Some Old Fashioned Love

Today something happened to me that I doubt I will ever forget. It showed me many good things like compassion, humanity, kindness, trust and thought. But most of all it showed me love.

For the past two years of my rather short time on this planet I have been dating a boy named Corry. Corry is my first proper anything. My first proper boyfriend, first proper kiss, first proper best friend. Of course there has been other firsts. Take Karen; my first best friend back when I was two years old. We used to hold hands in our buggies outside my sister’s nursery until we got pushed home. But what I mean by proper is that until I met him I did not know that aspects of my life were not quite whole. Suddenly life before him looked grey and blurred but now I had met him he made life what it was meant to be. When something would happen at uni I would think of telling him. When something happened with a friend, I would tell him. When something happened at work, home, in town, on a walk, anywhere and anything I just needed to share it with him because he was the other half of me and doing anything without him hearing about it or being there meant it was not complete.

And so life seemed beautiful. It was and still is. My past seems incomplete without him and so does my future. I fail to speak of my future without him being there because I simply see him included in everything. Our weekend plans, our Christmas, our graduation, our flat searching, our living together and experiencing the world together. This all might make any reader cringe. Trust me before Corry I hated couples but now I see couples and smile while I think of him. I mean look at what this boy has done to me! Couples in public are suppose to be gross! I love him and his methods of showing me his love astonish me.

Recently, like any couple, we went through a tough time. I won’t go into details because honestly it is no ones business but ours but I will say like I have said to him; he broke my heart. However, I know him. Better than he knows himself sometimes and I know we’ll get past it and that he will fix it. We already are fixing it and moving away from it all. And today he lifted me so far above all the pain and hurt. He was selfless.

So what exactly did Corry do today? Well today he planted three letters around our home town of Dundee in spots only I could find them. Well I say that but you will see.

You see letters have always been a huge part of our story. I’m not sure exactly how it started but it did start through him as he gave me a love letter covered in alcohol on a night out. I know, we we’re still typical teenagers after all. But ever since then they have been going back and forward to each other constantly. I have around 20 to 30 maybe in the suitcase i have full of memories of him. So today he gave me three new ones. Each had a short story on why they were in their place and directions to the next spot. A treasure hunt until I reached a tree with him sitting below it with a guitar on his knee in my favourite blue shirt. Again, i’m not sure why but Corry with his guitar is my favourite sight out of everything in this world. He just looks so at peace. So I sit in front of him and thank him for simply making me feel as though I was a star in a movie, something like La La Land were the jazz music plays behind me yet not in LA but Grouchos in Dundee. He plays some of our many songs and I long to sing to them. I stare at him singing my name and remember all the reasons. All the reasons life did not begin until I met him. All the reasons he makes me smile. All the reasons I want our future. All the reasons my friends love him, my family love him and all the reasons I love him. Perhaps we got a little lost recently but today he made me remember the good and find the right path again. He is where I feel most safe and at home, at peace. I will never be able to thank him enough for that feeling, that indescribable feeling but I will try by telling him everyday that he is loved by so many but most of all by me. Perhaps even more so by a woman who stole my fourth letter.. If somehow you read this and you and your dog are done with that letter, can I have it back please?

-Signed LittlePeaceofVintage

When is something vintage?

Last weekend I convinced my mum to accompany me to a “Vintage Weigh and Pay” that was taking place in Dundee’s city centre. It was an event that I had known about for a while and had been very excited for as I had heard many good things on the bargains you could get from students around me. My mum on the other hand was not so keen. I cannot say she is your typical female shopper however, once I promised lunch at The Tartan Cafe with the best coleslaw she would ever taste, her opinion changed.

Bright and early Saturday morning we headed into town which is a bit of a drive from the small village we live in. Keen to be the first arrivals and snatch the goodies before anyone else had a chance to see them. I have dragged my mum to vintage events before like “Lou Lous Vintage fair” which has always been beautiful and full of old style music, clothes, furniture and of course some lovely tea and cake. Even though I had not been to a “Vintage Weigh and Pay”, in my head they had to be similar. However, on arrival they could not have been further apart.

If you have read my last post you’ll know I adore the smell of vintage everything. Books, clothes, vinyls; all of it. That old smell that most people would cough at. However, the smell at this event made me feel like those “most people”. Damp and fusty. Not nice, not sweet, not homely like most vintage products appear to me but cold and almost mouldy. A hall with a mere ten stands dotted around and piles of boxes with dead looking clothes hanging out. Nothing that vintage is to me. The products were not well kept or treasured like a vintage item should be. But after paying to get in we began to look. On inspection, were they even vintage? My mum stared at me as she picked up a familiar looking shirt. “This looks like the one your dad owns”. Of course you do not know my dad but he is a retired farmer. A tall, manly man at 70 years old man in farmers tartan shirts. Not very trendy or a fashion idol, sorry dad. But she was right. The event was full of the charity shop items that everyone avoids. So what makes something vintage? When something was bought last week, last year, last decade yet second hand so it must be “vintage”. I do not think it works that way. Vintage to me is a one off, unique item. Something with a story, a life. Not my dad’s old farmer shirts. So we left after, trust me, a very good look around to try fish through the rubbish to find those hidden gems; none were found. Yet do not get me wrong, some people may have left happy with bags full of farmers shirts. Nothing took my fancy but at least we got some amazing coleslaw after all that work.

 

    (not my dad)

The Swinging 60s

In the first semester of my third year of university I was given the opportunity to pick, for myself, a module that I was interested in. This might seem like no big deal to most students who constantly pick their modules. However, to me and my fellow students at DJCAD, it was the most exciting thing as never before had we been given this chance. We have always be given our modules by our tutors. So as I looked through the list of modules available to me with anticipation I glance at subjects such “languages” and my heart sinks. Subjects I have never been strong at or at all interested in. Then I spot “Print Making and Printability.” – Screen Printing, Lino, Lithography, Etching – “All areas that you will learn.” I apply as soon as I can send the application with the thought of furthering my small knowledge on print making.

Somehow my excitement furthers as starting the semester I learn that I can produce whatever theme of work I wish. As long as I produce a body of work with a final outcome. This again is something us DJCAD students are not too familiar with. We are constantly given briefs and have guidelines we need to stick to but with this I had the chance to produce the art I want to. So straight away I knew what my theme would be. The Swinging 60s. 

The 1960s, and honestly 70s and 80s, have always been a huge influence on my life. I am not sure exactly where it came from. If it was my mum playing Jackson 5 in the car, seeing her old “cool” teenage outfits in black and white photographs or just the need I had to escape from the “it” kids around me. I loved all things old and vintage. The smell, the look, the fact they knew the world before me, before I even existed.

So I got together my folio. Looking at Photographers like David Bailey. Models like Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton and music artists such as the Beatles. All the iconic faces to create a 60s vinyl cover with vinyls included. I worked extremely hard on it all. It was, to be honest with you, the most work I have ever put into any assignment. But it hardly seemed like work at all as I was doing what I am most passionate about. After it was all done and we celebrated with a Christmas Party, I felt full. Not just from the gin and mince pies that I do not even like but felt obligated to eat: but from the feeling that I had given my all. The feeling of being so satisfied that I finally got to produce work that I am passionate about. The cartoon light bulb above my head moment came to me. I want to produce vintage inspired art for the rest of my career.

So here is to the start of that passion with these 60s inspired screenprints I produced last winter. I hope they mark the start of more prints, artworks, 3D and fashion pieces alike. All inspired by a Little Peace of Vintage.

(If at all interested in any of these A3 sized Screenprints just contact me through the contact button at the top of the page.)