| Maps On Our Skins, Parte Un. |
[Mar. 13th, 2009|01:59 pm] |
So, if you don't know by now, ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) yuki_onna is a *fantabulous* storyteller.
I love her stories, especially the ones printed as The Orphan's Tales : In the Night Garden & In the Cities of Coin and Spice, but a copy of her newest book, Palimpsest, was given to me as a gift recently.
It's awesome. I started it last night, and I'm already halfway through, and I want to visit Palimpsest so badly I can taste it, the urge thrumming my muscles, the sounds just on the edge of hearing. Sadly, I'll just have to settle for the Palimpsest launch event at Mac's Backs on Coventry on March 16, 2009, @ 8 PM. I'll be getting to meet shadesong for the first time, and get to hear s00j/SJ Tucker for the first time. How wonderful - an evening of words and art and music and song and books and food and love!
But, perhaps most important, I get to henna maps. What follows are two of the four planned interlocking maps of Palimpsest that we will bear on our skins, our passport stamps, our Foder's Guide to the magic world.
( Too big for your page. Look through the keyhole. ) |
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| From avengangle : Five Words Related To Me. |
[Mar. 3rd, 2009|11:27 am] |
Henna: Science first! Lawsonia inermis, or the henna plant, is generally considered a shrub, or a small tree. It's a very tough, thorny plant, can tolerate extreme heat and long droughts, and it grows best in semi-arid regions with alluvial soils. The henna plant can be cultivated across the entire upper half of Africa, the Middle East Peninsula, India and Pakistan, and parts of South Asia, but these days it's mostly grown for profit in the hottest areas previously named. Most of the henna I buy comes from Pakistan or India; the hotter and drier the region is, the better dye those henna plants will produce. The henna plant can be cultivated in cooler, wetter regions, as a blossoming shrub/hedgerow or as a blossoming houseplant, but the plant will not receive the high heat that it requires to develop the dying agent, lawsone, which is found in the central vein of the leaf. The henna plant does blossom at least once a year depending on region of growth, and I've heard that the attar derived from the flowers is used a great deal in Middle Eastern and Indian perfumes. Oh, and henna generally refers to the plant itself or the powdered leaves in India (I also use it as a verb, i.e. to henna someone, hennaing, hennaed,) mehndi is the art form.
I became fascinated with mehndi when I was freshman in high school; I'd seen pictures of it before, but when Rashmi returned from her big sister's wedding in India, I got to see it live and in person for the first time, and I was hooked. I researched it like crazy, and bugged Rashmi about it so much, that she finally offered to introduce me to her aunt, Sarada, who had been a professional mehndi artist in India. Sarada-ji taught me how to make henna paste, although I no longer use her recipe exactly, and how to apply it. It was my first real exposure to the Indian culture, and one of my first real ventures into anthropology. I would drive Sarada-ji up a wall, showing her pictures of design motifs I'd found in books, demanding that she relate all the possible meanings of the signs, symbols, and visual motifs that she taught me to draw, and when and how it was appropriate to use them. I took reams of notes, and my GOD I wish I still had that sketchbook.
As I got older, my funds for henna dried up, until I found myself in Miami FL needing extra cash on a regular basis. I gathered up a mehndi kit, and started walking the beaches, hennaing anyone who cared to pay, and struggled for a month or two.... until the damn Madonna video came out. Suddenly, I was deluged with requests to "make me look like Madonna!", and having not seen the video at that point, I had no idea what they were talking about. I eventually worked out a basic design that seemed to please people, and managed to rake in enough cash that my bills got paid.
When I moved back to Ohio, I sort of left mehndi behind in Florida. After a while, though, my interest was sparked again by finding a mehndi kit on sale in some bookstore somewhere. I bought it, and used it, and railed about how crappy it was to everyone who would listen, until one of my friends said, "Why don't you just get the real stuff then?" and pointed me to a herb shop in Rocky River that sold the henna powder. Unfortunately, the owner of that shop closed her doors shortly after, and I rambled without direction for a while longer, until I found a really good henna supplier online. I've been re-developing my mehndi skills ever since, and with the inclusion of bellydance into my artistic life, I now have a valid reason to begin hennaing on a larger scale again. (If you haven't seen any of my mehndi art yet, here's a link to links, but pictures are scattered thoughout my journal.)
