pomorskie paciorki

i'm in gdańsk right now, typing these words from my very ''blogger-like'' position on a hotel bed.

first mention of gdańsk in ''vita prima sancti adalbertii in the 10th century

in pendolino (a fast train going from warsaw to gdańsk, and other places) there are these screens showing cool things in different cities. right there i read about the archeological museum and their jewellery exhibition.

view from the tower of the museum

~~~

''craftsmen or artists?'' is a small but very packed exhibit centered around jewellery made by pomeranian tribes in the first centuries ad. most of these where found in women's graves during excavations a couple of years ago. the premise of this whole thing is to, obviously, think about the difference and line between a craftsman and an artist.

even though the exhibit fills only one room, there is quite a number of pieces and a lot of information. mostly, you can find out what kind of jewellery making techniques where there 20 centuries ago, see the exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail. and they did all this by hand, without any magnifying glass or anything!

remanences of a small workshop

examples of where the jewellery was worn, 

a lot of brooches served a practical purpose  

since we are on the amber trail, 

these are naturally found ambers,

 also used in jewellery

this is one of my favourites.

a necklace made of a mediterranean sea shell 

(brought over by trading)

and a bronze casing, very high fashion

~~~

now let's talk about the topic.

first of all let me say that i believe that craftsmen, workers in handmade objects, are also artists. these things were designed by them, they took hours and hours to make it. let's not even begin to talk about the effort it took to figure out the methods of forming and decorating every piece. all by hand. all in a freaking hot workshop. 

i, myself, always say that i do what i do because i'm first and foremost a craftsman (or a woman rather). i'm mostly interested in getting to know new techniques of making stuff, figuring out any improvements, making thing by hand by myself.

for me knowing the workshop is much more important than having a split of inspiration, jotting it down and not knowing what to do with it.

ultimately, i want to create for myself but doing things which require a lot of skill for somebody is also very rewarding. another thing is the need for highly specialised craftsmen in today's day and age. recently my cousin linked me to a post about a new college in the uk, a part of a ballet school i think, and their main goal is to train people to renew and make new costumes for ballet. the tutus are in terrible shape apparently and it turns out it's quite hard to just repair or make a new one.

~~~

i can't recommend the exhibition enough and i want to hear your thoughts, are craftsmen artists? what is even the difference?

~~~ 

this has been your additional dose of creative thinking.

love,

qofr

maria naucza

ok, this is major. i'm like tottaly awe-struck.

since i'm in warsaw, i might as well treat myself to a ticket for a play with a famous brilliant actress, right? good choice, good choice.

~~~

''maria callas. master class'' in och-teatr.

as the title would suggest, this play is about maria callas, a very famous opera singer in her times and until today. she is one of the most important artists, her voice was unique and she was truly an actress on stage.

she was born in america but moved to athens quite early in her life, greek decent. maria started off as a ''hippopotamus'' on stage, with pimples too. fortunately, her artistry was more important than looks, which greatly improved once she lost weight, btw.

la traviata, as violetta

the really sad thing is that her hard and heavy temper affected a lot of her life, thus her talent. even though she was an international star, in 1965, she got kicked out of her opera environment, after years and years of quarrels with her millionaire husband (he didn't want her to sing, she got in trouble with basically everybody because of that).

but... what about the play!

we meet her in 1971, at julliard school of music in new york. callas tried teaching a master class there. the whole performance is centered and played as a lecture with students presenting their works. maria listens but frequently interrupts. there are only 3 students, yet we are watching the stage, from both sides, for nearly 2 hours. it doesn't feel like it.

krystyna janda, a very famous polish film and theatre actress, plays the main role. she's in her 60s but that's not a problem, i feel like if she was younger (even though she already played callas, in a similar play, 10 years ago), you wouldn't see the truth.

i can actually believe she is callas, that's her, with jet black, pulled back hair, and short legs. the actual singer had a very difficult childhood, during war, she was very self conscious, needed love and hate. janda portraits that very well. her monologues are the most moving, her feelings towards her husband, her desperate need to act but not act. even if it is set in a class room, with students actually performing opera, her persona is so sharp that even when she leaves the stage for a break, callas is still there.

one of the most elegant posters i have ever seen

