Emma vs. Ellen
Completely loving this newest set from Ellen Von Unwerth, nympholept photographer extraordinaire. Everything about her photographs screams sexual tension and excitement, of youth and innocence and child seductress. They’re about frilly and dirty all at the same time; of the destruction of prim and proper and the revelry in it. Featured model in this set is Emma Watson and appeared in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue of Vs. magazine.
And since all the image hosts that Gilding can find seem to think that these fully clothed images of Emma Watson are somehow indecent — and just in case they happen to be deleted when you view them and before Gilding has had the chance to correct them — the full series can be found here; Ellen Von Unwerth, compiled by William McFadden
Eye Candy
Gilding loves Loli Surrealism. So naughty, so fun. So warped, and twisted, debauchery inspiring, perhaps nightmare inducing of once pleasant childhood loveliness. Yeah, good stuff. And here’s the newest collection of it all in The Garden of Eye Candy.
An artform driven by Id, its impluses and alter egos illustrated as toys, cartoon characters, and iconic images, Eye Candy introduces us to the immaculate illustrations of artists the likes of: Cabizbaja, Candybird, Dolly Didit, Jaime Zollars, Kennys Work, Kukulaland, Lisa Petrucci, Amy Sol, Melanie Florian, Mijnschatje, Noferin, Brandt Peter, Danielle Lamberti, Kokomoo, Majeakann, Mark Bodnar, Rmyers Art, Saul Zanolari, Luke Chueh and more. Encapsulating is in the whimsical to the adorable, erotic to innocent, the dark to the gothic, luring us into the lush worlds of fairy tales and the dark desires the powers that be wrote laws against. Available from Ginko Press.
Ralph Lauren lets his Loli Flag…er, Fashion fly
Newly Loli
Once a beloved collection of childrens poems in Soviet times, as one person wrote, “just ask any Russian about Agnia Barto and he’ll have some sweet memories from his childhood.” Ok, so they were a bit gender specific given it was meant to be a general statement, but we’ll forgive them this since they are translating from Russian to English.
And while the writer of this post points out that no double entendres are meant by this Russian equivalent of our Mother Goose rhymes, they ask if this newest modern addition of the book is “OK”? Gilding has one thing to say — can we say Loli?
The translation of the poem on this particular image as well as more images of this new Loli naughty edition of the children’s poem book, may be seen on English Russia.
The Romantic and Somewhat Melancholic Girl
Never knowing the true nature to Lewis Carroll’s and Alice Liddell’s relationship which inspired Carroll to write the immortal Alice’s Adventures, there will always be rumor and speculation. Provoked talks of Carroll’s pedophilic bent have traversed time as if time has never passed. Scholars, literary critics, translators, and readers alike have tried to unlock the mysteries behind Alice’s Adventures. Are they just another ordinary fairy tale meant for children’s fancy. Or were they in fact written for adults, setting forth the conundrums of metaphysics — dreams, allegory, or a well coded mathematical puzzle.
In Alice on the Stage Carroll wrote: “What are you, Alice? How to describe you? Utterly inquisitive, with a zest for life which is only characteristics of a happy child when everything seems new and nice, while Sin and Sorrow are just two empty words which mean nothing.”
In Vladimir Clavijo-Telepnev photo illustration for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Vladimir made it a point to express photographically the intangibles of emotions, mood and inner feelings of a small heroine put in her imaginary fairy tale country. Vladimir’s artist statement describes: “The project is about to convey a fragile image of a girl-cum-woman so characteristic of the puritan world which used to surround Carroll through a sensual albeit mystical style of Russian symbolism characteristic of the early last century.”
Keeping in mind the Victorian England association with the cult like attraction of a woman — her supposed ambient status to protect the world from callousness — and that of the child, especially young girls, who were revered as gentle creatures as near as God’s messengers, he brings further closeness to Carroll — who was also fascinated with photography and took countless photographs of his young girl friends in the style of tableau vivant — with Vladimir’s own use of still-life motifs — roses, books, threads of pearls. Each detail is chosen to convey either additional or different meanings within the photo, much like Carroll’s book based on complex mathematical and logical associations.
