Twenty-one Twickenham Road

This was a fun little writing project I did recently, that I'd just love to share. The brief: describe the experience of entering the place where you live, from the perspective of someone who has never been there before. For those of you who know and love 21 Twickenham as much as I do, I hope this is a special read...

Twickenham road, the name itself tastes of yesterday’s charm. Along both sides, chubby little trees giggle in the breeze and do their best to stand in single file, hands behind their backs, under the gaze of the tired old houses watching over them day and night.

At number twenty-one, a rose bush offers its manicured fingers for a handshake through the wrought iron fence, a heavy black outline on this quaint garden scene. A lavender bush greets me shyly with her perfume; nostalgia; while the lemon tree sheepishly draws her leafy curtains on those lemons she has been too lazy to yellow. A shabby path of loose bricks and rebellious weeds leads me to the front door, red and smiling between two round windows, the eyes of number twenty-one, which, as legend would have it, have not so much as blinked in over a hundred years.

The air behind that red door is cool and thick with the scent of aged wooden floors, floors which protest in loud creaks and moans as I go, for I have woken them from their dusty slumber. The furniture peers questioningly at me as I pass. I am an outsider in a carpentry village. A kaleidoscope of paintings on the walls laugh and tell me to ignore the old wooden fogies. I make my way yonder, to the heart of this little house, the kitchen, bursting at the seams with jars of cutlery, cooking utensils of every imaginable kind, and a vast family of crockery young and old vying for space on shelves and table tops too small. A happy old tap drips drops of water on his tin sink drum, this tap that refuses to ever be closed properly, for it is his job, he tells me, to keep the heart of this home beating.

Behind the next door, a bedroom. The tang of a citronella candle is a warning; tiny vampires feed here at night. A sleeping laptop purrs on the corner of the bed, crisp white and unmade. On the glass desk, an artillery of art supplies lie scattered in their bright uniform, at ease for the moment. A pale blue curtain flirts with the tired floor, teasing and tempting with the lift of her skirt in the breeze, a breeze which, if one happens to catch it at the right moment, carries the soft scent of lavender, a nostalgic scent indeed.

~Shar-Lee Jessica

you are so lovely

So Cayly from Bloom Studio is working on this amazing project called Lattes and Love, where she shares women's stories. I was lucky enough to take part, and get to talk about a bit of my story, and how school bullying played a part in it. 
I regret not going in to a bit more detail in the interview, the path I walked in trying to redeem my fragile self-esteem while battling the minefield of adolescence and growing up took me to strange places, from a name change at thirteen to getting into an abusive relationship at seventeen, and battling a vicious bout of social phobia and depression in my early twenties. 
I am one of the lucky ones though, Jesus found me, and now my identity is wrapped up in His sacrifice. I only wish every child who has to endure the emotional torment of being bullied could have the same prize at the end. 
Now, there are things I'm grateful for. On the worst days at school, books were my refuge and friend. Now I'm a writer. I'm also a multi-award-winning artist, and heaped up ridiculous amounts of cash prizes for my creative work during my studies. 
I want the privilege to be able to share my story with those awkward kids who never quite worked out the formula for fitting in. I want to tell them it's okay. You have so much ahead of you, you are so, so lovely, you are so precious. I want to tell parents, build up your children's self-worth. Bullies are broken kids caught in a vicious cycle. Kids with a strong sense of self-worth lift up other kids around them. 

We can break the cycle. I hope one day I can get my story out there. For now, I have a blog, and I have Lattes and Love. Enjoy.

https://vimeo.com/81309145

In the Bag

So in case any of my readers were wondering how we fared at the 48 Hour Film Project Awards which happened on Thursday night, I'm pleased to give you this update. We won. Yes we did. Best Film, in the bag. That means our film is going on to be shown at the New Orleans Filmapalooza festival next year where the judges selection of best films to emerge from the competition from around the globe will all be shown. From there the top ten go on to Cannes Film Festival, and the best film of 2013 is announced too. I don't want to get my hopes too high, but I feel like we have some kind of shot. Our film is breathtaking, I beam with pride every time I get to see it.

Here's a list of the awards we got to take home:
Best Picture
Best Film - Audience Choice
Best Director
Best Producer
Best Actor
Best Visual Effects
Best Editor
Best Production Design (that's me!)
Best use of given line of dialogue ("You gonna learn.")
Best use of given character (Neil Msimang - stylist)

What an honor, thanks to Jesus for giving me the opportunity to be involved in something so phenomenal. Let's all hold thumbs for a good run at Filmapalooza now.

Watch the film here: http://vimeo.com/77905389

Brittany, Chai & Reminiscence

Yesterday I had the pleasure of handing over an illustration to my beautiful friend Esther. We go back a long way, from high school shenanigans to varsity days where I had the privilege of this seeing beautiful lady model my graduate collection like a Vogue-goddess, and then to yesterday, where Esther adopted Brittany (number two of ten). What a great moment, handing over my very first reproduction sketch, and chatting about our plans, nerves, hopes and dreams for the future, the awareness of the nearness and reality of this next chapter palpable in the air around us. As she heads off to further her studies in a brand new city, I head back to my home town, to spend the first season of my life giving my art some real and focused attention. It's terrifying, but it only takes a moment like this to remind me that it's possible, and the sun is about to rise on something completely new.

Esther dear, I wish you the best for the future, and thank you for the chai and reminiscence. Breton looks good on you.