~~~

i know that you probably want to hear about costumes... but there really isn't that much to say. imagine an old diva with a very classy presence, a school accompanist, students who really don't know how to dress themselves and a grumpy janitor. that's it really. but it plays so nicely. 

~~~

i'm really sorry this is late, but the play... it was soooooo goooood. go see it if you have the chance, please. you'll thank me in unicorn tears.

this has been your monday (wednesday) dose of culture vulture.

love,

qofr

hawaikum

i'm finally going on a trip! i haven't been out of here since july so i'm super pumped! warsaw and gdansk it is, going by train so it's going to be pure pleasure. i'm also taking my good camera so expect a nice travel log to follow.

today's post is super tiny because i'm in the middle of packing, but i'm planning to make a big one tomorrow, i'm going to a theatre in warsaw. check back tomorrow night to see that.

~~~

this has been your monday dose of hope.

love,

qofr

p.s. tell me what you want to see on here, i have some ideas but it would be cool to know yours.

treat yo self ~ january faves

i decided that this year i'm going to make monthly favourites posts. i like watching those videos on youtube and i feel like it's the most practical thing to do. i trust those recommendations and i hope you'll like mine. we can even share some finds!

since i'm kinda into beauty and more likely to use different products rather than buying new clothes, most of my favourites are from that category.

let's do skin care first:

~ mia 2 ~ clarisonic

wonderful massage for your face.

ok, maybe it's a bit tmi, but here i go. i don't have many skin problems, i don't really get pimples, if there are any they are under my fringe anyway and heal quite quickly, but i won't go into my questionable methods now. the thing about my face is that the t zone is super prone to blackheads, like i really can't get them out (okey, that is really kinda gross). i know there are the strips and some hardcore cleansers but i can't use those, my skin is really delicate, i can accidentally scratch myself and it's gonna be red for days, and it's the worst in the problem areas. so here i am, with a sephora coupon in my hand, getting the famous clarisonic with my mum. i was kinda sceptical but i'm really into trying new stuff so i used it the first night in early december and haven't stopped since. i mean i did stop that evening but continued... you know what i mean!
this is a quite basic model, it came with a normal head, charger and a travel case, oh and a facial wash but i use another one. the tool is really nice, it's light and has two speeds, and the best thing, it beeps! it says in the manual that you're supposed to use it for a minute, 20 sec on your forehead, 20 seconds on the nose and chin and 10 sec on each cheek. yeah sure, am i supposed to count that? no! it beeps when you need to switch! cool stuff, cool stuff.
the real thing though, it really helped me with the blackheads, especially on my forehead and chin. mechanical cleansing is the shizz. i use it with simple kind to skin moisturising facial wash, curtesy of zuza (thank you, thank you, thank you). it's exactly what it says, very delicate and simple. nothing fancy but that is just the thing i need.

~~~

~ ''wonderful dreams'' eyeshadow palette ~ sephora

wonderful dreams, on your eyelids for a change.

i'm not a a big eyeshadow fan, so this is really weird. since i kinda do makeup professionally, i know how many great things you can do with good shadows but i didn't really use them for my personal makeup (i wear glasses, big ones, so it would all just disappear behind them). the only thing i can say about shadows is that for a while i had my eye on the biggest palette ever, naked 1,2,3 from urban decay. it came to my sephora, i tested the pigment and it sucks! like come on! i can only imagine that beginners like them cause it's safer for building up on the lid! but if i'm gonna pay in gold for shadows, they better be gold. but sephora brand came to the rescue, rather genius of them tbh. they made a couple of simple palettes with colours like the naked series and the two chocolate creations from too faced, for a fraction of the price. i know the brand name is not there but the shadows! as you can see, they are super pigmented and easy to blend. there is a nice mix of satin, glittery and matte ones, and i love them even though i'm usually not a neutrals girl. i haven't experienced any fallout or creasing, which is a problem for me sometimes (hooded, deep set eyes). the colours have such nice names too!

in the palette order

~~~

~ ''flushed'' blush ~ sleek

i'm healthy looking, kind of.