The romantic and somewhat melancholic image of a young girl is performed in the Russian modernistic style; an air of sorrow is translated through figure and posture. The landscape, costume, and composition convey the search for the lost ideal and symbols of the idealistic world of children’s dreams are set against the harsh reality of the actual existing world. Vladimir’s monochromatic photo technique with the use of sophisitcated color nuances emphasize these motifs.
Vladimir’s own artist statement goes into greater detail the function and meaning behind these photographs, his technique, and the history of the Russian modernist movement that has so influenced his personal style.
Naughty Bratz
An Orlando mother had quite an interesting conversation ahead of her when her 7 year-old daughter asked her “Why does it say ‘Enter’?” The awkwardness ensued when the mother was presented with a small belt bukle belonging to her daughter’s newest Bratz doll.
“She doesn’t need to know about that,” said mother, Victoria Staley to reporters of Orlando’s WESH Channel 2. “I don’t think it’s the right message for children at all.”
Though the situation was quickly handled — mom simply removed the belt from the doll’s dress and it was back to play time once again — she couldn’t let the suggestive message go without consequence to MGA Entertainment, the manufacturer of Bratz dolls. Expressing her concern, a representative explained to her that the belt is supposed to be that way; “The way he was explaining, its supposed to be like a seatbelt…Like how a seat belt in a car has ‘Enter’, you enter the seatbelt.” Staley’s response? “Well, you’re still entering.”
Though meant to be a kitsch, rocker-vibe accessory to the doll (this particular style of “Chloe” is in a band), the message it sends is still suggestive. Certainly, only should adults be understanding the suggestiveness, but it can’t help but to be noticed that the “age of understanding” is getting younger and younger. It could be logically argued that mass market toys, such as this Bratz doll, with such said implicable messages are partly to blame. At some point the child’s wondering ear is going to hear the meaning behind t his conotation and have a dawning understanding way too early. Had there never been such a belt, the conotation never would have been in the back of the mind like the proverbial waiting serpent. Middle school will ruin this child’s sensibilities soon enough. There’s no need to start at age seven. There should be some accountablility held in the hands of the manufacturer.
While Gilding is all for the sexually explicit in every way possible, there is an age appropriateness that must be upheld. Gilding would bitchsmack the parent she found letting their eleven or thirteen year old read this blog. And while she holds that fifteen is still probably underage, the fact remains that fifteen year olds are going to experiment on their own because that’s when hormones start a-runnin’ and abstinence should not be derived of ignorance. Ignorance has never worked for abstinence anyway; it only leads to ignorant children ignorantly experimenting with what their ignorant brains can’t comprehend. Demystifying sex with information — reliable information — and promoting strong self-esteem and self-awareness help promote a self worth that defies allowing one to be talked into something they aren’t ready for and equips them with proper knowledge for the ones that are ready.
But that doesn’t mean that toy manufacturers should be allowed to introduce the youth to sexually explicit messages simply because “they shouldn’t be old enough to get it yet.” Nor should they be allowed to give assanying explanations for their bad behavior either. And those Bratz dolls, by the way, so do not look innocent. How innocent can a doll be with knockers, birthin’ hips, sultry eyes, and dick sucking lips — try to lie that those aren’t dick sucking lips. Gilding doesn’t even have a dick, but lips shaped like that would inspire a woody. And the Baby Bratz are even naughtier. They have big doe eyes, pouty, puckered lips, and birthin’ hips topped off by the cutest poochie belly. You don’t have to be a pedophile to see that these dolls are sexually explicit by nature to an older mind willing to actually analyze what they are seeing without being creeped out by their own minds ability to think it and therefore go into denial mode. Truthfully, Bratz dolls are a lolita complex waiting to happen. Toy manufacturering should be about childhood innocence. They’re fucking toys for crying out loud. Quit killing our innocent youth.
So what did Gilding buy her nieces last Christmas. Bratz dolls. They’re too young to understand just how naughty those dolls really are. Besides, She and Mr. Gilding get a kick out of talking about just how dirty those creepy, bug-eyed little dolls are.
