i fall in love too easily
To celebrate my birthday, I thought I'd look through my archives of unedited self-portraits to find something from ten years ago that I may like to edit and share here and on social media.
In doing so, I found quite a number from a shoot I did in my bedroom in June 2014 that caught my eye after all this time.
I had previously edited a handful of photographs from the shoot, but ten years later, I'm drawn to other images.
As I don't share NSFW content at my lowest tier and can't share NSFW images on most social platforms, I decided to edit a photograph I could share publicly and one I could share early access here to those at 'the perfect 10' tier and above.
I also edited another NSFW image from this shoot that I'll share here in future.
It's been a while since I added work to my interior/exterior series (coming up to three years), but I feel this fits into that series.
Although I won't make this public here as I do with much of my work, I'll potentially share it on my blog and Flickr in a week. But, in the meantime, you get the first look.
I'll share the "safe for work" image with you and across social media later today.
pause for thought
I thought I'd look through my archives of unedited self-portraits to find something from ten years ago that I may like to edit and share to celebrate my birthday.
In doing so, I found quite a number from a shoot I did in my bedroom in June 2014 that caught my eye after all this time.
I had previously edited a handful of photographs from the shoot, but ten years later, I'm drawn to other images.
As I don't share NSFW content at my lowest tier and can't share NSFW images on most social platforms, I decided to edit a photograph I could share publicly and one I could share early access to my patrons at 'the perfect 10' tier and above.
It's been a while since I added work to my interior/exterior series (coming up to three years), but I feel the image I shared on my Patreon in the wee hours of the morning, i fall in love too easily, fits into that series.
Maybe this one does, too.
I edited another NSFW image from this shoot that I'll share with my patrons at 'the perfect 10' tier and above in future.
I also shared a new self-portrait from my wallflowers series, let me hold your heart like a flower, with my patrons early access this morning. That will become public in a month.
entrapment
it's got pockets!
As promised, this is the second image from a new series inspired during my recent gig cat-sitting Meg and Mog, titled plush.
The cats' mothers' new home features some vivid interior design colour choices. Colour choices they would not have made. But that they have inherited from the previous owners.
Jo and Becky are far less enamoured with these colour choices than I am.
While there, I struggled with going out and about much due to my health issues and the heatwave. So I spent quite a lot of time, when not working, hanging out in the lounge room with Meg and binge-watching the most recent season of The Handmaid's Tale ahead of the new season airing next month.
After my visit to Minera last October to cat-sit Meg and Mog while they house-hunted, Jo had sent me a link to the advertisement for their new home. When she contacted me to ask if I could cat-sit their two cuties again, I dug out the link and almost immediately asked about the decor. Had they torn out those carpets and removed the wallpaper?
Jo assured me everything was as it had been in the advertisement apart from (obviously) replacing the furniture with their own. I might have squee'd.
When I arrived, the carpet in the lounge was everything I had hoped for. However, I hadn't registered the purple carpeting in one of the bedrooms (the one I stayed in) and the blood-red carpet in the playroom (formerly the dining room) from the photos. Jo pointed out, quite rightly, that the red carpet would have helped mask red wine stains.
I enjoyed and shared the colour coordination of my tights and the carpet in my temporary bedroom before venturing out, trepidatiously, on a photo walk on my first full day there.
But, between work, the heat and my anxiety toward venturing out, I wasn't as attentive as I usually would be in thinking about potential photographic projects in the space during the first few days.
Fast forward to late afternoon Wednesday, and I found myself planning a series of self-portraits inspired by - of all things - the carpet.
I didn't have specific images planned out, but I knew the clothing I had with me and the three carpets I wanted to use as 'backdrops'. Anyone who knows me knows I love colour coordination, so that was in the forefront of my mind.
So I took an extended break from work late afternoon on Thursday to roll around on the floor during the heat and play with some ideas, moods and colour combinations.
So far, the other two images from the series are more related to how I've been feeling recently and thus more emotional. But this image is more playful.
As any woman who owns a dress with pockets knows, whenever someone compliments you on the dress, it's obligatory to announce, "It's got pockets!" And to proudly place your hands in the pockets to demonstrate how awesome it is to have those pockets.
Though my pose may not come across as enthusiastically as I would show you in real life, I am no less pleased with these pockets years after I bought the dress.
But, more importantly, this series is a celebration of carpets. Perhaps the series title should be plush: an ode to wall-to-wall carpeting*.
As a child growing up in the late 70s and 80s, carpets in the home were the norm. The thicker, the better.
I had lived in carpeted properties until about 2014. I even lived in a flat with a carpeted bathroom in 2000 (I don't recommend going that far!)
But since then, I have lived in homes sadly bereft of carpet.
I miss the softness of the carpet underfoot. I dislike the amount of noise I make walking on bare floorboards or laminate floors if I have shoes on. I wear my slipper socks to cushion my feet after a long day of walking, even in the summertime, because I don't have carpet to do that.
I spend much more time brushing dust and hair off my feet before putting my tights on while living in an uncarpeted home.