I adore the transient beauty of mehndi art. I love how it cannot be replicated, as each piece is designed solely for the person wearing it. I love how it comes to life on skin, and how each and every person I've created art on has been extraordinarily pleased with both my work and the fact that they get to carry around my art on their skin for a couple weeks. In fact, I'm planning a large scale mehndi piece that will carry across four people, myself included, for attending the Palimpsest launch event on March 16. (Palimpsest was made for mehndi art. Go, Cat, go!)
That was a really really really long post. I'll get to the rest [Poly, Nose Ring, (Bumper) Stickers, Cookies] after lunch. |
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| I leave marks everywhere I go. |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|01:36 pm] |
I'm sure some of you remember the post last week in which I hennaed theferrett and yuki_onna.
Since then, they've both sent back shots of their aged mehndi. I love hennaing my friends - it's so easy to get shots of mehndi after application when the folks who got hennaed are still reachable afterwards.
Here's theferrett's - the edges are bit worn, but the color's astounding. Let that be a lesson, friends: the longer you leave the dried paste on your skin, the better your color and deeper the stain will be. Ferrett left hsi on for an extra day, I think. Astounding.
Here's yuki_onna's - her edges are still nice and clean, and the henna took wonderfully to her skin. I think I can pronounce her ready for wedding henna. It'd be a joy to do art on that scale, and if it comes up as nicely as this, she'll look great at her wedding.
Hurrah! Henna! |
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| Surprise! |
[Aug. 1st, 2008|11:50 am] |
I don't really have anything to say.
I know that's a shock to some, but really, I've just spent a couple hours going gaga over having my very own Mac-pooter and shamelessly catching up on teh intarwebs. So, in lieu of actual literary content, I give you art!
This henna piece is two-or-more years old, and I can't think why I didn't post the pictures at the time. The line/edge work is a bit wonky, and that may have been the reason, but I remember at the time thinking that I should attempt a lace-like "glove", if you will, of henna. (Props to teh Jaxeroo for being such a good... prop? background? )
Those pictures were taken some time after the application; I can't remember how long after now, but you can see the wear on the design, so maybe 5-6 days after application. I like the overall effect of what I was trying to do, and perhaps I'll try it again soon, since I have better-textured henna now.
Oh! Which reminds me - I need to order more henna. The Great Henna Party nearly wiped me out, and I only have a couple cones left.
While we're on the mehndi train, I should mention theferrett and zoethe. Right now, Ferret's in his last couple of weeks at Clarion, a super-groovy writer's workshop on the other side of the country. The two of them have a fascinating relationship, and they pay a lot of attention to each other's needs as well as wants, and they're just about the most adorable, cutest, devoted, lovey-dovey, sincere, and serious-about-each-other couple I've ever seen. (For all of you who think Jer and I are sickeningly sweet on each other, I'm here to tell ya, we got nothin' on Ferret and Gini.)
So, as a gesture of love and devotion, Ferret made arrangements with artists to provide Gini with artwork specifically themed to her whilst he was away. Let's say it together now.... "Awwwwwww"! Ferret asked me if I'd be kind enough to create a mehndi piece for Gini for Week Five, and of course I said yes. Clever minx that I am, I set up a weekly bellydance date with her before he left for Clarion and oh-so-cunningly used this past Monday as her Week Five Art day so she'd be surprised. Yay for surprise art! She created a lovely piece, mixing Indian and Native American images into something very beautiful and very personal to her. It's a fantastic piece, and very unusual for me for create given its location, and when she posts a picture, I'll let you all know! I'm very proud of the piece, and very pleased and honored to be a vehicle of Ferret's love for Gini. |
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| Even yet more henna! |
[Jul. 1st, 2008|02:11 pm] |
At last, I got to do grf's mehndi last Saturday, the day after the henna party - he chose a similar Native American design to the bits I used to create my most recent hand piece.
