'The Faces' Jewellery Challenge: so what would you make for...

I'm reminded of the 'Faces' jewellery challenge that I referred to earlier this month. My impetus is eluding me at present and my sketchbook of ideas for Ellen Terry ( please see this entry) is a staccato mess. Nevertheless, I have another face for you; a photograph of Virginia Woolf whom I mentioned yesterday.

Both this photograph and that of Ellen capture them before the originality & true colours of their lives had unfolded. Perhaps this is why I find it difficult to pluck out inspiration from these youthful photographs; I know what is to come and it is not yet a highly visible seed in these innocent portraits. Methinks I must bear in mind the character & experience of these extraordinary women and celebrate the beauty of maturity. Perhaps I should challenge myself with a photograph of the poet, Dame Edith Sitwell instead.

But ah me no; Dame Edith had more style in an elegant finger tip than I would ever dream of addressing. I dare not presume!

My search for a face continues...

A challenge! What would you make for...

This portrait was taken by Julia Margaret Cameron whose work I'm quite mad for at the moment. It's of Ellen Terry, one of our most revered English actresses, taken when she was a free-spirited 16 year old, already married to the painter, George Frederick Watts.

To read more about Ellen, may I recommend Michael Holroyd's excellent , 'A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families' which I enjoyed immensely last summer.




I have a fancy to display some more photographs from time to time so this may become an occasional series. Now, I wonder, what could or would I make for Ellen?