Dante's Heart
Su Blackwell's Windows
Review & Photography by Janette MacDonald
Back in March 2008, the Dante’s Heart blog featured artist Su
Blackwell's enchanting Bookcut Sculptures, and I discovered by going to
her website that she was the artist who designed the wondrous Christmas
2007 window decorations for Harvey Nichols department stores that so
enthralled me when I was living in London.
We generally take the term “window shopping” to mean looking at window
displays to get an idea of what goods await us within a store, but during the
holidays windows themselves become the shopping object. Those that
really catch one’s eye present visions of other worlds and spaces in time,
enticing the viewer through a glass wardrobe door and tantalizing with the
knowledge that to pass through it is impossible.
In early December I went for a walk from Piccadilly Circus to
Knightsbridge, headed toward Harrod’s to see what that famous
department store was conjuring up for the holidays. Before I got that far,
though, the sight of a string of small pine trees the colors of the pastel end
of a box of crayons enticed me to the windows of Harvey Nichols
department store and into Su Blackwell’s faery world.
Photograph ©2007 by Janette MacDonald
I can now say the pale pink, yellow, blue, and green trees were a ruse, the
sugar plums ornamenting the sorceress’s house. In the display windows they
fronted a starry landscape of snow and ice furnished human-sized winter
faeries with a mystical background. Jewels sparkled in wild hair and
iridescent wings seemed to tremble with delight. Each entirely unique figure
was captured in a moment of sublime response to the world—a statuesque
queen, a melancholy nymph, an ardent boy flinging his arms wide.
Photograph ©2007 by Janette MacDonald
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Review & Photography by Janette MacDonald
Back in March 2008, the Dante’s Heart blog featured artist Su
Blackwell's enchanting Bookcut Sculptures, and I discovered by going to
her website that she was the artist who designed the wondrous Christmas
2007 window decorations for Harvey Nichols department stores that so
enthralled me when I was living in London.
We generally take the term “window shopping” to mean looking at window
displays to get an idea of what goods await us within a store, but during the
holidays windows themselves become the shopping object. Those that
really catch one’s eye present visions of other worlds and spaces in time,
enticing the viewer through a glass wardrobe door and tantalizing with the
knowledge that to pass through it is impossible.
In early December I went for a walk from Piccadilly Circus to
Knightsbridge, headed toward Harrod’s to see what that famous
department store was conjuring up for the holidays. Before I got that far,
though, the sight of a string of small pine trees the colors of the pastel end
of a box of crayons enticed me to the windows of Harvey Nichols
department store and into Su Blackwell’s faery world.
Photograph ©2007 by Janette MacDonald
I can now say the pale pink, yellow, blue, and green trees were a ruse, the
sugar plums ornamenting the sorceress’s house. In the display windows they
fronted a starry landscape of snow and ice furnished human-sized winter
faeries with a mystical background. Jewels sparkled in wild hair and
iridescent wings seemed to tremble with delight. Each entirely unique figure
was captured in a moment of sublime response to the world—a statuesque
queen, a melancholy nymph, an ardent boy flinging his arms wide.
Photograph ©2007 by Janette MacDonald
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