GIULIA WITH PEARLS

I decided to create a separate photo blog and share all the beautiful images of my Mum, Giulia De Giovanni, it is a quite ambitious project, I have many photography from the 1950s to the present to scan, upload and arrange in the e-scrapbook. I decided to do so as a way to celebrate and thank Mum, she is such a wonderful, loving and generous mother!

GIULIA WITH PEARLS

I have just finished stitching my Lady Octopus, I felt that I needed to do some hand-on work, I seem to re-focus quickly on what I need to do next when I do crafty things! This is a close-up shot of my Lady Octopus Bag, I so enjoy adding embellishments by stitching away! I always have to check that I don't overdo it!

I think it is a "gene" thing as my Mum, Giulia, is a fantastic dressmaker, and I am sure that I have taken after her the love for stitching, making lovely and well made items, and fabrics! Gosh, I have so many gorgeous fabrics, I know what I want to do with them, it is simply a problem of finding the time,...but let's not go there!

UT GRAND PRIX 08

Oh My Goodness! I have just received an email from the organisers of the UT Grand Prix 08, my T-shirt design has been selected out of 13,206 entries, along with other 99 entries. There will be a second round of selection and Uniqlo, and in total there will be 200 semi finalist.

"From the 13,206 designs that were submitted from around the world, 1,000 will be shortlisted by the UT Selection Committee." (quote from the Uniqlo website).

As it often happens in my life, I managed to apply on line only a couple of days before the deadline, and I can't even remember how on earth I found out about this competition, to me the Internet is like a fantastic Pandora box, an endless chain of useful links, my bookmarks files are about to explode!...but I digress, as I often do!

Here is my entry, the title of the photograph is "Home The Long Way". Will you vote for me, please?! Many thanks.

Here is the link: http://ut.uniqlo.com/utgp/#lang=en&content=detail&item_id=11519&view=home

LILIES III

Lilies III is a recent digital experiment: I took one of my colour photographs and started playing around with filters on Photoshop. I think that I have "rescued" an image that otherwise would have looked pretty plain and not terribly artistic! I have quite a few variations on the theme, and I will do my best to resist the temptation to post them all, ....I am quite hopeless when it comes to editing.

Why "MeanMagenta"?!...It is a long story...

This is my very first entry, I am quite excited, I have never kept a diary, always too busy drawing, painting and taking photographs. Still, it is bizarre, being a design historian by training and almost obsessed with collecting data and preserving other people's memories, it seems that I can't find the time to keep a record about me.

I am a visual person, I love reading, but I don't think I am very good with words, I guess that I will use this blog mainly to share my photographs, artwork and hopefully exciting news about my creative business, MeanMagenta.

I am posting the image that made it to the final of the photo competition organised by Picture.com-The International Library of Photography based in Maryland, USA. I will know if I have won the top prize later in the Autumn,...I am trying not to think about it.