The Year in Gargoyles

Since it's the start of a new year, I thought I'd look back at 2011 through gargoyles. Even though I wasn't able to travel much last year, the year was still full of gargoyles. This post might help explain why I'm Gargoyle Girl.

Early in the year, we found a gargoyle to put on a tree stump in our backyard.

He watched over the construction of our new garden path. 

Friends baked me gargoyle cupcakes.

They had to make up the design of the cupcakes themselves!

Wonder where my fascination with gargoyles came from? Here's a photo of me visiting my parents in Oregon for my dad's birthday last year. 

When I was diagnosed with cancer last June (which is why the blog was on hiatus in July and August), my aunt sent me this gargoyle puppet.

While I was stuck in the house, I began taking lots of photographs at home, such as this one of gargoyles on my bookshelf.

My flying frog monster isn't technically a gargoyle, but since most sculptures we think of as gargoyles aren't technically gargoyles either, he's close enough. 

Stuffed-animal Dorian the Gargoyle is shown here with some books on art theft that I was using for research before National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November.

Several years ago I was given a set of gargoyle Christmas ornaments. I only put up a mini tree with mini ornaments this year, so I put the gargoyles underneath. 

It wasn't the easiest of years, but it ended well and I'm looking forward to the new year. I'll be traveling again by later on in the year, so I'll be posting a combination of old and new photos here. Have a Happy New Year!

—Gigi

Happy New Year from Gargoyle Girl

Best wishes for a fantastic 2012!

Photos Reminiscent of The Night Circus

I received the novel The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern for Christmas. It's not exactly a mystery novel, and normally I like seemingly magical acts to have logical explanations, but I can't seem to put this book down.

The night circus of the title begins at nightfall and ends at dawn. The circus takes place underneath a spectacular clock, and all the mysterious performers are costumed exclusively in black and white.

Below are four of my photos that remind me of the magic of the book.

A friend of mine in a grove of trees in southern California.

The clock tower of Big Ben, with a gargoyle in the foreground.  

A clock on St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Looking out into the world from a close in Edinburgh.

—Gigi

Gargoyle Girl in the New Year

I've been trying to figure out what I'd like to do with the Gargoyle Girl photography blog in the new year. I started the blog one year ago, in January of 2011, with the intention of posting mysterious photographs (mostly gargoyles) every Monday. A public blog was my way of committing to sorting through my binders full of old negatives from before I switched to digital photography. If I didn't publicly promise to post new photos every Monday, I knew those negatives would sit untouched just as they had for the past several years since I stopped going to the Harvey Milk Photo Center darkroom in San Francisco.

In addition to organizing thousands of old photos, I was also planning new travels that would include new gargoyle and other mysterious photographs. But halfway through the year I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which disrupted my plans (including making it necessary to cancel a July trip to New York—a gargoyle mecca!). I'm doing really well, which I'll be posting more about on my blog that's not dedicated to photography. But I'm still not going to be able to travel until at least the middle of 2012, which means I only have old gargoyle photographs until then.

To keep things interesting, I was thinking about possibly posting a serialized mystery short story I wrote that features a gargoyle. What do you think? I still have many more sheets of 35mm film to sort through, but I thought that some additional mystery-related fun might be in order before I'm able to get back out into the mysterious world. Please let me know if you have any thoughts on the subject!

For now I'll leave you with a gargoyle I found in Boston. I haven't spent much time in Boston so I don't have any other mysterious Boston photos to post along with him. But he's got enough character to stand on his own.

—Gigi

Juxtapositions of Old and New

Below, a gargoyle, a cool old building, and a castle are juxtaposed with bits of the modern world.

 —Gigi

Having Some Fun with the Famous NYC Gargoyle

Last week I posted some photos of a famous New York gargoyle who's one of my favorites. I've been a fan of this stone fellow for many years. I recently came across one of my old art school assignments in which I used him as an inspiration to design a label for a bottle of wine.

I had gone on a trip wine tasting in the Napa Valley and toured a winery with a cave-like area where they stored their wine barrels. It was very atmospheric, and gave me the idea to create a wine label called Cave Dweller, with the NYC gargoyle as its mascot. 

Last year I was writing a mystery short story that took place at a winery. I knew exactly what I'd name my fictional winery: Cave Dweller. The locked-room mystery story "The Hindi Houdini" was accepted into the second Sisters in Crime Guppies chapter anthology, so hopefully you'll be able to read more about the Cave Dweller winery in the near future.

 —Gigi

Famous Gargoyle of New York

If you're a fan of gargoyles, chances are you recognize the fellow below. He's on an apartment building in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan.

I never lived in New York, so I never had the experience of living in a building with a gargoyle outside. But that's okay. My bookshelves are covered with them instead.

—Gigi