PetitPlat by Stéphanie Kilgast

Just the right size for a little guy...

Saturday afternoon I was poking around at Flickr, looking for backgrounds as I do from time to time, acting as though I don’t have hundreds of unfinished collages to work on before I continue accumulating material, when I found this adorable image.

So tiny!

PetitPlat is the miniature work of Stéphanie Kilgast, tiny foodstuffs, dollhouse accoutrements, jewelry, all representing things in a very small scale, and perfectly adorable. Upon seeing the image I instantly thought of this collage by Gcode, one of the best shrunken-man images in the history of EVER.

"11-Aren't You Lucky" by Gcode

If you look at Ms. Kilgast’s gallery you will find photos of little dolls arranged together with the play food in a little kitchen or a tiny table, but I prefer to imagine a shrunken man that sleeps in the nude and wakes up to a delicious morning meal served in a bitty tray and brought to his doll-sized bed by the woman that owns him, keeps him and feeds him.

He’s lucky indeed.

Concealed carry, or high capacity?

I’m dying to buy my first gun. Dying.

So I’ve been reading about a few pistols here and there, knowing it will be a while before I have enough extra money to spend on antiquities such as WWII Russian rifles like the Mosin-Nagant with scope, the type used to nix some of them Nazi pests by my hero Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

Number of confirmed kills: 309

But more on that some other time.

I can’t help but think that now is the best time to go out and get your high-capacity, high-caliber weapons, especially if the gun laws that passed in Chicago can now pass anywhere. Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is the tremendous stupidity of legislation that negates a person’s right to carry a concealed weapon in order to defend herself, while the bad guys—who are not going to follow a law simply because it passes—arm themselves with what they wish, by whatever means they have.

My top priority as far as home protection is to have the ability to defend my son if a home intruder or two happens to break in. Does having a high-capacity pistol help? Maybe not. Maybe I’ll be fine with a 6-round Glock, but I choose something that will allow me to shoot a higher number of bullets, something that will give me the feeling I can defend my child more effectively if I need to, something like the Springfield XDM.

Or I could choose the petite Walther PPS for my first gun, something I can take with me during walks, or to the park where bodies have been dropped and women have been raped, or anywhere my son and I visit. In any case, and whatever decision I make, the process is wonderful, and fun, and legislation free.

So far.

Smart lady

Many years ago I received a free issue of a magazine—American Artist was the name of it—in which a colored-pencil artist was featured in an article written by James A. Metcalfe. Back then I had dreams of creating images with whatever media happened to be within my reach, and the photo realism of this artist amazed me. Her name is Jeffrey Smart Baisden, and how cool is that? To have a commonly-known-as-male name? I’m not going to run off and change my name to Bob or Carl now, but it certainly has a nice ring to it.

Alabama-born Mrs. Smart says that “working with colored pencil is tiring, tedious, laborious work, and not for those expecting immediate results” and I agree, as nonproficient as I am with the medium, but I love the results she obtains as much as I enjoy her subject matter. Little capsules in places and times that might not mean anything to anyone else, but they have a story behind them, a biography that follows every object we own and eventually discard, as we are so wont of doing in this land.

I think the light and dark play in her images lends itself perfectly to making them seem like genuine photos. That’s the first impression I get when I look an the thumbnails below. Enjoy!

Fabrications, 1993, 14 x 20.

Slings and Arrows, 1998, 30 x 20.

The Girlfriend Dance, 2001, 17 x 20.

Southern Totem, 1995, 22 x 30.

Public Housing, 2000, 30 x 19.

The Colonel, 1996, 30 x 16.

Silver Linings, 1998, 30 x 19.

Adjourned, 2001, 22 x 29.

And you know… this work often reminds me of this collage:

Sweet Infestation, by Cashia