( More mehndi here! Clickers! )
Tomorrow, serpentseye's Egyptian-themed Pride mehndi! |
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| Holy cow, that's a lot of henna! |
[Jun. 30th, 2008|10:18 am] |
ANNOUNCEMENT: The Cleveland Museum of Art re-opened (in part) yesterday! You can go and see most of the exhibit galleries including the wicked awesome Armor Court in the original 1916 building for free, as always, starting today.
And now, back to me. XD
Wowzers! I never expected to have that many folks show up for mehndi! Apologies to habari , Lorick, serpentseye , zoethe , and Jason, all of whom did not receive mehndi, and who I promise I will henna as soon as is possible. (Actually, zoethe was incredibly thoughtful and gave up her place in line to her partner theferrett , so I owe her double-awesome mehndi for being a generous sweetheart.)
Unfortunately, it rained a great deal on Friday, and I opted to cancel the firebowl part of the party. Thus, there was no dancing and no drumming, which kinda sucked, but can always happen at another time. Given how many folks I had waiting to be henna-fied, though, I wouldn't have gotten to dance anyway.
( So, who wants to see pictures? Lots and lots of pictures? Clicky! )
Tomorrow, I'll post the henna did the day after for grf and the mehndi I did for serpentseye for her Pride performance last weekend. |
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| Mehndi post collection |
[May. 7th, 2008|01:35 pm] |
This post is mostly for yuki_onna and justbeast to peruse my work, but I though some of you might like to browse back through the henna pieces I've posted in my journal.
This post details how I create a piece, and also a bit of the time lapse from application to full rich color : http://bec76.livejournal.com/30494.html
These next links are some pieces I did for bellydancers : http://bec76.livejournal.com/34088.html , http://bec76.livejournal.com/34557.html , http://bec76.livejournal.com/34671.html , http://bec76.livejournal.com/34984.html
These pictures show me applying henna on riorden, marnenel, firinel, and zodarzone, and a piece on my own hand : http://bec76.livejournal.com/36159.html
These are quick-draw pieces, done at Benazir's Bellydance Bazaar : http://bec76.livejournal.com/94682.html
A rather nice peacock design I'm rather proud of : http://bec76.livejournal.com/119061.html
A lovely Ganesh I did last summer : http://bec76.livejournal.com/90765.html
Shanti, in Sanskrit, in a lotus : http://bec76.livejournal.com/60480.html
Hmmm... That's not a lot. I need to do a lot more henna this summer.
ETA: More mehndi!
I had a henna party at my house this summer : http://bec76.livejournal.com/141279.html
Then, there was a follow-up post to that : http://bec76.livejournal.com/141405.html
I did some Egyptian-themed henna in trade for a professional massage : http://bec76.livejournal.com/142576.html
And some pretty old henna I found on a thumb drive : http://bec76.livejournal.com/143962.html
Enjoy! |
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| I'm just Posty McPosterpants today. |
[Jan. 31st, 2008|12:07 pm] |
I mentioned a photo shoot. It happened due to a confluence of events. Since she was coming over to get hennaed anyway, I figured, why not take the shoot I promised to Fin? Afterwards, this is what I did.
I'm quite proud of the peacock, but the flowers&vines are kinda chunky. I was a bit hampered by the fact that she doesn't have full mobility in her wrist.
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| Creativity heals all ills. |
[Aug. 23rd, 2007|01:22 pm] |
I'm an Eeyore today.
To cheer myself up, here are some of the henna pieces I created at Benazir's Bellydance Bazaar last Saturday.
Side note: If anyone has photos of their henna after it's aged (especially you, the_divynemissm, I didn't get your hand, just your wrist,) I'd appreciate seeing them! As it ages, mehndi almost becomes an entirely new piece.
