Month: October 2019

Welcome to the Insta-hood: @thesacredOrder !

~ ladycultblog ~ 1 Comment

Hello everyone and welcome to this month’s installment of Welcome to the Insta-Hood! Where I interview fascinating people and their Instagram accounts! This time I interview fellow IG account @thesacredorder

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  1.  Tell me a little bit about yourself.

“I’ve always known I wanted to spend my days creating beautiful things – following this passion I moved from Southern California to San Francisco at the age of 18 to study drawing and painting. After earning my degree I began working as a graphic designer doing page layout and catalog design. Eventually I discovered the world of textile design which was the perfect mix for my painting and computer skills. 

I enjoyed many years creating prints and artwork for the fashion industry. This path naturally led to managing creative teams and to apparel design. This decade long career took me on shopping trips all over the world from New York to London, Paris, Antwerp, Barcelona and Milan. These far away places inspired a curiosity and desire to seek out rare items and fostered a passion for collecting antique jewelry and oddities.

I recently have left the apparel industry and moved from the San Francisco Bay Area north to Petaluma, CA in the beautiful Sonoma County. I live in a funky 1900’s house with my husband who is a tattooer and our adorable, yet feisty, 5 year old son.”

2.  What is the meaning of your Instagram name?

“I love a good mystery and nothing is more mysterious to me than secret societies. The Sacred Order is an homage to these brotherhoods and sisterhoods that have had known and unknown influence over our society for decades. I also love the word ‘sacred’ in the sense of being reverently dedicated to some person, purpose, or object. I hope the items I select and create can be symbols of this for other and add sentiment to their everyday.”

3. What made you want to start your own business?

“Throughout my life I have created intense bonds with physical objects that encapsulate memories – my favorite of these objects has been jewelry. I love that I can live my life with these memories on my fingers or around my neck and make new connections with new pieces as I see fit. They are like a wearable journal connecting me to my past and to the people who are important to me. Jewelry has sentiment, power, beauty and always makes me feel more myself when I’m wearing it. I am fascinated by antique and vintage jewelry as it can come to me having already bared witness to a life other than my own. I think scratches, wear patterns and oxidation are beautiful – in them you have something so human and real. In 2014 a desire to share this love with others inspired me to open an online shop and The Sacred Order was born.

4. What is current favorite piece of jewelry that you are selling? What is a  favorite piece that you own and why?

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“I have 2 favorite pieces in my collection currently. One is a mourning ring from 1773 with a hand painted skeleton under glass with a pearl border and decorative setting. This piece is as beautiful as it is sentimental – made with incredible artistry and a dramatic design. It’s hard not to fall in love with it! 

The other is a vintage snake ring I have recently acquired. It was created circa 1940’s. I find it to be the most beautifully graceful design that looks amazing on the hand. I consider keeping it every time I put it on! I love the detailed face with it’s emerald eyes, the sizable diamond on top of it’s head and the time worn engravings throughout. You can see it was well loved in it’s previous life.
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In my own collection I absolutely love every piece I have for what it means to me and what time in my life it came to me. It’s so hard to pick a favorite! The piece I never travel without is an antique chain I acquired in London from Anina Vogel (antique lovers should check her work out!).  I have since added several charms that are meaningful to me…A bean locket with a snip of my sons hair from his first haircut, a letter “K” (my husbands initial) with a snake entwined (I was born in the year of the snake), and a Victorian evil eye charm that was a gift from my best friend. There is room for several more and I intend to keep adding until it’s full of even more memories.”
5. What is your favorite decade or period of jewelry and why?
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“I love Victorian jewelry. I am a sucker for mourning jewelry – I love that it honors the dead, is ripe with symbolism, is primarily black (my favorite color with gold), showcases beautiful engravings and can preserve the most personal of mementos in the form of hair. I love that grieving a loved one was not hidden or hurried along. Society was encouraging to outwardly show what you were going through which feels much healthier to me than ignoring death and denying mourners their grief. I also love Victorian jewelry for the popularity of snakes, a favorite motif of mine. When Prince Albert proposed to Queen Victoria with a snake ring it became all the rage in romantic gestures and a lasting symbol of eternal love. In addition Victorian’s preoccupation with superstition, masquerade balls, court jesters and animals opens up incredible iconography to be used as inspiration – there’s always something interesting and unique to find in the jewelry of this time period.”

 

6. Do you have any upcoming events or news you would like to share?

“I am taking a short break from live events, but will updated my “Events” page and instagram as I book more of these. 

I have some exciting new pieces I am creating that compliment the style and aesthetic of my antiques. I am loving mixing new with old to create more ways of telling your story through jewelry and creating a look that is uniquely your own. Stay tuned to my Instagram or sign up for my email list to be the first to hear about them.”
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If you like to know more about @thesacredorder her contact information is below:

Instagram: @thesacredOrder 

Pinterest: @thesacredOrder

email: info@thesacredorder 

 

 

Thank you so much for the interview!

Until next time!!!!

It’s a Flash Sale! : Criterion Style!!!

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I just got an email this afternoon from the Criterion Collection website that for the next 24 hours (October 15, 2019) they are having 50% off all blu-rays and DVD that are currently in stock on their site!

So with only 24 hours to get your Criterion Collection movie sale on it is crunch time! I will list five movies to suggest to get during this round of the sale!

I always tried to select different titles every time a 1/2 dvd/blu ray sale happens. So in no particular order here we go!:

The BRD Trilogy. Rainer Werner Fassbinder is one of my favorite directors and if you haven’t been introduced to his movies. I believe that this set is a good forward step in watching his films. Three different women represent different situations in West Germany. The women in these movies are so strong in their characters it left such an impression in my mind.

