A VISIT to ROMANIA and
ageless CABINET CARDS
April 19, 2012
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"New day dawns with endless possibilities"
Hi family and friends... another week with new promises and experiences...life is good! Even found time for a bit of art...love those blog challenges. Like ART AND SOLE's POSTCARD CHALLENGE 2012. For this week's challenge, we traveled to Romania, land of vampires...specifically, Dracula!! But there's lots more going on there.
I was particularly captivated by its Gypsy (or Rom) population...they've always been a fascination for me! Too, Romania has an unusual cemetery of note... In SAPANTA, the Happy Cemetery was originally begun by a peasant grave carver in the 1930's, and is carried on today by the Pop family. The grave markers in this unique cemetery are carved and painted with scenes of the deceased accompanied by a poem describing their fate in their language. Almost half of them have two painted sides...one showing the deceased as they were in life...and the other showing either the way they died or illustrating some quirk that made them memorable to their village. The most interesting of the carved grave markers celebrate the fickle nature of death... like the first three. The others shown celebrate the life of the deceased.
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Aren't they wonderful? What a great way to be remembered... kind of a social commentary on what city residents consider right and wrong,
or things to watch out for...like roller skating by the railroad tracks!!
A walk through the Happy Cemetery is a bit like a history lesson for Sapanta...interesting, eh?
Finally, the COLLAGE OBSESSION challenge blog was interested in CABINET CARDS...I love these cards. Such a great way to do family or individual portraits in a time when photography was just coming into its own.
THREE MUSES was already thinking about summer with their call for vintage bathing beauties. My bathing beauty is male...why not? Note that this is also a cabinet card.
Thanks for visiting my blog yet again. I'll be in the great city of London, England with my daughter next week, but will try to blog from there...hope to see you back here at some point!
Happy week to you and yours,
xox,
abbyj
Fabulous, as ever Abby! I love the tale about the cemetery and the images of it are wonderful!
ReplyDeleteGreat work, wasn't Romania fun. Cheers
ReplyDeleteWhat a great take on the challenge. Your male "Bathing Beauty" is FANTASTIC.
ReplyDelete~AJ
Love the eye image, love the postcard and the gypsy image, love the cabinet cards, and I'm totally entranced bt the grave markers.
ReplyDeletesuper & duper postcard ... love all the eye candies
ReplyDeleteWhat a strange graveyard that must be!
ReplyDeleteI do love the bathing suit man!
I love graveyards at the best of times but this one looks stunning. Great crossword. A xx
ReplyDeleteCan't believe how you discovered about the happy cemetery! It's something I've never seen before, so cool! ♥
ReplyDeleteYour card is so original, great idea!!! :)
I hope you're enjoying your London visit as much as we three muses enjoyed seeing a male bathing beauty turn up! Thanks for the smile.
ReplyDeleteFantastic post this week. Wonderful info on the cemetery and a great postcard. Like the gypsy image too. All just great .
ReplyDeleteJen x
Very interesting post and so fascinating images. I specially love of course the Cabinet Card. Thank you so much for participating to Collage Obsession Challenge. :))
ReplyDeletewonderful history of romania, I am also fascinated by gypsies!
ReplyDeleteLove your cabinet card and enjoyed re- visiting your blog!!!
Love your postcard from Romania, and your very interesting article, especially about the happy graveyard! Valerie
ReplyDeleteoooo i love those cemetary photos, you did some wonderful research. love the crossword puzzle, genius.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating bit of research! Lovely postcard and gypsy. Cemeteries would be much more visitor friendly if they were like the one you showed us.
ReplyDeleteJanet xx
Lots of eye candy! :) Great postcard!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful change of scenery. I love him.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about the grave markers. A blogging friend went to an small which had markers like these and they're so interesting. Some of them met rather grisly ends (easier for the artist I would imagine!).
ReplyDeleteVery clever with the crossword puzzle. I agree the Merry/Happy Cemetary is great. I keep thinking that it's a fantastic way to commemorate someone's life. I ended up doing my card about this. As always though, fantastic work this week!
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