Friday, November 13, 2015

October 28, part 2

.

Still walking, on the afternoon of the 28th.  More and more maples.




Mama Nature's arrangement, on older and newer sidewalk squares.





Maple trunk.




Leaves from a different dark-purple maple, showing more color than usual (along with paler leaves from other trees).






Tulip tree leaf on wet driveway.



Maple.





I had something to eat, and then I went downtown to a Smell & Tell.  I got to the library early, so I had time to enjoy some work by the Ann Arbor Women Artists.

Love this.  "Best Friends" by Marty Walker.



I thought this looked like some sort of scientific info.  This is a Female Pine Grosbeak's Song.  By Carol Hanna.  My image does not do it justice!



Hey!  I believe this is Totoro!

When my kid was little, she was bothered by anything that was the least bit scary.  (She resembled her mother -- I found Disney movies painfully scary when I was little......)

We looked and looked for videos she could enjoy, way back then, and were happy to find Totoro. 

The image above is on an interior library window, between public space and staff-only space.  I'm always happy to see Totoro...............



Goodness!  Here's something else I am always glad to see -- a new view.  I went into the ladies' room on the fourth floor, and discovered it has a big window!  How often do you see a window with a view in a public restroom?

This one looks right in at the sinks, and right out at a northerly view of Ann Arbor.  The stair-step brown building at left is the post office, which is on the corner of Fifth Ave. and Liberty.  Fifth Ave. goes right in front of the library.



The Smell & Tell was about Norman Norell, his life and experience, and the perfume he helped design, and also about Josephine Catapano, the nose who was the perfumer behind Norell the fragrance.

As always, it was an interesting evening.  Norell was a small-town boy from Indiana, who went to New York to make his fortune in the fashion industry.  In those days, Fashion came from Paris.  Someone would go to Paris and buy a couple of hundred garments, and bring them home to New York.

Norell was one of the people who disassembled those garments, to figure out how they were made, and then knock-offs were made in New York.  (No viable copyright in those days?  Or just blatant violation of copyright?)

Norell learned A LOT about sewing, clothing construction, and couture techniques.  And then branched out on his own.  He designed clothing (think of those boxy coats of the 60s, with big buttons..........). 

And he was the first American fashion designer to market a fragrance under his name.

Couture and Fashion are in the category of things I never think about, so it was all news to me.  We saw some interesting garments, and smelled some interesting smells.

As always -- it was an intelligent and well-prepared presentation, presented in an energetic and entertaining way.



On my way out to the car -- leaf on carpet.  The contrast between the curved lines of the leaf and the straight machine-made lines of the rug caught my eye.



.

3 comments:

Jeanie said...

The smell and tell sounds very interesting! Never heard of one of those before!

And I loved your room with a view -- and all those lovely leaves!

Happy weekend!

I need orange said...

Michelle says she is the only trained nose in Ann Arbor. She worked in the fragrance world for a while, and she knows a lot of perfume people personally.

The perfumers are artists, putting together scents the way other artists put together papers and/or found objects and/or colors..... They have been behind the scenes, because someone else (a fashion designer?) wanted *their* name on the perfume. The fashion designer has a say, but it's the nose in the background who is really doing the artistry with the scents that make up a perfume.......

Michelle is very interested in finding and preserving and sharing info about the people who work in perfumery, because so many of them are basically unknown.

Listening to her is a trip into a completely different world. Like a tiny two-hour mini vacation trip to an exotic place I never knew existed.............

Always interesting! :-)

I always love a view. Best if it has infinite water, like Lake Michigan!, but a view is always good.........

And those leaves.... It seems like just yesterday, but it's been enough weeks that it doesn't look like that outside any more! Alas.

clayt666 said...

I often hear fashion design brought up as an example of a thriving area of intellectual property that doesn't rely on patents or copyrights. You cannot copyright clothing, just put you trademark on it. Copying the trademark is illegal, but not copying the design itself.

The same goes for recipes. Even without the protection of a copyright, chefs still constantly create new ones. Go figure.