after breaking up, chicago

A few things that I want you to think about later:  Opera, hostages, revolution, small things, religion, values, culture, connectedness, rivers, life, death, money, love, careless words that make people love you less, moths with their dorsal tufts on all of our hearts, our mothers, and fathers, and the ways in which they live in all of us no matter how hard we might try to say that they don't, war and money, sex, incest, more love, how things change even when we don't want them to, how things stay the same independent of our own efforts, time, non-time, the words, the author, the reader, the experience the reader has, your own self as the reader, the ways in which we fight our fate, the ways in which we take our own life as a statement of our own power over our bodies, the ways we see our own bodies, mourning, morning, magic, faith, faith in magic, balance, judgement, loyalty, sadness, beauty in sadness, names, property, exchange, wealth, youth, even more love, more beauty, less death, more death, behavior, press, elegance, style, poise, moist earth, rain, rain on our faces, really singing in the rain, the music in everything, the silence of the void, being, understanding.  And thinking about all of these things and the ways in which we don't think we have an outlet.

my little ones

As I said before I am starting over.  I just moved back to Virginia from Chicago last month and, my word, has it been a bumpy ride.  I've been combing through my sketchbooks from my time in Chicago rereading my apocalyptic  writing and reviewing all of my drawings in way searching for some of my deepest inspirations -- nostalgia and memory.

My current endeavor is to start a zine using two of my father's watercolors as a starting point --

In any case the images that I was working on in Chicago were mostly based on the figure, throughout my entire Undergraduate career as an art student I was trying to, before even figuring out content, find an aesthetic that I believed in and that I thought represented my identity as an artist.  Sufficed to say, I don't think I ever found its root.  The following images were dubbed my little ones and became a sort of comforting way for me to draw my thoughts --

What these little ones say about beheading - I'm not sure, but I do know that if anything is going to crop up in my work again, it will be this kind of image.  They're all drawn in pencil, because it comforts me to know that they are are effaceable.  Also, one of my sketchbooks was completely soaked in a Chicago downpour during a bike ride home from work one day.  This attributes to some of the image quality.

You should probably also listen to Total Loss by How to Dress Well.  One of my top 5 albums of 2012.

 All images in this post are property of  © Derek Blair Cooper

RESTART

Hello Internet!  I have decided to start this blog anew.  I am by no means entitled to it because I started it with my two friends who currently reside in Chicago.  Elizabeth, Meg you are more than welcome to continue posting as I move forward.

In any case, hand drawn signage has always been a favorite of mine so I am going to try my hand at periodically inserting little message into the blog.  Apart from that, as the title might suggest this blog will be rife with hodgepodge knickknacks and tschotskes including but not limited to: personal style, high fashion (ugh), trends, art, nerding out with Buffy Summers or the Legend of Zelda and insightful yet possibly irrelevant intellectualisms.

In fact this is more for me than you.  I am on my way to becoming an Anthropologist (whatever that means) and this is an interactive way for me to reminisce on my past thought patterns.

Things to come in the near future:

 //why I think Winona Ryder is perfect


 //some lovely buzz boys from the modeling world


 //and well that's just me on instagram signing off and I guess more on me later...

Live long and prosper,
D.B.Cooper

// freja's on the runway

therefore: pictures of freja are in order.

// f/w 2011 (balenciaga, balmain, hakaan)

// s/s 2011 (valentino couture)

// some beautiful shots & beautiful clothes

// hedi slimane, fashion diary

// chanel s/s 2011 ad campaign

// i don't know what it is about freja beha erichsen, but when she walks... i watch

Did anyone else notice..

how the February VOGUE was weeks late to hit the stands? It was quite an unusual circumstance for Our Lady Wintour, who has been a meticulous magazine machine for the last few decades. In its absence, I created this image to get some answers.

It was, of course, not necessary to commit to further protest because Wintour came through and the 2/2011 VOGUE with cover girl Kristen Stewart (in Proenza Schouler chartreuse- accented blouse) was soon inhabiting magazine racks everywhere.

After Thomas Jefferson

As a recent graduate of 'the University', I feel it necessary to share with the world a sartorial quote by Thomas Jefferson:

"From the moment you rise till you go to bed, be as cleanly and properly dressed as at the hours of dinner or tea."

And also, an inspiring artist's rendition of TJ looking extra stylish:

Best,

Derek.