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
