It takes little to make me happy...

Pan's Labyrinth

Il pleut depuis hier mais c'est une pluie magique de crystale. Lumineuse! Elle eclate de douceure.

"Une pyramide de baisers,
Une tempête d'amitié,
Une vague de caresses,
Un cyclone de douceur,
Un océan de pensées."

~ MC Solaar

I had almost forgetten the magic Erté's prints held for me in my childhood. My mother was enamoured by his glamorous effigees and throughout her carreer as a fashion designer, she stylizedd her sihlouettes from his example. As I learnt how to draw, I would sit with a great big coffee table book of his prints and attempt to copy them.

At some point, I do not remember precisely when, my mother acquired a priceless mirror by Erte. Staring into it I could only imagine it held certain magical qualities, that perhaps it had the power to transform me into one of his muses.

In all my dreams, I would take the shape of one of his impossibly poised heroines. To me they embodied everything that was feminine: beauty, charm, dignity and always, a certain little edge of malice. My taste for dreams and grandeur is from staring at Erte's.

Autumn Love

Alessandro Pautasso

The Kiss

I have always looked at this painting as the portrait of love. For years I admired it's guild and detail, wanting to be the woman in the arms of this man who so visibly desired her. It seemed to me that she must feel so coccooned within his embrace.

What I never saw, until now, was the detachement in her pose, the way her soul is absent from her expression making even the man's apparent devotion seem brutal and unwanted. She is awkward, not herself.

Every relationship I had I dwarfed myself to fit in the crook of the man's arm, I painted gold and illusion around each story to make it feel like "The Kiss". Instead of being loved, I was being molded. And instead of loving I was palying a role.

Today, if I were to choose a print on love, both lovers would be standing tall, each equal in their story. They would be facing outward but also, impossibly, towards each other. Neither one would have to alter their stature, or change any part - for there would be no constraining, only love.