Blue Belt

My little Kung Fu Girl got her blue belt today, I am as proud as a mother could be!
Now we are heading to the lake, I wish you a happy and sunny weekend.

fashion & art

...somehow I am loosing my excitement for fashion, but susan cianciolo's work is very interesting, it always was and still is a very good balance between fashion and art and I like the well done imperfection in her work.

Ostsee für L & L und D. in V.

Aus unerfindlichen Gründen kann ich im Hotel keine Mails absenden, so bekommt Ihr das verprochene Stück Ostsee via Blog und morgen mehr per Post. Eure A.

Bon Iver & Paranoid Park

L. bought tickets for us more than two weeks in advance for the Bon Iver concert at sunday night, it was cancelled two days before, they must had decided to skip Germany, what a pitty.
We decided to see Paranoid Parc by Gus van Sant instead. A good decision and an adequate substitute, the best contemporary film I saw in a long time. Everything was made surprisingly different but completely unpretentious, not following any fashion. The dramaturgy, the camera, and especially the music, how, what and when it was used, I am always impressed if I see the work of a free and brave mind, like in this film seeing a devastated teenager taking a shower, his delicate long hands covering his face,( the only part of him we are able to see), in the background at the bathroomwall a beautiful oldfashioned wallpaper with handdrawn birds, the noise of the water mixes slowly with the sound of crying birds, getting louder and louder and culminating in a very insisting jungle soundcollage. Such a perfect way to describe unspeakable pain.

Delicate Twigs & A Lot Of Fabric

Misako Inaoka found here
The twigs look so delicate and real but thy just pretend, thats what I really like, that they are are just faking nature, like camouflage.
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Rachel Hayes did some very interesting things with fabric, found here.
The last weeks while doing costumes for "Jerichow", the idea of making something else than clothes with fabric became an obsession. I do have some ideas and hope that after finishing the work in June I will find time and patience to start with it.

Cinema

Last days in Wittenberge.
The first and the last days of a journey or a stay somewhere else makes me always see more precise, I become aware of the special attributes of the place.
I started liking the Veritasbuilding, being at the countryside and everything that was set up temporarily by us.
Thats a part of making a film I really like, the need to improvise and organize everything you need for your work wherever you are. To create a practicable surrounding where you feel comfortable and sometimes find even beauty and peace in the limited instruments.
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The officehall with the ladys belongings and more props
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Our cinema, to watch the rushes
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two pictures of our film, projected at our cinema, I love the darkness in the movie
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The bag J fished out of the ladys heritage, I always wonder how different peoples choice and taste is, what a boring world it would be without that.

carcovers

got this link with an invitation today. Fashiondesigners did covers for cars, this is my favorite.

Fleamarket

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Happy to have spent days with my Ls, fleamarket with little L today, she sold some of her toys and decided herself how to reinvest. A dream came true.
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Sad because I don't want to leave again
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Old Germany

Yesterday I spent the whole day in the production office in Wittenberge, dyeing a tracksuit and lingerie, you have to have patience to find the right color and time. Try and error.
Early in the morning I was on my own because this week we were shooting at night so everybody was still asleep. It was just me in the huge improvised office in the abandoned building. In the hall were cardboardboxes full of clothes and things the art department used for one of the houses they set up for our film. It was the complete household of a lady, a former teacher who died recently, they bought everything. I went through her things, clothes, pictures, childrens toys, everything was telling stories, I started being interested in her, realised all the different areas/fashions she went through, her children did not want any of her personal belongings after her death... in a suitcase, I found a uniform hat with the swastika, wrapped carefully in fabric, protected with antimothpaper. It still hits me that she kept it all the time.
I will keep some of the fabrics and dresses, I am planning to use them for my camouflageproject. I hope there will be time soon to start with it.

Spiderwebs and mushrooms

After becoming accidentally a countryperson I found it adequate to post the art of Nina Katchadourian , I think it is an intelligent and funny way to collaborate with nature. Found here.

Bad Saarow

The Trampoline


The Flowershop they made



The Lake


The Kitchen

The Cleaning of the Window with the View



A wonderful weekend in our imperfect house at the lake with the perfect garden, good old friends and very happy children.

messy rooms and patience

Today I had my day off at home, or at least 3 hours inbetween dropping L. off at preschool, picking up things at the seamstress, buying some things for the film, doing errands to be prepared for the long weekend, and picking up L. after school.
My plan was to do:
+ laundry ( minimum 3 machines)
+ tidying up the appartment and getting rid of winter stuff
+ vacuumcleaning
+ paying accounts
+ answering job mails
+ doing tax
+ checking and packing some things in my studio, on the way postoffice and drycleaner
+ post something here

I managed not to loose my contenance, which I ausually do after I decided it’s time to tidy up after coming home while working abroad.
Normally I start getting things done but after a while my phantasy is exaggerating everything, I start imagining scyscraperhigh piles of un-p.c. plastictoys, tons of newspapers, dirty clothes, unfinished things and dust and dirt, a terrible mess everywhere.
It is like a grotesque distortion, I am completely convinced that I will not be able to clear the chaos and I usually have a small nervous breakdown and finally I pitty myself and then get a quarter of the things done which is enough to calm down.