( Beware, dial-up users: 10 pix! ) |
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| Mehndi Artist on the run! |
[Aug. 15th, 2007|10:42 am] |
www.hennapage.com has expanded muchly, and I'm very pleased. I'm doing some research now for this weekend's Bellydance Bazaar, and Catherine Cartwright Jones has just made my day. (My sudden lift in mood is also to be attributed to my dear supervisor, K. Rosie. She got me an iced mocha from *Bucks. I know, I know, friends don't let friends drink corporpate coffee, but it was necessary for my continued function.)
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| New pictures from July 4th! |
[Jul. 16th, 2007|02:55 pm] |
I'm feeling depressed and unhappy today.
So let's look at some sunshine and happy times.
[Unknown LJ tag]</lj> |
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| Mehndi from July |
[Oct. 17th, 2006|03:37 pm] |
I miss mehndi. It's been ages since I've had hennaed hands, it seems. Actually, it's only been since the start of the semester, but that does seem like ages ago. (Ages in this instance being six weeks.) Of course, at this juncture in the space-time continuum, I can't henna myself all up. The mehndi pieces wouldn't fade enough before the Harvest Hafla and Recital (pimpin' it again, Nov. 4 @ 8 PM) so a new design on top of that would just be too muddy to distinguish. *sigh* Of course, I could do a really simple design now, and elaborate on it later, but that just seems like stretching the work out too far. Plus, any piece I add to would also have to be re-hennaed, so the colors would be reasonably close. I could also do a complete mehndi piece now, but it would definitely have to be re-applied a few days before the show for maximum impact. *wobbles and wembles*
Also on the mehndi wobble list: GOING PRO! Yikes, yikes, yikes. Enough folk have come up to me about my mehndi work that I'm considering doing it professionally. There's a whole post here just waiting to happen. I've got a ton of things to think about in this arena. To do it right would take a lot of work, $$, skullsweat, and nerves of steel. I don't think I'm ready for that.
Sometimes I wish I knew another local mehndi artist. It would be wonderful to have someone I could trade work with, i.e. you do my hands and I'll do yours. It'd also be great to have someone to chat with about all the trials and tribulations of mehndi. As much as I've tried to make some mehndi buddies here, I don't connect with people on LJ nearly as well as I do in person. I suppose it's partially because I don't really have a lot of time to spend in LJspace, and I hate IMs and such. I'm a big phone/in person sorta gal.
All right, enough whining about my loneliness. Time to give you something new to look at.
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| Petroglyph |
[Aug. 15th, 2006|10:49 am] |
Just a quick post for the mo, then onto replying to all the comments that have backed up in my lj.
One of the motifs I use a lot is the hand with spiral palm. This motif is based a bookmark that my friend Doug (the Mayan archaeologist) gave me ages and ages ago. The hand with spiral palm is one of the oldest petroglyphs found in North America. Anthropologists have speculated that the hand with spiral palm means healing or magic to the Native Americans. The spiral is a very important sigil in cultures all around the world. The direction of the spiral usually has great significance. Clockwise can mean ascending, or light, magic, and counterclockwise means descending or dark magic. |
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| Summer is nearly over. |
[Aug. 14th, 2006|10:30 am] |
Huzzah! I didn't totally destroy my GPA!!!
Friday was my math final. It turned out to be an open-book final (thank Dog!) so it was a great deal easier than I thought it would be. Afterwards, I collapsed into a shivering pile of nerves. I took the weekend to recover, although I did check my CampusNet account constantly to see if the grades were posted yet. Finally, today, they are posted. I got an A - ! Holy cow. I'm impressed with myself. Since the prof was completely incomprehensible, I taught this course to myself from the text. Thank Dog for a decent math textbook, eh? My final GPA for the summer has ended up a 3.85. Pretty respectable, I suppose. I once again did not qualify for Dean's List, though, since I only carried 8 credit hours this semester. Apparently 12 credit hours must be carried per semester for Dean's List, which is highly confusing, since you only need 6 hours in the summer semester to qualify as a full-time student for CSU. Razzinfrazzinmumblefrickingrumble. Still, there's always fall semester, and I WILL be on Dean's List then. I want that damn letter so badly. Maybe then I'll get some hard-core parental approval.
