The Writer on Art Direction…

Why I am a stickler for all that?  Art School.  I went.

I don’t want to see the characters I am presenting in anything but the finest.

As a child I grew up surrounded by my mother’s art books.  Her favorite was Picasso.  After she passed away the hardest thing was to watch my brother dispose of all her things.  That was 2002, and I’m still not over what happened.

Especially to her Art books.  He was doing the best he could, and we were both so sad, and things are just things, afterall — but I had to watch my whole childhood flash before my eyes after she passed away.

I like this sort of book, precisely because it is an ART BOOK!

More than likely, Art Direction is in my bones or my bloodstream.  I spent a number of years as a graphic designer and I was very good at that.  So, what I didn’t like much was the lack of design when it came to books in the genre I was writing.  I didn’t like the covers at all, and I found them to be grotesque for the most part?  Cheesy looking.

Now, I could sit here and do it myself if I wanted to.  I’d have to conquer Photoshop again and all the new tools and I don’t really feel like it.  What I wouldn’t mind is getting a little hand held movie camera so I could learn to make some little films for youtube.  Just little poetic things…

It’s probably a Capricornian trait to have to have artistic control?

If so, I do. and I am one.  I am also undergoing the Pluto conjunct Venus transit at present in my 2nd.  So, it is all about how I want things to be presented and various attachments?

I grew up looking at the BEST magazines, ever.  Now?  I rarely buy any because they have lost what they used to be for me.  I can’t stand that Gourmet is no longer available, for instance.

That is why I like things like Taschen Books — they are gorgeous!  In fact they just sent me a catalogue and there is this fab picture of a Pucci swimsuit circa 1956.  The model has on a playful little hat and this fab little rainbow colored sunsuit — I just adore that picture, for the happiness and frisky risque quality it embodies.  It’s absolutely Velvet Babe.  It is.

Here is the era, below:

I love the shoes in that era.  Also the kind of photography Avedon did, then.

I sort of grew up surrounded by things like that, or that looked like that — and I miss them.

This is a picture of Dovima, below…

Pieces that I wrote like my “Gardenias” over at Cleansheets are meant to evoke a kind of Nostalgia with a capital N for the utter glam of this sort of style.  I love all those old Vogues.

My mother worked at a boutique in Westwood for Rudi Gernreich for a time.

In the 60’s she dressed that way.  Haute Moderne.

She was my first fashion influence.

I think my father went to Art Center when they met?

Maybe 1958 or 60?

He was making surfing and bullfight films at the time.

My Uncle Spence was making documentaries around the world.  As I look at the stills of my family, I feel less lonely.  I really miss them a lot.  I miss my mother’s glamor.

My style comes from her, and through her teachings.  Osmosis.

I only like great design.  And great design can be found all around you if you know where to look.

A two dollar hat can look as fab as the one in Taschen’s Pucci spread.  I just got one the other day from my favorite paper lantern store.

Part of my character’s appeal is her sense of fashion…