je ne sais quoi: The Feminine Ideal

In Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit: a Son Remembers  Sean Hepburn Ferrer included an appreciation piece the brilliant photographer and visual consultant Cecil Beaton wrote about his mother's classic public appeal.

Sean writes:

So much of who she was, of what made her unforgettable, cannot be put into words. So how did she affect people so profoundly?  What chord did she touch? -- It wasn't just the brilliant packaging or the simple yet moving themes of her films.  It wasn't just the talented screenwriters and directors.  It was also what the French wisely call je ne sais quoi ("I don't know what") that came across in between the lines of good dialogue.  It was the speech of her heart and the inflection of pure intentions.

Nobody ever looked like her before World War II; it is doubtful if anybody ever did, unless it be those wild children of the French Revolution who stride in the foreground of romantic canvases.  Yet we recognize the rightness of this appearance in relation to our historical needs.  And the proof is that thousands of imitations have appeared... What does their paradigm really look like?  Audrey Hepburn has enormous heron's eyes and dark eyebrows slanted towards the Far East.  Her facial features show character rather than prettiness: the bridge of the nose seems almost too narrow to carry its length, which flares into a globular tip with nostrils startlingly like a ducks bill.  Her mouth is wide, with a cleft under the lower lip too deep for classical beauty, and the delicate chin appears even smaller by contrast with the exaggerated width of her jaw bones.  Seen at the full, the outline of her face is perhaps too square; yet she intuitively tilts her head with a restless and perky asymmetry.  She is like a portrait by Madiglioni where the various distortions are not only interesting in themselves but make a completely satisfying composite...

Audrey Hepburn is the gamine, the urchin, the last Barnardo boy.  Sometimes she appears to be dangerously fatigued; already, at her lettuce age, there are apt to be shadows under the eyes, while her cheeks seem taut and pallid.  She is a wistful child of a war-chided era, and the shadow thrown across her youth underlines even more its precious evanescence.  But if she can reflect sorrow, she seems also to enjoy the happiness life provides for her with such bounty.

It is a rare phenomenon to find a very young girl with such inherent "star quality."  As a result of her enormous success, Audrey Hepburn has already acquired the extra incandescent glow which comes as a result of being acclaimed, admired, and loved.  Yet while developing her radiance she has too much innate candor to take on that gloss of artificiality Hollywood is apt to demand of its queens.  Her voice is peculiarly personal.  With its unaccustomed rhythm and sing-song cadence on a flat drawl, it has a quality of heartbreak...

In fact, with the passing of every month, Audrey Hepburn increases in dramatic stature.  Intelligent and alert, wistful but enthusiastic, frank yet tactful, assured without conceit and tender without sentimentality... Add to this the remarkable distinction she emanates, and it is not rash to say she also  gives every indication of being the most interesting public embodiment of our new feminine ideal.

- Audrey Hepburn by Cecil Beaton, Vogue, November 1, 1954

Not-quite Thursday

Hello Everyone!

A little bump in the road (haha! - oh the irony of that phrase) has come in to disrupt the first week of my new blogging plan. I had a little accident on my bike this morning and dislocated my hip -Don't worry! it was minor and I'm okay, just landed wrong. I've got a number of wonderful friends who are helping me out, and the doctors got me set up and comfortable with some crutches and good pain control.  Luckily, I'm -relatively- young, strong, and healthy, so I should be better and mostly healed in just a few days. : D Yeah!  Back to work on Monday but no biking for about a week or so.  Sigh....I miss my bike already... I need my daily dose of sunshine, wind, speed, and happy exercise endorphins.

So, Thursday's theme post is going to have to be delayed a day (or maybe a few....) but I'll do my best to get it up soon!

Lyric Wednesday

I love music. It's another level of speech and communication with me. Wednesdays are simply going to be dedicated to the lyrics from songs on my playlists. Songs that uplift me, speak to my sorrow, bring me joy, make me want to dance, remind me of others, relate to my life, or bring to life my dreams and wishes.  Today we'll start with: "Red Umbrella"  I love to walk in the rain. I have a red umbrella. Double smile.

Red Umbrella

Faith Hill

Sometimes life can get a little dark.

I'm sure I've got bruises on my heart.

Here come the black clouds full of pain.

Yeah, you can break away without the chains.

Your love is like a red umbrella.

Walk the streets like Cinderella,

everyone can see it on my face.

So let it rain, it's pouring all around me.

Let it fall, it ain't gonna drown me

after all, I'm gonna be okay, so let it rain.

You can wear your sorrow like an old raincoat.

You can save your tears in a bottle made of gold

but the glitter on the sidewalk always shines.

Yeah, even God needs to cry sometimes.

Your love is like a red umbrella

always there to make me better

when my broken dreams are fallin from the sky.

Let it rain, it's pouring all around me.

Let it fall, it ain't gonna drown me

after all, I'm gonna be okay, so let it rain.

Let it wash my tears away,

tomorrow's another day...

So let it rain, it's pouring all around you.

Let it fall, it ain't gonna drown you.

After all, I'm gonna be okay, so let it rain.

Oh, let it rain, let it fall, I'm gonna be okay, so let it rain.

Oh, let it rain...

