qarrtsiluni

by Natalie d’Arbeloff

These fragments lying on the floor of my studio are some of the stencils I drew and cut to create My Life Unfolds, an accordion book included in the exhibition Open Books, which opened at the National Library of Wales on June 30 and runs until September 22. I used the stencils to make monoprints on each of the 52 folds of the accordion, representing significant episodes in my life. Although the book is finished, the multicoloured stencils remain and demand to be reassembled in new and as yet uncharted scenarios.

One side of the accordion book. Click to see a larger version.

The progress of the book was documented on my blog, and all the panels are shown a dedicated section of my website.

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Born in Paris, raised in South America, USA and Europe, Natalie d’Arbeloff lives in London and has dual nationality, British-American. Her father was Russian, her mother French. Her alter ego is the cartoon character Augustine and her blog is Blaugustine where she sometimes interviews God, among other celebrities. See her website for more about her work as a painter, printmaker, book-artist and cartoonist.

by Natalie d’Arbeloff

Click on image to see a larger version

Four self-portraits, more or less in the manner of four Old and New Masters I admire and envy for all the ways in which they are unlike me: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, Bacon — all burning with single-minded dedication to their work while I flicker and flit.

Painted digitally in 2006 on my Wacom graphic tablet as part of a series posted on my blog, Blaugustine.

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Born in Paris, raised in South America, USA and Europe, Natalie d’Arbeloff lives in London and has dual nationality, British-American. Her father was Russian, her mother French. Her alter ego is the cartoon character Augustine and her blog is Blaugustine where she sometimes interviews God, among other celebrities. See her website for more about her work as a painter, printmaker, book-artist and cartoonist.

(Click on image to view at larger size.)

My friends Frances and Nicolas McDowall (the Old Stile Press) asked me to think of a book I’d like to illustrate which they could print and publish. I’d always been fascinated by the thunderous words and hallucinatory imagery of Saint John’s Apocalypse, so this is the project I suggested. They were enthusiastic about it.

(Click on image to view at larger size.)

I decided to try and create a sense of being overwhelmed by a flood of words and images and repetitions, so I photocopied the whole text in various sizes and then made a collage of words or sentences, sometimes repeated, and drew on top of this text background in black ink and gouache. The whole of the text is there, but not always visible. Nicolas made blocks from my originals and printed them wonderfully on his hand-press. We designed a triptych binding and an edition of 150 copies was published by the Old Stile Press. Details and a slideshow of the whole book can be seen here.

by Natalie d’Arbeloff

When God and His assistant Evolutio created insects, they were drunk on a nectar they had concocted the night before, so you can imagine the hilarity. It was Evo’s idea to add all the stinging/biting/poisonous bits to the creatures, supposedly to ensure their survival, but actually because it was more fun. At the drawing board, God’s imagination went wild and the designs He came up with were just unbelievable. “They’ll never believe I did this!” He giggled.

Now I have no way of proving that this comical cosmic team was behind the farce that landed me and my ex (not ex at the time) in the jungle, but there does not seem to be a better explanation. You could say that it was because my father, a man of ideas, persuaded ex, a laid-back potter, and I, a comfort-loving city-dweller, to both become managers of a strip of land shaved out of the insect paradise in the heart of Brazil called Mato Grosso, i.e. very big forest. Mato also means crazy, so: a very big, crazy forest. The idea was that the shaved strip would eventually become a vast ranch sprinkled with income-producing cattle, golf courses for rich tourists, and model cottages with attached jobs for thousands of homeless immigrants. It was not one of my father’s more realistic ideas.

There are humans and other large animals living in Mato Grosso but the indigenous population are largely insects and they do not let you forget this for one moment. When we soft-skinned, sweet-blooded strangers arrived, armed with mosquito-repellent and sunscreen, the insects laughed so much they nearly died. But they didn’t die because insects are workaholics. No wonder they rule the earth. They are the Starbucks and McDonalds of the underworld, branches everywhere and new ones opening daily.

Our home on the bald strip of land in the middle of Mato Grosso was one of a handful of prefabricated wooden huts. Surrounding us on all four sides of the clearing was dense jungle, humming with unbridled entomological activity which, in our naive enthusiasm, we aimed to record with drawings and photographs, when we were not too busy managing our native work force: four men, one woman, two children and a baby. More personnel was due to arrive later when things were ready but since neither ‘later’, ‘things’, or ‘ready’ had been clearly defined, we were there merely as entertainment for the natives and the insects. How they applauded when it became clear that whether standing, walking, sitting or lying down, we were irresistibly attractive to legions of tiny carnivores. The smaller the creatures, the more insatiable their appetite. Not for them a sensible siesta whilst digesting one’s prey. It’s suck suck chew chew crawl crawl buzz buzz round the clock. God knows when they slept, and it’s His or that demented Evo’s fault if they don’t sleep at all. I know I am being unfair to the innocent minority, those heavenly blue, iridescently shimmering, giant Brazilian butterflies, Morpho menelaus. We could see them flickering in and out of the lush vegetation but if we tried to get closer, busy little predators made sure we had to run for cover.

