casa neverlandia

I don't remember when I first heard about  Casa Neverlandia, the magical home and DIY masterpiece of Kay Pils and James Talbot of Austin, Texas.  But ever since, I've been fascinated by this magnificent, upcycled art project of a home. 

I'm lucky to have done a little travel in my day.  Far from enough, but I'm grateful for the marvels I've seen.  During my wanderings, I've visited many a stately home.  I've been inside Blenheim Palace, Hearst Castle and Monticello.  While the majestic cribs of the mighty become routine tourist attractions, I far prefer the dwellings of famous artists and writers from the past, such as Vanessa Bell's Charleston and Robinson Jeffers's Tor House.

Best of all, I love the homegrown DIY creativity that flourishes in homes of contemporary artists such as Pils and Talbot.  It is a whimsical playland of a house--as might be imagined by Dr Seuss and Pee Wee Herman.  It features mosaics of a Gaudi, with the forward thinking technology of a Buckminster Fuller.  I'm inspired what can be done with some hard work, resourcefulness, and most of all, a FEARLESS and PLAYFUL IMAGINATION.

Although I've never had the privilege of seeing it myself, one day I vow to travel to the faraway--if slightly barbarous--land that is TEXAS to behold for myself this fantastical domicile.

source: Paul Bardagjy

mr talbot at his front door: source

Originally, the house was a 1917 two-bedroom bungalow, which Talbot purchased in 1979 for $13,000.  Since then, Talbot and his partner Pils have transformed the humble abode into a three story fantasy chalet.  Houses in that neighborhood of Austin now typically sell in the 200 thousand dollar range, but an appraiser would be hard-pressed to put a price tag on the one-of-a-kind home.  

casa neverlandia

casa neverlandia

softpedia

casa neverlandia

Visitors at the front door don't simply ring the doorbell.  A doorbell would be too bore-dinary.  Instead there is an offering of bells, chimes, wooden blocks, and xylophones to announce their presence.  Pils and Talbot might answer by speaking through a talking tube pipe, which runs behind the walls of the house connecting many of the rooms.  The house also has lofts, an elevated chain-and-truss footbridge, firefighters' poles, curving plasterwork, a look-out tower, nooks and hideaways, a backyard artist's studio, balconies, mosaics, turrets, archways, treehouses, and color, color, color.   Not surprisingly, Talbot is a designer of children's playgrounds.  Pils is the mosaic artist.

Pils and Talbot did much of the work on the house themselves, using salvaged materials and purchases from re-use centers.  Casa Neverlandia is also environmentally green, featuring solar panels and a rainwater collection system for washing clothes and watering the garden.  Pils and Talbot carefully considered the environmental impact of every one of their many inventive construction projects.

Casa Neverlandia is truly an artistic tour de force, a most imaginative and fanciful abode of the MUSE.  Until I can see it myself, I must content myself with this intriguing video:

If you happen to be in Austin, Texas, you will want to see it for yourself.  Casa Neverlandia offers monthly tours, which are by reservation only, on the second Sunday of the month.  Call  (512) 442-7613 for more information.    

And if you see it before I do, I'll be jealous. And call you a LUCKY DUCK.
 

la petite mélancolie

fern andra, silent movie star

Although I originate from a family of depressives, I've always fiercely resisted that identity.

I was not, I was determined to believe--constitutionally depressed so much as situationally so. To that end, I've striven to live my life as such: I own I have a naturally happy disposition.

Childhood photos of me bear witness to this fact. Photos with my family often depict me as a rosy cherub, beaming at the camera. My melancholic kindred are downcast. They look away from the lens. Or regard it with sullen forbearance. Of course, my siblings regarded me as retarded. My cheerfulness clearly marked me as having a membership amongst the intellectually impoverished. 

Depressives often develop a sort of superiority complex about their mental state. It is the more ARTISTIC state of mind. It has a rich poetic tradition. It is très BOHEMIAN.  . And, if you were truly paying attention, were as acutely aware and deeply observant as they--then you too would be depressed!

There is something to that. In psychology, the concept is known as depressive realism.  In 1979 psychologists Alloy and Abramson, and in 1989 Dobson and Franche conducted two separate studies which seemed to indicate that depressed persons may have a more realistic perception of their abilities, importance in the world, and prospects in life. Which is an interesting, if depressing finding.

Although at times I've toiled like an Egyptian pyramid builder to maintain my happy outlook, often I've FAILED.  Miserably.  When I'm free-falling into the black chasm, scrabbling to get a handhold on the edge of the bottomless pit, I am apt to wonder if I've been fooling myself all along. Perhaps I am a dismal melancholic, like the rest of my dreary tribe.

Should I just be REALISTIC? And accept my fated chemical temperament?

Again and again, I conclude that it is not the case. Gothic gloom may be novel at Halloween, and titillates when one is in certain moods--but it is not my permanent address and I don't want to live there year round. Though I admire the phantastically creative Goth aesthetic, I was never tempted to adopt it as my personal style. After a while, the darkness palls and I yearn for something fresh and clear. I must wear pink, go swimming, and laugh at something hilariously witty, but not morbidly so. Thankfully, even when I've been at my most miserable, and worried to death I will be stuck in that mansion of despair forever, somehow I have always wriggled myself free. 

And again and again, I conclude that even those times when I feared I was clinically depressed, in hindsight there were ALWAYS situational components to my distress. When I figure my way out, I find that my natural happy disposition returns.  As novelist William Gibson advises, 'Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just SURROUNDED BY ASSHOLES.'   Which has often proved to be my real problem, not defective levels of serotonin or whatnot. 

