The line between the real and unreal

Keepin' it real. But when the real is unreal, how can you tell where one stops and other begins?

Not much to say this week. Thought this would be better than nothing.

Edit: I linked up to Patti's Visible Monday/Not Dead Yet Style with this photo from my Instagram.

But is it still a T-shirt?

Finding your art oomph after it's been lost for weeks can be a religious experience. I had been wandering listlessly through a haze of bleh, pfft, and meh. I was practically drooling in lethargy. Daily I would stare with blank eyes at my art materials and fabric carefully arranged all over the living room floor in emergency preparedness and as hopeful prompts for a fark attack. (See glossary below for clarification.)

Then, WHAM!!! Turn down the volume!! I got the fever. I farked a T-shirt! Hurrah!! This white XL T-shirt is now a kimono-y T-shirt with dual-purpose sleeves - short or extra long. It was a transcendental farkathon. 

It's a mysterious world. Oh yesh. 

This calls for some singing: "I can bring home the bacon, ba-rah-da-dum, Fry it up in a pan, ba-rah-da-dum, And never ever let you forget it's not spam..." Cause I'm classy like that. Getting my fark beat back makes me feel almighty. I want to sing like Peggy Lee.

Blue brows above. I wore them that morning with a manly outfit and my black moto jacket, no lipstick because I was digging the sallow pallor. When I finished the shirt in the afternoon, I decided to team it and the brows with my farked rocker pants and boots for a shoot in the concrete box round about midnight. Lipstick was essential.

Note the hair cut, courtesy of O. Above is a jeans photo I took today, when I actually wore the T-shirt outside for the first time under a vintage ivory Asian-style silk jacket. 

:: DETAILS - START ::

[Skip to the end if this stuff bores you. There is no test.]

I sliced the T-shirt up the front middle, overlapped the two sides and stitched them in place with contrasting thread. I had an old blue cardigan and I cut off the sleeves, then separated the front and back pieces. I folded the front piece in half length-wise, keeping it buttoned, and sewed it shut to make a tube. Then I sewed the waistband end to the T-shirt sleeve. Now I can easily stick my arm through wherever I like.

I did the same for the green floral shirt, except in reverse - I sewed the green shirt collar end to the T cuff. I also kept the short-sleeve on the green shirt so I can have short sleeves or long.

The slit opening at my right wrist used to be the cardigan V-neck. And there's the green shirt armhole at my left elbow. I turned the sleeve up in this photo - they are both very long, which I like. 

I also took up the shoulder of the white T on the left side, added a black patch for detail, and slit the side seams a little bit. The tag came off so I had to sew it back on because I like that mess.

:: DETAILS - FINISH ::

I love my new T-shirt. I was originally going to write all over it - "I am not a brand!" - but I hesitated at the last minute. Some things are done when they're done. I'm not sure about this piece yet. 

There's something slightly zombie about this photo.

The blue cardigan and green top were already bagged for donation, too small, I shouldn't have bought them in the first place but I was seduced by their colour and the pattern. I was sad to see them go, so I enlisted them in my T-shirt project figuring if I make a mistake, no big deal, they were goners anyway. And of course, that's exactly the thinking I need to cozy up to the sewing machine and sew like a madwoman!! 

And have a blast! Threads flying! Machine wheezing. Pins poking and sproinging pell mell. It was quite a vortex of energy. O hid.

You should see me whip those sleeves around like little helicopters. And note the cowlick in my hair. It comes from my whorl. When cows tongue-bathe their young, they create swirls in their hair, hence the word. Lovely. Ain't nobody going to be licking my hair!

Anyway, I proclaim this:

INTERNATIONAL LOVE YOUR WHORL MONTH

Glossary:

art oomph - creative spark

bleh, pfft, meh: words that kind of mean blah with a negative edge if you can work up any emotion whatsoever

fark - farked, farking, farkathon, words I made up, a combination of f*cked/faked/farted, in reference to altering, upcycling, or refashioning an existing item, especially clothing, with unexpected results

digging - member of the groovy, heavy, far-out family of words only dorks like me use these days, meaning loving

whorl: the twirly part of your hair usually on top of your head, which you curse and hide or, like me, play up like it's meant to be there - can't beat 'em, join 'em. Question: Do whorls goes the opposite direction in the Southern Hemisphere, like water going down a drain?

the lyrics: From a song made famous by Peggy Lee. Instead of "spam" the real lyrics say "man."

pell-mell: Means here and there in a chaotic way.

My blue brows and my green sleeve and blue sleeve, shoulder patch of olive mesh and black fleece. That's a ring O made me from scratch. See, yes, I do get wife bonuses all the time (in reference to last post). O is awesome.

I'll link something here up with Patti's Visible Monday, Not Dead Yet Style, and Catherine's #iwillwearwhatilike at Not Dressed at Lamb. And a big thank you to Catherine for her post this week HERE on how more brands should be enlisting 40+ blogger women in their campaigns. And I'm happy to see Claire get this exposure for her brilliant designs. Thanks, Catherine! 

And I can't believe with all these colours I'm not wearing amethyst, Anne's prompt at SpyGirl for 52-Pick-me-up. Oh well, go have a look anyway and link if you're wearing amethyst.

What have you been up to lately?

Rockstar pants meet rockstar

These pants were beige, were beige, until yesterday. Now look what I've done.