i'm difficult with blush. since i'm ghostly white and naturally have a rosy undertone, lots of blushes make me look either like a doll or like i have a severe fever. but this one, i think looks great. it's almost matte and looks quite scary in the tin. fortunately, if you just swipe it once it leaves not a lot of colour and loses a bit of darkness so on the cheek it's quite lovely. for me it's great for winter sun cause with a bit of a warmer colour i would look green. oh, and it matches my scarf quite nicely, so that's a bonus.

~~~

~ ''island hopping'' nail polish ~ essie

                           and

~ ''bloom boost'' nail treatment ~ ciate

boring but great combo.

i love doing my nails, it relaxes me, i can watch scooby doo and i can do it however i like it, i'm really weird at the nail salon. since i have them painted most of the time, i try to use some good stuff under the polish to make them nice and strong. and the nail treatment does just that. i got it in my advent calendar as a mini and i'm really considering buying a full size bottle (btw, the ciate calendar was sooooo good! buy it in december and thank me). and the nail polish... i'm usually a blue girl, i have like every drugstore light blue/lilac available. then why the rosy, dusty grandma colour (the real colour is the one on my nails in the photo, i am not a photographer...)? i don't know. but it looks so nice! and is really good quality, to be fair, a week without chipping for me (and i wash my hands quite a lot). if you're not blown away by the pink, just let me recommend you essie polishes in general, they are a lot of colours, two coats are opaque and they dry quite fast.

~~~

ok, that's it i think. i don't know if that's how those favourites are done, i hope i did a good job. let me know if you want to see more, or suggest other categories. starting march or even february, i'll put up favourites as an additional post, not on mondays, but today that's gonna be it.

this has been your monday dose of love for inanimate objects.

love,

qofr

p.s. i know that these photos aren't really good. i had to retouch the lighting cause i'm stupid enough to wait till evening. i'm sadly not a photographer and macro is not my best genre but if you would like to see some better photos, of the shadows perhaps, let me know.

on love

that's a heavy topic, huh?
especially coming from moi, i'm below a noob. but it's important and that's what a good therapy session does to you.

in the wintertime, i always get melancholic and lonely. when spring comes and everybody suddenly freaks out and truly acts like seeking a mate is everything, then i'm usually over it all and it's all good but it's winter now so let me get it out. i'm planning something fun for next week, i promise.

~~~

my sister got married recently, in august, to a man she has known for years and years. he's in our family for so long, i can't even imagine, or remember well for that matter, time without him. great, right? they are always so kind with me, helping go through lots of stuff, i'm so grateful even if i don't say it that often.

to be very honest, i'm kinda jealous. not envious, oh no, but i can't help but feel weird knowing that they have been together when they were my age now. and here i am, reading fanfiction and than closing it with anger when, once again, i can't relate.

~~~

how do you imagine kissing with somebody? hugging them and not wanting to ever let go? reading their messages and smiling from ear to ear when they appear online?

how do you know you're wanted if you're the one coming up to somebody? as stupid as this sounds, how would you know you're attractive to them, if they haven't really noticed you first? how do you even get the courage to make a move?

how do you even meet people? the only friendships i have we formed during an outside situation, school etc. (exclusively, now that i'm thinking about it). the only outgoing i do is for an one on one ''coffee'' with an amount of friends i can count on one of my hands. and now it got even smaller, since a couple have moved too far away. i didn't even have any possibilities, let alone a choice, to not go alone to my prom last friday. sixteen year old me is sad.

~~~

to not get so sad (yes, i am aware that i'm pitying myself but you have to do it sometimes) let me say one more thing. why the fuck a romantic person is almost always hopeless? i know it may be a bit old school but can't i want the guy to make the first move? come on...

