Mouchette

Mouchette means "Little fly" in French, I read this after I saw what

instantly became one of my favourite films. Interesting it should

mean little because she is, in my opinion, great in spirit but compared

to the tragic life she lives, she is indeed just a small fly against adversity.

Mouchette is a girl who is

becoming an adolescent in a hostile world. What captivated me the

most throughout Bresson's masterpiece is the resignation

and solitude with which Mouchette lives in her own mind. She's quiet and

reserved, and lacking not only material resources and social amenities

but the most minimum affection...and she just seems to not even know it.

Robert Bresson was inspired in Georges Bernano's novel. I ought to read it

someday.

what news do you bring birdie?

The Birds. Not Hitchcoks' though...

Last night as I was closing my eyes, a lost memory from childhood came to me. All of a sudden I could clearly see the table mats my grandparents had at home. These plastic mats had birds on them and their scientific names. I remembered the texture, the colours and (what would nowadays be considered sort of vintage) plastified silhouettes. I'm sure that real birds had long before that, caught my attention, particularly having lived in the countryside as a child, but this was just one of those surprising, unexpected memories that often come to you pulled by the sounds and smell of a specific time. So my mind started wandering, recalling with vividness different feathered images.

I also remembered watching a film on TV, whose name I can't even remember. It was about a young girl around thirteen who invites her classmates home after school. The girl had a bird she had found wounded and had taken care of, and the children in their unthinkable cruelty started throwing stones at the defenceless creature. The scene was atrocious to me; why did it have such an impact? I ignore it but I couldn't hold the tears.

Another memory; this one from an older age: I found a wounded bird, a black sparrow, it was not even a beautiful bird, but surely I felt I wanted it to fly again because I took it home, put it in a small cage mom had as a decoration near the fountain and put it beside my bed. The next morning I woke up to find it had died.

With recycled materials

The above piece was part of a birthday

present for my brother.

Above: A lamp decoration made of
wire, paper and black ink.

I made this lamp with two very cheap

salad bowls I thought would work very well

for the translucent effect I wanted to obtain.

Paulina Aranda-Mena ©

in this little video, my brother Guillermo and Saucer Man

In early 2009 I was eagerly preparing a project for a Diploma in Film and TV

at The Victorian College of the Arts

more well known among Melbournians as The VCA. I had been given a title

and had to come up with a short visual account in 9 images of such title:

" The Gathering" so I thought of a story where my brother gathers all the

ingredients to make "tacos" including a "tortilla press". But to his surprise

a little alien space man takes off on his "new space craft"!

All copyrights reserved, Paulina Aranda-Mena ©

The Albatros

L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

— Charles Baudelaire

Paulina Aranda-Mena ©

Spare Drawings Black and White

               

Scene from Lost in Translation

 

Paulina Aranda-Mena ©