Telephone timer

We were schoolmates sharing the same desk and best friends wishing to be sisters. We would see each other daily at school, visit each other often but still our time together always felt too short. We would sneak to our land line phones and call each other in the evenings, speaking endlessly about books and boys, hiding from our mothers and ignoring the shadow of the future phone bill. If one of our mothers would realize that we are on the phone for half an hour already both of us would say that the other one called and it just happened that she didn’t hear the phone ringing.

Our mothers could have definitely use these telephone timers when we were 11. They are lucite and from the sixties, with small sand-glasses inside.

We are still friends, of course, and even if we don’t manage to meet as often as we would like, we still talk a lot on the phone.

Linking up with Idle needle's blog challenge Make, Thrift and Tell.

Ephemera

So strange to read a letter addressed to someone else 75 years ago. A girl writing from boarding school to her friend about going to the theater with her schoolmates, about homework, about wanting to buy a coat but they are so expensive. About missing her and their other girlfriends. And then, at the end, a subtle allusion to Germany and the war… the terror of history like a shadow over the small events from the boarding school.

Her neat handwriting, the golden envelope…

She also mentions sending a photo to her friend, but it is not in the envelope anymore.

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

New old rings

I have just received these rings that I have bought online. They are so pretty and they all fit right.

An Art nouveau ring for my collection (it’s sterling silver with moonstone).

An old garnet ring in 800 silver (almost black in shadow and bright red in light, as garnets are, of course).

And a really interesting small 800 silver ring, I’ve never seen another one like it.

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

Cameo

I don’t particularly like cameos, but I think this tiny antique real shell one in 800 silver is interesting. I’m not sure if it was initially carved like this or the details were lost because the pendant was worn so much. I like it either way.

Self portraits

When I first started drawing self-portraits, at 16 maybe, in art high school, I had this feeling of inadequacy that is so ubiquitous for girls and women, this feeling that my features are not quite right, that I am not pretty enough, etc. Something so general to feel not right in your own female body, no matter how close or far you are from the beauty standards. But drawing my own face, hands, my own body also had a potential of power and acceptance, of getting to really see, to really know the body I inhabit, the body I am.

I don’t really draw anymore, but I do take lots of photos of myself. Acknowledging that feeling of inadequacy embedded in my social formation as a woman, but also challenging it. Of course that most of these photos taken on film are somehow idealized and timeless, the softness of the film blurring the features and rendering the image to something very close to the mental image of myself. Still, the sinking feeling when I see a photo of myself from 10 years ago or from 5 years ago and I realize I have changed, I have grown older. But also, feeling glad I have outgrown some of the fears and insecurities from the self pictured in that photos.

I can imagine my face when I will be in my seventies. And I like this image and hope to live to see it.

Other children

Of course that the big majority of the antique photos I have depict middle class people, who had the financial means to get photographed. These class photos are different. These kids, squinting at the camera, are from families of workers or peasants. The last photo has on the back the name of one of the boys who was in the second grade, the place were it was taken and the fact that the boy, Bunica Mihai, was born on the 15th of February 1922 (so this photo was taken probably in 1929 or 1930). I have some other photos from the same boy. On the back of this one it is written: “When I was 16 and I started as an apprentice at the factory.” On the back of this one, he had written: “Souvenir from the time when I was an apprentice at the plant and we would work all together to revision the machines.” Although I have older photos than these ones from 1938, more beautiful ones and better preserved, still I consider these among the most precious.

Crochet tin

I always keep my current crochet work in this vintage tin. This is something I have just started in spring colors. I’m so busy this week, but I manage to make a few stitches from time to time.

Teddy bear

I have found this bear a while ago among much newer toys in a second hand store. Kind of dirty and dusty, although obviously well loved. Someone knitted him a wool overalls, maybe sometimes in the seventies. The bear is older, I think it’s from the early fifties. It’s made of mohair, with wood shavings stuffing  and glass eyes. The movable arms and legs are jointed with discs made from a brittle plastic. My friend was kind of terrified that I’m bringing him home :), but after a week in a bag in the freezer to prevent any insect contamination and a good cleaning, he actually started to grew on her :). He has such a sweet face.

I found this old photo yesterday in a vintage store. Not the same period, of course, but still, it’s also a bear there with baby Max.

Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.

Family dinner

Death is, of course, always a part of these old photos. I hesitated before buying this photo of a family dinner. Something so disturbing about it, taken probably during the war or just before it, the men in uniforms, the strange, white light on the faces of the people, their smiles that seem to hide worry (or maybe this is just my reading…). What happened to them later? On which side were they fighting the war?

One year in stitches

Last year in March, I have started doing one embroidery per month, inspired by Lola Nova‘s challenge. I have always liked doing fabric and thread related crafts, as an anxious child, as an insecure teenager, as a disappointed art student. But I never took it seriously enough to show it to other people besides my friends, especially while studying in my macho art university. Doing this modest women’s work and see a very concrete, physical result that is completely in your control is still my best way of calming down racing thoughts. Embroidery is so soothing and forgiving, you cannot really make a mistake, if you don’t like the result you can always cover it up with another fabric or rip out the stitches and start again fresh. I use materials that were used before by other women (needles, scissors, most of the threads, most of the embroidery loops, most of the fabrics are second hand finds). I also use the fabric of colorful stockings of my friends and I, when they have holes in them. Once, in an especially clean and organized sewing tin I have found at the junk store, I have found some pieces of white cotton, from a child’s shirt, carefully kept in the tin. I didn’t have the heart to trow them away, and having an embroidery project in which to include them felt really good. Some of the other pieces of fabric I used were part of my mother’s or grandmother’s dresses many, many years ago. One of them is made on a piece from my childhood room curtains. Two of the embroideries are made on precious, beautiful fabric handwoven sometimes in the seventies. This last piece is a portrait of our dog, Lulu. My friend is working on a fashion project and she made the drawing on her sewing machine. She didn’t like it and discarded it, but I took it over and hand-sewn it. It looks a lot like Lulu.

These are the rest of the embroideries made monthly. Next, I want to start another self portrait, done on handwoven fabric died with turmeric, and after that a spring grass one. Future is nicer when you have embroideries in it :).