleeping Beauty. March 12th, 1833

 “The Viennoises”, at Her Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket. 1845

And, of course, the ballerina who will live forever, Taglioni:

 

Marie Taglioni as La Bayadère, 1832

 

"Mlle taglioni as she appeared in the ballet of Le Pouvoir de la Danse, ou la Nouvelle Terpsichore" 

1834 

And closer because it's prettier that way:

'Taglioni danced quite exquisitely', wrote Victoria, ' … she positively almost flew'

 

 

 

Darn Near Degas

Part three in an occasional series of ballet paintings that aren't Degas:

Danseuse, 1874

 Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Oh Dear, I Discovered Another Thing to do With Polyvore...

Princess Grace: flower fairy by iwillfly

You may as well just hook me up to an IV, because I don't think I am ever going to get up from in front of the computer again...