fanciful devices: This is the Title of this Post.

A Stone Is Nobody's

A man ambushed a stone. Caught it.
Made it a prisoner.
Put it in a dark room and stood guard over it for the rest of his life.

His mother asked why.

He said, because it's held captive, because it is captured.

Look, the stone is asleep, she said, it does not know whether it's in a garden or not. Eternity and the stone
are mother and daughter; it is you who are getting old. The stone is only sleeping.

But I caught it, mother, it is mine by conquest, he said.

A stone is nobody's, not even its own. It is you who are conquered; you are minding the prisoner, which is yourself,
because you are afraid to go out, she said.

Yes yes, I am afraid, because you have never loved me, he said.

Which is true, because you have always been to me as the stone is to you, she said.

Russell Edson

FAQs

1. Are you a Southeast Asian dancing girl from the 1800s?

No, sorry to disappoint. My avatar and banner images are from an ancient book I found in the depths of my grandmother's cabinets. More on that here.

2. How do you make everything look so old?

First, you need a good oxidizer to brush on every bit of metal you can reach. I'll tell you all about it here.

Then there's this wax. I first mentioned it here. You'll have to scroll down a lot.

3. How can you be so productive?

I'm insanely obsessed and I have no offspring. I do nothing else- I don't have a day job, I don't clean my house or cook, I spend all day in pjs, often completely abandoning personal hygiene... I only interact with other humans when I walk my dog. And I like people! But I prefer dogs.

And I'm sloppy- but I make that sloppiness work for me.

4. Any tips you'd like to share?

No! Except for these 16 posts about techniques and this one about how to find your aesthetic.

5. Would you be offended if I took some inspiration from your designs?

Well, I'd be happier if you outright copied them.

No really, imitation is how we learn. I have enough ideas to go around. And even if I don't- please. No one's going to do this obsessively enough to threaten my business. (Probably.) I learned by copying others and I've seen others copy me as a step toward developing their own voice. So feel free. (I'd love if you tossed me a link in my comments, so I can feel like a proud momma.)

6. What do you look like?

Why, what have you heard? Really? Wow.

8/31/11

This is the Title of this Post.

This is the first sentence in the body of this post. The following are the photos in the post.

Here is the first picture. It is of a necklace.

The second is of the very same necklace. Perhaps this bores the viewer. The viewer clicks away to another location on (in?) the world wide web. Bye!

Aaahhh..... alone at last.

Allow me to slip into something a little more comfortable.

Enough silliness! These are grungy quartz Sparrow sent me. I set them in some cut tin and cones Corvid sent me.

Ugh. The only good picture of this was the size picture which is sort of the back side.... OK, there's the front:

Look at the giant moose tooth! That's from readbetween!

Wait. There's more.

Look at this primordial baby! All crusty and medieval primitive goodness. With a burst of amethyst crystals which are rimmed around the edges with silver... wait. You can't see it. Crud.

And a bracelet.

OK. Das it.

5 comments:

betweenreader said...: Marina, you are definitely on a roll -- this is very exciting stuff!; 8/31/11, 10:44 PM
Penelope said...: My heart was fluttering on that first one...and then the earrings popped up and it skipped a beat!! Everything is frustrating goregous as usual. Those cruddy quartz drops- I hate it when I send you something I've deemed to be of little use to me and you make it into some kind of genius thing. How dare you.; 8/31/11, 11:18 PM
Spirited Earth said...: those bracelets knock me out..
and psst..i like it when you don't spell out each item and where it came from..it's a little mystery; 8/31/11, 11:48 PM
Anonymous said...: Loving the primitive one with the amethyst and the cute bracelet. I like the direct approach of here it is, I wish we didn't have to plough through all that relevancy, keywords nonsense. Some days I just want to put up a picture and write a description that says f***ing buy this...please. Manners maketh the woman.; 9/1/11, 2:52 AM
Lorelei Eurto said...: oooh more pics of my bracelet! I LOVE IT SOOOOOO!; 9/1/11, 8:02 PM