Dante's Dante

After recently watching and absolutely loving BBC’s Desperate Romantics, I've been obsessed with Dante Gabriel Rossetti's obsession with Dante Alighieri — particularly the story of Dante and Beatrice. Many of Rossetti’s paintings depicted himself and Lizzie Siddal as the two lovers. These images are from La Vita Nuova, translated by Rossetti and illustrated by Evelyn Paul (yes, I remain fascinated by her work). Amazing how similar her Beatrice resembles the copper-haired lovely Siddal as we know her from Rossetti's paintings.

And I had a nice little surprise looking through The Curtain of Forgetfulness — a small book written by William Lindsey and illustrated by Paul. It is a signed edition!!! The inside also reads that 1,000 were printed on handmade paper, 500 of which were for America and mine is copy 101.

Where does time go? Nearly October already:)

Cloisters Tapestries

Dreaming, fast-foward to the Fort Tryon Park Medieval Faire that I'm attending on October 4th with dear friends Jen of Parrish Relics and Lisa of InByTheEye films.

To add to the anticipation, I'm surrounding myself with medieval sights and sounds. Impossible to not associate it with Loreena McKennit's Bonny Swans as the backdrop in the video is one of the tapestries on display at The Cloisters.

This is one of my favorite costumes that I made and wore to the fair years ago - well, it has been to quite a few fairs.

What to wear to the fair this year? Decisions, decisions.