Link: WESH, Orlando
Sissy Kissed and Babyart
This is so dirty. Gilding is definitely going to hell for this one. No tangible information has been found on this naughty creation, sooo…nothing to tell you there. She did get a kick out of this site — mildly disgusted, a little tingly, and wholly amused, to be exact.
Come Hither Barbie Child
Gilding thought to paraphrase this artist’s statement, but the poetry of it served its own purpose. Or, in other words, the statement was gilded all on its own. Seriously though, the power to the statement behind this powerful series of works is worth reading and examining on its own merit.
“Alain Delorme is a young French artist from the generation of photographers such as the couple Aziz & Cucher or Inez Van Lamsweerde, who use the computing tool for the ends of mutation and hybridization of bodies. Hise oevre is a caustic criticism of the use of children’s images, in particular of little girls, submitted to the advertising diktat making them objects of consumption useful to the laws of the markets.
Inspired by the advertising aesthetic, the series Little Dolls, takes an ironic and worrying look at the identification by young girls with Western female stereotypes, such as the Barbi doll, which over the last 60 years has become its’ commercial icon. Incarnation of the fantasies of contemporary consumer society, a mediatized toy sold across the planet; Barbie is today the biggest-selling doll in the world, and consequently, one of the main objects of identity projection for the little girls.
In the United States the “Miss Beauty Children” beauty contests for children and adolescents mirror this phenomenon. During a grand mediatized ceremony, supported or constrained by their mothers, young girls walk on the stage, made-up, with hair styled like dolls, adopting outfits, dresses, gestures and traits like dolls. The “Barbie model’ becomes therefore the avator of a society which on making a plastic doll the symbol of a certain femininity, distinguishes less and less between pretence and reality.
In Delorme’s images the mix of innocent youth and commercial object denounces the standardization and subjection of bodies, smiles, looks. Smooth skin, smiles and forced attitudes, are constrained by an ever-present hand. At once little girls, women and dolls, the Little Dolls show a possible worrying future where the child, at the cost of plastic transformations, risks becoming a simple object, amenable and transformable at will.”
Link: Alain Delmorme
Polymer Lolita
Thank Atomic Terrier and Mr. Gilding for this find.
Nevada based artist, Nicole West, has taken her first creation of a polymer doll for her mom and transcended to fantastically amazing scultptures. Sculpted of polymer clay and ranging in size from 6″ to 9″ in height, all of the pieces are sculpted entirely by West’s hands from start to finish. Selling her pieces through auctions on ebay, all of the pieces featured in her galleries reside in private collections.
The detail in West’s pieces are amazing and the beauty of the faces is etheral. Even thin and whispy, the figures are quite feminine and curvy. And no detail is spared attention, from tiny, individual scales to long thin fingers, to the small dimples at the base of the spine, and the hair! Even the hair of each piece is carefully crafted, shaped, and styled to add ambience and life to the vision created.
Link: Nicole West | Nicole West Fantasy Myspace page | Galleries
Passion in Paranoia
A gorgeous mix of scary and twisted, perverted and perverse, warped and titilating. Paranoia Dolls work on the mental insides in a mindfuck that is both disturbing and erotic. The faces border on that dangerous balance that slips in and out between nymphet and nympholept; between that of innocent child and the child not so innocent. Not knowing much else on the dolls than that they are creations by Hara, one only has to look at them to see the artisan craftsmanship present in the details, such as the delicate texture detailed in the lips and the varying epxression within plastic made eyes created with only expertly applied “makeup” to give them life and meaning when in reality none exists.
Click on the individual thumbnails above to see a larger version of the image.
Link: ParanoiaDoll Official Site COming Soon
Via: picvi.com
Tentacle Loli Thrawted by Cuteness
Click on image for high resolution version, or visit Loli Loves Venom where the weekly comic strip can be viewed directly from the source.
