Grandmother of French Cinema Agnès Varda on Becoming an Artist at 88

Agnès Varda, Autoportrait devant une peinture de Gentile Bellini, 1962/2015. Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo

Though known as the “grandmother of the French New Wave,” for decades 88-year-old Agnès Varda felt she wasn’t allowed to be an artist. Looking back, the filmmaker realizes it was something she had always desired: she had studied art history at the École du Louvre and photography at the École des Beaux-Arts, was friends with artists, and had been following the work of many others since the age of 18. But in France, especially, she was pigeonholed. “They put me in the drawer as a…

Source: Grandmother of French Cinema Agnès Varda on Becoming an Artist at 88

First Night Design | Happy Easter!

Size: Greeting Card

• Dimensions: 5″ x 7″ (portrait) or 7″ x 5″ (landscape)
• Full color CMYK print process
• All-sided printing for no additional cost
• Printable area on the back of the card is 3″ x 4″ (portrait) or 4″ x 3″ (landscape)

Standard white envelopes included

Paper Type: Matte

The most popular paper choice, Matte’s eggshell texture is soft to the touch with a smooth finish that provides the perfect backdrop for your chosen designs.

• Light white, uncoated matte finish with an eggshell texture
• Paper is easy to write on and won’t smudge
• Made and printed in the USA

Source: Hot Cross Buns Easter Basket #1 Card | Zazzle

N.B. I’m not currently responding to comments or visiting blogs because of ill-health but I much appreciate your support.

Take care and keep laughing!

Charles Flower’s Old London Churches – HistoryLondonHistoryLondon

St Helen, Bishopsgate by Charles Flower, c.1904

Charles Flower’s Old London Churches were published as postcards in 1904. HistoryLondon revisits the images as they appear today.

Source: Charles Flower’s Old London Churches – HistoryLondonHistoryLondon

Hollywood Vintage Gloria Postcard | Zazzle #Sold

Inspired by Edward Steichen’s portrait of Hollywood actress Gloria Swanson covered in lace (Museum of Modern Art).

Orientation: Postcard

Create your own vacation-worthy postcards right here. Any view you’ve seen, any monument you’ve fallen in love with, can all be added to our postcards with our personalization tool. Craft touching, hand-written correspondence while on your next road trip!

• Dimensions: 4.25″ x 5.6″ (portrait) or 5.6″ x 4.25″ (landscape)
• Full color CMYK print process
• Double sided printing for no additional cost
• Postage rate: $0.34

Paper Type: Semi-Gloss

A thin, smooth paper designed for photo printing with the optimal color vibrancy —a solid choice for all your printing needs.

• Bright white, semi-gloss finish
• Semi-gloss finish helps photos pop
• 40% post-consumer content
• Made and printed in the USA

Source: Hollywood Vintage Gloria Postcard | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

Dame Ellen Terry Card | Zazzle

Continuing in the same vein as yesterday, here is the inimitable English actress Dame Ellen Terry [1847-1928] in Much Ado About Nothing at the Lyceum Theatre in 1883.

Size: Greeting Card

Birthdays or holidays, good days or hard days, Zazzle’s customized greeting cards are the perfect way to convey your wishes on any occasion. Add a photo or pick a design and brighten someone’s day with a simple “hi”!

• Dimensions: 5″ x 7″ (portrait) or 7″ x 5″ (landscape)
• Full color CMYK print process
• All-sided printing for no additional cost
• Printable area on the back of the card is 3″ x 4″ (portrait) or 4″ x 3″ (landscape)

Standard white envelopes included

Paper Type: Matte

The most popular paper choice, Matte’s eggshell texture is soft to the touch with a smooth finish that provides the perfect backdrop for your chosen designs.

• Light white, uncoated matte finish with an eggshell texture
• Paper is easy to write on and won’t smudge
• Made and printed in the USA

Source: Dame Ellen Terry Card | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

The Divine Sarah Postcard | Zazzle

I’m feeling less than divine at the moment but I hope you enjoy this exquisite image of my namesake which you can buy as cards, postcards and posters.

The great French stage actress of the late 19th century, Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923).

Orientation: Postcard

Create your own vacation-worthy postcards right here. Any view you’ve seen, any monument you’ve fallen in love with, can all be added to our postcards with our personalization tool. Craft touching, hand-written correspondence while on your next road trip!

• Dimensions: 4.25″ x 5.6″ (portrait) or 5.6″ x 4.25″ (landscape)
• Full colour CMYK print process
• Double sided printing for no additional cost
• Postage rate: $0.34

Paper Type: Matte

The most popular paper choice, Matte’s eggshell texture is soft to the touch with a smooth finish that provides the perfect backdrop for your chosen designs.