Link to buy is below:

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/138-the-brd-trilogy

Häxan directed by Benjamin Christensen. This movie is amazing ! This is a recent re release from the Criterion Collection and it has the feel of a real like documentary but with witches and devils! The imagery in this film alone is definitely worth a watch!

Link to buy is below:

https://www.criterion.com/films/352-h-xan

The Seventh Seal directed by Ingmar Bergman. I am not the biggest Ingmar Bergman film person however I do really like this movie because I am such a fan of the lead actor in this movie. Max von Sydow plays a knight who is faced with the deadly plague! Death makes a wager with him with a game of chess and this premise has been so used in various future movies that you have watch the source so better understand why it is so iconic.

Link to buy is below:

https://www.criterion.com/films/173-the-seventh-seal

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me directed by David Lynch I just recently watched this movie through the Criterion Collection streaming app and although it is consider more drama it has some super scary horror moments in it. I like David Lynch’s movies because on the surface they seem very calm with beautiful people and gorgeous people. But the longer you watch his movies you notice that the gorgeous people are just a facade of a more sinister darker horrifying people inside and sometimes out.

Link to buy is below:

https://www.criterion.com/films/29237-twin-peaks-fire-walk-with-me

Cat People directed by Jacques Tourneur. RKO made a lot of horror movies. I actually purchased this movie as a blind buy because I am familiarize with Val Lewton and decided this would be the perfect month to buy it.

Link is below to buy:

https://www.criterion.com/films/28696-cat-people

What Criterion Collections are you planning to buy during the sale? Comment below with your picks.

Happy Shopping!

Until next time!

Movie of the Day: Freaks

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When I was six I used to stay at a babysitter while my parents were both at work. My babysitter was a little tiny lady in her early 70’s so we spent the majority of the time in her apartment. She was not the kind of babysitter where she had a set pattern of activities except for our daily visit to the park. So I spent most of the time watching TV. She was not a stickler in what I watch so I basically watched anything I wanted.

One day while I was there I was flipping through the channels I saw something my six year old mind have never seen before:

I saw a man with no limbs and I immediately stop clicking through the channels and I settled to watch whatever this interesting man was a part of. I watched the whole entire movie with such interest. I saw many interesting people that I never saw before and was completely fascinated by it!

Freaks was made in 1932 by Tod Browning:

Yes the same person that also directed Dracula (1931):

And The Unknown (1927):

Tod Browning took an interesting turn in 1932 with the movie Freaks. This is also my favorite movie of his. This is also one of his shorter movies, the run time is only 64 minutes. Tod Browning originally had the movie total time to be 90 minutes however considering the plot to be too risqué at the time a lot of the scenes were removed.

Although Tod Browning directed the film it is actually based from a short story by Tod Robbins that was written in a magazine called Munsey’s in their February 1923 edition.

This movie has taught me a valuable lesson from an early age on physical appearances are nothing to be scare of. Everyone has a special quality and feature that makes them unique and special. This movie also sparked my curiosity of knowing that the world has a lot more to offer than what is on the surface on people and things.

Some fun facts about this movie. Prince Randian ( aka the “Human Caterpillar”) used to hide in dark sections of the movie production during down time and would intentionally scare people by randomly screaming at them.

This movie is still banned in some states in the United States.

Louis B. Mayer was not aware that his studio was making this movie until he saw the actors on the lot one day and he wanted to halt production.

This movie was also banned in Australia and in the UK it was banned until 1962.

Until next time!

Source: Wikipedia

My movie picks for October!

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Hello Everyone! I have been asked by a lot of people to do a list of movies to watch for October. So here are my five movie I would recommend to watch in order to get into the Halloween spirit!

 

House (Hausu) 1977 directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

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So the first time I heard about this movie was when it was being re-released by the Criterion Collection a couple of years ago.  I knew nothing about it but the Criterion Collection cover seemed interesting enough for me to blind buy it.

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I remember the day when it arrived in the mail I had gotten off a late shift at night and was pretty tired but I decided to delay my normal nighttime routine and watch it.

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This was truly a unique movie experience! It was weird, funny and awesome! If you want to watch a movie that is out of your normal movie watching routine then this is the movie for you! It has a haunted house, cats and a great soundtrack!

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Link to buy is below:

House

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The Holy Mountain (1973) directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky. This movie has been the only time where I watched a movie and had no clue what I watch after finishing it. To be honest I dislike it with a passion however the movie ended up staying on my mind for a month. I just couldn’t get it out of my head so I decided to give it another chance and watch it. I learned to appreciate it the second time viewing it. I was able to view it with a much more open mind and it quickly became one of my favorite movies and Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of my favorite directors.

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Jodorowsky is a very unique person with a colorful personal history and his movies clearly reflect that.

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Link to rent is below:

The Holy Mountain 

Scalpel (1977)

Directed by John Grissmer. This southern Gothic movie part soap opera plot twists and horror mixed into one crazy movie! Would you ever recreate someone that went missing? This guy did:

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But you can never recreate someone’s personality 100%. No one is replaceable and this movie teaches you that.

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Link is below to rent is below:

Scalpel

City of the Living Dead (1980):

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Directed by Lucio Fulci. What happens when you accidentally open the portal to hell? Well this movie shows the total chaos when it happens! Director Lucio Fulci is no stranger when it comes to horror and gore and this movie is not for the faint of heart. Italian horror movies is one of my favorite genres of movies and if you are a horror fan this deserves at one viewing!

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The worst Witch (1986)

Directed by Robert Young. So it is no surprise that I added this movie to the list. Mainly because of my Tim Curry obsession! Plus it is nice to show that Halloween does not have been about super scary things a hundred percent of the time!

Link to buy is below:

The Worst witch

Happy viewing!!!