Monday, January 10, 2011

An Introduction to the Gargoyle Girl Blog

I already blog with a fabulous group of writers, the Pens Fatales, giving me an opportunity to talk about mystery writing and life. The reason I'm starting this Gargoyle Girl blog is to explore another side of mystery that's a part of me -- the art of mystery.

I'm a photographer who's drawn to mysterious subjects. Gargoyles make up a large body of my work, thus the name of this blog.

I've been meaning to do more with these photos for ages. This blog is a way for me to share these mysterious images with others who might appreciate them as well. What better way to motivate me to organize my countless old negatives and unsorted digital archives? I've announced my intentions, so there's no going back now.

But it would be boring to focus solely on my gothic photos, so you can also stick around for some mysterious musings. (Hint: My bookshelves are filled with fantastic books from the Golden Age of detective fiction -- with correspondingly cool pulp art book covers.)

Today, I'll leave you with a photo that gives a sense of the mystery I'm talking about: a fallen angel from the Brooklyn Museum's sculpture garden, a sanctuary where giant carvings that once adorned the historic buildings of New York now lie in overgrown, tangled ivy.


As of the last time I visited, the sculptures in this garden were all hand-carved pieces of art that were rescued from buildings that were demolished. How high above the city did the wings of this cherubic angel once stretch?

Whenever I find myself in a new city, I try to find time to seek out architecturally interesting buildings with stone carvings high above, and to walk through cemeteries of weathered sculptures. There's history -- and mystery -- in the stone.

--Gigi Pandian

12 comments:

  1. I *love* your photos...thrilled to see the Gargoyle Girl blog up and running. Can't wait for more photos!!!!

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  2. I am *thrilled* to look forward to seeing more of your beautiful work up! yay :)

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  3. I am going to kidnap you to Chicago - I feel like I need to re-see that city through your eyes

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  4. Can't wait to see more of your work. Yay!

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  5. Thanks all!

    Martha - I lived in Chicago one summer as a kid, but I haven't been back since. Hmm, perhaps I feel a road trip coming on...

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  6. Gigi,
    I'm interested in photography and I love gargoyles, so I'm pleased to see your new blog. Good luck with it.

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  7. Found you through the SinC list serve, and I'll look forward to more mysterious photos. Thanks for sharing.

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  8. Thanks, Ellis! I've spent the last few days getting more of my old gargoyle photos in order, so more to come soon :)

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  9. I'm trying to become a follower - the first one! -- but I can't get into the page to do it. Don't know what's wrong. Is it just me?

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  10. Thanks for trying to follow the blog, Fran!

    I'm new to this, so I'll check out the settings to see if there's something else I can do. One thing that might be a problem is that it pops up in a new window when you click "follow," so if you've got a pop-up-blocker it might be blocking the window.

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  11. Gigi, I love the photos. It makes me wonder if you had to hang off the side of some high perch at Notre Dame to get that photo of the gargoyle (that is blurred all around). Yikes!

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  12. Thanks, Jenny. It's true that you have to be a little bit daring to get pictures of the Notre Dame gargoyles these days. In the photo of me next to a gargoyle, you can see that there's a safety barrier of metal wires so you can't fall or jump off -- but that means you have to poke your camera through the barrier to avoid the wires in your pictures. I wonder if anyone has ever lost their camera that way...

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