As for today, I've already walked round the corner to deliver Jer's car payment to the bank, only to discover a handwritten sign telling me it doesn't open today till 11:30. Blast. Since Grafton wants to do another photo shoot today, I hennaed my left hand last night and was planning on hennaing my right hand today. Now, I'll have to take a fast shower, throw some food in my stomach, henna like crazy, pray it dries quickly, and try to get back over to the bank before I have to get dressed for the shoot.
Oh yeah, regarding fall semester: I changed Intro to Sociology to Deviance in the USA. Same time, same credit hours, same requirement fulfillments, but it looks a lot more interesting. |
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| My math professor sucks! and other noodlings. |
[Aug. 7th, 2006|12:34 pm] |
Grrrrrrrrrrrr. I really, really hope my prof grades on a curve. Apparently not just me, but everyone in the class missed nearly all of the first page of the test. Damn the man for not explaining the concepts of Fibonacci numbers properly. I got a 75. Dammit. This makes my final (this Friday) a lot more important. I'll have some hard studying to do.
Tomorrow night my troupe is going to dance for the Tuesday beginner's class, to awe and impress them with the marvels of bellydance and hopefully inspire them to keep going. Most of the class hits a slump about six months in, I guess, and needs a bit of boost to show them how worthwhile the work they have to do really is. I know I hit that point and despaired of ever really getting it together. Nearly two years later, I feel more confident in my skills, both natural and learned. I still have quite a ways to go yet; to be a truly great dancer (at least to myself) I need to lose some pounds. My extra weight is a bit more of a burden and I feel it interferes with my ability to properly perform certain moves. More on this idea later, I think... I'm hungry and thinking about changing my diet is depressing. I want a tuna sandwich.
On a similar line to that, I need to think seriously about my mehndi. If Grafton is going to be taking pictures tomorrow night (of which I have no idea, because in Chi-town for Lollapalooza and I haven't heard from him,) I'd like to have fresh art for that. On the other hand, (ha!) if he's not, that's a lot of work to have both hands done by tomorrow night. I suppose it wouldn't take too long, since my om and shanti pieces are still there, just faded. I've already retraced them once between the medieval faire and the library performance, but "I'm not a tracer!" I do prefer to have new designs, but the old lines would be too visible under the new and muddy the look. Besides, tracing over the old designs would be faster than planning and executing new ones.
n_black_malfoy just bought a beautiful Turkish gypsy costume and brought it to class. *lusts* It's made of a lovely lightweight chiffon and absolutely covered in embroidery. It would make a perfect troupe costume, and since the seller said they can do custom sizes with no markup, this might actually be a possibility for me! The design of the set is especially nice; the ghawazee style vest has sleeves and they'll come down far enough to hide my psiriosis patches on my elbows. I'm rather excited about her find: I need more than one costume. They offer troupe discounts, and free shipping. I must ponder the finances, but this is a great deal and a great product. Now all that remains is to decide..... black or green? I'm leaning towards black.
Household, please take note: I've offered the use of our yard to the troupe for the August birthday hafla, tenetively set for Saturday, August 19. Thankfully, rbq has taken over the planning of that. All I have to do is tidy the yard, set out the furniture, and mind things. My official job for the evening will be Fire Mistress, since I have more fire safety training than most and frankly, it's my yard. I do have to check out our grill, however. It's been untended since last fall, and I was concerned about the hookup leaking. I was informed that the Metroparks has a free firewood dump in the Rocky River Reservation, so I must swing by and check that out. That's all I can think of right now. If anyone has any ideas or objections, let me know.
zodarzone's birthday is August 24. We must have a party for him too, but it'll be a bit smaller. |
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