I remember the excitement of walking barefoot on Jo and Becky's carpet in Minera when I arrived. It was like coming home.
I rue bare floorboards coming back into fashion and landlords deciding laminate flooring is cheaper and easier to maintain. And I'm not ashamed to say so.
So, this will potentially become another ongoing series of self-portraits captured while cat-sitting, like wallflowers.
Let's see how the images pile up.
inner turmoil
This photograph is the first from a new series, plush, I started while cat-sitting in Cotton End a couple of weeks ago.
I'll share more about the series - its inspiration, my intentions, etc. - with the second image, which I'll share midweek.
That one's a little more lighthearted.
my bewildered mind
built on air and ghosts
gracefully insane
flutter
Day seventy-three of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Old world swallowtail (Papilio machaon) by an unknown artist from Le magasin pittoresque, volume five
butterfly clips
Day fourteen of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
T-shaped incision by Max Brödel from Diseases of the kidneys, ureters and bladder
Blue mountain swallowtails and ornithoptera priamus by Edward Donovan from An epitome of the natural history of the insects of India
insectation
head first
Day five of The 100 Day Project.
Illustrations:
Diving head first by an unknown artist from Nouveau dictionnaire encyclopédique universel illustré
The fairies flew away by Charles Henry Bennett from The chicken market and other fairy tales
nesting
She stumbled toward the edge of the forest. Broken, bewildered, disoriented. She wasn't sure quite how she got here or quite how she was going to get home. She wasn't really certain of anything, of anyone. Of herself.
As she entered the forest, the birds gathering on branches above her called to one another. An insect hum provided a white noise bass line to their melody. The snap and crack of branches underfoot as she walked further into the forest created a syncopated, faltering percussion.
As she walked by one of the redwoods, she stumbled, her bare foot catching on a fern frond curling across the forest floor. She reached for the strong, thick old trunk of the tree; grasping it to catch her fall. Though the bark of the tree scraped skin from her forearms as she embraced it to stop from falling, she held it tighter as she regained her footing, as though her life depended upon it (and maybe it did).
She turned and leaned her back against the tree’s trunk, listening to the sounds above her. She closed her eyes and let the sounds - primarily the birdsong - wash over her. She became vaguely aware of the sap from the redwood’s trunk dripping at a seemingly glacial speed onto her shoulder as she stood, mesmerised by nature.
She shook her head, brushed her wild mane of hair back from her face, opened her eyes and looked around her. Eyes lingering on the eternity of trees stretching out in front of her, then the glimpses of sky through the canopy overhead, then falling on a cluster of mushrooms at the base of the trunk of the next ancient, towering tree.
She wove her way through the forest like a somnambulist. Dazed, her eyes unfocused. She felt like she'd somehow ended up being the last person on earth. She felt isolated, yet liberated. Free from other people, the crowds, the harsh sounds of the city. Surrounded by creatures possessed with the gift of flight, of music; self-sufficient in nature, without any need of humans.
She watched as a squirrel scurried across the forest floor and ascended to a branch to hoard its findings. She watched ants moving in armies up and down the length of a tree trunk, carrying morsels from the undergrowth into a knot in the wood. She envied them the simplicity of their lives. The ordered way in which the ants collaborated and cooperated. The home the squirrel had made overhead.
As she walked, she stooped from time to time to gather up some of the larger fallen branches until her arms were full. She moved toward a nearby clearing and carefully arranged the branches on the ground. She gathered more branches, not really thinking closely about what she was doing, just following some sort of instinct; a calming instruction sent directly from her mind to her limbs. She moved back and forth between the trees; selecting, collecting, depositing, nesting.
After a time the branches took on a form; a circular, welcoming shape that drew her in, made her feel more calm, more settled. At home. She continued adding to her construction, not thinking, just doing. Like the ants, but alone. The placement of the branches methodical, precise, yet appearing haphazard. The curve of the branches raised on one side and lower on the other; like some sort of pottery dish moulded by an amateur not yet skilled in the art of ceramics.
She paused as she approached her construction. Surveying it to assess whether it needed anything further, or was it complete? A gentle smile touched her lips as she decided it would do perfectly.
Her bare feet raw and stinging from walking back and forth across the forest floor; across twigs and branches and the odd soft cluster of fallen leaves and scattered fern fronds. Her shoulders and back warm with a satisfying ache from bending, lifting and carrying. She stepped into the circle of branches, bent her knees and gently placed her arse, thighs and lower back against the curve of the side of her construction, and leaning to one side, moulded her spine along the wall of the nest. Her hair tumbled over her face, obscuring her vision as she closed her eyes and the sound of the birdsong seemed to lift in her ears. She wrapped her arms around herself, embracing her aching body.
As she lay there in the forest, the thick smells from the undergrowth seeped into her nostrils. The smell of the wood, the soil, the musty smell of the mushrooms growing nearby. In her ears the continuing call and answer of the birds overhead, the hum of insects echoing across the space.
As she curled into herself further, one sentence gently circled in her mind: I am home.