Nabokov’s Greatest Irony
Neologisms are the meaningless words used by psychotics — or so Stedman’s Medical Dictionary describes. A more contemporary description, neologism is itself a coined term that is applied to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound or containe a more contemporary meaning.
Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas that have taken on a new cultural context. One of the most popular examples of the latter is Vladimir Nabokov’s creation of the word nymphet, a term used liberally wherever there is “a need to invoke the raw and radiant power of youthful sexuality, be it in the realms of the arts, of cultural commentary, psychology, or pornography.”
From a monologue by Humbert in Nabokov’s Lolita:
Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets”.
It will be marked that I substitute time terms for spatial ones. In fact, I would have the reader see “nine” and “fourteen” as the boundaries – the mirrory beaches and rosy rocks – of an enchanted island haunted by those nymphets of mine and surrounded by a vast, misty sea. Between those age limits, are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not. Otherwise, we who are in the know, we lone voyagers, we nympholepts, would have long gone insane. Neither are good looks any criterion; and vulgarity, or at least what a given community terms so, does not necessarily impair certain mysterious characteristics, the fey grace, the elusive, shifty, soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes.
The etymology of Nabokov’s neologism nymphet, most simply, draws on the modern English meaning of “nymph”, that of a young girl. Furthermore, it more poetically draws on the Greek myth of the nymph — beutiful creatures with the power to capture men’s attention, bringing about dumbness, besotted infatuation, madness, and even stroke.
Humbert refers to himself as a nympholept, a man entranced by a nymph — and another of Nabokov’s neologisms. “This is more than mere infatuation — according to legend, nymphs could reciprocally grant their nympholeptic worshippers powers of prophecy and great poetic skill, which goes some ways towards accounting for the manner in which Nabokov expresses such complex [word] play in the narrative voice of Humberts, an otherwise fairly ordinary man.”
“Lolita” has also become one of Nabokov’s great literary neologisms, to which it has largely eclipsed even the popularity of his “nymphet”. “Surely it is one of those great ironies of life that Nabokov, one of the greatest wordsmiths of modern times, is most widely recognized for the coinage of a term he wasn’t even trying to introduce.”
Link: everything2–Nymphet | everything2–Neologism | Wikipedia–Neologism | Wikipedia–Nymph
Image Via: Ectoplasmosis
Look Out Sweet Chil’, Devil Pencil Gonna Eat Your Soul
“Listen child and heed my words: beware the Devil Pencil. Ignore its inviting rictal grin and resist the temptation to wrap its phallic body in your sweet, innocent embrace; for while the pleasures to be had are many, the price to be paid is high. The Devil Pencil loves you not. No! No, the Devil Pencil sees you as nothing more than delectable pabulum. Leering, its eyes glide over you, salivating at the thought of your delicious soul, its gaze leaving a glistening trail upon your lily-white, alabaster skin.
So flee, flee my darling from its perfidious promises, ignore its deceitful chicanery — for that is what it is, sorcery of the most vile sort; a false Elysium of cake and kites. Run fast and run far. Run until you can no longer see the Devil Pencil. Run until you forget.”
Video is the SCADshorts, “Scribe Conjures Alternate Dimension“.
Via: Ectoplasmosis by Ross Rosenberg
Link: SCADshorts
Sister My Sister
Of significant influence on the French intellectuals Genet, Sartre, and Lacan, who sought the understand, and thought of as symbolic of class struggle, Sister My Sister(s) Christine and Lea Papin brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, France, on 2nd February 1933.
The murders of the sister’s employer and daughter, Madame and Mademoiselle Lancelin, were more than simple killings. The sisters had gouged their eyes out while the Madame and Mademoiselle were still alive. The sisters then murdered the pair with a hammer, knife, and pewter jug. Most of the brutal blows were directed at the head and faces of the victims leaving them literally unrecognizable.
Adding to the bizarre nature of the murders, the sisters made no attempt to escape and were found huddled in bed together — completely naked. Allegations that the sisters were having an incestuous lesbian affair arose.
