Candy Spender : Precious Jewels on Vimeo by Suzie Haslam

Candy Spender : Precious Jewels on Vimeo by Suzie Haslam
Originally uploaded by candy spender

This is a recent video made by a group of talented friends about me..

urban zen

Urban Zen

I came across Donna Karan's foundation and new label Urban Zen on one of my ventures out into the big world wide web. I was immediately attracted to the fashion, the same thing that used to happen to me in the early nineties, most of what I saw of her work was inspiring and intelligent, made for a woman's body, I was so glad to know she was over there in New York. I feel like with this label she's gone into the core of her style and heart. And then to make things even more enthralling, ten percent of sales from the Urban Zen stores goes to the people in Haiti. It reminds me a bit of the inspirational Anita Roddick. Thank God for powerful, humanitarian, and creative women like this, they give the rest of us such an excellent reference point.

eternal feline beauty and water

'Tiger, tiger burning bright in the forest of the night...." (a extract from Willaim Blake's famous poem) I haven't put the whole thing here, because this is really about this amazing picture.

That poem and this picture just do something magical to my inward eye. I guess its a little unexpected to see a cat sitting so happily in water. The fluidity of his body merging with water.

 I find this so inspiring and uplifting.

Evolutionary fashion

This morning I read an article on 'The Daily Beast' titled: 'Fashion's Arab Spring' about my favorite designer of the moment, Haider Ackermann. I read more about him and his life. And then I understood why I feel such resonance with him. He was born in Colombia (where I grew up for several years of my childhood, in Bogota), and he was brought up by French parents, and then proceeded to live all over the place. My parents weren't French, my father Dutch and my mother English, but we did live all over the place, including Iran. (this is back in the fifties!) So I have things in common with his background. But apart from that, I am an advocate of being free to be who you are, 

and enjoying your beauty and sensuality.

His work is about freedom. Freedom to envelope your body in beautiful draping fabrics, freedom to be feminine without having to display your body packaged and bound up so tight, layers of stiffening and hype, your flesh sort of squeezes out of the gaps, and you can't breathe, you can't walk properly, because you should done have a course on stilt walking before wearing those shoes, which may make you feel tall and powerful, but compromise your back, and your natural rhythm, and actually disconnect you from your real power, that of being a woman standing on Earth now, in these times. How can this be 'cool' or 'hot'? You're not free to just enjoy and revel in the beauty of being in a feminine body, who's natural rhythm is like that of nature, sensual and gracefully shifting between spaces, the senses alive and open.

timeless beauty never dates

'The Village Beauty'

From the first generation after Manaku and Nainsukh, 1785
Opaque watercolor on paper

(image from Master Painters of India at the Met)

The beauty in this picture is lifting her right shoulder very slightly as she

flirtatiously gazes at something behind her. Its almost like she knew she was 

being watched by an appreciator of her timeless fecund beauty, and ripeness.

She could just as well be a girl today, standing on the tram self-consciously aware

of herself, yet probably innocent of her power: timeless feminine beauty.

Asako Narahashi

Kawaguchiko, 2003 From the series half awake and half asleep in the water C-Print © Asako Narahashi, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York

A friend just came back from Japan and told me that she had to do a whole review about her idea of what 'culture' actually is. She basically had her mind blown by the culture and civilisation of Japan. She hadn't really grown up with the idea that it is actually culture which immortalises a civilization, not Australian rules football, as so many Australians believe I'm afraid!

I always get a really good feeling about a culture/time/values etc from the photographers who live and work in that place/time etc. So I just went surfing on the web, and found this wonderful Japanese photographer who it looks like, has just had a book published called 'half awake and half asleep in the water', from the exhibition which happened at the Yossi Milo Gallery in NY.

Anne Demeulermeester Spring 2012

I still love Anne Demeulemeester. 

Even though there is a darkness in the dencontructed chic of this great Belgian designer, there is a dreaming there too. And lately in my interest in Innana, the Sumerian Goddess of dark and light, this ensemble just makes stopped me in my tracks. Timeless and a classical signature look (this season she showed a lot of chiffons and transparents in amongst the structured unstructures.

Below is my Innana necklace (black/white agate, vintage cut garnet) which I made several months ago.

A friend bought it straight off my bench, I hadn't even snipped off the loose ends.

So I think dark and light is an important archetype at the moment, as we face up to the dark, to allow more light in.

the Goddess alive and well at Paco Rabanne Spring 2012

Manish Arora says he found something about himself when he explored the Paco Rabanne

archives for his wonderful futuristic Spring 2012 in Paris a few days ago. I think he found something about the female body, such sensuality, power and beauty, even

though there was so much structure, which is not what I would normally associate with femininity.

The above ensembles were the ones which got to me most, but his ending of frill-necked lizard cup-cake style constructions were full of life and humour, and reminded me of the early eighties when Issy Miyake's sculptural ensembles looked like they might take flight.

Lanvin Spring 2012

There's this dream fashion designers like Alber Elbaz have when

they sit down to explore the muse which will furnish them with their

ideas for the season. Here you could see that Mr. Elbaz went to another 

plain of consciousness and found angelic, (which he grasped hold of

and pulled right down to Earth in his office wear set.) I love the ethereal

silvery grey chiffon and the tattoo-like ornament, bringing a slightly diablo

bikie element into the halo.

the beauty of bold colour and resin

Resin!

I'm very excited to be rediscovering the beauty of resin. It really is such

a delicious material to use, its so generous with its chunkiness and translucent colour, and some of the opacity is so hearty and strong too. Its so much nicer than plastic!