These beggarly beasts of beigy blandness were headed straight for the trash bin barring immediate colour intervention, so I attacked them viciously with my Sharpies and acrylic paint. 

Who cares that they are now slightly crusty to the touch? Not I. 

Who cares that the earth may shake and split open and swallow them live if I try to wash them? Not I. 

Who cares that a sudden downpour would tan my legs blue? Um, yeah, that would suck.

In these photos taken by O I'm wearing flats because I was walking on boardwalks, but this morning on my inspiration walk, for the debut of these psychedelic pants, nothing but heels would do, you betcha. My legs beamed electric rays at everyone within eyeshot - we're talking hundreds of meters here. I warped into an echoing world of rockstars and strange hotels and room service with rubbery eggs and toast held upright in metal thingies. And mini bars. And chocolates, wrapped, on my pillow. Helping to create the mood was the satiny shirt that O used to wear when he played gigs in Tokyo. 

Details

• upcycled pants, thrifted, DIY
• satiny top, from O, I won't say vintage
• heels not shown, D&G, thrifted
• magic loupe, made for me by O
• airship whale and ghost-on-a-swing pendants, from friend Monique
• black leather belt, thrifted

On my way home, Sandra and I dropped by an upscale shoe store where I delivered a couple of t-shirts I'd made for the managers who'd fallen for my "I have nothing to wear" shirt they'd seen me in a week ago. I couldn't deny their pleas - they are such cool women.

Then later, at a stoplight a few blocks from the store, Sandra turned and asked me, "You know who that was, right?" "Who who was?" I had no idea what she was talking about. "That was Paul Stanley (me: blank face) - of KISS." Apparently he had been smiling at me in the store. Gaaa! I was completely oblivious. Clearly he had been HIT-NO-TIZED by my rockstar pants, sucked in by their colossal rockstar tractor beam. Or, wait, maybe it was my larval brows, aqua pools of wriggly wonder, or maybe it was my yellow eyelids! Quickly I asked Sandra if she'd like to go back and watch Mr. Stanley - after all, she is a true rock fan. But, nah. What for? I didn't even know his name when she told me anyway. So we continued down the road preferring to create our own little rock star moments than pick at the flecks of glitter in another celebrity's wake.

It's very freeing once in a while to realize there is no Celebrity Mall with special Celebrity Stores. We're just people, often with two arms, two legs, some with better teeth and manicures. And it's not who you know (unless it's someone tremendously powerful who is a nice person rather than a power-rapist-type person) but rather what we make of ourselves that counts. Blah, blah, blah, birds sing, flowers sprout. But I have to say, KISS rocks, by definition.

See you over at Patti's truly delicious rock garden, Visible Monday, at her blog Not Dead Yet Style, where we can all fantasize about KISS platform boots! Have you had any brushes with celebrities lately? Have a great weekend everyone. (I wrote this post on Saturday.)

I have a Yellow Skirt update coming up...

Caterpillar brows experiment

As soon as I clamped eyes on the December 2012 British Vogue with its feature "Vogue goes POP: An explosion of fashion and fun" I knew I'd be going shopping for cosmetics for the first time in ages, perhaps years. Not having read a proper fashion magazine in as long, I clearly had a lot of catching up to do on my face. It was the eyebrows, you see, lovely caterpillars of seafoam green and papaya on a couple of the models. I HAD TO HAVE THEM, and have them I did.

I have always been interested in image and its impact on how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. As some of you may know, I admire American artist Cindy Sherman, whose photographic works of herself in guises of every description are an exploration of these same questions.

For me, dressing is a dance of masking and revealing. Now that I have loaded up with new cosmetics, makeup is also part of my little life polka.

I call this high-brow exploration CATERPILLAR BROWS.

Top left: Neutral; Top right: Look, I'm Cindy Sherman!

Middle left: Super-silly-us; Middle right: I'll pray for you, dahlings.

Bottom left: "???"; Bottom right: "Oh, Poirot, I've lost my poodle in the Nile. Can you find it?"

None of the characters/looks above were thought out - they grew as my shoot progressed. I chose to work with my big groovy hat, sequin tube top, colourful scarf, and peach peignoir (the former all thrifted), and a red wool hat, gift. The white knit top, very tattered but comfy, and grey T-shirt underneath are fine examples of my home schlep-wear (say that five times very fast).

It was hard not to do faces with this look.

Second row left: Ms. Bean-Bagg or Ms. Bagg o' Beans

Mr. Bean and Ms. Bagg tie the knot. Won't our children look gawjus?

The eyebrows are MAC chromacake, blue and yellow mixed. The eyeshadow is yellow cake with a sprinkling of glitter, which I completely love, then a little, rather, a lot of dusting of blush on the cheeks. Finally, MAC Yum-Yum matte pink lipstick with liner and lots and lots of mascara on my upper lashes.

I wore this exact cosmetic look on my inspiration walk downtown a couple of times last week, minus the bright red cheeks. Then on another day I did my brows in papaya. I also wore the big hat downtown, stuffed with the scarf to keep it from falling over my eyes.

Oddly, this look in public did not make me feel clownish in the least. Sometimes I even forgot that I had green eyebrows and glitter yellow eyelids. But there was no escaping how swell I was feeling. I'm surprised those little brow worms didn't turn into butterflies and fly straight away.

Have you been thinking of mixing up your cosmetic palette? Would you try this in your free time?