Elegant, Eclectic, Minimalist, Surprising

Strange Tango is the name of my personal website—as well the literary novella that inspired the site. The website is a showcase for emerging talent and a platform for my writings, photography, and experimental work. Thus, the website and my novella are inextricably linked—each enhancing the experience of the other.

In the novella, the mantra “This is my manifesto: elegant, eclectic, minimalist, surprising” refers to two things: the items packed for trips/the objects the artist collects on her travels, as well as the clarity that allows her to see past noise and clutter directly to the heart of a matter.

Actually, the travel gear is something of an infinite jest: the artist claims she travels light yet elaborately lists dozens of items she packs. (Basically, she brings her home with her wherever she may be.) However, the quantities are so minimal and the fabrics and textures so lightweight that everything fits neatly inside a carry-on suitcase. It’s sort of a metaphor for how something large and encompassing can be condensed to its stripped-down components.

On the website, we have a display of artifacts in the first scene of the video. I wanted clutter in the background and two portraits and a blue stone in the foreground. Like the interpretation of art work, the composition is meant to express the following:

- the two portraits—one a Polaroid snapshot, the other in a filigree frame—are intended to show the dual face of the artist as being entirely modern/global and baroque/internal. Her ethnicity is indeterminate…in the photos, you can’t tell if she’s Asian, Hispanic, Arabic, or multiracial in some proportion. Also, from the photo effects, she seems ageless…her actual age an unknown.

- the panoply (n. a complete and impressive array) of jewel tones, highlights, and artifacts in the composition is meant to convey a casual busyness and internal richness to the artist’s life, objects in the shadows evoke mystery, curiosity; however, the center positioning and highlighting of the portraits and blue stone direct your eyes toward them as something symbolic.

Not coincidentally, in Strange Tango the novella, the silver frame and a pebble are deeply meaningful and symbolic personal artifacts…the pebble is the portal that transports the artist back in forth in time through her dreams and visions; the pebble is transmuted into a blue stone on the website. The blue stone—a turquoise—is the artist’s birthstone, which anticipates two chapters in the book, one on the connection between archetypes/psychology of dreams/popular astrology and the other on Native American lore.

In the book, the artist is attuned to the symbolism of colors: “I wear a Japanese silk party dress patterned after the cool denseness of green mountain fog, the cold currents beneath a dark, blue ocean. My elements are fire and the sea.”

The color blue—in the stone and the dress—has these psychological connotations: the sea, skies, peace, unity, harmony, tranquility, calmness, coolness, water, ice, loyalty, dependability, cleanliness, technology, idealism, air, wisdom, Earth (planet), strength, steadfastness, light, friendliness, truthfulness, love, sadness, aloofness, the Virgin Mary. In many diverse cultures blue is significant in religious beliefs, believed to keep the bad spirits away.

For the recurring image throughout the website—I wanted the face of a modern-day Mona Lisa. (I showed the image to a graphic artist who studied the art in museums in Florence, Italy…she agreed the portrait fit the imagery.)

As far as I know, no one has tried to create a website that is—essentially and metaphorically—a work of literary art in cyberspace, so this was a challenge that intrigued me.