Human ingenuity being what it is, we sewed netting around the broad brims of our hats, lathered every inch of our skin with the latest repellent, wore boots and long-sleeved shirts. But human ingenuity is no match for ancient insect cunning. In the heat and humidity, covered up head to toe, we sweated profusely and became caviar for the beasties. Never mind mosquitoes, tiny flies or larger creatures, such as the rhinoceros beetle which knocked down my camera when I attempted to record its slow progress on our dinner table. What really tipped the balance was the jungle chigger. These invisible instruments of torture penetrated all our defenses, invading waist, armpits, groin, ankles — anywhere they could taste our delicious sweat — and stayed there until we were driven mad by the intense itching. And then they sent for reinforcements. I didn’t know it at the time, or care, but they are the larvae of mites belonging to the family Trombiculidae.

They pierce the skin and inject into the host a salivary secretion containing powerful, digestive enzymes that break down skin cells, which are then ingested, after the tissues have become liquefied and sucked up. Also, this digestive fluid causes surrounding tissues to harden, forming a straw-like feeding tube of hardened flesh (stylostome) from which further, partially-digested skin cells may be sucked out.

It was them or us and it was obvious that they were the fittest. We managed to endure a few months of sleepless torment, frantically scratching the red welts that covered our bodies, and then we gave up. Made our excuses, said our goodbyes to the unsurprised, un-bitten natives, and left.

As far as I know, the insects still rule in Mato Grosso, and God and His assistant Evolutio are still drunk on the nectar of creation.

by Natalie d’Arbeloff

Editors’ Note: Another version of this story appears in Part 7 of Natalie’s online illustrated memoir, The Burial of Mickey Mouse.

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Detail of painting (oil on wood panel) by Natalie d’Arbeloff

From Blaugustine, January 17, 2006 (now included in the Autobiography archive)

The old house on the Rio Paraguay as it looked when my family first arrived there

So when and why did I decide to bury Mickey?

I’ve tried but can’t get back into the state of mind I was in when on a certain day of that happy childhood I went walking (was it by the river or in the orange grove or in the wide open flat expanse of thorny palms?) and at some point, bent down and started digging (with my fingers?), laid my beloved little Mouse in the hole and covered him with dry red soil.

Didn’t I even leave a marker on the grave, some stones or sticks? Why would I want to bury my favourite toy? All I know is that I was sure I’d find him again and when I couldn’t, some time later (how much later?) I was devastated.

And why is it that after all these years I still feel desolate about this loss? Taking the Mickey means making fun of – what does losing the Mickey mean?

When we were still living at the old stone house on the river bank, before the big house was built, we heard stories about the treasure that Madame Lynch was supposed to have buried in 1860-something, right there at that spot in the Quinta Recalde. One night when we were all asleep, there was a lot of shouting and clattering and men on horses. We were told it was the police chasing robbers who were looking for the treasure, which had never been found. Maybe Eliza Lynch did bury her stash of gold and jewels, thinking she’d come back and dig it up one day. But never did, and it’s still there. Like my Mickey.

“Mbaeveraguazu”. NdA. Gouache & watercolour.

There was a Guarani belief that Mbaeveraguazu, the legendary El Dorado or mythical golden city, was hidden in the Paraguayan jungle. Another never-found treasure. This is a painting I did as I imagined it, years later when I came back as a grown-up artist (I don’t have a colour photo. The painting is in a private collection in Italy).

I knew the words of several songs in Guarani, I still do. A young girl called Delia taught them to me; she was my friend – at least I thought so. Suddenly she’d be sullen and distant and I didn’t know why. You could never be sure that a Paraguayan would be the same from one moment to the next. Delia’s favourite phrase was “No me importa, la vida es corta, la morte segura” (I don’t care, life is short, death is certain).

That time I went back to Paraguay on my own, I painted portraits of the local people, some of whom had known me as a child and remembered my family with affection. On the right is my portrait of Annuncia holding an unknown child. On the left is Annuncia with Adela: both of them had cooked and cleaned for all of us, way back then. Below is a reflection of myself as I saw it in the glass doors of the big house, on the same terrace where I stood as a child, looking out towards the Rio Paraguay.

“Annuncia and Child” NdA. Oil on board.

“Self-portrait, San Antonio, Paraguay” NdA. Oil on board.

by Natalie