Kidnapping ideas 3: The Oh Comely Art Edition

First of all I feel like I need to apologize for the lack of updates lately. We’ve all been pretty busy and blogging sort of drew the shortest straw. We’ll off course try to update every week, but we might not always make it. That said, I was waiting to make a new kidnapping ideas post, because I had bought many new magazines. But again, due to too little hours in a day, I still haven’t read all of them. What I’ll do is make a bunch of shorter posts about 1 magazine in particular every time. This time it will be issue five of Oh Comely. It had so many great things again, but there were two art things that I thought were really cool!

Birds in Hats

Alice Tam was interviewed by Oh Comely about her website Birds in Hats, which is exactly what it sounds like: she draws birds in hats and they are awesome! She doesn’t go for the obvious combinations and really gives the birds a personality. One of my personal favorites is the Flamingo in a Fascinator, but she drew so many that you can pick a favorite for yourself!

Flamingo in a Fascinator

Robin in a Christmas Top Hat

England Revisited

This article/interview was about an art project by Simon English called England Revisited. In 1971 he visited 75 points across England picked carefully by writing the word ENGLAND on a map of the country. He met interesting people, found relatively unknown country spots and left notes on every mark. But 40 years later, he found himself wanting to revisited the places he had been. He took pictures, trying the find the original places he went to the first time around, which really makes you think about change. It’s interesting to see how much or how little some things change in such a big amount of time. All the pictures and video’s from his trip can be found on his website and you won’t regret taking a look. If I ever make an art work I want it to be something big and impressive like this. 

Point 16 in 1971

Point 16 in 2010

Point 33 in 1971

Point 33 in 2010

Travelling Notebooks

Besides the above art, Oh Comely also tried to make a work of their own by handing out 35 notebooks to strangers and asking them to write in them, pass them on to others and sending them back when they are full. Only two notebooks came back, which was really disappointing. I thought the idea was so great and if they want to try it again, we’ll participate and make sure the notebook will be sent on.

Comiques

In non-oh Comely related artwork: I also found a cool comic that I want to share! It’s a comic made by Anne Emond, who is a writer, illustrator and drawer of comics from Brooklyn. Her comics are mostly about herself and other people looking ridiculous, but to me they are mostly very recognizable, funny and awesome!

Kidnapping Ideas 2: The Emma Edition

Soon I Will Be Invincible

Ok, I know I’ve tweeted about this already, but I just can’t not mention it. I’ve read Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman and it was great! I bought the book because I had read The Magicians by Lev Grossman (they’re brothers) which I loved and counting on the writing gene to run in the family, I gave it a try. Soon I will be Invincible is a book about a world where superheroes and super villains are a ‘common’ thing. It’s a sort deconstruction of the superhero/comic genre, written in witty prose and funny remarks. The book is well written and just so much fun to read. I listened to The Sound of Young America Podcast with Austin Grossman (I know, I’m such a geek) and he made a really cool point about how he could explore different things in his ‘comic-novel’ that he wouldn’t be able to do with a real comic book. In a novel you get to spend so much more time in the main characters head, so you can explore the things that are taken for granted in comics, like why they wear the costumes they wear, what it feels like to have a body that is half made of metal and what the difficulties are of wearing a really heavy velvet cape. It’s really interesting to see how they deal with all these crazy things, which adds a more human aspect to the godlike feeling most superheroes/-villains usually have.

Before this, I hadn’t read a book in a while, because I was going through an insatiable craving for magazines. I rediscovered the fun of buying and reading them not too long ago and it took up most of my free time. My interest in magazines has wavered a bit, which is a good thing, because now it won’t get to the point where I have to eat dry bread because I can’t afford a simple slice of cheese. I would love to write a superhero story one day. I love the epicness of the battles, the drama of being different and the great love stories. It’s a shame I can’t even draw a simple stickfigure, but otherwise I would’ve definitely gone into the comic business.

Emma Forrest

This month’s British Elle contained an article from Emma Forrest (I love her name!) about how it feels to leave your twenties. Emma herself was 15 when her first article was published and 16 when she got a column in the Sunday Times. In the article she writes about what it was like to grow up in the limelight and how much better she felt after turning 25. It ended with an anecdote about herself and her friend Kat Dennings (which you might know from the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) attending an Oscar-seasoned party where Emma ran into an old ex-boyfriend.

