gaysknits

spc featuring the 7 deadly sins...

this month the self portrait challenge is focused on the seven deadly sins. my choice of sins for the week is wrath.  for a change of pace and a bit of new focus i decided to start participating in spc once again.  as you can imagine i groaned and grimaced and said why why why???  last month it was shoes i can relate to that. i can have fun with that but the seven deadly sins? wtf? it seems i can have some fun with this too. without going into a philosphical discussion of sin which i could do...you know i could...others have summed it up better than i could so i'll leave you with this. according to the history channel:  Italian writer Dante placed those that committed the sin of anger in the "Fourth Circle of Hell," tearing each other limb from limb for eternity. 

come on...you  know you'd love to or you have wanted to do it...at least one time huh? me i have an axe to grind!!!  see more depictions of the  seven  here on flickr. later...love g

i missed it...

the june theme for the self portrait challenge was shoes...and i missed it.  the group which i used to faithfully and regularly participate in moved to flickr and it was not a forum i could relate to and i lost interest. at the very least i dropped the ball...quit the habit...moved on to...i moved on to nothing as far as i can tell but that us a whole other story. i have toyed around with the idea of participating again but never seem to be able to match the theme of the month with my mood.  shoes would have been a great start.  as a rule i do my fair shair of self portraits in shoes on any given day even without being told to.  i think i may have even participated in the invention of the concept.  ah well. next month may be my month. or not.  in the mean time lots of folks do self portraits as a daily, weekly or monthy ritual. i find them sort of interesting and so until i get some knitting mojo back and since i am lacking in any real focus on the blog and in my life...self portraits it is...daily??? hmm i can try but honestly don't know if i can maintain that.

 

along the way these may lead to some exploration of other topics.  like celebrity. this morning i had a long conversation via email with a blogging friend about the topic as it relates to knitting.  i can't say it was a conversation...it was more like  pontification on my part.  celebrity relates to everything and the bigger you are the more attention you get.  attention and celebrity are not necessarily indicators of talent and artistic ability nor are they a predictor of an interesting person but it is what it is and in this day as in days gone by celebrity is what it is all about.  when i think of celebrity i think of andy warhol. he has come to my mind several times in the past weeks. the first time was at the moms house.  the guy and i went for dinner a few weeks back and the subject moved to art. the mom is a watercolor artist and in her old age she has become quite prolific. prolific is not necessarily a good thing either but that as i have said often and quite a few times just today is another subject for another day.  perhaps even tomorrow.  her husband is her greatest fan and her biggest critic and he is very opinionated about most everything and somehow we got on the subject of andy warhol.  i brought it up if the truth be told but it was said in that room on that night that he was a no talent nobody who painted a picture of a soup can which was no damn good anyway and his portraits of jackie o were...well i won't bore you or piss you off with the rest of the conversation which i can hardly remember anyway.  i am a fan of andy warhol and i am fascinated by him...once again another story...so i defended him with every argument i could come up with and put a stop the the andy bashing that was going on. last night the guy and i went out for a motorcycle ride and a bite to eat and a beer and we stopped at the book store after to look for knitting and boating mags.  a young pretty self confident girl walked in and picked out a copy of interview magazine. she nonchalontly adjusted her kelly green sweater, turned on her heel and walked out with her geometric yellow bob swinging back and forth.  she was just sooooo andy warhol in attitude that i had to stare. celebrity starts in school doesn't it?  i was gonna say high school then i was gonna say junior high but these days i think it starts in day care...god...andy warhol would be so proud.  he celebrated celebrity.  he created celebritites. he was maybe the biggest celebrity. i do not intend to debate his talent with anyone. it is a personal opinion as far as i am concerned  but certainly no one can argue that he was a celebrity and those who are celebrities are rewarded thats for certain. it is fitting that i start my journal of self portraits with discussion about andy warhol. he was fond of the self portrait himself and...i think i look like him!!!   later...love   g

politics of fashion...

who ever thought one thing had anything to do with the other but i  recently came across this article in the new york times called the newly uptight and the title caught my eye.  read the article, it's really quite funny and very amusing!  a lot of things influence fashion and those who design that fashion and those who tell us what is in fashion. never did i connect the dots between fashion and politics.  perhaps i should have but i never did.  according to this fashion writer the current political climate has altered what we will be wearing or what we will want to wear this year. because we as a country are nervous about the impending recession and the current social ills such as global warming and teenagers overdosing on drugs no longer are the influences of the spirited  warhol years going to be reflected in our clothing.  we as a people are looking for comfort and unalloyed optimism...whatever that us...and we are about to get it from fashion designers in the form of bourgeois clothing, business suits, little beige dresses, opera gloves and kitten heels that hearken back to our days of camelot when jackie o was the dictator of what was fashionable.  young people are now abandoning the fads in fashion for the conservative quality pieces of timeless clothing to add to their wardrobes to show that they want to be taken back to a time when everything was wholesome, respectable, optimistic and well mannered.  huh!  no longer will we be seeing platform shoes, mini skirts, disco boots, babydoll dresses and young hollywood's disheveled style.  huh! i suppose tie dye will also be out of the question and any way who's wearing disco boots?  if as they say we are hesitant about the recession and about global warming which i dare say we are and with good reason why oh why is it that the fashion industry thinks these problems will be helped, solved or changed by purchasing expensive pieces of couture?

take a stand. amuse yourself. wear whatever you like or better yet wear what you already have!  just don't wear it all at the same time like i do!  global warming will not go away because we buy a little beige dress or a suit and neither will teen age drug use.  see more politics here.  peace.

political...

i don't want to protest or boycott the spc challenge this month after all. i really don't have the time for it this week and i considered taking a pass but let's face it i don't want to keep my mouth shut.  i don't want to to keep my opinions to myself. i don't want to avoid pissing anyone else off who might not agree with me.

if you ask  me i don't feel like that's the noble thing to do. if you ask me it isn't smart and it isn't what i want to do. let's face the facts. silence is not golden, if we don't speak our opinion then we might as well not have one.  if we don't speak out against something then we are in a sense approving or endorsing it with our silence. there is no other way to look at it.  this is the politcal statement of an artist by the name of jeremy deller who participated in the carnegie international in 2004-2005...it may not be my political statement but i was smart enough to buy the tee shirt and to wear it and by the way the color of this shirt is red with bright yellow letters so it's not like you won't see me coming!  see more political here at spc this month.  peace.

blue is for...

blue toes and tatoos and saturdays with time on your hands and nothing to do but play around.

see more blue spc's here.