Friday 18 December 2009

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.

Tuesday 24 November 2009

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.




Wednesday 18 November 2009

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 ©

Sunday 15 November 2009

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 ©

Sunday 25 October 2009

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 ©