Things that can happen in 48 hours

This past weekend. Madness I tell you. Madness. This year's 48 Hour Film Project gave me my first stint at being wardrobe/art/production designer on a film set. I was in my element. So how it works is, you literally get given a weekend to create a short film. On friday night at around seven, the team awaited That Phone Call with bated breath, the one where they assign us a genre which was pulled out of a hat, as well as a line of dialogue, character and prop that need to be written into the story. First joyful moment, we pulled the genre Western, the genre our writers actually wanted. Our first hurdle: the character. We needed to include a stylist, Neil Msimang. Way to throw us off, but with our team of sterling writers, we managed to seamlessly write him into the story. Our prop was an envelope and line of dialogue, "You gonna learn." I would have preferred a grammatically correct line but hey, you roll with what you get. I can honestly say, the writers outdid themselves.

I spent the first night planning outfits for specific characters, as well as props for different scenes. This included intense discussions with the director and lots of brain power on my part. We were going with a 1940's setting, good thing I know my fashion history. At about 3am I finally crawled onto my mattress in the corner but alas, my brain was buzzing with way too much thought and excitement to allow me the luxury of sleep.

4:30am: I brush my teeth and gather all the props and wardrobe into my car, it's time to move on to set. We decided to shoot on an old steam train, last used in the 1920's. It was absolutely gorgeous and the colours of the interiors really complemented the wardrobe I'd chosen out. I had a walk around the train to get a feel for things, a rather spooky experience in the complete dark, and went to set up my dressing area. A much needed breakfast followed and before we knew it the sun was up and it was time to start dressing.

I was literally thrown right into the deep at this point. The first scene being filmed had about ten extras in it and I was needed on set to check out production design at the same time. It was, "Try this dress, does that fit? No? Okay this one! That hat doesn't match, take hers. You can't go like that you need shoes! And you need a tie, that one is the wrong colour!" Etc etc, whilst running off in between to plan props and look and feel on set.

I thrive on adrenaline, it was amazing, however, adrenaline is like a little bubble that keeps you floating and at some point, it pops, and then it's all systems down. For me that happened prematurely when I overheard one of our most charming actors say something awful about one of the outfits I had so lovingly put together. Taking into consideration how exhausted and overwhelmed I was at this point, it was literally enough to make me sit there (luckily alone for the moment) in tears, contemplating leaving the whole lot and going home for a nice cup of tea and bed. All thanks to Jesus at this point, I took a moment out to pray a bit and get my emotions in check, dole out some forgiveness, re calibrate my thoughts and get back to work. That was probably the toughest moment of the entire weekend for me, but I guess that's what industry is like. Not everyone is going to appreciate your creative point of view or hard work, and people say mean things without realising it far too often for me to allow myself the luxury of a breakdown every time it happens. Besides, within five minutes I had the assistant director on my case about the next scene.

I learnt a lot about myself this weekend. I'm far more detail orientated than I've ever realised before. I had an entire scene stop filming when I noticed an extra with her hair done in a way that was not consistent with 1940's styling. The same thing happened with a man in a blue tie when everyone else in the scene was wearing brown and green, and when I spotted an actor with the wrong shoes on. It must have been rather annoying for the rest of the crew, but hopefully they'll appreciate it when they see the finished product, their movie with meticulously accurate styling.

We had planned to wrap up filming by 6:30pm. Come 2am, we were still shooting. People were getting cranky, but I'm so touched by the camaraderie and how everyone pulled together, stayed awake and kept giving their all til the very end. By 3am we were packing up, I was stock taking wardrobe and props and we were on our way back to the office. Then it was one last cup of tea for me, some paperwork and I was done and dusted, by 5:30am Sunday morning I was in my bed having a rather solid and dreamless sleep. The post team, however, were still in the thick of things, with about eleven hours work still ahead of them. I am amazed and so impressed by the calibre of people on our team, and the work ethic and effort everyone so willingly gave up after days without sleep.

I still have yet to see the final product, but I'm confident and excited. I'm willing to bet we offered up one of the best entries in our region for this year's brief. I'm proud of myself for what I managed to pull together under huge pressure. This was truly an eye-opening and unforgettable experience, and I hope this is not the last I see of the film and wardrobe industry.





























P.S. these images all come from Kyle Peters' Instagram, thanks Kyle!

wednesday to-do list

It's a busy Wednesday! I have some commissions to get to, as well as a final round of wardrobe and set planning for the 48 hour film project this weekend. I love all the creative work coming my way lately. I'm also working on a ceramics design collaboration with Manna Epicure on Kloof Street. Haven't been there? Tell me, when is it not a good day for a slice of the most fabulous red velvet cake you've ever had the pleasure of munching on? Go have a look. They also have one of my very own paintings up on their wall.
I'm so excited about drawing on teacups! Hope you all have a gorgeous sunny Wednesday.

Within the Realm of Possibility

I've been gone for a while. I guess you could say it's been a time of metamorphosis in hiding, kind of like how a caterpillar disappears into a cocoon for a period of time, undergoes a private and painstaking makeover process, and breaks out into the world again a completely different creature, with a new angle from which to look at life. I hate how cliched that comparison is but it's the truest one I could find. Since I last posted I've moved to a new city, gone through a life-defining heartbreak and heart re-healing, changed my mind about what I want to do with my career, committed my life to faith, gone back to my natural hair colour and adopted my first name again, and basically, looking back it's slowly dawned on me that I'm a completely new person in so many ways. It's exciting and it's terrifying, but I guess that's something you have to love about life. It gives us many chances. And with my new dream of pursuing art and one day having the privilege of being able to do that full time, I'm devoting myself all over again to keep drawing, reminding myself that ink and paper are the bread and butter of my life, and that brushstrokes and paint fumes are the tools I have been given with which to process my emotions and learn who I really am, and where I really belong.

These are a few of the sketches I've done in recent months. The first one, Brittany, got me my very first order over Pinterest, which reminded me, my dreams are within the realm of possibility, and I do in fact, know exactly what I was born to do.