Dear Kay,
Complacencies of the peignoir and moving slow on this Sunday morning. The shoulder seams on this Laurel sweater have a mighty burthen to carry, so I’m going with old-school backstitch seams for sturdiness.
Deepest apologies to Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn for showing it in such awful light. It’s so great in real life, I swear.
I just read an interview with Ben Whishaw, the British actor who played Keats in Bright Star and also Q in Skyfall. He mentioned that he has become obsessed with photography, and has been looking at the work of Vivian Maier in particular.
Who? Off I go. Vivan Maier’s story is so great: a nanny in the 1950s who hid away her passion for street photography. In 2007, her 100,000 negatives were discovered, and her genius was revealed.
Her self-portraits are my favorite.
Time’s up!
Love,
Ann
The story of the discovery of her work is sort of sad. I bought the book byJeff Goldstein. It’s beautifully done by a small press in Chicago. When I read it I felt as if I knew her because her eye is very like mine.
I love Vivian Maier’s work, there is currently a small exhibit at the Chicago History Museum.
Oh, Ann, what a find – thank you. I’ve just returned from looking through the Chicago pictures. Simply wow.
Thank you for posting this story. SO amazing!
Ann, thank you for sharing this. I have quickly read her story and looked at a few of the photos of New York. But I’m going back to look at, and enjoy, all of them. She has a true eye.
So glad you mentioned Vivian Maier, she really was brilliant, and odd, and what an eye. If you look at her contact sheets, the number of great images per roll is staggering. Such a fascinating story.
Great story, thanks for sharing.
P.S. If you like Ben Whishaw, you should watch The Hour – plucky female-led news crew goes against the Establishment in postwar London. Great acting, great style, and beautiful textiles to ogle. (Two short seasons, repeats occasionally on BBC America and available streaming on Amazon.)
Oh, my! This takes me back to my black & white photography days. I wasn’t talented, but I did have a Rolleiflex 120 and I liked the smell of fix. So that counts. Sort of.
thank you for a new person to read about
I started with the self-portraits, too, but really got sucked into the deep details of the other portfolios. I emailed a link to the photographic curator of a local museum, since the collection is looking for venues. Would love to see an exhibit!
Truly those are beautiful pics. Thanks for the heads up on her work.
“Complacencies of the peignoir”- that was what I went off to learn about. I practice it and guessed at the meaning but didn’t have a clue that it involved coffee and oranges. Coffee, well tha I’ve done during complacencies of the peignoir. At first I thought you had another UFO, this time from your first book.
so. does this mean that the sweater’s almost finished ? i bave to hand it to you, two tough jobs fiinished off. any more UFO’s, or will you be starting something new?
BTW, I am enjoying how the yarn’s color changes with each photo. like those of my sign of pisces, tough to pin down, somtimes.
LoveDiane
I’ve been down the rabbit hole of Vivian Maier – check out the WTTW short stories on her. There will be more to come, I’m sure, as her negatives are distributed across a couple guardians.
Ben Whishaw is just so cute.
There has been a documentary about Vivian shown on PBS here in Chicago. It truly is an amazing story. I think the young man who bought all the negatives has barely scratched the surface.
Your new sweater is gorgeous!!
I discovered Vivian this past weekend! Saw some of her photographs in an art gallery in Santa Fe, NM while we were on Spring Break. Beautiful work!
Her story was part of the last live/remote This American Life show. Really fascinating.
Wow. That is amazing. I have a hard time imagining that I loved something so much that I did it and yet hid it from the world. I just don’t know how anyone would hide that much passion.
Thanks for the link, I had not heard of her. The most striking thing about the New York pics is how few people there are, and how much cleaner the streets look in general. Ah, the good ole days!