Project Tuesday

I have a lot of projects going on in my life as of late....refinishing and refurbishing the apartment, decorating, paper arts, sewing things, and helping coworkers and friends with their projects.  Tuesdays are going be dedicated to a little blurb or update about what I've accomplished, what I'm still in the stages of working on, or what else I've decided to add to my already unfinishable list of desirables.

Technically, this should have been posted yesterday - Tuesday - but my friend Alexandra and I were having way too much fun talking and getting gooey until the late hours of the night, so instead you'll just get a double post today. :)

Project: Make your own custom dress form.

Last night was the first step in a multi-phase project - in cahoots with Alexandra - to make our own custom fit dress forms.  I've been looking for a dress form in my size for the last few years and have sadly come to the conclusion that it just doesn't exist.  I need one for a couple of the custom sewing projects that I have been anxious to start, but have delayed beginning as the prospect of fitting, draping, and pinning the patterns to myself seem awkwardly impossible if not very uncomfortable and possibly painful. Last year I found a "how to" about making a duck tape dress form, but that never happened as 1) coordination with someone to wrap me in duck tape never quite worked out, and 2) there were still several problems with that technique that kept the form form being truly accurate and useful.

Then, I found a "how to" for making a custom dress form with soft paper insulation from a plaster cast mold, and a friend who was willing to tackle the ambitious project with me. :)

Step 1: Make a plaster cast mold of your body.  

Alexandra graciously - and messily - took on the task of wrapping my spandex and saran wrap clad body in gooey, wet plaster cast gauze last night.  It was entertaining to say the least.  The wrapping and the waiting to dry (about 1 hour total) wasn't so bad, but the cutting me out was another story!  The angles, leverage, maneuvers, and faces we made while trying to cut the plaster, without cutting me or breaking the cast scissors was epic! As was the incredibly ingenious and outright hilarious method I had to come up with simply to walk and move around while bound in a rock hard body cast as we were trying to figure all of this out.

I wish I had more pictures. In fact, I wish I had live video of what went on in my living room last night, but alas, our hands were too gooey, and our minds were too busy, to think of bringing out the camera during the process.  So, here is the one photo you get of my removed (and still somewhat curing) body cast.

(Note: That's three layers of plaster gauze - thick and rock hard! Also, like the rib impression sticking out at the bottom of my chest? That's from taking a big deep breath so I would have room to breath - about an extra inch+ inside - and not suffocate while the plaster hardened.)

Coming soon: Step 2: Filling the mold.

Noteworthy Monday

I've decided to try a new system for blogging, to help me organize and share all the wonderful words, thoughts, music, images, and experiences that are a daily part of my life.  Sunday through Thursday (I do still need to live my life away from the internet on the weekends!) I will be posting something within a particular theme for that day of the week.  Mondays are going to be dedicated to noteworthy correspondence -messages written by one person specifically for another.

I love a well thought out letter.  Words written on paper that you can hold, and save, and carry with you.  Words that are more than just a fleeting sound...instead becoming something tangible, relivable, remembered.   Words sent to persuade, to apologize, to explain, to express, to thank, to comfort, to assure. Words that can't be taken back or changed.  Words that are a snapshot, a capturing of the reality of a particular moment, or emotion, or relationship, or point of view.

These shared words of note will come from many sources. I love biographies, and have (and continue to build) collections of letters and books about numerous obscure, familiar, famous, and infamous individuals.  I admit, I am a terrible journal keeper, and if there ever was a need for my own biography to be written the majority of  information would need to gleaned from the letters and correspondence I keep. A life remembered through the notes, cards, and messages I've made for and received from others... But really, those relationships are the most important part anyway.

Today's noteworthy correspondence is a letter from John Steinbeck - renowned author of The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men - to his eldest son Thom, who was attending boarding school and had written his father about Susan, a young woman with whom he believed he had fallen in love.

New York,
November 10th, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning.  I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First--if you are in love--that's a good thing--that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone.  Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second--There are several kinds of love.  One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance.  This is the ugly and crippling kind.  The other is an outpouring of everything good in you--of kindness and consideration and respect--not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable.  The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love.  If you feel so deeply--of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel.  You know better than anyone.  What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it--and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful.  Try to live up to it.

If you love someone--there is no possible harm in saying so--only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another--but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan.  She will be very welcome.  But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to.  She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens--The main thing is not to hurry.  Nothing good gets away.

Love, 
Fa

[Source: Steinbeck: a Life in Letters]

They Two

...and they two shall be one...

-Ephesians 5:31

In January I was lucky enough to travel home to visit family and attend my cousin Whitney's wedding.  I wasn't the official photographer, but I did do some walking around with my camera.  The best part - all of the  glowing faces and innumerable smiles that gave evidence of the joy and happiness of the occasion. That blissful singular moment in Trent and Whitney's life.  Time is always moving forward, through ups and downs, highs and lows, joys and sorrows. 

 I love capturing that joy, 

preserving those fleeting moments, 

 forever available to stir us up into remembrance of how blessed we truly are.

 

Trent & Whitney

January 13th 2012

St. George Temple

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life... which he hath given thee under the sun  

-Ecclesiastes 9:9

Congratulations Whit and Trent!