• Light white, uncoated matte finish with an eggshell texture
• Paper is easy to write on and won’t smudge
• Made and printed in the USA

Source: The Divine Sarah Postcard | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

Dirk de Herder (1914-2003) – Art Bacchant

Photo post.

Source: Dirk de Herder (1914-2003) – Art Bacchant

This queer Jewish photographer resisted the Nazis and escaped death—and made great art

Claude Cahun, Self-Portrait, 1928.

For Claude Cahun, resisting normalcy was a lifelong pursuit. Born in 1894, she was a genderqueer pioneer, Jewish Nazi fighter, and radical collage artist. The French photographer’s self-portraits are a focused interrogation of identity and gender fluidity. Rediscovered in the 1990s, her work reminds us that the impact of one person’s refusal can ripple for centuries.

The daughter of prominent Jewish publishers, Cahun was born…

Source: This queer Jewish photographer resisted the Nazis and escaped death—and made great art

First Night Design | MKG, Memories and Me #Prints

Some of you know that I had another eye appointment at the hospital on Thursday. The scar tissue was removed by laser, which was fairly painless. I might see a difference in a couple of days but there was talk about it taking six weeks.

AAAGGHHRRR!

No change so far. I’ve always said I was on this earth to learn patience and so it remains. I shall keep smiling and laughing. Because that’s what I do!

And now to the real point of the post.

© Marilyn Griffin

About a year ago, dear Marilyn of MKG- Memories-Keepsakes-Gifts bought one of my prints from Crated. She has now found the perfect frame, as above, and it’s going to look fabulous in her new kitchen. Thank you, Marilyn, for posting about it.

However, took a while for me to realise to whom she was referring:

I first represented this as “Lillian Vernon”… my mistake!… That name always comes to mind when reading Sarah’s Blog… I had read and heard of “Lillian Verno…

Source: Sarah Vernon Print – I Found IT! | MKG- Memories-Keepsakes-Gifts

Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook will have seen the photograph below. For anyone else, it just so happens that I bought the same print as Marilyn about six weeks ago from Redbubble and with a frame.

Copper Pear at Redbubble © Sarah Vernon

As you can see, it hangs above my kitchen sink. I get such a kick out of it. I’m pretty smitten also with my black tap with a white handle, which is from Ikea and the best and easiest mechanism I’ve ever tried.

It replaces what I thought was a beautifully sinuous — apparently very expensive — chrome tap installed by the previous owner but it was a painful ordeal for my fingers.

And that’s it for now.

Take care and keep laughing!

Antony Armstrong-Jones | Iconic Photos

Anthony Armstrong-Jones, society photographer and royal paramour, is dead, aged 86.  As royal portraits went, it didn’t get more intimate than this. In 1962, Anthony Armstrong-Jones sat on a …

Source: Antony Armstrong-Jones | Iconic Photos

First Night Design | Happy New Year! 2017

Take care and keep laughing!

“It is my deepest wish that photography…will be included among the arts.” – Art of Quotation

“It is my deepest wish that photography, instead of falling in the domain of industry, of commerce, will be included among the arts. That is its sole, true place, and that is the direction th…

Source: “It is my deepest wish that photography…will be included among the arts.” – Art of Quotation

In Inge Morath’s photographs, Womanhood is beautiful and urgent – The Last Island

THE INGE MORATH FOUNDATION AND MAGNUM PHOTOS

When words failed her, Inge Morath turned to photography. Born in Austria in 1923, she studied German in Berlin, eventually working as a translator and journalist there early in her career. …

Source: In Inge Morath’s photographs, Womanhood is beautiful and urgent – The Last Island

“Ashes and Snow ” by Gregory Colbert #Art #Photography – The Last Island

Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow is an ongoing project comprised of photographic artworks, a one-hour film and two short film “haikus”, temporary traveling art installations, and a novel in letters…

Source: “Ashes and Snow ” by Gregory Colbert #Art #Photography – The Last Island

First Night Design | Snuggling Yellow Roses #Photography

Snuggling Yellow Roses © Sarah Vernon at Crated

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions. Chanakya

“Daffodowndilly
She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
“Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young

“Yellow is a very favorable vibration for mental or intellectual activity, as it promotes a clear state of mind. Yellow heightens your awareness and alleviates depression, sadness, or any kind of despondency. Yellow vibration foods are: pineapples, bananas, grapefruit, lemons and corn.”
― Tae Yun Kim, The First Element: Secrets to Maximizing Your Energy

Available at the following galleries:
Redbubble
Crated
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
Fine Art America [14 fulfillment centers in 5 countries]
Saatchi Art

Take care and keep laughing!