Goth Mary Poppins' Creative Goth (Summer) Weeks: 25-29 tasks

Summer is over, but as Goth Mary Poppins pointed out, there are still some things one can do to manifest ones creativity in a healthy and productive way.

From last summer. It is a part of an art installation called The Official Garden. It is made out of silk ties.

Here are the tasks 25-29. I shall fulfill the tasks 22-24 on a better time, though I do not know any children so I probably just try to draw what I would try to make if I had a young relative or a friends off-spring I would want to make happy with a gift.


25. Have you ever got handmade gift from someone? If not, what would make you happy?

Well, I am happy to announce that the answer is yes. I once got a hand made perfume as a solstice present. Also I would like to believe a relative of mine has given me knitted socks, but I can not be sure. It was probably a granny or something.


26. The other side: have you ever gave handmade gift(s)? Was it a success, or a fail? Or never tried? For the next occasion, try!

When I was about 12 year-old, I made small stuffed and knitted dogs for all my family members. They are still there, sitting in a bookshelf.


 27. Handmade thing(s) you bought/ plan to buy.

Last Christmas I bought a handmade glass ornament from a Christmas market for my mother. I am visiting them next weekend, so I can take a picture of it and add it to this post. It is a blue star and I am happy to say she keeps it in sight all year around.


 28.  Share your best tips about DIY.

Don't know if this is wrong to say, but I think handmade things should not look handmade. I mean in my little world of words and their meanings I consider "handmade" to mean something that is a bit sloppy, rustic, bohemian and so on, which can look adorable, don't get me wrong! But when trying to achieve an elegant gothic look rustic is not exactly the word you are looking for, if you catch my drift?

Of course, when one examines all those wonderful bloggers and their DIY tips one must admit it is hardly sloppy looking. It is just that I myself need more practice to achieve that same level, but that means a bunch of quite moderate outcomes before my skills develop, I might add.

Therefore I have no great tips about DIY, except that "simple is usually best". Like me changing buttons to a jacket and it instantly looks more glamorous.


29. What/who is your inspiration?

This is a really hard question, since I draw inspiration from different things in different situations. If I would have to name something or someone at this moment, it would be The Underworld movies, especially the first one. Visually it is great!

Bizarre art, aka. Greetings from St. Petersburg!

Since I really have nothing of my old projects ready, the art book about renaissance is still not finished and so is with the DIY jewellery, I'm going to post a few pics from St. Petersburg. I was there three days and had a two-day ticket to Hermitage Museum and there were some really bizarre artworks.

In one of those huge rooms the walls were filled with 18th and 19th century paintings, they were all huge and portrayed hounds attacking something. Like a bear or a bewildered horse or a panther or each other. Those paintings were in a way extremely grotesque. The pics are not that good because I was not sure if photographing was allowed. Turned out it was in most rooms.

I also visited the local zoological museum and it was too a bit creepy. There must have been some really enthusiastic taxidermists, since there were everything from house pets to hundreds of penguins. I mean literally, there were several glass boxes filled with them but for some reason I did not take a photo of them. Guess I'm not that big a penguin fan as the Russians  I can't help myself to think that person who went to the South Pole and killed all 75 baby penguins and their parents, stuffed them to shipping boxes and sent to St. Petersburg.

But I did take a picture of a seal with anger management problems and a sad looking baby bear left into a cabinet with no relatives.

Artistic creativity in taxidermy: revealing the inner beast of a seal

Finally two pretty pictures of an excessive decor.

A room in Hermitage

DIY: Booze Jello, with tip to easily alter the theme

Unfortunately I have to postpone my plans to write about the last art book. We have a little break from the university, so I'm now visiting my parents and tomorrow I'm off to Saint Petersburg. I'll be back on Monday.

Meanwhile, I made a booze jello as a birthday present for two friends. The have this habit to hold parties that last the whole weekend. The also have some special theme for it and this time it was army.

My recipe:
0,5 litre of vodka
some sugar to make it sweeter (about 2 desilitres)
about 0,5 liters of concentrated juice (green)
15 leaves of gelatine
small plastic soldiers (as decoration)
conserved pieces of pineapple (1 can, so about 200g)
a mandarin or two (fresh)

First pour the vodka in to a huge bowl. Add sugar and juice untill it tastes ok. Use the instructions of the gelatine and when it is liquid pour it into the vodka and mix it well. Pour it into the cups or what ever you are going to serve it from. Add small pieces of fruit (not necessary). Put the jello to fridge. After a few hours plant the little plastic soldiers so that the can stand in the jello, looking fierce.

Of course, this simple recipe can be altered in to a more gothic style, which is the reason I am now telling about it. For example use dark red or violet juice. Insert little plastic spiders or eye balls or fake Dracula teeth into the jello instead of soldiers. I could not put soldiers to the jello before arriving to the party-place (a distant cottage 3 hour drive away), so the jello looks a bit scruffy.

This is an easy way to impress people and make it look like you made an effort!