‘As I talked to him, I processed that some things do not change at all as you get older. Heartbreak now was just like the heartbreak I’s felt when I was 19, then 25; and now I was 30 and it was the same heart, the same ache. Really, my heart felt like vinyl that  had been scratched so it would always jump in that song. Kat sensed the awful, quivering moment when I was about to lose it. She marched me to the bathroom under the pretext of needing to tell me something, and before we made it past the swing door I was crying. She handed me a stiff drink. She dug a false eyelash from my cleavage when it skied there on my tears. But I couldn’t stop. ‘I’m just too old for this,’ I wailed. Then someone walked in and the evening took a strange and beautiful turn. ‘You don’t remember?’Kat asked the next morning.

‘Oh my god…’

‘Yes. And then Demi Moore hugged you.’ Neither of us had ever met her before or since. ‘She clutched you to her bosom and stroked your hair.’

‘Oh God, Kat! She did!’

‘And she kept saying, “Everything’s going to be fine, everything is going to be fine.”

And it is.

I was having a bad day while I read this, and for some reason this anecdote was so reassuring that I felt better in an instant. I’d wish we all had a Demi Moore walking around to give us a hug when we feel bad!

Her latest book is a memoir called It’s Your Voice in My Head and if it contains more of these reassuring stories, I’ll definitely love it.

Get back in your book

The last ‘idea’ I want to share with you are some really pretty pictures I found on But, Honestly, a blog by Emma Fourie (I guess I have a theme, with these Emma’s). She posted some pictures from Lissy Elle which are really impressive. I started browsing her Flickr Page and found a collection of pictures called ‘Get back in your book’. They are about ‘a collection of characters who strive to stay in the real world’. I’m a sucker for anything literary so I couldn’t help but like them! Be sure to look around on her page, there is a lot more to see.

Alice in Wonderland

Harry Potter

Wendy - Peter Pan

Beauty and the Beast

The concept reminded me of the first issue of Afterzine, where six style bloggers where asked to create a look based on their favorite book, character or cover. I thought it was fun how most of them picked a book by Haruki Murakami, I guess he’s just a very fashionable writer. If you don’t own Afterzine yet, I really urge you to buy it. It’s filled with amazing pictures, illustrations and stories. If only I could write for them! But if you do already own it, a little bird recently told me a second issue will appear around spring this year… Can’t wait! 

Kidnapping Ideas

Sometimes I read something in a book or a magazine and it makes me wish I had come up with that myself or it makes me think I should use that idea somehow. My last post about collecting was something like that, but that wasn’t all I found. I decided to relay all the cool ideas I found that inspired me somehow, so that they might be able to inspire you as well!

The Pen Society

I’m reading The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami right now. It’s a collection of short stories and there was one in there that I particularly liked. The story is called a Window and it’s about a young man who works for a small company called ‘The Pen society’. His job is called ‘Pen Master’ and he has to respond to the letters send by the members of the society. The members are mostly people wanting to learn how to write letters or people wanting some company through the mail. I thought this sounded like a great job, that I would love to have. Also it's just great fun to receive letters all the time! 

The story went on from there off course, but the idea stuck with me and I think it would be a nice idea for a company. I’m just not sure if there is a market out there for something like this. It will help the mailmen so they might be willing to finance my business proposal... 

The picture comes from a project called Mail me Art where amateurs and professionals could send in their artwork through the mail. The entries were put together in a exhibition and also a book, which is another cool idea! I love how a lot of projects nowadays try to incorporate their audience. It makes for really interesting collaborations.

The Neurotic Women's club 

Oh comely magazine (which is one of my favourite magazines) had a really cool article about women living alone written by Ellie Phillips. The Neurotic Women’s club is about women suffering from the Bridget Jones fear that ‘you will die alone, and be found three weeks later half-eaten by alsatians’. Although I had no idea what Alsatians where (they’re dogs) and I do not live alone, I understand the fear because I live in a constant state of healthy paranoia. The women in the club have made the agreement to text each other every day around a certain time to let them know they are still alive. You get a sort of buddy that you'll text the word ‘Alive’ and that will text you back the word ‘Yey’ (I assume other words could also be appropriate, but I really liked the ones she described). If you don’t hear anything from that person during that time, you’ll know something has happened and you ‘go around their flat and you break the door down’. I’m not sure if I should use it with friends of family, but I like the idea of checking in with everyone, knowing they’re ok. 
These were the ideas I liked this week. If I find some more, I'll post them!