My Marie Antoinette Craze Continues

When the peach curly feather arrived from Dale of Sea Dream Studio http://www.seadreamstudio.net/, I knew it was finally time to pull out my wire, wood and paper mache dress forms and start creating. I'd already made three Marie Antoinette figures: one for Lisa of The Faerie Zine http://faerieenchantment.blogspot.com/, one for Cyndi http://dragonflysdreamz.blogspot.com/ of FrstyFrlk for The Faerie Zine costume swap,

and one "maybe" for me, which I futilely sent to Somerset Studio http://www.stampington.com/ in hopes of publication.

But, I had tons of brocade, passementerie, ribbon, lace, silk flowers, little birds, vintage jewels and gems, German glass glitter, French text and more, all of which were crying out to be used. Having just finished reading my fourth Marie Antoinette biography this summer, the latest by her lady-in-waiting Madame Campan, written in 1823, I was more than ready for the task. In fact, Caroline Weber's The Queen of Fashion has so much sartorial imagery in it, I don't know how one could help but create after reading it.

So, last night's result was four Maries "quatre Maries, quatre reines," whatever you want to call them; they kept me at it from about 7 p.m. to nearly 4 a.m., but once I got going I was in the mode. French mode that is, and conveniently "mode" means "fashion" in French. Tre's bien!

I just listed three of these in my etsy shop http://www.hpsgsmith.etsy.com/ in case you, too, would like to own a mini Marie. The blue and white toile is headed for the delightful Mary Ann of Follow Your Bliss http://firstborn.wordpress.com/ for our "Marie Swap." I'll be writing an art vs. history article on Marie for Mary Ann's first zine, due out this fall. Bon soir.

By the way, did you know one reason the French treasury was depleted, which brought on the infamous French revolution and The Reign of Terror, was that the French government under Louis XVI, Marie's husband, had sent great amounts of money and munitions to help "our side" in the American Revolution. It wasn't that the French king was so much in favor of revolt, or even democracy, but the French were happy to support any side that was against England. They (the French and English/England) quickly made up, however, and English imports poured into France, which did not help that economy on its collision course with the destiny of the revolution.

The Blog Heard 'Round the World

Okay, well France is around the world, right? A Flickr observer messaged me in French to ask if he/she could put my Mona Lisa card above on her blog. So, naturally, I was delighted and was able to suss out what was being asked, and peck out a passable "tres bien, merci." So, a little college French finally pays off after how many years?

Turns out the blog is dedicated to Mona-philes who alter art with the famed one's face. A quick visit to http://papou.blog.lemonde.fr/ will turn up Mona in The Scream, The Kiss, cross-eyed, well-endowed, smoking, biker chick and much more.

My card even got a couple of comments, which I had to resort to Google translate. Apparently, one reader thought Mona looked a little sad for a greeting card. Apparently, some people believe Mona can have different expressions- what a concept!

In any event, Mona also has her US followers, with a Flickr group dedicated to "jocondophiles" as well. A trip to http://www.flickr.com/groups/manyfacesofmonalisa/, to which I already belonged, will give you Mona as E.T. (my new fave), Mona as Robocop and Mona as a Bond girl. The group's current contest is to place Mona squarely in the middle of Mardi Gras. This happens to work well for me, since I am hostessing a fat book page swap for Chubbyville http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chubbyville/ in February with the Mardi Gras theme. So Mona will get a workout. Hmmmm....Mona in Flashdance....yet another idea. Poor girl! Was she smiling or smirking?

By the way, my card was made by stamping a Tim Holtz image of Mona onto a transparency and affixing that with brads to a piece of background paper with another piece of paper with the word "create" and typewriter key stickers to spell "art." Merci beaucoup.