Street art

It can make a whole day a little bit better when streets are decorated with funny stuff, that makes you snigger while walking by. I found some really cool pictures of street art, which are probably not very new art pieces, but in my opinion still worth sharing.

First of all, as a lace fan I wished all fenches looked like this.

Lacefence found at blog.freepeople.com

I have been working at a store in Delft since a month now and in that month I learned that the city is known for its wrecked bikes that get trown in the water by drunken students. Every now and then a big truck with a special reacher is coming by to get them out. Not just a few bikes but a whole truckload full of them is covered from the water. It is very interesting to observe, but probably not as special as this:

New York bike, pictured by a facebookfriend

And then there is the work of artist Juliana Santacruz Herrera which brightens up the streets of Paris, by filling crackes up with wool.

Wool in streets found at blog.freepeople.com

Home is were the heart...

At the moment I live in Rotterdam together with my boyfriend in a house at the most notorious street of the city. Maybe even the most notorious street of the country, due to some current events.. My house is pretty big, super cheap and I do feel at home in it, but when I am grown up and rich I would like to own something like this:

House with Slide, .fubiz.net

The slide-house above is build in Tokyo, like the one below is too. I hope with all my heart that everyone in Tokyo will persevere and can stay in their marvelous houses. I think these houses are able to make you forget the horrors of the past last days a tiny little bit.

Another great house far away from the disasters is this tree-house in the forests around Portland.

Or this mountainhome in the Swiss Alps, which is placed 1250 m height on the mountain. You can rent it and stay there for €1800 a week (in the off-season..In the high season it is twice as expensive.) If you are interested and are willing to spend that money, book it here: http://www.villavals.ch/.

Favorite actresses

I am not going to make a year list as my fellow bloggers did. Probably because I would not be able to make one. I don’t really see the end of the year as a closure to something and I am not that good at summing things up in lists. But I do have one major goal for the next year. I will be working on being able to earn money by doing something I really love: getting involved in theater plays. I don’t know in which way yet, but that is part of the big goal: finding out what my qualities are and if they are good enough to make a profession out of it. I almost completed my bachelor study, which I could use to work behind the scenes, but I want more!

So therefore I did made a list of some sorts. It consists out of my favorite modern actresses at the moment.

1. Cate Blanchett

She can't do anything wrong in my opinion. My all time favorite is her playing Bob Dylan in 'I'm not there'. A woman playing Bob Dylan.. but I think no-one could have done it better. She's also wonderful in 'The Aviator' and in 'Heaven', for which she shaved off her hair. 

Cate as Bob Dylan

Cate as Katharine Hepburn in 'The Aviator'

2. Penelope Cruz

Penelope Cruz did make a lot of movies that, well.. sucked big time. But she's the leading actress in my favorite movie 'Volver' and that made up for all the bad ones. Liked her in 'Vicky, Christina, Barcelona' too, mostly because of her mesmerizing looks.

Volver

Volver

Vicky, Christina. Barcelona

3. Natalie Portman

Another hair-shaving girl. Shaving all your hair, it is something I always wanted tot do but never dare to do..
Back to Natalie, I saw 'Black Swan' yesterday. It is such a beautiful movie and Natalie's performance is outstanding in every way. A bit over the top, but in a good way I guess. I always found her really cool in 'Leon', 'Mars Attacks' and 'V for Vendetta'.

4. Julianne Moore

Favorite performance: 'The Big Lebowski'! And she shouts beautifully in 'Magnolia'.

Maude Lebowski in 'The Big Lebowski'

'The Big Lebowski'

Speaking of great acting performances and end of the year lists: this year I watched the two best series ever made. 'Twin Peaks' and (even better) 'Carnivale' are full off amazing characters which are played wonderfully. These series are really worthwhile to spend your time on.

Dali Photography

Dali Atomicus, 1948

Salvador Dali!
Like everyone else I love his surrealistic paintings, but his lesser known photos are definitely quite as cool.
In the 1940's Dali teamed up with Philippe Halsman. They became partners on many projects, including a series of playful tableaux that had all the disturbing irrationality of dreams or a painting by Dali. Some became iconic, like the first two pictures in this blog. I think it is nice that everything you see on these photographs was also happening in real life, adjustments after taking the picture were not possible and not needed. At a time in which the most high-tech photo-camera's and photoshop are used, it is hard to imagine how much effort this would have taken.

