To Do list №2 Jan 2020

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Thank you for your support of Selkie.

Capricorn Season 

2020

"Capricorn energy is about dedication, accomplishment, and mastery, but that doesn’t need to have anything to do with toiling in an office building. There’s space for fun and wildness here, too; Capricorn has a sensual side, lustful and hungry for pleasure or power or sweetness — an energy that’s deeply attuned to the body’s desires, but focused on learning to harness those desires, not be overpowered by them. It’s Capricorn’s discipline and tenacity that can help the wildest, most beautiful ideas take shape and become real. Capricorn season is great. Capricorn’s energy is a gift not to be underestimated." -The Cut

Sometimes we just need a little extra inspiration to get us through the month. Here are some things to light your fire. I'd love to hear about your own favorite things you think are worth recommending! Write an email or DM to info@selkiecollection.com or tag us on instagram!

This reimagining of the classic book and film is a coming-of-age story about a young orphan who is seeking love, acceptance and her place in the world. Amybeth McNulty stars as Anne, a 13-year-old who has endured an abusive childhood in orphanages and the homes of strangers.

These characters meant so much in the 80's and 90's, and to see the story re imagined is an addicting, nostalgic dream. Get sucked into Anne's imaginative, dramatic world. Anne can teach us all a lot about honesty, whimsy, nature and romanticising even the most ordinary moments.

While I will almost always lean towards female talent in these inspirational emails, I cannot disregard my favourite 1920's novel. Ernest Hemingway has a way with descriptions that can transport you into another place. He also had some of the greatest experiences with artists, and it's all captured in this beautiful autobiographical account of his time as a poor, sometimes starving man in Paris. I can't think of a better book to read at the turn of the decade. You can celebrate this lovely story by wearing it, available as a clutch (pictured here)or maybe after seeing that price tag it's a little more realistic to carry the real thing around with you. Here are some personal favourite quotes to inspire you;

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for all of Paris is a moveable feast.”

“we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright.”

“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”

"You got very hungry when you did not eat enough in Paris because all the bakery shops had such good things in the windows and people ate outside at tables on the sidewalk so that you saw and smelled the food. When you had given up journalism and were writing nothing that anyone in America would buy, explaining at home that you were lunching out with someone, the best place to go was the Luxembourg gardens where you saw and smelled nothing to eat all the way from the Place de l'Observatoire to the rue de Vaugirard. There you could always go into the Luxembourg museum and all the paintings were sharpened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry. I learned to understand Cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when I was hungry. I used to wonder if he were hungry too when he painted; but I thought possibly it was only that he had forgotten to eat. It was one of those unsound but illuminating thoughts you have when you have been sleepless or hungry."

100 years!

Thank God for those brave women, the suffragettes were against such difficult odds. We can behave by example as we enter this new era!

"Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest."

Recipe (serves 6-8) from http://allthingsgreen.nu

• 750 ml dry pink champagne or sparkling wine*
• 1.25 cups granulated sugar
• 1.25 cups water
• 0.85 cups of cold water
• 1 Pomegranate

*NOTE: Do not use a sweet or sparkling wine/champagne. These can have too much sugar, and/or too high of an alcohol percentage meaning the dessert/granita will not freeze. You should use a sparkling wine/champagne with less than 10 grams of sugar per litre.Instructions:

1. Pour granulated sugar and the larger amount of water in a medium saucepan.
2. Cut the pomegranate in half and take out all the seeds. (Google best way of doing so if you do not know how to get them out. Note: do not put the pomegranate underwater to get the seeds out as you will loose a lot of the fruit juices necessary for the syrup).
3. Add all the seeds and the fruit juice from the pomegranate and put the saucepan on medium high heat.
4. Bring to a boil and let boil for about 3 minutes.
5. Strain the syrup through a fine sieve.
6. Press the pomegranate seeds against the bottom of the strainer so that as much juice as possible can form the syrup.
7. Let the syrup cool completely and then add the champagne and the cool water.
8. Be sure to blend thoroughly with a spoon without whisking the Granita mixture.
9. Pour into a freeze-proof pan (a lasagna pan or a brownie pan is great to use.) Do NOT use a soft plastic pan as this will make it harder to get nice fine crystals.)
10. Let it sit in the freezer at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.

You can prepare this the day before.Serving:

1. Pop some martini or margarita glasses in the freezer for a few minutes to cool.
2. Take a fork and scrape out the Granita crystals by scratching with the fork.
3. Scoop up the Granita crystals with a cold spoon and fill the cold glasses with nice and pink crystals.
4. Garnish with mint or a delicate flower.
5. Serve right away!  

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Throughout her career, Laura Letinsky has engaged with the fundamental question of what precisely constitutes a photograph. Investigating photography’s relationship with reality, Letinsky began by photographing people but shifted to focusing almost exclusively on objects in the form of the still life. Her large-scale, carefully crafted scenes often focus on the remnants of a meal or party, as she plays with ideas about perception and the transformative qualities of the photograph."

For one of her earlier, long-term series, Hardly More Than Ever (1997-2004), Letinsky arranged and photographed leftover food and used crockery, along with various objects such as vases or fruit bowls. Thinking of the photographs in this series as observations of overlooked or forgotten details and remnants of daily existence, Letinsky ultimately transforms this refuse into a subject worthy of close study - objects of real beauty. Her more recent series Ill Form & Void Full (2010-2014), explores the tension between material and image, as Letinsky extracts elements from already existing imagery in magazines of food and domestic wares, calling attention to the constructed nature of all photographs.