DIY: spiderweb jewelry out of coasters

A few days ago I had some free time between lessons, so I went to a small shopping center next to the university. I strolled around and finally ended up at a sort of a crafts shop. They sell also all kinds of Halloween decorations and I saw these spiderweb coasters made of black felt. I thought, a spiderweb could be pretty brooch or hair jewelry. So I grabbed them and started to look for other inspiring things. Here is my pillage:

paper roses, coasters, little bird and angel wings

Also, I bought those little metal parts one needs to make them stick to the head or blouse. I have a slight problem though, the pins are so big, that one can see them behind. For example the one with bloody roses, I must either find smaller pins, or add some lace behind it to fade the metal parts away. I'm open for suggestions, because I really like it that way, but I want to actually wear it too!

The roses

The bird luckily hides the pin

Also, have not figured out how to make those little angels, tangled in the spiderweb. I had a clear vision when I bought the silvery wings, but how can I make those little figures without them looking crappy?

The two ready ones

About Gothic Art Books, and where is Goth Art going (part 2)

I shall be a bit shorter than what was the original plan. It is partly because I really am not an expert in contemporary art, and partly because I have had an extremely busy fortnight. As I said, next is Hell Hound: New Gothic Art by Francesca Gavin.

In this book there is no chapters per se. There is an introduction and the artists. What is to be noticed is that Gothic is not used as a synonym to Goth (as a sub-culture) it has certain similarity, but it is not representing the sub-culture or it's collective view of art.

I am going to aggravate a tiny bit, to make the differences between books more visible and also perhaps to stir some objections.

As said, compared to the earlier book, Gothic Art NOW, there is no chapters, or one could say each artist is a chapter. In Gothic Art NOW the artworks presented are more the popular view of what does Gothic (in the sense of being submissive to the term Goth) art look like. There was a point, that some of the artist presented in Gothic Art NOW do not consider themselves to be goths or their art to be gothic.

In Hell Hound I think it is even less that way. In the introduction term Gothic is almost reduced to mean the same thing as fear. The artists introduced are somehow dealing with fear, politics and society or the concept of art itself in their work.

Of coarse it is quite visible why goths like these artists, or why people in general consider them to be presenting dark aesthetics. There is a certain sinister allure in the artworks mentioned whether they are paintings, video installations or statues. I can't say I instantly fell in love with every artist or liked every work, but they do give a bigger picture of all art that could be considered gothic or even goth.

The variety of styles, methods and concepts is remarkable considering the way Gothic Art Now presented different works of art, or artists.

Nevertheless, I strongly recommend to explore both of the books I shortly presented. 

Next time: Degradation and Renaissance: Decadence in Finland's Fine Arts and Literature

About Gothic Art Books, and where is Goth Art going (part 1)

There is no strict definition of what is "goth" and what is not. So it is no surprise that this applies to gothic art too. There are still some generally approved indicators which can lead to a conclusion of something being goth. For example descriptive words like sinister, twisted, wicked, creepy, dark and decayed are marks that can point something being gothic. (But can very well not point, it depends of the density of these words, are they used by many people or many of them at the same time and so on.)

I'm now in separate posts going to present two art books that use word "Gothic" in their title and one book, which is in Finnish but the title can be translated as "Degradation and Renaissance: Decadence in Finland's Fine Arts and Literature".

I'll start with Gothic Art NOW by Jasmine Becket-Griffith, which was published 2008. It introduces many fine pieces of art like Dorian Cleavenger's The Chambermaid, for which Dita Von Teese modelled, and Jessica Joslin's sculptures.

There is also quite a number of artists introduced whose work looks like something one finds in Deviantart, made by thousands of others.  Those digital paintings are pretty, but they are more posters and market art (I'm not sure how this is said in English, but in my language this means something pretty but not of good quality or not that significant).

Left Shannon Hourigan, right Rachel Anderson

In Gothic Art NOW the artworks are divided into eight chapters like Femme Fatales, Men in Black and Gothic Elegance. In Femme Fatales there are women, but those art works do not differ in style or use of equipment from Men in Black chapter's content. Or from others on that matter. I would say that the first three chapters are quite fan-art and J-pop oriented.

Somehow different is chapter Lurking Horror where are probably the best works and there are many different styles. More great works are in chapter Creepy Creations and there is even some statues. It differs from other chapters too, in a positive way.

This might sound really negative, but I do not mean it that harsh. I'm only saying, that if the content had been organized in some other way, the book would give much more professional feel. I do think that almost every work it presents is pretty or intriguing.

What do you think, what does "gothic art" mean to you?

Next time: Hell Hound: New Gothic Art.

Being open-minded leads to cool purchases.

Today is hopefully my first lesson of the year. I am planning to start to study French, but I was not lucky enough to fit into the group. Unfortunately I do not know what is my position in the queue to the course. Well, it is to be found out in the next hour. I hope somebody will cancel and I get to learn a new language.

I have also one other thing on my mind. I wanted to show my new school bag, which I bought in Warsaw. My hunch says it is for about 10-year-old boys, but I like it. My mini laptop fits in it perfectly!
What can one learn from this? At least to be open-minded about shopping in different sections and not to stare the label of the product.

As I mentioned, I bought a wig to use, since I have dreamed of a black/blue hair but can not keep it up by dyeing. So this is today's style.