My Reluctant Garden

The garden was a bit reluctant to yield up any treasures today - just a couple of bromeliads ...



... which are so FAB, I should be grateful!

My calm and delight were however momentarily spoiled ... when I went into orgies of smugness over the arty light and shadow effects I achieved in the first image!

Oh, alright, it was just a lucky shot!

Curious How Things Come Your Way - Four Antique Embroidered Muslim Jackets

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket

Curious how things come your way - like a set of antique Muslim jackets from Mindanao in the Philippines.

A few years back, we weathered a typhoon in the island of Boracay, the Philippines, in a concrete almost bunker-styled Korean restaurant. And to pass the time we'd fallen into conversation with one of the local traditional landowners who'd developed a museum there devoted to antique Filipino artefacts.



Unfortunately in the course of the malstrom the museum was badly damaged. And so over the next days, we helped our new friend clean up. And were seriously taken aback when she insisted, for our troubles, we take the set of four Muslim jackets and various other antique textiles from Northern Luzon.

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 2 - Front

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 2 - Obverse


Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 2 - Detail


Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 2 - Detail

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 3 - Front

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 3 - Obverse

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 4 - Front

Antique Mindanao Muslim Jacket 4 - Obverse

The connections with other Muslim cultures in South East Asia is obvious, such as in the following examples from the Hmong Meo hilltribe of Chiang Mai in Thailand ...




Several weeks after returning to Australia, and equally extraordinarily, a book arrived on our doorstep - 'Sinaunang Habi - Philippine Ancestral Weave', sent by our friend to contextualise her amazing gift.

Most interestingly then, the book showed how antique clothing was worn - we could see our jackets modelled for both men and women ...

Lembaning Lake Sebu South Cotabato T'boli

Mandaya Highlands Davao Oriental Mandaya

Savoy Matanao Davao del Sur B'laan

Dungan Pekong Matanao Davao del Sur B'laan

Various Regions

The book was so seductively beautiful I posted on it pretty much immediately - 'Tribal Beauty - Philippine Cultural Identity in Traditional Woven Clothing'.

So guys, what sorts of things have unexpectedly shored up your way?

Obviously, this has potential for a caring and sharing moment/s!

Pleasuring the Senses in Summer - A Detour to Tivoli

In 2003, we were in Spain for some months and, deciding to take a break in the middle, headed off to Italy - I suspect for some kind of nostalgic reasons related to travels past.

Being the height of summer and baking in Rome, it seemed natural to day trip to the watery pleasure gardens of the Villa d'Este at Tivoli.



After meditating for some time beside this copy of Artemis of Ephesus ...


... I found myself in a severely thematic mood ...







... which was only interrupted by the hourly grand water works display ...



Wandering back into town from the villa later in the day, our senses were again assailed - this time by the annual floral roadway displays, the significance of which I've totally forgetten ...



Having being so rudely distracted from my earlier thematic snapping, I decided to take up another long time favorite - entrances and doorways ...


... and the addiction lingered over into the next day in Rome ...


I now realise I've long been deluded thinking my most powerful organ was between my ears ... and fully understand I work much much better on a sensory level.

Surprise surprise, you say!!!

Early Martha Graham Choreography

Yesterday, I came across some extraordinary early C20 Eastman Kodak dance footage - the earliest extant record of Martha Graham's choreography, 'The Flute of Krishna' (1926).

Krishna, the god of love, plays a call to love on his flute and cavorts with three tantalising girls or Apsaras. However, he is finally won over by his fiancee, Radha.

The iconography of the choreography stems mostly from Hindu sculpture and C19 European Orientalism, but also takes other inspirations, such as classical sculpture - for example, 'The Three Graces' - though these compositions may have antecedents in Indian sculpture.

Though not appearing in this film, Graham appeared in the original dance ...

' ... clad in a heavy gold kimona, making patterns with her body against a screen of brilliant lacquer ... . Martha Graham presents a series of pictures that fire the imagination and make a hundred stories for every gesture. Shall we say her dances are motion pictures for the sophisticated'

'The Dance' magazine

In this footage Robert Ross is Krishna and Evelyn Sabin is Radha, with Thelma Biracree, Constance Finkel, Betty MacDonald as Apsaras. The music is a new traditional Indian music score, as the original by George Ruckert is lost.

This is obviously an other than Indian fabrication, but curiously Martha Graham's piece does not look the awkward pastiche that is often the result of such cross-cultural explorations.