“i can’t go back to yesterday because i was a different person then.” ~ lewis carroll, alice in wonderland
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who has the capacity to change your life ~ or rather, what has the ability to alter your perspective, rock your world? who was i yesterday, who am i today, who will i be tomorrow? there are people and persons, colleagues, classmates, mentors ~ who make up organizations, production crews, teams, cohorts ~ groups of people, who, sorted through and hand chosen ultimately become your confidants ~ those entrusted ones who are your tribe and is your thread as you move through the world ~ that simultaneously one becomes part of as it becomes part of you…
today, i write a love letter to those in my past, present and future ~ encounters that have sculpted me, transformed me into the me that I am ~ and the woman that you my dear royal, that you shall become ~ I write this letter of possibility to you, I type these words and collect these images for you…
“life isn’t about finding yourself. life is about creating yourself.” ~ george bernard shaw
“You know the greatest thing is passion, without it what have you got? I mean if you love someone you can love them as much as you can love them but if it isn’t a passion, it isn’t burning, it isn’t on fire, you haven’t lived.” ~ diana vreeland
~~~~~
“you have to imagine a space, create it, and then live in it…” ~ peter sellars
above / salon #1, Feb 18th 2012, salon #41 (co-hosted with Deb Durant, Feb 15th 2014), salon #97 (for She-Can, Feb 12th 2017)
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above / left and right, eiko ishioka for francis coppola’s DRACULA; center, cari borja silk and tulle, photo: claudia goetzelmann and dracula collection in brocade and tulle.
“There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.” ~ bram stoker, dracula
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above / havana collection 2005, photo: jock mcdonald; cari borja for alonzo king lines ballet; cari borja tulle, styled by jayne seward; ashley mckinley, racheal matthews and i, in spring/summer collection 2009, photo: heike liss; alexander mcqueen, oscar de la rentals at the de young, givenchy.
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THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING COLOR
If I said – remembering in summer,
The cardinal’s sudden smudge of red
In the bare gray winter woods –
If I said, red ribbon on the cocked straw hat
Of the girl with pooched-out lips
Dangling a wiry lapdog
In the painting by Renoir –
If I said fire, if I said blood welling from a cut –
Or flecks of poppy in the tar-grass scented summer air
On a wind-struck hillside outside Fano –
If I said, her one red earring tugging at her silky lobe,
If she tells fortunes with a deck of fallen leaves
Until it comes out right –
Rouged nipple, mouth –
(How could you not love a woman
Who cheats at the Tarot?)
Red, I said. Sudden, red.
~ robert hass
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above / deb fink and frieda de lackner, Lapham’s Quarterly at Starline Social Club; amy mansfield as bowie; leah wade, obama fundraiser 2008
~~~~~
“As on all its sides a kitchen-match darts white flickering tongues before it bursts into flame: with the audience around her, quickened, hot, her dance begins to flicker in the dark room.
And all at once it is completely fire.
One upward glance and she ignites her hair
and, whirling faster and faster, fans her dress
into passionate flames, till it becomes a furnace
from which, like startled rattlesnakes, the long
naked arms uncoil, aroused and clicking.
And then: as if the fire were too tight
around her body, she takes and flings it out
haughtily, with an imperious gesture,
and watches: it lies raging on the floor,
still blazing up, and the flames refuse to die –
Till, moving with total confidence and a sweet
exultant smile, she looks up finally and stamps it out with powerful small feet.” – rainer maria rilke
~~~~~
above / shawna bailey, my fair lady collection 2006, royal circa 2011; below, royal at WorldWideWomen’s Girl’s Festival 2016; and royal, on valentine’s day, through the years….(below, center ~ barbie collection for V-Day 2012; and a favorite Peanuts image)
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“Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.” ~ twyla tharp
“little girl…
Happiness is within you…
So unlock the chains from your heart and let yourself grow like the sweet flower you are…
I know the answer ~
Just spread your wings and set yourself FREE” ~ jimi hendrix
~~~~~
“Nondum amabam, et amare amabam…quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare. ~ st. augustine
(“i loved not yes, yet i loved to love. i sought what i might love, in love with loving…”)
