i finally updated the shop this weekend! i have been working on a new series of repurposed antique & vintage plate clocks, some of which are now available here. they're so lovely!
things have been pretty quiet and still around here as i've been devoting ALL my time to preparing for my comprehensive exams, giving it one last push to complete and submit my annotated bibliography so that i can write the exam in November. what better time, then, to share this animated Still Life (2001) by British artist Sam Taylor-Wood, a silent film work in which a painterly bowl of fruit decays at an accelerated place. engaging the seventeenth-century art historical traditions of vanitas and memento mori, it is perfectly visceral in the way it distorts time and captures the banality of the everyday.
i particular like the way Taylor-Wood's work actively but subtly engages historical conventions and constructions. as i have been reading about the invention and representation of hysteria in the nineteenth century as part of my study of intersections between art, medicine, and the body, i am naturally drawn to another of her video works, Hysteria (1997), in which a woman performs the emotional states of laughing and crying in the absence of sound, blurring the distinctions between them.
i cannot believe that it is already October! while fall is truly my favourite season, it's arrival happened so quickly and i have been so busy with my research i feel like i almost missed it. like the opening lyrics to this song by the Avett Brothers, which are actually part of another song. missing the seasons... the world outside just goes and goes...
but good thing for artists who capture the spirit of the seasons to live on and inspire me from my computer's desktop. i love the richness and warmth of Christiane Engel's new October desktop calendar. the deep red is perfect in so many ways! visit Christiane's lovely blog to download.