And this isn't even the lovely organic style of Dinosaur designs, its flatter and

probably mass produced, but I am excited about how its giving me a sculptural layering ability.

I can go crazy with the colours. I love the way jewellery is now becoming acceptable as 'big' again.

I got so bored with all that girly-wirly ubiquitous silver charms look...

Woman need to start wearing their power really now..and colour, shape and

boldness is the way in my opinion anyway!

Edward Steichen 'Lotus' and Spirits search for itself

Edward Steichen 'Lotus' 1915

words from Parabola Magazine

“The struggle to know who I am, in truth and in spirit, is the spiritual quest. The movement in myself from the mask to the face, from the personality to the person, from the performing actor to the ruler of the inner chamber, is the spiritual journey,” wrote Ravi Ravindra in our Fall 2004 issue: The Seeker. "

These words remind me of the daily practice of unlayering what we put on the day before to be in the world, and then need to 'deconstruct' on a regular basis to find that deeper inner self again. And even though there is so much resistance, and one has to discipline oneself to do this it, it is the most 

nourishing and deeply restorative practice available, no matter what form it takes (eg Yoga, meditation,

prayer, journal writing etc etc).

elegance in the thick of it ~ South Sudan: The World's Newest Nation

(Steve Evans, photographer, click on image for link to Life Force Magazine, where I found this image)

How elegant is this beautiful woman from South Sudan?! Even though she's standing in front of a war machine, she holds her own in her beautiful subtle coloured drapery. The combination of prints, which

look like indigenous traditional patterns (but I don't know that for sure), the way she is standing, so feminine and graceful..

And there she is standing in front of the brutish looking tank, on dusty dry ground, probably barefoot (but I don't know that for sure either). Inspiring...

Edward Steichen's photograph of Marion Morehouse (Mrs e.e. Cummings)

This is surely an amazing moment in time! The photograph by Edward Steichen, the model is Mrs ee Cummings: Marion Morehouse; and the dress is by Louis Boulanger, and taken in 1926. I so wish I could take a time machine back to the twenties and thirties, the fashion, photography, art, design and architecture was extraordinary, especially when you compare it to the late nineteenth century, and Edwardian times, which were pretty interesting. Even the beginning of the awakening in Art Nouveau, however magnificent and iconoclastic at times, doesn't compare in my opinion.

BTW:Thanks to Gatochy on flickr for the shot...

Patrick Demarchelier invigorates and inspires

I was just browsing around some of the sites I've collected lately, 

just quietly in the late afternoon, suffering a little from what I call 

'late-afternoon-lag' (not unlike jet lag, only there's no excuse), 

when I came across these beautiful pictures of Patrick Demarchelier's, 

from his site. I felt like I'd drunk a strong espresso laced with theta frequencies

 and the delights of an image which just gets everything right in the fashion

 and photography stakes. And that's not even talking about the movement/dance 

Spiritual and physical expression!

sunset at North Pole, a rare and beautiful sight

This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point earlier this year.

A scene we will probably never get to see in person.

The sun is also below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated.

I find this photograph quite hypnotic in its silvery beauty. It reminds me of a mystical

or sacred vision of some kind. It evokes quiet and profound thoughts and feels dreamy and

mysterious.

The surprise flowerings from my wandering jew cutting

"THOSE WHO WANDER ARE NOT NECESSARILY LOST" -- JRR Tolkien

I stole a little cutting of purple wandering jew from a garden in Brisbane, and brought it down to cold old Melbourne. I thought if I just put it in a sunny spot for a week or two in a glass of water, and let it acclimatize to the cold down here, that everything would just work out fine. Well, not only did it work out fine! It sprouted these tiny little beautiful flowers one after another for weeks. They'd only last a few hours, and then another one would come up two days later. I felt like I was being being showered with wandering jew blooms. A friend told me about how when plant is threatened with death it just throws out

as many of its flowers/seeds as it can. 

Happy 85th birthday Marilyn! ♡

She still brings tears to my eyes! When I was a child I thought she was a kind

of Goddess, and ofcourse she was. I was so inspired by her, and cried when

she was found dead in her Hollywood home. I realised all of a sudden that the

world I was living in couldn't accomodate someone as luminous, intelligent, funny

radiant and ofcourse vulnerable as Marilyn. This photo was taken by Cecil Beaton,

in my opinion, the master portrait photographer, amongst other things.

underwater dancer

I'm not sure where this mysteriously beautiful photo comes from..

I find it particularly evocative.It reminds me of a dream or a scene from another era

 or dimension, it takes me back to my childhood when I longed to be a classical 

ballet dancer (oh but I'm so glad I didn't go in that direction now!).

I just grew too tall and big boned to be a classical ballet dancer. Anyway, 

here she is, and her height and weight don't matter in the slightest. 

The metaphor is for 'freedom', the freedom to 

do whatever you want, and be whoever you want to be..I love it.

Paul Strand & Alfred Stieglitz

This is an unusual photograph for Paul Strand, usually his photos seem to be a take on social realism. I think here he had a a more ethereal moment perhaps..

"It is not art in the professionalized sense about which I care, but that which is created sacredly, as a result of a deep inner experience, with all of oneself, and that becomes 'art' in time."

Alfred Stieglitz

Stephen Meisel for Vogue in 2003

'Mad About You', is the name of this photograph shot by Stephen Meisel for Vogue in 2003.

It is one of those amazing timeless images which moves something other than one's aesthetic values. There's something poignant and delicate, which so suits the mood of this century so far.