Today I managed to stay relaxed, tried to find beauty in the mess an praised my family for beeing able to survive and have a lot of fun without me taking care and took the pictures above.
After I had a look at them on my computerscreen this feeling of loosing control came back, I realized that I had not understood a single thing about handling the new camera not to talk about exposure or aperture settings. Every bad picture was twice in the folder and every copy had a strange effect...
Fortunately I got a call at this moment and I decided that having done 3,5 things of the list is better than nothing and that it is time to improve my capacity of patience, got my things packed and spent a very nice afternoon with little L., even with searching hard but finally finding very much needed shoes for her. She was so patient, my wonderful daughter who sometimes is so surprisingly wise.

My friends Blog

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You should read my dear friend E.'s blog. She is a very talented writer, I enjoy her storys every day. Most of the time she writes german, but today and sometimes she writes english. Don't miss it.
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New Camera

Ich habe eine neue Kamera und ich gestehe, das ist meine erste Spiegelreflexkamera. Ich bin stolz und glücklich und schäme mich ein bischen weil ich es geschafft habe mich nie wirklich mit Fotografie zu beschäftigen und ich stelle fest daß ich die einzige bin in meinem Umfeld. Jeder weiß mehr als ich. Ich frage also weiter, übe und lese das erste Mal in meinem Leben Gebrauchsanweisungen, nicht nur die mitgelieferten, nein sogar auch die von den Nerds geschriebenen die L. mir aus dem Internet fischt.
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Die ersten Fotos, wieder aus Wittenberge, der Garten eines bewohnten Hauses mitten im Wald, noch im Automatikmodus, seit gestern bin ich schon weiter und hier bald mehr
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I do have a new camera, I am proud and exited but ashamed too because I don't know anything about photography, everybody else I know does! So I started questioning everybody about everything related with taking good pictures and reading all I can find about my new camera including the whole instruction manual and even the sites where nerds are writing 30 pages about every camera found by L.
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First pictures from Wittenberge, the garden of a house where a french/german couple lives in the middle of a forest. Taken with auto mode but I switched recently to the manual mode , more soon.

airplane

Ich habe ihr gestern schnell ein Flugzeug genäht bevor ich nach Berlin zurück gekommen bin weil sie ihres, so ein kleines hässliches Geschenk von Lufthansa, verloren hat am Sonntag und darüber bitterlich geweint hat. Ich habe es mit den Innereien des unbequemen Kopfkissens aus dem Hotel gefüllt und das hinterher wieder zugenäht, mit dunkelblauem Faden, statt weiss! Was für eine Genugtung diese kleine anarchistische Tat darstellt.
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I made a little airplane for her yesterday, before going back home. She was so unhappy sunday because she lost hers, the ones you get in airplanes for free. I stuffed it with the inlet of the uncomfortable hotel cushion which I then sew back together with a darkblue thread instead of white. What a satisfaction this little anarchistic act was!

dancing/ private actvities

Friday:
On my way back to work to Wittenberge, while waiting for the train at Potsdamer Platz, this group of people started dancing in front of a camera, leaded by an choreographer who was telling them what to do. That was the last thing I expected to happen at a rail where just local trains stop. It really cheered me up and I still enjoy this funny moment in my depressing hotel room.




Wednesday we visited our dear friends C and B in Glienicke, near Potsdam, they do have the most beautiful house I know.
We used to go there a lot. Since we have the house in Bad Sarow our visits had become rare, what a pity. Like always we spent a perfect day with them, relaxed and warmly welcomed.
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A glimpse of their wonderful home with B's art on the walls and below.
My little L. in her favorite dirndl with the treehouse the neighbors made once in their garden.
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When I was a little girl I always wanted to have a real dirndl, the ones where every part of the dress is made out of a different fabric/colour/pattern. My mother made one for me after I insisted for along time, the hole dress was light green, nearly invisible small white flowers printed on it. Just the apron was white. I was totally disappointed, now I understand her, finally I inherited her will to turn everything into a bauhaus suitable piece. I wish she would have kept that dress and all the other beautiful things she made for us.