Whine and Cheese

It’s three am, I’m wracked with insomnia, I’m reading a book that’s boring enough to depress me, but not boring enough to put me to sleep. My freshly-washed hair is doing some coarse cave-woman thing that I can’t really get behind. My room is messy, I need to take out the kitchen trash, and pick up my laundry from the basement. My new sewing machine is sitting on my table mouldering because I’m back to the crazy 16-hour work days, and I have school applications I really need to get cracking on. Also, I need to find a job in a sector I actually envision myself working in, as I’m beginning to suspect the Insta-Millionaire fairy won’t be paying a visit my way anytime soon, and I recently had a nightmare about being an 80 year old paralegal. Horror! There are all these cute knitting patterns I want to play with, but I am working on the Enormous and Beautiful Crochet Blanket of Doom. I hurt my butt by sitting on it funny this weekend. My email refuses to answer itself. My boyfriend lives in Boston, which is really very selfish of him on nights like these. And all my dearest friends live in other cities.  I played with a beautiful chestnut Lab today, and now I really miss my pets.

All totally dealable, but the point is that I want to be somewhere else right now. Namely, Paris. With the added bonus of the fact that one of my best friends moved there. I’m just going to focus on this photo and will it to lull me to sleep so I can stop being so gosh-durn whiny.

[via]

Ramon Casas i Carbo

Barcelona has been popping up everywhere of late. That’s right, the entire city. The marvellous book I’m reading right now is set there. The last three little red Netflix envelopes that appeared in my mailbox were also all situated in the city, and all featured lingering shots of sun-kissed Gaudi architecture. An old friend from there just got back in touch, a more recent friend is currently there having the time of her life (probably having to do with some character named Jorge who keeps popping up in emails.) For the moment, I can only dream of being there, but I’d thought I’d take this opportunity to celebrate one of my favourite artists, Ramon Casas i Carbo’.

(Can’t figure out how to do accents on this keyboard. Purists, I dearly apologise. I am lazy and slatternly, and I laugh in the face of Romance languages, apparently. No other excuse.)

If you mosey on over to the Wikipedia article I’ve linked to, you’ll get a fuller story, but the short version is that Casas was a Catalan artist, who lived from 1866 to 1932, who played a major part in the Catalan modernisme movement. He lived between Barcelona and Paris, and painted all aspects of their societies. I find his portraits most appealing, but he also made some beautiful depictions of things such as bullfights, and also did some great commercial work.

Just a note: I’m not sure of all the names of his paintings, and in some cases there is so much conflict between the Catalan, Castillian, and French names that I am just leaving some blank. Don’t fret about this too much.

[above: Autoretrat Vestit de Flamenc, a self-portrait dressed as a Flamenco dancer.]

Interior a l’aire lliure

La Sargentain– this is a portrait of Julia Peraire, his favourite model and eventual wife. She was 22 years his junior.

Madeleine

Ramon Casas i Pere Romeu en Tandem

Entre Dues Llums

Sensualitat

This painting above was probably destined to become an advert of some variety.

Portrait of Pablo Picasso