I grok Susie Bubble

susiebubbleimages3wI’ve added a whole heap of inspiration to my plate in recent months, including fashion and fashion blogs. I’m also a new convert to the term grok which hadn’t crossed my screen until recently.

For anyone else who hasn’t seen the term grok used, it means to understand something intuitively, or to establish empathy and rapport with something or someone.

So, I grok Susie Bubble—I really get her. I can go to her Style Bubble fashion blog and find inspiration every day. Sometimes I think our thoughts and images are meshing in the ether. When you grok something or someone, I assume it’s close to aesthetic ‘knowing’—kind of inexplicable and personal. But why do I grok Susie Bubble?

1. She posts an eclectic mix of new and vintage, of simple and ornate, of wildly colourful and subtly neutral, of stupidly unnecessary and completely functional.
2. On the one hand she loves detailed patterns; on the other, she loves colour-blocking.
3. Her favourite artists are all expressionists, colourists, symbolists.
4. She admits to having multiple creative projects and resolving few.
5. She loves sushi.
6. (even though I hate them) She loves period dramas. Good to have a point of difference!
7. She uses metaphorical language and lots of exclamation marks!
8. Immersed as she is in her style world, she sees and articulates broader social and political commentary.

 

 

Video: flight of a small brown moth

http://vimeo.com/102399221
This video by Dennis Hlynsky inspires contemplation of the small and the quiet, while manipulating the images to create rhythm and pattern that is both dynamic and serene. It is film at one moment, then animation, then just image, or even wallpaper or Japanese fabric.

I love the subtlety. I love the pattern-making. I also love (what appears to be) the surrender to digital manipulation—allowing the work to manifest from play with the tools.