Private collection

I believe in the power of details, those unique ingredients that come as a surprise to others until they become “your thing”, making you so uniquely…you.

The accessories you adorn yourself with, a nickname, the way you fill up the space around you, your drawers, the sound of your laughter, a catchphrase, your desk, the history on your computer, an irreplaceable memory, the way your scarf always smells of more than four perfumes at a time (which, by the way, can also be used as weapon), the bathroom cabinet, your carrier bag, they all define you.

Speaking of carrier bags, there is something fascinating about a woman opening hers in search for something she needs, watching her hand gestures, the gradually growing concern in the eyes, the way her head sometimes completely disappears inside it (Narnia style), the look on her face that says “I’m sure I left it here, so why isn’t it?”, the cracking and squeaking noises that come from the deepest parts of it, the zipping and unzipping, only to witness the start of a very intricate beauty process that usually happens on a train, between stations. I find myself staring, hypnotized by the way she nonchalantly handles her brushes, the vanilla and coconut scented lotions, the way she mixes potions from different small containers like an alchemist and creates new shades of colour that compliment her lips and cheeks, her confidence, the precision with which she applies the eyeliner, sniffing her freshly combed hair. When the process is complete, everything goes back inside and all the noises stop. She has become another.

  

Tamagotchis were a very dear part of my childhood that I dared bring back on December, when asked what I wanted for Christmas. Coincidentally enough, 2018 was the year Bandai (Tamagotchi’s original japanese producer) also decided to bring back the first 1997 two editions  and even add a new, extra small version which I didn’t particularly appreciate because of it’s lack of options and annoyingly small size. I can’t begin to explain how excited I was at the thought of getting back a crumble of my past that dear, I even remember the moment my mom came home (I think I remember what time of day it was – around 7pm) and took this keychain out of her bag that on the other end had a red little figurine and some yellow buttons. It was Rakuraku Dinokun the dinosaur. I remember taking the box with both hands, opening it, then turning on the game reading the instructions and trying to figure them out. I was over the moon…for about three days, when it died on me for lack of attention. The second time I played wasn’t that exciting, as I already knew how it was supposed to end. The point is that during those three days I really dedicated my time to taking care if it.

So I begun my research and found so many available on Amazon and Ebay but most of them were used and in very bad condotion, some of them were old but never opened and therefore very expensive and few of them were actually buyable. Two months have passed and I am now the proud owner of four Tamagotchis, one dog and one dinosaur.

My first encounter with mom’s jewelry box was at a very young age and not being allowed to touch anything made me so curious, that my only goal was to find out more about those sparkling pretty things, but first of all I really really wanted to play with the hell out of them, break them into little pieces and maybe even swallow a couple of the smaller ones, just to see what happens. Their texure, their jiggles and moves, the symbolysm, the marks left on the skin, the emotional value, the change of colours when exposed to light, the layering, the sounds they make when pushed against each other, the mechanisms and endless motifs are some of the things that inspire me when it comes to jewelry which, by the way, I haven’t stoped playing with since.

  

Alexandra from seventh grade comes to mind, dressed in clothes that were bought from America, always coming to school wearing flower embroidered, bell-bottomed jeans and beautiful blouses. She used to have these stretch beaded bracelets that later gained so much popularity (with me being one of their biggest fans). The one bracelet I couldn’t take my eyes off whenever she would come in sight or move her hands was phosphorescent green and I remember how happy I was when she offered it to me, I couldn’t believe I’d get to keep it for ever (and ever and ever). So happy, I’m still holding on to it. My having to find other stretch beaded bracelets to go with it so it wouldn’t be dangling all sad and alone on my wrist is how my bracelet collection started.

Of course I’ve since been through numerous phases (the rhinestone phase, the large plastic earrings phase, the pink rabbit fur phase, the apple and melon seed necklace phase, the butterflies on anything phase, the peruvian earrings phase, the sequins and glass seed beads phase, the massive necklaces phase, the cameo phase etc) and ended up buying a lot of useless things parts of which I later got to use for my very own compositions.

And then, one day, Alexandra came to school wearing the most beautiful festoon-like necklace I had ever seen (I know, I know, I was very young, how many could I have possibly seen by then?)  – and I was  absolutely blown away. And the thing that made it so remarkable to me was the total lack of symmetry it was about. Before that moment, I hadn’t even thought that things could be anything less than symmetrical (or that I was allowed not to use all the pieces in a set at the same time), which came as a double revelation. If I close my eyes, I remember it like it was yesterday. The main piece was a delicate chain surrounding the base of the neck and from it playfully dangled small figurines, charms, tiny stones and different sized chains with her every breath.

I became so obsessed with that necklace, that it made me go through yet another phase, where I was the “fake jeweler” and surround myself with all the loose beads, broken chains and other small parts I’d find through the room and keep trying to create multiple versions of it. Needless to say that neither of them even remotely resembles seventh grade Alexandra’s, but after all, neither are they supposed to.

  

But they somehow do remind me of Captain Beefheart’s “Trout Mask Replica” for the chaos they seem to have started from and end in, the sudden confusion they create to unfamiliarized eyes, the apparent cacophonies and layers about them, how nothing seems to make any sense at first but the more you concentrate, the more the pieces reveal themselves to help create the story.

I get most of my things from charity shops, where wealthy, random people bring their random stuff found through and around their random house usually after a deep cleaning session.  It sometimes smells funny inside, but with a little patience you can spot treasures such as books, unworn clothes, old decorations, Halloween costumes (londoners are deep into Halloween) grandma’s clothes, furniture and lots of other unnecessary crap. The great thing about charity shops is that they sometimes get exquisite items, be they underappreciated brands, unique designs or vintage jewelry that you can get cheaper than you’d expect. Also…how amazing are peacock feathers?

 

 

A word that needs to fit in but desperately wants to stand out, the first dance you and dad shared, two wisdom teeth growing simultaneously, an empty bottle of raspberry liquoeur pumpkin flavoured coffee and virtual seats in Belgium, Les Néréides jewelry, quelque chose d’extraordinaire, Venus, ” A supermarket in Old Peking” trypophobia, a book about “The history of pornography”, skeleton watches, Bukowski sounding out excerpts from “Animal crackers in my soup” with a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and a bottle of beer blue eyed, drunk and alone at a table, jealousy and jellybeans, tickets to Roy Ayers and Rufus Wainwright, probably the only woman in the world who never wears jeans, Roger Williams on the piano, playing “Autumn leaves” in the background,  shoes that don’t necessarily need to match, now, do they?, Foghorn Leghorn and Penhaglion’s “Elizabethan rose”, native-american jewellery, turquoise, an invisible Isabella Blow hat, home made tabbouleh, cliffhangers, a list of  places where you can find traditional panettone in London, “The battle of Algiers”, dangling prepositions and law enforcement jargon, for some reason, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and satanic ritual abuse, circumlocutions, Cefalù, the worst poems written by seven great writers, all at once.

I believe in the power of details.

Green Eyed Kisses,