Etelä-Suomen Sanomien viime lauantain numerossa oli mukava juttu Po:sta. Lämpimät kiitokset siitä toimittaja Saara Larkiolle ja valokuvaaja Katja Luomalle!
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There was a really nice article about Po in the local magazine Etelä-Suomen Sanomat last Saturday. Thanks again editor Saara Larkio and photographer Katja Luoma!
Hoi Lahti! Eilisestä alkaen valikoituja tuotteita Po-mallistoista saa Kimistä. Ihana liike ja maailman mukavin myyjä löytyvät osoitteesta Hämeenkatu 13. Rientäkäähän katsomaan ja hypistelemään! Aukioloajat ma-pe 10:30-18, la 10:30-14:00.
Howdy Ho Lahti Finland! Starting yesterday, selected pieces from Po collections are available at Kimi. The store is wonderful and the owner is one of the loveliest people in the world, so you most definitely need to go and check it out! Opening hours mon-fri 10:30-18, sat 10:30-14:00.
After I had the super hero theme figured out I started flipping through a pile of old animal encyclopedias I've been collecting (I’m a sucker for vintage photographs). I wanted to make brooches with animal characters and after playing around with different ideas I decided I wanted my dynamic duo of daredevils to be a lioness and a bat boy.
A male liger in California. Picture via Ligerworld.
I thought it would be fun to create background stories for the characters, so I started researching stuff about lions and bats. It was then when I first stumbled upon an article about ligers. Truth to be told, I didn’t know such creatures even existed, but apparently they do. According to Wikipedia, a liger (Finnish: liikeri) is a hybrid between a male lion and a tigress. Since lions and tigers habitat don’t overlap in the wild, they only exist in captivity. Liger is said to be the largest cat animal in the world and besides males, also female ligers may attain great size, weighing approximately 320 kg (705 lb) and reaching 3.05 m (10 ft) long on average.
Male and female ligers in ’a zoo’ in Habir, China. Picture viaLigerworld.
Somebody rubbed this pussycat the wrong way. Picture viaDailymail.co.uk
After learning all this about ligers I of course wanted my heroine to be a similar kind of hybrid. The fact that ligers only exist in captivity and that in some places lions and tigresses are intentionally breed by civilians to produce puppies for sale, made me come up with the background story.
I pictured the dispute where she lost her eye being something similar as the final showdown between Elle Driver and the Bride in Kill Bill 2...
After ligers, it was time to turn to the world of bats. I was surprised to learn that there are about 1,240 bat species worldwide. Most of eat insects and fruits and perform vital ecological roles such as as pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds.To my knowledge, only three species out of the 1,240 feed themselves with blood, so the association of bats being vampire-like, blood thirsty creatures is overly exaggerated.
Out of all the species I find flying-foxes especially endearing. With their foxlike snouts and big eyes I wouldn't mind a fellow like that hanging from my attic roof. Unfortunately, we don't have them here in Finland since they mainly exist in warmer climates. I found this National Geographic Mission Programs video about the orphan bat pups in Tolga Bat Hospital in northern Queensland, Australia. Check it out, it's almost too cute...
Watching this video, I could so see my little hero bat hanging from orphanage's roof, eating apples and bickering with the other pups, planning future mischiefs. I imagined that after growing up flying around the world he could've met Miss Grrrr somewhere in Tokyo. Grrrr managed to safe him from a bunch of sanguinary bodyguards of a retired yakuza, whose car our alated misfit was trying to steal. After this, Moonbat refuse to leave Miss Grrrr before returning the favor and ever since they've been inseparable.
That's all folks, you can view the whole Vigilantes vol. 1 collection here. Needless to say there's going to be sequels to this saga, so stay tuned.
x Salla
Ps. In case you were wondering, and I'm sure you were, Moonbat's last name is Flittermouse. ;)
Miss Grrrr -brooches are available in my Etsy store. More Moonbats joining them soon!
The original idea for Vigilantes came to me after seeing the movie Kick-Ass. The film tells a story of Dave Lizewski, a nerdy high school kid who decides to become a superhero even though he has no training or even a meaningful reason to do so.
Watching the movie I was especially captivated by the character of Hit Girl, played by wonderful Chloe Moretz. Here’s a trailer of the movie showing this 10-year-old vigilante kicking some serious ass. I can’t help it, I just think it’s cool as hell.
After seeing Kick-Ass, I started reminiscing all the super heroes I liked as a child. Being the kid of the 80’s, He-Man and Turtles were a huge thing for me, but above all, my absolutely favorite must’ve been the rerun of 1960’s Batman TV-series. I remember being about 5-years old and taping every episode and watching them over and over again, until the VHS tape was so torn out that I could hardly make out the picture anymore.
Batgirl was of course my favorite and I adored everything about her: the revolving closet in her apartment, the tulle adorned moped (seriously, how cool is that thing!) and the purple outfit. Here’s a short clip of Batgirl (played by Yvonne Craig) getting ready for some camp style action. I’m afraid the quality of this snippet is as bad as the videotapes I used to watch, so try to bear.
Ok, that’s all for time being. I’ll be returning to this topic in Inspiration for Vigilantes Part II, with more insight how I ended up making a collection about an unlikely superhero team of a feminist, mistreated liger cat and a slightly wino, banana beer loving bat.
Writing longer texts in English has turned out to be more challenging that I first thought and my blogging so far has been more newsfeed-like. I'm trying to post longer and more insightful things about my work process in the future.
I've had my hands full working with the rest of Ag collection jewelry. The whole collection has gone through quite a metamorphosis during the summer and I'm super excited about it! Hopefully I'll get around to photographing next week so I can update the webpages and reveal the new look to everyone.
Meanwhile, I've also created some new items for the Au collection. I'm really keen on these green versions of Scylla necklaces. They're made of this wonderful two sided, shiny green fabric I discovered from a goofy flea market nearby.
I had another photo shoot for my Etsy store, this time with my friend Hanna. It included lots of coffee, giggling and cupcakes. I'm hoping it will become a tradition...
I recently had a photo session with my friend Jenni which was almost too much fun, it didn't really feel like work! You can check out the results and my new Bat's Treat necklaces at Etsy.