The sisters had worked for their employer for seven years and by all accounts had appeared quiet and demure, with Lea (the younger of the sisters) being particularly under the thrall of Christine. The two girls had spent all their free time with one another and were even regular churchgoers.
The case enthralled the people of France, the murders having shocked the country and the trial, which began in September 1933, received apt attention as the puclic watched via the press intently. Christine was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life imprisonment. While in prison, Christine showed acute signs of madness and an intense love-longing of her sister. Before long, she was transferred to a mental asylum at Rennes, where she died in 1937 from cachexia.
Lea Papin was released from prison in 1941. She then lived in the town of Nantes, where she was joined by her mother and earned her livelihood as a hotel maid under a false name. She was thought to have died in 1982, but this was questioned in 2000 by the French filmmaker, Claud Ventura in the documentary film, En Quete des Soeurs Papin (In Search of the Papin Sisters). Ventura claimed to have found Lea alive in a hospice somewhere in France, partly paralysed as a result of a stroke and unable to speak, though she was shown in the film. This Lea died in 2001.
In 1995, the movie, Sister My Sister, by director Nancy Meckler, featured the story of the Papin sisters. Two young sisters enter domestic service in the bourgeois household of a perenious widow and her homely daughter. The two sisters become increasingly alienated from their employer, neither pair speaking to the other, separated and confined social convention, barriers between the classes, personality, and the house itself. The relationship of the sisters evolves into obsession, brought on by isolation and by emotions left from childhood. Christine experiences much jealousy towards her sister’s interest in anyone else, the relationship becomes sexual, adding to the tension between the sisters and their employer. Trapped in a garret room, the sisters’ violent downstairs-upstairs collision with Madame and the lumpy Mademoiselle seems certain. The tension ultimately leads to paranoia, repressed rage, and then murder. The film stars British actresses Joely Richardson, Jodhi May, and Julie Walters.
Link: Wikipedia–Papin Sister
With Waifish Desire and Comic Book Appeals
Camilla d’Errico is a product of her Italian/Canadian heritage — prone to emotional outbursts and drama with a charming politeness peppered with a spice of independence and gummie-glued together with an incessant need for Saturday morning cartoons.
In fact, Camilla d’Errico is the perfect soul-mate for Mr. and Mrs. Gilding’s bestfriend, you know him well if you pay even half attention to this blog, and fellow artist, Josh Hughes, better known as Atomic Terrier. WWATD (What Would Atomic Terrier Do?)? He’d go ga-ga for this one. d’Errico’s first love is none other than comic books, first finding her passion for them in high school where she was constantly drawing dragons and sexy girls for fun. See, she’s perfect already. Who need go further than this? But there is more…
It was in 2000 that Camilla first attended the San Diego Comic Con International. It was through these magic doors of fanboy nerddom that d’Errico knew she could never work a 9-5 job. Following her need to be…well, Camilla, she began working in the comic book industry, soon realizing that her style could be expanded into a variety of other industries; snowboards, magazine covers, toys, clothes, the list goes on. She has even carved out a place for herself in the Fine Arts world thanks to her “fiery nature, high level of ambition and persistence.” Now that’s a girl after Gilding’s own heart.
Her work is characterised by an “emotional complexity that spans the full array of human emotions…She is part of what may be the first movement in Western history where women are not second-class citizens, but may even have an edge in the mind of the public.” Sounds like a tall order to accomplish at such a young age, but it holds validity as she is part of an ever expanding market of women working in the comic book industry; a very recent movement in an industry that is both a modern convension and a patriarchal tradition. Gilding is personally drawn to the very nympholept imagery of her personal works. There draws a warring desire to both stare and find it repugnant, or at the very least harbor feelings of guilt, by the beautiful imagery that is so very sensual and contained within the waifish, barely cusping that edge of physical maturity, with which d’Errico’s forms are drawn.
d’Errico’s next few years of current projects are filled with high profile exhibitions in galleries internationally, new comic projects, and collaborations.
Links:
Camilla d’Errico
Camilla d’Errico Blog
Camilla d’Errico Online Store
Camilla d’Errico MySpace
Camilla d’Errico Facebook