Dali Skull, 1951

"Midsummer Night's Mare" 1950

The photograph above was discribed in a Fall 1950 issue of Photography Workshop:

"Still bent on suspending objects, Halsman and his willing accomplice, Dali, produced the explosion picture on page 39. The photograph was built around the fantasy of Dali's shoe exploding with the image of a beautiful woman appearing amid a holocaust of popcorn and French bread."

Dali also worked together with other famous photographers of that period, among them Man Ray and Brassaï. Man Ray is actually known as "The Dali of photography'. His photographs have been more influential than Dali's, although not as famous and well know among the mainstream public.

Salvador Dali and Man Ray Photograhped by Carl van Vechten

Le Violon d’Ingres by Man Ray

Things I love, Thursday

It is my turn to write about the things I liked this past week. My life is kind of busy, so there are a lot of things happening which I really like, but sometimes it is nice to remind yourself of the small things that made the week special.

- Hugging random Italians on the streets in front of ‘I love you’ signs. Not something I would do everyday, but the Italian guy thought the sign was asking for it.

- It has become so cold, but I don't care that much. As long as your clothing is warm enough, it is quite romantic. So I am wearing two pants on top of each other, nice leather boots, woolen sweaters and other things that keep me nice and warm. 
- I love to be able to eat swedish Daim-cake thanks to the Ikea. This week I got one from a friend of mine, just because it is the best cake ever.
- Watching pretty pictures on tumblr or blogspot..
- Getting books from colleagues who are brave enough to immigrate and can't take all their books... I got one written by Sandro Veronesi, I love Spanish writers so I am curious about this one. 
- Dancing native African dances for the first time and getting sore muscles on weird places from it. 

- Coming across nice pictures on the internet, which are just nice without any deeper meaning..:

http://amandaleeisabadass.blogspot.com/

Beating Roodkapje with a burger in ROT(T)TERDAM

Our street style shoot didn’t go as planned… While walking through Rotterdam, on what might have been the coldest day of the year, we only encountered people wearing Uggs and fur-trimmed jackets. We’re blaming it on the cold right now, because it would be a bit disappointing if this was all the street style Rotterdam had to offer. Never the less, we met some nice people at the Meent! The old City office is being redeveloped, but to make sure the street will still be nice for shopping and wandering about, upcoming artists get a chance to show their work in the empty stores surrounding the old building. The initiative ROT(T)TERDAM was formed by Roodkapje, an art platform interested in new and exciting artists, willing to challenge and contribute to the social debate. The project uses about 700m2 and calls itself a cultural supermarket. Artists rotate in a small shop to show and sell their work, there are two galleries for workshops or temporary sales and a small burger shop for biological or vegetarian hamburgers. They show movies, curate events, parties and cd releases. If you’re looking for art and culture in a new and interesting way, you can definitely find it here.

Sander, de van der Poort in Duran//vanderpoort

Today we found a really cool art exhibition and store by Duran//vanderpoort called Enlightenment. They look for designers who take a lead in this new era of Intuition.

One of our favorite pieces was a light object called ‘Naked City Light’ made by architects Natascha Madeiski ( Italy) and Alexander Graef (U.K.).

Another great collection was by StudioRUIG, a clothing-label from Eindhoven that works with leather and soft jerseys resulting in sober fashion for wayward types (that’s us!) They also love moustaches, which we also do!

PIGBLACK, StudioRUIG

  
Also a designer based in Rotterdam is sold in the store: the young (only 21 years old!) and upcoming Ruby Verhoeven. 'The colour palette with an indispensable eye for detail, shows well thought combinations and the esthetic value of one-tone.' The details might not be seen on the first sight and you'll only see a simple dress, but as Ruby herself says: 'Take a closer look, and you might see what I see..'

Our next stop was a wintersale next to the beatburger organized by Zone 5300. They sell comics, art and other fun things. Angelika bought a really nice art print and Lotte was in love with a Superman Comic. The comics were sold by Comiquest, who is opening a comic bookstore in Rotterdam coming spring. He was nice enough to have his picture taken by us. Go see his store when it opens!