~~~

strangers, move your chair if somebody visibly can't fit behind it. repeatedly.

this has been your monday dose of thinking.

love,

qofr

into the woods

at first i didn't intend to make scenography and set design for this project. i'm not really into that domain of theatre so i just wanted to go with raw industrial. un/fortunately, my tutor thought of a whole stage set when she heard about the costumes, told me about it, so, since i'm the type that if something is stuck in my head it's for good (gonna stay there till i realise it), i got to work.

since the most important things on stage were the lit costumes, i focused on the lighting.

this is the finished product. to be fair it actually came out almost just like i imagined (the temperature of lights could be more alike but you can't have it all)

the whole set is basically just 3 paper screens and lights, but what an effect!

this is the raw set, no light. looks bare and not really interesting but the scale is quite big. each screen is about 3 meters in hight and 2.5 in width. it was an exhausting task, thank you jagoda for helping me, i still have a bit of scarring on my hands (i had to lift like a 60kg roll of paper). each piece is hung from the celling in two places, held together with a wooden bar. the one thing i need to remember in the future is to make them a bit longer, so they don't slide that much.

behind the screens there was a spot light and on the sides two slide projectors. and i mean those old ones, with single frames and film.

the shapes are inspired by the same things as the costumes, i just simplified them a bit, to make things more clear.

you would think i'll use digital projectors with scans of my inspirations, right? well, first thing, there weren't that many just available since ''light day'' is a school thing and there were many other performances. second thing that it actually didn't work that well in practice. i did a lot of monotype designs with different motifs but the scan wasn't good enough and i would have to clean all of them by hand, no way...

luckily, my teacher suggested just drawing the needed shapes on see-through foil and putting it in film frames, worked great and it was easy to copy for two screens. an even better thing was that since the actual image wasn't visible, the audience couldn't see the imperfections.

~~~

ok, that's it. listen to this and enjoy the photos (taken by jagoda as well):

this has been your monday dose of pure coolness

love,

qofr

in times of need, acrylic is here

i started by making the templates, wanted to make them with paper, turned out that they slide all over the place so i, the genius that i am, thought of adhesive foil so this was a big connivence.

the biggest thing was to figure out how to get the pattern onto the fabric. i did some tests, hoped that print paint would work but that was too see-through, there was no contrast to see the outline. then i tried with spray paint but that was even worse.

if you don't know what to do, do it in acrylic. simple and the effect was perfect.

here are some photos from the making:

let's just strop here. at this point i was so proud of myself, right? like wow, this looks nice, really suits the theme, seems well designed as a pattern. then i realised.

the suckers.

how the flipping fuck am i going to do that. it was just a pain it the but really, cause i had to cut it all individually. i had to number all of them, different colours for each tentacle to not mix things up. of course i had to save those little circles because it wasn't unified in any way (why should i do that? to make my work easier? that's for chumps). after gluing down the rest of the foil i had to go over each spot, make it smaller and glue down. i'm sure there is an easier way but i'm not going to think about it now.

#deadhand

i don't really have any more photos from the making of the actual costumes.

i don't really have that much more to say about the costumes. next up the stage design and summary.

this has been your monday dose of mind-boggling work.

love,

qofr

p.s. this is draining my energy. i'll finish those posts this week and quit talking about this project for now. from february sockabrate is coming back.

so, śródświetlne

the name means, in loose translation, amongst light. the whole thing was prepared for my schools 'day of light', but not for them, for myself. the event is centered around light related projects made by students at my school.

i had this idea for a while, the play of light and shadow is fascinating when observed in movement, and i love the idea of semi-transparency and all that.

the whole concept is based on cloth with printed, contrasting template. i got really interested in artistic graphics last year, i'm a craftsman so doing stuff by hand is definitely my thing, and making molds was really cool. since this year i don't have that subject anymore i wanted to do something my myself, for myself this once. plus i really wanted to have something big, new for my portfolio.

i like doing stuff on my own so this was a real pleasure even though it was so time and work consuming.

i started of with some loose sketches of the cloths and the patterns i wanted. i love the idea of octopus tentacles in graphics (i have no idea why, it has been a running theme in my art) so i started with that (curse this, the suction things were a bitch to make). i was struggling to think of other nature inspired patterns but it worked out.

i have an octopus, trees, coral and fern. each made twice, mirrored for both sides of the model.

and for good measure i did some model sketches

i wasn't sure about the last one 

and i want to use my pad more so:

this is the beginning, my inspirations. the making is coming.

this has been your monday dose of artistic motivation, you can do it!

love,

qofr

happy new year!