Now, after years of encountering such 'situational' situations, I have a bag of tricks, a Girl Scout emergency kit in which to rescue my oft-times teetering moods.  Happiness repair has become one of my 'mad skills.'  My mental hygiene.

fern andra, silent movie star

Admittedly, this current bout of melancholia I've been faced with has been a long, dismal slog.  This time around has exasperated my can-do spirit.  My usual bag of tricks has come up empty.   After planning a magnificent year for myself--I made the now seemingly quaint intention that 2012 would be the best of my life thus far, and was even writing in a silly old gratitude journal for Pete's sake--I found myself living through the worst of years.

(At least since 2009, the year of the LANDLADY-from-Hell, but that is another story...)

I could list my tragic losses for the year, my woe log, the various sucker-punches dealt by the random and uncaring universe: but I shan't wallow.  On the other hand, mayhap I should.  I have no compunction about WALLOWING really; for wallowing (or less pejoratively, FEELING) is an essential part of the grieving process, and one must get through it to find the other side.  Too often people who are not depressed, not grieving, are quick to judge--and tell the besieged person to cheer up and forget.  But as the old Zen masters say, that which you resist, grows stronger.

We all know of poor, misbegotten individuals who are stuck fast in their depression, and they are sad cases indeed.  The wise person knows when it is time to cease grieving, when the noble wallowing process is finished, when to put a period at the end of purgatory, and start a new project.  Count me amongst the wise: I may be smacked down by life's giant fly swatter, but I am resilient.  I will come back.  The sap is rising into my poor listless limbs, giving strength to my sword arm, or in my case, my pen.  Or my keyboard.  I finally feel my old happy self returning--and I am on the march toward my GLORIOUS hopes and dreams.

And even at this late time of my life, I am still going to GET THAT PONY.

fern andra, silent movie star

Even if it is totally UNREALISTIC.

lorna steele - fairy artist

lorna steele link

lorna steele link

lorna steele link

lorna steele link

 

lorna steele link

lorna steele link

Here's a mysterious muse. My good friend and kindred spirit Terrie True showed me a fairy picture by Lorna Steele, which intrigued me with its simple whimsy. My usual ways of learning about artists resulted in almost nothing. I can't find any information about the artist except her birth and death dates (1902-1990). Not even an entry on Wikipedia from the enthusiastic fairy art folk.

Her postcards and prints do seem to be selling on ebay and other similar websites, however. Hopefully we can someday soon learn more about this charming fairy artist.

cléo de mérode - muse of la belle epoque

There is a mystique about the early portrait photography of the late 19th the new 20th century. There is something so compelling about the Belle Epoque beauties, the glamor of silent screen goddesses. . . I can't quite put my finger on it, but that is probably why it is a MYSTIQUE.

Surely, the human form—and the feminine form particularly—has always been the most powerful image in art, from the very dawn of the artistic impulse.  But I’m not sure why I’m so enthralled by famous beauties of from the past, and why I find them far more compelling than the publicity photos of current celebrities. 

Perhaps it has everything to do with their world being lost to us by time—and the only peephole we have to their lives, is through these mysterious pictures.

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In the case of Cléo de Mérode, beauty of the Belle Epoque—her portraits fascinated people of her own era, as they continue to fascinate us today.  Cléo was a serious ballet dancer, who performed across Europe and in the United States--but she was more famous for her arresting image, which was popular on widely circulated post cards, sheet music and playing cards. 

Her hair style—a chignon, with the hair arranged low over the ears—became the rage of Paris. She was also known for her tiny waist, attained by the extreme tight-lacing of her corset.

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Cleopatra Diane de Mérode was born in 1874 in Bordeaux, France. Her father was an Austrian landscape painter, and descended from an aristocratic Belgian family. Cléo was selected for the Opera School of Dance at 8-years old, and began dancing professionally at eleven. 

The little ballerina grew into a romantically beautiful young woman. She inevitably attracted much attention for it, both positive and negative. When she was 22, King Léopold II of Belgium saw Mérode dance at the ballet, and was utterly smitten. He pursued her, but the tale is that Cléo did not return his regard. Gossip circulated that she was the royal old rascal's latest mistress, and because the 61-year old Léopold was a notorious rake, Cléo's reputation suffered, and the story dogged her until the end of her life.

The scandal did not prevent de Mérode's rise to become an internatonal star. At the height of her career, she danced at the Folies Bergère, which was a déclassé venue for an elite ballet star—but it was such a bravado act, it earned her a whole new audience.

'the dancer' by alexandre falguière 1896

Cléo was the inspiration for many contemporary artists of her time.  Sculptor Alexandre Falguière created The Dancer in her image, which can be viewed today in the Musée d'Orsay.  In 1895, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec sketched her portrait.  Gustav Klimt used her as the model for many of his paintings. She was the subject for many of the most famous photographers of the age.

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 beautiful video of cléo by begoodi

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Cléo was popular not only in France, but in Germany and in her father's ancestral land of Austria.  Silent screen actress Fern Andra portrayed her in the 1926 German film Frauen der Leidenschaft.  Her relationship with Austrian painter Gustav Klimt was the basis for the 2006 film Klimt, starring John Malkovich as Klimt, and Saffron Burrows as "Lea de Castro," a character based on Cléo de Mérode.  

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She continued to dance until her early fifties. Afterwards she retired to live by the sea, and write her memoirs.  In 1955 she published Le Ballet de ma vie (The Dance of My Life).   Cléo de Mérode died in 1966 and was put to rest in Paris's Père Lachaise Cemetery. She is buried alongside her mother.    

cléo's tomb at père lachaise cemetery, paris

A statue of a mourning Cléo decorates the grave.