Comiquest

The nice people of Zone 5300

 We ended up eating a nice luch/dinner at the beatburger. They not only sell great biological burgers, but also make tasty pancakes, chestnuts and prosecco with a cherry. We’ll end with some pictures of our fancy feast!                          

Little April March

The 1960's: a time of hippies protesting, the countercultural- and social revolution and the rise of feminism. It's in my opinion an interesting decade, where a lot of popular culture finds their origin.
Lately I find myself prefering the avant-garde 60's culture coming from France. The music is shameless while still bubblegum poppy, the movies are a bit boring but show so much style and the style-icons themselves are still an inspiration for modernday fashion. That must be what April March thought when she made (toghether with France 60's icon Serge Gainsbourge) the album 'Paris in April'.


April March on the cover of 'Chick Habit'.



April March, lepop.de

 The album actually came out in 1996, but sounds exactly how it would sound if it was made and produced in France in the1960's. Following stints with several bands, Elinore Blake launched a solo career under the April March guise and recorded material throughout the '90s and early 2000s, which hark back to the pre-rock days of European pop and French yé-yé music. It fooled me and I didn't believe it when my boyfriend told me this girl was born in 1965 in the United States. The second picture is pretty obvious a recent one, but if you look at the video below you will know what I mean.

The English version of this song, called 'Chick Habit' was used as a soundtrack for the movies 'But I am a Cheerleader' and 'Death Proof', so that is why it might sound familiar.

The Dutchness

When I’m traveling around the globe and talking to people abroad the conversation mostly leads to one subject: each others home country. Asking other people about the country I live in (the Netherlands), the usual suspects always turn up: Pot, Amsterdam, Prostitutes and Clogs. A lot of people think Amsterdam is the weed-smoking prostitute capital of the world, where everyone is wild and free to do whatever they want and that is all there’s to the country. Well, some of those things are somewhat true of course, but a lot about the country is not at all that crazy and wild. When it comes down to the fashion-sense of an average Dutchman (or woman of course) they are pretty boring and not very noticeable. There is a commonly known saying: “Doe maar normaal, dan ben je al gek genoeg” meaning something like “Just act normal, ‘cause that’s crazy enough already”. If you would skim the streets for any glamorous people you would be better off in Milan or any other random Italian city, because here a t-shirt and jeans is everything you’ll need to be fashionable, that’s probably most practical riding our bikes.

Daphne, Trendstyle.net

                Yet, surprisingly the country also contains a lot of beauty. Dutch models are the most popular models (along with the eastern European) to use on a runway at the moment. Never in the history of the runway there were so many Dutch girls among the supermodels. To name a few big ones who are around for a little while now: Iekeliene Stange, Doutzen Kroes, Lara Stone, Kim Noorda and Bette Franken. But there is also a whole new generation coming up, among them Mirte Maas, Ymre Stiekema, Nimue Smit, Daphne Groeneveld, Bregje Heinen, Anna de Rijk and many many more. A lot of names for such a small county, but it’s no surprise considering we’re the tallest people in the world.


Not only the models are becoming more interesting for the international market, there is also some progressive fashion coming from the Netherlands too. Not the scream and shout fashion, with diamonds and glamour, but some real intelligent avant-garde pieces.

                G-star and Blue blood, two jeans brands with their own way of making rough jeans and the ecological jeans brand Kuyichi are international big names in the fashion-affordable-for normal-people industry. Nice clothing, but those brands might just keep up the jeans and t-shirt image of the Netherlands. More interesting to look at are the pieces of Dutch greatest: Viktor & Rolf, who are today’s most successful Dutch designers and who keep on making statue-like, intellectual and ironic haute-couture. They certainly didn't listen when their parents told them not to be crazy. The young and upcoming designer Iris van Herpen, about whom I would say creates the perfect crossover between fashion and art, uses the most bizarre figures and brings a whole new idea to the clothing. She uses handcrafted pieces combined with new innovative techniques. And then there is Bibi van der Velden, jewelry designer. On her website she calls her jewelery wearable pieces of art. These are a few among the great designers coming from the Netherlands, but I'll save the others for later. The greatness of Dutch clothing is not found in the streets, you have to look a bit further, but when you do, you’ll find great stuff.

Viktor & Rolf

refinery29.com

Iris van Herpen

trendland.net

ftape.com

dashempire.com

Bibi van der Velden

bibivandervelden.com